Fool's Errand (4 page)

Though Mordecai had not really expected Murdock to greet his words with enthusiasm, he nevertheless despised him for his lack of it.

“I know that the cockroach was
probably
lying,” muttered Mordecai, reaching up to massage his aching neck. “In fact, I would say that he was almost
certainly
lying. Regardless, I could not take the chance that he was not, and so I struck a deal with him—and with the princess, who goes by the name of Persephone. I will release them unharmed with a bag of gold and a promise to keep safe the king, and in return they will find the healing pool and advise me of its location.”

“I … see,” said General Murdock, his protuberant black eyes darting from side to side.

“No, I don't think you do,” snapped Mordecai, thinking for the thousandth time what a repellent creature the general was. “I am not such a fool that I would trust the word of a Gypsy and his … his
whore
, princess though she might be. Tomorrow when they leave the imperial capital, you will take a small contingent of men and follow them in secret. If they find the pool, you will kill them. If they do not appear to be looking for the pool, you will kill them. If they lead you to a Gypsy nest, you will wait until the matter of the pool is settled one way or another and then you will go back and kill every man, woman and child that inhabits the nest. Meantime, I
will
keep safe the king—but only so that I may bend him to my will and thus further my own ambitions. Now, give me your cloak,” ordered Mordecai, who was suddenly impatient to be away. “I must go to the king at once, and I do not wish to suffer his tiresome curiosity—or, indeed, any court gossip—as to how my beautiful robe came to be ruined.”

“Of course, Your Grace,” murmured General Murdock, unclasping his long, black velvet cloak and carefully draping it about his master's bony shoulders. “And what shall I do with those of my men who witnessed your exchange with the princess?”

“Have them clean up the mess they made,” said Mordecai as he wrapped the cloak tightly around himself, “and then give them their reward.”

General Murdock rocked forward on the toes of his shiny black boots. “And have you any particular reward in mind, Your Grace?” he asked, touching his unusually small hands together.

“Yes, as a matter of fact I do,” replied Mordecai, his lips cinching into a tight little knot at the memory of how the brawny, sure-footed fools had gawked when the cockroach had
dared
to call him a cripple in front of the princess. “Cut off their ears for what they heard, put out their eyes for what they saw and then finish them off any way you like. And when you are done with them, there is something else I would have you do this night, Murdock. Something that will not only give me a great deal of personal satisfaction but will also encourage the king to set aside any thoughts he might have of refusing to bend to my will …”

FOUR

A
FTER MORDECAI LEFT THE CHAMBER
, Persephone spent several breathless moments twisting and scratching in an effort to get her captor to let go of her hair. At length, however, she gave up. The thought of obediently waiting for the Regent's most favoured general to arrive galled her, but to continue to struggle against the iron grip of the young soldier seemed a futile and foolish waste of energy she might need to get through the minutes and hours ahead.

Panting slightly, she ripped off the necklace bearing the amethyst pendant—which had been a gift from the Regent—and flung it to the floor. Then she pushed her tangled dark hair out of her eyes and looked over at the still-kneeling Azriel. Though she was certain he could feel her eyes heavy upon him, he did not return—or even acknowledge—her gaze. So, with a half-hearted shrug of her shoulders, she looked away. As she did, her eyes fell upon the prone body of the soldier she'd stabbed in the throat. Without warning, a wave of nausea swept over her as it suddenly occurred to her that he was dead, his wife was widowed and his children were fatherless—all because of her.

The night she'd met Azriel she'd bragged that she'd killed dozens of men with her dagger, but the truth was that until now, she'd never killed anyone.

Not on purpose, anyway!
she thought as her eyes leapt to the mutilated body of the pockmarked servant. The poor woman had risked her life for Persephone—once as a frightened child in the queen's birthing chamber and again on this night—and her reward had been a gruesome end. And, terrible truth be told, she was not the only one in the realm who'd lately met such an end because of Persephone.
And then there is the queen, thought Persephone. The Regent accuses me of causing the death of my very own mother—and he says I will do the same to my brother, the king. Unless… unless…

Unless Azriel really was the bastard son of Balthazar, unless he really did know of clues that would lead them to the healing pool, unless they really were able to find it …

Unless … unless … unless x…

“Azriel!” whispered Persephone, unable to help herself.

At the sound of his name on her lips, Azriel slowly turned his head until he was gazing directly up into her face—his jaw set, his lips slightly parted, the flickering orange glow from the dying fire reflected in his very blue eyes.

“Yes, Your Highness?” he asked politely.

So politely, in fact, that Persephone felt her heart grow as cold as the ice in his eyes. She found herself torn between treating him with even
icier
disdain, pleading with him to forgive her and spitting at him. Before she could do any of these things, however, General Murdock entered the room, followed closely by two beefy soldiers. In a surprisingly gentle voice, the General ordered her and Azriel released. As though heartily relieved to receive the order, the young soldier holding Persephone sprang away from her. The one holding Azriel grunted and gave him a shove that sent him sprawling.

After picking up the amethyst pendant and tucking it into his pocket, the General gave Azriel's shorn head a look of longing—as though he couldn't help thinking what a fine price this particular scalp would have fetched.

Then he turned his blank, beady eyes upon Persephone. “Highness,” he murmured, bowing from the waist.

Feeling like a fool—and certain that the General was mocking her—Persephone cast a darting glance at Azriel to make sure he wasn't laughing at her, too. When she saw that he wasn't even
looking
at her, she looked away from him, squared her shoulders and lifted her chin.

“Yes, General?” she said as Murdock straightened up from his bow. “What is it that you want?”

“If it pleases Your Highness, you are to be escorted to your rooms, there to bathe and dine as befits your royal station,” he murmured. “As for your, hmm,
companion
, as it is now common knowledge that he is neither the eunuch slave you had claimed him to be nor your Master of the Bath but rather a Gypsy outlaw in possession of all his … equipment, it would obviously be a scandal if he were to spend the night in your chamber. Therefore I would like to suggest that he be taken—”

“No,” said Persephone.

Azriel—who'd risen to his feet and was now standing close enough to touch—finally looked over at her.

She ignored him.

General Murdock's nostrils flared. “Highness,” he said as his gaze drifted back to Azriel's scalp, “you haven't even heard my suggestion.”

“I don't need to hear it,” said Persephone tightly. It mattered not that she could cheerfully have given Azriel a kick for his present aloofness; it mattered not that she suspected he could cheerfully have returned the favour for her having lied to him, run out on his love and snatched out from under his nose the destiny she'd allowed him to believe might belong to him. In a matter of minutes, her whole world had been turned upside down! She'd gone from a freedom-hungry slave playing dress-up to save an orphan she'd never met to a princess who now held the life of her kind, sweet, long-lost brother in her hands. She needed to make sure that Azriel would be able to deliver that which he'd promised—but even more than that, she needed
him
, in a thousand ways she did not wish to examine too closely.

And so, with a decidedly un-royal toss of her head, she said, “I care not a whit for what scandal it may cause, General. This man will accompany me to my chamber, and there he will stay for as long as I so desire.”

Beside her, Azriel made a noise that could have meant anything.

Long, thin nose twitching, General Murdock hesitated for just a moment before bowing low and murmuring, “As you wish, Your Highness.”

A quarter of an hour later, a rumpled, exhausted and thoroughly wrung-out Persephone faced the four servants who'd been assigned to her the night she'd arrived at the palace disguised as the intrepid Lady Bothwell.

“Shall I prepare a bath, Your Highness?” asked Martha, the eldest and most proper of the four.

Persephone looked limply toward the claw-footed tub by the fireplace. When she'd been nothing but a grubby little slave girl, the mere
idea
of soaking in a hot bath while a handful of attendants massaged and soaped her tired limbs and washed and brushed her tangled hair would have sent her into paroxysms of ecstasy. Now, though she could certainly have used a bath, all she really wanted was to be left alone. The walk to her chamber had been interminable. Not only had Azriel insisted upon mutely walking several paces behind her (purportedly out of deference to her great station), but the multitudes that had trickled out of the Great Hall to line the corridors of the palace had gaped and whispered until she hadn't known what else to do but to play the part of the princess with such skill that, to her mortification, they'd positively tripped over themselves in their haste to make their obeisance to her. At least most of them had. Some of them—most notably Lord Bartok, the most powerful nobleman in the realm—had only stared in a manner that informed Persephone that if her life as a slave had been fraught with danger and uncertainty, it was
nothing
compared to what her life as a princess was going to hold.

“Thank you, Martha,” sighed Persephone, “but I don't think I'll take a bath—”

“
SHALL WE ORDER UP SOME FOOD THEN, YOUR HIGHNESS?
” shouted little Meeta, who was clearly beside herself with excitement at the revelation of her mistress's true identity.

In spite of the fact that she could not seem to stop trembling, Persephone found herself smiling. “Not just now, Meeta,” she said, “though perhaps you could order up a feast for us to share upon the morrow.”

Dazzled by the mind-boggling honour of being invited to eat from the table of an
actual princess
, Meeta clasped her little hands beneath her chin and sighed deeply. As she did so, Persephone turned to the more buxom, self-assured of Meeta's two older sisters and thanked her for hiding the little Gypsy boy who'd been rescued from the dungeon that night.

“Well, when your man Azriel dashed in here with the Regent's New Men at his heels, he asked
very
nicely,” purred Meeka, smiling at Azriel the way a glutton might smile at a giant puff pastry. “Besides, Gypsy or not, Meena would not have seen the child returned to the dungeon for all the diamonds in the Mines of Torodania.”

Tall, angular Meena—the third sister, the one whose tongue had been cut out by the Regent when she'd been a child of only eight years—shrugged self-consciously.

“Well, thank you,” repeated Persephone, trying not to feel piqued by the way Meeka was smiling at Azriel. “You've all been good to me, and I shan't forget that you were loyal and kind even when you knew me for an imposter. Even so, I must ask more of you this night. First, I want you to fetch little Mateo to us, for though I know you'd be good to him I suspect he'd feel more comfortable in the care of his tribesman. Second, in the royal stables, you will find hiding a girl named Rachel who looks very much like me. Bring her to me without letting anyone see her face for I do not think we need to add to the confusion of this night. If you see a dog wearing a tattered pink bow, you may bring him to me, as well—unless he tries to bite you. If he tries to bite you, it is his way of saying that he'd prefer to keep his own company a while longer yet.” At this, Azriel snorted derisively. Persephone ignored him. “In addition to the girl and the dog, you will find a horse named Fleet in the vicinity of a sugarberry bush or a pile of turnips,” she continued. “Earlier this evening he performed magnificent feats of bravery—I would have you see to it that he is thoroughly rubbed down, fed, watered and given a clean stall a safe distance away from the ill-tempered mare called Lucifer.”