“Yes,” said Persephone, taking care not to look back at poor heartbroken Fleet. “I know that.”
The thief didn’t say anything more until they got over the first hill, at which point he reined in his horse, dismounted and took a long, hard look to the east.
When he was done looking, he turned to Persephone.
“We’re going to have to set a good pace,” he announced, shrugging out of the tight-fitting velvet doublet in much the same way that a small boy might wriggle out of his Sunday best. “But first, I want to take a closer look at you.”
Instinctively, Persephone shrank away from him— rounding her shoulders and folding her arms across her chest—but the thief wasn’t talking about her body. Taking her chin in his hand, he lifted her face to his and carefully examined every inch of it—first from one side, then from the other.
“I cannot believe.… It is truly remarkable,” he murmured after a long moment of study. Gazing down at her with an intensity she found unnerving, he said, “I want you to know that I mean you no harm whatsoever. In fact, I would gladly die before seeing you harmed in any way.”
“I … see,” said Persephone, edging away from him.
“No, you don’t, but you will,” he said, letting go of her chin. “Tell me, what is your name?”
“My name?” she asked, wishing he would stop staring at her.
“You know—the particular handle by which people address you,” he explained solemnly but with a glint of amusement in his very blue eyes.
To her mortification, she found herself blushing. “It’s … it’s Persephone,” she stammered, looking away.
“And who is your true owner, Persephone?”
“What does it matter?” she asked.
“It matters to me,” murmured the thief in a voice that made her want to step back and draw nearer, all at the same time. “However, as you’ve recently suffered the shock of being unexpectedly uprooted, I’m content to let it be for the moment. Now, go sit on that rock.”
“Why?” she asked.
The thief threw his hands in the air. “Tell me true, Persephone—is there even the faintest hope that you will ever simply do as you’re asked rather than questioning or defying me outright?”
He sounded so exasperated that Persephone felt an unwilling smile tug at the corners of her mouth. “Not even the faintest hope,” she replied. “Why do you want me to sit?”
“Because,” he said, pulling a key from his pocket, “I want to remove your leg irons.”
Though this was not the answer Persephone had expected, it was the most welcome answer the thief could have given. She’d been in irons for nearly three months now, ever since she’d last tried to run from the owner. Having saved up a few precious crusts of bread and strips of dried hare meat, she’d waited for a cloudy night and then set out. She hadn’t had much of a plan, really, just a general sense that she would travel by night, gathering, hunting and stealing what she needed. And once she was far enough away from the owner that she could safely do so, she’d planned to join the throngs of displaced lowborn Erok scrounging for work as day-labourers while at the same time trying to avoid being rounded up for transport onward to the mines or somewhere almost as bad. Unfortunately, the Fates had not been inclined to grant Persephone even this dreary dream, for at the exact moment she’d made her desperate dash to freedom, the moon had burst out from behind the clouds and the bleary-eyed owner had looked up from his seat on the chamber pot to see her slipping over the crest of this very hill. It had been a simple enough matter for him to saddle a horse and give chase, but the very fact that he’d been forced to do so had so enraged him that when he caught her, he’d beaten her nearly senseless and clapped on the irons for good.
Hastily now, Persephone put her bundled belongings to one side and sat down on the rock. Cur—who’d just returned from chasing a fox through the nearby meadow—bounded over, skidded to a halt beside her and stared at the thief as though he’d like nothing better than to take a juicy chunk out of his backside.
The thief gave a long-suffering sigh. “Send the beast away,” he said.
“He’s harmless,” said Persephone as she carefully teased a burr out of the fur on Cur’s ear.
The thief pursed his lips. “I thought you said he’d killed dozens of men at your behest.”
“I exaggerated.”
“Oh?” he said, arching an eyebrow at her. “How many has he killed in truth?”
“In truth?” she said. “None.”
“I see,” said the thief, making a face at Cur, who responded with a growl. “Well, as long as we’re sharing truths, Persephone, I’m afraid I have a rather shocking confession to make.”
“What is it?” she asked, steeling herself for something unpleasant.
The thief squinted up at the sky, then looked down at his hands and sighed. “It’s just that … well … although there is a ‘Lord Damon Bothwell’ and although he does come from the Ragorian Prefecture, I’m afraid … I’m afraid that I am not really him,” he mumbled.
Persephone stared at him. “Well, for heaven’s sake, I knew that,” she said tartly. “What do you think I am, some kind of simpleton?”
The thief burst out laughing. “No, of course not!” he protested. “I’m sorry, it’s just that … I rather thought you’d react the way you did and I’m afraid I couldn’t resist. Forgive me, and allow me to introduce myself. I am Azriel.”
“Azriel what?”
“Just Azriel.”
“I see,” said Persephone disapprovingly. “And what am I to call you?”
“Well … um … I thought you could call me ‘Azriel,’” he said. “You know—since it’s my name. The particular handle by which—”
“It’s your given name,” she interrupted.
“Yes,” said the thief—Azriel—looking at her as though he wondered if perhaps she wasn’t a simpleton, after all.
“You want me—your slave—to call you by your given name,” said Persephone.
“Well, I intend to call you by your given name,” he said. “It seems only fair, doesn’t it?”
He’s a lunatic, thought Persephone.
“Yes, Azriel,” she said loudly, to humour him. “I suppose it does only seem fair.”
“Excellent,” he grinned. “I’m glad that’s settled. Now, before I remove your fetters, I have one more confession to make.”
“What is it?” she asked suspiciously.
He hung his head. “Last night, in the barn, before I saw you, I was planning to bash you over the head with a shovel,” he admitted. “Not hard enough to hurt you, mind, just hard enough to render you unconscious.”
“Really?” she replied airily. “Well, Azriel, last night, in the barn, before I saw you, I was planning to slit you from bow to stern and feed your still-warm innards to the ill-tempered sow three stalls over.”
Azriel looked rather taken aback by this news. “In that case, Persephone,” he said mildly, “I must confess that I no longer feel quite so guilty about almost having gently bashed you over the head with a shovel.”
For the second time in as many moments, Persephone felt an unwilling smile tug at the corners of her mouth.
Then, without warning, Azriel stepped forward and sank to his knees before her.
Something about the gesture caused Persephone to inhale sharply—though not nearly so sharply as when he reached for her. Sliding one hand under her skirt halfway up the back of her bare calf, he used his free hand to ease her skirt up over her knees. Then—without releasing his hold on her leg—he reached into his pocket, took out the key, slipped it into the lock of the iron cuff at her ankle and gave a sharp twist. The cuff fell away with a clatter.
Feeling somewhat short of breath, Persephone tried to pull her foot away, but Azriel held it fast.
“Wait,” he murmured. With the lightest of touches, he began to run his fingers over her damaged skin—tracing the outlines of old bruises, skirting the places where the heavy c
uff had rubbed her skin raw. Mesmerized, Persephone watched as he leaned forward and slowly ran his fingers over the delicate bones along the top of her foot, down to the very tips of her toes and back again, then up past her ankle, until—
Abruptly returning to her senses, she jerked her foot out of his grasp so spasmodically that she kicked him right in the face.
“Ow!” he cried, reeling backward.
“Sorry,” she said, not sounding sorry at all.
“What did you do that for?” he demanded irritably as he checked his nose for blood. “For pity’s sake, I was just making sure that the fetters had done no serious damage!”
Persephone didn’t believe him for a second. “Of course you were,” she said, tugging down her skirt. “Unfortunately for you, Azriel, I don’t particularly like having my feet touched.”
“Noted,” he replied moodily.
After quickly removing the second cuff and storing both the leg irons and Persephone’s meagre belongings in his pack, Azriel mounted the horse and invited Persephone to ride with him. She refused. For one thing, she was revelling in the sensation of walking without irons for the first time in three months, and for another thing, there were only two places for her to sit on that horse: astride behind Azriel, in which case she would be forced to wrap her arms around his waist to keep from slipping off, or in front of him, in which case she would be all but nestled in his arms, her back pressed against his well-muscled chest, her buttocks pressed up against his—
“No!” she repeated, with a vehement shake of her head. “I’ll not ride with you under any circumstances.”
“Don’t be foolish,” he said impatiently. “We’ve a very long way to go before we make camp for the night, and you don’t look as though you’ll make it to the crest of the next hill.”
“I’m stronger than I look,” she said.
“Like a plough horse,” he suggested, with a hint of a smile, “or a mule.”
She ignored him.
He sighed heavily. “Please, Persephone. I don’t want to frighten you, but the fact is there are some rather … unpleasant individuals following me at the moment, and though I was making a fine job of leading them on a merry chase prior to meeting you, it is exceedingly likely that the time it took to secure your release from your previous arrangement has given my pursuers an opportunity to draw somewhat closer than I now find comfortable.”
“How unfortunate for you,” she said drily.
“How unfortunate for us,” he corrected, “for I assure you that it will go badly for both of us if they catch me.”
“I can’t see how it will go badly for me,” she countered. “As I recall, you said you’d gladly die before seeing me harmed in any way.”
“Hmm. Yes, well, perhaps ‘gladly’ was overstating it slightly,” admitted Azriel. “Truth be told, I’d rather not die, Persephone. At least, not today.”
Persephone shrugged, as though his death was neither here nor there to her. “I’m not riding up there with you,” she said flatly. “So if you want me to ride, you’ll have to walk.”
Azriel made a noise that was somewhere between a laugh and a snort. “By the stars, I’ll not walk to humour a stubborn little fool, no matter who she might be!” he exclaimed. “Walk if you wish—for now, Persephone—and when you begin to falter, I’ll show myself to be a true and noble gentleman by giving you the choice between riding up here with me—or being dragged behind my horse.”
“I won’t falter,” she sniffed, “and if I do, I can assure you that I’ll insist on being dragged, thank you very much.”
Azriel laughed again. Then he shrugged, dug his heels into the flanks of his horse and was off.
For all his smiles and laughter, Azriel set a brutally punishing pace. Up one hill and down another, through woods and streams, west then east then west again, on and on and on he rode, until Persephone had to bite her lip to keep from clutching at his leg and begging him to stop. She was proud and fiercely determined but also weak with hunger and abuse. Several times, she fell back, breathing hard, but a single questioning look from those very blue eyes was all it took to make her dig in and keep going.
Long after the golden sun had set and the silver moon had risen to its rightful place in the night sky, they arrived at a shallow creek. Without stopping or even looking back, Azriel led his horse into the middle of it, then turned and began quietly splashing upstream. Persephone followed mindlessly, not hearing Cur barking from shore, not seeing Ivan gliding overhead, her entire world reduced to keeping the glossy hindquarters of Azriel’s horse in her sights and putting one torn foot in front of the other, come what may.
After a moment or an eternity, the hindquarters turned and climbed up out of the creek. Persephone followed, stumbling against them when they stopped suddenly.
Swaying back and forth, she felt her knees slowly give way.
And then Azriel’s strong arms were around her, lifting her off her feet.
She wanted to push him away, but she was too exhausted to do more than whimper—even when she felt him carry her into deeper shadows, lay her down on a bed of moss and brush her wild, dark hair from her face with his fingers. The nearness of him, so close in the darkness, was making her dizzy, and she had a fleeting sense that she really ought to warn him that she’d make a corpse out of him if he tried to force himself upon her. Even as she parted her lips to do so, however, she tumbled over the edge of consciousness and was lost in sleep.
SIX
PERSEPHONE AWOKE EARLY the next morning. Out of habit, she did not stretch or yawn or do anything else to give herself away. Instead, she recalled the events of the previous day—everything from the shock of seeing the chicken thief again to the clink of money changing hands to the feel of the thief—“Azriel”—cupping her bare calf in his hand. And later, sweeping her exhausted body into his arms; kneeling by her in the darkness—so close, but not touching her.
Not even trying.
In spite of herself, Persephone gave a soft sigh.
“You’re awake at last,” declared a voice at her feet.
With a gasp, Persephone’s eyes snapped open. Instinctively reaching for her missing dagger, she made a valiant attempt to roll into a kneeling position but fell back almost at once as her stiff, aching muscles gave way beneath her.
Azriel—who’d been squatting with his elbows resting on his knees—watched with interest her undignified collapse and listened to the accompanying groans.
“Has anyone ever told you that you have all the grace and poise of a natural dancer?” he finally asked.
“As a matter of fact—yes,” grunted Persephone as she laboriously pushed herself into a sitting position. “I’ll have you know that I was once invited to the imperial castle to dance for King Finnius himself.”
“Really!” exclaimed Azriel, feigning amazement. “How did it go?”
“Exceedingly well,” she replied smoothly. “In fact, if my chicken-feeding talents hadn’t been urgently required elsewhere, I expect I would be dancing there yet.”
Azriel threw back his head and laughed. When he was done, he leaned forward, tweaked her bare toe and then laughed again when she scowled and snatched her foot away. “You’re a surprise in more ways than one, Persephone,” he murmured. Then he stood and held out his hand to her. “Now, come. Break your fast, for we must be on our way at once.”
Ignoring his proffered hand, Persephone got to her feet and rather unsteadily followed him across the small, sheltered clearing to the edge of the stream through which she’d slogged the night before. Wincing slightly as her dress peeled away from the weeping welts on her back, she knelt at the edge of the water, rolled up her sleeves and quickly washed her hands and face.
“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?”
The Gypsy King Page 6