The Gypsy King (10 page)

“What happened to your arm?” asked Azriel, when he noticed her whiplash scar.

Instead of telling him the truth—which was that she didn't know—she told him it was none of his business.

“I don't know how this happened, either,” he confided, showing her the little finger of his left hand, which appeared to have been cleanly amputated at the first joint.

When Persephone sniffed as though his measly mutilation was hardly worth the breath it took to mention, Azriel chuckled and said nothing more until she'd finished her ablutions and perched herself on a nearby rock. At that point, he reached into the leather pack at his side, pulled out a chicken leg wrapped in a large leaf and hesitantly handed it to her.

“I should warn you that this is—or rather, this
was
— your, uh, Mrs. Busby,” he said, cringing slightly as though in anticipation of a noisy storm of female tears.

Pouncing on the bundle in his hand, Persephone flung the leaf to one side and reverently sank her teeth into the succulent meat. With a sigh of obvious relief, Azriel reached back into the pack and withdrew a large hunk of dark bread and a wedge of cheese. “I borrowed them from your previous owner the same night you gave me the chicken,” he explained. “Perhaps it was wrong of me but I fear I cannot regret it, for this bread and cheese are by far the finest I've ever eaten.”

Though Persephone felt an unexpected rush of pride at his words, she kept her tone light when she told him that it was she who'd made them.

“Is that a fact?” said Azriel, who seemed very impressed. “Well, then, once you've learned to curb your tendency to
verbally attack, openly defy and hurl knives at your betters, I'm sure you'll make some lucky man a fine little wife.”

Persephone bristled like a hedgehog. “You're not my better,” she said through gritted teeth.

“Truer words were never spoken,” he agreed cheerfully.

Irritated by his reply for reasons she couldn't quite put her finger on, Persephone picked up the cheese and muttered, “I don't suppose you'd like to give me back my dagger so that I can eat this like a lady instead of gnawing away at it like a half-starved sailor?”

Wordlessly, Azriel reached back into his leather pack, pulled out her dagger and casually offered it to her. After a moment's breathless hesitation—as though she suspected a trick or feared that the dagger would be snatched back if she made any sudden movement—Persephone slowly reached for it.

“Thank you,” she murmured as her fingers closed around the hilt.

“You can thank me by promising to never slit me from bow to stern,” he said.

“I promise,” she said absently as she tossed the dagger back and forth from hand to hand, rejoicing in its familiar weight and balance, “provided you never give me cause to slit you from bow to stern.”

“Not exactly the response I was hoping for,” sighed Azriel, “though I am encouraged to learn that I have at least some chance of escaping disembowelment.”

Persephone smiled faintly and shook her head at his silliness. As she did so, something caught her eye. Or rather, the absence of something caught her eye.

“Where is your horse?” she asked with a frown.

“I don't have a horse.”

She folded her thin arms across her chest. “You had one yesterday.”

“It was only a borrowed beast,” he explained. “Last night, after you'd fallen asleep, I decided to send her home to her true master to ensure that the gentleman in question had no need to come looking for her … or me.”

“A borrowed beast, was it?” said Persephone, arching an eyebrow. “What about the money and pendant you used to purchase me?”

“Borrowed.”

“And the gloves and the doublet?”

“Also borrowed, I'm afraid,” he admitted with an air of contrition that didn't fool Persephone for an instant. “Though the doublet suited me remarkably well, don't you think?”

“Not really,” she sniffed. “To be honest, I thought it made you look like a pompous, overstuffed peacock.”

Azriel laughed loudly. “Perhaps it did, at that,” he agreed, still smiling. “Now, enough talking. Eat, for time grows short.”

“Because you have unpleasant individuals following you,” recalled Persephone as she lifted the wedge of cheese to her lips and—mindless of her passionately expressed desire to eat like a lady—took a huge bite. “Soldiers?” she guessed through her mouthful of cheese.

Azriel paused for a fraction of a second before nodding. “Yes,” he said.

Persephone swallowed. “Hunting you,” she guessed again, waving the half-eaten cheese at him, “because you're a
thief
.”

Azriel gave her a hard smile. “I'm a good deal more than a thief, Persephone.”

She opened her mouth to ask him what he meant by this, then closed it again at once. It didn't matter to her what he was except for the fact that he was stupid. Stupid because he thought he could endear himself to her with his jolly laugh and his girl-eyes; stupid because he thought she would dutifully cleave to him just because he'd removed her fetters, given her back her own dagger and fed her bread and cheese made by her own two hands. If she lived to be a thousand years old, she would never cleave to him or any man who claimed ownership of her. In fact, the sooner she got away from this particular man the better, for the soldiers who pursued him were almost certainly filled with bloodlust and boiling over with unquenched appetites, and she knew that if they were to get their hands on her, nothing in the world would save her.

That being said, unless she wanted to get away from him only to starve in the wilderness, she needed a plan.

“So, where are you taking me?” she asked, since this seemed as good a place as any to begin formulating one.

Azriel opened his mouth to reply, but before he could utter a word, they both caught the unmistakable sound of something approaching quickly through the tall, scraggly bushes behind them. With lightning-fast speed, Azriel was on his feet with his sword drawn. Grabbing Persephone by
the wrist with his free hand, he yanked her off her perch, hurled her headlong into the cover of the thick reeds at the water's edge and spun to face the threat.

The next instant, Cur burst from the bushes and crashed into Azriel with such force that he nearly knocked him over.

There was no time for anyone to breathe a sigh of relief, however, because it was obvious to all that there was something else charging through the bushes toward them.

Something bigger.

Much bigger.

Seconds later, it came crashing into the clearing in a flurry of torn leaves and snapped branches and skidded to a halt almost nose to nose with Azriel.

There was a moment of stunned silence. And then:

“Fleet!” shrieked Persephone.

Excitedly clawing at the thick reeds in an effort to pull herself to her feet, she lurched out of the water like a drunk on a bender, shoved Azriel to one side and flung her muddy arms around the sweaty neck of her beloved, broken-down old horse, who responded by whinnying and stamping his hooves with joy.

“Look—it's Fleet!” rejoiced Persephone, throwing Azriel the first unguarded smile she'd ever given him.

“That's … that's terrific,” he said in a rather strangled voice as his gaze darted between her beaming face and her delicate curves, which were plain to see beneath the clinging fabric of her thin, sodden shift.

“You don't really think it's terrific,” said Persephone, turning back to the horse. “But I don't care and neither
does Fleet. Do you, boy?” The horse peeled back his lips and neighed rudely at Azriel. Cur—evidently wanting to clarify that he also didn't care what Azriel thought— chimed in with a wet snarl.

“Oh, that's nice,” muttered Azriel, sheathing his blade.

Just then, Ivan swooped down and settled on Persephone's thin shoulder.

Jamming his fists on his hips, Azriel jutted his chin forward and scowled at the hawk. “I suppose
you
don't care what I think, either?” he asked in a crabby voice.

The hawk screeched once—loudly—then flew at Azriel's head and beat upon it with his wings until he grew bored of the indignant cries of the hopping human beneath him and flew off in search of more entertaining sport.

In between pushing tangled auburn curls out of his blazing blue eyes and picking feathers out of his mouth, Azriel—who plainly found the entire situation an unspeakable outrage—shook his fist in the air and shouted oaths after the departing bird.

“Azriel?” gasped Persephone, who was laughing harder than she could remember ever having laughed in her entire life. “Let me give you a piece of advice for free: in the future, do not ask questions unless you are fully prepared to receive honest answers.”

Azriel could not get over the fact that Fleet's deep affinity for Persephone had allowed him to effortlessly follow a
trail intended to confound dogs and trained trackers; Persephone could not get over her joy at being reunited with a friend she'd thought lost forever. Even so, she knew that Fleet's careless, trampling hooves and tendency to emit sudden, noisy declarations of affection made him a less-than-ideal travelling companion for two people on the run for their lives—or for one slave girl making a desperate bid for freedom.

But if she could not take him with her when she made her escape, neither could she abide abandoning him to fend for himself. And that is why, after she and Azriel finished wiping the foam and sweat from Fleet's heaving flanks, she asked Azriel if he'd promise to take care of her animals if anything should happen to her. When he didn't answer immediately, she took a deep breath and tentatively laid her hand on his bare forearm.

“Please?” she asked, hoping she didn't sound as breathless as she felt.

For a moment, Azriel just stared down at the small hand resting upon his arm. Then he flicked his eyes upward to meet hers and, placing his free hand over hers, said, “Very well, Persephone. I promise to take care of your animals, provided that you promise you won't ever try to run from me.”

Startled though she was by both his request and the feel of his hand on hers, Persephone didn't hesitate or even blink. “I promise,” she lied. “Of course I do.”

The going was hard but not quite so hard as it had been the previous day, for Azriel no longer had the luxury of a mount. For the most part, they walked single file—Azriel followed by Persephone, who was, in turn, followed by Fleet and Cur. From time to time, Cur attempted to slip forward so that he could walk at Persephone's heels. Each time he did so, however, Fleet neighed shrilly and attempted to trample him in a fit of jealousy, so a visibly disgruntled Cur eventually resigned himself to bringing up the rear. Azriel was also visibly disgruntled by Fleet's behaviour, because each time he tried to lead the group into a stream in order to obliterate their scent trail, Fleet not only refused to follow but galloped to and fro along the bank beside them, whinnying in panic, destroying great swaths of vegetation and leaving deep hoofprints in the sucking mud.

“He's never liked getting his feet wet,” explained Persephone in confidential tones. “He'll pass through water if he absolutely has to, but he won't stand or walk in it for any length of time. I think he must have experienced some sort of water-related trauma as a foal.”

When Azriel responded by muttering darkly that Fleet was about to experience a boot-in-the-arse-related trauma, Persephone gave him a reproachful look.

“You promised to take care of him,” she reminded.

“But he is the most wilful, disruptive, irritating bag of horsemeat it has ever been my misfortune to look upon!” exploded Azriel. “He will be the death of us all!”

“Nevertheless,” said Persephone, unruffled by his outburst, “you promised.”

If anyone had pointed out to Persephone the irony of the fact that she fully expected Azriel to hold to his promise to care for her animals when she had no intention of holding to her promise not to run from him, she'd have told them that she had no choice in the matter. For if she was true to her word, she'd remain his slave until she was dead or sold, and if she'd refused to give her word, he'd henceforth have kept such a close eye on her that she'd remain his slave until she was dead or sold. Either way, she'd remain his slave until she was dead or sold, and that was simply not an option.