I’m Otto of Schlepsig. Ah, you’ve heard the name, I see. Yes, I’m that Otto of Schlepsig. Some other people claim to be, but I’m the real one, by the Two Prophets. I’m the one who was King of Shqiperi. I ruled the Land of the Eagle for five whole days.

No, I wasn’t born blueblooded. By my hope of heaven, I wasn’t. As a matter of fact, I was born in a barn. Truly. Literally. It was either that or make a mess of my parents’ traveling caravan, and my mother-a trouper among troupers-would never have done such a thing.

I could lie to you and make out that Mother and Father were more famous than they really were. Why not? You’d never know the difference. But what’s the point of telling a story if you don’t tell a true story? So…They were sideshow performers, and that’s the long and short of it. I grew up among more or less trained monkeys and bearded ladies and sea snakes and drunken, down-at-the-heels sorcerers and flea circuses and demons and all the other strange odds and ends that might make a mark want to part with some silver-or, a lot of the places where we played, with some copper.

I daresay it warped me for life. But I’ve had fun.

In the forty-odd years-some of them odder than others-since my mother waddled off to lie down in the hay, I’ve done a lot of things. I’ve been an actor. People still talk about the way I played King Clodweg in The Maiden with Seven Boots. Sometimes they don’t even throw things when they do. I’ve climbed all 287 steps on the way to the top of the Temple of Siwa-and I met another traveler from Schlepsig when I got there. I’ve been an acrobat. I’ve rescued a princess. That she didn’t particularly want to be rescued wasn’t my fault. I’ve served not one but two hitches in the army of the Hassockian Empire. (Whether that says more about how desperate I was or how desperate the Hassocki were, I leave for you to decide.)