“They what?” exclaimed Rachel.
Persephone smiled thinly. “F-Faust wasn’t a human being, Rachel,” she explained as a sudden, violent shiver racked her body. “He was a rat.”
At the memory of the clever creature who’d kept her from descending into madness in the mines, Persephone’s throat closed up without warning. As though sensing how close she was to tears, Azriel chose that moment to announce that he thought the rain had eased up enough for them to unpack their bedrolls. Giving him a quick, grateful smile, Persephone hurriedly fetched hers, curled up next to Rachel on the cold, soggy ground, closed her eyes and tried to stop remembering—and shivering. Moments later, she felt someone tucking something heavy firmly about the two of them.
Her eyes popped open at once. “A-Azriel?” she whispered through chattering teeth. “What is this? Is this your cloak?”
“Yes,” he whispered.
“I c-can’t let you give us your cloak,” she protested. “You’ll freeze to death!”
“If you’re sincerely worried, perhaps I could slip in there next to you,” he suggested as Rachel stifled a giggle. “As you, yourself, have noted in the past, Persephone, I am rather hot, and I’m quite sure that our combined body heat would—”
“On s-second thought, it is exceedingly unlikely that you’ll freeze to death without y-your cloak,” interrupted Persephone, who was feeling warmer already. “But I thank you for your generous offer.”
“You are most welcome,” murmured Azriel as he reached down to brush a lock of hair off her cheek.
Without meaning to, Persephone smiled at the touch of his hand. Then she yawned hugely, snuggled closer to Rachel and fell asleep at once.
Over the next three days Azriel set an even more punishing pace than he had on the first day. But if the going was hard, it was uneventful—they were not set upon by bandits, and though the tranquility of the days was occasionally disrupted by Persephone’s animals, even Fayla had to laugh at the sight of Azriel cursing and shoving his broad shoulder against Fleet’s rump in an effort to get the traumatized horse to ford even the shallowest of streams.
The only downside to their uneventful travels was the fact that there hadn’t been a single moment of distraction in which Persephone could try to convince Rachel to run away with her. This was doubly troubling as she had a bad feeling about what lay ahead. She knew that the actual rescue of the orphan would be fraught with danger, of course, but it was more than this. Something deep inside her told her that things were about to go very wrong, very soon—and that she and Rachel would best be gone by the time they did.
As she gnawed on some cold roast venison on the morning of the fifth day, Persephone was so wrapped up in trying to figure out a solution to the problem of escape that it took her a moment to realize that everyone but Azriel had left the campsite and that he was perched on a nearby rock eyeing her speculatively.
“What are you looking at?” she asked as she tossed her half-eaten breakfast to Cur and self-consciously wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.
“You,” he said. “I am looking at you, and I am wondering why you want to leave us.”
Persephone stared into his very blue eyes for a long moment before deciding that there was no point lying to him. “It is not so much that I want to leave you,” she explained. “It is that I want freedom—for me and for Rachel.”
“Is that what Rachel wants?” asked Azriel.
When Persephone didn’t reply, Azriel nodded. Then he reached into the pocket of his breeches and withdrew the key to her discarded fetters. “You forget that I am a Gypsy,” he said, waving it at her, “and that according to the Regent’s laws, I haven’t the right to own goats, much less slaves.”
“So what are you saying? That I am already free?”
Azriel shrugged and slipped the key back into his pocket. Persephone felt a pang as she watched the bitter symbol of her enslavement disappear, and she stared after it yearningly until it dawned on her that Azriel probably thought she was staring at his crotch.
Jerking her gaze upward, she scowled at his smile, tossed her head and said, “You imply that I am free, but I would point out to you that freedom isn’t freedom if it doesn’t include the freedom to refuse to join somebody else’s outrageous quest.”
“And what if the quest is not so outrageous?” said Azriel. “Has it ever occurred to you, Persephone, that the child we are trying to rescue might be the Gypsy King?”
“Even supposing that he is—and even supposing that you manage to rescue him—how, exactly, do you intend to supplant the Erok king?”
“Who says Finnius is even the rightful king?” said Azriel. “Some people say the true prince was born dead and that Mordecai arranged for a changeling to be placed in the royal cradle in order to preserve the power of the regency. Others say the true prince was born alive and that Mordecai had him strangled so that he could secretly put his own newborn son in the cradle. Still others say there never was a true prince at all—that the Regent somehow forced the queen to fake a pregnancy so he could hoodwink the old king into handing over power.”
“Rumours,” said Persephone.
“It is a fact that all who attended the birth—including the queen herself—died or disappeared before they had a chance to discuss the details of it with anyone,” said Azriel. “You are a great fan of coincidences, Persephone. Does that sound like a coincidence to you?” When she didn’t answer, he got to his feet, took two steps and sank to his knees before her. Ignoring her gasp, he reached for her hand and pressed it against his beating heart. “All I’m asking, Persephone, is that you consider the possibility that things aren’t always what they seem. Our quest seems outrageous to you now; give us a chance to prove that it is not.”
“And … if I refuse?” she breathed as she tried not to notice the firm contours of his chest muscles beneath her fingertips.
Without releasing her captive hand, Azriel placed his free hand high upon her thigh and slowly leaned so close that he could have kissed her without leaning closer. “Wherever you go, whatever you do, you will ever feel my eyes upon you,” he whispered. “A path stretches out before us, Persephone, and we will walk it together, whether you like it or not.” Then, before she could even begin to think of a response, he smiled, gave her thigh a pat and said, “Now, be a good girl and go help Rachel dress Fayla in her gown and other things, will you? We’ll be travelling through heavily settled country today, and if all goes well, we’ll reach Parthania by nightfall.”
Feeling distinctly unsettled—both by Azriel’s troubling words and by the lingering feel of his hand on her thigh— Persephone reluctantly made her way toward the sound of Rachel cheerfully chattering away to Fayla. She was just wondering what the Gypsy girl would have made of Azriel’s wandering hand when she rounded a thicket of sugarberry bushes and beheld a sight that caused her to give a heartfelt cry of anguish.
For when Azriel had referred to Fayla’s “gown” Persephone had never imagined that he’d meant a gown like this, with its innumerable snow-white petticoats edged in the finest lace, its cunningly embroidered silk skirts, its bodice encrusted with seed pearls and tiny gemstones! And when the pirate thief had referred to Fayla’s “other things” Persephone had never dreamt he’d been referring to rings of real gold and ruby pendants and crystal hair pins and a velvet riding hat with three perfectly matched white pheasant feathers and a matching travelling cloak with an actual fur collar and impossibly soft kid gloves that fit like a second skin and gleaming riding boots without a mark on them!
At the sound of Persephone’s cry, Fayla turned. “Is something the matter?” she asked in her haughty, cold, noble voice as she wiped tiny beads of sweat from her upper lip with her gloved finger.
“Nothing is the matter except that you look completely and utterly exquisite!” lamented Persephone.
“I do?” said Fayla uncertainly.
“You do,” said Persephone, so woefully that the other girl couldn’t help smiling.
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br /> “Show her how the skirts swirl when you twirl, Fayla,” said Rachel, who was already grinning in anticipation of Persephone’s reaction.
Still smiling slightly, Fayla began to twirl, but before she was halfway around, her knees buckled. Persephone and Rachel just managed to catch her before she hit the ground.
“Fayla, what’s wrong?” cried Rachel.
“It is … nothing,” she gasped.
“You’re flushed,” said Persephone in alarm, noticing the girl’s unhealthy pallor for the first time.
“And warm,” added Rachel, putting the back of her hand against the Gypsy girl’s forehead.
“I am a little feverish but it is nothing,” repeated Fayla, jerking away from Rachel’s touch. “And since it is nothing I would ask that you not concern Azriel and Tiny with mention of it. A child’s life depends upon me playing my part and nothing short of death shall stop me from doing so.”
With Azriel and Tiny in the lead, Fayla on Fleet in the middle, Persephone and Rachel bringing up the rear and Cur alternately loping alongside and diving into the brush to terrorize something small and furry, they set out. Before long the dirt path along which they were trudging emerged from the woods, widened and finally met up with a well-travelled road. The land rapidly grew replete with signs of humanity—vast agricultural fields and neatly fenced pastures, haystacks and signposts, wagon tracks and hoofprints, great castles and mean huts, bridges and other roads. By mid-morning, they arrived at the first of several hamlets. Most of its slaves and lowborn inhabitants were in the fields, but a few tired-looking women with scrawny babies on their hips and even scrawnier toddlers clinging to their dirty skirts stood in the doorways of their hovels and stared dully at Fayla as she rode by in her finery. Persephone was acutely aware of the fact that even one of the gemstones sewn into the bodice of the Gypsy girl’s lavish gown would have paid for food enough to fill all those empty bellies for a year, but there was nothing to be done about it. For an Erok noblewoman to acknowledge the presence of a lowborn—never mind to show charity to one—was an unheard-of thing, and to have done so would only have brought danger upon them all. Hard as it was, the only thing to do was to keep walking.
No one had to tell this to Fayla, of course, though Persephone couldn’t even be sure that the Gypsy girl had noticed the women, the children or even the hamlet itself. She’d said not one word since they’d first set out, and though the way she held herself in the saddle could easily have been mistaken for a noble bearing, something about her ramrod straight posture gave Persephone the impression that she was fighting for control. She could tell that Rachel had the same impression, and that she, too, was torn between telling Azriel and Tiny the truth about the girl’s ill health and respecting her request for silence. It was a terrible decision to have to make, and as she watched the growing stains of fever-sweat darken the fine cloth at Fayla’s back and beneath her armpits, Persephone was so consumed by it that she all but forgot her earlier fears that something was about to go very wrong, very soon.
Then, nigh about noon, the sound of galloping horses and barking dogs brought her sense of foreboding flooding back with a vengeance.
SEVENTEEN
LOOKING WEST, Persephone saw half a dozen colourfully dressed horsemen appear at the far end of a fallow field. They were riding parallel to the road and for a happy moment, it looked as though they might continue to do so. Then one of them must have noticed Fayla and her entourage because with a loud whoop, all the horses veered left and began galloping across the field, dogs baying and barking at their hooves the entire way. When they reached the fence, the dogs—which were hairless, grey-black beasts just like the ones that had attacked Persephone by the river—slithered beneath the rails like eels while, one after another, the horsemen urged their steeds over the fence and reined up beside Fayla.
“Well, now!” cried one.
“What have we here?” cried another.
“Marry me!” cried a third.
“Yes, do marry him!” shouted a fourth. “Then take me as your lover!”
At this, the horsemen all guffawed raucously, and several drank deeply from silver hip flasks. Persephone— who’d kept her head down thusfar—took the opportunity to risk looking up. One glance at the horsemen told her that they were all young, all noble, all drunk and all looking to make the kind of mischief that could mean terrible trouble—even for a noblewoman.
Azriel and Tiny—who’d done nothing up to this point in the hope that the horsemen would leave without incident—obviously saw the same thing Persephone did, but before they could move to place themselves between Fayla and the drunken noblemen, a soft-featured young man with close-set eyes and a fleshy pink pout offhandedly issued a command. At once, the dogs surged forward. Slinking around and around Azriel and Tiny, they snapped their teeth and whined so hungrily that there was little doubt as to what would happen if either Gypsy moved so much as a hair.
With the “armed escort” thusly taken care of, the fleshy-lipped nobleman nudged his horse forward until his knee brushed Fayla’s thigh. Bowing in his saddle so that his face was mere inches from Fayla’s, he deliberately dropped his watery gaze to the creamy swell of her bosom.
“I am Lord Atticus Bartok, future Duke of these parts,” he said thickly. “My friends call me Lord Atticus, so as not to confuse me with my father, Lord Bartok, the all-powerful current Duke.”
Fayla drew herself up with what Persephone was sure must have been the last of her strength. “I am Lady Elwin of the Nicene Prefecture,” she said haughtily, using the name Azriel had said she always used in such situations— that of an actual living noblewoman, but one from such a distant branch of such a minor family that though the name would sound familiar to most, few would have met the lady in question or been able to recognize an imposter.
Fayla then held out her gloved hand for Atticus to kiss—as was custom among the Erok nobility—and with an intimacy that made Persephone’s skin crawl, Lord Atticus took it in both of his hands and pressed his fleshy lips against her glove until his saliva left a mark on the soft leather. “You are exceedingly beautiful, Lady Elwin,” he murmured without letting go of her hand. “And yet I can feel that you wear no wedding ring. Can I therefore assume that you are as yet a maid, untouched by any man?”
“No, you cannot,” said Fayla. “As it happens, I am a widow.”
“Ah,” said Lord Atticus with a sudden leer. “A young, noble widow—my favourite kind of diversion. Rich, proper, experienced in the ways of the flesh and hot with pent-up desire.”
At this, the other young noblemen laughed lewdly and nudged each other. Lord Atticus grinned over his shoulder at them.
“You embarrass yourself, m’lord,” said Fayla icily. “Kindly order your men to stand aside so that I may continue on my way.”
“Brrrr,” said Lord Atticus with a mock shiver. “Fear not, m’lady, I’ve just the thing to warm you up.”
“Your jests demean us both, m’lord,” murmured Fayla, who was clearly fading fast. “Once again, I ask you to kindly—”
Without warning, Lord Atticus thrust his soft-looking hand forward, clamped it around Fayla’s biceps and began to drag her from the saddle. At the risk of being torn to pieces by the noblemen’s dogs, Tiny probably would’ve flung himself at Lord Atticus if Rachel hadn’t inadvertently created a diversion by purposely knocking Persephone off balance to stop her from drawing her dagger. As a consequence of being knocked off balance, Persephone found her face firmly planted in the muscular hindquarters of Lord Atticus’s sweaty horse. The horse was so startled by the unexpected pressure that he reared up on his hind legs. With a cry, Lord Atticus let go of Fayla’s arm and grabbed wildly for his horse’s mane in an effort to stay mounted—a task made doubly difficult by the fact that Fleet had chosen that exact moment to begin aggressively nosing at the already-panicked creature’s left saddlebag.
Predictably, the other drunken young noblemen were, by this point, quite helpless with la
ughter. In a rage, Lord Atticus raised his riding crop high in the air and yanked his horse about so that he could punish the interfering wenches who’d diverted him from his diversion and made him look the fool.
Just before he delivered the first stinging blow, however, Persephone saw his eyes flick sideways from her face to Rachel’s and then widen in surprise.
Ever so slowly, he lowered the riding crop.
“Twins,” he murmured in wonder. Abruptly, he slapped his blue-velvet-clad leg and started laughing—a shrill, unpleasant sound. “Twins!” he repeated, louder this time. “Filthy, lowborn twins, to be sure, and not nearly ripe enough for my taste, but I’m not especially fond of green apples, either, yet I’ll eat them when I’m hungry enough.”
Fayla—who was already white as a sheet—grew paler still. “You … you’ll leave my servants be,” she said hoarsely, “or I’ll—”
“You’ll do nothing at all, m’lady,” said Lord Atticus as he tossed the riding crop to a nearby companion and slid out of the saddle—all without taking his eyes off Rachel and Persephone, “for I am the eldest son of the great Lord Bartok and you are the widow of an unknown minor lord from the middle of nowhere. You will watch me and my men have our enjoyment”—here, he snapped his wormy white fingers at the other young noblemen, who promptly slid, jumped or fell out of their saddles, depending on their state of drunkenness—“and if and when your wenches are once more fit to travel, you and your pitiful little entourage will continue on your way.”
On the other side of Fleet, the noblemen’s beasts began barking with a vigour that Persephone somehow knew meant that Azriel was attempting to make good on his “solemn vow to protect her with his life” in spite of his rather endearing terror of dogs. Unfortunately, she also knew that he was never going to be able to fight his way past the dogs and the leering noblemen in time to save her and Rachel from ravishment at the hands of the Lord Atticus, who was even now advancing upon them.
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