“I was pleased to answer your summons, my lady,” he said, taking a step toward her. “However, I must confess that it surprised me, for it is rather … unusual for a woman of your station to invite a man of my station to her chambers, let alone to receive him at night and in the complete absence of attendants.”
“I know,” said Lady Aurelia with a toss of her honey-blond curls. “And I’d not have sent for you or received you in such an unseemly manner if I was not in desperate need of your help.”
General Murdock nodded, pleased that she’d confirmed that they were alone. Though he could easily have disposed of a few terrified female attendants—and though doing so in a frenzied manner would certainly have heightened the impression that Lady Aurelia’s murder was a random act of madness—their presence would have complicated the mission, and a military man always avoided complications when he could.
“I understand completely,” he murmured now. Casually slipping his hand into the pocket of his doublet, General Murdock closed his fingers around the handle of the straight razor and took another step toward the little noblewoman. “Tell me, how can I be of assistance?”
Instead of answering, Lady Aurelia abruptly fluttered over to a chair near the fire, flung herself down and began to weep.
Hand still in his pocket, General Murdock started toward her. “There, there,” he said, repeating words he’d heard other men say to other teary-eyed women.
“Forgive me my womanly weakness, General,” said Lady Aurelia with a dainty sniffle. “I just … I didn’t know who else to turn to. My father is so powerful, so frightening …” Leaning forward so far that General Murdock could have seen her breasts if he’d been inclined to drop his gaze, she dropped her voice a notch and added, “You cannot imagine the wicked things he has made me do—nor the unspeakable thing he would have me do now.”
“What wicked things has he made you do?” asked General Murdock, who already knew at least part of the answer and thought it prudent to learn the rest of it before he silenced Lady Aurelia forever. “What unspeakable thing would he have you do now?”
The noblewoman opened her mouth, but instead of replying, she bolted to her tiny bare feet, fixed her bright eyes upon something behind him and gasped, “What was that?”
“What was what?” asked General Murdock, looking around.
“Out in the corridor!” whispered Lady Aurelia frantically. “I heard a noise!”
Lifting his long, thin nose as though he might be able to smell the threat, even if he could not hear it, General Murdock said, “I heard nothing—”
“Come quickly, General, please!” interrupted Lady Aurelia in a panicked whisper as she flew across the room and flung open the door of her bedchamber. “You must hide under the bed at once, for if that is my lord father out there and he finds you in here, I swear to you that he will kill you and beat me to within an inch of my life!”
His eyes gleaming in the firelight, General Murdock hesitated for just a moment before adjusting his grip on the straight razor in his pocket and starting after Lady Aurelia. Though he was quite as sure that she was having hysterics over nothing as he was that her lord father would never in a thousand years be able to kill him, the bedchamber was as convenient a place as any to take her apart. As long as—
He saw them hiding in the shadows the instant he stepped into the bedchamber. Unfortunately for General Murdock, it was an instant too late, for although he managed to slit two throats, slash one face and bite off the lobe of one ear, in the end there were simply too many attackers to fight off.
When the Bartok lackeys disguised as New Men had finished binding General Murdock’s arms behind his back and beating him for the injuries he’d inflicted upon their number, Lady Aurelia flounced over to the place on the floor where he was lying.
Jamming her bony hands upon her hips, she thrust her pointy chin at him and said, “As it happens, General, the thing my lord father wanted me to do now was to lure you into my bedchamber that his men might capture you. And upon reflection, I must confess that I didn’t really find the act unspeakable at all.”
After calling for reinforcements to make absolutely sure there was no way their captive could escape, Bartok’s men gagged General Murdock, put a sack over his bleeding head and took him away.
As he was being led through the palace corridors, down the stairs, out into the back courtyard and across the lawn to the place he knew so well, General Murdock could tell that he was walking past dozens of New Men on guard duty. He could hear them murmuring amongst themselves; he could feel them staring as he went by. He guessed that the more observant among them recognized his fine clothing and distinctive body type and were uneasily wondering if the man beneath the sack was him.
He did not wonder why these observant men did not accost the ones dragging him away, however. Time and again General Murdock had made brutal examples of men who’d dared to question their orders or to question the decisions and actions of their superiors.
Clearly, the lesson he’d sought to teach had been so well learned that the men no longer dared to question even those superiors they didn’t recognize—or even those they recognized as Bartok men in disguise.
Upon reaching the dungeon, one of the Bartok men dismissed the New Men on duty, who hesitated only until the Bartok man added that the order had come directly from General Murdock himself. After that, the New Men fairly tripped over themselves in their haste to obey.
It was gratifying, in a way.
After the New Men departed, the sack, gag and ropes were removed. General Murdock was stripped of his black doublet and forced to don the rags of a corpse. He was then beaten again before being led deeper through the maze of tunnels to the threshold of a cell for which he’d ever had an especial affinity. It was large, low ceilinged and stifling hot on account of the fire that never stopped burning. To General Murdock’s right hung the narrow, rusty cage that until recently had housed the Gorgish ambassador; to his left lay the dusty, blond skeleton of the Marinese ambassador. Directly ahead of him were a butcher block and several trays of interrogation implements. And beyond all these things was the little cage where Gypsy infants used to be kept prior to being brought forth by His Grace, who tirelessly sought to harness the healing power of their blood.
Wordlessly, Bartok’s lackeys dragged General Murdock over to the wall to which the Khan ambassador had been shackled for so many years. As they shoved him to the ground, half a dozen startled rats fled from their hiding spots in the filthy straw. With something vaguely resembling envy, General Murdock watched them scuttle into the furthest, darkest corners of the hot cell, their long, skinny tails lashing behind them.
By the time the last of them had taken refuge from the light, General Murdock had been clapped in wrist irons and chained to the wall, and Lord Bartok himself had entered the cell to stand before him.
“You once said you thought you could tell me what to do because you were the man who commanded the soldiers who patrolled the city and guarded its gates,” said Lord Bartok. Spreading his elegant hands wide, he shrugged and said, “It would appear that you are no longer that man.”
General Murdock said nothing, only stared up at Lord Bartok with the eye that wasn’t swollen shut.
“It would also appear that without your soldiers to protect you, you are easy prey,” said Lord Bartok.
General Murdock did not correct him. He did not point out that he’d maimed or killed four of Lord Bartok’s men before being subdued. He did not tell him that he’d not resisted thereafter because he’d been disarmed and so hopelessly outnumbered that resistance could only have resulted in further harm to himself. He did not explain that a military man knew better than to fight when defeat was a certainty.
He did not warn that a military man bided his time.
“Your New Man army is like a great snake that wrapped its fat coils around this city,” Lord Bartok was saying now. “By imprisoning you, I have cut off the head of the snake.”
> “Why imprison me?” asked General Murdock, who would never have left an enemy as dangerous as he alive.
“Why imprison you instead of killing you, you mean?” said Lord Bartok. He wrinkled his nose in distaste. “Unlike you, Murdock, I am a civilized man, not an animal.”
General Murdock would have liked to say that he was not an animal either—that he enjoyed the finer things in life just as Lord Bartok himself did. However, he knew that the great lord would feel provoked by such a comment, and at present, he could see no advantage to be gained by provoking him.
“Besides,” continued Lord Bartok, “I may yet have use for you—alive.”
General Murdock nodded, for he could see the sense in this. “And how do you propose to control my New Men?” he asked.
“I am going to give out that you’ve been stricken by the Great Sickness and that you’ve asked me to assume command of the army during your convalescence.”
“My soldiers will never believe you.”
“And yet, as you have already seen, they will do as commanded,” said Lord Bartok with quiet satisfaction. “The city gates shall shortly be opened. By sunrise tomorrow most of my fellow noblemen will be headed to their various estates. There, they will call upon all loyal, able-bodied men to take up arms. And when they have assembled, we shall march upon your unsuspecting army, rescue the queen from your despicable lowborn master and crush him and his ambitions once and for all.”
With that, Lord Bartok and his men left the cell. As he listened to the sound of them locking the heavy door behind them, General Murdock closed his good eye and sighed softly. If he’d not been a military man, he might have allowed himself to despair. But he was a military man and so he forced himself to think. Clearly, he needed to escape the dungeon quickly that he might take back control of the city. And if it was too late to do that, he needed to reach the main force of his army in time to lead them into war and protect the life of the master whom he’d served for so long.
At the thought of Mordecai, General Murdock shifted uneasily. He knew that as furious as His Grace would be when he found out that the first contingent of soldiers sent to destroy the Gypsy nest had failed to report back on schedule, this fury would pale in comparison to that which he’d feel when he learned that control of the imperial capital had fallen into Bartok’s hands. At best, Mordecai would suspect General Murdock of incompetence; at worst, he’d suspect him of disloyalty.
Either way, General Murdock knew he had a dangerous uphill battle ahead of him when it came to regaining his master’s trust.
Yet it was a battle he would willingly wage because a military man honoured his oath of loyalty.
Even unto death.
TWENTY-THREE
DEATH WAS THE FURTHEST thing from Rachel’s mind the next day as she, Zdeno and Azriel prepared to slip behind the waterfall that hid the entrance to the Gypsy camp.
A hot meal with all the fixings—this was the thing that was on Rachel’s mind.
Licking her lips in anticipation, she watched as Zdeno took two steps down the crumbling path that led to the ledge at the bottom of the waterfall where Azriel was already waiting.
Turning, Zdeno stretched his calloused hand back toward her and called, “Take my hand!”
Rachel smiled and did as he bid. The path was not especially treacherous, and she was confident she’d have been able to manage the dozen steps to the bottom without falling to her death, but she liked the feel of Zdeno’s strong hand holding hers. Moreover, she liked that he liked to take care of her. Though she’d not exactly felt jealous watching Azriel fall in love with Persephone— and she with him—it was a truly lovely thing to be cherished by a man who had eyes for none but her and who acted as though she were more beautiful than the stars, more fragile than blown glass and more precious than a bucketful of jewels. And though Zdeno, with his unfortunate birthmark, may not have been considered handsome by many, Rachel had come to think of him as very handsome indeed. Oh, perhaps not handsome in the way that Azriel was handsome—for he was just ridiculously handsome—but handsome in a way that made Rachel’s heart beat a little faster whenever she looked at him.
“Are you all right?” Zdeno asked anxiously when they reached the ledge.
“Yes,” she said, smiling again as she reached up to brush the speckles of mist off his messy brown hair.
Zdeno grabbed her hand and kissed her fingertips. She, in turn, kissed him on the lips. Looking as he always did after she kissed him—which is to say, like a man about to burst into flight—Zdeno grinned and clutched her hand tighter.
Eyeing the two of them with a mixture of impatience and yearning, Azriel gestured for them to follow him and then ducked behind the pounding sheets of water. They followed him at once. As soon as they were in the cave, Rachel let go of Zdeno’s hand. Stepping up to the mouth of the tunnel that led to the Gypsy camp, she breathed deeply of the cool, piney breeze that blew through it. She was looking forward to a real meal and a safe place to sleep and to hearing what ideas Cairn and the others had for finding and rescuing—
“Listen!” hissed Azriel, freezing.
Rigid with fear, Rachel listened so hard that she could almost feel her ears quivering with exertion. “What is it? What do you hear?” she whispered in a panicky voice. “I don’t hear anything!”
“Neither do I—and neither does he,” said Zdeno grimly as he took out and loaded his slingshot.
The hair on the back of Rachel’s neck rose when she realized what Zdeno was saying.
Azriel wasn’t worried because he’d heard something threatening; he was worried because from the direction of what should have been a lively camp filled with clattering cooking pots, laughing children and barking dogs, he’d heard nothing but silence.
Suddenly, mingled with the cool, piney smell, Rachel smelled something else:
Smoke.
“Azriel, wait!” she cried.
But Azriel would not wait. And though Zdeno made a grab for her, Rachel would not wait either. Terrified though she was by the thought of what they might find at the other end of the tunnel, she plunged into the darkness after the wild-eyed Gypsy. Hands held out in front to prevent her from bashing into the tunnel walls, she stumbled along just ahead of Zdeno who kept urgently whispering for her to please just stop.
When she got far enough through the tunnel that she could see what lay on the other side, Rachel finally did as he asked. Indeed, she stopped so suddenly that Zdeno nearly barrelled into the back of her.
Because what she saw was the blood-spattered body of a giant, flame-haired Gypsy, sprawled on the ground just outside the tunnel.
TWENTY-FOUR
WHEN PERSEPHONE GUESSED she was about half a day’s hike to the Gypsy camp, she said goodbye to Flight.
“It’s nothing personal,” she assured the mare as she lifted off the saddle and panniers and removed the bit and bridle. “You’ve been a dear and loyal friend, and I truly could not have made it this far without you. However, we cannot be certain that we’ve not been followed—either by New Men or by Lord Atticus—and I cannot take the chance that your hoofprints might lead them to the secret entrance beneath the falls. Then, too, there is the matter of an old friend whom I left behind at the Gypsy camp some months ago. His name is Fleet and he has a heart as big as the moon, but I’m afraid that he is inordinately fond of me, and I do not think he’d take kindly at all to the sight of you in my company.”
Flight snorted and tossed her head as if to show what she thought of moon-hearted jealous types. Then she nuzzled Persephone one last time, rolled in the dirt to thoroughly rid herself of the feel of the saddle, whinnied loudly and galloped away.
Relieved that Flight did not appear distraught at their parting, Persephone started walking. As she did so, excitement and anxiety suddenly began to wage a fierce battle for supremacy inside of her. One minute her spirits soared with the certainty that she’d shortly be hurling herself into Azriel’s arms; the next, her spirits were crushed
beneath the dread conviction that Mordecai’s soldiers had gotten to the Gypsy camp first and that Azriel and the others were all dead.
By the time she reached the crumbling dirt path that led to the stone ledge at the base of the falls, Persephone was wrung out by her wild emotional swings. Pausing for just long enough to cut an armful of sugarberry branches so that she’d have a reunion gift for Fleet, she hurried down the path and slipped behind the falls.
It was then that anxiety abruptly triumphed over excitement—and was joined by its bosom companions, terror and despair.
Dropping the sugarberry branches from hands shaking so hard she could barely unsheathe her dagger, Persephone told herself that the deathly quiet from the other end of the tunnel wasn’t necessarily cause for alarm and that the sickly sweet smell in the air wasn’t necessarily burning flesh.
Except that she knew the quiet was cause for alarm and the smell was burning flesh. And knowing these things, she knew she ought to turn and flee while she still had the chance.
But she couldn’t do it.
Not without knowing whether or not there were any in the Gypsy camp who might yet be saved—not until she’d seen for herself if Azriel was among the dead.
Persephone made her way through the tunnel swiftly and silently. The sight that greeted her as she neared the far end was even worse than she’d imagined. Except for the hut in which she and Azriel had spent their first night together, every other hut in the camp had been reduced to a charred ruin. The clearing where her beautiful wedding had taken place was a mess of overturned tables, smashed cooking pots, rotting food and discarded personal possessions. Hard and soft surfaces alike were marked with rust-coloured splatters and smears too numerous to count.
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