The Gypsy King (17 page)

It was a plan that meant she'd never see Azriel again— or even know if he lived or died—but there was no help for that. Nor, she told herself fiercely, any reason to mourn it.

Unfortunately, at the very instant she took hold of the strips of cloth, Azriel's dead weight shifted without warning and the strips jerked so tight around Persephone's fingers that she couldn't pull them free. Nor could she simply cut the strips with her dagger, for if she did so, Azriel's nowprecariously dangling body would crash headfirst to the ground and his neck would surely be broken.

Even more unfortunately, before Persephone could come up with a solution to this dilemma, Fleet noticed that several of the Gypsy women in the clearing were cutting up turnips.

With an enthusiastic whicker, he began to trot forward.

“No!” hissed Persephone as loudly as she dared. “No! Stop!
Bad boy
!”

But Fleet appeared to be deaf to anything but the juicy sound of his favourite tuber being sliced and diced, and though Persephone twisted and turned and dug her torn heels into the rocky floor and clawed at the walls of the tunnel with her free hand, it was no use.

She could not stop him, and she could not get free of him.

All she could do was cringe as he bashed aside the exceedingly startled, flame-haired giant at the entrance of the tunnel and merrily trotted into the heart of the Gypsy camp.

ELEVEN

A
S MORDECAI SLOUCHED through the narrow, torch-lit stone passageway toward the chamber where the Council was about to meet, he glared at one useless nobody after another. Most of the men in the crowd were petitioners hoping to be noticed by someone who could give them money, land, position or a satisfactory ruling against a particularly irksome neighbour. Mordecai despised petitioners—despised the unwashed smell of them and the way they clamoured for the attention of their betters, always jostling and pushing and shoving ratty pieces of parchment under the noses of lords and earls. They never dared to shove anything under
his
nose, of course, but that was hardly the point. The point was that they were like an unruly herd of farm animals, and if it had been up to Mordecai, he'd have had them all slaughtered where they stood. But, of course, the king indulged them like spoiled children.

The king, the king.…

Not for the first time, Mordecai cursed his own folly
in having sent the king from court almost immediately following his coronation. Touting the benefits of fresh air and country living, Mordecai had shipped him off to a royal estate at the northern edge of the Primus Prefecture, along with a large household of his own and all the goods and furnishings befitting an infant king. He'd thought it a clever way to get the child beyond the reach and influence of the noblemen of the great houses, but what he'd not anticipated was that in the absence of a true family to care for him, the little king would turn his sunny, dimpled smile upon the servants around him in the hope of receiving the love he craved—and that they would respond by treating him with such tender affection that it would ruin him utterly. Indeed, by the time Mordecai realized what was happening, the boy was nearly ten years old and had enough of a mind and will of his own that he could not be made to see that he should not be thinking about servants—much less developing affection for them. “They are like pieces of furniture, Your Majesty,” Mordecai had patiently tried to explain one evening not long after he'd ordered the boy king brought back to Parthania. “They serve their purpose and then they are discarded or replaced. Does one talk to a chair? No. Does one consider the thoughts and feelings of a chair? No. One sits on it. And that is all.” In response, young King Finnius had given him a cheeky grin and whispered, “Don't let Moira hear you talk that way, Your Grace, for I should think you've never met a piece of furniture with a will to speak its mind like she has!”

Since then it had always been more of the same—or worse. Still, Mordecai could not be entirely disappointed
with the way the boy had turned out. Over the years, he'd grown to have the look of both parents, a fact that seemed to have quelled at least some of the rumours that had dogged Mordecai since the night the queen had given birth and nearly ruined everything. The boy was tall and lithe and, despite his slight build and delicate health, he was a passable swordsman and a fine dancer. He was well educated in spite of his tendency to laziness when it came to his studies, and he could charm the warts off a toad by doing nothing more than being his own handsome self. He had enough natural poise and strength of character to hold the promise of becoming a strong king—something the great lords needed to see if they were to remain true to both the king and to Mordecai's regency—but he trusted Mordecai completely and almost always took his counsel.

Until lately, that is. Lately, the king kept his own counsel almost as often as he took Mordecai's, he laughed at things Mordecai did not find funny, and he spoke with increasing eagerness about the day he would sit in Mordecai's seat at the head of the Council table and become a true ruling king at last. In truth, if Mordecai did not have long-standing plans to see the boy cold and dead in his grave before he ever had a chance to rule, he probably would have found the young monarch's selfish and disloyal behaviour very upsetting indeed.

Pausing now before the final turn in the passageway, Mordecai reached up and tried in vain to massage the knots out of his cramped neck muscles so that he could hold his head high without pain. He then carefully smoothed down his glossy dark hair, gave the golden crest of his office a
quick polish and adjusted his long, ermine-trimmed robe. No one else at court wore robes as everyday wear—not even the king himself—but Mordecai's thin, crooked legs looked so ridiculous in tight-fitting silk hose or breeches that he would not suffer to wear them, not even for the sake of fashion. Robe adjusted, Mordecai lastly withdrew a silken handkerchief from his sleeve and carefully mopped the sweat from his smooth brow, for it would not do to enter the Council chamber looking anything other than utterly composed.

Today of all days, Mordecai must look like a king in all but name, for half a lifetime of planning had led up to this moment.

Taking a deep breath, he threw back his narrow shoulders, lifted his heavy head, strode purposefully around the corner of the passageway and promptly collided with a young liveried page who was barrelling down the passageway on some errand of great urgency. Though no more than twelve, the lad was already so sturdy that he somehow managed to stand his ground while Mordecai bounced off his chest and went sprawling across the flagstone, his robe flung aside to reveal the only thing worse than his thin, crooked legs clad in tight-fitting silk hose or breeches: his thin, crooked legs clad in nothing at all.

Dazed by his fall and spitting with fury, Mordecai savagely tugged the robe over his legs and was about to snarl an order to have the offending page dragged to the dungeon when he looked up to see that the wretch had vanished.

“Gone, Your Grace,” came an impassive but deeply
dignified voice from high above. “Poor little lad took one look at whom he'd knocked over and lit off down the passageway as though the beasts of hell itself were nipping at his heels.”

Choking back the venomous threats he'd been about to spew after the wretch who'd humiliated him—and at the goggling, whispering imbeciles who'd witnessed his humiliation and were staring at him still—Mordecai awkwardly staggered to his feet. Adjusting his badly rumpled robe, he attempted to rearrange his perfect features into an expression other than murderous rage.

“Lord Bartok,” he said, bowing low (but not too low) to the second most powerful man in the kingdom, after himself.

Lord Bartok smiled thinly and gave a barely perceptible nod in return. The Bartok Dynasty had been around since the beginning of time. Relied upon by Erok kings and so noble that they themselves were almost royal, the Bartoks were forever plotting the rise of a favoured son or daughter—or the downfall of some enemy or friend who'd risen too high for comfort. From the first, Mordecai would have liked nothing better than to crush them utterly— starting with the smug, silver-haired patriarch who now stood before him—but since he'd always known that he was going to need noble support for his daring plans to come to fruition, he'd chosen instead to lavish the Bartoks with such land, riches and titles that even they could not dispute the fact that they owed him.

“Shall we, Your Grace?” Lord Bartok asked now, tilting his head in the direction of the Council chamber.

“Of course, my lord,” murmured Mordecai with the dignity of a nobleman bred and born.

Together, the two of them walked into the Council chamber, with its high, beamed ceiling and painted walls hung with exquisite tapestries and gloomy portraits of dead Erok kings—including one of the great Malthusius, the vain ogre who'd died of slow poison administered by Mordecai's own trusted hand. Smiling slightly at the memory, Mordecai concentrated on not slouching or limping as he strode to the head of the long table that dominated the room. When he got there, a waiting servant silently pulled out the ornately carved high-backed chair that was reserved for the king or his representative. Without looking at the servant, Mordecai slowly sat down and placed his hands flat on the table before him.

“My lords,” he breathed.

From around the table came respectful nods and murmurs of “Your Grace.” Mordecai accepted their greetings with an air of polite distance, then bid them be silent with a nonchalant flick of his fingers.

The great lords of the kingdom fell silent at once.

Mordecai's dark heart swelled with satisfaction. “There are several matters I would like us to address,” he began. “First, earlier this day I spoke with my ward, His Majesty the King. Among other things, we discussed the need to raze the slum that encroaches upon the north wall of the palace. It is a veritable stew of filth and disease, and the king agrees—as I know you will, my lords—that we cannot risk his precious health by its proximity.”

The noblemen nodded dutifully.

“Excellent,” said Mordecai. “Since we are all in agreement, I shall see to it that within the week, soldiers are sent into the slum to roust the population and burn their pestilent shacks to the ground.”

“And what then, Your Grace?” asked Lord Bartok, stroking his trim silver beard. “Surely you don't mean to allow the slum's
lowborn
inhabitants to roam the streets of our fair city, begging for food and searching for another place to set up housekeeping, such as it is?”

Mordecai managed not to flinch at Lord Bartok's emphasis of the term “lowborn”—but only just barely. “Of course they shan't be allowed to roam the streets,” he said evenly. “They shall be sent where they are needed.”

Or they shall be raised to New Men, that they might pledge loyalty to me alone and thereafter join the ranks of my personal army
, he added in his mind.

“Your Grace, do you not fear another revolt like the one so recently put down?” inquired a troublemaking minor lord by the name of Pembleton. Having recently come to court after having inherited his seat at the Council table from his dead father, he did not as yet appear to grasp either the subtleties of court politics or the importance of showing due deference to the Regent.

“I fear nothing,” replied Mordecai flatly. “I do not doubt for a moment that the slum's inhabitants will consider making trouble, but the simple fact is that they will comply or be killed. In all the long years I have ruled this kingdom on behalf of His Majesty King Finnius, I have found that those sorts of terms generally have a calming effect on even the most base and recalcitrant of subjects.”

Most of the noblemen chuckled at this, but not Lord Pembleton.

“I cannot believe that this was His Majesty's idea,” he said with a frown.

“As ever, His Majesty is content to take my counsel,” replied Mordecai coolly.

“He'll need to do more than take your counsel if he's to be a true ruling king someday,” volunteered the fatally foolish Lord Pembleton.

“Indeed,” rumbled ponderous Lord Belmont, a lecherous glutton who laboured under the delusion that having ridiculously enormous shoulder pads sewn into his doublets somehow camouflaged his grossly distended belly. “To be a true ruling king, His Majesty will need to settle upon a fertile wife and get down to the business of getting down to the business. After all, the first job of any king is to do his duty between the sheets as well and as often as is necessary to give his loyal subjects a healthy heir. And, of course, to see to it that his beloved queen is too exhausted to complain when he starts ploughing other bean fields.”

The noblemen chuckled again, winking lewdly and nudging each other.

Mordecai's heart beat faster.

It was the opening he had been waiting for.

“As it happens, my lords,” he said lightly, “the question of succession is another matter that the king and I discussed at some length this day.”