Mordecai’s dark heart sang.
“Your Majesty,” he said, grunting slightly as he shifted to the edge of his seat. “I heard how you were dragged out of the coach upon your arrival at the castle earlier, and I want to assure you that the beast who dared to put his filthy hand upon your naked thigh has been suitably punished.”
The queen did not say anything in response to this either, but her cheeks flushed charmingly, and her mouth fell open just enough for Mordecai to see her little pink tongue.
She could be feeling anything right now, thought Mordecai exultantly. After all, she has always been a woman of strange appetites!
As this exciting thought crossed his mind, hobbling servants began silently filing into the room. Each carried a platter or dish of some kind, and the sight of them made Mordecai’s blood boil even though it was he who’d ordered supper served as soon as the queen arrived in the dining hall. Indeed, he’d informed the steward that he’d snip off something a good deal more precious to him than his tongue if he did not see it done. At the time, moving the evening along had seemed a sensible idea, for Mordecai had been exhausted from the ordeal of having made in four days the same journey that the queen had made in seven.
Now, however, Mordecai did not wish to move the evening along. The sight of the queen sitting so obediently before him, the intoxicating scent of her, the way she swallowed his wine and held his gaze—these things had caused his exhaustion to vanish. Now he wanted every minute of the evening to last forever. He wanted to broach the subject of marriage and sons as a lover might—by candlelight, over a fine meal and a goblet of good wine—and these idiot servants were ruining everything! Opening his mouth, he was about to bark at them to get out when he happened to notice that the queen was staring fixedly at one of the juicy roasts that was just waiting to be carved.
Mordecai’s furious expression immediately melted into one of oozing solicitousness.
“I ordered supper brought at once because I knew you’d be famished,” he said.
The queen tore her gaze away from the roast with apparent difficulty. “I am famished,” she said. Looking from one servant to the next, she said, “Tell me, will we be dining alone or will your servants be hovering over us the entire time, listening to our every word?”
Mordecai smiled. “My servants dare not hover, and though they may hear what we say, I can assure you they’ll never speak of it.”
“Because you have cut out their tongues,” said the queen.
Yes,” said Mordecai, his smile fading at the tiny edge in her voice.
The queen offered no further comment, but the fact that she’d commented at all instantly put Mordecai on his guard. It reminded him that although she was a beautiful woman who’d never treated him like a cripple, she was also a deceitful woman who’d often played him for a fool. A woman who’d laughed in his face when he’d caught her in the arms of a eunuch slave who’d later been revealed to be neither eunuch nor slave …
All at once, Mordecai did not care to ease into the subject of marriage and sons.
All at once, he just wanted it done.
Fixing his dark eyes upon the queen, he said, “As it happens, Your Majesty, there is one in the room whose tongue I’ve not yet cut out.” Seeing her blanch, he smiled thinly and added, “I mean one besides you.”
“Oh?” she said cautiously. “And who is that?”
“The cleric who shall momentarily perform our marriage ceremony,” replied Mordecai with a wave toward the far corner of the hall where the hard-faced cleric and his fully functioning tongue were waiting.
At these words, the crystal goblet slipped from the queen’s hand and shattered upon the hearth. Her jaw dropped halfway to her knees, and she looked like what she’d been for most of her life: an ignorant, uncultured, ill-mannered slave girl.
Promising himself that as her lord husband, he would do whatever it took to train her out of such detestable lowborn displays of emotion, Mordecai said, “Uniting us in matrimony is the reason I brought you here, Your Majesty. Surely you’re clever enough to have figured that out.”
The queen shook her head so violently that she lost a few hairpins. “You tried to get Finn to name you his heir so that you could ... could kill him and take the throne,” she stammered as the unpinned curls tumbled down to frame her face. “I guess I just assumed that … that—”
“I wanted the same from you?” Mordecai might have been amused if his insides hadn’t felt like they were turning to ice at the horrified look on the bitch’s face. “Why should I go to all that trouble only to suffer the great lords forever trying to tear me down for my low birth and the weakness of my claim? Why should I content myself with fathering half-noble sons when I can father half-royal ones?”
At the mention of him fathering sons, the queen clutched her belly and looked as though she might faint— or vomit.
Mordecai nearly hit her.
After she recovered, she lifted her chin and said, “What you propose is impossible, for I already have a husband.”
Though Mordecai knew this, hearing her speak the words inflamed him almost beyond endurance. “General Murdock told me about your so-called wedding,” he hissed though clenched teeth. “However, there is not a single great lord in the realm who would consider it valid, for it was but a crude tribal ceremony—not a real wedding fit for an Erok queen.”
Shifting her gaze toward the fire, the queen got a faraway look in her eyes. By the leaping light of the flames, Mordecai could see her reliving the memory of her barbaric nuptials and re-evaluating her view of them. In spite of himself, he could not help holding his breath and hoped against hope that—
“It was a real wedding,” she announced loudly. Flushing slightly, she lifted that chin of hers a little higher and added, “I was wedded and bedded.”
The sudden mental image of his future wife lying naked and spent in the arms of the despicable Gypsy made Mordecai want to rip someone apart with his bare hands, but he only snarled, “Well, then I am especially pleased to be able to inform you that when General Murdock’s men catch your dear husband—”
“When General Murdock’s men catch him?” gasped the queen, pressing her hands against her suddenly heaving bosom. “You mean Azriel has escaped capture—you mean he is still alive?”
Cursing himself for having given her this bit of information—this bit of hope—Mordecai snapped, “If he is, he won’t be for long. General Murdock has dispatched soldiers to slaughter and scalp every last cockroach they find scuttling about the nest hidden behind the waterfall—”
“No,” whispered the white-faced queen, swaying in her seat.
“Yes,” mocked Mordecai. “Chances are that in his cowardly flight to safety, your beloved will end up running straight into the already bloodied arms of the General’s men. Even if he doesn’t, however, I intend to offer a thousand gold pieces to the freeman or slave who captures him—or brings me his scalp. As it is a vast fortune by anyone’s standards, I expect that half the realm will soon be out looking for him, while the other half will be out hunting him.”
“Please, Your Grace—”
“Oh, so it’s ‘Your Grace’ now, is it?” sneered Mordecai. “Spare me your false displays of respect, Your Majesty— and spare me, too, your heartfelt pleas that you would ‘do anything’ to save the life of the cockroach. His life is forfeit, as are the lives of every other cockroach and tribal dog in the realm.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, clutching the arm of her chair so tightly that the delicate bones of her hands stood out.
Mordecai stared at her hands, imagining how exquisitely good it would feel to kiss them—and break them. “Oh, did I forget to mention that after being crowned king my first order of business shall be to eliminate all the lesser tribes of Glyndoria?” he said airily. “I’ve always hated the Gypsies, but I never gave serious consideration to wiping out the other tribes until after you managed to visit each of them and emerge unscathed. I began to wonder
why it should be so when you are the sister of the king in whose name untold legions of their kinsmen had been slaughtered or enslaved. I began to wonder if, against all odds, you’d somehow managed to win them over—”
“No, I swear—”
“Swear all you like,” interrupted Mordecai with a shrug of one uneven shoulder. “I’ll not have the tribes uniting behind you—against me. As soon as I return to Parthania, General Murdock will lead my army from mountain to valley to sea putting to sword every last tribal dog he can find.” Lifting his wine goblet, Mordecai idly swirled the contents and took a sip before dropping his voice a notch and adding, “Between you and me, Your Majesty, I’d initially toyed with the idea of allowing a handful of Gorgishmen to choose between death and a lifetime of slavery in the Mines of Torodania, but I’ve since decided against it. They are such detestable little creatures, and they cling like fleas to the memory of those long-ago days when they were lords of the mines. Why risk even the remote possibility that they will one day attempt to retake their precious mines? Lowborn Eroks breed like rabbits— I’ll put their surplus infants to work in the deepest, most treacherous shafts. Though they’ll die alone, hungry, frightened and in cold darkness, perhaps they’ll take some comfort from the knowledge that their short lives weren’t a complete waste.”
“You are a monster,” whispered the queen.
Though Mordecai had been deliberately provoking her, he flinched at her words. “Perhaps,” he muttered as he beckoned the cleric to them, “but I am about to become your monster.”
As the cleric strode forward to stand before them, the queen shrank back in her chair. “No, please—you can’t truly mean to do this!” she blurted. “Everyone knows that a woman cannot wed another while her husband yet lives!”
At the desperation in her voice, Mordecai felt a powerful stirring in his loins. “Even if the cockroach yet lives, as I already told you, Your Majesty, no one who matters would consider your union to be a valid one,” he said. Rising to his feet, he indicated to the cleric that he should drag the queen to hers. “The marriage ceremony between us will proceed at once, and then we shall retire to your bedchamber where I shall do my utmost to get a son upon you this very night. If you struggle, you will be tied down. Thereafter, if you continue to behave in an … unreceptive manner, I shall whip you until your skin hangs in shreds and your blood soaks the sheets beneath you.”
“Wait!” cried the queen as she struggled to free herself from the cleric’s grasping hands. “What if you knew it would be no use? What if you knew you’d never be able to get a child upon me?”
This time, Mordecai did hit her—as hard as he could, right across her pretty face. When she did not cry out, he hit her again. “Are you suggesting that I am incapable of—”
“I am not suggesting anything,” she burst, her eyes flashing. “I am telling you that I am already with child!”
Mordecai was so surprised that instead of hitting her a third time, he just blinked at her. The queen looked almost as surprised as he felt—as though she’d spoken in the heat of the moment and was now having serious second thoughts about having done so.
As well she should, thought Mordecai, for though he knew her for a lying whore, the ripeness of her body, the glow of her skin and the fear in her eyes told him that she was not lying now. Worse, it told him that the unborn child was thriving—and that the queen already felt something for it. The thought filled Mordecai with a rage so terrible that he nearly shrieked for the cleric to knock her to the ground and kick her in the belly until her traitorous womb expelled its vile contents. Indeed, the only thing that held him back was the knowledge that if it didn’t kill the mother, such treatment often destroyed the womb, and he was going to need both to get the half-royal sons he desired.
So instead of shrieking, Mordecai took a deep, calming breath, fixed his dark eyes upon the queen and softly said, “Though the news of your pregnancy does not find me best pleased, I suppose I ought to be grateful for the proof of your fertility. How far along are you, Your Majesty?”
Swallowing hard, the queen pressed her free hand against her belly and tried to step back but the cleric swiftly moved to block her way. “Y-Your Grace,” she faltered as the cleric shoved her forward so hard that she stumbled on the hem of her gown. “I know things aren’t going to work out exactly as you had hoped they would, but I am sure we can come to some sort of arrangement that—”
“How—far—along?” repeated Mordecai, even more softly than before.
“About three months.”
“Hmm,” breathed Mordecai, placing his cold hand over top of her warm one. The queen shuddered at his touch, but did not pull away her shielding hand. “Too late for some remedies,” he murmured as he began to lightly stroke her fingers, “but not too late for others.”
The stricken look on the queen’s face told him that she knew exactly what he meant to do. “No!” she gasped as she began to struggle anew. “Please, I’ll do—”
“Anything?” suggested Mordecai. “Yes, I know you will. Because as soon as we’ve rid ourselves of your little problem, you will become my wedded wife, and queen or no, I shall demand absolute obedience from you in all things.” Turning to the cleric, he said, “Do you know of a hag skilled enough to cut the little cockroach from her womb without killing or ruining her?”
The cleric shook his head. “I don’t, Your Grace,” he said.
Out of the corner of his eye, Mordecai saw his beautiful bride-to-be heave a sigh of relief—a sigh that was cut short when the cleric added, “But I know someone who does.”
FOURTEEN
STUPID, STUPID, STUPID! thought Persephone as the cleric hustled her from the dining hall. How could I have been so stupid?
If only she’d stuck to her plan to play to Mordecai’s lust as she’d done on that long-ago night when he’d discovered her standing ankle-deep in alley muck! Once she’d drawn him in, her intention had been to nudge him into dismissing the servants and then bash him over the head with the fireplace poker—or, if she could get her hands on a carving knife, slit him from bow to stern. She hadn’t quite worked out how she was going to explain the blood and brain splatters on her gown to the various New Men she’d encounter as she thereafter fled the castle grounds—nor how she was going to convince them to give her a horse and raise the gate—but she’d been confident that she’d think of something.
Her first mistake, of course, had been commenting on the servants’ missing tongues, because it was something no other highborn woman in the realm would have noticed, let alone commented on. But that mistake was nothing compared to the one she’d made when she’d told Mordecai about the baby. Her desperate hope had been that perhaps if he knew she was already with child it would give him pause—and give her time to come up with another plan.
But it had not given him pause. And now she was being forced back to the turret chamber from which there was but a single perilous route of escape—there to stay until they came with the hag who would cut the baby from her womb, piece by bloody piece.
As the cleric continued to hurry her along, a fierceness the likes of which she’d never felt before unexpectedly reared up inside of Persephone. Instead of being afraid of the baby, she was suddenly afraid for him; though she could not yet feel him in her belly, she suddenly felt him in her heart.
And just like that, the girl who’d once wanted the whole situation to just “go away” became a mother who would risk anything to save the life of her unborn child.
“She’s to return to her chambers,” announced the cleric as they arrived at the bottom of the spiral staircase where Tutor was standing guard.
“Alone?” said Tutor in surprise.
“Aye, alone,” replied the cleric, leering at Persephone in a way that made her wonder what the gods thought of people who drove their knees into holy men’s crotches. “Seems the little queen here has got herself in the family way, and His Grace wants it taken care of before the wedding.”
&
nbsp; “By ‘taken care of’ he means murdered,” Persephone could not help saying.
“I know what he means,” said Tutor as unconcernedly as if they were speaking of killing a chicken for the stewpot.
He’ll pay for that too, vowed Persephone, recalling how she’d promised him he’d pay for slapping her.
The cleric turned and hurried away then—presumably to seek out the one who knew the hag. After he’d gone, Tutor stepped to one side and, laying one hand upon the hilt of his sheathed sword, used the other to gesture toward the winding staircase.
Persephone stared at him, her face determinedly impassive in spite of the fact that her mind was racing. She didn’t think she’d be able to outrun him in her high-heeled shoes and she knew she’d never be able to beat him in a fight, but there had to be some way to keep from being trapped in—
“You can climb up by yourself,” said Tutor, “or I can throw you over my shoulder and carry you up.”
With a jolt, Persephone realized that Tutor’s own words had just shown her the way. Looking down so that he’d not see the sudden fire in her eyes, Persephone wordlessly gathered up her beautiful skirts, swished past him and, wobbling slightly on her high heels, began to climb. When she was two-thirds of the way up, she silently slipped off her left shoe, set the heel against the edge of one of the stairs and leaned until the heel snapped. Then she slipped the shoe back on, carefully arranged herself in a sprawled position upon the stairs and gave a loud shriek.
An instant later, Tutor was crouched beside her, sword in hand.
“What is it?” he demanded in alarm as he scanned for danger. “What happened?”
“I broke a heel!” gasped Persephone. Clutching at her ankle, she moaned and rocked back and forth in what she hoped was a convincing display of unutterable agony.
Looking visibly relieved, Tutor sheathed his sword, jammed his hands on his hips and said, “Can you walk?”
“I … I think so,” panted Persephone. Biting her lower lip, she gingerly attempted to push herself to her feet several times before scowling up at Tutor and snapping, “Well, don’t just stand there. Give me your arm!”
Tomorrow's Kingdom Page 7