The Gypsy King (20 page)

Grunting and flopping around, she yanked down her skirt, jumped to her feet, gamely raised her fists and
looked for the shadowy figure, but even as she did so, she found herself pushed up against the hut with both wrists pinned above her head. She immediately tried to drive her knee into the groin of her captor. He managed to evade her (though just barely) then staggered forward so that she had no room to try again—so that she couldn't squirm or even move without feeling some part of her brush up against some part of him. Persephone felt, rather than saw, him dip his head toward hers and she was about to throw her own head forward in the hope of smashing his nose with her forehead when an unsteady—but infinitely warm and familiar—voice murmured, “I see that you still have the grace and poise of a natural dancer, Persephone.”

Her heart leapt into her throat even as her knees went weak with relief. “And I see that you still have the irksome habit of showing up in the dead of night unannounced and unwelcome,
Azriel
,” she said coolly. “Feeling better, are we?”

“Yes,” he said, “the healers' antidote is wondrously effective, though I admit that I'm still rather weak.”

“And rather hot,” she added distractedly as her skin began to tingle in response to the waves of heat that radiated off every part of him.

“Rather hot?” he echoed.

Persephone could hear the smile in his voice. “I meant
feverish
,” she said as she tried without success to jerk her hands free of his grasp. “Why are you here, Azriel?”

“Two reasons,” he said, grunting softly as he shifted his weight from one leg to the other. “First, I wanted to prevent your inevitable escape attempt as I did not wish
to spend the better part of tomorrow collecting the pieces of you and Rachel that had been strewn about by the ravenous night beasts of the forest.”

From inside the hut there came a small whimper.

“Second,” continued Azriel, who was wheezing ever so slightly, “Cairn wanted me to prepare you for what you will see and hear when you join my people at the fire this night.”

On the far side of the clearing, the throbbing drumbeat, cymbal clashes and rhythmic jingle of ankle bells were joined by the breathy, haunting sounds of a whistle pipe. The strange music made Persephone's blood run so hot and so fast that she wanted to slap Azriel hard across the face and kiss him hard on the mouth, all at the same time.

“Azriel,” she whispered, “Cairn said my presence here was a complication. Is it because your people need a girl who looks like me—but only
one
girl who looks like me?”

“Yes,” he whispered as he slowly released her hands but made no move to step away. “The night I met you I told you I'd been looking for you for as long as I could remember. We'd all been searching, and when Fayla discovered Rachel scavenging for scraps behind the fishmonger's stall, we thought we'd found her. But then after I met you and saw how dauntless you were, I started to believe that you were the girl—”

“What girl?”

“The girl at the heart of a prophecy made long ago,” replied Azriel, leaning against the wall of the hut as though for support. “A prophecy made by the last surviving Gypsy
Seer—an old woman murdered fifteen years ago this very night.”

On the other side of the wall, Persephone could sense Rachel holding her breath, and she found that she, herself, was also hardly daring to breathe. “And what
exactly
did this prophecy say, Azriel?” she asked.

“That there would be a great Gypsy King whose coming would unite the five tribes of Glyndoria and set things to right for all people,” he said, his voice tinged with excitement. “And that a girl who looks like you—and Rachel—would have something to do with bringing this king to power. And that just maybe this king was meant to rediscover the Pool of Genezing and see my people safely settled by its waters' edge once more!”

For a moment, Persephone could only stare at Azriel, indignation swelling in her breast at the fact that her whole world had been turned upside down on account of a ridiculous tribal
fantasy
.

“So,” she finally said, “this is the reason you kidnapped Rachel and dragged me halfway across Glyndoria?”

“Persephone—”

Pressing her palms against Azriel's burning chest, she shoved him away with such force that in his weakened state, he actually staggered backward a few steps. “You had no right,” she said flatly. “Moreover, it makes no sense at all. Rachel and I are both penniless orphans— how could either of us ever play the kingmaker? And how could a Gypsy ever rule Glyndoria? The Erok have all but conquered the land, and the Erok nobility would
never
bow to a Gypsy King. Never! Neither would any
of the other three tribes! And as for the healing Pool of Genezing—well, everyone knows it is the stuff of fairytales.”

“It is
not
the stuff of fairytales!” exclaimed Azriel as he grabbed her wrist and did his best to pull her close once more. “It
is
real and a Gypsy King
will
come and tonight we will finally find out what part you—or Rachel—will play in bringing him to power.”

“Oh?” said Persephone, managing to sound sarcastic in spite of her sudden breathlessness. “And will you also find out which of us is expected to do this impossible thing?”

“I … I don't think so—I think we are meant to decide for ourselves.”

“And how will you decide?”

“I don't know.”

“Well, what will you do with the girl who is
not
the one you seek?”

“I … don't know that, either.”

The truth—which was that the Gypsies could never risk releasing someone who could lead the Regent's New Men to their secret camp—hung between them. But Persephone already had a plan to deal with that, so all she said was, “Even if all you say is true, Azriel, the path to setting a Gypsy upon a throne recognized by all tribes would be a dangerous and bloody one, indeed. What on earth makes you think that either Rachel or I would be willing to follow it?”

Azriel slid his free arm around her waist so that he could pull her closer still. “The girl who is meant to follow
the path will have no choice but to do so, for it is her destiny,” he whispered. “Now come. Let us fetch Rachel so that we may join my tribesmen by the fire and learn the answers my people have waited fifteen long years to know.”

A few heartbeats later, Persephone was standing by the fire next to Rachel, the eyes of every Gypsy in the clearing upon them. Directly before her sat Cairn, still holding the canister and the dagger; beside Cairn sat an exceptionally beautiful Gypsy girl. Asleep in the arms of the girl was the little boy who'd earlier “brung them thupper.”

To hide her sudden nervousness, Persephone lifted her chin and threw a cool look at Cairn. The older woman returned her look with an equal measure of coolness. For a long moment nobody moved, and the only sounds were the crackling of the fire and the whisper of the wind through the trees.

Then Cairn began to speak.

“A week ago, we received a message by carrier pigeon that this boy and his family had been discovered masquerading as Erok,” she said quietly, gesturing toward the sleeping child. “The family's neighbours— people with whom they'd shared many years of good and hard times alike—had sent word to the Regent Mordecai, scalped the parents and the older siblings and shut away the child until the New Men could arrive to transport him back to Parthania and such horrors that
his certain death—when it finally came—would seem a great mercy indeed.” Here she paused. “The Gypsy who sent the carrier pigeon could not intervene for fear of endangering his own masquerading family, so Azriel, Tiny and the others tracked the New Men, set fire to their camp and liberated the child.” She paused again. “It is our hope that it was one of the last such rescue missions we shall ever have to undertake.”

Reaching into a small wooden chest at her feet, she brought forth an ancient-looking scroll. With painstaking care, she unrolled it and held it up so that Persephone and Rachel could see it. Drawn in charcoal, the bold, confident lines of the sketch were remarkably few, but the likeness to her and Rachel was so unmistakable that it made the hair on the back of Persephone's neck stand on end.

“While deep in her final trance, our last Seer drew this sketch,” began Cairn. “One of you is this girl, while the other is—”

Persephone held up her hand. “Before you go any further, you should know that Rachel and I have sworn a blood oath that if harm should come to one of us, the other shall immediately impale herself upon the nearest sharp implement,” she lied.

This announcement made Rachel gasp aloud and set the Gypsies to muttering among themselves. Cairn quieted her people with a sweep of her hand, then raised a fine, soot-coloured eyebrow at Rachel and asked, “Is this true?”

Mutely, Rachel bobbed her head up and down even as her eyes darted about wildly as though in search of the
implement upon which she might be forced to impale herself forthwith.

Leaning forward slightly, Cairn gave Persephone a penetrating look and said, “You inspired her to lay down her life for your cause.”

“It was she who inspired me,” corrected Persephone, who had no intention of letting Rachel be viewed as the “complication.”

Half of the Gypsies nodded emphatically at the news that the blood oath had been Rachel's idea; the other half frowned as though this made no sense at all. Azriel—who'd just eased himself down onto a seat beside the beautiful girl holding the sleeping child—looked at Persephone as if to say that he wasn't fooled by her tricks for an instant.

She ignored him.

“As you can see,” said Cairn, “my people are divided on the issue of which one of you is the girl we seek, and we've not been able to agree upon a suitable manner by which to resolve our dilemma. So, for the time being, you are both safe, blood oath or not.”

“For the time being,” echoed Persephone. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Azriel lean over and whisper something to the girl beside him.
Probably his beautiful sweetheart
, she thought irritably, before turning her attention back to Cairn.

“There is no use trying to cross bridges until we come to them,” said the older woman, as though plans to indefinitely detain or dispose of one girl or the other was an issue of minor importance. “Tonight, there is but one bridge to cross.”

The flames of the bonfire seemed to leap higher with these words. Somewhere in the darkness, an owl hooted.

Persephone said nothing, but her gaze darted to the leather canister clutched tight in the older woman's hand. Obviously, it contained a message from the long-dead Seer explaining how the girl in the sketch was meant to fulfill her destiny. What the message was going to say, Persephone could not imagine—except for imagining that it was going to spell grave danger for her and Rachel.

Suddenly fearful of where this tribal madness was about to lead, Persephone cast a desperate glance at Azriel, but he was too busy listening to the whispered response of his beautiful sweetheart to notice. Before she could even begin to resent this, however, the drums began to beat once more. Rachel whimpered softly and reached for Persephone's hand. As she did so, Cairn slowly rose from her seat and held the stiff leather canister aloft for all to see. With trembling hands, she lifted the dagger she'd been holding, cut through the wax that sealed the canister and pried off the top. Eagerly, she removed and unrolled a scroll. When she read the words written upon it, however, the eagerness in her eyes abruptly faded. Frowning, she gazed up at the night sky for a long moment before handing the scroll to Azriel. With a puzzled expression, he, too, looked up. Then he held the scroll out to Persephone, who took it and studied it very closely before showing it to Rachel.

“I don't understand,” said Rachel, after she'd laboriously sounded out the words under her breath. “What does this mean?”

The beautiful Gypsy girl stood up. “What does what mean?” she asked impatiently. “What does it say?”

“I think … I think it says ‘Look up,'” said Rachel doubtfully.

The Gypsies stared blankly at her for a moment. Then they all looked at each other. Then, rather uncertainly, they all looked up.

Even as they did so, there came a loud screech from high overhead. The next instant, Ivan swooped down, dropped a bloody bundle of feathers at Persephone's feet and did several spectacular loop-the-loops before finally alighting upon her shoulder and moodily glaring at the Gypsies as though he would gladly peck out all of their eyes.

“Is that your hawk?” asked Tiny in a hushed voice.

“No,” said Persephone. “He is my friend.”

“He has killed one of our pigeons,” observed Cairn, who was staring fixedly at the bloody bundle of feathers on the dusty ground at Persephone's feet.