“Oh,” said the boy, grinning with relief. Hastily retrieving the brush from the straw at his feet, he dropped both brushes into a nearby wooden bucket, lifted the mare’s supple leather halter off its nail on the stall wall and slipped it over the horse’s pretty head. “You needn’t worry about her shying, faltering or panicking, m’lord, for I trained her myself,” said the boy. “She’s a good horse, aren’t you, girl? You’ll not let the great lord down, will you, sweetheart?”
In response to these questions, the horse snorted and tried to jerk her head away from the hands that were deftly adjusting the buckles of her bridle.
“Finish saddling her at once and bring her to me outside, do you understand?” said Lord Bartok.
“I do, m’lord,” said the stable boy, bobbing his head so briskly that his dirty dark hair flopped into his blue eyes.
As he wordlessly turned and strode back the way he’d come, Lord Bartok reflected that Atticus had done rather well in selecting a stud who bore sufficient resemblance to the dead king that the paternity of any child Aurelia might conceive would not be questioned on the basis of looks, anyway.
It is unfortunate that Atticus is not here to see to the second part of his instructions, thought Lord Bartok absently as he stepped out of the stable, for I cannot afford to delay my departure to personally execute them, and even the most trusted retainer is likely to wonder what a mere stable boy might have done to deserve—
“Godspeed, my lord!” a deep voice floated to him over the crisp morning air.
Looking up, Lord Bartok saw Lord Belmont leaning heavily against the sill of an open window on the third storey of the palace. He was dressed in an enormous doublet of crimson and flanked by his ever-present companion, the skinny mute. The golden crest of his new office dangled from the chain about his fat neck.
Lord Bartok nodded and waved briefly in acknowledgment of the other nobleman’s salutation.
It had been his idea to put Belmont in charge of the city following the removal of General Murdock. He’d needed to put someone in charge and Belmont had been the obvious choice. In addition to being the second-greatest lord in the realm, he was so obese he could barely stand unassisted—he’d have been worse than useless on the battlefield, a gluttonous invalid they’d have had to worry about protecting and feeding. Moreover, it suited Lord Bartok’s purposes to have Belmont out of the way. The fat lord would not take kindly to any actions he considered ignoble, and he held great sway with the other lords. Safer by far to have Belmont tucked away, beyond the ability to influence anyone. Once he, Lord Bartok, had wedded and bedded the queen, there’d be nothing Belmont or anyone else would be able to do about it.
Turning away from Lord Belmont before Lord Belmont could turn away from him, Lord Bartok gazed out over the beautifully manicured royal garden without really seeing a single exotic bloom, pretty pond or fluttering songbird. The other noblemen had ridden out to muster their men and gather supplies days ago, but he’d stayed behind to search Mordecai’s papers and personal effects for a clue as to where he’d taken the queen. Unfortunately, his efforts had been in vain. He’d have to hope that the looming war would draw the cripple out of his hole—and that he’d drag his royal wife along with him when it did.
A light tap-tap-tapping sound behind Lord Bartok caught his attention. Turning, he saw Aurelia flying toward him, her slippered feet tapping against the cobblestones as she ran, her skirts and petticoats lifted slightly higher than was necessary to keep from tripping on them. Lord Bartok’s eyes flicked from his daughter to the dirty boy who’d just emerged from the stables leading the saddled white mare.
Lord Bartok said nothing until Aurelia had come to a flustered halt before him and dipped him an elegant curtsey. Then, his calm tone belying his irritation, he said, “You are supposed to be with child, Aurelia.”
“What? Oh! Yes, of course,” she panted. Hastily dropping her skirts, she coughed delicately into one hand before pressing it against the small of her back and pushing her nonexistent belly forward. “Is this better, Father?” she whispered hopefully, still gasping slightly in an effort to catch her breath.
Lord Bartok looked down at his daughter with something vaguely resembling distaste. “What do you want?” he asked, ignoring her inane question.
“I want to know why you did not send for me.”
“Why would I have sent for you?”
Lady Aurelia flinched. “Because all the other lords sent for their daughters when they departed the city,” she said.
“I am not the other lords,” said Lord Bartok. “You are not their daughters.”
“That is precisely why you ought to have sent for me!” she cried. “The city is yet overrun by armed New Men—”
“Not so well armed as they were, thanks to my clearing out most of their weapons depots,” said Lord Bartok with satisfaction. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the stable boy halt a respectful distance away.
“Even so,” continued Aurelia, “the lowborns grow more unruly by the hour. The market is empty, the merchants have closed up shop, the craftsmen—even the dressmakers!—are refusing to venture out. There are rumours of war. What is to become of me, left here all by myself?”
“You will not be by yourself,” said Lord Bartok, impatiently gesturing to the stable boy that he might approach. “You will have dozens of servants to tend to your every need.”
“Servants,” sneered Aurelia, wrinkling her nose at the stable boy before deliberately averting her face.
Flushing deeply, the boy handed Lord Bartok the reins, hastily bowed to them both and hurried away.
“I despise Atticus for making arrangements for that to visit me each night,” hissed Aurelia through clenched teeth. “He purposely chose one that smells like horseshit, I know he did. Where is he, anyway?”
“Atticus?”
“Yes.”
“Gone.”
“Gone?” said Aurelia. “Gone where?”
Though Lord Bartok sincerely doubted that the news of her brother’s fate would shock Aurelia into miscarrying in the unlikely event that she was pregnant, he did not think it wise to take chances. So he said, “It is none of your business where your brother has gone, Aurelia. Your business is to get with child.”
The girl looked outraged. “I am trying—”
“I believe you,” interrupted Lord Bartok. “But I also believe that there is every chance you will fail. If that happens, there is something I would have you do.”
“What?” muttered Aurelia, screwing up her pinched face and folding her arms tightly across her chest as though in anticipation of more horseshit-scented unpleasantness.
Lord Bartok regarded her coolly until she uncrossed her arms, dipped him a stiff curtsey and said, “What is it you would have me do, Father?”
“I would have you hide from your maids that your monthly courses have begun,” he replied. “I would have you begin padding your bodice and skirts.”
The scowl on her face vanished upon the instant. “You’re going to find me an infant after all, then?” she asked eagerly, her eyes bright with the hope that even if she failed to conceive the stable boy’s child, she might yet have all that had been promised to her. “An infant that I can claim to have given birth to—one that I can name as the dead king’s son?”
With a fleeting smile at the thought of the sons he hoped to get upon the queen, Lord Bartok said, “All you need to know, Aurelia, is that I intend to keep my options open.”
With that, he swung up into the saddle, adjusted his cape about his shoulders, gave a brisk nod to the captain of his escort and galloped away without a backward glance.
TWENTY-EIGHT
LATE 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 th
at 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.
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