Fool's Errand (7 page)

Now, upon hearing the door shut behind the last of the deliciously scandalized kitchen servants, Rachel flung off the covers and sat up amid the mountain of feather pillows.

“I must say that being chased through the streets by a swarm of the Regent's horrid New Men, half-drowning in a filthy moat, coming within a hair of being stabbed, trampled and pitchforked to death and generally being terrified out of my wits was well worth a night's sleep in this bed,” she announced as she yawned and stretched luxuriously.

“I know exactly what you mean,” said Persephone, recalling her first night in the palace.

The two of them smiled at each other and then slid out of their respective sides of the bed in such unison that they looked more like one girl and her reflection than two separate girls. By the time they'd walked the ten paces to the table, Martha was already carving the roast pheasant, Meena was pouring tankards of mead, and Meeka was trying to feed a quail's egg to Azriel (who'd spent the night on the hard, cold floor without even having
tried
to persuade Persephone that the bed was big enough for three). Meeta was breathlessly counting the honey buns to see if there were enough for each of them to have two and little Mateo—who'd insisted upon sleeping on the floor with Azriel even though he'd been offered a cozy spot at the foot of the bed—was standing near Azriel's chair watching the rest of them with the hooded eyes of a hunted child.

Persephone bade everyone good morning and was just about to point out to Meeka that Azriel could
probably
feed himself when there came a knock at the door. Martha immediately left off carving the pheasant to answer it. When she returned, she was carrying a folded, sealed piece of parchment.

“What is it?” asked Rachel as she sat down at the table, pulled the nearest large platter of meat toward her and began to eat.

Martha hesitated. “A letter,” she said, “from the king.”

Silence fell upon the room.

“What … what does it say?” asked Persephone.

Clearly pleased to have been granted the honour of opening the letter, Martha broke the wax seal and unfolded the creamy parchment. “It says only that the king wishes to see you as soon as may be.”

Persephone took a deep breath. The king was so kind and sweet that she did not
think
he'd be angry with her for having pretended to be someone she was not and for having run out on him without a word of explanation or farewell after having shown him great affection. However, as she was rapidly discovering, some men could be funny about things like that. Moreover, her very existence threatened King Finnius's right to rule, and she had a fair idea that
all
kings could be funny about things like
that
.

“I suppose that means our feast will have to wait until after you're bathed and dressed,” sighed Meeka as she reluctantly set the tiny quail's egg back in the bowl and took her hand off Azriel's thigh.

“Yes,” said Persephone, trying not to sound pleased. “I suppose it does.”

While Martha fetched the soaps and towels, Rachel picked out a gown, and the sisters hauled buckets of steaming bath water, Mateo left the chamber in the company of Azriel, who bid Persephone a polite goodbye without even
trying
to suggest that as her one-time Master of Bath he ought to be allowed to help sponge her down.

An hour later, Persephone was freshly bathed and perfumed, her hair was washed, brushed, oiled and piled atop her head in complicated twists and swirls, and she was exquisitely dressed in a full-skirted gown of forestgreen velvet heavily embellished with gold brocade. She was halfway to the chamber door when she noticed lying on the floor the rusty key to the fetters she'd once worn—the key that Azriel had pressed into her hand the previous evening when he'd confessed that he'd ever been
her
slave, the one that had slipped from her fingers when he'd swept her up in a passionate embrace. Flushing at the memory—and at the unexpected pang of regret the memory provoked—Persephone hastily snatched up the key, slipped it into her pocket and continued toward the chamber door.

Upon reaching it, she opened it, stepped outside and began hurriedly walking toward the royal chambers in the southern wing of the palace. She kept her head down in the hope of not being noticed, but it was no use. And as she swept past glittery-eyed noblemen, liveried servants and ragged slaves who all curtseyed and bowed and whispered and stared and stared and stared, she realized that she'd forever lost the protection that went along with being beneath notice.

Henceforth, there will always be someone looking at me, considering me, wondering about me, plotting against me
, she thought with a leap of anxiety as her fingers strayed to the dagger at her thigh, which Azriel had been clever enough to palm the night before when he'd been shoved to the floor by his captor.
I will never be free to pursue my own destiny. I will ever be a slave to—

A tiny, bright-eyed young noblewoman dressed in a gown of canary yellow hopped into the middle of the corridor so suddenly that Persephone—who still had her head down and who was practically running by this point—nearly tripped over her.

“Good day to you, Princess!” chirped Lord Bartok's daughter, Lady Aurelia, dropping into such a deep and respectful curtsey that it was hard to believe she'd recently tried to arrange to have Persephone thrown by a demented horse in the hope of seeing her neck broken.

“Good day,” muttered Persephone, trying to step around her.

Lady Aurelia fluttered to one side, blocking her way without appearing to have done so on purpose. “I can only imagine what a shock it must have been to discover your true identity, Your Highness,” she murmured in confidential tones. “It must be a great comfort to you to know that you already have at least one dear friend here at court.”

Persephone—who knew of no such friend—looked puzzled.

“Me, Your Highness!” cried Lady Aurelia with all the false sincerity of a courtier born and bred. “I know my brother, Atticus, behaved like a bit of a cad last night—”

“Just before my horse kicked him in the head, your brother declared his intention to rape me, murder me and use my scalp to fashion a collar for his dog,” said Persephone.

Those nearby gave scandalized gasps, but Lady Aurelia only laughed shrilly, as though her brother had meant to play the most marvellous prank. “Oh, men can be such beasts, can't they?” she giggled, clapping her little hands in delight. “Well, never mind him. It is our friendship—yours and mine!—that matters, Your Highness, and I hope that—”

“Excuse me,” interrupted Persephone, pushing past Lady Aurelia with such determination that the flaxenhaired noblewoman very nearly ended up on her bony little backside.

“We will go riding again very soon, yes?” she trilled hopefully as Persephone hurried off down the corridor.

Persephone didn't bother to answer. Just ahead of her were the enormous gilt doors that opened into the echoing emptiness of the king's vast outer chamber. Shoving her way through them, she was about to call out to the guards on the far side of the chamber when a figure stepped out of the shadows behind her, startling her so badly that she'd drawn her dagger, hunkered down into a fighting stance and spun to face the threat before she realized what she was doing.

With a cry, one of the guards on the far side of the chamber bounded forward with his poleaxe poised to strike. The figure before Persephone impatiently waved him back, then stepped a little farther out of the shadows.

“You look much improved this morning, Highness,” said Mordecai, his eyes gleaming at the sight of the blade he'd used to murder the pockmarked servant.

Slipping the dagger back into the scabbard at her thigh, Persephone rose up from her crouch and said, “What do you want?”

“I want many things,” replied Mordecai huskily, his gaze slipping to her bosom as it was wont to do. “But what I want at this particular moment is to offer a suggestion.”

Persephone did not ask what suggestion, but neither did she turn her back on him or walk away.

Mordecai smiled. “Last night I told the king that it was I who marked you and him as twins at the behest of your beloved mother, I who anguished after you were tragically kidnapped, I who joyfully recognized you for who you really were—and my overeager soldiers who killed the poor servant who'd also borne witness to the events in the birthing chamber all those years ago,” he explained. “I want to suggest that you say nothing that would cause the king to question this version of events.”

Persephone nearly laughed aloud at his audacity. “And why do you suggest this?” she asked. “Is it because you fear that if the king were to learn the truth he would have you imprisoned—or worse?”

“I fear nothing,” said Mordecai calmly. “I merely suggest that if the king was to hear your version of events, he might react in a way that would make it difficult for you and the cockroach to uphold your part of our little bargain. And that would make it
impossible
for me to uphold mine—an unfortunate thing given that you and those whose lives you would have me spare are yet within my grasp.”

Curling her hands into fists, Persephone took an involuntary step toward him. “My companions—”

“Would be dead before you'd finished speaking the troublemaking words,” confirmed Mordecai with a pointed glance at the poleaxe-wielding guards.

Persephone stepped back. “But the king—”

“Is one of those whose life you would have me spare,” reminded Mordecai impatiently. “And if you think that I would allow you to see him without knowing for a certainty that you could not do or say anything to harm me, I encourage you to think again. Within the royal chambers, death waits beyond every wall, never more than a few paces away from His oblivious Majesty. Speak out of turn, Princess, and watch your dear brother promptly cut to pieces before your eyes.”

Thinking to threaten him back, Persephone said, “The nobles—”

“Are loyal to no one but themselves,” said Mordecai with a wave of his hand. “They bear me no love, but neither do they truly love the king, and his death—along with yours—would see the throne left vacant, waiting to be warmed by the pampered arse of the first noble fool who could fight his way to it.”

“So I am well and truly trapped,” said Persephone mutinously, “for to incite the king is to see him and my companions murdered and the kingdom torn apart by civil war.”

“Exactly,” beamed Mordecai, who had been so busy considering how his various threats would work to his personal advantage that he hadn't thought of it in precisely this way. “So enjoy your visit with the king, Princess. Give him whatever reason you think he'll accept to explain why you and the cockroach must leave the imperial city at once. And take comfort in the fact that before the great gates of Parthania close behind you, I will have given you a parting gift that will inspire you beyond your wildest imagination.”

SEVEN

H
AVING APPARENTLY SATISFIED HIMSELF
that Persephone would behave, the Regent held out his withered chicken wing of an arm and gallantly offered to escort her into the king's chambers. Though she was sorely tempted to grind the high, hard heel of her beaded slipper into his crumpled foot, her fear of him—and of what he could do—was too great for such an indulgence. Pushing past him without a word, she marched across the room and halted before the guards.

“I am here to see the king!” she declared, more loudly than she intended.

The nearest of the two guards—a wiry young man with an unusually shaped wine-coloured birthmark on one cheek—bobbed his head and disappeared through the inner chamber door. A moment later, he reappeared and ushered her inside. After announcing her in a ringing voice, he vanished back through the door, leaving Persephone alone at the threshold of the king's inner chamber.