Why I Can't Have Nice Kings Read online

  “Well, well, Weel. It looks like our scribes have been bonding while we were away.”

  “Their plight will be all the more tragic when one abrogates his opposite.”

  “I’m guessing you didn’t take the calendar away from him,” I said.

  Axin gave me a flustered look. “I destroyed it, but I think he has more of them somewhere.”

  “Ha! The preponderance of it is in my cranium at this nonce, and I have just obtained a thesaurus for my day of birthing as well. You can never discontinue erudition, savages.”

  “If you let me loose, I’ll hold him down and you can take out his tongue,” I said.

  “Nice try, you towering nerd, but I was not chosen for this job by setting someone like you loose.” He gave me a threatening look, and in case I wasn’t sure of his intent, began to pound one of his fists into his other palm. Clearly, he and his partner had graduated from the Great Hollywood School of Movie Sycophantry and Telemarketing or its rival, Television Toadies Tech.

  What? You think it’s easy being a villain’s sidekick? That anyone can do that? No, my friends, that takes years of practice. Without proper training, you’d have flunkies being nice to the good guy, not holding the hero down while the main villain hits him, or worst of all, actually being smarter than their leader.

  I thought I almost had him. Tricking someone like him should be easy, but apparently, I was no Bugs Bunny. I needed to change tactics. “Yes, I heard you were picked for your singing ability. You’re one of the most famous singers in all of Garandia, equaled only by Weel.”

  I had never seen someone’s face instantly change from menacing to bashful happiness before. “You’ve heard of me? I didn’t know I was famous.”

  “This individual is excessively moronic, speculating that you are my equal in the proficient. I give his assessment no condensation.”

  “You’re right, Weel. I’m better than you. And the word you’re looking for is ‘consideration!’” Axin gave Weel a shove, as fighting was obviously the only way for men to settle a dispute over singing ability.

  Weel shoved him back, and soon they were both rolling on the ground. While they were absorbed in their dispute, I sidled closer to Geoff. “When they roll closer, we need to grab a knife or something sharp from one of them and cut ourselves loose.”

  “I knew you were a smart man when I saw your glasses. Why, that must be the most magnificent pair of spectacles I have ever encountered. They must be worth a fortune. Wherever did you acquire them?”

  Why did I always have to be so nice? I regretted involving this pompous mouth-breather as soon as the words had left my mouth. Even if he didn’t slow me down, he was going to be a very annoying companion. “I’ll tell you later if you drop it for now. Focus, Geoff.”

  “Yes, of course. Do you think we should try for a dirk, a longsword, a throwing knife, a katana, a short sword, a machete, a hatchet, or a bastard sword?”

  “Anything sharp will do. Besides, I doubt they have all of those. Just grab the first one you see.”

  “While a hatchet is probably the sharpest, it is not ideal for this type of work. A dirk would be easier to maneuver for such delicate cutting but not nearly as effective. A machete is the best of both worlds, unless they happen to have a katana, which I needn’t tell you would be a rare find indeed in this part of the world.”

  “Just grab whatever you can,” I groaned. “We don’t have time to be picky.”

  “Now, if we could heat it, that would make our jobs so much easier, and we wouldn’t fray the rope. A razor might be useful, as well. I know! We need to find a boat or rigging knife of some sort. Those are made for cutting rope, after all. Do you think they might have one of those, being that they are soldiers and not sailors?” After he had finally finished talking, something I would soon learn was a rare blessing, he turned toward me. I had just finished cutting through my rope and handed him the knife I had taken from Axin five minutes before. I immediately ran off into the forest.

  While it would have been more honorable to help him cut through his ropes, or at least wait for him to join me, I felt I didn’t have a lot of time to waste before the two singing knights finished their bout. I was also pretty sure I didn’t want to travel with such an annoying man. I did feel kind of bad, because Geoff was likely to spend all of his time debating what type of cut to use to get himself free and would likely not free himself in time. He would, however, serve as a very effective distraction from pursuit.

  Axin Gets Weely, Weely Upset

  I ran as fast as my out-of-shape body would allow into the woods. I really needed to start laying off the late-night fast food runs. In college, I had outrun a horse. Sure, it was an old, partially lame horse, but it still counts as a horse.

  After I made it about 300 yards, I could barely make out the knights’ shouts over the pounding of my heart. I was so focused on my task that I wouldn’t even let myself look back. I did not want to be seen on ads for this show fighting with a pen.

  After another 200 yards, my lungs informed the rest of my body that I was going to stop. My mind screamed to push on, but my legs disagreed. I really regretted cancelling my gym membership the year before. Granted, I’d never used it in the three years I’d had it, but I still regretted getting rid of it. Even the thought of never-ending embarrassment couldn’t keep me going. I barely managed to clear the bushes before I crashed face-first into the dirt.

  It took me a few minutes to pull myself together enough to attempt to stand. Fortunately, I had managed to make it to one of the few clearings in that forest. I was overwhelmed with dread, sure that my pursuers must have caught up to me. I had run away in a very straight line, so they should have had an easy time finding me. I decided the next time I ran for my life, I would run in an unpredictable, zig-zagging fashion.

  Before I pulled my head up, I heard the inevitable sound of hoofbeats. I took solace from the fact that my pursuers were on horseback. It really didn’t matter what kind of shape I was in; I wasn’t going to outrun a healthy horse. I knew they’d have an exceptionally annoying song cooked up to boast of my recapture.

  “Are you all right, sir?” one of my pursuers said. He had a slightly nasally voice. One of the two must have taken a shot to the nose.

  “Oh, I’m lovely. People are often in fantastic shape when they pull themselves out of the dirt. Can we dispense with the part where you pretend to be nice and then insult me? I’m completely exhausted. Just tie me up and take me back to the tree.”

  “Did any of that make sense to you, Verix?” a second voice said.

  “I think he escaped from one of those Sculander sex rings we keep hearing about.”

  “That’s probably what Dyfantus has been up to. He’s been seen in the area, and I can see him being into something like that. He is a sick one.”

  My mood brightened as I pulled myself up. In spite of their similar armor, these fine fellows were not Axin and Weel. In fact, they sounded like they were enemies of Dyfantus’ gang.

  “Did you say Verix?” I asked.

  “I most certainly did, good fellow.” The smile on his face faded to a grimace. “Ewww. Smiling with all that dirt on your face does not suit you. Here—borrow my handkerchief and wipe yourself off.”

  “Thank you.” I cleaned it off in short order.

  Verix shook the dirt off his cloth and looked me in the eyes. “Ehh . . . Maybe you should put the dirt back on.”

  “I hear they have classes on smiling back at our camp,” the second knight said.

  I didn’t know what they were talking about. I had always been told my smile was magnificent, the kind of smile that artists try to imitate but rarely succeed in capturing. I decided to let this one go, as they didn’t seem to want to tie me to any trees, or worse yet, sing at me. “I thank you, sirs. I’m fleeing from Dyfantus, as you suspected, or more accurately, his two goons, Axin and Weel.”

  “Ahh,” the second knight said. “Those two. While they’ve only been with him for a
month, they’re already getting on our nerves, always parroting whatever Dyfantus says and calling us mean names.”

  “They are awful, though I do think he picked the right lackeys,” Verix said. “Weel really nailed the talent portion. His basket-weaving demonstration was mesmerizing.”

  “And Axin put himself over the rest in the swimsuit competition.”

  “The man does know how to wear a Speedo.”

  My smile evaporated. If those two hadn’t just saved me, I would have gone into a tirade about how silly and completely out of place everything they said was. While I was no expert on the history of swimwear, I was positive that the Speedo had not been invented in the Middle Ages, and I knew I hadn’t put it into any of my books.

  “So, back on track. Since you are Verix, then may I presume you are Arik?”

  “You are correct,” the second knight said. “Do we know you?”

  Arik and Verix were the closest of friends. Inseparable. The inspiration for buddy cop movies everywhere. The very definition of friendship. They were the main characters of most of my books.

  Verix was the wit of the two, which the actor had evidently taken to mean having a near-permeant grin on. Most of his self-esteem issues were in the past, but he still followed Arik’s lead in spite of his greater intelligence. He was the classic sidekick. His sister’s marriage to Arik had cemented their bond from already strong to unbreakable. Being a bit of an underdog, he was also my favorite character. Since he was my favorite, I had also given him the same short haircut and dark brown hair as myself, though the similarities stopped there as I didn’t want to make it too obvious and wanted to keep him separate in my mind so I could make him his own person.

  Arik pulled off his helmet, and his long blond hair cascaded down his shoulders, covering his face. I held my breath as I looked to see if they’d gotten the right actor to play him and especially to see if they had gotten his Van Dyke just right. It always bothered me when in movies or TV shows based on books, they hadn’t gotten the hair right. As he brushed his hair back to finally reveal his face, I found I wasn’t as disappointed as I’d suspected I would be when he not only didn’t have a Van Dyke, he didn’t have any facial hair at all.

  Arik was a woman.

  Not that there was anything wrong with that, but I had distinctly written him as a man in my books. I didn’t know why this didn’t bother me, but after the pens and the jelly beans, this was hardly the worst thing they’d done.

  “Why are you staring at me like that?” Arik asked. “You know, I’ve stabbed men for much less.”

  “You have not,” Verix said. “But you should probably stop staring, friend.”

  “Sorry,” I said. “You look like someone I knew once. We haven’t met, but I am truly one of your greatest fans. I’ve written extensively about both of you.”

  They exchanged worried glances and slowly backed their horses away from me. “Ah. Um,” Verix said. “So, is that why you were involved in one of Dyfantus’ crazy sex parties? Do you write erotic fiction about us?”

  “I wasn’t involved in any sex party! They only had us tied to a tree.”

  “I’d block it from my memory, too, if a bunch of evil knights had me tied to a tree and did unspeakable things to me,” Verix said. “But we’re not here to judge you.”

  “Quite right,” Arik said. “Whatever happened is your own business.”

  “I swear to you, nothing happened to me. They had me tied to a tree, and they were going to have me fight a scribe named Geoff with a pen.”

  “With your penis?” Arik said.

  Verix added, “That’s a different type of ‘sword fight’ than I’m trained for.”

  “I said pen. Pen!”

  “Oh. My apologies,” Arik said. “We, of course, believe your story.”

  Verix snickered, then gave me the “sort of” sign with his hands. “Even if we’ve never heard of people dueling with pens before.”

  “We’re both scribes!” I said. “They must have thought it was some sort of poetic justice. And how is it less believable than our dueling with our man parts? Who’s ever heard of men dueling with those?”

  “As I said, we believe you,” Verix said.

  Arik tried her hardest to suppress a laugh. “Whatever the case, you’re safe from ever having to duel with anything again. We can take you to our camp nearby, then we’ll come back with more men and arrest Dyfantus for his crimes. I still don’t get why he doesn’t like us.”

  “Well, you did beat him in the spelling bee,” Verix pointed out.

  “It wasn’t my fault they picked ‘Dyfantus’ as the last word, and I still don’t see why they put proper names in there.”

  “It’s his thing. He always pays them off to use his name as the final word, though it’s really more my fault for making faces at him so he’d misspell it first.”

  “Whatever you do,” I said, “make sure you get my ring back. If he loses it, I’ll sue.”

  There was a rustling noise from the bushes to their left as Weel and Axin emerged with poor Geoff tied to Weel’s mount.

  “Knights, bewaaaaaare!” Axin sang in a deep baritone. “The duo beyond compaaaaaare!”

  “It’s Axin and Weeeeeeel!” Weel sang in a falsetto.

  “Showing their steeeeel!”

  “Oh, bravo,” Arik said, clapping. “That was probably your finest performance yet.”

  “Very nice,” Verix said, “though not quite as good as when you attacked the school full of sick children.”

  “You are both too kind,” Axin said, “but I think I was a bit off. I didn’t hold ‘compare’ quite as long as I would have liked.”

  “You are too demure, my companion. You held it splendidly.”

  “Thank you, Weel, but now on to business. You two have something I want.”

  “Self-respect?” Verix said.

  “Morals?” Arik said.

  “Literacy?” I said.

  “Basic hygiene?” Geoff said.

  “The capacity to grow chest hair?” Weel said.

  Axin scowled. “Hey! Whose side are you on, Weel?”

  “Sorry. I forgot. Hand over the scribe.”

  “You already have one,” I said. “He’s tied to your horse, and his name is Geoff.”

  “He’s writing on your saddle right now, Weel,” Verix said.

  “Hey,” Weel said. “We do have one. Why didn’t you notice him, Axin?”

  “My apologies, gentlemen. Everything seems to be in order. We’ll just be going on our way now.”

  Weel smacked himself on the forehead. “How could we have neglected that? As greatly as I’d like assail you two nincompoops, we do have our priorities. We’ll abscond from you dastards in this instance, but subsequently we shan’t have a prisoner to surveil.”

  “Yeah, and next time . . .” Axin smacked his fist against the palm of his other hand. “Watch out.”

  They both left the way they’d come. After we were sure they were out of hearing range, we all let out a big laugh.

  “I can’t believe it worked,” Arik said.

  “You, my friend, are a genius,” Verix said. “What is your name?”

  “My name is Harrold, or Harry for short. I’m an author, or what you might call a scribe. I was named after a famous Viking king, Harrold Bluetooth.”

  “Well, your teeth don’t appear very blue,” Verix said. “They are actually the whitest teeth I’ve ever seen.”

  “He’s a scribe,” Arik said. “I’ll bet his fingers are blue all the time. We should call him Harrold Bluefingers!”

  “Was that an attempt at humor, Arik?” Verix gave her a patronizing smile. “You’re getting there.”

  “I’ve been practicing for weeks.” She motioned toward me. “Harry, climb on behind me.”

  I walked over and attempted to climb onto the back of her horse. I quickly slid off and landed on my butt. After five more unsuccessful attempts, I stared up in disbelief. It looked so easy in the movies. “Do you have
a stepstool?”

  “For the love of The One, Verix, climb off and push him up.”

  From the same bushes that Axin and Weel had left through, there was another rustling. Dyfantus emerged with both followers held by the ear—a rather impressive feat for someone on horseback.

  “We really need to put a lock on those bushes,” Verix said.

  “You may have fooled my assistants,” Dyfantus said, “but you can’t fool me.”

  “You tell ’em, boss,” Axin said.

  “You cannot fool the magnificent one!” Weel said.

  “Quiet, half-wits.”

  “You know, Dyfantus, they can’t kiss your butt as easily when you’re holding on to their ears like that,” Verix said.

  Dyfantus let go of them and drew his sword. Arik and Verix followed suit. Geoff wielded a pen in the guard position.

  “I’ll take Dyfantus, Verix,” Arik said.

  He nodded. “And I’ll see if I can pry the other two off his backside.”

  “As much as I do like to see you two fail,” Dyfantus said, “this is hardly a fair fight. I’ll take you both on. You’ll find I’m much more difficult to slay than the sheep you killed last week.”

  “You know we didn’t kill those sheep,” Verix said. “Why did you tell the duke that?”

  “I thought you should get credit for killing something. Besides, I still owe you for taking my sweet Syra from me.”

  Oh, lovely. They had made up a backstory that wasn’t in my books. Now, I either had to create a new character or have some very confused readers. I guessed it could be worse; they could have made her a werewolf or some other creature that did not even exist in my world.

  Verix and Arik attacked Dyfantus from opposite sides. Their swordsmanship was truly marvelous. At least these actors were highly trained. I had honestly expected them to attempt to stab each other with the wrong end of the sword. Dyfantus expertly managed to fend off both of my protectors and seemed bored with the effort.

  While I do love a good sword fight, I decided that this didn’t look like a sure thing, so I would sneak away while they were distracted. I figured that if I could run off the set, I might manage to ruin the show and end it early. I slowly inched to the right so I’d be as far out of everyone’s line of sight as possible before I bolted. When I turned, I realized that direction led straight toward a field, so I made a quick right to get back to the cover of the forest.