The Kingdom That Counted

The kingdom had counters for grain and counters for coin, counters for births and counters for the length of the queue at the well. Each morning the counters climbed the tower and read their numbers to the king, and the king nodded, because the numbers were always exact and always slightly worse than the day before.

Nobody said dragon. The grain counter said shrinkage. The coin counter said leakage. The counter of sheep, who had the hardest job, said that the flock was experiencing attrition in the eastern pasture, which was the one with the scorch marks.

A child who had not yet learned to count asked why the eastern pasture was black. The king called for a counter of pastures, who confirmed that one pasture in nine was black, up from one in twelve, and proposed a committee on pasture colour.

The dragon, who could not count and did not need to, ate the committee. The kingdom's numbers improved for a quarter, because there were fewer mouths, and the king declared the committee a success.

In time there was one counter left, and he counted himself, and the number was one, and it was exact, and the tower was warm.