King of Nowhere

    Jack stared across the table at the lawyer, looking for any trace of amusement, any sign that he was being punked, but the man remained serious. Not even a twitch. Either he was very good at this, or...

    “The king.”

    “Yes, sir.”

    “Of a place called-” he shuffled the papers in front of him to find the name. “Lichistan.”

    “A small, but proud, nation.”

    “But it was incorporated into a neighboring country.”

    The lawyer nodded. “Just last week.”

    “So technically this country no longer exists.”

    “Not in the strictest sense, no. It’s now considered a province.”

    “So what good is telling me I’m a king if I have no country to rule?”

    The lawyer shifted in his chair. “Well, the problem is in order for your former country to be properly incorporated, there must be a formal declaration of surrender from a member of the royal family.”

    “And the actual royal family couldn’t sign because...?”

    “I’m afraid it’s rather embarrassing.”

    “Just tell me. This couldn’t get any more ridiculous than it already is.”

    “Food poisoning.”

    “All of them?”

    “Yes.”

    “At the same time? At the same dinner?”

    “It was a family reunion, sir.”

    “That I happened to not be invited to.”

    The lawyer shifted in his seat again and tried to straighten the papers in front of Jack. He shuffled them again until they were a mess on the desk.

    “Your father had a bit of a wild streak. There were... dalliances.”

    “But I’m the only child produced from these dalliances.”

    “The oldest, at the very least. You were not easy to track down.”

    Jack sat back in his chair and rubbed his eyes. “So I’m expected to surrender a country that no longer exists to people I’ve never heard of before today, to satisfy some need for everyone’s paperwork to be in order?”

    “My client has authorized me to make you an offer in exchange for your cooperation.”

    “An offer? What kind of offer?”

    “They are willing to appoint you baron over a portion of the country you’ll be surrendering. You are also to receive a generous stipend to help you manage that land.”

    “How much of a stipend?”

    The lawyer wrote a number down on a scrap of paper and passed it over to Jack. He whistled.

    “This is what the royal family would have wanted, right? This move will be good for the people, right?”

    “Undoubtedly, sir. Your people will see an increase in employment rates and overall satisfaction.”

    “And if I don’t sign, then we would go to war.”

    “Very likely.”

    “People would die. Resources and money would be wasted. The countryside would be devastated.”

    “Utterly destroyed.”

    “It would be selfish of me to hold out.”

    The lawyer straightened the papers and passed them over to Jack. He took out a pen and scrawled his name on the signature line. It seemed a pretty big hit, going from a king to a baron in the space of ten minutes, but he was sure he could survive such a sacrifice.

    It was for the good of the people, after all.