The Gypsy King (8 page)

I
T DIDN'T TAKE LONG to collect Persephone's meagre possessions. The dried-up tail of the rat who'd once been her best friend; the comb she'd painstakingly whittled out of a single piece of wood three summers past. Her blanket and her nightshift; the braided, berry-dyed twine she used in place of ribbon to tie back her beautiful hair. The scrap of lace she'd torn from the hem of Cookie's apron the night she'd been dragged screaming and crying from the merchant's house.

And, of course, the knife she'd stolen from the thief the previous evening.

“That's mine,” announced the owner as soon as he'd recovered from the nasty shock of seeing his former slave draw such a formidable weapon from beneath her straw bedding. “I've been searching and searching for it these last months. I am so pleased to have found it! It belonged to my grandfather, you see, and—”

“You lie,” said the thief absently as he tugged the knife from Persephone's resistant grasp.

The owner gasped at the insult. “Now, you listen here, m'lord!” he blustered. “You've no right to say such a thing to me! I said you could take ownership of the girl and her possessions—”

The point of the thief's knife was at the base of the owner's throat with frightening speed. “And
I
said you lie,” said the thief in a voice that was all the more menacing for its softness. “Do not test my patience,
sir
, for I find I like you not at all, and if you push me, you will find that I have as little fear of the noose when it comes to bloody murder as I do when it comes to purchasing stolen slaves.”

The owner was so stunned by this outburst that his only response was to stare at the thief with his mouth hanging open. The thief glared back at him for a long, tense moment before removing the knife from his throat with a great show of reluctance.

“Come,” he said to Persephone, through his teeth. “Let us leave this place before I commit yet another hanging offence.”

Mutely, Persephone looked around “this place”—at the spot where she'd laid her head for four years' worth of nights; at the rotten boards and rusted implements that were as familiar to her as her own hands. At the grumpy old sow and her rooting piglets; at the silly cock who preened and strutted before the magnificently uninterested chickens. At the half-grown kittens wrestling in the hay; at the spindly-legged kid who bleated and butted anxiously at his mother's teats before finally managing to latch on. Riveted by the sight of the suckling kid, Persephone held her breath and stared as he drank greedily of his
mother's warm milk, and when his eyes began to roll in contentment, her own began to sting.

“Are you all right?” murmured the thief, touching her elbow.

Persephone blinked once, and the sting was gone. “Fine,” she muttered, jerking her arm away from him. “Come. Let us leave
this place
.”

His horse was nothing like dear, broken-down old Fleet, who'd begun charging about the yard kicking at the fence boards and whinnying in panic the instant he'd caught sight of his beloved Persephone walking away from him. Rather, the thief 's horse was a beautiful, high-bred bay— expertly shod, with a finely groomed mane and exquisite leather tacking polished to a soft shine. The thief had just made a show of pulling on his ill-fitting riding gloves and unwinding the reins from the hitching post when Cur came dashing across the yard, snapping his teeth and snarling fearsomely. With an undignified yelp— and all the grace of a drunken ox—the thief scrambled atop the horse, who whinnied her displeasure at this oafish behaviour and immediately reared up. Cursing mightily, “Lord Bothwell” somehow managed to catch two handfuls of mane just before he went sliding off the back of his mount. Before he managed to do so, however, his pigtail came loose, setting free his auburn curls and instantly giving him the look of a pirate thief once more. The owner—who'd thusfar been standing well back of
crazy “Lord Bothwell” and his knife—narrowed his piggy little eyes in sudden suspicion and took a step forward.

“All is well!” called the thief cheerily, waving him back. “It was, uh, just your dog—”

“He's my dog,” interrupted Persephone, dropping to her knees and burying her face in Cur's smelly fur. “And he's coming with us.”

“What? No!” exclaimed the thief. “Absolutely not. I categorically forbid it!”

“He's coming,” repeated Persephone. Rising to her feet, she tucked her bundled belongings under one arm and gestured with her free hand—first to Cur and then to the owner. When she was certain that the latter had understood her gesture and been suitably insulted by it, she turned and began striding purposefully away from the thief, the chain of her leg irons rattling with defiance.

Cur bounded after her, barking with joy.

With significantly less joy, the thief chirruped his still-skittish horse into motion and cantered after both of them.

“I understand how difficult this must be for you,” he said as he drew alongside Persephone, “and I am not without sympathy. However, for reasons that will reveal themselves in time, I'm afraid I must stand firm on my decision that the dog cannot accompany us.”

Instead of answering him, Persephone called a greeting to Ivan, who swooped down and landed on her shoulder.

“You can't bring the hawk, either,” said the thief with a trace of complaint in his voice.

Ivan regarded him with almost as much respect one would afford a particularly disgusting slug. Persephone kept walking.

“Oh, all right,” grumbled the thief at length, throwing one hand in the air. “You may bring them both. But they must fend for themselves, and if they cause us any delays whatsoever, we will leave them behind. Agreed?”

“No,” said Persephone.

She flinched inwardly immediately after she said this—worried that perhaps she'd pushed her luck too far—but to her surprise, the thief threw back his head and laughed unreservedly. She watched him warily, just in case this sudden laughter was a sign that he was becoming unhinged.

It wasn't, apparently, because the only thing he did after he'd recovered from his fit of mirth was to look down at her with a strangely exultant expression on his handsome face and say, “Your former owner was right— you really aren't a very good slave at all, you know that?”

“Yes,” said Persephone, taking care not to look back at poor heartbroken Fleet. “I know that.”

The thief didn't say anything more until they got over the first hill, at which point he reined in his horse, dismounted and took a long, hard look to the east.

When he was done looking, he turned to Persephone.

“We're going to have to set a good pace,” he announced, shrugging out of the tight-fitting velvet doublet in much
the same way that a small boy might wriggle out of his Sunday best. “But first, I want to take a closer look at you.”

Instinctively, Persephone shrank away from him— rounding her shoulders and folding her arms across her chest—but the thief wasn't talking about her body. Taking her chin in his hand, he lifted her face to his and carefully examined every inch of it—first from one side, then from the other.

“I cannot believe.… It is truly remarkable,” he murmured after a long moment of study. Gazing down at her with an intensity she found unnerving, he said, “I want you to know that I mean you no harm whatsoever. In fact, I would gladly die before seeing you harmed in any way.”

“I … see,” said Persephone, edging away from him.

“No, you don't, but you will,” he said, letting go of her chin. “Tell me, what is your name?”

“My name?” she asked, wishing he would stop staring at her.

“You know—the particular handle by which people address you,” he explained solemnly but with a glint of amusement in his very blue eyes.

To her mortification, she found herself blushing. “It's … it's Persephone,” she stammered, looking away.

“And who is your
true
owner, Persephone?”

“What does it matter?” she asked.

“It matters to me,” murmured the thief in a voice that made her want to step back and draw nearer, all at the same time. “However, as you've recently suffered the shock of being unexpectedly uprooted, I'm content to let it be for the moment. Now, go sit on that rock.”

“Why?” she asked.

The thief threw his hands in the air. “Tell me true, Persephone—is there even the
faintest
hope that you will ever simply do as you're asked rather than questioning or defying me outright?”

He sounded so exasperated that Persephone felt an unwilling smile tug at the corners of her mouth. “Not even the faintest hope,” she replied. “Why do you want me to sit?”

“Because,” he said, pulling a key from his pocket, “I want to remove your leg irons.”

Though this was not the answer Persephone had expected, it was the most welcome answer the thief could have given. She'd been in irons for nearly three months now, ever since she'd last tried to run from the owner. Having saved up a few precious crusts of bread and strips of dried hare meat, she'd waited for a cloudy night and then set out. She hadn't had much of a plan, really, just a general sense that she would travel by night, gathering, hunting and stealing what she needed. And once she was far enough away from the owner that she could safely do so, she'd planned to join the throngs of displaced lowborn Erok scrounging for work as day-labourers while at the same time trying to avoid being rounded up for transport onward to the mines or somewhere almost as bad. Unfortunately, the Fates had not been inclined to grant Persephone even this dreary dream, for at the exact moment she'd made her desperate dash to freedom, the moon had burst out from behind the clouds and the bleary-eyed owner had looked up from his seat on the
chamber pot to see her slipping over the crest of this very hill. It had been a simple enough matter for him to saddle a horse and give chase, but the very fact that he'd been forced to do so had so enraged him that when he caught her, he'd beaten her nearly senseless and clapped on the irons for good.

Hastily now, Persephone put her bundled belongings to one side and sat down on the rock. Cur—who'd just returned from chasing a fox through the nearby meadow—bounded over, skidded to a halt beside her and stared at the thief as though he'd like nothing better than to take a juicy chunk out of his backside.

The thief gave a long-suffering sigh. “Send the beast away,” he said.

“He's harmless,” said Persephone as she carefully teased a burr out of the fur on Cur's ear.

The thief pursed his lips. “I thought you said he'd killed dozens of men at your behest.”

“I exaggerated.”

“Oh?” he said, arching an eyebrow at her. “How many has he killed in truth?”

“In truth?” she said. “None.”

“I see,” said the thief, making a face at Cur, who responded with a growl. “Well, as long as we're sharing truths, Persephone, I'm afraid I have a rather shocking confession to make.”

“What is it?” she asked, steeling herself for something unpleasant.

The thief squinted up at the sky, then looked down at his hands and sighed. “It's just that … well … although there
is
a ‘Lord Damon Bothwell' and although he
does
come from the Ragorian Prefecture, I'm afraid … I'm afraid that I am not really him,” he mumbled.

Persephone stared at him. “Well, for heaven's sake, I knew
that
,” she said tartly. “What do you think I am, some kind of simpleton?”

The thief burst out laughing. “No, of course not!” he protested. “I'm sorry, it's just that … I rather thought you'd react the way you did and I'm afraid I couldn't resist. Forgive me, and allow me to introduce myself. I am Azriel.”

“Azriel what?”

“Just Azriel.”

“I see,” said Persephone disapprovingly. “And what am I to call you?”