"Maybe not." I sighed. "I guess I never really admitted to myself that I wanted to be in charge again when I came back. I suppose that's because I didn't know where else I would fit in the organization."
"Don't sell yourself short, Boss," Nunzio squeaked. Gleep moved his chin from my lap to Nunzio's and made a hopeful noise. The Mob enforcer had a way of scratching my dragon's ears that made him purr like a cat. "You'd do tine. You always called us partners. I mean, then you should have no trouble no matter what happens."
"Yeah," I said. "I guess so."
That pretty much summed up my mental geography lesson, I had to figure out where I really fit, whether I won this bet or not, and if I really meant it when I called them all my partners.
I heard a murmur from the front room, then Bunny raised her voice.
"Of course, Princess Hermalaya. I'll show you in to Mr. Skeeve's office."
A princess! If that wasn't a big-ticket case, I didn't know what was. I shot to my feet. Chumley followed suit somewhat more slowly for the sake of the furniture and the ceiling, which was a trifle low for someone of his stature.
"Okay, Boss," Nunzio said, standing up and straightening his knife-sharp lapels, "it's showtime!"
Bunny held open the carpet and an elegant creature sashayed into the room. She had long white fur from
muzzle to the black tip of her bushy tail. She unwrapped a silken stole from around her slender shoulders and presented me with a long, slim hand.
"Hi, there," she said. "The kindly lady there in the office told me you might be able to help?"
"That's what we do here," I said, bowing gallantly over her hand. "May I introduce myself? I'm Skeeve. These are my associates, Nunzio and Chumley."
"Well, I'm charmed," the lovely lady said. "I'll just return the favor? I'm Hermalaya, princess of Foxe-Swampburg in the dimension of Reynardo—or I was?"
I raised my eyebrows. "Welcome. Will you sit down and tell us all about it?"
"Well," Hermalaya said, breathlessly, sinking into the client chair, "I shoulda known that something was gonna happen after Mama and Daddy died. I'm the firstborn in my family, so of course they put me on the throne. We're the oldest family in Foxe-Swampburg, the first Swamp Foxes to put down roots there? I'm proud of my heritage, and I love my people. One thing Daddy always told me was trust the folks who know what they're doing? So I did. We got a real smart prime minister and a bunch of other people who ran things for Daddy? I just left everything in their hands. My subjects came to me when they had troubles. I passed them along to the prime minister? 'Cause I don't have a whole lot of experience yet? I learned other things suitable for a princess, of course. I'm a good listener. I'm a pretty darned good cook. I mean, sooner or later I gotta think about ensuring the succession, so I want to get married and have kits? But in the meantime, I'm trying to catch on to what's going on? Except I just didn't have a chance?"
"Why not?" I asked.
Hermalaya acquired an indignant pout.
"Well, because that darned prime minister just up and usurped me last week!"
I frowned. "He threw you off the throne? Why?"
The Swamp Fox princess shook her head in bemusement. "Well, I'm sure I don't know. We had us some hard times in Foxe-Swampburg, that's for sure. We had these nasty bugs? They were just everywhere, and we couldn't get rid of them. They bored holes through everything? I mean, my subjects were just going broke trying to fix things. The cisterns all sprang leaks, and people were running out of clean water? So I told the chancellor of the exchequer to open up the treasury? I mean, we all woulda been bored full of holes, too, if it wasn't for the Old Folks protecting us."
"I know what you mean" I said, as a Humbee buzzed over our heads like a vulture swooping down. Gleep made a leap for it and settled down to chew noisily. Hermalaya stared in amazement at the invasion and capture. I cleared my throat. "Uh, please go on."
"Well, not much to tell, except I tried to help my people, because that's what I'm supposed to do? Mama and Daddy always instilled in us the deepest sense of responsibility toward those who depend upon us."
"Most admirable," Chumley said, then lowered his heavy brow as Hermalaya turned to stare at him. "Big Crunch mean, 'good foxy'!"
I frowned. "So what do you need from us? We're not an army."
"Well, what do you think?" Hermalaya asked. "My people need me. They can't just have an old prime minister as their leader? You can see what kind of chaos that would lead to. I mean, how can he make unpopular decisions if there's no one for them to love when he's being mean? He's got no one to explain to the people in a friendly way that that's the way it's got to be. Of course," she added reflectively, "I mean unpopular decisions that don't involve bouncin' his lawful monarch out the door? Mister Skeeve, I'd be just as grateful as possible if you would help me get my throne back!"
"Well, ma'am," I said. "You know our reputation, or you wouldn't have come to M.Y.T.H., Inc. We'd love to help you, but our assistance doesn't come cheap. Uh, it's awkward, but can you handle our fees?"
Hermalaya looked crestfallen. "Well, that's the trouble, you know. I just don't have any money. I have heard of you all, and one of the things that people told me? Sometimes you come in and help for the sake of helping?"
I winced. Just when I needed to find a way to score a lot of coins from a client, our reputation for occasional altruism came out. But, wait—Bunny promised that she would not send me a client with whom it would be impossible to win the contest I had going with Aahz. If I trusted anyone in the world, it had to be her. For the life of me, at that moment I couldn't see how I could turn this one around.
I sighed and put my chin on my palm. "Tell me some more. Maybe we can figure something out. Why did it happen?"
"Well," Hermalaya said, "that of prime minister—his name's Matfany, by the way—he's been pretty good at explaining things to me most of the time. But when he found out I had the chancellor of the exchequer hand out a lot of our money to those poor people who lost everything to the bugs, he just lost his mind!"
"Literally?" Nunzio asked, with interest.
"Not exactly right out of his head," Hermalaya admitted. "But it was a pretty darned mean thing to do. He marched into my rooms one day, and he didn't even look at me. Normally he looks at me. A lot. But that day, he just couldn't. He said that he had just talked to the chancellor. The treasury was empty, and it was all my fault. He said I didn't have a right to hand out the money. That by just giving it out to anybody I was endangering the kingdom? Being broke leaves Foxe-Swampburg vulnerable to anybody who wants to invade it? Or have our creditors come in and claim just every little thing we have. That'd make us—what did he call it?—a client state instead of a free principality? I had gone against everything that my daddy and his ancestors had ever done to keep us from being taken over by enemies or revenuers. Matfany said he wasn't going to let Foxe-Swampburg fall like that? He said that he didn't have a choice? He was gonna have to toss me out of the kingdom for the good of everyone. Now I thought that I was acting for the good of everyone. I've been their princess all my life, and I have never done a single thing that was against them, I swear."
"I'm sure you didn't," I said, sympathetically.
"It was just so hurtful, all the things he said. He accused me of sitting around all day eating Cake! Now, look at me," she said, displaying her svelte figure with indignant pride. "Do I look like I do nothing but eat Cake?"
"Cake?" I asked. "What kind of cake?"
"Not cake, Cake."
Even I could hear the capital C in Cake. I guessed it was a local delicacy. "And then what?" I asked.