Fool's Errand (33 page)

If it struck Fayla and Tiny—as it fleetingly struck Persephone—that the list of tasks that yet lay before her, Azriel and Rachel sounded almost ridiculously impossible, their expressions did not betray it. Instead, an emotional Tiny gave each of them as powerful a wallop on the back as he could manage from his reclining position, and Fayla hugged Azriel hard and gave the girls an only half-joking order to take good care of him since he was only a man, after all.

After they'd said their goodbyes, Barka walked the three who were carrying onward to the mouth of the cavern.

“Are you certain you don't need an escort down to the foothills?” he asked.

“We're certain,” said Persephone firmly. “I'm feeling much improved, and you've already done so much for us. Besides, we got up the mountain well enough—I'm sure we'll be able to get safely down provided your warriors don't decide to bring another avalanche down on our heads.”

Barka chuckled at this. “I'll bash in their brains if they do,” he promised as he stepped aside to allow three hulking Khan women to heave open the stout wooden door at the cavern's entrance. “Now, before you set out, may I offer a piece of advice, Princess?” Without waiting for an answer, he said, “Get to the coastal town of Syon as quickly as you possibly can. Crossing the channel that separates the mainland from the Island of Ru is a treacherous journey at the best of times; during storm season it is a veritable death trap.”

“And I'm guessing that storm season is almost upon us?” said Persephone, blinking as the door opened to reveal the sudden, blinding glare of sun on snow.

“Yes! The storm season is almost upon us!” exclaimed Barka, who seemed amazed by her powers of deduction. “It may even have begun—being so far from the sea, it is hard to say. But what is
not
hard to say is that if you do not make the crossing before the storms hit, you'll not be able to make it until after they end. And that will delay your meeting with the Marinese by at least a couple of months.”

“But we don't have a couple of months,” said Persephone in alarm. “My brother does not have a couple of months!”

“Then you'd best make haste, Princess,” shrugged Barka, extending his arm into the swirling cold as though to usher them onward.

Nodding, Persephone and Rachel stepped outside and began trudging through the knee-deep snow. Azriel also stepped outside and started walking, but after just a few paces, he stopped and began ostentatiously digging for something in the pocket of his breeches. When he found what he was looking for, he threw Persephone a rakish grin and then tossed the glinting contents of his hand to Barka.

The Khan prince managed to catch all four gold coins in midair. “Much obliged, peacock!” he called, the roar of his laughter spilling out of the cavern and echoing throughout the mountain. “Good luck to you all!”

THIRTY-THREE

G
ENERAL MURDOCK STARED
impassively at the headless bodies that lay at his feet.

Well, to be precise, they weren't
headless
—the heads were there, more or less. They just weren't shaped much like heads anymore, and their contents had been splattered halfway up the rock face against which the bodies had been propped.

General Murdock shook his own small head. If he'd been another kind of man, he might have become enraged by the foolishness that had cost him two more soldiers—for it was clear to him that foolishness had been behind their deaths.
Their
foolishness, to be precise. The pile of frozen animal entrails next to the half-burnt sticks told him that his soldiers had stolen a Khan sheep and tried to make a meal of it; that they'd had their skulls caved in and their bodies ritualistically positioned told him that the Khan had discovered the theft and, being the barbaric savages they were, had retaliated by turning his soldiers into a sacrifice for their bloodthirsty tribal goddess.

Truly, if he'd been another kind of man, General Murdock might have become enraged.

But he was not another kind of man. He was a military man, and military men did not
get
enraged. They assessed the advantages and disadvantages of every situation, and one of the advantages of this particular situation was that the recklessly foolish soldiers were dead. That meant that he, General Murdock, was not going to have to waste even a single moment of his valuable time punishing them in a manner that would instruct their fellow soldiers as to the perils of deviating from orders.

Of course, that the two men were dead also meant that he was now down to just the three soldiers and would be until such time as the requested replacements arrived from Parthania. This was one of the reasons he'd decided to personally climb the mountain to investigate after the soldier who was now in charge of the spyglass had nervously informed him that there seemed to be something amiss upon the lower mountain. General Murdock's instincts had told him that something like this had happened, and he'd decided that he and the mission could not afford to see another pair of fools perish.

Not yet, anyway.

Furrowing his high, narrow brow ever so slightly, General Murdock turned away from the bodies at his feet and began creeping about the makeshift camp looking for some evidence that the dead soldiers had done more than come up here and eat stolen mutton. They'd been sent up the mountain with orders to assist the princess if they discovered that she was alive and in mortal peril, or to bring back some proof that she was dead if they discovered her frozen body. General Murdock could see nothing that would indicate that the soldiers had found her alive
or
dead. Did this mean they'd not bothered to look for her, or did it mean that they
had
looked for her but had not found her?

As he daintily tapped a fingernail against his long, yellow teeth and pondered this mystery, General Murdock suddenly heard voices approaching from above. Luckily, like any military man worth his salt, the first thing the General had done upon arriving at the makeshift camp was to scope out a hiding place. In this instance, the place was a crack in the rock face that was deep enough to cast a dark shadow and just wide enough to accommodate one gifted with the ability to squeeze into remarkably small spaces. Moving with the speed and silence that had spelled doom for so many, General Murdock scurried into his hiding place and fell still.

The next minute, the princess, her Gypsy lover (no, her Gypsy
husband)
and the girl who resembled the princess trudged into sight. Upon spying the bodies of General Murdock's soldiers, the girl who bore the princess's likeness did not scream or faint, but she did bend over and vomit copiously. Impressively, the princess did not scream, faint
or
vomit. Instead, she made a tight-lipped comment to her husband about slave hunters getting what they deserved. Then she walked forward to get a closer look at what was left of his men.

She came to a halt almost directly in front of the crack in the rock face. General Murdock knew that if she looked to her right, she would see his beady eyes gleaming out at her from the shadows. Some people, upon seeing such a thing in such an unexpected place, would
not
see it—or, more precisely, their minds would not allow them to see. But General Murdock had an idea that the princess would see it, because he had an idea that she'd seen beady eyes gleaming out at her from the shadows before.

The thought filled him with tension. He did not doubt for a moment that he'd be able to kill the princess, her Gypsy husband and the other girl—with his hands and teeth, if he had to—but such action would be in direct violation of his orders.

And so, since General Murdock could not abide the idea of violating his orders, he squeezed a little farther into the crack and waited with bated breath. The princess—who was so close that his long, thin nose quivered with the scent of her—now looked over her left shoulder, to the place where the other girl was wiping vomit off her mouth and breathlessly apologizing for having vomited. The princess chuckled and waved away her apology—she cared for this girl, General Murdock could tell. Then she asked her Gypsy husband if he truly thought it would be wise for them to take the risk of cutting through the Great Forest. He replied that he truly thought it would be, on account of their urgent need to reach Syon in advance of the coming storm season. After saying that she was of a similar mind, the princess started to say something else then froze abruptly, like a deer that had just heard a twig snap.

General Murdock froze, too—his thin lips slightly parted, his thin fingers curled as into claws, his heart beating at its usual slow, steady pace even though he knew that he might be just seconds away from being forced to violate his orders.

Fortunately for him, however, the princess did not look right or do anything else that would have necessitated such a regrettable course of action. Instead, she shrugged violently as if to throw off the unwelcome feeling that had come over her. Then she announced that she did not wish to linger further and suggested to the other two that they move on and leave the mother goddess of the mountain to her meal.

The other two readily agreed, and within seconds the princess had stepped beyond General Murdock's line of vision. He listened intently to the fading sounds of her and her companions' downward progress, and when he judged it safe to do so, he wriggled out of the crack in the rock face and permitted himself a small smile.

By his quick-thinking actions, he'd managed not only to preserve the integrity of his mission but also to gather vital intelligence. For if the princess and her companions were in such a rush to reach the coast before the storms hit that they would risk the dangers of the Great Forest, it could only mean that they intended to journey to the Island of Ru to seek out the Marinese.

And that told General Murdock two important things that he would relay to Mordecai at once.

First, it told him where he and his two remaining men would be able to pick up their quarry's trail again in the not-so-unlikely event that they lost it in the dark and unpredictable Great Forest. Second, it told him that the princess and her companions were yet in pursuit of their objective.

And therefore, so was he.

THIRTY-FOUR

W
HAT DO YOU MEAN
he's not back from the garden yet?” snapped Mordecai as he impatiently daubed at the nick on his chin that had yet to stop bleeding. “What is he doing in the garden? Gods' blood, the betrothal ceremony was set to begin half an hour ago! The great lords and ladies of the kingdom are all assembled and waiting for him in the chapel!”

The slatternly servant who'd taken the nursemaid's place bowed her head. “I'm sorry, Your Grace,” she said in a voice that could have meant she was truly sorry or else could have meant that she was not sorry at all. “Perhaps the king feels that because he is the king it is for others to wait on his pleasure and not the other way around.”

“What do you know about the feelings of kings, you stupid, lowborn slut!” snarled Mordecai, flinging the bloodied handkerchief at her. “Send someone to fetch the king
at once
or I will have you—”

Before he could finish uttering his threat, the door behind him opened and the pale, dishevelled king strode in with his brother-in-law-to-be close upon his heels. Evidently, the king had just said something vastly amusing because the perpetually inebriated Lord Atticus was laughing like a hyena with its testicles caught in a steel trap.

“Good afternoon, Your Grace,” said the king, who was more than a little out of breath.

Mordecai tilted his head in the smallest possible show of deference he thought he could get away with in front of Lord Bartok's ne'er-do-well son. “Good afternoon, Your Majesty,” he said tightly. “Have you by chance forgotten what day it is?”

“No, indeed,” said the fool, daring to sound sheepish, “though I suspect from your unhappy countenance that Lord Atticus and I may have lost track of the time. Forgive me, Your Grace, I
beg
of you.”