Fool's Errand (31 page)

“That was you, Azriel!” whispered Rachel eagerly, giving the scowling Gypsy a nudge with her elbow.

Persephone extended her hands toward the Khan prince in a gesture of supplication. “The Regent holds my brother hostage and will kill him if my companions and I do not return to Parthania in less than a hundred days with proof that we've found the healing pool,” she said in a quiet but steady voice. “You do not know Finn, but I know that he will be a good and just king to all people if he gets the chance—”

“
THE MIGHTY KHAN WILL NEVER BOW TO AN EROK KING
!” bellowed Ghengor, throwing his arms wide so unexpectedly that he nearly decapitated his prince with the battle-axe he yet clutched in his hand.

At his words, the Khan warriors all shouted and pounded the ground with their own battle-axes. several sheep baaed anxiously.

“He is not just an Erok king!” Persephone called over the din. Fixing her gaze upon Barka, she said, “By virtue of my marriage to Azriel, Finn is also a Gypsy. Just as Mateo is a Gypsy—just as your dead friend Balthazar was a Gypsy.”

“
THE MIGHTY KHAN WILL NEVER BOW TO A GYPSY KING
!” bellowed Ghengor.

More shouting and pounding and baaing.

“I do not believe my brother would ask such a thing of you!” shouted Persephone, who could happily have picked up one of the gleaming sheep skulls at her feet and knocked the loud-mouthed Ghengor over the head with it. “Finn does not mean to conquer—he … he wishes merely to unite all people of the realm in peace. But he won't get the chance unless—”

“Unless I betray my dead friend and tell you what I know of the healing pool,” said Barka bluntly. Folding his massive arms across his chest, he looked down at Persephone and said, “If you are who you say you are— and I've a mind to believe that you are—the Erok King Malthusius was your sire. Tell me, lass, why would I trust the word of one sprung from the loins of the man who ordered me imprisoned—a man whose minion stole sixteen years of my life?”

Persephone answered from her heart, the words falling from her lips almost before she knew what she was saying. “Because I know what it is to have sixteen years of one's life stolen,” she said passionately, her voice ringing throughout the high-ceilinged cavern. “And because I am not my father
or
his minion. And because whatever Balthazar told you about his discovery of the healing pool does not belong to you—it belongs to his people. To
my
people,” she said fiercely, glancing over at Azriel. “And do you know why else?”

“Why else?” asked Barka, sounding almost curious.

Persephone lifted her chin, pointed her trembling forefinger at the big Khan's face and said, “Because you owe us for releasing you from that dungeon when the safer course of action by far would have been for Azriel
to slit your hairy throat
.”

For a long moment after she said this, it seemed as though everybody in the cavern—even the sheep, even Barka himself—was holding their breath, waiting to see what he would say.

“It is true that I am indebted to you and that whatever knowledge I have of the healing pool of Genezing belongs to your people,” he finally said with a deliberateness that told Persephone he was choosing his words with great care. “However, it is also true that you have freely admitted to crimes against
my
people—crimes that cannot go unpunished.”

Nodding with satisfaction at this last bit, Ghengor hoisted his battle-axe onto his shoulder and briskly stepped forward to bash Persephone's brains out.

Barka stopped him with a raised hand. “We are a civilized people, Ghengor,” he admonished solemnly. “You shall not slaughter her as you would a diseased ewe.”

“
Thank you
,”said Persephone, heaving a great sigh of relief.

“Instead, you shall face her in a fight to the death,” decided Barka to the raucous hoots and cheers of the other Khan warriors. “If she wins, the crimes committed by her and her companions will be freely forgiven, and they shall have the everlasting friendship of our people and all that implies.”

“And if she loses,” temporized Ghengor, “I get to feed her
and
her companions to the mother goddess of the mountains?”

“That sounds fair,” agreed Barka.

Before a thoroughly alarmed Persephone could offer her opinion that this sounded anything
but
fair, Azriel—whose hands were yet tied behind his back—shoved his way forward to stand by her side, “My wife is a mighty warrior, but she is much weakened by sickness,” he said loudly. “Forcing her into a fight to the death in her current state would be tantamount to executing her. If you are, indeed, a civilized people, you must allow her to choose a champion to fight in her stead! Otherwise—”

“Very well, very well,” interrupted Barka, flapping his hand at Azriel to shush him. “If she wishes, the princess may choose a champion.”

Persephone—who knew for a certainty that she would die if she had to face Ghengor herself—turned and looked up into Azriel's very blue eyes. He nodded without fear and then, giving her the little lopsided smile he lately seemed to reserve for such dire situations, he leaned forward and gave her a deep, lingering kiss on the mouth.

When he finally pulled away, Persephone sighed softly, turned back to the Khan prince and said, “I choose
you
as my champion, Barka.”

“Me?” blurted Barka, who seemed every bit as surprised and dismayed by this request as Azriel and Ghengor did.

“That's right,” said Persephone serenely, ignoring Azriel's fierce whispers of protest. “As the leader of a civilized people, surely you see the great honour to be had in standing champion for one who saved your life.”

Barka glared down at her for only an instant before irritably gesturing for her and Azriel to step outside the circle of sheep skulls. He then turned, snapped his fingers at Ghengor and grunted, “Ready, then, brother?”

Ghengor responded by giving a mighty roar and trying to chop off his prince's right leg. From that moment on, the fight was swift and brutal. Persephone could not believe how fast the two warriors could swing their heavy battle-axes, nor how fast they could duck, jump and twirl in an effort to avoid having their limbs or heads hacked off.

Unfortunately, though Barka was the bigger of the two, it soon became clear that he was far from fully recovered from his years in captivity. As his evasive movements grew clumsier and his breathing grew more laboured, it occurred to Persephone that she'd made a terrible blunder. Namely, she'd forced the only Khan who'd ever spoken personally with Balthazar about the healing pool into a fight to the death that he was probably going to lose.

Even as this thought crossed her mind, one of Barka's axe swings went wide. Jumping back to avoid being disembowelled, Persephone accidentally bumped into the great lord ram of the herd. The high-strung beast immediately baaed in such noisy distress that Ghengor couldn't help but cast a darting glance over to see what was wrong. The instant he did so, Barka kicked his legs out from under him and leapt forward to stand over top of his prone body. Eyes glittering with bloodlust, the great Khan prince wrapped both hands around the handle of his battle-axe and raised it high above his head.

“
NO
!” cried Persephone, who realized with a jolt that this would be yet another senseless death upon her conscience. “No—
please!
Don't kill him!”

For three thudding heartbeats, Barka did not move a muscle. Then, slowly, he nodded at Persephone, lowered his battle-axe and stepped away from his defeated tribesman.

Rolling to his knees, Ghengor looked up at Persephone from behind his curtain of dirty hair. “You … you he stammered.

Persephone was about to tell him that he need not thank her for her timely intervention when he bellowed, “How could you, villain! A warrior does not allow a weakling woman from another tribe to beg for mercy for him! You have shamed me before my people! How will my pride ever recover? How will I ever be able to—” “Hit him,” said Persephone.

Without a word, Barka raised his battle-axe and smashed his tribesman across the side of the head with the dull edge. Ghengor dropped like a rock.

“He … he's not dead, is he?” asked Persephone with a dubious glance at the fallen warrior.

“Not at all,” replied Barka shortly, “but ye can rest assured that when he wakes up, Ghengor here will have a headache to be proud of.”

THIRTY-TWO

Eighty-eight beans left in the jar

A
LTHOUGH THE FIGHT
between Barka and Ghengor had not ended in death as had been promised, the Khan evidently felt that justice had been served, because even before Ghengor's inert body had been dragged away, Azriel, Rachel and Fayla were being untied and offered horn mugs of warm broth, and Tiny's poor legs were being splinted as only mountain men well used to tending broken limbs could splint them.

In due course, the Khan warriors who'd gone after Dax and Xanther returned to the cavern. They'd managed to rescue the young shepherd boy (or girl) named Dax and to feed the two New Men who'd kidnapped him to the mother goddess of the mountain, but they'd been too late to save Xanther. Like the Khan, Persephone was filled with horror when the warriors grimly explained that by the time they'd tracked the New Men to their sorry camp on the lower slopes of the mountain, Xanther had already been murdered and partway eaten. Unlike the Khan, however, her horror abated considerably when the bereft warriors unwrapped the piece of burlap in which they'd wrapped poor Xanther's body and she saw that Xanther had been a ram—and a nice fat ram, at that.

Barka offered up a few gruff words of comfort for the living and a blessing for the dead. Then, after the last of the Khan had filed past Xanther's woolly body to pay their final respects, a whistling warrior sawed off his horns, skinned and spit what was left of him and set him to cook over a stoked dung fire. Shortly after the ram had begun to sizzle in earnest, Barka strode up to Persephone, the ram's bloody heart cradled in his cupped hands.

“For
you
, Princess,” he said reverently, holding it out to her.

Persephone—who, like most people in Parthania, knew almost nothing of the ways of the Khan—tried not to look completely revolted as she gingerly took the heart from him. “Oh, uh, thank you,” she said with as polite a smile as she could muster under the circumstances.

“You're welcome,” beamed Barka.

A moment of awkward silence followed in which Persephone became aware of the fact that everybody in the cavern was watching her intently. Swallowing hard, she gestured to the heart in her hands and said, “I. I don't mean to sound rude, but, um, what am I supposed to do with it?”

“What are you supposed to do with it? You're supposed to eat it, of course!” cried Barka, who leaned forward before adding in an urgent whisper, “'Tis a great honour being afforded you, lass! You must not insult the clan by refusing to partake!”

Though her own heart sank and her gorge rose at the prospect, Persephone nodded, for she knew that she could not afford to insult these people. Casting a despairing glance at Azriel—who shrugged—and Rachel—who grimaced—she closed her eyes, opened her mouth, lifted the cold, slimy organ to her lips and was about to take a bite when she heard a noise that made her freeze.

Opening one eye, she saw that the great Khan prince was jiggling with silent laughter.

Lowering her hands, Persephone pursed her lips at him. “Eating a raw ram heart isn't really a great honour among your people, is it?” she asked stiffly.

As Barka shook his head, the rest of the Khan—and, indeed, her own faithless companions—exploded with laughter.

“That wasn't funny,” scowled Persephone as she flung the contents of her hands at Barka's head.

“It most certainly
was
funny,” chortled Barka as he wiped a smear of heart slime off his forehead. “It was also payback for naming me your champion and nearly getting me killed by my own bloody tribesman. Now, my feisty princess and other honoured guests, let us fill your mugs with something stronger than broth and find somewhere private to sit that we may comfortably speak of things long past.”