The Gypsy King

ALSO BY MAUREEN FERGUS

Ortega

Recipe for Disaster

Exploits of a Reluctant

(But Extremely Goodlooking) Hero

RAZORBILL

an imprint of Penguin Canada

Published by the Penguin Group

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First published 2013

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 (RRD)

Copyright © Maureen Fergus, 2013

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

Publisher's note: This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Manufactured in the U.S.A.

LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

Fergus, Maureen

The Gypsy king / Maureen Fergus.

(The Gypsy king trilogy ; 1)

ISBN 978-0-14-318315-0

I. Title. II. Series: Fergus, Maureen. Gypsy king trilogy ; 1.

PS8611.E735G96 2013      jC813'.6      C2012-905153-5

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For my daughter Sophie, who helped to get this story started

PROLOGUE

T
HE LAST SURVIVING Gypsy Seer struggled to her feet.

An ancient crone, she'd sat alone beneath the banyan tree for a day and a night and another day. Not eating, not drinking, not sleeping—only emptying her mind and waiting to be shown the truth about things past and the promise of things yet to come.

Now, filled with wonder and confusion at what she'd been shown, the old woman gathered up her charcoal and scrolls. Groping in the darkness for her cane, she slowly began hobbling toward the hidden camp where her beloved people were dancing, singing and feasting to honour the memory of the many who'd lately been murdered in the healing pool massacres.

When she was nearly there, the mouth-watering scent of roast mutton caused her shrivelled stomach to clench painfully. As she crumpled to her knees, the thin, high-pitched scream of a small child pierced the night.

As one, the Gypsies before her turned toward the sound, which ended with chilling abruptness.

The next instant the horsemen were upon them, slashing and cutting. Dressed in darkest black from head to toe, they resembled Death, though they were neither as merciful nor as discriminating as Death. Even as the heartsick old woman watched, a tiny, toddling infant was trampled beneath pounding hooves, and a heavily pregnant woman was run through as though her swollen belly was nothing more than a piece of ripe fruit.

While the brightly clad Gypsy men all turned to fight, the beautiful Gypsy women grabbed the children and ran into the bushes. One of these—a girl carrying a child in one arm and dragging another by the hand—almost tripped over the old woman kneeling in the darkness.

Stifling a scream, the girl gasped, “Run, old mother! The men will not be able to hold the Regent's soldiers off for long!”

The distant crash of cooking pots being overturned made the girl jump and the children whimper. The old woman did not even blink.

“I am too old and lame to run, Cairn,” she said.

“But they will kill you!”

“Then I will die—but first you will hear that I have Seen a king! A great king, a Gypsy King! A king whose coming will unite the five tribes of Glyndoria and set things to right for all people!”

“I care
not
about all people or about uniting the tribes,” hissed the girl as she tightened her grip on the children she'd just seen orphaned. “I care only about
our
people
and
our
tribe—what is left of it, anyway. Forgive me, old mother, but why could you not have had a vision of the healing pool? It would give us power over death!”

“Balthazar swore he'd found it and yet it did not give him power over death. Indeed, it brought Death to his very doorstep—and to ours,” reminded the old woman. “If the Pool of Genezing is out there, Cairn, perhaps the coming king is meant to find it again—and to use the might of his great armies to protect us from those who would lust after the pool's healing power.”

The girl started to say something, but her throat closed in terror at the sound of someone large crashing through the bushes nearby.

Swiftly, the old woman pulled two scrolls from the pouch at her waist. Unrolling the first, she handed it to the girl, who barely glanced at it before asking, “Who is she?”

“I do not know. I know only that you must find her, for it begins and ends with her. As for the second scroll,” said the old woman, passing it over without unrolling it, “you are not to look upon it until the first anniversary of this night that follows the discovery of the girl. Only then will the words have any meaning at all.”

Tersely nodding her understanding, the girl shoved both scrolls down the front of her shift, hoisted the smaller child higher on her hip, grabbed the hand of the child at her side and prepared to run. “I will come back for you if I can,” she said.

“Do not come back for me,” said the old woman. “Only promise me that you will carry my last and best prophecy onward to those of our people who survive this night.”

“But—”

“Promise!” commanded the old woman, as the large, crashing someone drew nearer still.

“I promise!” blurted the girl, with a terrified glance over her shoulder.

“Now, go,” said the old woman, giving her a shove. “They are coming!”

Without another word, the girl turned and fled with the children into the night. As soon as they'd been swallowed up by the darkness, the old woman lay back and moaned loudly in the hope of attracting the attention of the crashing someone—thereby giving the girl and the children precious extra moments to escape.

Almost immediately, she heard a gruff voice shout, “I've found another!”

In the flickering light of a pitch torch, the Gypsy Seer looked up to see the soulless eyes of one who murdered infants and old women for profit leering down at her. And as she heard the slither of a sword being drawn from its scabbard and felt the cold steel pierce her belly, she smiled broadly at the thought of the Gypsy who would be king.

And then she walked without fear into Death's cold embrace.

Fifteen Years Later

ONE

P
ERSEPHONE AWOKE WITH A START.

Even so, she moved not a muscle, having long ago learned the usefulness of controlling the twitches and fidgets that gave others away. Taking care to keep her breathing deep and even, she half-opened one violet eye and, through the thick tangle of dark lashes, scanned the dirty stall in which she lay for some sign of whatever it was that had jarred her from sleep. She couldn't see much by the light of the moon that bled through the cracks in the walls, but she could see enough to assure herself that danger didn't lie within gutting distance. Nevertheless, her fingers slid to the hilt of the stolen dagger in the makeshift scabbard strapped to her bare thigh. It was a good knife—well balanced, well pointed and sharp as a razor on two sides. It could be used to skin a hare as easily as to kill a man, which suited Persephone just fine. She enjoyed hare stew and had no use for men whatsoever.