The Gypsy King (2 page)

SNAP.

There—at the far end of the barn.

A sound that didn't belong!

Quick as a cat, Persephone tossed aside her thin blanket and rolled off the pile of old straw that served as her bedding. Too late, she remembered the heavy chain that hung between the cuffs of her leg irons. As it clinked and clattered to the hard-packed dirt floor, she gritted her teeth against the urge to curse aloud. What a fool the owner was to have clapped her in irons! True, she'd run away again after promising not to do so, and true, the ill-humoured old sow had used the opportunity to escape her pen and wreak havoc in the bean field again, but how could Persephone
possibly
be expected to protect the livestock if she could neither sneak up on thieves nor give chase to them?

She listened now for the sound of this particular thief fleeing in a panic. When she heard nothing, she unsheathed her dagger and listened harder—this time for the sound of the thief trying to sneak up on her that he might slit her throat or force himself upon her or both. When she
still
heard nothing, she lifted the chain at her feet to prevent it from dragging, tiptoed toward the opening of the stall and cautiously peered around the rotting wooden half-wall.

So confident was Persephone that the thief would be cowering behind a goat somewhere that she nearly bumped noses with him before realizing that he was, in fact, crouching motionless before her in the moonlit darkness, looking almost as startled as she felt. Actually, he did not look startled as much as he looked utterly astounded. With a gasp, Persephone dropped the chain in her hand, jerked her head inside the stall and pressed
her back against the half-wall. On the other side of the divide, she heard an abrupt clanking sound—as though the thief had dropped something heavy—and then an anxious squawk. Persephone scowled as alarm gave way to indignation. So! He thought he'd help himself to one of the chickens, did he?

Not if he wanted to live to see another sunrise, he wouldn't.

“Put down that chicken!” she ordered, her voice ringing with authority.

“No,” said the thief.

“Yes!”

“No.”

He sounded young, but annoyingly self-assured, and not at all frightened even though he had to know that one shout from her would bring the owner running, useless though he was.

“Who
are
you?” asked the thief wonderingly. “Where did you come from? What is your name?”

Persephone's heart nearly stopped when she realized that these words had issued from high above her head. Flinging herself forward into the shadows, she rolled to her feet with surprising speed and grace for one so heavily fettered.

Without taking his eyes off her, the thief—who'd been comfortably balancing upon the narrow half-wall—leapt lightly to the floor of the stall. The chicken tucked under his arm squawked once and then fell silent.

Persephone dropped into a fighting stance. She'd been right—the thief was young, probably not much older than
she, though certainly of an age to do the work of a man. Strong enough to do the work of a man, too, judging by the long, lean look of him. A white silk shirt open halfway to his waist revealed a smooth ridge of pectorals and a hard, flat belly; tight black breeches accentuated powerful legs. High boots and a dark headscarf knotted over long, unkempt curls completed the look, which was that of a pirate clutching a chicken.

The thought brought a faint smile to Persephone's lips, but it died the next second when her gaze drifted to the thief's face and she realized with a start that he was staring at her even more intently than she'd been staring at him. Worse, there was a strange, rapt look in his eyes—a look that made her instantly, uncomfortably aware of the fact that beneath her thin nightshift, she was wearing nothing at all.

Wordlessly, the thief took a step toward her.

Heart thudding madly, Persephone stepped farther back into the shadows. “I have a knife,” she warned.

“So do I,” said the thief. “Now, tell me who you are.”

Shaking her head, Persephone tried to take another step backward, but stumbled over the chain of her leg irons. When the thief reached out to steady her, she jerked her arm away with such vehemence that she accidentally struck herself in the face.

The thief didn't smile, but Persephone could tell that he
wanted
to smile, so she slashed the air with her dagger and snapped, “I'm not afraid to use this, you know!”

“And I'm not afraid to use
this
,” he replied genially as he reached over his broad shoulder to pull a much larger
dagger from the scabbard that was evidently strapped to his back. “In fact,” he added, in an almost nostalgic voice, “I've seven corpses to this blade.”

“Really?” sniffed Persephone, feigning indifference. “I've ten to this one.”

The thief grinned at the lie. “Excellent!” he said. “We'll be well matched then. Come, step out of the shadows. Let us fight to the death. If I win, I get myself a fine, fat chicken dinner and if you win—”

“You will leave Mrs. Busby alone and depart at once!” said Persephone fiercely.

There was a long moment of silence. Then, in a rather mystified voice, the thief asked, “Who is Mrs. Busby?”

Without thinking, Persephone gestured toward the chicken in his arms.

“I … see,” said the thief. He looked to one side and then to the other before tilting his head toward her and solemnly inquiring, “Tell me, Mistress, do you name all creatures or just the ones that taste good with gravy and potatoes?”

Persephone's cheeks burned with embarrassment as the thief began to chuckle. “Stop laughing,” she muttered. “It's not funny.”

But the thief wouldn't stop laughing, and the longer he laughed, the more irritated Persephone became. Finally, heedless of the danger and not knowing how else to get him to shut up, she lunged at him with her dagger. She was quick, but he was quicker. Dropping his own knife and flinging the startled Mrs. Busby to one side, the thief deftly sidestepped Persephone's attack and grabbed the
wrist of her knife hand. Yanking her forward, he spun her around, caught her around the midsection with his free arm and dragged her back until she was pressed against him.

“Never attack in anger,” he whispered, his lips so close to her ear that she could feel his breath on her skin. “And never start a fight you can't win.”

“Let … go … of … me,” she panted, as she twisted and struggled in his arms.

“That's quite a temper you've got there,” the thief continued, in a voice that was almost a purr. “Is that why you're in irons? Because I must say, I never expected—”

Persephone cut him off with a heel stomp to the foot.

“Ow!” cried the thief. Angrily, he spun her back around so that she was facing him. With one hand, he forced her knife hand behind her back; with the other, he held her so close that she could hardly breathe.

Persephone glared up at him in defiance. Then, as though in a swoon, she let her head fall back and her body go limp. The instant the thief loosened his grip on her in order to accommodate the sudden shift in her weight, she drove her knee upward into his groin with all her might.

He didn't let go of her knife hand, but his eyes did bulge alarmingly. Slowly sinking to the ground, he clutched his mangled vitals with his free hand and wheezed, “I cannot believe … that you … of all people … did that … to me! It would bloody well … serve you right … if I … if I.…”

Persephone watched with some apprehension as the furious thief cast about for something truly terrible to do to her.

“If I up and gave you a good, sound spanking!” he finally exploded.

For a moment, Persephone just gaped at him.

“A spanking?” she finally spluttered. “A
spanking
?” She started to laugh. “That is the most absurd thing I've ever heard in my life. A
spanking
? You wouldn't dare!”

“Oh, wouldn't I?” cried the thief, who suddenly looked more like an outraged boy than a powerful stranger.

Persephone continued to laugh as he staggered to his feet.

“Stop laughing!” he ordered, giving her knife hand a little shake. “I warn you—I'll do it, I'll spank you! I don't care who you are, I'll—”

Before he could finish his sentence, from the threshold of the stall there came a wet snarl.

It was Cur, back from the hunt. The fur on the back of his thick neck bristled menacingly, his jaws were dark with fresh blood, and his fearsome canines glinted in the thin shaft of moonlight. A dead hare lay at his feet.

“My dog,” said Persephone, by way of introduction.

“Oh,” murmured the thief. And then, almost casually, he added, “I … I don't much like dogs.”

Cur snarled again and snapped his teeth.

With comical swiftness, the thief moved to put Persephone between him and the beast. “He, uh, looks vicious.”

“He
is
vicious,” said Persephone with relish. “Moreover, he is
extremely
protective of me.”

“Humph,” said the thief.

“If I order him to attack, he'll rip out your throat,” she
confided as she wrenched her knife hand from the thief's grasp. “He's killed dozens of men at my behest.”

“Ten with the blade, dozens with the dog,” muttered the thief. “You're a likely wench, aren't you?”

Persephone smiled humourlessly. Then she lifted two fingers to Cur, who immediately stopped snarling, trotted to her side and lay down at her feet.

“Well,” said the thief, with a darting glance at the dog, who silently bared his teeth. “It seems you've bested me.”

“It seems I have,” said Persephone.

The thief eyed her speculatively. “I don't often get bested,” he said.

Persephone shrugged to hide her almost-intoxicating sense of triumph. She'd spent her entire life being bested; it was a powerful feeling to be on the other side for a change.

The thief frowned now and muttered something under his breath about having made a poor start of things. Then he cleared his throat and said, “I don't suppose I could convince you to come away with me?”

Persephone stared at him. “Come away with you?” she said incredulously. “Are you
mad
? Why on earth would you think that I would
ever
agree to come away with you?”

“Because,” he replied, “I think it is possible … that is, I'm coming to believe.…”

“Yes, yes?” said Persephone. “What are you coming to believe?”

“That I have been looking for you for as long as I can remember.”

TWO

P
ERSEPHONE WAS SO STARTLED by the thief's reply— and by the absolute sincerity with which he delivered it—that for an endless, breathless moment she stood transfixed, unable to tear her gaze away from his. In fact, it wasn't until she felt his fingers brush against hers that she returned to her senses.

“No,” she said abruptly, jerking her hand away. “No, of course I won't come away with you.”

The thief looked disappointed but not surprised. “Very well,” he said resignedly, “I guess I ought to bid you good night, then.”

“I guess you ought,” agreed Persephone.

“May I retrieve my knife?” he asked.

“No.”

“May I have the chicken?”

Persephone rolled her eyes. “
No
.”

“Please?” he asked. “I haven't eaten in three days.”

Something about the way he said it made Persephone believe that he was telling the truth. It was perhaps this—
combined with the fact that she knew what it was to go hungry and knew that she had the power to make him go hungry yet—that prompted her to pick up the hapless, squawking Mrs. Busby (who was, after all, a farm chicken destined for the dinner platter) and hand her over.

The slow, considered smile the thief gave Persephone made her stomach do a funny kind of flip-flop and left her with the distinct—and intensely annoying—impression that she'd just passed some kind of test.

“Thank you,” murmured the thief. He sighed deeply. “The problem now, of course, is that I'm going to have an awfully hard time carving up this chicken unless you allow me to retrieve my—”

Persephone threw her dagger without warning. It flew so close to the thief's head that it nicked his cheek before slamming into the wall behind him.

“Bloody hell!” he yelped. “You could have killed me!”

“If I'd wanted to kill you, you'd be dead,” said Persephone flatly. “Now take Mrs. Busby and get out of here before I change my mind.”