Fool's Errand (15 page)

“Yes,” agreed King Finnius after a moment's hesitation.

Mordecai smiled again.

“Very good,” said Lord Bartok approvingly. “Then perhaps—if it please Your Majesty—we can move on to the subject of the princess formerly known as Lady Bothwell.”

“What about her?” asked King Finnius.

At this, many of the noblemen smothered chuckles. A flush stained the pale cheeks of the king; he stared at the chuckling noblemen until they fell silent and looked decidedly uncomfortable.

“Forgive me, Your Majesty,” interjected Lord Bartok deferentially, “but though we've guessed by your matching scars that you and the princess are twins who were somehow separated at birth, we know nothing of how you came to be separated, where the princess has been all these years, what impact her presence will have on the realm nor why you allowed her to leave the imperial capital in the company of the Gypsy outlaw who has been lewdly cavorting in her chamber since her arrival in Parthania.”

Now the other noblemen shared deeply scandalized looks.

In spite of everything, King Finnius managed a smile. “I've never known Azriel to cavort,” he said. “He is a good man, and he is taking my sister, the princess, to a private location to give her time to contemplate all that has happened these past days. You see, she did not come to Parthania in search of a great destiny—”

“Why
did
she come?” interrupted the minor nobleman who'd taken the Council seat of the fatally foolish Lord Pembleton after apoplexy rendered him incapable of doing much more than drooling.

Mordecai decided to answer on behalf of the king. “Having recently fallen upon hard times, our princess came to the imperial capital in the hope of securing a position in the employ of one of the great citizens of the realm. However, upon finding herself face to face with me on the night of her arrival, she was so overcome that she somehow found herself lying to impress me,” he said, shrugging his uneven shoulders as if to say these things happened to him all the time. “Lie begat lie, until before she knew it, she was up to her pretty violet eyeballs in a dunghill of trouble.”

“Except that she
wasn't
up to her eyeballs in trouble,” rumbled Lord Belmont.

“No, of course not,” agreed Mordecai smoothly. “I should have said that she
would
have been in trouble, had good fortune not blessed us all with the remarkable discovery that she was the lost twin, come home at last.”

“And how is it that she came to be lost in the first place, Your Grace?” asked Lord Bartok guilelessly.

“That is a matter that shall remain between His Grace and me,” said the king flatly, using the exact words that Mordecai had instructed him to use.

At this, a murmur of protest rose up among the noblemen.

King Finnius said not a word, but rose to his feet. Since they could not remain seated while their king was standing, all of them—even the high-and-mighty Lord Bartok—hastily stood up. Clenching his hands into fists, Finnius set his knuckles firmly upon the table and let his gaze fall upon one man after another. When he was finished, he sat down and casually motioned the nowsilent noblemen to do the same.

Mordecai, who'd also stood when the king stood—but only to avoid having to make awkward explanations—gloated at the thought that while the peasant-hearted weakling actually appeared to have the strength to govern the great lords, he would never get to use it. Somehow, it made Mordecai's victory over the fool all the sweeter.

After a moment of silence, Lord Bartok cleared his throat and said, “You have corrected us, Your Majesty, and quite rightfully so. It is not our place to question your decisions; it is our place to do your will. To this end, I am pleased to report that all is in readiness for the ceremony that will officially transfer the power to rule the realm from the Regent Mordecai to your own esteemed self. The ceremony will, of course, be a most solemn occasion, but I thought to follow it with a feast the likes of which the realm has never seen and—”

“That won't be necessary, my lord,” said King Finnius brusquely as he pressed his handkerchief to his lips.

“Majesty?”

The king shifted in his seat so that he could look up at the portrait of his powerful father, the great Malthusius. “I said, ‘that won't be necessary,'” he repeated, a little louder this time.

“What won't be necessary?” asked Lord Bartok.

“Any of it,” said Finnius as he turned his attention back to the confused nobleman. “You see, for health reasons I have decided to indefinitely delay assuming my duties as true ruling king.”

If a cannonball had crashed through the roof of the palace and smashed the Council table to splinters, it could not have caused a greater uproar than those few words. Some of the great lords leapt to their feet so suddenly that they knocked over their chairs; others let out involuntary cries of dismay. Still others covered their mouths as though mute with horror.

The expectation that had so lit all their faces at the outset of the meeting had been abruptly extinguished, never to be rekindled.

Mordecai's dark heart sang.

“B-but, Your
Majesty,”
stammered Lord Bartok, looking flustered for the first time in all the years that Mordecai had known him. “Much as I respect the Regent Mordecai, we and the rest of your subjects have waited these many years to be ruled by a
king
and—”

“As you, yourself, pointed out, my lord, it is not your place to question my decisions,” interrupted King Finnius, stifling a wet cough with his handkerchief.

The arrogant, silver-haired patriarch of the Bartok dynasty said nothing, only opened and closed his mouth like a landed fish.

Mordecai placed his gnarled hands on his withered thighs to keep from hugging himself with delight.

“And how are we to address His Grace henceforth?” asked the minor nobleman who'd taken Pembleton's seat.

“Even though I am, indeed, something far more than Regent owing to the fact that I now rule in place of a living adult king, I am so honoured to have been asked to continue to serve on behalf of His most-gracious Majesty that I need no fancy new title,” said Mordecai in a voice dripping with false humility. “I am content to be called Regent still.”

“Regent it is, then,” wheezed the ponderous Lord Belmont, who had yet to stop clutching his poor overworked heart.

As Lord Bartok and the rest of the noblemen nodded uncertainly and cast darting glances of alarm at one another, Mordecai fixed his beautiful, dark eyes upon the king. As slowly as if he were swimming in a vat of molasses in the middle of January, King Finnius once more rose to his feet. This time, however, he stepped away from the chair at the head of the Council table and, after a moment's hesitation, gestured toward it. With a soft sigh, Mordecai stood. Nodding at the king as graciously as he could given the weight of his head upon his thin, aching neck, he shuffled forward, eased himself down into the seat of power and smiled out upon the great men who'd once mocked his ambitions but who now trembled before him.

The Council meeting did not last long after this—just long enough for Mordecai to make casual mention of his vast army of New Men for the benefit of any fools who might be contemplating rising up in protest of his appointment, and for him to suggest to Lord Bartok that though the ceremony transferring power would not take place, the feast could yet proceed as planned.

“In honour of your continued regency,” said Lord Bartok coolly.

“Yes, exactly,” replied Mordecai with pleasure.

He stood, then, and inwardly exulted at the fact that the great lords immediately rose to their feet as well. He let them stand in silence for a moment before dismissing them with the same casual gesture that the king so favoured. As they were gathering their things, Mordecai turned to the king—who'd stood awkwardly by these last few minutes, a royal nobody with no seat at his own Council table—and suggested to him that he might want to return to his chambers and get some rest. Though his voice was oozing concern, it was plain to all that the Something-Far-More-Than-Regent was dismissing the king as well.

After he'd sent the king packing, Mordecai slouched over, laid a hand upon Lord Bartok's sleeve and said, “I would speak with you.”

The greatest of the great lords looked down at the malformed, lowborn hand upon his elegant, aristocratic arm with an expression of barely disguised distaste, but his voice was impassive when he said, “Yes, Your Grace?”

Mordecai waited until everyone else had left the chamber. Then he said, “Can I assume that our … arrangement still stands?”

Lord Bartok went still as a statue. “Our arrangement?” he said cautiously.

Mordecai smiled. “You will see to it that the great lords name me the king's heir,” he reminded. “In return, I will convince the king to become betrothed to your charming daughter, Lady Aurelia.”

Lord Bartok stroked his trim silver beard as he considered how to respond. Before he could decide, Mordecai added, “You should know that as a gesture of good faith, I have already broached the subject of betrothal with His Majesty.”

“You have?” said Lord Bartok, his inborn lust for power surging in his pale eyes. “And how did he react? Was he agreeable to the proposed union?”

“I have reason to believe that he can be made to be so,” said Mordecai coyly.

“But even if what you say is true,” frowned Lord Bartok, “the king is of age now—surely he will expect to name his own heir.”

“Do not trouble yourself with what the king does or does not expect,” breathed Mordecai. “Now, more than ever before, he is content to take my counsel in all things.”

Lord Bartok nodded his understanding of things best left unsaid. “Still,” he pointed out, “there is the matter of the long-lost princess.”

“She has no interest in the throne,” said Mordecai dismissively. “Even if she did, she chose to venture forth beyond the protection of the great walls of Parthania in the company of a dangerous outlaw. Anything could happen to her out there.”

“Indeed it could,” said Lord Bartok, the barest hint of a smile playing on his lips. “Still, we are not discussing the arrangement I originally envision, for the king does not hold the reins of power—you do.”

“What of that?” snapped Mordecai, who was growing tired of the great lord's objections. “Your daughter will be queen. The children she bears will have the blood of kings coursing through their half-royal veins.”

Lord Bartok's pale eyes gleamed at the prospect. “And when Aurelia does bear a child, you will give up your position in the line of succession?”

“Of course!” exclaimed Mordecai cheerfully, as though he would not dream of having it any other way. “Until then, however, I will expect to be acknowledged by all as heir apparent—and to have it known by all that I have the full support of the great Bartok dynasty behind me.”

Though Lord Bartok was not a scrupulous man, and though Mordecai was dangling before him that which he desired above all else, he hesitated the way one might hesitate before striking a bargain with a snake—and a lowborn snake, at that.

Then he smiled his wintery smile and said, “Very well, Your Grace. A fortnight from the day the king and my daughter announce their betrothal, there shall be another announcement: that the great Regent Mordecai has been named heir to the Erok throne.”

“Wonderful,” beamed Mordecai, thinking how pleasant it was going to be when the king was finally dead and he was able to celebrate his own coronation by reducing the high-and-mighty bastard before him to a bucket of pulp. “Just … wonderful.”

FOURTEEN

L
ATER THAT SAME NIGHT
, Mordecai whistled as he lurched through the twisting maze of corridors in the dungeon that lay far beneath the palace. The damp stone walls glistened in the torchlight; screams echoed in the distance. Every so often, a well-fed rat materialized from the filthy straw at Mordecai's shuffling feet to scuttle away into the shadows. And, of course, the forgotten ones were forever shoving their withered hands through the tiny windows of their prison cells or pressing their ravaged faces hard against the bars to hoarsely beg for mercy—even the mercy of death. But if Mordecai thought about those wretched men at all, it was only to think that they really ought to know better than to beg for mercy from
him.