Brokedown Palace by Steven Brust

are you doing down here, Miska-coachman-to-Mordfal?”
    “What am I doing, Miklós-Prince-of-Fenario? I am getting drunk, that is what I am doing. I suggest you do the same.”
    “No,” said Miklós, “I think not.”
    “As you wish.”
    On impulse, Miklós sat down on the floor of the cellar. Miska looked at him questioningly. “Tell me a story, friend Miska, and I won’t tell your master what you are doing.”
    Miska laughed loudly. “Fair enough, my Prince.” We should explain, I think, that coachmen in Fenario spent their time in the stables with the grooms and stable hands, yet it was considered beneath their dignity to help with the work. So it was that they would help their comrades by telling them stories as they worked, thus relieving the tedium of the day. To this day saying of a story, “It is a coachman’s tale,” is the highest of praise.
    “Well, then,” said Miska, “a brief tale only, I think, for the hour is late and I must be getting on with my journey to oblivion. Hmmm. Yes. Would you hear a tale of your own family, my Prince? I will tell you a tale of the occupation. You know of it, I hope: how the Northerners came into our land, and only those of us in the mountains to the east escaped their yoke.
    “Well, in that time, the King was trapped in his Palace, like a norska in a chreotha’s net. They were then only beginning to build the tunnels in which we are now pleased to sit, my Prince. But life went on as it would, for many. Yet among the Northerners was a young man who had a barbaric sounding name that I will not try to pronounce, who fell in love with a young woman of Fenario. She loved him too, I should add, but she loved jewels even more. So she begged this Northerner to give her the biggest diamond he could find.”
    The coachman took another drink of pálinka and offered the
bottle to Miklós. The prince shook his head but didn’t speak. Miska continued.
    “The Northerner went to all of the jewelers in the city—for as you know, the finest of the diamonds found in the Western Mountains are sent here—and he found one that he thought was good enough for her. He asked the jeweler for it. The jeweler handed it to him but, foolish man, asked him to pay for it. ‘Here is your payment, ’ the Northerner said, up goes his sword, and off comes the jeweler’s head.
    “Well, it so happened that one of the Goddess’s demons was walking around trying to make mischief for the barbarians. He sees this and tells the Goddess. She sends a dream to the King’s youngest son, since I’m told that is how she speaks to your family, and lets him know about it.
    “Well, to leave off half the story, this young Prince goes into his father’s bedchamber and takes hold of Állam, the sword of the kingdom. Then he goes into the courtyard, finds a táltos bull, and they leap right over the Palace walls. So he goes riding right through the Northern army (who, after all, is going to get in the way of a táltos bull?) and comes into town. He finds this Northerner, all cozy in bed with the girl, who is all cozy in bed with her diamond. He barges in, and before you can say garabonciás , he runs him right through, while she cries about how she’ll never love another and all like that.
    “There is much more, my Prince. I could tell you of how he had to win back to the Palace through the entire Northern army, after she betrayed him to them. I could tell you how Állam swept back and forth in all its battle-madness, killing scores of barbarians at a blow, but that isn’t the end of the story. The end of the story, Prince Miklós, is that when this young man returned to the Palace his father had found out that he had taken Állam, which only the King may wield, and so he had the sad duty of cutting off the young man’s head.
    “And that is the end of my story. Come to me when I’m sober, and I’ll tell you a longer one.”
    Miklós studied the coachman, who sat back with an ironic expression on his