The Gypsy King (37 page)

T
HE MOMENT MORDECAI and the guards departed, Persephone dropped the bow from her shaking hand and sank into the nearest chair. Meeka swiftly handed her a mug of ale, Meena fanned her face, Martha fussed with her hair and little Meeta—who looked nearly as rattled as Persephone felt and who apparently could think of nothing else to do—ran to fetch her something to eat.

Under the guise of helping to adjust the cushion behind her back, Azriel leaned close enough to brush his lips against her ear. “You must stop saving my life,” he whispered, “for you are starting to make me look bad.”

For some reason, Persephone nearly burst into tears at his teasing words. She did not know what had made her laugh in the face of the Regent's rage—nor where she'd found the courage to do so—but she knew for a certainty that if she hadn't, Azriel would have come to terrible harm.

“Go, now. Go hunting with the great ladies of the court,” he continued softly, his warm breath tickling her
skin. “By the time you return to me, I will have figured out a way for us to save my little tribesman—and a way to keep you out of the cold hands of that monstrous old lecher.”

Before Persephone could reply, Meeka's face loomed between them. “While you're gone hunting, m'lady,” she said loudly, “shall I teach your eunuch how to promptly adjust a lady's cushion so that in the future you need not suffer having him linger about you so?”

“What? Oh! Yes, uh, thank you,” stammered Persephone, wishing she didn't blush so easily. “And please find him a shirt to wear. It is not … seemly for a slave of a lady's chambers to be so ill clad, even if he is only a eunuch.”

“Indeed,” said Meeka, eyes gleaming.

After donning her hat, cloak and gloves and retrieving her bow, Persephone made her way down to the royal stables. By the time she arrived most of the ladies were already mounted and—to Persephone's surprise—so were a goodly number of dandified gentlemen.

“Lady Bothwell!” cried tiny Lady Aurelia, as she cantered up on a dappled mare. “I'd begun to worry that you'd decided not to join the hunt after all! Do you like my hat?”

“I do,” murmured Persephone as she apprehensively watched a scrawny little stable lad hurry toward her doing his best to lead an enormous black mare that was stomping,
snorting, tossing its head and glowering at everyone and everything in its path.

“Oh, I'm
so
glad,” said Lady Aurelia, her bright eyes shining. “Now, mount up as fast as you can! The Master of the Hunt will sound the horn any moment and I daresay that horse you've been given will join the fray whether you're upon its back or not!”

Persephone smiled weakly at this, then looked uncertainly at the stable lad, who did not look
nearly
big and strong enough to help her into the saddle.

Lady Aurelia laughed shrilly. “Fear not, Lady Bothwell—you shan't have to fly up into the saddle,” she said. “My ne'er-do-well brother Lord Atticus approaches, and if he can hold himself upright for long enough, I daresay he can help you onto your horse.”

Aghast, Persephone spun around to find herself face to face with the very same Lord Atticus who'd threatened to ravish her and Rachel three days earlier. Though not as drunk as he'd been then, he'd obviously been drinking, for his doublet was rumpled, he stank of ale and his close-set eyes were bloodshot and watery.

Swallowing hard, Persephone coolly introduced herself as “Lady Bothwell” and held out her hand for him to kiss. For one terrible moment, he scrutinized her face so closely that she was sure he recognized her and was about to denounce her. Then, abruptly, his gaze dropped to her bosom. With a smile that strongly resembled a leer, he then leaned over and pressed his fleshy lips against her glove until his saliva left a mark on the soft leather, just as it had done on poor Fayla's glove. When he lifted his head,
Persephone noticed that the vicious scratch Ivan had given him had begun to fester. Though she badly wanted to ask him how he'd come by the scratch—and what had happened to the creature who'd given it to him—she did not dare.

“So,” whispered Atticus, still gawking at her bosom as he slipped his hands around her waist and yanked her so close that she could feel the hardness of his codpiece pressed against her, “am I to understand that you would like to be mounted?”

Actually, what I would like is to turn the pitiful contents of your oversized codpiece into pig slop
, thought Persephone fiercely. Out loud, in a voice as innocent as it was proper, she said, “Yes, my lord. That is what I would like.”

Persephone had just managed to crook one knee around the pommel of the sidesaddle and wedge her other foot into the uncomfortably tight stirrup when the Master of the Hunt blew his horn and the beaters brought out the hounds. They were the same slit-eyed, grey-black beasts she'd encountered previously, and at the sight of them, Persephone's horse reared and lunged so abruptly that she nearly fell off its back. As soon as she recovered her balance, the horse stopped just as abruptly, causing her to fall forward and bang her nose into its neck so hard that her eyes watered. All the way out of the stable yard and through the palace gates it was the same thing, and whether she yanked on the reins, spoke kindly or issued
stern commands, Persephone's horse paid her even less attention than dear old Fleet generally paid Azriel.

By the time they reached the perimeter of the vast imperial parkland in which the hunt was to take place, Persephone—who could usually find something to love in any animal—was convinced that the giant, snorting beast beneath her was pathologically disagreeable, deaf and possible deranged. She was also convinced that if she attempted to ride it for very much longer, it would see that she paid dearly for it. Turning to Lady Aurelia, she was about to ask if there was some way she could trade in her horse for one that wasn't demonically possessed when she was assailed by a stench so horrible that she began to gag. Quickly covering her mouth with her hand, she looked forward to see half a dozen human heads perched on pikes planted in the ground at the entrance to the parkland. Grey and flaccid, with ragged necks, open eyes and dribbles of black blood staining their gaping mouths, they instantly recalled memories from Persephone's brief but terrible time in the Mines of Torodania—and the punishment meted out to anyone caught trying to sneak into or out of the dread place.

“Is something the matter, Lady Bothwell?” inquired a smirking young noblewoman in a gorgeously plumed burgundy hat and matching riding cloak.

Persephone breathed shallowly through her mouth. “No … I just.…” Jerkily, she gestured toward the heads. “Who are—I mean, uh, who
were
they?”

“Do you not recognize them?” asked the noblewoman in a curious voice. “They're the bandits who attacked
you, of course.” She smiled slyly. “
I
heard that the Regent Mordecai was so distressed that your caravan had been attacked that he sent General Murdock out the very next day to hunt down and destroy the lowborn wretches responsible.”

Persephone could barely contain her horror at the fact that her lie had caused these terrible deaths. “But … but how did he know that
these
were the bandits who attacked me?” she gasped.

“Well, weren't they?” twittered another of the young noblewomen, a large-nosed, thin-lipped girl in a richly embellished blue velvet dress—a girl who seemed to find
terribly
amusing the possibility that the General had executed the wrong men.

“Th-they were,” stammered Persephone, who had no wish to see more innocent men murdered on account of her lie. “I … I only wondered how he knew that they were.”

Lady Aurelia rolled her eyes. “Oh, what does it matter, Lady Bothwell?” she asked with sudden impatience. “The deed is done, so let us make haste to get past the stink of it so that we may enjoy the day at hand.”

Predictably, Persephone did not enjoy the day at hand. Never in a thousand years could she have imagined that the silly, fumbling lies she'd told the Regent would bear such terrible fruit. Her fateful actions in the alley that night may have saved Azriel, Rachel and one Gypsy orphan, but they'd cost six innocent men their lives. Seven, if one
included the man brought down by the arrow intended for Cur.

Over the next several hours, while the beaters bellowed and crashed through the underbrush trying to scare up game, Persephone could not stop thinking about the dead men and their families—and about the fact that she was committed to rescuing another Gypsy orphan.

And she could not stop wondering what price would be paid this time—and by whom it would be paid.

By the time the dinner hour arrived, the beaters had still not managed to scare up so much as a mouse after which the bored nobles might give chase. Complaining loudly (and appearing drunker than he had that morning), Lord Atticus led the hunting party to a clearing. It was immediately apparent to Persephone that a small army of servants had arrived there long before they, for the clearing was set with ornately carved tables, priceless carpets, billowing canopies and numerous couches upon which weary riders might recline and receive goblets of wine and plates of food. It was as though one of the finer rooms in the palace had been transported in its entirety to the middle of nowhere, and it looked so inviting that Persephone couldn't wait to get out of the saddle.

Just as she was trying to free her foot from the tootight stirrup, however, a fat hare shot between the legs of her horse, followed closely by two barking, bounding hunting hounds. Squealing loudly, Persephone's horse reared and lunged as it had when it had first seen the dogs. This time, however, it didn't stop there. Laying its ears flat against its head, it burst into a full gallop directly
through the middle of the clearing, kicking clods of dirt all over the beautiful carpets, bringing down snow-white canopies, dodging couches and shrieking noblewomen before finally jumping clear over a whole hog roasting on a spit over an open fire. The horse's back legs must have landed uncomfortably close to the flames because the instant its hooves touched down, it squealed even more shrilly than before and leapt forward into a gallop once more. Persephone—who, through it all, had clung to the horse's mane like a flea to a shaking dog—now began desperately trying to free her foot from the stirrup. If she was thrown from the saddle she would almost certainly break her neck, but if she was able to
jump
she just might be able to control her landing well enough to only suffer several broken limbs. Unfortunately, however, try as she might she could not get free, and before she knew it, the horse had plunged into a thicket of trees at the edge of the clearing. With a gasp, Persephone ducked to avoid being knocked out of the saddle by a low tree limb and then ducked again to avoid being brained by an even lower limb. As the horse continued to pound along, somehow finding a path through the thicket, Persephone's face was whipped by small branches, her hat was torn from her head and she abandoned all thought of trying to jump clear.