Fool's Errand (14 page)

At these words, Azriel casually unsheathed his sword and stepped forward until he was half-standing in front of Persephone.

“No one is going to hurt her, Azriel,” murmured Cairn.

“I know it well,” he replied, hefting the weapon so that the blade glinted in the fading sunlight.

Persephone drank in the intoxicating feel of his protective presence for a moment before deliberately stepping around him to face his tribe. “My brother's death and mine would not pave the way for any Gypsy King, if that's what you're thinking,” she said, her voice ringing through the clearing. “The Regent Mordecai would be the first to make a bid for the throne, and if he were to fail, it would come down to a fight among the Erok nobility. And I can assure you that there is not one among them who would treat your people with the decency and respect that my brother will if he lives to become a true ruling king. And
that
is why we must find the Pool of Genezing before it is too late!”

For a moment, none of the Gypsies seemed to know what to say to this. Then Cairn looked at Persephone and said, “I find it curious that you refused to believe in the prophecy of the Gypsy King, and yet you appear to believe in the existence of a mythical healing pool that even we Gypsies cannot be sure exists.”

“I cannot afford to be skeptical,” shrugged Persephone. “My brother's life depends upon the success of our quest.”

“And yet the odds against success are incalculable.”

Persephone could not have looked less daunted by these words. “As you, yourself, pointed out, I helped to rescue Mateo from the depths of a dungeon from which none has ever emerged alive,” she said. “As far as I know, aside from a handful of Gorgishmen, I am the only person in the realm to have escaped from the Mines of Torodania. Most recently, after discovering that I was a royal princess who somehow survived a death sentence issued when I was mere hours old, I was welcomed with open arms by my brother, the king, even though my very existence could have toppled him from his throne. I have a habit of beating the odds, don't you think?”

“Without question,” said Cairn, smiling faintly, “and yet I'm not sure I'd want you to beat them this time. As I'm sure you're aware, the healing Pool of Genezing is sacred to our people.”

“My brother gave Azriel his word that he'd protect your people should you ever choose to come out of hiding and settle by the pool as your ancestors of legend once did.”

“Even if we believed him, by your own admission he is the Regent's hostage,” said Tiny in his booming voice. “To free him, you'll have to show the
Regent
where the pool is—and I'm guessing he didn't give our Azriel
his
word that he'd protect us if we sought to settle by our marvellous sacred pool.”

“No, he didn't—though I must admit that I don't know that I'd have been entirely reassured if he had,” confided Azriel, prompting a wave of mirthless laughter to ripple through the crowd. “In truth, I'd thought to cross that bridge when we come to it.”

“But suppose you never come to it?” put in Fayla, the beautiful, brave, clever Gypsy girl whom Persephone had once suspected of being Azriel's sweetheart. “Suppose Persephone dies on this quest of yours? If she is the one who is meant to bring about the coming of the Gypsy King, all hope would be lost.”

“She will not die, for I have made a vow to protect her with my life,” said Azriel, so solemnly that Persephone was nearly unable to resist rolling her eyes. “What's more, I've come to believe that the search for the healing pool and the fulfillment of the prophecy are one and the same.”

“How so?” asked Cairn, her eyes alert.

“Well … I think that the Erok king
is
the Gypsy King,” he said. Over the noisy exclamations and protests of his people, he continued, “Though I've not spent a great deal of time with King Finnius, I've spent enough to take his measure, and I can truthfully say that I've not found him wanting. Indeed, before we left the imperial capital, he told me that he means to make it his business to see to the welfare of
all
people—to answer for how the tribes have been treated and to do what he can to right past wrongs in the hope that someday, all people of this realm may be united in peace.”

“Even if that is true,” said Fayla in a voice that indicated she had a hard time believing that it was, “the fact remains that the Erok king is
not
one of us and therefore cannot be the prophesied Gypsy King.”

“But what if he were to
become
a Gypsy?” said Azriel.

“Became a Gypsy?” spluttered Tiny. “Azriel, there is nothing to say that he'd want such a thing, and even assuming that he did, you know as well as I that we do not accept grown men as Gypsies simply because they've been administered the oath and given the mark. And even assuming we did, if the Erok king is being held hostage by the Regent as you say he is, it would be suicide for one of us to attempt to reach him to do so!”

“I agree,” said Azriel with the deeply satisfied tone of one who has led others to the exact place he wished them to go. “That is why I propose to
personally
make him a Gypsy in the only other way possible under the circumstances.”

“How?” asked Rachel in a mystified voice.

Turning to Persephone with a smile that set her heart pounding in her chest and alarm bells ringing in her ears, Azriel replied, “By marrying his sister, if she'll have me.”

THIRTEEN

^“
R
EADY, YOUR MAJESTY?
” asked Mordecai, cutting another thin slice from the juicy apple in his hand.

“I am,” said the pale young king, shakily tugging at the hem of his sombre black velvet doublet.

Two days had elapsed since Mordecai had gone to the royal chambers to explain to the king the way things now stood. He'd then sent the fool to the bedchamber to ready himself to go inform the great lords—in a convincing manner, if he knew what was good for him and all those he held dear—that it was his dearest wish that Mordecai continue to rule the kingdom in his stead.

Mordecai had initially been content to sit in the nursemaid's rocking chair eating the king's fruit and anticipating the reaction of the great lords to this tremendous news, but when the king had failed to reappear after half an hour, he'd grown impatient. Shoving open the bedchamber door without knocking, he'd been much dismayed to discover the king lying face down on the floor, breathing like a bellows. Knowing that he could not afford to let the fool die—yet—Mordecai had shouted for the guards to lift the gasping monarch onto his bed and thereafter to summon the court physicians. Several minutes of the physicians flapping about sniffing the air and listening to the king's chest had been followed by several minutes of them muttering about imbalanced humours and the ill effects of overexcitement. Finally, their cadaverous, sparse-haired leader had plunged a filthy blade into the pale crook of the king's arm, bled him half-dry, dosed him with a vile-smelling tonic and ordered him to bed until further notice.

Though Mordecai had longed to drag the fool from the bed and set him dancing like the puppet he was, news of his infirmity had spread through the palace like wildfire. Mordecai knew that if he was seen to be anything other than solicitous of the king in his time of sickness, the great lords would be even more suspicious of the forthcoming announcement—and more likely to balk at the idea of eventually naming Mordecai the king's heir.

And so, since ascending to the Erok throne was a dream second only to that of someday being well and whole, Mordecai had reluctantly decided to bide his time.

The waiting had ended that morning when he'd entered the royal bedchamber unannounced to find the king not abed but standing straight and tall by an open window. If the puppet was well enough to want to look out upon the kingdom that no longer belonged to him, he was well enough to start dancing.

“Let us proceed to the Council chamber without further delay, then,” declared Mordecai now. “The great lords have had a few anxious days wondering where the princess has gone to and when the ceremony officially transferring power to you is going to take place. Whilst I, personally, have taken great satisfaction in their discomfort, I think the time has come to set their minds at ease by explaining a few things, don't you?”

When King Finnius did not reply, Mordecai dropped the apple, picked up the rocking chair cushion and plunged the silver fruit knife into it. “I said, ‘don't you?'“ he repeated cheerfully as he ripped such a long, ragged hole in the fabric that the cushion disgorged nearly all of its stuffing.

“Yes,” said King Finnius slowly, his eyes on the clumps of stuffing at his feet. “I do.”

Some minutes later, the king took his seat at the head of the long Council table. It had been Mordecai's idea for him to do so at the outset of the meeting so he could later stand and offer the seat to Mordecai in a gesture that would be as symbolically powerful as it would be satisfying.

As soon as the king was seated, the great lords likewise took their seats, looks of expectation bright upon their faces.

“My lords,” said the king quietly.

When he said nothing more, only licked his pale lips, Mordecai tensed. Though he was
almost
certain he had the fool under his control, he was not
completely
certain. He knew that the king had long yearned for the day he would sit in the very seat he now occupied—had yearned to begin proving himself to these great men who'd been obligated to swear fealty to him when he was but an infant. To act the weakling before them by passing his kingdom into the hands of one whom he considered a monster would require, ironically enough, strength and resolve beyond that which most men possessed.

Before Mordecai could say anything to nudge the king toward his purpose, however, the greatest of the great lords, the powerful Lord Bartok, rose to his feet.

“Your Majesty, I am most relieved to see you looking so well,” he said. “However, I am grieved to report that I have failed in my duty.”

“Your duty?” said the king, coughing into a handkerchief.

“Your Majesty, I have found no trace of the woman called Moira,” he explained in a tone so serious and respectful that Mordecai nearly laughed aloud, for he knew how galling it must have been for the great Lord Bartok to have been assigned the demeaning job of searching for the king's fat nursemaid. “No one has seen her since the night Lady Bothwell was revealed to be your sister, our long-lost princess,” continued Lord Bartok. His pale eyes drifted to Mordecai, who was seated at the king's right hand, before drifting back to the king. “I am sorry, Your Majesty, but it appears that the woman has vanished into thin air.”

The king sat up a little straighter in his ornately carved armchair. He'd been prepared by Mordecai as to what he should say if the subject of the cow arose.

Well,
warned
by Mordecai, was perhaps the more accurate way to put it.

“As it happens, my lord,” King Finnius coughed, “I received word just this morning that, uh, in the middle of the night in question, Moira's cousin came to her with a message that her elderly father lay upon his deathbed, and so she departed the palace with all due haste, that she might attend to him in his hour of need.”

“She did this without your permission?” asked Lord Bartok, affecting shock.

“Well, um, yes,” said the king with obvious reluctance, “but only because she was so terribly worried about her father.”

“Even so,” rumbled Lord Belmont, clasping his hands over his grossly distended belly, “it is not meet for a royal servant to treat her master, the king, in such an illconsidered manner.”

The other noblemen at the table looked at one another and nodded in solemn agreement.

Mordecai saw the king bite his lower lip and nearly laughed aloud again, for he knew that the fool was struggling to stop himself from rushing to his nursemaid's defence. Leaning forward slightly so that he could see the faces of all those who sat around the table, Mordecai said, “My lords, His Majesty well understands the grave insult that has been done to him by that wretched woman, and you can rest assured that he intends to see her properly punished for it.” Turning to the king, he smiled broadly and said, “Isn't that right, Your Majesty?”