The Gypsy King (14 page)

“You promised me something, too, Persephone—
remember
?” said Azriel.

“You said we'd discuss that later,” she said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Cur requires your help now. So unless you are a faithless liar on top of being a no-account thief with an extraordinarily high opinion of his own good looks, you had best get a move on and—”

“E
-nough
!” growled Azriel, whose eyes were suddenly blazing like blue flames. Ignoring the way that Persephone shrank from him as though she were afraid of getting burned, he grabbed her by both arms and roughly pulled her close. “I may be a no-account thief, Persephone, but you are a reckless little
fool
,” he hissed. “For your information, that dead beast over there was an army tracker, and if he is here it means that those who seek us are dangerously near
at hand. So unless you have an especial desire to find out for yourself what a gang of bloodthirsty New Men will do to a piece of fresh meat like you, we must go—
now
.”

“But I can't just leave Cur—”

Evidently deciding that the time for discussion was over, Azriel took hold of Persephone's arm so that he could drag her along behind him whether she liked it or not. Quick as a feral cat, she sank her teeth into his bare forearm. When he released her with a bellow of pain, she turned on one heel and tore headlong into the bushes. With another bellow, Azriel tore after her. Veering back toward the river, Persephone threw a quick glance over her shoulder to see if she had enough of a lead on him to be able to—

“Oof!”

She ran smack into a soldier. He was dressed in black from head to toe, stank of old sweat and held a bow in one hand. He appeared so profoundly shocked by the sudden appearance of the blood-caked beauty before him that all he could do was stare goggle-eyed at Persephone, who stood rooted on the spot, staring goggle-eyed back. Then, a fraction of a second before the New Man recovered his wits, Persephone recovered hers. Whirling around, she blindly pelted back in the direction from which she'd come. She hadn't gone three steps before she ran right into a still-shirtless Azriel.

“Soldiers!” she cried as his arms instinctively closed around her. “Run!”

Her directive was really not required, for the next second, the New Man behind her gave a shout and an
arrow flew past Azriel's head. Spinning around with Persephone still in his arms, Azriel set her down, placed his hand on the small of her back and shoved hard. She needed no encouragement to run. Another arrow flew past them, and another, and now she could hear dogs barking and other men shouting, their voices filled with excitement, their weapons clanking. The noises got closer with each thudding heartbeat and somehow, they seemed to come from all directions at once.

“They … have us surrounded!” gasped Persephone as she and Azriel burst into the clearing. “What … what are we going … to do?”

Instead of wasting his breath on an answer, Azriel grabbed her hand and, as two black terror dogs burst out of the bushes behind them, he ran full tilt toward the water's edge and launched them both into the chill, fast-moving waters of the river below.

NINE

“Y
OU'RE SURE IT'S HIM?” asked General Murdock, taking another dainty nibble of the fresh liver the steward had prepared for his dinner. A military man through and through, General Murdock nevertheless insisted upon the trappings of fine society. Simple things, like clean stockings, a comfortable bed, linen hand towels with supper. Meals served on fine china, at the proper hour, no matter what the circumstances.

“Oh, it's him all right, General Murdock, sir!” bellowed the excited young soldier. “He killed two of our tracking beasts, but the one what got away caught the scent sure and clear. It's him from the night you was nearly roasted alive, sir. And now he's in the river! And he's got a girl with him! A
girl
, sir!”

“Interesting,” said General Murdock, half to himself. Above his weak chin and small mouth, his long, thin nose twitched as he chewed and chewed and chewed. “And is the man a Gypsy?”

“Big and bluff enough to be, sir!” replied the soldier,
who was still bellowing, “but he jumped into the river afore we could catch him and properly examine him for the mark.”

“I see,” said General Murdock, nodding thoughtfully. “And where are the others?”

“The others, sir?” asked the soldier eagerly.

Swallowing the liver, General Murdock tore a small piece of bread from the loaf before him and took a nibble. “The others who were with him on the night in question,” he clarified.

A little of the excitement drained from the soldier's face. “Sir?” he said.

With his unusually small hands, General Murdock carefully brushed the crumbs from his thin lips. “Before we set out, I explained to all of you new recruits that it was inconceivable that the destruction wrought upon our camp could have been effected by fewer than half a dozen men. I explained that our objective was to find and finish them,” he reminded. “You have thusfar reported having located one man, but I must assume you've also found the others, for I cannot imagine that you would be so foolish as to interrupt my dinner to report with such enthusiasm that you have failed in your ultimate objective.”

The soldier suddenly looked unsure of himself. “Ah. Well, sir, as … as I've said, there is, um, also a girl—”

“Even if she is something more than a plaything,” interrupted General Murdock, turning his attention back to the liver on his plate, “do you think it likely that she is capable of doing the mischief of five men?”

“Well, uh—”

“And where is the prisoner?” asked General Murdock dispassionately, as he sawed off another tiny piece of liver and placed it in his mouth.

“I … I don't know,” stammered the now-miserable soldier.

“Mmmmm,” said General Murdock, closing his eyes.

The soldier didn't know if his general was savouring the taste of the liver or musing over his incompetent responses, but he did know that he'd blundered badly and that his only hope of escaping a punishment as torturous as the one those sleeping sentries had endured was to keep his foolish mouth shut.

Determinedly, he clamped his lips together.

At length, General Murdock swallowed and opened his eyes. “So,” he said as he carefully smoothed a long, thin lock of mousy hair off his forehead. “What do you think we should do?”

The soldier's mouth popped open at once. “Do?” he blurted.

“If, in fact, this man is one of those who set fire to my tent, and if he is in the company of no one but a girl,” said the General, “then I should think it obvious that we've been deliberately deceived.”

The soldier nodded knowingly, but it was clear that he was completely mystified.

General Murdock sighed and pressed his lips together. “Obviously, the man in the river has been purposely leaving a trail—initially a scent trail that the dogs could easily follow and later a trail of trampled vegetation and hoofprints that anyone with a pair of
eyes could follow,” he explained. “The question is, why would he do this?”

“Because he's a fool!” cried the soldier, with more than a hint of his previous enthusiasm.

“No,” said General Murdock patiently, “because he is clever. By leading us on, he drew us away from his tribesmen in the hope that they would be able to reach safety.”

The soldier's face fell, but he lifted his chin. “Well, anyway, his scalp should bring a fair price from the Regent,” he said with the indefatigable air of one determined to find something positive to say about the situation. “You know—once we drag the rogue's body out of the river, and dry the hair, and perhaps run a comb through it before we—”

“One scalp to the six I might have had,” sighed General Murdock. “And what if those six were spiriting the child to a Gypsy nest somewhere? They still exist, you know, though obviously not in the numbers they once did, thanks to my efforts. A Gypsy nest might have yielded a dozen scalps or more, along with any number of Gypsies too young to have yet been branded with the mark of their tribe—Gypsies whose rejuvenating blood is so coveted by our Regent. Forgive me, but compared to the bounty that could have been, I find it difficult to be excited by the prospect of one paltry scalp.”

“One scalp
and
a girl,” reminded the soldier, who could not seem to keep his mouth shut. “And perhaps the one in the river knows the way to a nest and … and perhaps if we, you know, pretend to leave, we could follow him in secret
and see where he goes or else … or else perhaps we could drag him from the river before he drowns and hang him by his feet over a hot fire and force him to tell us what he knows!”

General Murdock shook his head. “If the one in the river is really a Gypsy—and I happen to believe that he is—we'll never learn anything from him. Have you never heard the stories of the Gypsy ambassador Balthazar and the things the Regent did to him in an effort to get him to reveal the location of the healing Pool of Genezing? Suffice it to say that Balthazar left the dungeon very gradually, in very small pieces. Even so, our beloved Regent never got the answers he sought. Gypsies are stubborn, and no tribe in Glyndoria will fight more fiercely to protect its own. The man in the river is a lost cause. Now that he knows he's been found, he'll never risk endangering his tribesmen by returning to the nest. No, following him would be a waste of valuable time.” General Murdock pressed his small hands together and thought hard for a moment before continuing. “Here are your orders: search the riverbanks for this man and his woman. If you find them, kill the man and bring both his scalp and his woman to me. You have one hour. After that, whether they have been found or not, we will turn around and go back the way we came in the hope of discovering the spot where the man in the river separated from his tribesmen. The trail will be cold, yet we will endeavour to follow it. Though the messenger has not yet returned from Parthania with orders from His Grace, I am sure he would approve this course of action, for it is our best hope of finding the nest.”

“Yes, sir!” cried the soldier. “Shall I go and relay your orders now, sir?”

Tearing off another small piece of bread, General Murdock dipped it in the bloody juice of the liver and took a tiny bite. “You may,” he said thoughtfully as he began to chew. “And then you may report to my steward. Inform him that you are to be hung by your feet over a hot fire. Explain to him that you are being punished for failing to do your duty and for failing to understand that you were failing to do your duty. Tell him that you are to hang until your face is well blistered from brow to chin—unless you unman yourself by screaming, in which case you are to hang unto death.”

The young soldier was aghast. “What? No! I beg you, sir,
no
! Please! I'm sorry! I didn't know! This is my very first hunt, sir.
Please
!” he babbled, his voice rising in terror. “I didn't mean to make you angry, I just—”

“I'm not angry, soldier,” interrupted General Murdock gently, as he used a fine linen napkin to daintily wipe a dribble of liver juice off his chin. “I am merely trying to maintain discipline among my troops. Now go, and don't forget to tell the men to bring the girl to me alive, if possible.” He belched softly. “I do
so
enjoy an after-dinner treat.…”

TEN

P
ERSEPHONE HIT THE ICY WATER with such force that it drove half the air out of her lungs. The other half was driven out by the shock of the cold, which began to leach strength from her limbs even before her feet hit the rocky bottom of the riverbed. Glancing upward through her own floating mass of hair, she thought the surface of the water looked very far away indeed, but instead of giving in to the panic that threatened to overwhelm her, Persephone fought against the current to find her footing. Bending her knees, she ignored her burning lungs and drove upward with all her might. The first thing she noticed after her head broke the surface and she'd sucked in a great, gulping breath of air was that the high riverbank off of which she and Azriel had jumped was now lined with shouting, black-clad soldiers.