Tomorrow's Kingdom

by Maureen Fergus

  Alas, there were not. Though the window was not ten paces away, even an especially daring and desperate prisoner—even one who was strong and lucky—would be hard pressed to make the climb without slipping. And though she was not nearly as high up as she’d been in the turret chamber, she was certainly high enough to plummet to her death.

  Closing and latching the window, Persephone slowly walked over and sat back down on the bed. Unsheathing her dagger, she laid it on her lap and stared straight ahead as she formulated a plan. When the New Man commander arrived, she would call to him. She’d make him come into her chamber first, and then she’d kill him. And any soldiers he’d brought with him. And Alice too …

  Persephone spent the next hours alternately pressed against the wall, pleading for Azriel to wake up, and imagining the attack that would see her enemies dead at her feet.

  Then, late in the day, she heard the distant sound of a main-floor door opening—and a few seconds later, the sound of booted feet clomping up the stairs.

  Clutching her dagger tight in her sweaty hand, Persephone walked over to the door of the chamber. Licking her lips, she was about to call out to the commander when she heard an odd tapping sound behind her.

  Glancing over her shoulder, she saw something that caused her to whirl around and scream.

  For there, perched outside the right windowpane on the impossibly narrow ledge, his every muscle straining with the effort of clinging to the wall, his eyes bluer than ever in a face streaked with blood, was Azriel.

  THIRTY-THREE

  AS SOON AS MORDECAI ducked into the main building of the New Man training camp, he barked an order to have Lord Atticus escorted to suitable chambers. Then, brusquely declining the commander’s offer of a hot bath, a warm meal and clean clothes, he followed the man into his private office.

  “How many soldiers do you currently have under your command?” Mordecai demanded as soon as the two of them were alone.

  “Not as many as I’d hoped for, Your Grace,” admitted the commander. “However—”

  “How … many?”

  “Fewer than eight thousand,” replied the commander.

  “FEWER THAN EIGHT THOUSAND!” bellowed Mordecai. “How is that possible? My army numbers in the tens of thousands! More than a fortnight ago I sent a letter to the commander of every camp and outpost in the kingdom—I ordered them to send as many armed men as they could spare and to do so at once! I told them that I would not tolerate delays!”

  “It is not really a question of delays,” said the commander with a calmness that only served to inflame Mordecai further. “In some cases, the troops are coming from such far-flung places that they’ve not yet arrived. In other cases, it seems the commanders took to heart your words that they send only those men they could spare, and what with the growing discord throughout the realm, they felt that they really couldn’t spare—”

  “I care nothing about what they felt,” snarled Mordecai, outraged that the commander should think that he would when he, himself, was hungry, thirsty, dirty, exhausted and in such agony that he could barely hold his head up!

  The commander took a deep breath. “Your Grace, with eight thousand men we should be able to engage the army of the great lords as long as it is not too—”

  “I DO NOT WANT TO ‘ENGAGE’ THE ARMY OF THE GREAT LORDS!” shrieked Mordecai. “I WANT TO CRUSH IT BEFORE IT HAS A CHANCE TO FORM!”

  “I understand, Your Grace,” said the commander.

  Mordecai glared at him. He did not know what Murdock would have done in the face of such incompetence, but he knew what he was going to do. He was going to brook no excuses; he was going to show that he could be as steely a commander of men as the world had ever known.

  “Commander,” he said, “what good is a standing army if it is not prepared to go to war at a moment’s notice?”

  The commander frowned. “Your Grace, no army could possibly be prepared to go to war at a moment’s notice—”

  “Excuses,” muttered Mordecai.

  “Your Grace?”

  “I ask for action and you give me excuses.”

  The commander spread his large, capable hands wide. “Forgive me, Your Grace, if it appears that way, but we are speaking of undertaking the single greatest military campaign the realm has ever seen and—”

  “I know what we are speaking of,” snapped Mordecai, thinking how pleasant it would be to smash to pulp every one of the fingers on those large, capable hands.

  “I know you do, Your Grace, I know you do … just as I know you know that preparing for such a campaign requires time. Even for a standing army,” said the commander carefully. “Troops that have recently been made to march hard over long distances must be given a chance to recuperate. Blades must be honed, horses re-shod and given the size of the force we are bringing together, it is absolutely critical that we establish a supply train for we cannot be assured of being able to find what we need as we go. Moreover, there is the training of the men to consider—”

  “You are commander of a training camp,” snarled Mordecai, who was getting dangerously tired of hearing excuses. “Are you telling me that the soldiers under your command are not trained?”

  “Of course they are trained, Your Grace,” said the commander without flinching, “but they are trained for the tasks that have primarily occupied your great army these many years. Slave catching and Gypsy hunting, relocating lowborns and putting down minor rebellions. The men need to … to refine the skills they have learned that they might be as effective as possible in a true battle situation.”

  “Well, since I’m quite sure that Lord Bartok is not wasting any time gathering his army, they’d better refine them quickly,” said Mordecai with a shrug of his uneven shoulders.

  “They will, Your Grace,” assured the commander, seeming relieved. “You have my word that all will be in readiness within six weeks.”

  “You have six days.”

  The commander looked stunned. “Y-Your Grace, I fear—”

  “Yes?” interrupted Mordecai, his dark eyes glittering. “Tell me, Commander: what is it that you fear?”

  Looking as though he could almost hear the sound of the saw being sharpened against the whetstone, the commander said nothing, only swallowed hard.

  “Six days, then?”

  Hesitantly, the commander nodded.

  “Excellent,” breathed Mordecai. “Now, what about that hot bath?”

  THIRTY-FOUR

  IT TOOK PERSEPHONE less than a second to get over the shock of seeing Azriel perched on the narrow ledge outside the chamber window like a broad-shouldered, bloody-faced gargoyle.

  Flinging her dagger aside, she flew to the window and unlatched it with hands that trembled so badly that she could not stop fumbling.

  “No … no hurry, wife,” gasped Azriel. “By all means, take your time.”

  Finally managing to flip the latch, Persephone hastily opened the left pane of the window.

  “You’re insane!” she exclaimed as she watched him inch his way toward the opening.

  “Thank—”

  He slipped so abruptly that Persephone didn’t even have time to scream. One minute he was there, and the next minute he was gone. Gone … except for the one hand that had managed to grab onto the sill.

  Leaning out of the window so fast and so far that she nearly pitched herself headfirst out of it, Persephone seized the back of Azriel’s tunic with both hands and heaved with all her might. She wasn’t nearly strong enough to pull him all the way up, of course, but she was strong enough to lift him the few inches that he needed to be able to throw his other hand onto the sill, and thereafter to give them both the illusion that she’d be able to support him if he slipped again.

  “Oh, thank the gods you’re alive, thank the gods, thank the gods,” babbled Persephone as Azriel dragged himself through the window and dropped to the floor. Sinking to her knees beside him, she took his head in her hands and kissed him deeply before pulling back and an
xiously examining the frighteningly ugly wound at his temple.

  “It’s nothing,” murmured Azriel as he woozily slipped his arms around her. “Less than a scratch.”

  “It is not less than a scratch,” said Persephone fiercely. “And when I get my hands on Alice—”

  It wasn’t until the chamber door began to open that Persephone suddenly remembered the sound of booted feet climbing the stairs. Scrambling to her feet, she saw Alice leading a one-eyed, sabre-wielding New Man into the chamber.

  “I thought you said the Gypsy was dead,” said the New Man, flicking his one green eye toward Azriel while absently fingering his black eye patch.

  “I thought he was,” said Alice, her eyes darting between Azriel and the open window. “Anyway, he’s hurt. Shouldn’t put up much of a—”

  “Leave us,” said the New Man.

  As Alice scurried out of the chamber and closed the door behind her, Persephone gauged the distance to her dagger. Just as she was about to launch herself at it in the extremely faint hope that she’d be able to grab it and gut the New Man before he had time to react, two things happened.

  The first was that Azriel clamped his hand around her ankle in an obvious effort to prevent her from doing anything reckless.

  The second was that the New Man went down on one knee, bowed his head and murmured, “Your Majesty, it is an honour.”

  “It is?” blurted Persephone, who was so amazed that she couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  “Yes,” said the New Man. “It isn’t every man who gets two chances to save a queen.”

  Persephone stared at him, racking her brains to remember when he’d previously saved her and wondering how on earth she could have forgotten such a thing.

  As she did so, he lifted his head, fixed his green eye upon her and said, “I was the soldier tasked with removing you from the birthing chamber and disposing of you on the night of your birth, Your Majesty. I was the one who defied the Regent and saved your life.”

  “Do not imagine that I am a good man, Your Majesty, for I would not have risen to my present rank if I was,” said Commander Darius. “Unlike many of my fellow soldiers, however, I try to avoid murdering infants—and queens.”

  “I see,” said Persephone, who had to agree that this did not sound like the personal philosophy of a good man.

  “The night you were born, the Regent summoned me to the birthing chamber,” he explained. “Thrusting you into my arms, he ordered me to murder you and get rid of your body.” He paused for a long moment before continuing. “As I left the palace, my intention was to do exactly as I’d been ordered. I was a new recruit eager to prove myself and thrilled for the opportunity to do so, you see. As I hurried through the streets of Parthania looking for a likely place to do the job, however, I kept feeling you move in my arms, and I kept hearing you make these little noises—”

  “She was crying?” asked Azriel, who had placed himself squarely between Persephone and the New Man who’d supposedly saved her life twice.

  “No, not crying,” mused Commander Darius. “Gurgling, more like. Cooing. Like a little dove. I tried to follow my orders, Your Majesty—even pressed my hand over top of your mouth and nose for a few seconds—but, in the end, I just couldn’t do it. So when I saw a heavily loaded wagon passing by on its way to the city gates, I set you in the back of it and disappeared into the night.”

  By the way Azriel was glaring at Commander Darius, Persephone could tell that he wasn’t especially impressed with the man for only having smothered her for a few seconds before dumping her.

  Squeezing her husband’s hand to remind him that she had, in fact, survived the ordeal, Persephone said, “Commander Darius, there was a servant who saw you come for me that night. She said you had mismatched eyes.”

  “And so I had,” he replied with a faint smile. “As it happens, I was set upon within hours of spiriting you from the palace. I later realized that His Grace must have chosen me for the task because I was an easily forgotten new recruit and that he must have ordered me killed to prevent me from speaking of what I’d done. In addition to having my nose badly broken and my face slashed, I lost my other eye—the brown one—in the beating. Though left for dead, I obviously survived. By the time I’d recovered, months had gone by, and I looked so different that I was able to change my name and once more join the Regent’s army.”

  With a derisive snort, Azriel said, “Why would you rejoin the army of the man who’d ordered you killed?”

  “Soldiering was the only thing I was good at,” replied Commander Darius. “And it is a lucky thing for you that it was, for if it had worked out any other way, I would not be standing here now—and neither would you. You would be lying on the floor bleeding to death from the place where your scalp used to be and your wife would be on her way back to His Grace Mordecai.”

  Azriel’s eyes flashed dangerously at this, but before he could say anything, Persephone said, “It is a lucky thing, indeed, Commander Darius. I only wonder—what will you tell Lord Pembleton’s daughter-in-law? She is expecting the outcome you have just described. In fact, she is counting on it.”

  “I will not tell her anything,” replied Commander Darius. “After you are gone from here, I will place her under house arrest.”

  “On what charge?” asked Azriel, raising an eyebrow.

  “I’ll think of something,” said Commander Darius with a shrug.

  “For how long will you keep her under arrest?” asked Persephone, who couldn’t help feeling a pang of compassion for the broken woman who would have seen her and Azriel dead.

  “For as long as is necessary,” replied Commander Darius. “The realm is in an uproar, Your Majesty. His Grace has ordered the bulk of his army to the training camp north of Syon, your brother’s widow is said to be pregnant, and her noble father is fast gathering an army at his country estate.”

  “I don’t suppose Lord Bartok is gathering an army for the purpose of helping to set me upon the throne?” said Persephone, shuddering as she considered what might have happened to her if she’d called out to Lord Atticus that night in the black stone castle.

  “No,” said Commander Darius. “I don’t suppose he is.”

  THIRTY-FIVE

  OWING TO AZRIEL’S grievous head injury, the journey back to the bandit camp took much longer than the journey to Pembleton Estate had done.

  A few days after Persephone and Azriel’s not-sotriumphant return, Big Ben returned from his journey to the Valley of Gorg. The Gorgishman Miter was trotting along at his heels—twirling his slingshot, loudly complaining that they’d walked almost the entire way and asking if all dwarves were too feeble to run or was it just this one?

  Persephone immediately left off meeting with her Council to go over and perform the traditional greeting of the Gorgish.

  “Greetings, illustrious one,” she intoned as she folded her arms across her chest and bowed deeply.

  “Miter is here to take back the ring you stole, female,” replied the Gorgishman without preamble. “And also to inform you that you and your little war are to stay away from the Valley of Gorg unless you long for a hideous death. And also to accept a seat on your royal Council, which would otherwise be woefully incomplete—a sacrifice for which Miter assumes he will be exceptionally well compensated.”

  For the sake of her unborn son, whom she hoped would someday rule over a united realm, instead of telling Miter to shove off, Persephone said, “You are welcome to sit on my Council, Miter, but I’ll not compensate you for doing so, nor will I give you back the ring you lost when you tried to kill me and my husband.”

  “YOU MUST DO THESE THINGS!” Miter shrieked, flapping his pygmy arms.

  “I’m not going to,” said Persephone, pressing her hand against her belly to calm the baby, who apparently didn’t like the sound of Miter’s voice any more than she did. “Especially since I see that you did not bring any warriors with you.”

  “When the dwarf told Miter of your ri
diculous request, Miter laughed and laughed,” replied the Gorgishman. “Miter understands a great deal about the ways of war, you see. Miter knows that no warrior worth his salt would ever follow a pregnant female into battle. That is why Miter did not even consider ordering any of his own magnificent warriors to do so.”

  “Thank the gods for small mercies,” muttered Azriel, rolling his eyes.

  “YOU WILL NOT BE THANKING THE GODS WHEN YOU AND YOUR STINKING TRIBESMEN ARE ON THE BRINK OF ANNIHILATION!” screeched Miter, shaking his little yellow fists in a sudden rage. “You will be begging Miter to come to your rescue, and Miter will do nothing but laugh! AH-HA-HA-HA! A-HA-HA-HA … !”

  As Miter continued to demonstrate how he intended to behave in a crisis situation, Persephone decided that, upon reflection, perhaps the fact that Miter had not brought with him any of his “magnificent warriors” was not such a terrible thing, after all.

  Not long after the arrival of Big Ben and Miter, Persephone was in the Council tent getting a feel for the gleaming suit of armour that the camp blacksmith had fashioned for her when she heard Rachel scream and then scream again.

  Heart in her throat, Persephone turned so fast that the metal strips of her armour skirt clacked together. Forgetting that she had a newly sharpened sword in the jewelled scabbard at her waist, she unsheathed her dagger and began to run—dodging children and dogs, shouting for adults to move and elbowing them aside if they didn’t move fast enough.

  “Rachel!” she shouted as she tried to shove her way through the small crowd that had gathered around the place from which the screams had come. “Rachel!”

  Breaking through the crowd unexpectedly, Persephone stumbled forward and very nearly buried her dagger into Zdeno’s kidney—a mortal wound he probably wouldn’t have noticed, given the way that Rachel was kissing him.

  Sabian—who was standing nearby with Mateo and Raphael—looked up at Persephone with wide eyes, cupped one pudgy hand around his rosebud mouth and whispered, “They’re kithing.”