The soldier nodded knowingly, but it was clear that he was completely mystified.
General Murdock sighed and pressed his lips together. “Obviously, the man in the river has been purposely leaving a trail—initially a scent trail that the dogs could easily follow and later a trail of trampled vegetation and hoofprints that anyone with a pair of eyes could follow,” he explained. “The question is, why would he do this?”
“Because he’s a fool!” cried the soldier, with more than a hint of his previous enthusiasm.
“No,” said General Murdock patiently, “because he is clever. By leading us on, he drew us away from his tribesmen in the hope that they would be able to reach safety.”
The soldier’s face fell, but he lifted his chin. “Well, anyway, his scalp should bring a fair price from the Regent,” he said with the indefatigable air of one determined to find something positive to say about the situation. “You know—once we drag the rogue’s body out of the river, and dry the hair, and perhaps run a comb through it before we—”
“One scalp to the six I might have had,” sighed General Murdock. “And what if those six were spiriting the child to a Gypsy nest somewhere? They still exist, you know, though obviously not in the numbers they once did, thanks to my efforts. A Gypsy nest might have yielded a dozen scalps or more, along with any number of Gypsies too young to have yet been branded with the mark of their tribe—Gypsies whose rejuvenating blood is so coveted by our Regent. Forgive me, but compared to the bounty that could have been, I find it difficult to be excited by the prospect of one paltry scalp.”
“One scalp and a girl,” reminded the soldier, who could not seem to keep his mouth shut. “And perhaps the one in the river knows the way to a nest and … and perhaps if we, you know, pretend to leave, we could follow him in secret and see where he goes or else … or else perhaps we could drag him from the river before he drowns and hang him by his feet over a hot fire and force him to tell us what he knows!”
General Murdock shook his head. “If the one in the river is really a Gypsy—and I happen to believe that he is—we’ll never learn anything from him. Have you never heard the stories of the Gypsy ambassador Balthazar and the things the Regent did to him in an effort to get him to reveal the location of the healing Pool of Genezing? Suffice it to say that Balthazar left the dungeon very gradually, in very small pieces. Even so, our beloved Regent never got the answers he sought. Gypsies are stubborn, and no tribe in Glyndoria will fight more fiercely to protect its own. The man in the river is a lost cause. Now that he knows he’s been found, he’ll never risk endangering his tribesmen by returning to the nest. No, following him would be a waste of valuable time.” General Murdock pressed his small hands together and thought hard for a moment before continuing. “Here are your orders: search the riverbanks for this man and his woman. If you find them, kill the man and bring both his scalp and his woman to me. You have one hour. After that, whether they have been found or not, we will turn around and go back the way we came in the hope of discovering the spot where the man in the river separated from his tribesmen. The trail will be cold, yet we will endeavour to follow it. Though the messenger has not yet returned from Parthania with orders from His Grace, I am sure he would approve this course of action, for it is our best hope of finding the nest.”
“Yes, sir!” cried the soldier. “Shall I go and relay your orders now, sir?”
Tearing off another small piece of bread, General Murdock dipped it in the bloody juice of the liver and took a tiny bite. “You may,” he said thoughtfully as he began to chew. “And then you may report to my steward. Inform him that you are to be hung by your feet over a hot fire. Explain to him that you are being punished for failing to do your duty and for failing to understand that you were failing to do your duty. Tell him that you are to hang until your face is well blistered from brow to chin—unless you unman yourself by screaming, in which case you are to hang unto death.”
The young soldier was aghast. “What? No! I beg you, sir, no! Please! I’m sorry! I didn’t know! This is my very first hunt, sir. Please!” he babbled, his voice rising in terror. “I didn’t mean to make you angry, I just—”
“I’m not angry, soldier,” interrupted General Murdock gently, as he used a fine linen napkin to daintily wipe a dribble of liver juice off his chin. “I am merely trying to maintain discipline among my troops. Now go, and don’t forget to tell the men to bring the girl to me alive, if possible.” He belched softly. “I do so enjoy an after-dinner treat.…”
TEN
PERSEPHONE HIT THE ICY WATER with such force that it drove half the air out of her lungs. The other half was driven out by the shock of the cold, which began to leach strength from her limbs even before her feet hit the rocky bottom of the riverbed. Glancing upward through her own floating mass of hair, she thought the surface of the water looked very far away indeed, but instead of giving in to the panic that threatened to overwhelm her, Persephone fought against the current to find her footing. Bending her knees, she ignored her burning lungs and drove upward with all her might. The first thing she noticed after her head broke the surface and she’d sucked in a great, gulping breath of air was that the high riverbank off of which she and Azriel had jumped was now lined with shouting, black-clad soldiers.
The second thing she noticed was that Azriel—from whose hand her own hand had been torn when they’d hit the water—was floating face down near the left riverbank, some distance downstream from the spot on the right bank off of which they’d jumped.
Paying no mind to either the soldiers or the heavy clumsiness of her own weakening limbs, Persephone kicked hard in Azriel’s direction. The river was riddled with large, jagged rocks that jutted above the surface of the water—or worse, lay hidden beneath it—but somehow, she managed to avoid smashing into one and very soon she was clutching the fallen log on which Azriel’s breeches had become snagged. The bloody water swirling around his head spoke of a head wound, but there was no time for tender ministrations. Grabbing a handful of his sodden auburn curls, she heaved his face out of the water and, with much grunting and straining, rolled him onto his back. With one arm still wrapped around the fallen log, she manoeuvred his head onto her shoulder, wrapped her other arm across his bare chest and started shouting at him.
“Wake up! Wake up! You say you’d gladly die before seeing me harmed in any way, but what possible use is that to me, you great useless oaf?” She gave him as fierce a jostle as she could manage under the circumstances. “You’ll be dead and then I will be harmed—in the worst possible way!”
Desperately, she heaved herself a little farther out of the water and craned her head for a glimpse of his mouth so that she could check if he was breathing. The movement caused his head to roll toward her so unexpectedly that their lips brushed. The shock of it probably would have caused Persephone to dump him face first into the icy water (and hold him there) had the soldiers on the riverbank not started heaving rocks at them at the very same instant. Realizing that she had no other course of action, Persephone adjusted her grip on the now-breathing-but-lucky-for-him-still-unconscious Azriel, pushed away from the fallen log and swam as hard as she could toward the centre of the river. The soldiers jeered at the foolishness of her actions, which were bringing her and Azriel ever closer to capture or cavedin skulls, until the faster current in the centre of the river suddenly caught hold of them and swept them past the spot on the riverbank where the soldiers were crowded. The identical expressions of dismay etched on the faces of the suddenly mute soldiers were comical indeed, but Persephone was not laughing. With each passing second, she was finding it harder and harder to keep both her and Azriel afloat, and to keep them from smashing into one of the jagged rocks that lay in their path. Coughing and choking, she strained to protect Azriel and to keep his head above water even as her strength began to fail and she was unable to keep her own head above water.
She went under once … twice.…
And then, just as s
he was going under for the third time, she was grabbed by the collar of her shift and hauled to the surface. In terror, she looked over her shoulder expecting to see the leering face of a soldier and nearly fainted with relief at the sight that greeted her.
“Cur!” she spluttered.
Untangling his teeth from her collar, Cur ducked under her free arm and when he was sure that she was securely supported by his powerful body, he took a moment to bare his teeth at Azriel.
“Not now,” admonished Persephone breathlessly. The soldiers had apparently recovered from the shock of seeing their quarry float away from them, because she could hear them charging angrily along the riverbank just around the bend behind them. Any moment, they would have her, Azriel and Cur in their sights again, and when they did, it would be all over.
That was when she saw it: a cluster of toppled willow trees at the river’s edge on the right. Having bravely taken root in a thin patch of soil at a low spot on the riverbank, they’d half-fallen into the river some time ago but hadn’t yet been swept away. If she could somehow get Cur to manoeuvre her and Azriel toward the trees, they just might be able to conceal themselves within the shelter of the dripping leaves. Using her head, she nudged Cur in that direction. To her vast relief, he immediately turned and began paddling harder.
By the time they reached the fallen willow trees, Azriel had begun to come out of his stupor. Groggily taking stock of their situation, he pulled Persephone farther back into the leafy green shadows. The next instant, soldiers stormed past them. Up and down the riverbank they ran, beating the bushes near the river’s edge and shooting arrows into likely hiding spots—including the spot where Persephone, Azriel and Cur crouched motionless and shivering. Some of the soldiers snarled threats of torture if Azriel and Persephone failed to reveal themselves at once; others called out sweet promises of mercy and a hot meal. All searched with unflagging zeal and determination, stopping only once when a sudden, high-pitched scream rent the air—a sound so hideous that Persephone was almost grateful when Azriel pulled her closer still.
The search went on and on until, just as Persephone was beginning to fear that she and Azriel were in real danger of succumbing to the chill of the icy water, a hunting horn sounded and the soldiers abruptly stopped shouting and departed.
Unable to believe their good luck, Persephone did not move or speak until long after the birds’ song and rushing water were once more the only sounds to be heard. Then she half-turned her face toward Azriel and whispered, “D-do you think they’re really gone?”
“I … do,” he said haltingly.
“Good,” said Persephone. Wriggling out of his lingering embrace—which she thought his precious sweetheart probably wouldn’t appreciate overly much— she was about to duck out from under the willow boughs so that she could follow Cur out of the water when she noticed that Azriel wasn’t moving and that his face was bathed in a fine sheen of sweat. “Does your head hurt that much?” she asked with some consternation.
“Difficult to say,” he replied with a rather ghastly attempt at a smile. “As luck would have it, I find that my attention has been most effectively drawn away from that particular wound.”
“By what?” asked Persephone.
“By the arrow in my arm,” he replied weakly.
Persephone’s gaze—which had thusfar been intently focused upon Azriel’s head and face—dropped at once to his arm. There, half-hidden by the dripping willow leaves, she noted the long shaft of an arrow, the tip of which was buried deep in Azriel’s biceps.
“Oh, no,” she gasped.
“Oh, yes,” he said, biting back a groan. “And what’s more, the arrow isn’t the worst of it.”
Wildly, Persephone’s eyes roved over Azriel’s body in search of some other terrible injury she’d somehow failed to notice—a gaping chest wound, perhaps, or a missing limb. When she could find nothing, she looked up at Azriel in utter bewilderment and said, “What could be worse than the arrow?”
“The poison on the tip of the arrow,” replied Azriel, who hesitated for only a moment before adding, “for you see, Persephone, when the Regent’s soldiers come hunting Gypsies, they almost always shoot to kill.”
“You’re a Gypsy?” she said in an incredulous voice.
“Still not the worst of it,” warbled Azriel in a feeble attempt at humour.
“Well, for pity’s sake!” cried Persephone, who could not take much more of this. “What on earth is the worst of it?”
“Judging by how quickly the poison is taking effect,” gasped Azriel, “if I do not get help by sundown, I will almost certainly be dead by morning.”
With Persephone’s assistance, Azriel managed to haul himself out of the water and prop himself up against a rotten tree stump. He nearly passed out when the arrow snagged on a weed and dug deeper into his alreadyinflamed flesh, but Persephone slapped him hard across the face to bring him back to his senses. When he woozily protested that a kiss would have worked just as well, she threatened to slap him again. Then she sat back on her heels and tried to figure out what to do. Her mind was reeling with the revelation of what he was. A Gypsy! The thought had never even occurred to her. Well, why would it? To her knowledge she’d never seen one, and it was a well-known fact that between them, the old king Malthusius and the Regent Mordecai had all but wiped out the tribe. It wasn’t just a matter of soldiers hunting them down, either—any person in the realm who assisted in the capture or death of a Gypsy was handsomely rewarded. Why, if an Erok slave—even a runaway!—were to hand a Gypsy over to the Regent’s soldiers, by law she would be granted her freedom forthwith. And if the Gypsy she handed over was notorious—as Persephone could well imagine the one before her to be—the slave might even be given a few coins with which to start her new—
“Well?” Azriel’s voice interrupted her thoughts. “Are you going to do it?”
“Am I going to do what?” asked Persephone with a start.
“Trade my scalp for your freedom.”
She flinched at the sudden image of Azriel’s glossy auburn curls torn from his head. “Of course not,” she said irritably. “If I wanted you dead, I’d have let you drown, wouldn’t I?”
“Not necessarily,” said Azriel with a wan smile. “You may have saved me without entirely thinking through the great advantage to yourself of having me dead.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” snorted Persephone, who had saved him without entirely thinking through the great advantage to herself of having him dead.
Azriel gave a strained chuckle. “Spectacular,” he wheezed. “Then if we’re agreed that you don’t want me dead, perhaps you’d be kind enough to remove the arrow from my arm?”
Judging by the way he said it, he clearly assumed he’d have to cajole Persephone to act, but without speaking, hesitating or flinching she leaned forward, firmly pressed one hand against the already burning-hot skin of his arm, grabbed the exposed base of the arrowhead with the other hand and carefully pulled.
Azriel groaned horribly as the arrowhead slipped free, then started retching. When he was done, he asked Persephone to rip a strip of cloth from the hem of her shift and tie it tight above the wound to slow the progress of the poison. She did as he asked, all the while silently eyeing the foul-smelling, greenish ooze that continued to trickle from the wound.
“Aren’t … aren’t you going to do something about that?” she finally asked.
He looked at her uncomprehendingly for a moment before understanding dawned upon his face. “Ah,” he croaked. “I see you’ve heard stories of the healing power of Gypsy blood.”
Persephone—who was still kneeling between his splayed legs—nodded breathlessly and glanced at the wound again as though expecting it to miraculously close up before her very eyes.
Azriel swallowed hard. “Come close and I’ll tell you a secret, Persephone,” he whispered.
Unable to even begin to speculate what marvellous or terrible thing he might be about to tell her, she leaned as clos
e as she could without toppling forward.
“Closer,” urged Azriel.
After a moment’s hesitation, she gingerly placed her hands on either side of his body and slowly leaned so close that the clinging fabric of her shift was a hair’s breadth away from his broad, bare chest.
Azriel took a deep breath, so that for a brief, electrifying instant Persephone felt his hot skin through the thin fabric at her chest. “The secret,” he murmured, “is not to believe half of what you hear about anything.”
After giving Azriel a pinch on the leg to show him what she thought of both his secret and his suspiciously timed deep breath, Persephone listened as he explained that while Gypsy blood did have healing power, this power diminished dramatically with age and even at its most potent was only strong enough to speed the healing of minor flesh wounds.
“But there is an antidote for the poison,” he explained, wincing as he tried to get more comfortable. “Some years back, our healers concocted it and those of us who venture forth into settled parts of the kingdom try to keep some on hand at all times. Unfortunately, I gave away the last of my supply several days before I found you and now my only hope lies in reaching my tribe. They are camped several hours away from here at the edge of the Great Forest. Will … will you help me reach them, Persephone? Please?”
Persephone looked south toward freedom, then north toward the Great Forest, then straight ahead into the feverish eyes of the Gypsy outlaw to whom she owed nothing. Then she huffed loudly and shook her head in frustration.
“Is that a ‘yes’?” he asked with a lopsided grin.
“It is,” she grumbled, “though I’ll have you know that no one of consequence would have blamed me if I’d decided to leave you to die in agony.”
“Spoken like a true angel of mercy,” murmured Azriel.
The Gypsy King Page 10
