Tomorrow's Kingdom

by Maureen Fergus

  As she watched him approach, Persephone was forcibly struck by two thoughts. The first was that if she lived to be a thousand years old, she was quite sure she’d never tire of the feel of his eyes upon her. The second was that she hoped that the baby looked exactly like him.

  “Persephone?” murmured Azriel when he was standing just a few inches away from her.

  “Yes?” she said breathlessly, staring at his lips.

  Instead of answering her, Azriel used the tips of his fingers to brush the hair back from her face and to tuck every last stray strand behind her ears. Then he gently tugged the crown out of her hands and stepped behind her. Ever so slowly, he lowered the crown onto her head, wrapped his arms around her and gave her a kiss behind the ear.

  “It fits nicely,” he murmured.

  “The crown?” she asked, leaning back against him.

  “No, the suit of armour,” he teased, reaching down to give the steel strips of her skirt a twitch. “You look quite delectable in it—in an utterly terrifying way, of course.”

  Smiling, Persephone turned in his arms and looked up at him. “And how do I look in the crown?” she asked, more timidly than she’d intended.

  At once, Azriel’s expression grew serious. “Magnificent,” he said. “Like a queen.”

  Flushing with pleasure, she said, “And … you’re sure you don’t want one? A crown, I mean? Because if you do—if you think you’ll not be content being known only as prince consort and not as king—I’m willing to share the throne with you, Azriel.”

  It was not a lie, for Persephone was willing. Nevertheless, she found herself giving a tiny, inward sigh of relief at Azriel’s reply.

  “I have already told you that I do not want to be king,” he said. “I want to know that you are happy, and that you love and respect me, and that you and the baby and I will be together forever—”

  “We will,” said Persephone, hoping it was true.

  “Then I am content that you should rule alone,” said Azriel, rocking from side to side with her in his arms. “Indeed, I think it would be a mistake for you not to rule alone, for there are many men who’d prefer a king to a queen, and I think you’d not take kindly to being overlooked, and I know I’d not take kindly to seeing the equipment of the men who’d dared to do so dangling from every chandelier in the palace. Besides all that, the hard seat of a throne would bruise my tender backside, and a crown would flatten my beautiful curls, and I could not abide either.” He smiled very wickedly before continuing. “No, far better that I should simply remain your Master of Bath—ever armed with soap and sponge, my entire being devoted to ensuring that in the whole of the realm, there is no woman with a cleaner pair of—”

  “YOUR MAJESTY!” bellowed Robert, bursting into the tent. Briskly striding forward, he waved a sealed letter over his head and said, “My man has just now returned with a message for you from Lord Bartok!”

  At once, Persephone pulled away from Azriel, took the letter and broke the seal:

  Most Gracious Majesty,

  I cannot express to you how profoundly relieved I was to receive your message. To know that you are safe and beyond the clutches of the former regent does much to assuage my grief and pain that my only son was taken during the rescue mission, and it fills me with great joy to know that you have already raised an army and that you intend to return to the imperial capital to take your throne. As for the mission that you have set for me, rest assured that the only thing a man of my station need concern himself with is obeying without question the commands of his sovereign. Therefore you may depend upon me to rally the other noblemen to join me in mercilessly harassing the army of the former regent. And when the day finally comes that you call for me to stand beside you in a true battle against our common enemy, that together we might restore proper order to this great realm, know that the gods themselves will not be able to keep me from your side.

  With Deepest Affection, Greatest Respect and Kindest

  Regards,

  Your Most Loyal Servant,

  Lord Bartok

  “I cannot believe that Lord Atticus was kidnapped that night,” murmured Persephone pensively.

  “I cannot believe that Lord Bartok signed his letter ‘Your Most Loyal Servant,’” said Azriel in a mock disapproving voice. “Does he not know that I am your most loyal servant?”

  “No, nor does he know that you’ve married and fathered a child upon his precious queen,” said Robert. “And it is my very, very dearest wish in life to be there when he finds out.”

  Smiling faintly as she shook her head at him, Persephone said, “At least it sounds as though Lord Bartok intends to do as commanded. If he does, and if New Men continue deserting in the numbers being rumoured, the coming weeks should see the size and strength of Mordecai’s army significantly—”

  The sudden sound of frenzied barking and faraway shouts of alarm interrupted their conversation. As one, Persephone, Robert and Azriel drew their swords.

  Robert stepped out of the tent first. Recoiling slightly, he said, “What is that smell?”

  Persephone stepped around him, gave a tentative sniff and recoiled, for mingled with the fresh, woodsy smells of the forest were the smells of wet wool, dung fires and too few baths.

  Even as it occurred to her what the source of these smells must be, a bandit scout came charging out of the forest to the north of the camp.

  “YOUR MAJESTY, IT’S THE KHAN!” he cried, his eyes as big as trenchers. “They’re coming! And they’re hairy! And … and … and there are thousands of them!”

  Heart pounding with excitement, Persephone watched as the Khan slowly began to materialize out of the misty gloom. All were large, all had long, tangled hair poking out from beneath their horned helms, all carried water skins and food pouches, all had battle-axes jammed into their heavy leather belts. Some had great bushy beards; others did not. Some wore long shaggy coats, some wore animal skins, and some appeared to have stripped off their shirts altogether—though it was hard to say for sure because all of these had arms, bellies and backs that were quite as hairy as their heads and chins.

  As the Khan gathered at the northern edge of the camp, Cur, Silver and the other dogs continued to bark and snarl and strain against the men who were holding them back. The Gypsies and bandits, meanwhile, warily began to congregate at the southern edge of the camp. A few wore expressions of curiosity; most wore expressions of either nervousness or belligerence. All stared mutely at the great hairy horde that was staring back at them.

  Robert adjusted his grip on his sword. “My men and I have never seen even one Khan before,” he said edgily as his eyes flicked from side to side as though trying to assess the magnitude of an approaching threat. “You’re quite sure they come in friendship—even though they once tried to kill you?”

  “The avalanche wasn’t necessarily meant to kill us, Robert,” said Azriel lightly as he laid a steadying hand upon the bandit leader’s shoulder.

  “And even if it was, it happened before my champion won us our lives and the everlasting friendship of the tribe,” added Persephone as she scanned the horde for Barka and Fayla.

  Unable to spot them but knowing that something had to be done quickly to diffuse the escalating tension, Persephone strode into the gap between the two groups and made a deliberate show of sheathing her sword. As Azriel stepped forward to stand beside her, she turned to the Khan, spread her hands wide and called, “Welcome, my friends!”

  In response to a gruff order barked from somewhere in the middle of the horde, those Khan at the front— warriors who perhaps formed part of a protective guard— stepped aside to allow Barka to walk forward. At his side was Fayla, looking well enough in spite of appearing rather battered and bruised. The Khan prince grinned broadly at Persephone and Azriel, but before he could do more than this, his attention was caught by something—or rather, by someone—behind them.

  “Mateo!” cried Barka in delight. “Mateo, it’s me, lad—Barka!” He thumpe
d himself twice on the chest. “I’m the Khan prince what taught you to sing so sweetly! Remember? Back in the dungeon in Parthania?”

  As if to remind the boy, Barka began to sing, loudly and quite as tunelessly as if he was utterly tone deaf. Smiling slightly, Mateo hesitated for only a few seconds before joining in with the voice of an angel. Together, the hulking Khan and the little Gypsy sang all three verses of a well-known, much-beloved Glyndorian lullaby. By the time they’d finished, nearly everyone on both sides of the camp was smiling, and the tension that had filled the air earlier had all but vanished.

  Persephone took advantage of the moment by swiftly calling for the Gypsies and the bandits to make their guests welcome. Once she was satisfied that the various factions were getting along (or, at least, that they were not trying to kill each other), Persephone invited Barka and Fayla to join her, Azriel and the other members of her Council in the Council tent.

  After settling himself down onto one of the roughhewn stools, Barka gruffly introduced himself to Cairn, Robert and Zdeno and greeted Rachel as an old friend. Then he turned to Azriel and Persephone and said, “Condolences to you both on the passing of those you’ve recently lost. May the mother goddess of the mountains grant them afterlives rich in wine, women and wonderful woolly sheep.”

  “Thank you,” said Persephone, privately hoping the gods would spare Finn an eternity plagued by the Khan’s over-sensitive, spoiled, high-strung sheep. “I’m so pleased that you and your tribesmen have come, Barka.”

  “Your Majesty, I once promised you the everlasting friendship of my people and all that implied,” he reminded. “You ought to have known that would mean that we’d come as soon as we’d dug Fayla out of the snow and—”

  “You don’t mean to tell me that you brought another avalanche down on her head,” said Persephone in dismay as she reached up to adjust her crown.

  “It was only a little one, triggered before the lookout realized who she was,” said Barka defensively, plunging his fingers into his beard to give his chin a vigorous scratch. “The important thing is that other than the handful of women we left behind to watch over the sheep and the children—may the mother goddess keep them safe in their secret hideout—the mighty Khan are here in full force and just itching for the chance to bash in the heads of our hated enemies!”

  “You left only a handful of women behind?” said Robert in a puzzled voice as he looked through the open tent flap at the hulking, hairy Khan. “But I don’t see any—”

  “Reason to worry about those you’ve left behind,” interjected Persephone smoothly, wishing she’d thought to warn Robert and the others that the beardless Khan men were actually women. “We’ve received reports that Mordecai is taking his army west, not north. Moreover, now that you and your warriors have arrived, I intend to do something that will make Mordecai forget all about his plan to slaughter your tribe or any other.”

  “And what is that, Your Majesty?” asked Barka, cracking his hairy knuckles in anticipation.

  “I intend to march upon the imperial capital and claim the throne he so badly desires,” she said, hoping that her words didn’t sound as fantastical to the rest of them as they did to her.

  “And after that?” asked Barka.

  “My wife the queen shall raise such an army of loyal subjects that Mordecai will never again be able to threaten to slaughter anyone,” said Azriel firmly.

  “Because his army will be outnumbered?” said Fayla, raising an eyebrow.

  “Because his army will be destroyed,” said Persephone flatly. “And because he will be dead.”

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  DEEP BENEATH the imperial palace that Persephone hoped to shortly claim as her own, Mordecai’s most favoured General moved not a muscle as he watched the rat creep forward out of the darkness.

  Though he believed he’d been a prisoner in the dungeon for about a month now, General Murdock could not say for certain because he had no way of accurately marking the passage of time. In his close, sweltering cell, the sun did not rise or set; minutes could be minutes or they could be hours. He never knew how long he’d slept, and he suspected that his guards purposely checked on him at random intervals to keep him thusly disoriented.

  It was what he’d always done back when he’d been the one holding the dungeon keys.

  He’d been in the dungeon for long enough, at any rate, that the injuries he’d sustained on the night of his capture had mostly healed. He’d gotten filthy, but not nearly as filthy as one might have expected, for whenever he’d been given his ration of tepid water, he’d used a small amount to clean himself as best he could. Lord Bartok’s men had jeered him each time they’d seen him dip the torn hem of his rags into the water and carefully wipe his face and hands, but General Murdock had paid them no mind at all. He was a military man, and a military man knew that surviving captivity was as much about mental strength as it was about physical strength—and that nothing leeched mental strength faster than failure to perform those small, inconsequential tasks that allowed one to continue to feel like a human being.

  Since his arrival in the dungeon General Murdock had also lost weight, though not nearly as much as one might have expected, for he’d supplemented his meagre diet of mouldy bread with daily rations of raw rat meat. Another man might have been revolted by the prospect of snatching up a wriggling rodent and ripping it apart with his hands and teeth, but a military man did what he had to in order to survive. Catching the first rat had been a simple matter of sitting still enough to entice the creature to investigate. After that, it had been an even simpler matter of setting the bloody remains of his most recent meal on the floor beside him, because not even the most wary rat could resist creeping forward to investigate that. And when it did, dinner was served.

  His mouth watering, General Murdock watched this day’s dinner draw closer and closer. Just as he was about to grab it, however, he heard the sound of a key in the padlock of the cell door. Hastily slumping on his bed of filthy straw, the General donned what he hoped was an expression of bleakest despair. Though he was neither physically weakened nor filled with despair, the last dozen or so times his gaolers had entered the cell to check on him, he’d pretended to be both in hope of lulling them into a false sense of security.

  When the heavy door opened to reveal a single guard— and a young, nervous-looking guard at that—General Murdock knew that his ruse had worked. Up until now, whenever Lord Bartok’s men had come to check on him and feed the fire, they’d always come in pairs, or even threes and fours. One man—even one highly skilled military man—who was weakened, weaponless and chained to a wall could not reasonably hope to be able to overcome multiple guards.

  Overcoming a single inexperienced guard was a different matter altogether.

  General Murdock waited until the boy had closed the door and taken three steps toward the fireplace to throw his fit. Thrashing and kicking so violently that dinner gave a startled squeak and fled back into the darkness, the General bit his tongue so hard that blood joined froth upon his thin lips. Gagging wretchedly, he arched his back and slammed his head against the wall several times before abruptly letting his entire body go limp.

  After a moment of stunned silence, the lone guard muttered something under his breath before drawing his sword and tentatively starting forward to check on his prisoner.

  As soon as he got close enough, General Murdock struck out with the same speed and ferocity with which he would have struck out at the recently spared rat. In the case of the boy, however, the chains that fixed General Murdock’s iron wrist cuffs to the wall were too short to allow him to properly attack with his hands, so he kicked the boy’s feet out from under him instead. The boy somehow managed to keep hold on his sword, but before he got a chance to use it—indeed, probably before he realized how he’d ended up on the floor—General Murdock had caught the boy’s neck between his thighs, given one sharp jerk and snapped it cleanly.

  Pleased that his plan had worked exactly
as he’d intended, General Murdock disentangled himself from the corpse and manoeuvred it closer so that he could reach the ring of keys in the pocket of its doublet. After quickly unlocking his wrist cuffs, he stood and stretched to take the stiffness out of those muscles he’d been unable to properly exercise while he’d been chained to the wall. Then he walked over and opened the trapdoor in the floor through which he used to dispose of the bodies of dead prisoners and the pieces of living ones. He could not see the underground river below, but he could hear the sound of it rushing past.

  With the fleeting thought that he hoped Mordecai had not yet found someone to replace him—and a redstreaked vision of the things he would do to once more prove himself a competent and trustworthy servant if he had—General Murdock wrapped his arms around his torso, took a deep breath and stepped through the trapdoor in the dungeon floor.

  THIRTY-NINE

  IN THE FOUR WEEKS since setting out from the training camp north of Syon, Mordecai had learned two important things.

  The first was that he disliked leading the march to war.

  The second was that he was not very good at it.

  “What do you mean we have lost another dozen wagons?” he bellowed now, flinging a half-full goblet of wine at the head of the blood-splattered soldier who stood before him. “I have lost nothing except for my belief that there is a single man under my command who is not utterly incompetent!”

  Infuriatingly, the goblet missed the idiot soldier’s head by such a wide margin that he did not even have to duck.

  Mordecai glared at the fool, despising him almost as much for not having been struck by the flying goblet as for being the bearer of yet more bad news.