The Gypsy King (32 page)

Glancing sideways at Lady Bothwell now, Mordecai wondered if he should warn her as to the exact nature of the spectacle she was about to witness. If she'd been any other woman, he might have, just to avoid a hysterical female scene, but she wasn't any other woman. In his mind she was already his future queen, the mother of his true-begotten half-noble son. In that great capacity she would need to be able to stand at his side and maintain her composure in all situations, no matter how shocking or gruesome. As it happened, this particular situation would be an excellent test of her abilities in that regard, and he stood ready to judge her accordingly.

Smiling to himself at the thought, Mordecai lifted his aching arm higher and wondered at the possibility that Lady Bothwell might even
enjoy
the little drama that was about to unfold before her.

After all, she was unquestionably a woman of strange appetites.

There was always the chance that these included an appetite for blood.

TWENTY-FIVE

T
HERE WAS NO TUMULT erupting inside Persephone as she and the Regent walked silently through the corridors. How could there be when she was concentrating so hard on elegantly matching the Regent step for lurching step? And on trying not to think about the unnatural fleshlessness of his arm beneath her gloved fingertips? And on worrying as to the nature of the promised “spectacle”? The Regent had said nothing of it but that she would find it entertaining, and while she fervently hoped that she was about to be treated to a court play or a banquet or a tournament or a picnic, somehow, she did not think that was the case.

“Ready, Lady Bothwell?” smiled Mordecai, stopping at last before a set of wide brass doors that were at least twice as tall as Persephone.

“Of course,” she replied—lightly, in spite of her hammering heart.

The Regent smiled again, then nodded impatiently at the two guards who stood at attention nearby. Soundlessly,
they sprang forward and slowly heaved open the heavy doors.

At once, a swell of sound washed over Persephone— rustling skirts and tapping heels, clinking goblets and cultured music, self-important male voices and throaty female ones. Laughter that was shrill, grating and as brittle as old bones.

Altogether, it was the sound of wealth and privilege and power, and just as Persephone was thanking the Fates that it had been enough to mask the sound of her entrance— thus sparing her the ordeal of public scrutiny—an infernal, bellowing herald announced the arrival of the Lord Regent Mordecai and his esteemed guest, Lady Bothwell of the Ragorian Prefecture. At once, the room fell silent and all eyes swivelled to fix upon Persephone. Lifting her chin higher to compensate for her badly trembling knees, she held her breath and waited for someone in the glittering crowd to indignantly declare that Bothwell had no wife and to denounce Persephone accordingly, but no one said anything at all.

“They are
entranced
by you,” whispered the Regent exultantly.

Though it was obvious to Persephone that they were anything
but
entranced, she simply nodded and exhaled as deeply as the constricting corsets would allow. Clearly, reclusive old Bothwell had no close friends or family at court—a sad thing for him, perhaps, but an extremely fortunate thing for her.

As the rustling, tapping, clinking, murmuring and laughing slowly resumed, Persephone noticed that although
most of the nobles were laughing, not all were. Some stood stiff, tight-lipped and silent, staring at the floor, while others wore the carefully neutral expressions of those intent upon hiding their true feelings. Before Persephone could wonder what to make of this, the Regent began to shuffle forward, bobbing his head in acknowledgment at this person or that. Not knowing what else to do—and fearful of being pounced upon by some nobleman who might wish to question her about “her” noble family's long and distinguished history—Persephone clung to his bony arm and shuffled along beside him. As she did so, she surreptitiously gazed about the vast, high-ceilinged room. Directly ahead of her was a set of long, heavy red curtains billowing gently in the breeze that blew through the massive open double-doors behind them. To her left was a dais upon which sat an empty throne with a deep-purple cloth of state draped over it. Lined up on either side of the throne were several low but well-made chairs, and before it sat a table covered with white linen trimmed in purple and set with plates and goblets that looked to be made of pure gold. To her right were row upon row of rough-hewn tables with matching benches and stools. The tables near the very front were covered with cloths of plain white and set with plates and goblets made of bright silver, while the rest of the tables were bare of linen and appeared to be set with items of ordinary pewter. About halfway back, the rows of tables bulged outward to accommodate what looked to be a silver fountain. Oddly, it was cast in the shape of a kneeling man—his silver hands clasped beneath his chin, his sorrowful silver eyes cast toward the heavens.
For the life of her, Persephone could not imagine why the Erok nobility would favour such a disturbing piece, nor any silver orifice from which one would wish to see wine pour forth.

Following the direction of her gaze, the Regent craned his head upward to press his cool lips against her ear. “Fear not, Lady Bothwell,” he whispered. “The wine will run freely after—”

“My Lord Regent!” cried a voice some distance behind them.

Looking back, Persephone saw a richly dressed but dishevelled-looking man bumbling toward them, a frantic expression on his round, red face.

“Who is that?” she asked.

Mordecai neither glanced backward nor slowed his pace. “A minor lord by the name of Pembleton, I believe,” he replied.

Persephone snuck another look back at the man, who seemed to be having an inordinately difficult time fighting his way through the mostly smirking crowd. “He appears rather … upset,” she said uncertainly as they came to a halt before the long, heavy red curtains.

“Yes, I expect he does,” said Mordecai with more than a hint of satisfaction in his voice. Then he nodded at a pair of nearby servants, who abruptly yanked open the curtains.

For the second time that day, Persephone jerked her head to one side and threw up her arm to shield her eyes until they could become accustomed to the brilliant light.

Even after they did, however, it took several long
seconds of blinking and squinting for her to realize what she was looking at:

A freshly built scaffold.

Suddenly, the hammering she'd heard all morning made sickening sense. As she'd feared, the “spectacle” she was about to see wasn't a play or a banquet or a tournament or a picnic.

It was an execution.

Persephone had never seen such a thing herself, of course, but her Cookie had had a great-uncle whose second daughter by his third wife had married an executioner, and so she'd heard many terrible tales—of men who'd bravely laid their heads down upon the blood-drenched stump to meet their terrible end, but also of men whose strength or courage had failed them. Men who'd had to be dragged up the scaffold steps, forced to their knees and kicked into position; men who'd been jeered for sobbing, pleading their innocence and begging for mercy until the very end. And even the end hadn't always been the end—Cookie had said that sometimes, if the executioner felt he'd been poorly paid on the previous job, or was stupid with drink or sick with flux or too old or too young or hungry or thirsty or simply in a bad mood, it took ten, fifteen, even twenty strokes of the axe to sever the doomed wretch's head!

“Have you ever attended an execution, Lady Bothwell?” asked the Regent, who was watching her intently.

Before she could choke out a suitable answer, an arrogant-looking man with a trim silver beard caught up with them. Introducing himself as Lord Bartok, he gave
Persephone a wintry smile and briefly pressed his lips against her gloved hand. As she curtseyed in response, she tried in vain to remember where she'd heard his name before.

“Lady Bothwell is here as my guest,” the Regent informed Lord Bartok as he laid a possessive hand over the hand of Persephone's that had just been kissed.

“I gathered as much when you were introduced together,” said Lord Bartok, watching Persephone most carefully as he added, “though I must admit that I was
astonished
to learn that old Bothwell had married, for I'd understood him to be both an invalid and a confirmed bachelor.”

“Well, you were wrong,” said the Regent, clearly savouring the words.

“So it would appear,” murmured Lord Bartok, who smiled before adding, “By the way, Your Grace, I must congratulate you on a fine night's work. I understand that the slum has been reduced to a charred pile of sticks and bones, and that you, yourself, led the men to action.”

Mordecai shrugged modestly, but his dark eyes glittered. “As His Majesty is fond of pointing out, I am far more than a skilled administrator,” he said, his words heavy with meaning that Persephone did not understand.

The nobleman seemed to understand the meaning, however, because he nodded solemnly and said, “A capable man can rise far in this world.”

Pale-faced and tight-lipped, the Regent stared at him for a long moment before replying, “A fool can fall even farther.”

“Quite so,” agreed Lord Bartok easily. “Now tell me: are the rumours true? Did your men truly capture another Gypsy last night—here, in the very heart of Glyndoria?”

“They did,” nodded Mordecai, with a sharp glance at Persephone, who'd begun to sway on her feet.

“And are we about to have the pleasure of seeing—”

“Excuse me, Lord Bartok,” said the Regent impatiently, “but as you can plainly see, Lady Bothwell is suffering from the heat and the glare. I must find her a seat in the shade at once, before she faints dead away.”

Persephone—who was, indeed, on the verge of fainting dead away—did not see the speculative expression on Lord Bartok's face as the Regent led her away, nor did she feel Mordecai's claw-like fingers as they dug into her lower back, propelling her closer and closer to the scaffold. She hardly heard the boards rattle beneath her feet as she staggered up the steps of the nearby canopied gallery, barely felt the cushion beneath her as she collapsed into a chair in the very front row.

Did your men truly capture another Gypsy last night—here, in the very heart of Glyndoria?

They did.

“Shall I have a servant fetch you to your room, Lady Bothwell?” asked the Regent, with more than a trace of irritation.

And are we about to have the pleasure of seeing—?

“No,” said Persephone in a faint but determined voice. If, in fact, it was Azriel they'd captured, and if they meant to force him up the steps of the scaffold to suffer a Gypsy's dread death, she
would
be there for it. She would
not
have his last sight in this world be a crowd of jeering men and women not fit to touch the hem of his silly stolen doublet. As his bloody scalp was torn from his head and he collapsed upon the scattered straw to wait for his life to drain from his terrible wound, she would have him feel the warmth of her steady gaze and take what comfort he could from knowing that there was one in the crowd who cared.

“No,” she repeated, with a fierceness that surprised her. “No, I do not wish to return to my room, thank you. It was only the heat and glare, as you said. Already I feel much improved.”

Mordecai's expression eased. “You are made of stronger stuff than most noblewomen,” he said in an approving voice.

Persephone smiled tightly, then froze as a small band of New Men soldiers rounded the corner of a nearby turret. Led by a weasel of a man in a general's hat, they marched in tight formation. Even so, Persephone could see among their shiny boots the dirty, dragging feet of their doomed prisoner.

Leaning forward in her chair, she gripped the rail before her and prayed for courage.

Suddenly, Lord Pembleton—the dishevelled-looking man with the round, red face—broke from the noble crowd that was now assembled upon the green before the scaffold. Stumbling and tripping, he ran at the soldiers with his arms outstretched beseechingly. As soon as he was within range, one of the soldiers stepped out of formation and, holding his poleaxe chest high with both
hands, shoved the nobleman backward with such force that he fell to the ground. It happened quickly, but before the soldier returned to his place beside his comrades, there was time enough for Persephone to get a glimpse of the prisoner in their midst—an unconscious man with straight brown hair.

Not curly. Not auburn.

Not Azriel!

Her relief was so intense that she didn't even notice Lord Pembleton fight his way back through the crowd to fall at the feet of the Regent.

“Please, Your Grace,
please
!” he cried, gesturing wildly to the young man who was even now being dragged up the steps of the scaffold. “Have mercy on my son! He is a good boy—a father himself! He has been falsely accused. Spare him—I beg you!”