The Gypsy King (13 page)

It didn't take her long to figure out why Azriel had returned to camp covered in mud. The dirt trail along which they'd walked into camp the previous evening had been turned by the rain into a long, slick ribbon of slippery mud, and no matter how carefully she ran, every few steps her feet flew out from under her and she landed hard on some part of her body that was already aching.

Frustrated, Persephone stepped off the trail in the hope of finding firmer footing a little farther into the bush. Unfortunately, she'd walked less than half a dozen paces when she promptly fell again.

Only this time, she didn't lie where she fell—this time, the earth gave way beneath her and she found herself sliding toward the river down a hidden, mudslick embankment, gathering momentum so fast that she probably would have screamed if her heart hadn't been lodged in her throat. Desperately, she flung out her hands and tried to grab hold of something—
anything!—
that would slow her, but there was nothing to grab on to and nothing to dig her heels into. She just slid faster and faster, until she was going so fast that she didn't even see the lip of the embankment until she was already flying over it.

Instinctively, she windmilled her arms and whipped
her head this way and that, trying to judge how far she was going to fall—and how hard the landing was going to be— but it was all a blur. She heard an irate squawk from high above and an ominous burp from far below and a truly horrible stench rose up to meet her and the next thing she knew—

GLUG.

She landed headfirst in a deep pool of warm mud so smelly that she started retching the instant her head broke the surface. In between heaves, she slogged for the edge, dragged herself up out of the pool and collapsed.

After she caught her breath and checked her pocket to make sure that she'd not lost the rat tail and lace she'd taken from Azriel's pack the night before, Persephone tried to explain to Ivan that she hadn't
actually
been trying to fly. Then she turned to inspect the strange pool into which she'd plunged. The first thing she noticed was that she'd been lucky, for if she'd landed even a foot to the left, she'd have hit her head on the edge and dashed her brains out. The second thing she noticed was that beyond the pool was the fast-moving river, but before that were several more of these small, belching mud pools.

And one large bubbling pool of what looked to be clean water.

Leaving muddy, squelching footprints on the smooth, black rock, Persephone eagerly made her way to this pool. Dipping her toe in, she was
delighted
to find it not just warm, but as hot as any bath Cookie had ever had her prepare for the merchant. Hotter, even! With a sigh, Persephone thought back to the endless pails of hot water she'd had to
lug to the merchant's room, and how she'd yearned, in her childish way, to be allowed—just once!—the unimaginable luxury of bathing with warm water, in a tub, in private, instead of standing in the yard trying to clean herself as best she could with a rag and a pail of ice-cold well water.

Well, here was her chance.

Feeling almost giddy, she looked around to make sure she was truly alone. Then she hastily peeled off her filthy shift, rinsed it so that she wouldn't muddy herself again after bathing, flung the shift onto a nearby rock and eased herself into the pool.

“Ooooooh,” she breathed, closing her eyes in ecstasy. “
Ahhhhhh
.”

The water stank like rotten eggs but it was
gloriously
hot and clean. Pinching her nose shut, Persephone dunked her head below the surface over and over just for the thrill of being completely submerged. She floated on her back; she clung to the sides and kicked her feet. Pretending she was a grand lady in a private bath, she called to her imaginary maids to bring her more hot water, perfumed soaps, a goblet of fine wine! Then she laughed at her own silliness and paddled at the water with her hands. She'd never felt so free in her entire life—she'd never felt so
clean
.

As the clouds parted and the sun began to shine, Persephone thought what a wonderful way this was to begin her new life as a free woman.

Then she heard it.

The sound of something big, noisy and clumsy approaching fast.

CLIP, CLOP, CLIP, CLOP, CLIP, CLOP.

“Oh,
no
!” she wailed.

There was no time to escape—no time even to grab her shift—for the next instant, Fleet rounded the corner at the bend in the river and spotted her. Neighing joyfully, he fixed his loving eyes upon her and clip-clopped across the rock toward her as fast as he could, pausing only once to try to kick Cur in the head to prevent him from reaching her first.

After greeting them both with all due affection and watching them wander away to explore the nearby bush, Persephone warily turned her attention to Azriel. He was just as filthy as he'd been the last time she'd seen him— filthier, perhaps—and his expression was inscrutable. As he slowly walked toward her, she saw him make note of the fact that her shift was lying some distance from the pool, and she flushed hotly when she saw his gaze briefly drop from her face to the water in which she crouched with nothing but her hands and a few bubbles to cover her nakedness.

Neither of them said anything until he walked right up to the edge of the pool, dropped his pack, unbuckled his sword and began unbuttoning his shirt.

“How's the water?” he asked.

Persephone didn't answer him because she
couldn't
. All she could do was stare up at him with her mouth hanging open. He couldn't think that … he couldn't
possibly
mean to.…

“I hope it's nice, because I could use a good soak. As it happens, I've not had a very pleasant day thusfar,” he continued in confidential tones as he peeled off his shirt.

Persephone inhaled sharply at the sight of him wearing nothing but boots and breeches.

Then he pulled off his boots.

And stood up.

And reached for the laces at the front of his breeches.

“
Stop!
” she cried.

“Stop?” he echoed, looking down at her in mild surprise.

If Persephone's hands hadn't been gainfully employed trying to cover up her private parts, she'd have buried her face in them. She'd never seen a half-clothed man before and for some reason, the sight of this
particular
half-clothed man was making her feel very confused. She knew she shouldn't be looking, shouldn't be letting him see her gaze sweep across his bare skin, but she couldn't help it. With his broad shoulders and taut stomach he just looked so … so …
strong
, and she felt an unexpected, unwanted thrill of excitement uncurl in her belly at the memory of their first meeting, when he'd held her against him and she'd felt his long, lean body against hers. Squeezing her eyes shut, she gave her head a desperate shake. Even the
thought
of him completely naked was enough to shatter what was left of her composure.

“I'm sorry I tried to run away, all right?” she blurted, her words coming in a breathless rush. “I'm sorry! Just … just hand me my shift and—”

“Your shift?” interrupted Azriel. Frowning, he cocked his head to one side as though deeply confused. Then he gave a scandalized gasp, leaned very close and murmured, “Why, Persephone, do you mean to tell
me that at this very moment you are wearing nothing at all?”

She scowled and dropped lower in the water. “I'm wearing my dagger,” she muttered, doing her best to sound threatening. “So … you'd better just back away and … and hand me my shift.”

Wordlessly, Azriel walked over, picked up her shift and walked back to the edge of the pool.

“Here you go,” he said, dangling it so high above her that she'd have had to climb out of the pool to reach it.

Persephone scowled again. “Are you enjoying yourself?” she snapped.

“Not as much as I could be,” he replied.

The sudden heat in his voice sent a shock wave through her, but before she could react to it, he smiled disarmingly and set down the shift. “Get dressed,” he said. “We'll discuss the matter of your broken promise—and its consequences—once we've made up some of the time that your wilfulness has cost us.”

“I'm not getting dressed until you turn around and … and go away,” she muttered.

For a brief moment, it looked as though Azriel might refuse—might insist upon watching her climb naked out of the pool. Then he gave a gentlemanly bow, picked up his shirt and boots, turned and headed down to the river. Persephone waited until she saw him wade in and start rinsing off, and then—her mind brimming with thoughts of the many hideous and painful things she would do to him if he dared to sneak a peek—she scampered out of the pool, snatched up the wet shift and
tugged it on so fast that she tore one of the sleeves half off the bodice.

She started to swear but broke off at the sudden sound of Fleet whinnying in panic.

“Persephone,
wait
!” bellowed Azriel from his spot in the river.

But it was too late—she was already sprinting through the bush toward her horse with her dagger in hand. Seconds later she found him—trapped at the river's edge by three enormous, barking black dogs. They were sinewy, evil-looking creatures with slit eyes and amputated tails, and when Persephone burst upon the scene, the nearest and largest of them turned and stared at her with glittering yellow eyes.

Instinctively, Persephone backed up. As she did so, she tripped, fell and landed so hard that her teeth snapped down on her tongue. In unison, the two smaller dogs leapt for her throat. As they sailed through the air, three things happened at once. First, Fleet's horror at seeing his beloved Persephone under attack instantly overcame his terror of being drowned or eaten. Galloping full force at the dogs—eyes rolling and deadly, trampling hooves flying—he caught the largest one with a powerful kick to the hindquarters that sent him sprawling face first into the dirt. Second, Cur burst from the trees beside Persephone and slammed into the nearest of the leaping dogs. Finally, Persephone—one arm flung over her face to protect her from the dog that was still bearing down on her—stuck out her dagger and braced her arm so that when the dog landed, he found himself not burying his teeth in the
tender flesh of her neck but impaled upon her dagger by the force of his own momentum.

In the stunned silence that followed, the largest dog— the one who'd been kicked in the hindquarters—struggled to his feet and awkwardly slithered into the far bushes. Fleet—whose brains, guts and nerves had been entirely used up in his one shining moment of bravery—noisily trumpeted his terrible grief at the apparent demise of his adored mistress and galloped off in the opposite direction.

One heartbeat later, a dripping, shirtless Azriel burst into the clearing. At the sight of Persephone struggling feebly beneath the dog—blood pouring down the side of her shift so fast that it was pooling on the ground below her—he let out a hoarse cry. Sprinting over to where she lay, he heaved the dog aside, dropped to his knees and began frantically searching her blood-soaked shift for the fatal wound.

“I can't find it,” he cried desperately as he ran his hands up and down her body. “I can't find it!” Leaning over her, he gripped her shoulders hard and gave her a shake. “Persephone, please—I may be able to help you but you must tell me where it hurts!”

“My … tongue,” she replied thickly, shoving him away with what Azriel must have thought was surprising strength for a girl who'd lost that much blood.

“Your tongue?” he said blankly, staring at the front of her blood-soaked shift as though trying to figure out how such a minor wound could have resulted in such a gruesome mess.

Determined to put up a brave front in spite of the fact
that she was trembling so hard that she could barely keep her teeth from chattering, Persephone rolled her eyes and said, “Really, Lord Common Sense, I should think it obvious that the blood isn't—”

Her throat closed abruptly when she saw the skid marks in the dirt.

Skid marks that could only have been made by Cur and the beast he'd attacked—skid marks that indicated the two grappling animals had not slid to a halt at the river's edge, but had gone right over it.

Jumping to her feet, Persephone ran to the riverbank. When a quick scan revealed no sign of Cur, she stepped back, took a running leap and would have flung herself into the chill, fast-moving water to swim off in search of him if Azriel had not managed to grab a handful of her long, beautiful hair.

“Ow!” she shrieked, stumbling backward against him.

“Sorry,” he said, as he deftly transferred his grip to her biceps.

“Let go of me!” Persephone demanded, giving her arm a sudden yank in the hope of putting him off balance.

“No,” he said, unmovable as a monolith. “Persephone, you must listen—”

“No, you must listen!” she cried as she drove her heel downward toward his foot. “I have to go after Cur! He saved my life!”

“And lost his own in the bargain,” said Azriel, moving his foot at the last second so that Persephone's heel landed on a sharp pebble instead of her intended target.

She grunted in pain. “You cannot know that for a
certainty,” she said as she leaned backward in a vain attempt to drag Azriel into the water with her.

“No,” he agreed, “but I do know these things for a certainty: if your dog is not a strong swimmer, he is already dead. If he has somehow managed to survive, he will find you. If I allow you to jump into this river you will drown, succumb to the chill of the water or hit your head on a submerged rock. I cannot allow that to happen because you are—”

“Your
slave
?” she said scornfully, thrusting her chin out at him.

“My responsibility,” said Azriel, who seemed to be getting annoyed.

“Well, so is Cur,” she reminded swiftly. “You promised you would take care of my animals, remember?”