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THE END

TO BE READ AFTER YOU HAVE FINISHED “DESPOILERS OF THE GOLDEN EMPIRE.”

Dear John,

It has been brought to my attention, by those who have read the story, that “Despoilers of the Golden Empire” might conceivably be charged with being a “reader cheater”–i.e., that it does not play fair with the reader, but leads him astray by means of false statements. Naturally, I feel it me bounden duty to refute such scurrilous and untrue affronts, and thus save meself from opprobrium.

Therefore, I address what follows to the interested reader:

It cannot be denied that you must have been misled when you read the story; indeed, I’d be the last to deny it, since I intended that you should be misled. What I most certainly do deny is any implication that such misleading was accomplished by the telling of untruths. A fiction writer is, by definition, a professional liar; he makes his living by telling interesting lies on paper and selling the results to the highest bidder for publication. Since fiction writing is my livelihood, I cannot and will not deny that I am an accomplished liar–indeed, almost an habitual one. Therefore, I feel some small pique when, on the one occasion on which I stick strictly to the truth, I am accused of fraud. Pfui! say I; I refute you. “I deny the allegation, and I defy the alligator!”

To prove my case, I shall take several examples from “Despoilers” and show that the statements made are perfectly valid. (Please note that I do not claim any absolute accuracy for such details as quoted dialogue, except that none of the characters lies. I simply contend that the story is as accurate as any other good historical novelette. I also might say here that any resemblance between “Despoilers” and any story picked at random from the late lamented Planet Stories is purely intentional and carefully contrived.)

Take the first sentence:

“In the seven centuries that had elapsed since the Second Empire had been founded on the shattered remnants of the First, the nobles of the Imperium had come slowly to realize that the empire was not to be judged by the examples of its predecessor.”

Perfectly true. By the time of the Renaissance, the nobles of the Holy Roman Empire knew that their empire was not just a continuation of the Roman Empire, but a new entity. The old Roman Empire had collapsed in the Sixth Century, and the Holy Roman Empire, which was actually a loose confederation of Germanic states, did not come into being until A. D. 800, when Karl der Grosse (Charlemagne) was crowned emperor by the Pope.

Anyone who wishes to quibble that the date should be postponed for a century and a half, until the time of the German prince, Otto, may do so; I will ignore him.

A few paragraphs later, I said:

“Without power, neither Civilization nor the Empire could hold itself together, and His Universal Majesty, the Emperor Carl, well knew it. And power was linked solidly to one element, one metal …”

The metal, as I said later on, was Gold-197.

By “power,” of course, I meant political and economic power. In the Sixteenth Century, that’s what almost anyone would have meant. If you chose to interpret it as meaning “energy per unit time,” why, that’s real tough.

Why nail the “power metal” down to an isotope of gold with an atomic weight of 197? Because that’s the only naturally occurring isotope of gold.

The “Emperor Carl” was, of course, Charles V, who also happened to be King of Spain, and therefore Pizarro’s sovereign. I Germanicized his name, as I did the others–Francisco Pizarro becomes “Frank,” et cetera–but this is perfectly legitimate. After all, the king’s name in Latin, which was used in all state papers, was Carolus; the Spanish called him Carlos, and history books in English call him Charles. Either Karl or Carl is just as legitimate as Charles, certainly, and the same applies to the other names in the story.