Tomorrow's Kingdom (50 page)

Murdock gurgled and clawed at his slit throat as he tried to drag himself toward the healing pool.

“Moreover,” continued Mordecai, “upon reflection, I
think I'd prefer to be the only one who knows the location of the pool whose waters, sadly, are never going to heal
you
.”

Mordecai punctuated this statement by placing his bare foot on the General's sloping brow, effectively stopping his progress just inches from the pool. Cocking his head to one side as though listening to beautiful music, Mordecai waited until his general had stopped gurgling and the only sounds to be heard were the distant howl of the storm and the steady drip of the dead henchman's blood splashing into the pool that would have saved him.

At length, Mordecai turned to Azriel and said, “Pick up the body, cockroach. We'll take it with us.”

“Where are we going?” asked Azriel as he casually shifted into a fighting stance.

In response to Azriel's words or his change in stance or both, Mordecai applied just enough pressure to the sword that the tip pierced the skin of Baby's Finn's belly, and a tiny trickle of blood appeared.

Blue eyes blazing with a combination of hatred and helplessness, Azriel stalked over to the edge of the pool and knelt down beside the corpse of the General.

As he did so, Mordecai turned to Persephone and said, “Before he hoists Murdock onto those big, broad shoulders of his, go rip several strips of cloth from the General's shirt and take the pouch of embers from his belt. Break a branch off the banyan tree, tie one of the cloth strips around the end of the branch and light it from the embers. I am going to need a torch if I'm to follow the blood trail back out of here once I am finished with you.”

“You are well and whole,” said Persephone desperately. “Isn't that—”

“Enough?” said Mordecai as he tossed the sword to one side, scooped up Baby Finn and pressed Persephone's own dagger to his little throat. “No, Your Majesty, it is not.”

He began whistling then—such a cheery sound that Persephone shuddered as she set about fashioning the torch.

After she'd stuffed the remaining cloth strips in her pocket and the torch was lit, Mordecai used the dagger to gesture toward the dirt incline at the back of the cavern and ordered her and Azriel to start walking.

With a despairing look at Azriel, Persephone did as Mordecai ordered. She wanted to resist him—wanted to fly at him and claw out his eyes—but she knew that if she made even the slightest move toward him that Baby Finn was dead.

And so she walked.

She walked up the incline and walked into the tunnel. She turned this way and that in response to Mordecai's commands; she marked the tunnel wall with the General's blood whenever Mordecai ordered her to do so.

“Stop!” he said at last.

Persephone looked around the smooth-walled, deadend cave, knowing it would be her tomb—and Azriel's tomb and the baby's tomb. Pushing down her rising panic, she turned to Mordecai and said, “If you will let them go, I will do—”

“Anything?” he suggested with a broad smile. “Yes, well, the time for that has come and gone, Your Majesty.
I confess there was a time when the thought of you tormented—no,
plagued
—me, but that time is past. Set the torch there, by that big, flat rock. Then, once your dear husband has rid himself of his burden and gotten to his knees where he has ever belonged, bind his wrists and ankles. And mind that you bind them well, Your Majesty, or I will slice off your son's tiny feet.”

With shaking hands, Persephone jammed the torch between two smaller rocks on the floor and then bound Azriel's wrists and ankles. When she was done, Mordecai— who'd since walked over to the flat rock and set Baby Finn down upon it—coyly crooked his finger at her. Heart beating very hard at the thought that this might be her chance, Persephone walked over to him. She was so close to Baby Finn that she could have reached out and run her fingers through his downy hair, but she did not.

“Give me the last of those cloth strips,” said Mordecai, holding out his free hand. “Then turn around and put your hands together.”

Wordlessly, Persephone handed him the cloth strips and turned around. Then, the instant she heard him set down the dagger to free up his hands, she flung her elbow toward his face. There was an audible
crack
as it hit him in the cheek—and another one as Mordecai jerked her around and clouted her across the face with all of his considerable might.

“Bitch!”
he snarled, throwing her to the ground face first while she was still reeling from the shock of the blow. Dropping on top of her so heavily that it drove the air from her lungs, he quickly bound her wrists. Then he rolled her onto her back and gave her a hot kiss before standing up and kicking her across the floor.

“I've brought you, your husband, your son and the General here because I do not wish to see or smell your rotting corpses every time I visit my new pool, Your Majesty,” he panted as he stared down at her. “Using your dagger, I shall inflict a mortal wound upon your son. As he lies dying, I will make the worthless cockroach watch while I ravish you. Then I will make you watch while I scalp him. Then—and only then!—will I grant
you
the mercy of death.”

Mordecai smiled at Persephone and lifted the dagger high so that she could see the blade glinting in the flickering torchlight. Then, without further ado, he turned and strode toward Baby Finn.

Half-wild with terror and nearly choking on her rage, Persephone screamed, “
MY
GYPSY
HUSBAND
AND
SON
ARE
WORTH
A
THOUSAND
OF
YOU
,
YOU
PATHETIC
LOWBORN
NOBODY
!”

At these words, Mordecai let out a strangled cry and whirled around, his eyes mad with fury. As he did so, his robe billowed out so far that the hem brushed the flame of the flickering torch.

If Murdock's cloak had not been so long and so well made, Mordecai's robe might have been damp enough to keep it from catching fire.

But alas for him, it was not, and so before Persephone— or, indeed, Mordecai—realized what was happening, his robe, his hair and even his skin were ablaze. Shrieking horribly, the former regent staggered this way and that
before falling to the ground and rolling and writhing until the last of the flames had been snuffed out.

Stunned, Persephone stared at the moaning, smouldering, unrecognizable thing that had been her enemy.

“The dagger,” said Azriel.

Nodding jerkily, Persephone staggered to her feet, skittered around Mordecai and awkwardly picked up the dagger in her yet-bound hands. In a trice, she'd sliced through the cloth strips that bound Azriel, and he'd done the same for her.

Then she had Baby Finn in her arms, and Azriel had his arms around them both and all was—

“Pleeeeease,”
came a hoarse whisper from the floor of the cave.
“Don't … leave me … like … this … take me … take me back …”

“Let's go,” said Azriel in a hard voice.

“Mercy,”
gasped Mordecai, stretching his burnt claw of a hand out toward Persephone.
“Mercyyyyy.”

Persephone stared at him, knowing that there was no one in the kingdom who deserved mercy less—but also knowing that her kingdom would be better served by having him publicly tried and executed, that she might show that she intended to be a just queen, come what may.

Taking a deep breath, she was about to explain all this to Azriel when she looked up at him and saw that no explanation was necessary. Her handsome husband knew her better than she knew herself—and perhaps he always had.

“You get the wooden torch,” he said with a slightly exasperated shake of his head. “I'll get the human one.”

They followed the blood smears back to the cavern with all due haste. Even so, they got there too late to save Mordecai.

Not because he perished before they arrived but because they arrived to discover that the banyan tree had withered and the hole in the ground that had only a short time before contained miraculous healing waters was as dry as if it had ever been so.

Setting Mordecai down by the edge of the vanished pool, Azriel slowly walked around it as though in search of clues. When he came to the place where the General had fallen, he exhaled with sudden understanding.

“What is it, Azriel?” asked Persephone in a hushed voice. “What happened?”

“Do you remember that rainy night by the river when I told you that according to legend, the pool dried up the first time because someone had tainted it by spilling the blood of a trusted companion at its edge?” he replied. “Well, it would appear that General Murdock was Mordecai's trusted companion.”

“So the pool has dried up again?” whispered Persephone, hugging Baby Finn close. “It is gone—forever?”

“Maybe not forever,” replied Azriel quietly. “But I daresay you and I will never see it again—and neither will Mordecai.”

At these words, the burnt thing that had once been the all-powerful Regent of Glyndoria let out a heart-rending wail and fell forward, dead, into the bone-dry bed of the vanished healing pool that might have saved his life.

EPILOGUE

P
ERSEPHONE, AZRIEL AND
Baby Finn spent two long, cold, hungry days in the sea cave waiting for the storm to abate.

Within an hour of it doing so, Cairn had noticed Ivan circling high above the sea caves, Robert had followed a panicked Fleet to the edge of the cliff leading down to the royal quay, and Barka, Fayla and the royal guard had braved the still-frothing sea to follow Cur into the cave to the very spot where the grateful royal family sat waiting.

The weeks and months that followed were the happiest of Persephone's life. Baby Finn thrived, Moira grew strong and, thanks to Meeka—who tended him ceaselessly and plied him with quail's eggs at every opportunity—Zdeno made a full recovery from the wound he'd taken on the night of the baby's kidnapping. Each day Persephone ruled her realm with the fair and steady hand of a good queen who would someday be known as great; each night, she made love to Azriel as freely, tirelessly and passionately as if she were nothing but a slave girl who was head over heels in love with a chicken thief.

One sunny afternoon, about six months after the ordeal in the sea caves, Azriel strode into Persephone's sitting room and ordered her fetch the baby and follow him to the royal garden. Amused, she did as he bid.

“You know, I don't think you're allowed to order me around,” she said with a smile as they stepped into the courtyard. “I
am
queen, you know.”

“Close your eyes,” he commanded sternly.

“They are closed,” she said.

“Well, you'd better keep them that way,” warned Azriel as he began to guide her down a little-used garden path, “or I will be forced to up and give you a good spanking.”

At these familiar teasing words, Persephone laughed. Baby Finn gurgled in delight at the sound and reached up to give her hair a yank. As she gave him a tickle in the ribs that made him giggle helplessly, Azriel suddenly stopped walking. Stepping behind Persephone, he slipped his arms around her waist, laid his cheek aside her own and whispered, “Open your eyes, wife.”

She opened them at once and then inhaled in amazement.

For there, tucked away into a hidden corner of the royal garden, was a pretty little thatch-roofed cottage. It had a yard full of scratching chickens, an oak tree with a swing hung from a low branch, a neat little garden and a pond that Persephone just knew was stocked with fish.

“A place for you to retreat from your cares, Your Majesty,” murmured Azriel. “It is appointed exactly as I
ever promised—except that instead of keeping a fat pig and growing our own grain, I thought we'd just order up bacon, beer and bread from the royal kitchens. What do you think?”

Turning in his arms, Persephone kissed him deeply. “Oh, Azriel,” she sighed as she pulled away from him. “I think you are
perfect
.”

Looking extremely pleased by her assessment of him, Azriel took her by the hand and led her over to the oak tree. After helping her and Baby Finn settle onto the swing, he gently began to push them. As Persephone listened to the sound of her son's gurgles and felt the warm sun on her face, she revelled in the knowledge that the three of them would be together tomorrow and for a thousand tomorrows thereafter.

She, Azriel and Baby Finn—

The Gypsy who would be king.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

 

Writing a book is a solitary endeavour; getting a book published and into the hands of readers is most definitely a team effort. To this end, there are a number of people I'd like to thank: