Fool's Errand Read Free Page B

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?”
    â€œBecause 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?”
    â€œSo,” 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.”
    â€œPlus, 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.”
    â€œThat 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!”
    â€œA 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.
    â€œYes,” 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.
    â€œIf 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?”
    â€œHe didn’t defile me,” clarified Persephone without thinking.
    Neither man looked at her.
    â€œI 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?”
    â€œI 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.
    â€œFreedom 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