The Book of the Unknown: Tales of the Thirty-six by Jonathon Keats Page A

be scrubbed with soap after a rainstorm. Grateful as the king was for not needing to make such decisions, other cases were horribly complicated by the number of precedents that simultaneously had to be taken into consideration.
    One in particular bedeviled him, and had rattled his nocturnal hours, as persistent as a succubus, for many years: the selection of his own bride. Not a single matter was more important to his subjects, for whom there could be no future until he had an heir. Muscular as his arms were from lifting books, and lithe as his fingers were from flipping pages, he was no longer young. He wore the same cerulean robes that he had for as long as folks could remember, but the seasons had crowned him, in his fortieth year, with a silver head of hair.
    His Majesty looked like a sage, a philosopher-king of antiquity, but truly the effect didn’t reach beneath his coif. While he knew he had to marry the most worthy girl in the land, he’d no idea how to calculate who best fit that description. There were so many variables to factor into the equation: lineage, social status, wealth, intelligence, beauty. And to look up in his books any one condition was to discover variables within variables, a tyranny of details. How to evaluate lineage when family trees were brambles of intermarriage? How to assay wealth when gold held weight only in proportion to the whole economy?
    With each passing year, the king was less confident than he’d been the year before. If anything, that made him a better administrator. He had no prejudices. He made no assumptions. He spoke without inflection. When told of Gimmel, whose second day in the marketplace drew an even rowdier crowd than the first, he showed no personal aversion. With customary resignation, he said that he’d have to consult his books.
    In his thousand hide-bound volumes, the word gambler wasn’t mentioned once. He couldn’t even find a definition for chance. Finally, he asked that Gimmel be brought to his library.
    — Your Majesty wants to play?
    — Tell me, what is it you do for a living?
    The king watched as the gambler rolled two dice across his little table, and then rolled them again. Each time, a different number came up. The king stared, incredulous.
    — Is it a trick?
    — If it were, Your Majesty, they’d always show up the same.
    He invited the king to place a bet. Each would pick a number, and the one whose guess came closer would win the pot. Of course, the monarch had never made a guess in his life, but, after consultation with a couple of books, he reckoned that the highest number was the only one worthy of a sovereign. He bet that the dice would roll twelve. Gimmel, on the other hand, picked the number that brought him the best luck: He put his money, the last penny he had, on seven. The king tossed. The gambler won.
    Was His Majesty upset? Not in the least. In fact, he felt the faint lightness in his head, the slight tingling in his fingers, that occasionally came to him when he stood at the top rung of his ladder, reaching for a book almost out of reach. He ordered another round.
    They played for hours. Gradually, the library filled with the king’s treasure, which he steadily lost to Gimmel. The gambler was especially fortunate that day, right on the money. Just to be fair, he suggested that the king bet on lucky seven, but his majesty preferred consistency. And perhaps he enjoyed losing his fortune, unspent by tradition, centuries’ burden.
    By the next morning, the king’s coffers were empty. He’d gambled away all the crown jewels, every grain of silver and gold. He wanted to wager his books, but he knew they no longer had value. So he grasped Gimmel’s hands.
    — Enjoy my fortune. For what you’ve given me, it’s scarcely compensation.
    Two wagons were brought to haul the treasure away. The king had them hitched with horses from the royal stables. He also offered a rank of guards, but the gambler preferred to take his chances. The