Fool's Errand (6 page)

Out of the corner of his eye, Mordecai saw the cow placidly nod her bovine head.

Clenching the gnarled hands that yet held Murdock's black robe firmly in place, Mordecai willed himself to stay calm. “Of course the guards should have obeyed your order, Your Majesty,” he said soothingly. “Only—perhaps they were unsure what to do seeing as how the power to rule the realm hasn't yet
officially
been transferred to you.”

King Finnius coughed wetly into his sleeve. “I assure you that we will attend to that presently, Your Grace. At the moment, however, we have more pressing matters to discuss.” Folding his arms across his slim chest, he said, “Back in the Great Hall, you claimed not to know why Lady Bothwell shared my scar. But Moira and I have come to the conclusion that there is only one possible way the scar on my arm and the one on the arm of Lady Bothwell could match so perfectly: we must have been scarred at the same time. And since Moira has been my nursemaid since I was handed to her at the threshold of the birthing chamber when I was but a few minutes old, and since the scar on my arm was yet raw when I was given into her care, it means that Lady Bothwell and I received our scars
inside the birthing chamber itself
. And the only way we could both have been inside the birthing chamber that night is if … is if …”

“Is if Queen Fey gave birth to both of them,” said Moira blandly, when it became clear that the young king could not bring himself to complete the sentence that would at once bless him with a living sister and condemn him for having thought to marry her.

Mordecai bowed his head and breathed deeply, the smell of blood a calming reminder that in the end, vengeance was ever his. Then he lifted his head and said, “That is correct, Your Majesty.”

“It is?” blinked King Finnius, who'd clearly expected his Regent to offer protest.

Even the cow looked surprised.

“Yes,” said Mordecai. “Though I initially believed the erroneous reports that there was a plot afoot, after I'd had the opportunity to question Lady Bothwell in private and to more closely examine her scar, I knew that a miracle had taken place. I knew that your twin sister—the lost Erok princess—had finally come home to us.”

At this, the king inhaled so sharply that he drove himself to a violent coughing fit. “It really is true, then?” he gasped as soon as he had the breath to do so.

“Yes, Your Majesty. And I would know because it was I who, at the request of the queen, gave you and the princess the wounds that scarred you,” Mordecai explained in a voice thick with feigned emotion. “Your mother was dying of a raging fever brought on by the great strain of childbirth. She was ranting with fear that one of you would be stolen, and though I insisted that her fears were groundless,
she
insisted that I do as she bid, and so I did. Then, mere hours later, while I and the others were frantically tending to the dying queen, the unfathomable occurred: the infant princess was, in fact, stolen out of her cradle after her nursemaid succumbed to a powerful sleeping draught.”

The king—who was still panting slightly—looked skeptical. “Even if all that you say is true, Your Grace,” he said, “it does not explain why you did not immediately send out search parties. A royal princess had been
kidnapped
! She was marked as my twin—surely she might have been found!”

Mordecai pinched the bridge of his nose as though in an effort to hold back tears of regret. “I did not believe there was any hope that she'd be found alive, Your Majesty,” he whispered. “The fact that the nursemaid had succumbed to a sleeping draught led me to believe that Gypsies were behind the kidnapping, and once I realized this, I could not believe they'd do other than murder the princess as retribution for the massacres perpetrated upon them by your father.”

King Finnius turned away then and stayed with his back to Mordecai for so long that the Regent began to wonder if he'd gone too far pretending to cry.

Well,
no matter if I did
, thought Mordecai irritably.
There is more than one way to make a puppet dance and very soon, this one will he dancing as though his life depended upon it
.

“Your Grace, why did you never tell me any of this?” asked King Finnius when he finally turned around again.

“Majesty, you'd already lost your mother and father,” replied Mordecai, pretending not to notice the way the king was looking at him. “I saw no reason to burden you with yet another loss. Moreover, a kingdom headed by an orphaned boy-king is a precarious thing at the best of times; I feared that if it was known a princess had been born first that the nobility might question your right to the throne.”

Mordecai hoped that the shocking news that he was not
actually
the rightful monarch might inspire the king to take a more sympathetic view of Mordecai's long-ago actions—and perhaps even to see the great advantage to himself of getting rid of the now grown-up princess.

Disappointingly, it did not appear to do either.

“The nobility might well have questioned my right to the throne—even as I, myself, must now do,” frowned the king, “but they might also have accused you of killing the princess in order to protect your Regency.”

“Yes,” agreed Mordecai smoothly. “Either way, it would have been a disaster.”

The king shrugged noncommittally. “And what is your explanation for why nearly all of those who attended my birth disappeared?” he asked.

Mordecai barely hesitated. “A princess had been kidnapped from a nursery that adjoined the birthing chamber. Someone from inside had to have arranged it.”

“So you tortured them to find out who it was,” said King Finnius, “just as you tortured poor Lord Pembleton's son.”

“I did what I had to do,” snapped Mordecai, loathing the other's holier-than-thou tone. “The only tragedy, Your Majesty, is that I never got the answers I sought.”

“I … see,” said the king, stepping back from his Regent the way a nobleman might step back from a lowborn beggar stricken by the Great Sickness. “Well. Where is my sister now?”

“In her chamber,” said Mordecai, resisting the urge to step forward and wrap his cold hands around the royal ingrate's throat. “She has asked that you not disturb her this night. I'm afraid … well, I'm afraid that she quite fell to pieces when she learned the truth about herself.”

Smiling for the first time since the Regent entered the room, the king said, “That does not sound like the Lady Bothwell I know.”

You know nothing of Lady Bothwell, fool!
shrieked Mordecai in his mind. Out loud he murmured, “Her real name is Persephone, Your Majesty, and I would be honoured to make arrangements for the two of you to formally be reunited as brother and—”

“I'll make my own arrangements where my sister is concerned,” interrupted the king. “However, I would have you send to me the servant who ran from the Great Hall—the one whose cries drew the attention of all to the matching scars. To have reacted as she did, the woman must have borne witness to the events in the birthing chamber, and since it would seem that she is the only living soul other than you to have done so, Your Grace, I am
most
eager to speak with her.”

Mordecai sighed softly, recalling the delicious noise the drab had made when he'd first driven the blade into her belly. Then he cleared his throat and said, “Your Majesty, I am terribly sorry to have to inform you that the poor woman is dead.”

Moira did not look the least surprised.

The king, on the other hand, looked utterly shocked. “Dead!” he blurted, his exclamation punctuated by yet another cough. “What do you mean ‘dead'? Dead
how?
”

“Dead at the hands of the soldiers who sought to protect
you
,” explained Mordecai mournfully. “Dead because they thought she meant to harm
you
.”

Instead of flinching at the thought that a useless nobody had perished because of him—as he once would have—the king grew very still.

“You ordered this?” he said.

Without taking his eyes off the boy, Mordecai slowly shook his head. “The deed was done by the time I arrived,” he said. “And I can assure you that no one regrets it more than I, for that woman was the only one who could have confirmed all that I've told you. Had I only known that she existed—”

“You'd have long since had her tortured to death,” said the king.

Mordecai opened his mouth to offer protest, then shut it again. Though he longed to fling open the shielding cloak and rub the king's squeaky-clean nose in the sticky mess clotted upon his robes, he'd have to be patient a while longer yet. He could not risk the open enmity of the fool until the princess
and
the cow were safely beyond anyone's ability to protect them.
Then
the peasant-hearted puppet would dance—or see those dearest to him pay the price.

It was this happy knowledge that allowed Mordecai to sound almost meek when he mumbled, “Majesty, if I have offended in thought or deed at any time during my long years of service to you, I stand ready to accept whatever punishment you see fit to mete out.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the nursemaid lean forward imperceptibly. The king said nothing for so long that Mordecai's cold heart began to pound out of fear that the fool was actually going to pass sentence and order him dragged away upon the moment.

But he did not. Instead, he said, “I do not seek to punish you, Mordecai. Though I confess that I find myself wondering at the tale you've told me this night, I've no proof of misdeed. And though I've lately come to realize that we do not share a vision of what a ruler should be, what is done is done. The past is behind us.” He spread his hands wide, looking every inch the shining young king. “Tomorrow, a new day will dawn—and with it, a new era for the kingdom of Glyndoria!”

Though the cow by the fire looked disappointed, she nevertheless clapped heartily.

Reminding himself that he'd soon have the pleasure of mutilating the hands that so mocked him, Mordecai thanked the king for his munificence and cryptically suggested that he might be surprised by all that the following days would bring.

“Well,” said the king with a weary chuckle, “I have always liked surprises.”

“I know you have, Your Majesty,” breathed Mordecai, bowing as low as his twisted back would permit. “Oh, I
know
you have.”

SIX

T
HE NEXT MORNING
, Persephone awoke to the sound of little Meeta excitedly flinging back the plumcoloured velvet bed curtains. While she was still blinking against the glare of the morning sun, mute Meena opened the chamber door to a veritable army of kitchen servants bearing heavy platters of choice meats and cheeses, baskets brimming with breads, buns and pastries, bowls piled high with succulent fruits, pitchers of drink and dishes containing everything from clover honey and fresh butter to clotted cream, quails' eggs and a rainbow of quivering jellies. As usual, it was more food than Persephone could have eaten in half a lifetime, but she did not bother to ask why it should be so.

Clearly, the rumours of her prodigious appetite yet abounded.

After laying their burdens upon the long table beneath the open windows, every single one of the kitchen servants presented themselves at the foot of the great canopied bed to be dismissed. As they did so, each eyed the person-shaped lump beneath the covers next to Persephone with the electrified air of one who couldn't wait to share the tantalizing gossip that the long-lost princess had taken
another
lover besides the eunuch slave who was no eunuch at all but a handsome Gypsy outlaw
who'd also spent the night in her chamber!

In fact, the person-shaped lump in the bed was not “another” of Persephone's lovers. It was her doppelgänger, Rachel, the other girl the Gypsies thought might be the key to seeing the prophecy of the Gypsy King fulfilled at last.

The previous night, shortly after Azriel had toasted Persephone's health, Meena had returned to the room with little Mateo in her arms and Meeka at her heels. At
Meeka's
heels was Rachel, looking like a grubby ghoul on account of the smelly horse blanket she wore over her head to hide her startling likeness to the long-lost princess. Persephone had tugged off the blanket and tried to give her friend a hug, but Rachel had been quite unable to stop bobbing clumsy curtseys and babbling about what an
honour
it was to stand before Her
most
gracious Highness. Persephone had been much dismayed by this behaviour. Indeed, she did not know what she'd have done if Meeka had not come to the rescue by loudly whispering that although the court physicians would undoubtedly be eager to try to restore the girl's addled wits by drilling a hole in her skull, she, herself, felt that a very large goblet of wine might do the trick just as well.

Three very large goblets of wine later had seen Rachel bathed and comfortably curled up in a chair across from Persephone, laughing helplessly as Meeka solemnly imparted the happy,
happy
news that Azriel was not a eunuch after all.