“You’re doing wrong by him,” she replied. “You’ve got no right to mistreat him. The only polite thing for you to do is to cut his throat in a gentlemanly manner.”
“Ach!” Einarson’s lungs were working again.
“Shut up,” I yelled at him, “or I’ll come over there and knock you double-jointed.”
He glared at me, and I asked the girl: “What’ll we do with him? I’d be glad to cut his throat, but the trouble is, his army might avenge him, and I’m not a fellow who likes to have anybody’s army avenging on him.”
“We’ll give him to Vasilije,” she said, swinging her feet over the side of the bed and standing up. “He’ll know what to do.”
“Where is he?”
“Upstairs in Grantham’s suite, finishing his morning nap, I suppose.”
Then she said lightly, casually, as if she hadn’t been thinking seriously about it: “So you had the boy crowned?”
“I did. You want it for your Vasilije? Good! We want five million American dollars for our abdication. Grantham put in three to finance the doings, and he deserves a profit. He’s been regularly elected by the Deputies. He’s got no real backing here, but he can get support from the neighbors. Don’t overlook that. There are a couple of countries not a million miles away that would gladly send in an army to support a legitimate king in exchange for whatever concessions they liked. But Lionel the First isn’t unreasonable. He thinks it would be better for you to have a native ruler. All he asks is a decent provision from the government. Five million is low enough, and he’ll abdicate tomorrow. Tell that to your Vasilije.”