The Gypsy King (27 page)

S
TAGGERED THOUGH SHE WAS to discover that she was in the presence of the dreaded Regent Mordecai himself, Persephone did not gasp or cry out or swoon or otherwise exhibit any outward signs of shock and distress.

Instead, she lifted her chin a little higher and dropped into a curtsey as low as befitted a man of such great station.

“Your Grace,” she murmured, as she tried to ignore the increasingly loud and desperate cries of the nearby slum dwellers. “I am most pleased to make your acquaintance.”

“I am most … intrigued to make yours, my lady,” replied Mordecai, whose eyes had yet to leave her face, “for though I have never personally met the reclusive Lord Bothwell, I had understood him to be determinedly unmarried.”

“He was,” agreed Persephone smoothly even as she silently cursed herself for not having considered the possibility that Lord Bothwell was a bachelor, “until he met me and—”

“How did you meet?” interrupted the Regent.

Afraid of hesitating even for an instant, Persephone
gave the first answer that came to mind. “Hunting,” she said.

“Hunting!” exclaimed Mordecai in a voice that told Persephone she'd made another mistake. “That is interesting indeed, my lady, for I had also understood Lord Bothwell to be of such advanced age that he was hardly able to tend to the call of nature by himself, let alone ride out to bring down game.”

“Though you are correct that my husband is of great age, sir,” said Persephone, who'd begun to sweat freely, “you have been sadly misinformed as to his health and vigour.”

Persephone saw the Regent's eyes narrow. “Is that so?” he said. “But if he is as well as you say, why does he continually plead infirmity as a reason to avoid court?”

Feeling as though she were up to her nostrils in quicksand and not knowing what else to do, Persephone shrugged prettily and curtseyed again—only this time as she dipped down she inhaled deeply and arched her back ever so slightly, so that the flickering light from the pitch torch might better illuminate her assets.

“As a mere woman, I cannot speak for my dear husband's actions, Your Grace,” she murmured as she peeked, wide-eyed and innocent, up through her lashes into the Regent's disturbingly handsome face. “However, I can assure you that he is as loyal a subject as His Majesty could hope for.”

The Regent said nothing for so long that Persephone's legs began to shake with the strain of holding her position and she began to fear that her ploy had been too obvious.

Then, all at once, he indicated that she should rise. “Tell me, Lady Bothwell,” he said in a voice that sounded almost tender, “how is it that I find a beautiful woman of your great station in such a despicable place on a night like this?”

“I was on my way to the imperial city to … to visit the markets when my cavalcade was set upon by bandits,” she explained haltingly, hoping that the Regent would take her hesitation for evidence that she'd been badly traumatized rather than as proof that she was making up the story as she went along. “Afterward, I was somehow able to make my way to the gates of the city but … but by that time darkness had fallen. The streets were deserted so there was no one from whom to beg safe haven or directions to respectable lodgings and … and then I heard screams and saw soldiers and … and I grew frightened and so … and so I ducked in here to hide alone until morning.”

“Alone?” grunted the Regent, wincing and snatching awkwardly at his horse's mane as the creature shifted beneath him without warning.

Persephone's heart leapt into her throat at the thought of Azriel, Rachel and Cur who were hiding just three steps away. “Of course,” she said as she gestured to the darkness around her.

“But why alone?” persisted Mordecai, who was now glaring at his horse with undisguised loathing. “What happened to your attendants?”

For one awful moment, Persephone could think of nothing to say. Then, “Murdered, Your Grace!” she cried in a voice bursting with genuine distress. “Their throats
slit! Their bodies dumped where none but the wild beasts would ever find them!”

Mordecai's gaze slid from the despised horse to Persephone. Lifting his bobbing head a little higher, he cocked it to one side and said, “But how did
you
escape, Lady Bothwell? I would have thought that the brutes would have torn the clothes from your ripe young body and ravished you until you begged for death.”

The lust in his voice was so obvious that Persephone's fingers itched to reach for her dagger. Instead, she clasped her hands demurely before her, bowed her head and murmured, “Luck, my lord. As it happened, I was some distance away attending to private functions when the bandits descended. I am ashamed to admit that I hid while they went about their terrible business and—”

“Well, what else should you have done?” interrupted Mordecai with more than a trace of impatience. “Seen your noble blood spilled and your virtue destroyed for the sake of a handful of servants that could be replaced as easily as smashed dinner plates?”

“No, of course not,” said Persephone hastily. “I only meant—”

“Lady Bothwell, I do not wish to linger here any longer,” he announced imperiously. “The routing of the lowborns from the slum is more or less complete. Those that now hide within their hovels in the vain hope that we will forget them shall shortly be in for a very warm surprise, and though I know it will be nothing less than the wretches deserve for defying my personally proclaimed orders to quit that miserable place, I confess that I am
soft-hearted enough to find that the screams of those being burned alive rather … interferes with my digestion.”

The men around him all guffawed in appreciation.

“I understand,” said Persephone, trying not to visibly shudder. Curtseying deeply, and with great dignity, she said, “In that case, I bid you good night, Your Grace.”

Mordecai stared at her for a moment before he burst out laughing. “My
dear
Lady Bothwell, you don't actually imagine that I am going to leave you here, do you?” he asked, still chuckling as he gestured toward the alley. “Though my men are doing an admirable job of rounding up the slum's erstwhile inhabitants, there will be some that refuse to meekly accept the fact that they are to be transported to where they can actually be of some use. They will be out here this night—seeking to escape my men, yes, but also seeking to wreak vengeance upon anyone who does not share their fate. You escaped ravishment once, my lady—I do not think your luck would hold a second time.” Here he paused in a manner that suggested to Persephone that he was once again imagining her ravishment—and savouring the image. “Besides,” he continued at length, “what would you propose to do for the balance of the night? Stand ankle deep in muck trying to look poised? Lie down upon the vermin-infested filth and attempt to catch up on your beauty sleep?”

“Well, I—”

“No, Lady Bothwell,” he said firmly. “You will come with me now. I will find you a suitable suite of rooms at the palace. You will bathe and rest and in a few days, once you've fully recovered from the various traumas and
hardships that you have endured this day, I will send word to your husband that you are safe and well and ask him to send men to fetch you.”

“That won't be necessary,” Persephone said quickly. “I can make my own arrangements—”

“As you wish,” said Mordecai with a careless wave of his hand. Glancing sourly at the strapping young soldier next to him, he snapped, “You! Get down and assist Lady Bothwell up onto my horse, behind me. I will personally see to her safety during the ride back to the palace.”

After a moment of hesitation that betrayed the young soldier's surprise that the Regent would offer to protect anyone—and perhaps his skepticism that the ruined man had the ability to do so—the soldier gave a brisk nod, leapt down off his own horse and held his black-gloved hand out to Persephone. She stepped forward and tentatively took it because, really, what choice did she have? As she could think of no reasonable basis upon which to offer protest, to do so would only have aroused suspicions.

And so, not daring to risk even a glance behind her for fear that the Regent would wonder what—or whom—she was looking at, Persephone followed the soldier out of the alley to where the Regent's horse stood tossing its head with impatience. Aware that all eyes were upon her, she did her very best to take the graceful, mincing steps of a noblewoman and not the long, practical strides of a slave girl. She felt that she was putting on a pretty fair show until they reached the Regent's horse and instead of tossing her into the saddle—a prospect she hadn't been looking forward to but which she'd at least been expecting—the
soldier laced his fingers together, leaned over and looked up at her with an expectant look on his dirty face.

“What … what is the meaning of this?” Persephone blustered, folding her arms tightly across her heaving chest. “I am accustomed to being tossed into the saddle!”

Everyone but the Regent snickered.

“Yes, 'course you are, m'lady!” said the soldier amiably. “Excepting that if I toss you into the saddle while His Grace is still sitting in it, you're as like to knock him to the ground as end up there yourself. This way, see, you can use my hands as a step and throw your leg over the back of the beast without risking life and limb.”

“I knew
that
,” muttered Persephone. “I only meant that I am not used to this manner of mounting”—more snickers from the men, this time tinged with lewdness— “because it is not
seemly
for a woman of my station to ride astride like a man or a common wench,” she continued with a glare that quieted the men at once. “However, under the circumstances it seems I have no choice but to do so.”

“Very good, m'lady,” said the soldier, who did not seem to care overly much for Persephone's reasons and explanations. “Up you go, then.”

Awkwardly, Persephone placed her foot in the cradle formed by the soldier's laced fingers. Then, having no idea what to do with her hands, she was about to gingerly rest them on the soldier's greasy head when he straightened up without warning, sending her flying into the air. Somehow, she had the presence of mind to fling her right leg sideways, but that only meant that when she landed
askew on the horse's back and started to fall, her skirts were in such disarray that they very likely would have ended up around her ears if she'd not prevented herself from falling by grabbing on to the only thing within reach: the frail, crippled body of the Regent. Stifling a gasp of pain, the Regent immediately flung himself to one side in an attempt to counterbalance her falling weight. The two of them hung, one on either side of the saddle, for a long, breathless moment before Persephone finally managed to grunt and wriggle her way upright, forcibly hauling the Regent upright as she did so. As soon as they were both out of danger of plummeting to the ground, Persephone—acutely aware of how very
un-noble
she'd just looked—rounded angrily on the soldier.

“Clumsy fool!” she said severely. “How dare you treat me so crudely—I could have fallen and been injured! Or worse—I could have injured the Lord Regent! Is that what you were hoping for? Well, is it?”

The strapping young soldier seemed to shrink before her very eyes. “No, m'lady!” he cried, his eyes darting to the Regent in such fear that Persephone suddenly felt guilty for having implied treachery on his part. “No! I swear! I meant no harm—to you or to His Grace. I
swear!
I would never—”

“Oh, enough,” muttered the Regent distractedly. Sitting up a little straighter he grabbed the reins and was about to dig his razor-sharp spurs into the alreadybleeding flanks of his mount when there came a loud clatter from the alley. “What was that!” he snapped, wheeling back around.

To Persephone's horror, the strapping young soldier immediately unsheathed his sword and ran toward the alley and those it sheltered. Luckily, he hadn't taken more than three steps when a hundred pounds of hurtling dog flesh violently swept his legs out from under him. As he crashed to the cobblestones, Cur continued on and was about to skid to a halt beside the Regent's horse—at Persephone's feet—when he saw the surreptitious but unmistakable order hidden in the flick of her fingers. Veering sharply without breaking stride, he bounded off into the night even as the furious soldier scrambled to his feet and ran for his bow.

“No!” cried Persephone, her entire body stiffening as the first arrow pierced the darkness into which her friend had vanished.

A fraction of a second later, a human shriek from that same direction told them all that the arrow had found a mark—though not the intended one.

Heedless of both the shriek and Persephone's cry, the soldier notched another arrow. Before he could release it, however, the Regent ordered him to leave off and return to his horse so that they could be on their way.

“Lady Bothwell,” called the Regent, as they trotted briskly toward the torch-lit chaos of the slum, “I must tell you that I find it odd that you would show concern over the fate of a miserable cur.”

“I care about many things, Your Grace,” blurted Persephone, who was unable to loosen her death grip on his twisted body for fear that she would slide backward off the horse.

The Regent, who was clearly revelling in the feel of her strong, young arms around him—gave a shuddering sigh and said, “That is … an unusual attitude for a woman of your station.”

“I am an unusual woman,” replied Persephone, who could think of nothing else to say.

“Indeed,” breathed the Regent Mordecai.

TWENTY