Fool's Errand (39 page)

“No need to cut your hair if we can conceal it under a cap,” he murmured, his lips so close to hers that she could almost feel them—almost.

Persephone trembled, wondering why he tormented her like this, wondering why she allowed it.

“We leave in an hour,” said Azriel, turning from her abruptly. “I'll be back for you then.”

As soon as he was gone, Persephone changed into her fringed breeches, bound her breasts with a length of sturdy linen and plaited her hair that it might be more neatly concealed beneath the cap. When she was done, Rachel spent a few moments coaching her on the fine art of walking and talking like a man.

“Swing your arms!” instructed Rachel as she watched Persephone swagger back and forth across the tiny room. “Stomp your feet! Scratch your armpits! Snort and spit! May I ask you a question?”

“Of course,” grunted Persephone, scratching like a baboon with body lice.

“Why will you not lie with him?” asked Rachel.

Persephone froze mid-scratch.

“He is a good man and your wedded husband,” continued Rachel matter-of-factly. “And it is clear that you desire him as desperately as he desires you. Is the reason you've not yet consummated your marriage that you do not consider it a true marriage? You know—because it was naught but a crude tribal ceremony and because you spoke your silly vows under duress?”

“No,” said Persephone stiffly, unable to recall ever having referred to her wedding vows as
silly
.

“Is it that you intend to have the marriage set aside once Azriel has helped you find the healing pool?” asked Rachel. “You know—that you may select a consort more befitting one of your great station?”

“No!” spluttered Persephone, offended by the very suggestion.

“Well, then, is it because you do not believe that Azriel truly cares for you as a person but only seeks to satisfy his voracious carnal appetites at the expense of your maidenhood?”

“
NO
!”

Smiling in a way that told Persephone she'd never
really
believed any of these was the reason, Rachel murmured, “'No' can be a hard habit to break, Princess.”

“Saying no to Azriel is not a
habit
,” said Persephone, her throat tightening at the memory of the night in the rebel camp when he hadn't even given her the
chance
to say no.

Rachel reached out and tucked a stray strand of hair up under her friend's boyish cap. “I am glad to hear it,” she said gently, “for it means that come what may, you shall never have cause to regret the things you did not do.”

Azriel returned sooner than expected to breathlessly report that the captain of the ship upon which he'd arranged passage was threatening to set sail without them if they weren't aboard in a matter of minutes. Throwing her arms around Rachel (whom she loved dearly in spite of her unwelcome habit of making shrewd observations), Persephone promised her friend that they'd be back in two days—three at the most! She then hurriedly pressed into Rachel's hand the few coins they had left between the three of them after paying for the room at the inn and passage to the island, and followed Azriel out the door.

The two of them ran all the way to the harbour and down the wharf to a ship with a poorly patched mainsail and a faded hull encrusted with barnacles. Persephone would've liked to ask Azriel if he was certain that the vessel was seaworthy but as he was already pounding up the gangplank, she had no choice but to follow. The instant her feet hit the deck, she heard someone bellow an order to cast off.

“Azriel—” she began in a deep “man voice.”

“Go stand by the starboard rail, boy, while I settle up with the captain,” he interrupted, giving her a hearty shove in the right direction.

Resisting the urge to scowl at his retreating back, Persephone swaggered across the deck and leaned against the starboard rail. Almost immediately, a leering sailor with a face like old leather sidled up to her.

“My, but yer a
very
pretty boy,” he said, giving her a broad, gap-toothed grin.

“Oh,” said Persephone gruffly. “Well, uh, thank you.”

Nodding, the sailor leaned back so that he could get a good rear view. Then he licked his peeling lips and said, “I suppose ya belong to that big fella what's talkin' to the cap'n?”

It was on the tip of Persephone's tongue to tell the boor that she didn't belong to
anybody
when it occurred to her that a pretty boy on a ship full of sex-starved sailors could do worse than belong to a “big fella” like Azriel. So instead of proudly proclaiming her freedom, she growled, “Yes, that's right. I belong to him—so you'd better shove off before he comes over here and turns you into shark bait!”

Muttering darkly, the sailor stomped away.

Though the channel crossing had been known to take days in stormy conditions, the conditions that day were so ideal that by early evening the Island of Ru appeared on the horizon. From a distance it looked like nothing but a large, forbidding mass of dark, jagged rock shrouded in mist; as the ship drew nearer, it looked like nothing but a large, forbidding mass of dark, jagged rock shrouded in mist. Persephone could only imagine the despair the Marinese must have felt being driven from a town as beautiful as Syon to a place as desolate as this.

At length, the captain announced that he'd taken the ship in as close to the reef as he dared and that Azriel and “Percy” (as Azriel had cheerfully introduced Persephone) would have to row themselves to shore. If they did not return to the ship by noon the following day, the captain would sail away and leave them to their fate. If it looked like a storm was brewing, he would sail away and leave them to their fate. If he saw a single savage ship put to water, he would sail away and leave them to their fate …

As the captain continued to list the many and varied reasons he would sail away and leave them to their fate, a sudden gust of wind caught the brim of Persephone's cap. With a gasp, she reached up to keep it from flying off her head.

Like her cry in the Great Forest, the gasp was neither loud nor long. Under the circumstances, however, it was something infinitely worse:

It was
girlish
.

A collective masculine gasp went up among the sailors. Before Persephone could spit or scratch her armpits to prove that she was a real man just like them, the nearest soldier snatched off her cap. As her glossy braid tumbled free, he fell back in superstitious terror.

“There's a woman aboard!” he shrieked. “There's a woman aboard! Oh, may the gods of the sea have mercy—there's a woman aboard!”

The leering sailor with the face like old leather was upon Persephone before her dagger was halfway out of the scabbard. While half a dozen of his shipmates held Azriel down, the sailor hoisted her—kicking and squirming and scratching like a madwoman—into his sweaty arms and held her out over the starboard railing.

“Whose shark bait now, pretty boy?” he sneered.

And without further ado, he opened his arms and dumped her into the sea.

FORTY

T
HE KING WAS GONE
.

Worse, no one could tell Mordecai where he'd gone
to
. The Regent had questioned the royal guards, the body servants, the chambermaids, the serving wenches and the physicians. He'd have happily tortured the information out of the slattern if he could have found her, but she was gone, too. Upon learning this, the possibility that she and the king had run away together had flitted through Mordecai's mind, but he'd dismissed it at once. Though the king was a fool, he was a
royal
fool, and the thought of him lying with that mouthy, big-bosomed, lowborn slut was too repulsive to bear contemplating.

As he lurched toward the Council chamber now, Mordecai cursed himself for not having considered that something like this might happen. He should have spent less energy worrying about Murdock and his lack of reports; he should have paid more attention to that rebellious look in the king's eye. He should have realized that a boy who had the blood of kings coursing through his veins would never give up his kingdom without a fight. He should have warned the New Men posted outside the royal chambers that they'd be boiled alive if they allowed the king to escape.

Well, they knew now.

Unfortunately, they'd been unable to give him even a
shred
of useful information before they'd been poached into the afterlife. And now Mordecai was going to have to face Lord Bartok and the rest of the great lords with the humiliating news that he'd temporarily misplaced the king. This was going to make him look like an incompetent
imbecile!
It was also going to give Lord Bartok an excuse not to uphold his side of their little bargain.

And how long would it be before some ambitious lord idly wondered whether a man appointed by the king to rule in the king's stead ought to be allowed to continue to do so when the king was not available to confirm that these were yet his wishes?

Truly, this was a disaster.

Mordecai would've preferred to have bluffed his way through the situation—to have told Bartok and the rest of them that the king had been stricken by some illness that was going to require complete isolation for an indefinite period of time, perhaps—but it was too late for that. Too many servants knew that the king was missing; it was only a matter of time before their lowborn tittle-tattle reached the ears of their betters.

No.

Mordecai's only hope was to announce the news first and hope that he and his plans would be able to survive.

As luck would have it, he arrived at the Council chamber to find Lord Bartok lingering in the corridor outside chatting with several minor lords who were obviously eager to ingratiate themselves with the future father-in-law of the king. Though Mordecai was certain that Lord Bartok saw him waiting there, the high-and-mighty bastard continued chatting with the minor lords for several minutes more before indicating with an elegant gesture that they should proceed onward into the Council chamber. Only then did he approach Mordecai.