Tag
"Well, Doctor, how is he?" asked Jim.
Dr Rodin leaned back from the divan in the king's study on which Artemus Gordon lay, the bullet hole in his side now cleansed and bandaged. Rodin removed his pince-nez, polished them assiduously, then replaced them upon his nose before answering. "The wound is far less severe than it might have been," he said. "It hit him well to one side in his back, and the path it traveled through the flank of his torso, Dieu merci, missed his vital organs. I expect him to make a full recovery."
"Then why isn't he awake?" Jim persisted.
"Ah, that would be this injury here," Rodin replied. He turned Artie's head to indicate the swelling above his ear. "He may well be concussed; we will need to watch him carefully, n'est-ce pas?"
There came a groan from the wounded agent as Artie lifted a hand to cover his eyes. "Ooh…" he moaned. "Did anyone get the number of the train that hit me?"
"It was Jim West Number Two," his partner replied teasingly. "Glad to have you back, Artie."
"Yeah, back. Oh, but Lily!" His voice trailed off.
"Ah," said Jim. "Artie, Lily isn't here. Remember? We're in…"
"Yeah, yeah, I know where we are! I'm just saying that when Lily finds out I got… shot, was it? Yeah, shot. When she finds out I got shot, she's gonna kill me!"
Jim rolled his eyes. "Your wife isn't going to kill you, Artie. Especially since you got wounded while protecting the king's life."
Artie's brows knitted. "Protecting the king's… Where am I again?"
"In my study," said the king. Dr Rodin moved now from the divan to the desk where Stepanko had been patiently awaiting his turn, having insisted that the obviously more severely injured Mr Gordon be attended to first. Now he winced as Rodin undid the cloth Jim West had tied around the king's arm. The doctor tutted softly, then set about washing the wound and applying mercurochrome.
"Your… study…" Artie echoed. He blinked up at Jim, then glanced around, taking in the rest of the room, including a weary workman sitting near the door and a number of armed guards — some of whom looked to be in need of a doctor themselves — posted all around the walls.
Then Artie focused on the two men at the desk. "And Dr Rodin? He really is a doctor? All this time I just thought it was a philoso… philos…" He sighed, disgusted with the lack of cooperation currently coming from his tongue. "Y'know, not a medical degree."
"Bien sûr, je suis un médecin," Rodin chirped, confirming his medical status. He continued to work on Stepanko's arm.
Suddenly it all clicked in Artie's brain and he remembered. "Your Majesty! You're injured! I… the assassin… I failed…" He tried to sit up, but found that Jim's hand upon his shoulder wouldn't let him rise.
"Easy, Artie. Everything's fine. It was the assassin who failed. He's under arrest now, and Captain Andreshko is hauling him off to the Old Palace to await trial. Oh, and thanks, by the way, for insuring that guy won't be mistaken for me again any time in the near future."
Confusion in his eyes, Artie blinked up at Jim. "Huh?"
Jim grinned and patted Artie's good arm. "You broke his nose! With any luck, it'll heal all mashed and crooked, and he'll no longer be a dead ringer for a certain Secret Service agent whom we all know and love."
"Oh. Yeah. Ri-right. Right, Jim. You're, uh, you're welcome. Um. Who's that?" He pointed at the somewhat disheveled man sitting uncomfortably in the corner.
"That is someone we met in the mine shafts under the Pterovnian West Coast Consulate, Artie. Remember Niko, the priest's son?"
"Oh. Oh, yeah. Yeah, him! Uh, hi, Niko. Fancy meeting you here."
"Niko has something to tell you, Your Majesty," Jim added, and for the next half hour or so, the miner glumly spun out his story of Ichko and his unauthorized assassin. Captain Andreshko arrived about halfway through the tale and was immediately dispatched to go collect all the prisoners in the make-shift cell.
At the end, as Niko stood shamefacedly before his king twisting his hands together in nervous anticipation of being placed under arrest as well, Dr Rodin sniffed in disgust and remarked, "And to all that you add the crime of spiriting away the king's bride."
The miner started, his eyes going round. "That is why the wedding was postponed? I was told that it was because the baroness was deathly ill! But she is missing, kidnapped?" Drawing himself up to his full height, Niko addressed the king, "Your Majesty, I and my men, we had nothing to do with this, believe me. But if there is anything — anything! — we can do now to help to find her, to restore her to your side, you have only to ask!"
"Yes, yes, yes," said the king and waved a hand in dismissal. "Thank you; you may go."
"I may… what?"
The king met his startled subject's eyes. "You may go home. You, and all of your men who fought to prevent that British fellow — Mr X, was it? — from carrying out his plot. Praise God it did not succeed! I must also," Stepanko murmured half to himself, "be sure to write a stern letter to His Majesty King Ludwig Hapnick of Carpania to warn him of the adventuresomeness of that annoying Baron Von Stuppe, and once I've done that, I really ought to… Ah…" He frowned. "Excuse me, is something wrong, Mr Gordon?"
Artie was choking, tears in his eyes from only partly suppressed laughter. "Wrong? Oh no no, Your Majesty. No, nothing, er, wrong exactly…"
"I... see…" Again the king frowned toward the injured man, but then he drew his attention away to his other visitors. "Well... Again, thank you very much, Niko. Good day. And Dr Rodin, if you are finished, I should like to speak with our American friends. Alone, that is."
Niko all but fled. For his part, Rodin paused, polished his glasses once more, then packed up his little black bag and headed for the door before turning back with his hand upon the knob. "Is it wise, do you think, Your Majesty, to permit revolutionaries such as Niko et ses amis to run loose in Pterovnia?"
"But what else am I to do, Dr Rodin? Shall I lock up every man I hear of who has a grievance, or thinks he has a better way of running the country? We should soon run out of prison cells! Besides, I am not so old that I have forgotten what it is to be an idealistic young fool. Let him be, let him be. When he and his friends saw the true danger to the throne, they fought to stop the plot, did they not? That is good enough for me."
"Je vois — I see," said Rodin, and he left the study as well. At the king's nod the guards too filed out and could shortly be heard stamping about in the corridor, taking up positions beyond the door.
With a sigh, Stepanko locked the door behind them all, then returned to his desk and took up an envelope. "This, my friends, is the reason I had asked the two of you to come see me before all this… commotion took place." He passed the envelope to Jim.
Jim examined it, noting the same residue of sealing wax on the back as before. "Where did you find this one?" he asked as he handed it over to Artie.
"Here, upon my desk once more."
Artie pulled out the letter itself and glanced through it. "Ah. And now we are to be ordered to give up the investigation into Mireje's disappearance completely. No signature, and strangely enough, written in English." He flipped the paper over and peered at it at an angle.
"What are you doing?" asked the king.
"Looking for the watermark. Curious thing, but it seems to be the royal crest. Don't you think so, Jim?"
"And the instructions in it are the exact ones you anticipated would be given to us, Your Majesty," said Jim. "Care to explain how you could predict so accurately so far in advance what the kidnappers' new demands would be?"
"Ah. Well, I… That is, I, ah…"
Jim tossed the letter back to Artie. "You know something that we don't, Your Majesty. Admit it. You know more than you're telling."
"Oh, well, I…" Stepanko eyed the Americans, then lifted his head regally. "Very well then. Yes, I do know more than I'm telling — or at the very least, I suspect more than I have let on."
"You know where Mireje is," Jim stated.
"And who has her," Artie added.
The king shrugged. "Well, in a manner of speaking…"
"Where is she then?" said Jim.
"And how do you know?" Artie chimed in.
"Where she is… In truth, I have only a general suspicion as to her current location. In fact, all that I have are suspicions, not facts. But the more I dwell on them, the more certain I become that I know what became of Mireje — and that she is not coming back."
"Oh?"
"Care to elaborate?"
Again the king shrugged. "Gentlemen, it may well be a long story."
Artie gestured at his recumbent posture upon the divan. "I don't know about Jim, but I'm not going anywhere any time soon."
"Very well then." For a moment the king looked off at nothing, gathering his thoughts. Then, "Well, you know of course the tale of how Mireje and I met at the West Coast Consulate, and of the love philter her mother slipped into my wine to cause me to fall instantly in love with Mireje."
"Yes, we know," said Jim.
"We lived it with you!" put in Artie.
"Yes, and brought about my deliverance from the philter's spell, for which you have my eternal gratitude. If I am to love a woman, I want it to be by my own choice, not someone else's machinations. Having said that, however…" He lapsed into brooding for a few seconds.
"Machinations, Your Majesty?" Jim prompted at last.
"Hmm? Oh, yes. Teshnante djozí — I beg your pardons, my friends. I was only considering whether I had not in fact been the manufacturer of my own machinations! You see, after the defeat of Mireje's mother and her cabal that had brought about the death of my beloved father, I returned home to Pterovnia, as you know, bringing Mireje and her brother Dreshko with me. It was a long journey, first back to Washington City by rail, and afterwards the ocean voyage to Hamburg in Germany, then more travel by rail and by carriage until we arrived back here in our homeland. We were three young people bound together by a common grief, not only for the loss of our nation's monarch by wicked hands, but the loss also of my cousins' father, killed along with my royal father in that despicable assassination plot. We drew close together — very close together, we three — over the course of that voyage home. At the end… perhaps I was foolish, or perhaps I had stars in my eyes, but at the end I proposed to Mireje, and she accepted. We were very happy, or at least I was."
He lapsed again into silence, until Jim prodded him with, "You were happy."
Stepanko gave a wry smile. "Mr Gordon, you may know something of the customs of my people. The period of mourning for a father is one full year, and for a king also a full year. As I had lost both sovereign and father, I was expected to observe the mourning period for two full years. And during such a time, no celebrations of joy are permitted."
"Including a wedding," said Artie.
"Yes. And so we delayed the nuptials until the two years were fulfilled. At that time, also according to our customs, I asked Mireje to set the date. And she chose…"
"Today?"
"Yes, Mr West. I was surprised that she would add yet another full year to an already lengthy betrothal, but it is a Pterovnian bride's prerogative to select the date of her wedding. And so another year passed, and in the meantime…" He paused, a frown creasing his face.
"In the meantime, she… changed?" Artie guessed.
"For the worse, yes. The drinking, the lack of punctuality. Rudeness. Behavior not suitable for a queen. I… I put up with it, thinking that once we were married, she would settle down; the foolish indecorum would be behind us. I… suffered her misconduct, waiting for the gentle and innocent Mireje I had fallen in love with to return."
"But instead, the morning of the wedding the girl had disappeared completely," said Jim.
"I believe I'm beginning to see where this is heading," Artie added.
"Perhaps you do," said Stepanko. "After the dreadful discovery this morning, I came down here to my study to think. To brood. And yes, to drink." He waved at the liquor cabinet against one wall. "And as I brooded, this thought came to me: why would a young woman eager to marry the man of her dreams delay her wedding for a full year? Why would she choose to drink herself into a stupor daily? Why act like a foolish, giddy sot, embarrassing herself in front of, well, everyone? Why would she do that, unless…"
"Unless she wasn't eager to get married after all," mused Jim.
"Mm," the king responded. "And unless I am, in fact, not the man of her dreams!"
The two Americans exchanged a glance. "You mean… Lieutenant Jenko?"
The king nodded. "The man who instantly volunteered to rush off to her rescue. The man who took such a touching leave of his own fiancée to go bring back mine! The man who…" Abruptly he slammed the flat of his hand down upon his desk. "The man whom I myself assigned to Mireje to be her bodyguard the day after we became engaged!"
Steeling himself to quell the impulse to make any remarks whatsoever about how diligently Jenko might be guarding Mireje's body, Artie said gently, "There, ah, wasn't anything between the two of them before you made that assignment, was there, Your Majesty?"
"No, of course not. She had been in America. The two of them did not even meet until about an hour after I made the assignment. He was simply one of the guardsmen, and I chose him completely at random." He reached over and massaged at the wound on his arm. "But I put Mireje fully into his care. He was to escort her everywhere, to sleep in the outer room of her suite, to be at her beck and call at every moment. He saw her far more often than I did, and I see now how foolish I was not to anticipate that a far more… profound affinity might come into being between them."
"So you think that Mireje disappeared on the eve of her wedding of her own free will," said Jim.
"Having arranged things with Jenko for them to meet, oh, who knows where, and then leave Pterovnia behind them entirely?" added Artie.
The king sighed and bowed his head. "Precisely!"
Again the agents glanced at each other. "Well, it sounds plausible," said Jim.
"But if that's the case, why did you forge two letters from the nonexistent kidnappers?" asked Artie. "Why pretend they were ordering everyone to silence, and ordering us to drop the investigation?"
The king slapped the desk again and surged to his feet. "Because it is all my fault!" he exclaimed. "I put them together — yes, threw them together! I went on my merry way, never realizing what I had done, never paying enough attention to Mireje to fathom that her behavior had changed because her heart had changed! That she loved Jenko and not me. I didn't think! And worse, I did not inspire in Mireje the confidence to come to me and tell me the truth. Instead she had to resort to… yes, to machinations, trying to drive me away, trying to disgust me to the point that I would set her free. But I didn't! And so she finally took the only path left open to her: she faked her own kidnapping and ran off with Jenko!"
He raked a hand through his hair, then sighed and dropped into his seat again. "I… I hope… I hope they will be happy together. I wish no repercussions upon them. I am the one at fault, not they. That is why the letters: I wish only to… to put this whole mess behind me with no shame redounding to either her name or his. Do you…" He cast a worried look their way. "Do you understand? Do I even make sense?"
Slowly the two agents nodded. "Yes. Yes, we understand, Your Majesty," said Jim, speaking for them both.
The king's face broke out into a watery smile. "I have been a fool, my friends, a very great fool. But I hope to learn from this fiasco and be a better man, and a better and wiser king as well, in the future. Ah!"
A knock had just sounded at the door. "Mr West, would you answer that, please?"
Jim gave Artie another pat on the shoulder, then got up and crossed to the door to find Captain Andreshko had returned. He entered and bowed to his sovereign. "The members of the plot upon your life have all been arrested and incarcerated awaiting trial, Your Majesty," he reported.
"Good, good, excellent, Dreshko. Thank you. You are dismissed." Stepanko picked up a paper from his desk and began perusing it.
Andreshko did not budge though. "Ah…"
The king looked up from his paper. " 'Ah,' Captain?"
"I, ah, also took it upon myself to send a man to the new hospital to requisition one of their wheeled beds for Mr Gordon's use." The young fellow tugged at his collar, then added, "Your Majesty would prefer, I presume, that Mr Gordon be moved to some room other than Your Majesty's study while he recuperates from his wound?"
Stepanko blinked, then broke out in a grin. "Excellent idea, Dreshko! I should have thought of it for myself. Yes, bring the bed here, and then we shall move him to… Well, it should be one of the rooms down here on the main floor, shouldn't it, so that he doesn't have to be taken up or down the stairs."
And shortly it was done. A ground floor parlor was refurbished for the Americans and Artie in his rolling bed was installed within it. As word spread of the great heroics accomplished that day by the two Americans in saving the king's life — and especially of the grievous wound suffered by one of the pair — many visitors came by to thank them, or weep over them, or pray for them, or sit and chatter endlessly at them.
At length Jim herded the last of the visitors out of the room, and was just about to lock the door for good measure when another knock sounded. Jim answered it with, "Mr Gordon is very tired and needs to res… Oh, hello, Andreshko."
The young officer stepped inside and smiled nervously, his fingers plucking at the shako in his hands. "His Majesty asked me to look in on you and see how you are faring. All is well?"
"Sort of," yawned Artie.
"It would better if we didn't have the constant stream of well-wishers tromping through the room," added Jim.
"Yeah, could you maybe tell everyone we've moved again and left no forwarding address?"
Andreshko's smile became a bit more genuine. "I will see what I can do," he said and turned to go.
"Before you do that though," Artie added, "I'd like the answer to just one question."
"Yes, Mr Gordon?"
Looking the young fellow dead in the eyes, Artie asked, "Where's Mireje?"
Andreshko stared at him, mouth agape. "How…" he whispered at last. "How did you know?"
"The king knows," said Jim, folding his arms and leaning against a table. "He worked it out on his own that the kidnapping was only a ruse."
"Except that so far, he assumes Mireje and Jenko cooked up the scheme all on their own," said Artie. "But they didn't, did they? They had help."
"And you… you think I helped?"
Artie chuckled. "I know you did! You had to be in on it, kiddo!"
"Because she is my sister?"
"No, because as I was running into the palace to chase the fake Jim all over creation, I overheard you tell Mireje's bridesmaids that a prayer vigil for her safe return wouldn't be, and I quote, 'nec…' " He fixed the young officer with a gimlet stare. "The rest of that word was going to be 'necessary,' wasn't it?"
Andreshko dropped his head and nodded. "Dasda."
"But you never finished saying that word, because Anushche interrupted you."
"Pinched me too."
"Interrupted you," said Jim. "Meaning that she's in on this as well."
"Dasda."
"Anyone else?" asked Jim.
"Mm," Artie interjected, "my money's on Cat being right in the thick of things too."
Again Dreshko gaped at him. "How can you know that?"
"Because I said something to her about this being a time of pretense — referring to the fake Jim, of course — and she overreacted, throwing a hand over her mouth and demanding to know what I meant. Sign of a guilty conscience, or at least a very worried one."
Andreshko shook his head, nearly in tears. "You have uncovered everything!" he exclaimed.
"Not quite everything," said Jim sternly. "We still don't know why all of you did such a thing."
"Yeah," said Artie. "So you go this minute, young man, and gather up all your fellow plot-hatchers and bring 'em right in here. We want to hear the whole sordid story!"
…
Anje perched on the edge of the sofa in the agents' new suite, folded her hands in her lap, and said, "It's really not that sordid, not at all."
"Faking the kidnapping of the king's fiancée isn't sordid?"
She turned a steady look towards Jim. "Say rather, preventing her death and the death of a fine young soldier!"
"Oh!" said Artie. He lay back against his pillow and thumped at his nose. "Well, I never thought of it in those terms!"
"You're saying that the fact that Mireje and Jenko were in love could have resulted in their deaths," Jim stated.
"For treason, yes. As long as she was not yet married to the king, it was not treason. But to, er… Ah…"
"Cheat on a king?" Artie supplied.
"Well, to… love another man while married to a king. Yes, in most nations with a monarchy, such a… predicament is in fact considered treason. And the penalty for treason is a death sentence."
Jim looked at the three of them — Anje, Andreshko, and Catalina — and said, "And you all recognized that Mireje and Jenko had fallen for each other."
"Oh, yes," said the young man. "I mean, she's my sister. I saw the changes in her."
"As did I," added Catalina. "I had come to know la baronesa very well during my time as her governess. She was not the happy carefree girl she had been, and became less happy and less carefree the longer the engagement went on."
"I suppose I was the last of us to catch on," Anushche admitted. "I came to know Mireje once she and Dreshko returned here to Pterovnia, and we became fast friends. At first she would chatter on endlessly about her excitement to be getting married once the mourning period was past. But later the chatter was more… forced. Less sincere. And still later, Mireje essentially stopped talking to me of her hopes and dreams at all." She leaned forwards. "And so did Jenko! He and I had become engaged before the…" She closed her eyes. "Before His Majesty King Zerildko was… killed. We too were awaiting the end of the mourning for the king so that we could be married. Only… when I spoke to him to set the date, Jenko… asked for more time."
"And from that you guessed that he'd fallen for Mireje instead?"
She smiled. "Not exactly. From that I became nosy, and so I recruited a couple of… spies, let us say." She reached out both hands and gripped the hands of Catalina and Dreshko. "Between the three of us, we learned everything."
"So you counseled Mireje to put on that drunk act to try to drive the king away?"
"Oh no!" said Dreshko. "That was her own idea."
Catalina shook her head. "I told her that it would not work. I told her to go to the king and speak all her heart to him, that a man of honor would not force her to go through with the marriage when she was in love with another, but she… ah…"
"She was afraid that Stepanko might prove to be other than a man of honor, is that it, Cat?" asked Artie.
Mutely she nodded.
"She came to feel that she could not refuse the king, no matter what the consequences," said Anje. "She felt trapped, trapped by her own pledge made before she knew what it was to truly love. She could not get out of the marriage, and she could not give up Jenko."
"So where are they now?" asked Jim.
"Now?" Dreshko pulled out his pocket watch and looked at it. "With any luck, they have crossed the border into Ruritania and are well on their way to the port of Hamburg."
"Where they have tickets to board a ship for America," added Anje. "There in the land of the free, they hope to make a life for themselves where they can never be accused of treason simply for loving each other!"
Jim and Artie exchanged a glance, then Jim pointed at Dreshko. "So your motivation in all this was…"
"To keep my sister from losing her life."
"And yours was similar, Cat?" said Artie.
"Sí. I did not wish la baronesa to be unfairly condemned."
"But you, Anushche. You had two horses in this race," said Artie.
"Right," said Jim. "You were looking out for Jenko as well."
"Amazingly enough," Artie added.
She looked over at him, a touch of puzzlement in her face. " 'Amazingly enough'? What do you mean?"
"Why, your fiancé went and dumped you for another woman, and yet you did all you could to protect him!"
Her puzzlement increased. "Well, yes, of course. Why shouldn't I?"
The agents exchanged another glance, and Artie shook his head, chuckling. "Oh, Anushche, Anushche! Droshinje muje, you are almost too sweet and altruistic to be real! Don't you realize that most women would have thrown the creep to the lions?"
With a sweet smile on her face but steel in her eyes, Anje rose to her feet. "But I am not most women, am I, gentlemen?" She nodded to her coconspirators, who stood up as well. "Good evening, James. And Artemus, rest well and be healed!" She gave each man a kiss on the cheek and turned to go.
"One more question though, if I may," said Artie.
"Yes?"
"The letter that was thrown to Capt Koloshko: Why?"
"Because to many people, he would be an obvious suspect in Mireje's supposed kidnapping," Anje explained. "We only asked him to keep quiet a few days until they would have time to be well away."
"Yes, time enough for them to board the ship," Andreshko added.
"And… there is one more thing," said Anje.
"What's that?"
She frowned as if choosing how to phrase it. "It… it was not simply to spare two good young people the death penalty for falling in love with each other. There was another person I was concerned for: Stepanko himself. If the king had learned of their love and condemned them for it, I have no doubt that he would in time have come to regret it. He would, like Lady Macbeth in the play, have found that not even an ocean of water would wash the blood from his hands. And so I wished also to spare my dear cousin Panko from the consequences of his own actions."
"You can't know that he would have sentenced them to death. After all, he commuted Capt Koloshko's death penalty."
"That is true, I cannot know what he would have done. I could only consider what he might do, and act accordingly." She headed for the door again, then half-turned to add, "As for Capt Koloshko, there is this thought: a king may well extend mercy for a friend who has broken his trust, but for a woman who has broken his heart — for her, who knows if he will even think of mercy?"
She left and her two friends with her, and for several minutes afterwards Jim and Artie just mulled things over.
"So…" said Artie at last. "What do we tell the king?"
"Who says we tell him anything?"
"Good point, Jim. I'll go with that." He leaned back into his pillows and closed his eyes.
A moment later there came yet another knock on the door. Artie flinched. "Oh no, not more visitors! Tell 'em to go away, Jim! This zoo is closed for the night!"
"Exactly what I was thinking!" Jim replied and went to the door to send the latest set of gawkers away.
Only to find that at the door was "Your Majesty!"
Artie started and tried to look a bit more alert. "Oh, good evening, Your Majesty," he said. "We weren't expecting more guests."
"To what do we owe this honor?" Jim added.
Grinning, King Stepanko waved his hands in delight. "I just had the most wonderful idea, my friends! We have everything ready for a wedding — the flowers, the catering, the priest, the guests — and it dawned on me that this opportunity should not be wasted!"
"Ah… everything, Your Majesty?" said Jim.
"Are you perhaps forgetting that you have everything ready except for the bride?" added Artie.
"Oh, but that is the beautiful part! I know precisely what to do about the lack of a bride!"
The agents stared at each other for a second. "You're, ah… not thinking of using a proxy to marry Mireje anyway, are you, sir?" Artie ventured.
"Proxy!" Stepanko laughed. "Oh, no no no, my friends! I have no intention of attempting to bind Mireje into a marriage from which she has run away! No no, no proxies involved. My bride has departed, so I merely need a new one in her place. Do you see?"
Artie nearly choked. "Oh, merely!" he exclaimed, while Jim asked more directly, "And just whom do you have in mind for your replacement bride, Your Majesty?"
"Why, isn't it obvious?" He smiled at the two Americans, looking back and forth between them. "Upon whom else, my friends, would I choose to bestow such an honor but on my dear cousin Anje? Just think! She is smart, and kind, and pretty — and the whole nation loves her. In fact, I have even heard it rumored that some think she would make a better monarch than I do. Silly idea, of course, but that's how rumors are, yes? And besides, she too has found herself suddenly jilted. So she and I are in the same, er — what is it you Americans say? the same barge?" He grinned and rubbed his hands together. "Well, good night, my friends. I just had to tell someone right away! And now if you'll excuse me, I will go at once to find Anje and propose to her, and then we can be married first thing tomorrow morning!" He nodded merrily to his guests and rushed away.
Jim shook his head as he closed the door and locked it. "So much for Stepanko's resolve to be a wiser man in the future."
"So much also for the Pterovnian custom of the bride being the one who picks the wedding date!"
"Well, you know the old saying: Marry in haste and repent at leisure."
"Mm. I'm actually thinking of another saying, Jim. Maybe not as old and time-honored, but every bit as fitting."
"And what's that, Artie?"
Dropping his chin to his chest and his vocal range into a husky growl, Artie did his best imitation of their beloved president as he rumbled out, "Didn't I always tell you gentlemen that the king of Pterovnia is a moon-struck young idiot? And there the boy's just gone and proved it all over again!"
Jim sighed. "And how." He crossed to the liquor cabinet and poured them each a glass, then brought both over and handed one to Artie. "Salud," he said, lifting the glass and nodding to his partner.
Artie took a sip, then frowned thoughtfully at the glass. "Hey, Jim. I just had a thought."
"Yeah, Artie?"
"Maybe we oughta get hold of whatever the king's been drinking tonight…"
Jim cocked an eyebrow. "And do what with it?"
"Oh, I don't know. Maybe analyze it and see if someone's been slipping the king another one of those obnoxious love philters, that's all. Salud!"
(But wait, there's more! A bonus scene is yet to come!)