Fool's Errand Read online

  “Azriel,” she breathed, giving her head the tiniest of shakes.

  “But he is a cripple, Princess,” insisted Azriel with a deliberately provocative roll of his own powerful shoulders. “Even if he had other than base blood running through his veins—which he does not—how could he ever be king? Look at him—he can hardly hold up his own head!”

  At this, the gore-splattered Regent lifted both his head and Persephone’s bloody knife as high as he was able. Slowly, he began lurching toward the kneeling Gypsy and the smash-nosed soldier who yet held him by the hair. Inwardly cursing Azriel for a reckless fool, Persephone hissed his name again but he took no notice.

  Instead, careless of the scalping knife that was now pressed against his throat, he absently ran his hand from the broad ridge of his chest to the hard flatness of his stomach—and kept talking.

  “His Grace hasn’t the strength and vitality to set him above other men,” he explained as he gazed placidly up into the livid face of the madman who was advancing upon him. “He could never wield a sword in defence of the kingdom or ride a great hunter or even dance at his own banquet. And he most certainly could never get an heir upon a suitable wife, for there is not a noblewoman in the realm who would willingly lie with him looking the way he does now. It matters not that his face is handsome and that he is powerful and rich. When even the lowest lowborn slattern in the kingdom looks at him, I promise you that all she can see are his narrow, crooked back, his skinny, twisted legs, his limp, useless—”

  “Silence!” screamed the Regent. Savagely wiping spittle off his chin with the back of his shaking hand, he panted audibly and stared down at Azriel as though trying to decide what piece of him to slice off first.

  Seeming bizarrely gratified by Mordecai’s reaction—and looking so fearless that Persephone decided he was not reckless but utterly insane—Azriel leaned forward and whispered, “Let us go and I can change all that, Your Grace. Let us go and I can change everything.”

  With an animal noise somewhere between a howl and a snarl, Mordecai slashed with the dagger.

  Azriel jerked his head to the side so quickly that the point of the dagger missed him entirely and instead sliced open the cheek of the soldier who held him. As it did so, Persephone lunged against the hold of her own captor. When he did not let go, she flung her head back as hard as she could and was savagely gratified to hear the sound of his nose breaking.

  Unfortunately, Azriel did not use the moment of distraction to try to escape. Even more unfortunately, he resumed speaking.

  “Your Grace, I can see to it that you are made well and whole,” he murmured in a voice so seductive that Persephone found herself responding to it in spite of the rather distracting moans of pain issuing from the freshly injured soldiers. “Imagine—your back strengthened, your legs straightened, your chest broadened. Feel the raw power of your fists and the fleetness of your feet. See yourself leading the hunt astride the fiercest beast in the royal stables, bringing down a ten-point stag at full gallop with one arrow shot from your mighty bow. Envision yourself striding briskly through the halls of the imperial palace with your head held high with ease, setting every noblewoman in sight panting with desire, ready to claw out her sister’s eyes that she might lie with you next—not for gifts or wealth or position but for the sensual pleasure of knowing you as the man you were ever meant to be. Imagine it all, Your Grace, and know that I—and I alone!—can make it happen.”

  For a long moment after Azriel stopped speaking, Mordecai smiled down at the handsome Gypsy but did not seem to see him, so lost was he in the breathtaking vision of what could be.

  Then his smile faded, and his dark eyes refocused and hardened.

  “Do not play with me, cockroach,” he snarled, “for I know your Gypsy tricks will not cure injuries as old and as great as mine. Not even your blood will cure them—not even the blood of the very youngest of your tribesmen will cure them!”

  Persephone saw Azriel flinch at the Regent’s offhand reference to the monstrous crimes he’d committed upon Gypsy infants, but his voice was steady when he said, “I do not speak of tricks or blood, Your Grace. I speak of the healing Pool of Genezing.”

  Pressing her lips together to keep from groaning aloud at the folly of attempting to tantalize the Regent with that old Gypsy myth, Persephone waited for the crippled man to scoff or stab or scream. To her surprise, however, he froze as though with shock.

  Then, in a careful voice, he said, “Since the day Balthazar stumbled into his own funeral babbling about having found the healing pool, General Murdock has searched endlessly and never found a trace of it. Moreover, I personally interviewed all of the tribal savages in whom Balthazar might have confided, and I did so using the most persuasive interview techniques at my disposal. Indeed, I interviewed many of them to death! I even interviewed Balthazar himself to death—him, who could have stopped the slaughter of his people simply by naming its location. Tell me, cockroach, if the pool really existed and Balthazar had found it, why would he not have told me what I sought to know?”

  “Because he was not a fool,” replied Azriel. “Do you imagine that he believed for one instant that you would stop the killing? You, who goaded the old king into murdering my people in the first place? How would telling you the location of the healing pool have changed the old king’s fear that my people intended to use its powers to become richer and more powerful than he?”

  “So,” murmured Mordecai in a wondering voice, “Balthazar denied me the location of the pool because he did not see any advantage to be gained by doing so.”

  “Plus, I do not believe he liked you overly much,” admitted Azriel.

  Mordecai narrowed his eyes. “You, on the other hand, must like me uncommonly well, cockroach,” he said menacingly, “for you are the first Gypsy who has ever offered to reveal to me the location of the pool.”

  “That is because besides Balthazar himself, I am the first Gypsy who could make such an offer,” said Azriel. “For you see, Your Grace, Balthazar was my father.”

  Persephone—who’d been told that Azriel had no memory of his life before having been abandoned to the Gypsies as a child—felt a stab of betrayal at the thought that it had all been a lie.

  Mordecai appeared genuinely shocked. “But … but that is impossible,” he spluttered. “Balthazar never took a wife!”

  “A man needn’t take a woman as wife to get a child upon her,” observed Azriel mildly.

  Mordecai said nothing to this, but his dark eyes roved over Azriel as though seeking—and apparently finding—confirmation of his remarkable paternity. “You’re a bastard, then,” he concluded softly.

  “Yes,” said Azriel without shame, “and I was but a little bastard when my father returned with news of his great discovery. A little bastard beneath the notice of one as great as yourself, Your Grace—but one with ears to hear my father’s whispered words and a memory to hold them safe all these years.”

  With a shuddering gasp, Mordecai let Persephone’s dagger slip from his fingers and reached his gnarled hands toward Azriel as though he meant to squeeze the words and memories right out of him. Halfway to Azriel’s throat, however, he drew his hands back to his chest and gave his heavy head such a violent shake that he winced in pain.

  “If you speak the truth, your father’s whispered words were his legacy,” he said harshly. “Why would you betray him now? For love of your own worthless hide? For the love of the little cockroach you stole from my dungeon? For love of the princess you defiled?”

  “He didn’t defile me,” clarified Persephone without thinking.

  Neither man looked at her.

  “I would do so for all of the reasons you mentioned,” said Azriel, “and also for a sizable bag of gold.”

  Persephone’s insides curled at this, but Mordecai nodded as if a demand for gold was at last something he could understand. Then he cocked his head to one side and said, “You do not seek a promise that the persecution of your people will
end?”

  “I do not see the point of seeking empty promises,” said Azriel, looking away.

  Mordecai laughed loudly. The younger of the two guards—the one holding Persephone—immediately joined in but stopped in a hurry at the look Mordecai gave him.

  “Freedom for a chosen few and a bag of gold it is, then,” nodded Mordecai, his dark eyes glittering in anticipation.

  Before Azriel could nod back, sealing the bargain, Persephone suddenly realized what was missing. “Wait!” she blurted, stepping forward so forcefully and so unexpectedly that she nearly broke free of the young soldier. “There is one more thing! As a further condition of Azriel revealing the location of the healing pool, you must abandon your aspirations for the throne and your plans to murder the king. You must leave my. my brother to rule the kingdom. You must content yourself with becoming well and whole and desired above all others!”

  At the mention of being so desired, Mordecai lowered his unblinking eyes to Persephone’s bosom. Then his gaze slid sideways, and for a long moment he stared into the dying fire as though carefully considering this new condition that had been set for him.

  “Very well,” he announced at length. Shuffling over to where Azriel yet knelt with his hair in the grip of the older soldier, he breathed, “Tell me, Gypsy: where is the healing Pool of Genezing?”

  “I don’t know,” said Azriel.

  Persephone and the wounded soldiers inhaled sharply; Mordecai’s beautiful dark eyes bulged in outrage.

  “I do not know yet,” amended Azriel calmly, before the Regent could hack him to pieces. “My father’s whispered words were not of the location of the pool but rather of the clues that would lead to it. Release the princess, the boy and me, and we will follow the clues and find the pool.”

  “Never!” snapped Mordecai. “Give me the clues, and I will find the pool myself!”

  “No.”

  “GIVE ME THE CLUES, YOU SLY COCKROACH, OR YOU AND THE PRINCESS ARE DEAD!” screamed Mordecai.

  “Kill us and you will be a cripple to the end of your miserable days,” said Azriel bluntly.

  Mordecai’s eyes bulged again. He opened his mouth as though he meant to scream in protest, then snapped it shut again at once. “Fine!” he snarled through gritted teeth. “I will release you, the princess and the boy to find the pool—”

  “And you will not harm the king,” interjected Persephone.

  Mordecai rounded on her. “Oh, I wouldn’t dream of it, Princess,” he sneered. Slowly, he dragged his cold fingers across the exposed swell of her warm bosom. “For you see, I could not imagine a better way to guarantee that you and the cockroach will deliver that which has been promised than for you to know that your dear, dear brother is in my power, and for you to know that if you attempt to make trouble for me before taking your leave of the imperial capital—or if you fail to return with proof that you have found the Pool of Genezing—he will die in mortal agony.”

  THREE

  THE BARGAIN STRUCK and the consequences of failure made abundantly clear, Mordecai nevertheless ordered the soldiers not to release Persephone and Azriel.

  At least, not yet.

  “I shall fetch General Murdock,” he informed them as he turned, lifted the hem of his robe and began fastidiously picking his way around the gore and bodies strewn about the small chamber. “Upon his arrival, you will release the princess and the cockroach into his custody, assist him in cleaning up this mess and receive your reward for a job well done.”

  “Thank you, Your Grace!” cried the younger soldier, grinning eagerly in spite of his badly mangled nose.

  “Wait!” Persephone called after the departing Regent. “I wish to speak with my brother, the king!”

  “You may speak with him tomorrow,” said Mordecai without stopping or looking back at her.

  “I would speak with him now!”

  Mordecai did not offer further reply to the woman he’d once known as Lady Bothwell. Indeed, he’d barely trusted himself to speak to her at all. His gnarled hand yet tingled from the feel of her firm young breasts beneath his fingers, his loins yet stirred at the memory of her on the floor at his feet—struggling futilely, begging him not to kill the cockroach, promising him that she’d do anything. Mordecai bit back a groan at the thought. He knew he should hate the princess for the deceitful whore that she was, and yet he found himself lusting after her all the more. The king was no longer a rival for her romantic affections, and though she was clearly willing to go to some lengths to prevent the death of the cockroach, she’d made a point of insisting that they were not lovers. It made no sense unless … unless the unusual appetites that Mordecai had detected in her from the start had been genuine. His cold heart beat a little faster at the possibility. Although she was unquestionably a princess of the blood, the fact that she’d murdered one of his soldiers and broken the nose of another suggested that she’d been raised in the gutter. Who could say all that she’d seen and done down there? Who knew the depths to which she’d sunk in her fight for survival—and how the act of sinking had twisted her soul? Perhaps she’d wanted him to call her bluff—perhaps she’d hoped that he would force her to degrade herself in exchange for the life of the cockroach. It was a heady thought, and as Mordecai slouched down the otherwise deserted flagstone passageway toward the approaching figure of his repulsive henchman, he could not help imagining the many, many ways in which he would have enjoyed accommodating her in that regard.

  Breathing heavily at the thought, the Regent halted several paces away from General Murdock, who silently stepped out of the concealing shadows to stand before him.

  “I came as soon as I heard, Your Grace,” he said in his impassive way.

  “Well, it wasn’t soon enough,” snapped Mordecai, gesturing to the sticky splatter on his hands, face and robe. “As you can see, I was forced to take matters into my own hands.”

  Above his small mouth and weak chin, General Murdock’s long, thin nose twitched as though he could smell the splatter—and was much drawn to it. “I am certain that Your Grace acquitted himself most admirably,” he murmured. Tugging a brilliantly white silk handkerchief from the sleeve of his impeccably tailored black doublet, he offered it to his master.

  Somewhat mollified, Mordecai accepted the proffered handkerchief, spat upon it and began matter-of-factly wiping the gore from his face and neck. “I did acquit myself most admirably, Murdock,” he acknowledged with relish. “She thought she could best me but she could not.”

  General Murdock smiled thinly, showing long, yellow teeth. “So the one who called herself Lady Bothwell is dead?” he asked.

  “The one who called herself Lady Bothwell is the king’s sister, elder by but a few minutes,” said Mordecai, flinging the soiled handkerchief back at the general, “and no, she is not dead.”

  Appearing unfazed by the news that the king was not really the king because he had a living twin with a greater claim to the throne, General Murdock tucked the handkerchief back into his sleeve, nodded his small head and waited patiently for his master to continue.

  “The night she was born, I ordered her removed from the palace and killed,” explained Mordecai, who scowled before adding, “Obviously, my orders were only partially carried out.”

  Murdock—a military man through and through—frowned at the thought of such dereliction of duty but did not bother to ask if the one who’d failed Mordecai yet lived. He knew his master well enough to know that whoever had been told to dispose of the infant princess had been killed the instant he’d reported his task complete. Instead, Murdock said, “And now the princess has returned to claim her birthright?”

  “Hardly!” snorted Mordecai, smoothing back his thick, glossy hair. “Before this night, I do not believe she had any idea who she really was. And now that she knows, she does not appear to seek the crown.”

  “Even so, I assume you want her killed?”

  “Of course,” said Mordecai, who paused before adding, “eventually.”

/>   Murdock looked at him but said nothing.

  Mordecai swallowed hard, trying to contain the sudden surge of excitement he felt at the prospect of being well, whole and desired. “As we already knew, the one who claimed to be her eunuch slave is actually a Gypsy,” he blurted. “But what we didn’t know is that he’s not just any Gypsy, Murdock. He’s Balthazar’s bastard! And he says that before his father died, he gave him clues that, if followed, would lead to the healing Pool of Genezing!”

  For a long moment, General Murdock stared at his master with an expression that might have been sympathy if he’d been capable of such an emotion. Then he licked his thin lips and carefully said, “Your Grace knows that the Gypsy was lying, of course.”

  Though Mordecai had not really expected Murdock to greet his words with enthusiasm, he nevertheless despised him for his lack of it.

  “I know that the cockroach was probably lying,” muttered Mordecai, reaching up to massage his aching neck. “In fact, I would say that he was almost certainly lying. Regardless, I could not take the chance that he was not, and so I struck a deal with him—and with the princess, who goes by the name of Persephone. I will release them unharmed with a bag of gold and a promise to keep safe the king, and in return they will find the healing pool and advise me of its location.”

  “I … see,” said General Murdock, his protuberant black eyes darting from side to side.

  “No, I don’t think you do,” snapped Mordecai, thinking for the thousandth time what a repellent creature the general was. “I am not such a fool that I would trust the word of a Gypsy and his … his whore, princess though she might be. Tomorrow when they leave the imperial capital, you will take a small contingent of men and follow them in secret. If they find the pool, you will kill them. If they do not appear to be looking for the pool, you will kill them. If they lead you to a Gypsy nest, you will wait until the matter of the pool is settled one way or another and then you will go back and kill every man, woman and child that inhabits the nest. Meantime, I will keep safe the king—but only so that I may bend him to my will and thus further my own ambitions. Now, give me your cloak,” ordered Mordecai, who was suddenly impatient to be away. “I must go to the king at once, and I do not wish to suffer his tiresome curiosity—or, indeed, any court gossip—as to how my beautiful robe came to be ruined.”