Tomorrow's Kingdom (23 page)

L
ATE IN THE DAY
following her and Azriel's hasty departure from the Gypsy camp, Cur—who'd been leading them through the Great Forest at a brisk but even pace since early morning—suddenly bolted ahead.

As Persephone turned to reassure Azriel that Cur couldn't
possibly
have detected danger because he'd
never
have left her side if he had, half a dozen masked men dropped out of the trees and surrounded them so fast that even Azriel didn't have time to react. Shrieking like a banshee, the man nearest Persephone was about to plunge the rusty tines of his pitchfork into her belly when he took a second look at her face, and his eyes widened in sudden recognition.

Flinging the pitchfork to one side, he snatched off his mask, dropped to one knee and reverently said, “Welcome back to the Great Forest, Your Majesty. May I respectfully request the honour of escorting you and your worthy prince consort to the camp of the most feared bandit in all the realm?”

“Do you … do you mean Robert?” stammered Persephone, who'd not quite recovered from the shock of having almost been stabbed to death.

“I do,” said the beaming ruffian, bowing low.

Not wishing to be jabbed full of holes in the event that the next lookout wasn't quite so quick to recognize her, Persephone graciously allowed the man to escort her and Azriel the rest of the way down the forest trail and into the heart of the bandit camp she remembered so well.

The uproar caused by their arrival was beyond belief. Gypsies of all ages came running from their makeshift tents; bandits racing down the hanging ladders outside their tree shelters could not have made it to the ground faster if they'd jumped. As they crowded around Persephone and Azriel, people called out greetings and questions and news, and then called them out again, louder, when they realized they hadn't been heard. Dogs barked and chickens squawked; children shouted with excitement. Robert bellowed and Big Ben snarled as they waded forward through the press of people, while the Gypsy Cairn stood to one side repeatedly calling for calm.

Knowing the Gypsies as she did, Persephone had, of course, expected a boisterous greeting. This greeting was boisterous to the point of making it hard for her to breathe and keep her footing, however, and Azriel was too busy being hugged by Fayla to notice.

Just as Persephone was beginning to think that she might have to throw a few elbows to get people to back off, she heard a shrill, horsey squeal.

As though they knew—and were thoroughly alarmed
by—what was coming, every last person in Persephone's immediate vicinity scrambled to clear a path. They did so not a minute too soon either, because dear,
dear
Fleet was already careening toward her as fast as his knobby-kneed legs could carry him, and it was clear from the expression on his horsey face that he would not think twice about trampling to death anyone who got between him and his beloved mistress.

“Oh,
Fleet
!” cried Persephone, throwing her arms around his neck as he skidded to a halt before her. “I cannot
tell
you how I've missed you!”

Fleet stamped his hooves and whinnied with heartfelt joy.

“Look, Azriel—it's Fleet!” she said, smiling at him over her shoulder.

“Yes,” said Azriel dryly, rolling his eyes as the jealous horse blew a raspberry in his direction, “I see.”

Persephone laughed again, then left off hugging Fleet so that she could embrace Rachel, who, along with Zdeno, had darted forward in Fleet's wake.

“Oh, Your Majesty, thank the
gods
you are safe and well,” exclaimed Rachel, who gave Persephone an anxious, searching look before whispering, “You
are
well, aren't you? You've suffered no illnesses or … or losses?”

Without thinking, Persephone—who knew exactly what Rachel was asking—took her lookalike friend's hand and pressed it against the swell of her belly so that she could feel the answer for herself.

“Are you with child?” inquired Cairn sharply.

She spoke so loudly that everyone in the clearing heard the question and stopped talking mid-sentence so they could hear Persephone's answer. Rachel guiltily snatched her hand away from Persephone's belly; Azriel whispered something to Fayla before gently disentangling himself from her.

Blushing furiously at the fact that everyone but Rachel, Azriel and Zdeno was good-naturedly looking her up and down trying to guess the answer for themselves, Persephone folded her arms across her chest and selfconsciously replied, “I'm … uh … yes, I'm with child.”

“And Azriel is the father?” pressed Cairn.

“Of course Azriel is the father!” spluttered Persephone as Azriel stepped forward to stand on one side of her and, not to be outdone, Fleet hustled forward to stand on the other.

“I did not mean to offend,” said Cairn, who didn't sound as though she particularly cared whether or not she'd offended. “It is just that the child could be important.”

“The child
will
be important,” corrected Azriel coolly. “He will be our firstborn son.”

“He?” said Cairn, raising a fine, soot-coloured eyebrow.

Feeling extremely foolish, Persephone reluctantly admitted that from the start, she'd had a sense that the baby was a boy.

“Is that so,” murmured Cairn, her eyes gleaming with the fanaticism Persephone remembered so well and liked not at all. Turning the full force of her strangely powerful gaze upon Azriel, Cairn said, “The prophecy foretold the coming of a girl, and the Fates delivered your wife into our hands. Her brother, the Erok king, is dead, and there
is no one in the realm with a stronger blood claim to the throne than she. If she can win and keep the throne, and if the Gypsy child she carries is a boy, and if she can be safely delivered of him, upon her death, he shall be a king.”

Many in the crowd gasped when they realized what Cairn was saying, but Persephone did not. Though it had not occurred to her until that moment that her baby might very well be the long-awaited Gypsy King, she simply could not connect the grandness of the prophecy with the staccato of pings in her belly.

Nor did she want to.

“If the babe is this Gypsy King you've told us so much about, Cairn, are you telling us now that we'll have to wait until he's crowned king to see justice done?” asked Robert, not sounding best pleased by the prospect.

“No,” replied Cairn. “The prophecy does not say that the Gypsy King
himself
will unite the five tribes and set wrongs to right, Robert. It says that his
coming
will do so. And he
is
coming—all that is needed to fulfill the prophecy is to know that he will be king
someday
. And for that to happen, Azriel's wife needs to sit upon the throne that is hers by right of birth.”

As she spoke these words, Cairn turned to Persephone once more. The air around her crackled with intensity— and expectation.

Persephone felt a flare of irritation. She was not “Azriel's wife” to be used by the older woman as she saw fit. Her baby was not a piece in some clever puzzle devised by the Fates. And fighting for her throne was not a destiny that belonged to the Gypsies.

It was a destiny that belonged to her—and hopefully, to Azriel.

Fervently wishing she'd told Azriel of her promise to Finn long before this moment, Persephone drew him to one side, took a deep breath and whispered, “I would not undertake such a dangerous fight for her—”

“Nor will you have to,” Azriel interrupted in a voice loud enough to be heard by all. “As you, yourself, have seen, Persephone, Cairn can be a great bully when she wants to be. Yet she shall not bully you into
this
.”

“The child is the fulfillment of the prophecy, Azriel,” called Cairn.

“The child is
my son
,” he shot back. Stalking over to face the Gypsy leader, he added, “The queen is
my wife
.”

“Azriel—” said Persephone, chasing after him.

“Your son and wife are part of a greater plan,” said Cairn serenely.

“We have plans of our own,” he snapped.

“Azriel—”
Persephone tried again.

“Don't worry,” he said in a hard voice. “I will not let her force you into—”

“I made a promise to Finn that I'd do it!” blurted Persephone, cringing. “I swore to him I'd unite the realm and finish the job he never got a chance to start!”

For a long, tense moment, Azriel just stared at her. “What are you saying?” he finally asked, his tone inscrutable. “Are you saying that you
want
to fight for the throne?”

Persephone swallowed hard and stammered, “I'm … I'm saying that I have no
choice
but to fight for it, Azriel.”

At these words, his broad shoulders seemed to sag. “The other night when we were talking about the cottage,” he murmured, half to himself, “I thought … I mean, I just
assumed
—”

Persephone slipped her arms around him. “I swear I wasn't trying to mislead you, Azriel, I
swear
it,” she whispered, desperate to make him understand. “There is nothing on this earth I'd like better than to run away and spend the rest of my life playing farmer with you but—”

“Azriel, if it makes you feel any better, know that your wife will not be allowed to expose herself to danger under any circumstances,” interrupted Cairn. “Until her throne is secure and she is safely delivered of the child, she will be kept safe at all costs.”

The dispassionate way Cairn spoke of the day Persephone would become expendable was like a slap. Thinking that Cairn was, in some ways, not so different from Tutor, Persephone let go of Azriel.

Turning toward the Gypsy leader, she squared her shoulders and said, “It is I who made the promise to my brother, the king, Cairn. It is my throne and my fight. I do not intend to hide while others fight for me.”

Cairn glanced past Persephone to Azriel, who'd bowed his head—though whether in thought or despair, Persephone could not say. “You cannot allow your wife to fight, Azriel,” said Cairn calmly. “If you will not forbid her to do so for the sake of our people, think on this: you made a solemn vow to be fearless in your protection of her and any children the Fates might see fit to bless you with. Think, Azriel,
think
how you will feel if your firstborn dies because your wife stubbornly insisted upon putting herself in harm's way!”

Outraged that Cairn would dare to try to manipulate Azriel's feelings—and terrified that it might work— Persephone opened her mouth to offer protest.

Before she could say a word, however, Azriel slowly lifted his head. For a moment he just looked at her, his blue eyes utterly unreadable.

Then, in a quiet but clear voice, he said, “I met a girl, wed a princess and now find myself married to a queen. I would be a poor husband, indeed, if I did not stand her most loyal subject.”

Mesmerized, Persephone watched as Azriel drew his sword. Resting it across the palms of his outstretched hands, he went down on one knee, raised it up to her and said, “I hereby pledge my sword to you and declare myself yours to command—even into battle, even unto death. You need only name the task, and I shall see it done.”

For an endless moment no one moved, no one breathed.

Then, in perfect unison, Zdeno and Robert likewise took a knee and pledged their swords. En masse (though with wildly varying degrees of grace) Robert's men followed suit. With a little squeak that suggested she'd been so caught up in the moment that she'd forgotten herself, Rachel dropped to her knee a heartbeat after them. A heartbeat after her, Fayla slowly went down. As though seeing their kinswomen kneel had given them permission to do the same, Mateo, his brother, Raphael, and the other children—all of whom were clearly enthralled by
the drama unfolding before them—scrambled to make the time-honoured gesture of fealty. After laboriously manoeuvring himself onto his grubby knee, Sabian even bowed his tousled head and solemnly raised the upturned palms of his fat little hands, across which quite obviously lay an imaginary sword. For some reason, the sight of the tiny child pledging himself to Persephone with such heartfelt sincerity spurred the rest of the Gypsies to do the same.

All except Cairn, that is.

Persephone could have pointed out to the older woman that the reins of power had just been plucked from her hands. She could have informed Cairn that her days of deciding who would walk what path and who was expendable were over. She could have commanded her to bend the knee—or else.

She did not say any of these things, however.

Instead, she looked at Cairn.

And waited.

“If you die before the child is born, hope dies with you,” warned Cairn, after a long moment of silence.

“Hope will not die,” said Persephone as she watched the other woman reluctantly take a knee. “And neither will I.”

TWENTY-NINE