Tomorrow's Kingdom (12 page)

“He's gone too, Your Grace,” whimpered the commander, wringing his hands like some old woman. “But I cannot believe he had anything to do with the queen's disappearance. I know the man
personally
. He's not one of those conscripted wretches whose loyalty must ever be suspect—he was a volunteer. A career soldier enriched and raised far above his lowborn station by the opportunity to serve in your army. I swear he'd sooner cut off his own nose than fail to carry out an order!”

“We'll see about
that
when we find the deserting bastard,” snarled Mordecai. “In the meantime, I want every man, woman and child in this castle searching for him and the queen. No one sleeps until they are found, do you understand me? Do you? If Bartok's lackeys didn't get to them then they
must
to be around here somewhere.”

“Y-yes, Your Grace,” faltered the commander. “Only …”

“Only
what
?” demanded Mordecai, disgusted by the overpowering stench of the fool's terror.

“When I entered the queen's chamber, I noticed that the windows were open and … and that there was a pair of high-heeled shoes lying on the floor nearby,” said the commander, his voice barely more than a whisper. “Your Grace, I fear she may have tried to escape by climbing down the outside of the turret.”

Mordecai's cold heart went into freefall as he suddenly realized that he should have anticipated something like this. No one knew better than he that the gutter-reared queen was as reckless as she was fearless. Faced with the choice of seeing the little cockroach cut from her womb or risking her own life to save them both—

“Proceed with searching the castle and grounds tonight,” barked Mordecai. “At first light, you will look to the rocks at the bottom of the cliff.”

“And what shall I do with Lord Atticus, Your Grace?” asked the commander, the relieved expression on his face belying his hope that being issued orders to carry out upon the morrow meant that he had a future, after all.

“Put him somewhere dark and cold,” said Mordecai,
hating the fool for
daring
to have hope at a time like this. “I'll deal with him tomorrow—and then I'll deal with
you
.”

Exhausted though he was from the long, hard journey north, the draining events of the evening and the pain that never gave him a moment's respite, Mordecai did not sleep at all that night.

Instead, he returned to his bedchamber, dismissed his body servants, wrapped himself in a thick blanket and settled into a comfortable armchair by the fire. Hour after hour he stared into the flames. He wracked his brains for another explanation for the open tower windows, the discarded shoes and the disappearance of the queen. He tried not to picture her crouched on the windowsill, her dark hair and skirts whipping around her, her violet eyes fixed on the ground so far below. He tried not to imagine how her heart would have hammered in her chest as she'd slid onto her belly and edged backward over the sill, how her bare feet would have scrabbled for a toehold. He tried not to think about how desperately she'd have clung to the damp bricks of the turret, how insistently the wind would have tugged at her body. How surprised she'd have been when the inevitable finally happened—and how graceful she'd have looked as she'd fallen.

He tried not to believe that, having forgotten to ask the queen the location of the healing pool, the locket around his neck might be as close as he ever came to finding the pool—and to finding himself well and whole at long last.

Most of all, however, Mordecai tried not to think that the tightness in his chest might mean that he felt something besides rage and disappointment at the prospect of the death of the beautiful, bold, brazen young woman who'd never caused him anything but trouble.

SIXTEEN

F
OR PERSEPHONE
, the quarter of an hour after the hunting horn sounded passed like this:

For half a heartbeat she just stood at the threshold of the turret chamber—clutching the handle of the shattered decanter, listening to the ragged sound of her own breathing and looking toward the windows through which she might escape
if
she was strong and lucky enough not to slip and plummet to her death.

Then, abruptly deciding that she'd probably used up her luck knocking Tutor unconscious with one blow, she tossed the decanter handle to one side and shut the door of the chamber. Taking care to avoid the shards of shattered crystal, she dropped to her knees beside Tutor, rolled him onto his back and pressed her ear against his chest. When she heard the steady beat of his heart, she sat back on her heels and considered her options. Though the idea of finishing him with his own sword strongly appealed to her, she reluctantly settled upon a less permanent way of ensuring that he could not interfere with her escape.
Hurrying over to the chair behind the privacy screen, she snatched up three pairs of silken panties and several lengths of rope. As she did so, it occurred to her that half a dozen snowy petticoats, a voluminous gown and high-heeled dancing slippers were not exactly an ideal escape ensemble. Before she could even begin to curse the fact that the servants had taken away the grubby lowborn garments she'd been wearing when she arrived, however, she noticed that Tutor was not much bigger than she was.

And that he was suddenly looking just a tad overdressed.

It took Persephone longer than she would have liked to strip the unconscious New Man, and she was nearly knocked over by the stink when she tugged off his boots, but at last she had him down to his badly stained underpants. Too revolted by the prospect of seeing him completely naked to give in to the urge to yank off his underpants and stuff them halfway down his throat, she settled for tying his hands behind his back, binding his ankles together and using the panties to stop his mouth.

Slipping behind the privacy screen, she hurriedly wriggled out of her own clothes and pulled on Tutor's smelly black breeches, shirt, doublet and boots. None of them fit well, but none of them fit so poorly (she hoped!) as to be conspicuous. To her delight, she found her own little dagger in the inside pocket of the doublet. Giving it a small but noisy kiss, she slipped it into the scabbard at her thigh through a conveniently located rip in the outer seam of the breeches. Shoving the bit of lace, the rat tail, the key and the curl into the pocket of the doublet, she then tossed aside the amethyst necklace, put back on her own silver one and began yanking hairpins out of her updo as fast as she could. Lock after wavy lock of dark hair tumbled down until she had a glossy mass rippling halfway down her back. Though she knew that such hair was rather likely to tip people off to the fact that she was not
actually
a soldier—or even a man, for that matter—instead of cutting it, she plaited it into a messy braid, turned up the collar of her doublet and tucked the braid down the back of it.

Whatever path lies before me, I shall not walk it bald
, she thought fiercely as she stepped out from behind the privacy screen to make her final preparations.

Using the beautiful purple gown, she mopped up as much of the wine and blood as she could. When she was done, she crammed a pillow into the bodice of the gown, tucked her creation under one arm, grabbed the damaged high-heeled shoes and strode across the chamber. Dropping the shoes, she flung open the windows and expertly ran her hand along the outer wall of the turret. A grim smile came to her lips when she discovered that, as she'd hoped, the stones jutted out from the mortar just far enough to entice an especially daring and desperate prisoner to attempt to climb to freedom.

“Godspeed and good luck,” she sang to the crudely fashioned dummy as she heaved it out the window.

It won't fool them for long,
she thought as she turned away without closing the windows,
but it might fool them for long enough.

Returning for the final time to where Tutor yet lay unmoving, Persephone swept the shards of crystal
under the snowy carpet, which—mercifully!—had not been stained by his blood. Then, deciding that she had no need for Tutor's heavy sword, she tossed it onto his chest, grabbed him by the wrists and dragged him over to the bed. Panting with exertion, she sat down and used her booted feet to unceremoniously shove him beneath it. If he awoke and started moaning or thrashing about, he'd be found at once by whoever was in the chamber, of course, but until then, Mordecai's soldiers would have no idea that they should be looking for her dressed as one of them.

With Tutor safely stowed, Persephone jumped to her feet, hurried over to the chamber door, eased it open and ran down the winding staircase. Just as she hit the bottom step, the door at the end of the corridor to her right burst open and a dozen black-clad New Men came charging toward her.

Instinctively throwing herself against the right wall of the stairwell so that at least one of her flanks would be protected, Persephone was about to draw her dagger when she realized that the soldiers were not running
at
her but
past
her. Unable to believe her good luck, she held her breath and averted her face. And when the last of them had swept past her, she jumped off the step and fell in behind them. She'd have felt safer by far slipping away unseen and unnoticed, but with the castle in an uproar that was simply no longer an option.

The soldiers Persephone was following moved swiftly toward the front of the castle, collecting every soldier they met along the way with the exception of one who was running hard in the direction of the turret chamber. As they drew closer to the entrance hall, the sound of fighting grew louder and more distinct. Not wanting to get caught up in a melee with nothing but a dagger to defend herself— and not at all confident that her disguise would stand up to any real scrutiny—Persephone surreptitiously ducked into a shadowed alcove to plan her next move. From her hiding spot, she watched as the soldiers drew their swords and plunged into the entrance hall. A moment of even fiercer fighting was followed by a high-pitched shriek and the sight of several rumpled, blood-splattered men not dressed in black staggering through the archway and into the corridor. Persephone gasped when she glimpsed the face of the one in the lead for she'd have known those fleshy lips and bloodshot eyes anywhere.

Lord Atticus!

The noble buffoon who'd been seconds away from ravishing her on more than one occasion, the one who'd once threatened to turn her scalp into a dog collar.

Persephone drew even farther back into the shadows. Whatever reason Lord Bartok's son had for being here— and she could well believe the reason had something to do with her—she knew that to throw herself upon his mercies might very well be to jump from the frying pan into the fire.

So instead of calling upon him to do his duty and save his rightful queen, Persephone watched silently as he and his companions dashed off down the corridor. Seconds later, the soldiers in the entrance hall managed to hack their way through the men Lord Atticus had presumably
left to hold the archway. Wild-eyed and panting with blood lust, they took off after the intruders.

When the last of them had rounded the corner at the far end of the corridor, Persephone cautiously stepped out of the shadows. Making her way over to the archway, she peered into the entrance hall. It was in complete disarray. Curtains and tapestries had been torn down, tables and pedestals had been knocked over, priceless vases and busts had been smashed to bits. The polished floor was littered with the wounded, dying and dead; the air was filled with the terrible sounds and smells of them. The great iron door was ajar; a body lay face down across the threshold, a bloodied hunting horn at its side.

Persephone didn't hesitate but headed straight for the open door. As she lifted the torch from the nearest wall bracket and stepped over the body that lay across the threshold, an angry, rasping voice behind her demanded to know where she thought she was going. She didn't answer or look back but instead plunged forward into the darkness.