The Gypsy King (43 page)

Feeling the old burn marks at the tips of her fingers, the woman recalled how she'd just barely managed to do what had been asked of her and scurry back to her hiding place behind the tapestry before the Regent had returned to the room.

She realized now, of course, that she needn't have worried about hiding.

For the Regent hadn't even noticed her—both a servant and a child, she'd been twice as much of a nothing as the others in the room had been. To him, it was as though she didn't exist.

But she did.

THIRTY-FIVE

“Y
OU'RE NOT
STILL
ANGRY with me, are you?” asked Azriel the next morning as he stood at attention next to Persephone's chair at the head of the long table in her chambers.

“Of course not,” she replied, sawing at the ham on her plate so vigorously that she rammed her elbow into his crotch several times before he managed to leap out of range.

Obviously
, she was still angry with him. In her considered opinion, the previous afternoon had been a complete fiasco. Azriel and the king had wrestled until the king could wrestle no more. At that point, instead of shooing Azriel back to his spot in the hot sun and once more focusing his full attention upon Persephone, the king had invited Azriel to sit with them—as though he were a person of noble blood and not a lowly eunuch slave! The fact that he was
not
a lowly eunuch slave any more than she
was
a person of noble blood was not the point at all— the point was that Azriel had had no business ruining her lovely afternoon with the king!

“I know you probably didn't find it especially interesting listening to the king and me discuss our favourite wrestling moves and compare our sweat stains, m'lady,” continued Azriel, his lips twitching with amusement in spite of the recent elbow attack on his privates, “but if it helps, I'll have you know that I've come to agree with you that he would be a good ruler. In spite of having exceedingly good reasons to despise him, I find that I cannot help but like him. He is—”

A knock at the door cut him off. Cur barked once. Quieting him with a gesture, Persephone nodded at Meeta, the only servant left to her after the panicked pastry chef had earlier commandeered Martha, Meeka and Meena to help turn out pies for the king's birthday feast that night. Meeta bobbed a curtsey and then scampered over to open the door. She'd hardly done more than turn the knob when the door flew open in response to a hard push from the other side and the Regent Mordecai slouched into the room.

“Lady Bothwell,” he said in a sonorous voice.

“Your Grace!” she said, rising to her feet and hurrying toward him with a delighted expression on her face in spite of her inward alarm at the chilling looks he was casting toward Azriel. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?”

Flushing at the word “pleasure,” Mordecai seemed to forget all about Azriel. Gazing deeply into Persephone's eyes, he rearranged his handsome features into an expression of deepest sympathy and said, “My dear Lady Bothwell, I'm afraid I have most upsetting news.”

Persephone pressed her hand against her chest. “It isn't the king, is it?” she blurted without thinking.

The Regent's features hardened to cold marble for just an instant before melting back into oozing sympathy. “No, my dear, it isn't the king,” he murmured. “It is your beloved husband.”

For half a heartbeat, Persephone had no idea what he was talking about. Then she remembered: “Lord Bothwell?” she said.

The Regent nodded mournfully. “I am
terribly
sorry to be the one to tell you this but … he is dead.”

“Dead?” echoed Persephone blankly.

The Regent nodded again. “My reports tell me that the cowardly Khan of the mountains perpetrated a sneak attack in the middle of the night,” he sighed. “They raided and then set fire to Bothwell Manor and all its outer buildings.”

Persephone—who'd heard stories of the bloodthirsty Khan, but who didn't believe for an instant that they'd been involved in the attack on Bothwell Manor—whispered, “And my husband—”

“Dead,” confirmed the Regent, forgetting to sound sympathetic.

“And what of the others?”

“The others?” said the Regent, not understanding.

“The servants,” blurted Persephone. “There would have been dozens of them! What of them?”

The Regent pursed his lips as though in annoyance. “All dead,” he said shortly. “But you needn't fret about them, Lady Bothwell. As I've said before, servants are replaced as easily as—”

“Smashed dinner plates. Yes … yes, I know,” gasped Persephone, who was suddenly having trouble breathing. Clawing at her constricting corsets, she staggered forward that she might sag against the wall instead of falling to the floor.

Dead! All dead—because of her lies! Because of her lies—and because of the Gypsies'
preposterous
prophecy. If not for that, Azriel would never have bought her from the owner. She'd never have come to Parthania, never have met the Regent, never have had to lie about who she was.

Once, she'd believed the prophecy of the Gypsy King to be nothing more than the wishful thinking of a hunted people.

Now she knew it was a death sentence for all those it touched.

“My dear Lady Bothwell,” crooned the Regent now, as he shuffled toward her with his withered arms extended as though he meant to embrace her. “I am so
terribly
sorry for your loss. The night we met I warned you that a careless husband is soon deprived of a beautiful wife. Who could have known that it would be his own death that would deprive him of your charms? If there is
anything
I can do to comfort you at this difficult—”

Before he could finish his sentence, the chamber door flew open again and the king bounded into the room. Upon seeing Persephone—white-faced with shock and horror, on the verge of collapse—he rushed toward her, knocking the Regent aside in his haste to reach her.

“The terrible rumours are true, then!” he cried, snatching up her hands and holding them against his chest
as though to warm them. “When Moira told me what was being said in the servants' quarters I did not want to believe it—indeed, I could
not
believe it, for I could not imagine that I would hear such news from servants before hearing it from my own trusted councillors!” Here, King Finnius paused to glance sharply at the Regent before turning back to Persephone. “But I see from your countenance that it is indeed true—your home is destroyed and your husband is dead!”

“And my servants,” said Persephone faintly. “My servants are also dead.”

The king nodded in sympathy. Then he released her hands and encircled her with his arms in a gesture that seemed wholly natural. “Lady Bothwell, I swear to you that I will send a delegation to punish the Khan for this atrocity,” he vowed, leaning down to press his forehead against hers. “Nay, I will send an
army
to punish them! And I will lead the army myself! By the time I am through with the Khan they will—”

“No,” said Persephone, twisting out of his arms. “No, Your Majesty, you must
promise
me you will do no such thing. Whatever has happened, there is nothing to be gained by spilling more blood.”

“But—”

“No!” insisted Persephone. “Please! Promise me!”

“All right, I promise,” said the king, reaching for her again.

“No,” said Persephone for the fourth time, stepping away from him. “I need to be alone. To think and … and to grieve,” she added, not looking at the Regent for fear that
he would see the loathing in her eyes. “Please go. Both of you.”

“Certainly, Lady Bothwell,” began the Regent in a voice dripping with sympathy. “We will—”

“Go,” said the king, cutting off the Regent without appearing to notice that he'd done so. “But if there is
anything
I can do to ease your suffering.…”

“There is not,” said Persephone flatly. “Just—go.”

Persephone moved not a muscle as the king and the Regent wordlessly filed from the room. Nor did she move when she heard Azriel quietly dismiss Meeta, nor when she sensed (rather than heard) him come up behind her.

Only then did she turn to face him. He was standing near enough to touch, looking almost as distraught as she felt. For a long moment, she said nothing, only studied his beautiful face as though carefully committing each feature to memory. Then, looking past him toward nothing at all, she said, “It is strange, isn't it? I've known for days that there would be a price to pay for continuing with my charade, and yet I dressed up in beautiful gowns and picnicked in the royal garden and played cards with the king and flirted with the Regent as though it was all a merry game. As though the only thing that mattered in the world was that I be charming to all.” She brought her gaze back to Azriel's face before adding, “Charming, but not
too
charming.”

Azriel blanched. “Persephone, I never meant—”

“I know you didn't,” she said, swaying a little for the pleasure of hearing her skirts swish one last time. “Don't worry—I blame myself entirely for getting lost in the dream. For forgetting what is real. For forgetting what matters.”

“If you had not stayed, the child's life would be forfeit.”

“The child's life is probably forfeit anyway, Azriel,” she said, “and ours along with it.”

“Not yours,” said Azriel swiftly. “For I would gladly die before—”

“Seeing me harmed in any way,” she said with a wistful smile. “Yes, I know. Except I wonder who you would save if you had to choose between me and the child who might be your Gypsy King.”

“I would not choose,” he said stubbornly. “I would save you both.”

Persephone nodded a little sadly—as though she knew this was the only answer he could have given and was yet disappointed by it. Then, in the tenderest of voices, she said, “Unfortunately, your willingness to lay down your life is no comfort to me this time, Azriel.”

He looked more hurt by this than she could have imagined possible.

“Listen to me, Persephone,” he pleaded. “I
know
you're upset by what happened to the people of Bothwell Manor, but—”

“I do not wish to speak of things we cannot change, Azriel,” she said, turning away. “Nor do I wish to hear you speak clever words of reason, for nothing you could say would make me believe that the deaths of those poor
people were a fair trade for the lives of two little Gypsy orphans.
Nothing
. I do not believe that a Gypsy King is coming, Azriel, and I never have. I believe in things that are real.”

“The child—” began Azriel.

“Is real,” she interrupted, turning back to him. “He is no secret king awaiting his crown but he
is
real. And that is one of the reasons I will accompany you into the dungeon this night in an attempt to rescue him.”

As slowly as if he were approaching a startled fawn, Azriel stepped close enough to slip a tentative hand around her waist. “What are the other reasons you will do so?” he asked.

“If I refuse to help you now the child is certain to perish. Not only would his death be yet another upon my conscience, but it would mean that the unfortunates of Bothwell Manor died for nothing at all,” she explained, trembling with the effort it took to keep from wrapping her arms around him and pressing her cheek against the comforting warmth of his chest. “And besides all that, no one knows better than I what it is to be small and alone in a deep, dark, frightening place.”

With his free hand Azriel reached down. With infinite gentleness, he lifted Persephone's chin so that she could not help but gaze into his very blue eyes. “You are not small anymore, Persephone,” he whispered, “and there is no reason at all that you should ever be alone again.”

Trying hard not to think about the pretty little thatch-roofed cottage with the yard full of scratching chickens, Persephone pressed the palms of her hands flat against
his chest and, after a moment's hesitation, slowly pushed herself away from him. “Go steal the wine, Azriel. Get the slaves drunk, take their sacks of bread and make what other preparations you must,” she said in a subdued voice. “I will spend this day within my chambers playing the grieving widow. And I will try not to think about the many fates this night could bring that would be far more terrible than being alone.”