Everything the king says is a lie. Perhaps he is not even a liar anymore, for liars employ the truth just as ably as they employ the lie; indeed, precisely this duplicity of craft distinguishes the masters from the amateurs. Throughout history, the greatest liars have covered their lies in a million tiny truths until the lie itself lies buried beneath a veritable mountain of honesty. Consider the words of that great sophist Aryn of Dalfra, who said that truth is to the liar as wood is to the carpenter. So it is that a great liar might not even need a lie at all but just a framework of perversely arranged truths to build his façade of deception. In these ingenious cases, the liar never supplies the falsehood—others simply infer it according to a false matrix of truths and from there perpetuate a lie that was never even told. As such, one cannot exactly call the king a liar because everything he says is a lie. There is no true deception in the man, only madness.
He will tell you, for example, that his daughter keeps a pet hyena. But in truth, the monarch has no daughter and there are no hyenas in the kingdom. In the garden, he will tell you that grapes grow on trees and peaches on vines, and he will pluck a rose and offer it to you as a tulip. Four times, the Inquisitors have brought him before the synod on charges of blasphemy, for he claims that there is no god but Life itself; and who indeed, can even begin to argue with such obtuse impiety. Twice he has been banned from the temple, and so twice has he constructed new temples in the holy plaza: one of grass and one of paper. If asked, the king will say he never commissioned these false houses of worship, which now sit in ruin filled with squatters and lowly prostitutes. He says he fears not the retribution of his god for he claims that life—like a pane of divine glass—has fractured into a thousand tiny shards that make up the constellations of the night. When challenged with the antiquity of the stars, he will reply that before his god’s recent shattering, there were no stars, and that the sailors charted their journeys according to the guidance of fish.
When the kingdom of Namur, distressed by the king’s eccentricity, declared war on our people, the king dismissed their envoy, saying that the ancient kingdom of Namur is a myth, that its people are ghosts, and that the space it occupies on the royal maps is empty and ripe for colonization. Three times has the king sent settlers to occupy that thickly inhabited land, and three times have the new colonists been captured and sold into slavery. When informed of their fate, the king just laughed, the “colonists” he said, were actually conspirators he cleverly exiled to the lands of his enemies. For a few months, some in the high council actually debated whether his perpetual lying was perhaps an act of mad political genius. When the monarch proceeded to replace the high council with twelve buckets of snow, even those stalwart supporters conceded his madness. To this day, the buckets remain seated in the twelve bronze chairs of the council room. The king claims they are buckets of seawater drawn from the twelve great oceans of the world; though even illiterate peasants know there are only five.
Why, ask so many of the foreigners, has the king not been overthrown by his nobles? The answer, perhaps somewhat fittingly, lies in the king’s lying. Remember, the king is ultimately just as false as mad, and that there are many lies in this world far more pleasant than the truth. In regards to his stewardship of the kingdom, there can be no doubt that this king, in all his lunacy, has faired better than his father, particularly in regards to economy. The Grand Exchequer, likewise a tremendous liar, has conducted his affairs with vicious acuity. Ever since he took office, the kingdom has kept the most obscure ledgers for both its mint and its storehouses, publishing an impossibly confusing account of all public expenses. The practice ensured that our currency achieved great mystery and allure in the region. For decades, the river princes employed our coin as their benchmark, assuming that opacity is tantamount to security. Whether this logic holds or not matters little, for our banks have always flourished. The king, however, eventually did away with the banks, insisting that money itself is a lie. I remember the afternoon when the Grand Exchequer vociferously attempted to convince him otherwise, pleading that currency is the lifeblood of all modern nations.
“Where is this currency?” the king replied.
“It lies scattered throughout the kingdom, in the pockets and purses of our subjects,” replied the Exchequer.
“Show it to me then,” replied the king.
The Exchequer responded by pulling a gold piece from his pocket.
“Who is that man?” responded the king pointing to the profile emblazoned on the coin.
“Why it is none other than you yourself, my lord,” said the Exchequer proudly.
“Ah ha! So it is a mirror you hold,” shouted the king. “And a poor one at that, melt it down and turn it into an earring.”
For certain there were those in the room who could have produced other coins from their pockets, but no one dared challenge the sovereign so overtly. From that point forth, the capital only received grain, wine, and timber in payment, revoking all hard currency as imaginary. Though the move proved temporarily disastrous for our merchants, when five years of drought and famine struck the region, the monarch was proclaimed a godsend for though the banks were sorely funded, the storehouses were overflowing with solid commodities (indeed there were many other cities during those terrible years that resorted to the most barbaric acts of desperation: hunting rats, boiling shoe leather, even rumors of cannibalism).
Yet, not all the monarch’s lies are so logistic, others are far more lyrical in nature. Each year the king stages a dance, yet hires no musicians. At the head of a great hall filled with expectant dancers, the king will cup his hand to his ear. Listen, he will say. The people will listen. A stray cough will echo through the hall. Listen, the king will repeat. Closing his eyes, he will begin to sway. Though some will claim to hear the music that moves the king to dance, others will begin to murmur. Still others shall fear that they alone of all the king’s subjects are deaf to melodies too subtle for common ears. Some shall fear for their souls, others shall fear for the kingdom. Yet nearly all will dance—most out of obligation, though a few shall be truly inspired. Unfettered by rhythm and the clang of the minstrel’s cymbal, they shall discover other tempos lurking in themselves—hidden steps laid out in the swirl of the marble’s grain. Such is the nature of music, which is always suggestion and nothing more. At the end of the night, the king will stage a final dance with his daughter. Her pet hyena will crouch invisible in some unspecified corner of the room. When the dance concludes, the king will proudly present the imaginary girl to the room. Without fail, some bold foreign prince will step forward to beg her hand. “Young fool,” the king shall proclaim with a smile, and the whole room shall burst into uncomfortable laughter. Such is the nature of humor, which underlines the absurdity of the dance.
Happily, most of the king’s lies are far more mundane and less politically impactful in nature—mere clichés familiar to all obstinate children: he will tell you that black is white, and that up is down, and that it is raining outside when the sun is clearly shining. I remember one such stroll with the king on such a day. The man insisted it was pouring though not a single cloud sullied the sky. Walking through the garden by his side, I was actually quite thankful for the umbrella that he carried for the sun that day was blistering. Concerned about the pace of the rainfall, he had me send word to the engineers down at the river to gauge the strength of the levies and assess the likelihood of flooding (of course there was none). After I sent a token runner down to the dam works, the king lowered his voice and made a confession.
“Would you like to know a secret?” the king asked me.
“Only if you wish to tell it,” I replied.
“I’m not really the king,” said the monarch with a small grin upon his lips.
“You’re not?” I replied hesitantly, sensing the possibility of a trap.
“No,” said the king, “I was just a boy, as normal as yourself or any other, in fact, a bit inferior, for I was sickly as a child, in both mind and body, and there were many games and sports I was not good at. Often, I had to stay in bed while the other children played. I was frequently plagued by chills and fevers, and tormented by nightmares as I slept. Feeling sorry for me, my parents often consoled me by telling me how special I was, assuring me that I was the most important boy in all the kingdom with a grand and portentous future ahead of me. Then one day, my father died. I was old enough to know what death was, and my many bouts with illness had steeled me to its inevitable sting. Nonetheless, my mother feared so much for my weak constitution that she continued the game we had been playing since I was very small—to this day the only game I have ever been good at. For a long time, we had been pretending that my father was the king—what the man actually was, I don’t know, probably a banker or a local magistrate of some kind. Now on the day my father died, I thought the game would die with him, but my mother, in all her grief, simply perpetuated it. She told me that it was I who was now king. Though I was far too old for the game, and had long since seen through my parents’ make believe, I didn’t wish to jilt such a beautiful act of maternal compassion. I simply nodded, and sat down in the ridiculous chair my father sometimes occupied when playing the game. Perhaps because of my infirmity or youth, or perhaps out of sheer devotion to my saintly mother, everyone in the household played along, keeping up the game as a kind of sentimental homage to my departed father. To my great wonder, the servants and stewards and advisors continued to play the game even after my mother’s eventual passing. So great is their desire to shield me from the reality of death and my own mortal frailty, they continue their theatre; even convincing others out in the city to play along on those rare occasions when I venture out from home. Indeed, so many of the original participants of the game have passed on or out of my service that I am half convinced that those who come to take their place actually believe the game is real. You, for example, are one of those replacements not initially present at the beginning of the game. For how many years now have you been in my service as advisor?”
“Sixteen,” I replied honestly.
“And of those sixteen years, for how many did you believe the game was real and for how many have you been pretending?”
“I’m not sure,” I responded, shaken to the core at the extent of my lord’s delusion.
For a moment I almost gave credence to the insanity of his elaborate story. As we walked down the path together, I looked out over the vast hanging gardens to the high walls and minarets overlooking the city. I turned and observed the massive columns upholding the royal hall. The great lions that served as gargoyles lining the roof nearly blinded me, so white and pure was their marble, and so bright that day was the sky. I paused there on the bricks, overwhelmed by the splendor of the palace. My companion wandered a few steps ahead of me down the sunbaked path. Turning to where I stood, he beckoned with concern.
“Come, come,” he said raising his umbrella so that I might return beneath its shelter, “if you keep lagging behind like that, you’ll soon be soaked to the grave.”