Tomorrow's Kingdom (8 page)

Safe
, she thought as she rolled over and tilted her head for a kiss.
We're
—

The coach hit a particularly large rut then, jarring her awake.

She didn't sleep again after that. Instead, she lay awake in the cold darkness, trying not to think at all. After what seemed like an eternity of doing so, an almost imperceptible thinning of the darkness beyond the coach's one tiny window heralded the arrival of a new day.

Still the coach raced on.

Mile after dreary mile, hour after exhausting hour, all through that second day they travelled, stopping only once, briefly, to allow Persephone to eat, drink and (mercifully!) tend to the call of nature.

Nigh about dusk that day—just when Persephone had begun to wonder if Hairy and Tutor meant to drive her around until her teeth rattled right out of her head—an agitated voice from somewhere up ahead shouted for them to halt and state their business. The coach slowed; Tutor called out that they'd come to deliver a package of royal sweetmeats. Sounding considerably more agitated than before, the voice bade them enter at once. The whip cracked and the coach started forward again. A moment later, it passed beneath a gate that must have been ponderous judging from the way it creaked and groaned as it was cranked up.

As it crashed shut behind them and the sound of hooves on cobblestones filled her ears, Persephone's already pounding heart began to pound harder. Suddenly deciding that she didn't want to face her unknown fate lying down, she flopped and wriggled her way into a sitting position. Manoeuvring herself as far from the door of the coach as she could, she pressed her back against the wall and pulled her knees up to her chest.

If I am quick, resourceful and just the tiniest bit lucky, a solution will present itself
, she reminded herself as the coach clattered to a halt.
I just need to be patient and wait for it to do so.

The next instant the door was flung open. Grabbing Persephone by the legs, Hairy yanked her forward so roughly that her skirt rode up. Gripping her naked thigh hard to keep her from squirming, he cut the rope that bound her ankles. Then he hauled her out of the carriage and into the deserted courtyard.

So much for a solution presenting itself
, she thought grimly as she beheld the sprawling castle that rose up before her. Built in the shadow of a barren mountain at the very edge of a high cliff, it was constructed of blackest stone. Except for along the cliff edge, it was protected by a wall so thick that a brace of oxen could have pulled a wagon along the top if it hadn't been for the iron spikes set every few feet. Several of these spikes were topped with heads that appeared to have been dipped in tar to slow the process of decay; the rest stood empty and waiting against a backdrop of low clouds scudding across a stormy sky.

The shiver that swept through Persephone at that moment had nothing to do with the cold.

“He … he's here, isn't he?” she asked, fighting to sound brave.

“No,” replied Hairy as the massive iron door at the top of the granite steps slowly and silently swung open as if by its own accord. “But he will be. Soon.”

ELEVEN

B
ACK
IN
PARTHANIA
, General Murdock was doing his best to adjust to his temporary role as ruler of the city.

“I'm sorry, Lord Bartok, but I cannot permit you or anyone else to leave the imperial capital at this time,” he said for the umpteenth time. “As I have already told you, His Grace Mordecai ordered me to keep the city gates shut until he returns with the queen.”

“And as I have already told
you
, your orders mean nothing to me,” replied Lord Bartok, casting a sweeping look around the Council table at his fellow noblemen. “Mordecai's right to power died with my royal son-in-law's final breath. Who is he to think that he can tell the great lords of this realm what they can and cannot do? Who are you to think that you can do so?”

“I think I am the man who commands the thousands of soldiers who patrol the city and guard the gates,” replied General Murdock as he reached up to give his long, thin nose a scratch.

Lord Bartok's eyes narrowed imperceptibly but all he said was, “There are rumours of an outbreak of the Great Sickness in the slums. My daughter Aurelia carries the king's son in her belly; if she were to fall sick and the child were lost, the realm would surely suffer.”

Recalling Mordecai's command that he at least
attempt
to be diplomatic in his dealings with the nobility, General Murdock refrained from asking Lord Bartok why the royal midwives had not yet been called upon to confirm the so-called pregnancy. Instead, he said, “Such a loss would be a tragedy for you and yours, of course, my lord. However, you must understand that it would not be an event of consequence for the realm. The late king named his sister Persephone as his successor, and your fellow lords have publicly declared for her.”

“Some have privately declared to
me
their belief that if the king had been aware that his wife was pregnant, he'd have set his unborn child before his sister,” said Lord Bartok.

“But he did not set his unborn child before his sister,” said General Murdock as he carefully smoothed a stray strand of thin, colourless hair back from his sloping brow, “and so the princess is queen, and my lord Mordecai shall be prince consort—or king.”

“We shall see,” muttered Lord Bartok with a shrug.

At these words, General Murdock gave the greatest of the great lords the same calm, blank-eyed stare that had preceded death for so many. “Careful, my lord,” he said softly.

Lord Bartok held his stare without flinching. “I only meant that many things can happen between the death of a king and the anointing of his successor.”

“Indeed,” said General Murdock, smelling liver.

The late evening Council meeting did not last long after that.

As he moved through the torch-lit palace corridors toward his next appointment, General Murdock kept to the shadows as much as possible to avoid the unwelcome feel of eyes upon him. He thought about how much more difficult it was to be a man of words than it was to be a man of action—and about how much riskier it was.

Coming to a halt before the door of a storage closet not far from the chambers assigned to the more distinguished members of court, General Murdock checked to make sure no one was watching, then opened the door and slipped inside. Navigating across the closet easily in spite of the darkness, he crept behind a stack of old barrels, slid aside a loose piece of panelling and stepped into the low passageway beyond. The passageway smelled of worms and mice, was dark as pitch and was so narrow in places that he was forced to turn sideways to carry on, but none of this bothered General Murdock in the least.

Indeed, the passageway was the kind of place in which he'd always felt most at home.

At length, he arrived at the location of his next appointment. Pressing his beady eye against the pinprick hole in the wall, he watched the dead king's birdlike little widow flit about her chambers issuing orders to the harried servants who were helping her prepare for bed.

General Murdock had watched Lady Aurelia often of late. He did not believe she was with child but he
did
believe that her lord father was up to something and that she had a part to play in it. As he pondered what that part might be, he watched her stand still for long enough to allow her maids to undress her.

General Murdock felt no stirrings of desire at the sight of the young noblewoman's naked body because he was not a man to feel stirrings. He was not a man to feel desire either—except perhaps for the desire to fulfill his duty.

Duty.

For General Murdock, it ever came back to duty.

As he listened to Lady Aurelia dismiss her maids, General Murdock frowned at the memory of how the men under his command had recently failed in their duty to capture the queen's husband. He did not like to think what Mordecai would have done if he'd not been able to assure him that the Gypsy was doomed anyway. Years of hunting Gypsies had taught General Murdock that in times of danger, they always returned to the safety of their hidden nests. Unfortunately for this particular Gypsy, his nest was no longer hidden
or
safe. General Murdock had discovered it while tracking the queen during her quest for the healing pool. Its secret location had almost died with him when he'd suffered a ghastly belly wound in the Great Forest, but he'd somehow managed to survive, and prior to returning to Parthania a fortnight past, he'd sent a dozen highly trained soldiers to slaughter and scalp every man, woman and child in the camp.

Watching Lady Aurelia now as she turned from side to side before her full-length mirror—cupping her small breasts in her hands, examining her childlike body from every possible angle—General Murdock thought about what he
hadn't
told Mordecai. Namely, that the report confirming the destruction of the nest had not arrived in Parthania at the expected hour. Indeed, it had not arrived in Parthania at all. Though it was only a few days late, General Murdock was beginning to think—

A knock at the door of Lady Aurelia's outer chamber interrupted his thoughts. Intrigued as to who could be calling upon an unmarried noblewoman so late at night, General Murdock watched as Lady Aurelia wrapped a black satin dressing gown tightly around her tiny body and hurried into the adjoining chamber to answer the door. A moment later, she strode back into General Murdock's field of vision. Behind her trailed a tall, dark-haired young man dressed in faded Bartok colours. Stopping abruptly, Lord Bartok's daughter whirled around, stepped toward the young man and took a deep sniff. The expression on her face informed General Murdock—and, no doubt, the young man—that she did not find his scent pleasing. Nevertheless, with a toss of her golden curls, she threw off the dressing gown and climbed between the sheets of her big bed. Lying flat on her back as stiff as a wooden doll, she deliberately turned her face to the opposite wall. The young man hesitated for only a moment before slowly removing his own clothes and climbing in after her.

As he impassively watched the young man set to work, General Murdock felt pleased to have discovered what part Lady Aurelia was obviously meant to play in her lord father's plans. Setting aside the question of what to do with this information, he turned his thoughts back to the overdue report from the Gypsy nest. Though the most likely explanation was that the messenger carrying the report had been delayed or waylaid, General Murdock decided to dispatch another battalion of soldiers to the nest immediately.

He did not wish to give Mordecai cause to question his loyalty, and besides, if all went according to plan, His Grace would shortly return to Parthania with a royal bride.

And General Murdock could imagine no wedding gift his master would find so welcome as a large pile of glossy scalps and the headless corpse of the Gypsy who'd once dared to call himself husband to the queen.

TWELVE

P
ERSEPHONE WASN'T SURE
what she'd expected to find waiting for her inside the forbidding black castle. A pair of rusted manacles dangling above a belching pot full of bubbling oil and deep-fried body parts, perhaps, or a rack upon which Mordecai would stretch her until her limbs popped from their sockets and her young body was broken beyond repair.