Almost before the words were out of his mouth, the door banged open and the Regent slouched into the room. He glowered evilly at the idiot guard who’d left him waiting in the king’s outer chamber as though he were some sort of commoner, then turned a charming smile upon the king himself.
“Majesty,” he murmured, bowing as low as his twisted back would permit.
With a flick of his hand, the king bade him rise and approach. “Good day, Your Grace,” he said.
“Good day, Your Majesty,” said Mordecai. “How goes the translation?”
“Wonderfully well, thank you for asking,” replied the king heartily. He paused to give the Latin text a look of deep fondness, then inquired as to the purpose of the Regent’s visit.
“Well, Majesty, there is a meeting of the Council this afternoon—”
“And I’m to attend at last?” interrupted King Finnius, gripping the arms of his chair and leaning forward in his eagerness.
“Majesty,” chided Mordecai, his head bobbing slightly. “We’ve discussed many times how unwise it would be for you to attend Council before you’re ready to fully assume your duties as king. The men on your Council are noblemen from ancient families, but they are also hard men who need to be ruled with an iron fist.”
“They would have to obey me,” insisted the young monarch, holding an index finger high in the air, “for I am their king. They have sworn fealty to me—loyalty unto death, upon pain of death.”
Across the table, the servant woman, Moira, placidly nodded her head. The Regent felt his blood rise that such a low creature would not only dare to sit in his presence but would also presume to offer any kind of opinion on a private exchange between a king and his Lord Regent. Not for the first time, he thought how he’d like to see that head of hers separated from her revoltingly sturdy peasant body by a drunken blind man wielding a blunt axe.
Forcibly pushing this most-satisfying image from his mind, Mordecai took a deep breath and turned his attention to the king.
“Of course they’ve sworn fealty to you,” he soothed. “But—as we’ve discussed many times, Majesty—a great king commands obedience and respect because of who he is as a man, not because of a few words uttered at the feet of a royal infant many years past. I fear—as I have always feared—that if you were to take your seat at the head of Council before such time as you were a man fully grown, the members of your Council would ever see you as the boy king, and you would ever rule in the shadow of your long-dead father, the great and powerful Malthusius who came before you.”
At the mention of his dead father, the young king loosened his grip on the arms of the chair and slowly sat back. “Well, it won’t be long now,” he consoled himself in a subdued voice. “My seventeenth birthday fast approaches and thereafter, the men on the Council will have no choice but to recognize me as a man fully grown—and I shall prove myself to be a ruler the likes of which this kingdom has never known!”
Moira nodded as solemnly as a sage. Blinking once to rid himself of the vision of blood spurting from her ragged, headless neck, Mordecai asked the king if he might have a word in private.
“Of course, Your Grace,” said the king. Turning to the servant, he said, “Leave us, Moira … please.”
Moira rose to her feet at once, curtseyed with surprising grace for a woman of her age and bulk, then backed out of the room with all due deference to His Majesty the King and not so much as a glance at the Regent Mordecai.
Mordecai watched her go, hating her every step of the way. When at last she spun around and bustled through the great doors at the entrance of the chamber, he turned to the king. “She is as dear to me as she is to you, Majesty,” he murmured, “but it is obvious to all that she doesn’t know her place, and I fear that the noblemen of your Council will have a hard time respecting you if you cannot even rule your own servants with a firm hand.”
King Finnius laughed aloud. “No one rules Moira,” he said with obvious affection.
Mordecai—who had hoped that his words would be enough to goad the young king into putting that troublesome and interfering creature in her place—felt his blood rise higher. “Her overly familiar behaviour is not the worst of it, Majesty,” he said, dropping his voice a notch. “I’m afraid there has been … talk.”
“Talk?” frowned the king.
“The court doesn’t understand why you spend so much time with her, why you treat her as … as a companion,” said Mordecai, who could hardly spit the word out. “They whisper, they wonder if.…”
“If what?” demanded the king. “What do they wonder?”
Mordecai bowed his head as though he could hardly bear the shame of what he was about to say. “Forgive me, Majesty,” he whispered, wringing his gnarled hands, “but they wonder if you and that servant woman are lovers.”
For a moment, the king was so silent that Mordecai, to his horror, thought there might actually be some truth to the ludicrous rumour he’d invented for the sole purpose of pushing the king to do his ill will.
Then the king was laughing so long and so loud that he drove himself into one of his coughing fits. When he finally recovered, he wiped the tears of mirth from his eyes and said, “Good lord, Your Grace, you do say the most amusing things sometimes.”
“There is nothing whatsoever amusing about these accusations, Majesty!” flared Mordecai, his entire withered body shaking with indignation.
The Regent seemed so terribly upset that out of kindness, King Finnius tried to appear terribly upset as well, but after only a few seconds of frowning and clucking he couldn’t help dissolving into helpless giggles once more. The enraged Regent said nothing, only stared at the handsome, laughing young monarch in a manner that would have seen any other man in the kingdom executed for treason.
But the young king never noticed his Regent’s murderous expression. Indeed, such was his faith that Mordecai was a true and loyal councillor that the deformed man probably would have had to snatch up the silver fruit knife and plunge it into the king’s throat for the king to notice that something was amiss. Sighing contentedly, the grinning monarch reached over, plucked a fresh pear from his fruit bowl, took a large bite and said, “Your Grace, I laugh only because the accusations are so preposterous that they can’t possibly do me any harm. You have my word of honour that there is nothing untoward going on between me and Moira.”
“And yet she looked very guilty when I first arrived,” said Mordecai darkly, even though this was not true at all.
King Finnius gave a long-suffering sigh. “Well, if you must know, she was playing cards with me.”
“Cards?” spat Mordecai, sounding as disgusted as he dared. “Majesty, commoners play cards. Kings play chess.”
“You’re right, of course,” agreed the king easily. “But Moira doesn’t know how to play chess.”
“Majesty, who cares what she knows how to play? She is a servant!” cried Mordecai in frustration. “You have an entire court full of young noblemen who would like nothing better than to spend time with you, to say nothing of the young noblewomen. Their sole purpose in life is to keep you entertained and happy! Surely you could find one among them with whom to play chess, rather than lowering yourself to playing cards with a servant.”
“Have a care how you speak about Moira, Your Grace, for I believe that, in truth, she is dearer to me than she is to you,” suggested the king, taking another bite of his pear. “As for the courtiers who live to please me, they are well enough, I suppose, though I do not like the way they laugh when I laugh and frown when I frown. I know the stronger, more vigorous young men hold back so that I may win in games and tournaments, and as for the young women—well, there’s not one among them who would not flop down on her back if I so much as snapped my fingers.”
“And … and this is a bad thing?” asked Mordecai raggedly—he who would have given almost anything to have a tender piece of noble flesh willingly lie down beneath him.
King Finnius waved the pear around. “It is
a tiresome thing,” he said. “I do not want everything handed to me— how am I ever to prove myself a great ruler if I never have to fight for any victory I achieve? Moreover, these young nobles and their families are always after something— more land, more money, more titles.”
“You are the only one who can grant such favours,” murmured Mordecai, even though everyone but the king knew that the Regent himself was the greatest giver of gifts in the realm.
“Nevertheless,” said the king, “it annoys me and leads me to feel as though I cannot count any among them as true friends. That is why I enjoy spending time with Moira. She will trounce me soundly when my poor card playing warrants it and never asks anything of me but that I listen to the advice of my doctors, be kind to others great and small, be just and wise in all my dealings and find what happiness I may in a life of duty to my kingdom.”
Mordecai was so disgusted by this little speech that he thought he might vomit up his guts, right then and there. Instead, he smiled like a snake, spread his hands wide and murmured, “Now that you’ve explained it to me in such eloquent terms, Your Majesty, I understand perfectly why you occasionally feel compelled to seek entertainment among those of inferior birth. Moreover, I feel much grieved that I failed to consider your need to spend time with true and trusted friends—so much so, in fact, that though I already toil tirelessly tending to Your Majesty’s business, I would gladly set aside some time each day so that you and I may play … cards.”
The king laughed—a careless sound that Mordecai had heard more and more of late, one that he was rapidly growing to despise.
“That is a very kind offer, Your Grace,” chuckled the king. “But I think there is no one in the realm who can play cards like Moira. Now, was there anything else?”
It took Mordecai a moment to recover from the staggering insult of having been so casually passed over in favour of an ill-educated, lowborn servant woman. “Yes, Majesty, there is something else,” he said, when he was finally able. “I wish you to approve a proposal to raze the slum that encroaches upon the north wall of the palace so that when the matter is discussed at Council this afternoon, I may advise the lords that it has royal assent.”
The king frowned. “Why do you want to raze the slum?”
Mordecai did not tell the true reason, which was that the slum was a smelly eyesore, that the choking smoke from its many cook fires obscured his view of the great city and, worst of all, that it was a constant reminder of his own low beginnings. Instead, he said, “I fear disease, Your Majesty. The slum is overcrowded and filthy, and of late the death carts have been more overloaded than usual at the end of their daily rounds. It is rumoured that this is due to an outbreak of the Great Sickness—an outbreak that has been wickedly covered up for fear of reprisals.”
The king sat up straighter. “The Great Sickness is come to the slums once more?” he said, his thickly lashed blue eyes filled with concern. “If that is so, we must act at once, Mordecai. We must dispatch physicians to treat the sick and spiritual men to give comfort to the dying; we must send in women with food and drink for those who are too ill to feed themselves!”
The Regent sighed. “Would that we could, Majesty, would that we could,” he said mournfully. “However, we cannot take the chance that while we are busy tending to the sick, the dread disease will somehow creep over the palace walls and find its way through halls and passageways to Your Majesty’s very own sleeping chamber. After all, you’ve not yet married and therefore have no legitimate child to name as heir to your throne. Until such time as you do, you cannot afford to take chances with your already delicate health, for—heaven forbid—if you were to fall sick and die without an heir to follow you, the great lords would surely tear the kingdom apart in their quest for power.”
The young king nodded reluctantly, for he knew this to be true. Even Moira said it was so.
“Of course,” continued the Regent, straightening his back and lifting his head high, though the pain of it made him want to scream aloud, “if you were to name another as your heir in the absence of a true begotten child, and if you were to compel the great lords to swear fealty to this man in the event that—heaven forbid—you were tragically and unexpectedly struck down, then perhaps we’d be able to show some mercy to the unfortunate residents of the lowborn slums instead of burning their homes and scattering them to the winds.” Redoubling his efforts to keep his perfect head high and his ruined body from trembling, Mordecai inhaled deeply so that his sunken chest expanded ever so slightly. “Perhaps if you named an heir, we wouldn’t need to be forever making such terrible sacrifices to guard Your Majesty’s person.”
“I know you speak the truth,” said the king, with a brooding toss of his dark curls. “But who would I name? To choose the son of one of the great families over the son of another would cause strife as surely as naming no heir at all.”
At these words, the Regent’s chest deflated, his back seemed to curve of its own volition and his head drooped and bobbed. “On this matter, I fear I can provide no counsel, Your Majesty,” he said, “except to say that I agree it would be unwise to name as heir the son of one of the great houses.”
“Truly, you are a councillor among councillors, Your Grace,” said the king solemnly but with a glint in his eye, “for even when you profess to have no counsel to provide, I somehow find myself receiving your most valued opinion anyway.”
Unsure whether or not the king was teasing him, Mordecai smiled tightly. “Yes, Sire,” he said through his teeth. “Now, if it pleases Your Majesty, do I have your approval to raze the lowborn slum to the north?”
For a long moment, the young king looked down upon the half-eaten pear in his hand, as though the answer lay in its sweet and perfect flesh. “For the sake of the kingdom, you have my approval to proceed,” he said at last, in a troubled voice. “But instruct the soldiers to show the people who dwell within what kindness they can, for low and filthy and sick though they may be, they are still my subjects, and it is my duty to care for them.”
“Of course it is, Majesty,” said Mordecai smoothly, bowing as low as he could. “Do not trouble yourself further with this matter. Rest assured that I will see to it that these, the least of your subjects, receive all the consideration they deserve.”
EIGHT
SEVERAL HOURS AFTER Persephone watched Azriel, Cur and Fleet dash off in search of her, she watched them slip and slide back into sight.
Even from her cold, wet perch high in the tree, she could tell that Cur and Fleet were deeply distressed by her disappearance, but she steeled herself against the temptation to think that abandoning them was a mistake. How could it be a mistake when it was the only way she could ever be free? Besides, even as she watched, Azriel tentatively reached out and gave Cur a comforting pat on the head, and he only shouted a little bit when Cur rewarded his kindness by trying to bite off his fingers.
Feeling somewhat cheered by this evidence that the handsome chicken thief would keep his promise to take care of her friends, a shivering Persephone smiled as she watched Azriel stamp his foot in apparent frustration, kick the tree root over which he’d earlier tripped and start hopping about cursing and clutching his toe. When he was done having his little tantrum, he threw up his hands and resignedly trudged onward into the forest. After a moment’s hesitation, Cur and Fleet trotted after him.
Persephone followed their departure with her eyes and ears, and when she could no longer see or hear them, she blew on her fingers to warm the stiffness out of them, carefully climbed down out of the tree and began to run in the opposite direction.
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.
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