Fool's Errand by Maureen Fergus Page A

you’re bathed and dressed,” sighed Meeka as she reluctantly set the tiny quail’s egg back in the bowl and took her hand off Azriel’s thigh.
    â€œYes,” said Persephone, trying not to sound pleased. “I suppose it does.”

    While Martha fetched the soaps and towels, Rachel picked out a gown, and the sisters hauled buckets of steaming bath water, Mateo left the chamber in the company of Azriel, who bid Persephone a polite goodbye without even trying to suggest that as her one-time Master of Bath he ought to be allowed to help sponge her down.
    An hour later, Persephone was freshly bathed and perfumed, her hair was washed, brushed, oiled and piled atop her head in complicated twists and swirls, and she was exquisitely dressed in a full-skirted gown of forestgreen velvet heavily embellished with gold brocade. She was halfway to the chamber door when she noticed lying on the floor the rusty key to the fetters she’d once worn—the key that Azriel had pressed into her hand the previous evening when he’d confessed that he’d ever been her slave, the one that had slipped from her fingers when he’d swept her up in a passionate embrace. Flushing at the memory—and at the unexpected pang of regret the memory provoked—Persephone hastily snatched up the key, slipped it into her pocket and continued toward the chamber door.
    Upon reaching it, she opened it, stepped outside and began hurriedly walking toward the royal chambers in the southern wing of the palace. She kept her head down in the hope of not being noticed, but it was no use. And as she swept past glittery-eyed noblemen, liveried servants and ragged slaves who all curtseyed and bowed and whispered and stared and stared and stared, she realized that she’d forever lost the protection that went along with being beneath notice.
    Henceforth, there will always be someone looking at me, considering me, wondering about me, plotting against me , she thought with a leap of anxiety as her fingers strayed to the dagger at her thigh, which Azriel had been clever enough to palm the night before when he’d been shoved to the floor by his captor. I will never be free to pursue my own destiny. I will ever be a slave to—
    A tiny, bright-eyed young noblewoman dressed in a gown of canary yellow hopped into the middle of the corridor so suddenly that Persephone—who still had her head down and who was practically running by this point—nearly tripped over her.
    â€œGood day to you, Princess!” chirped Lord Bartok’s daughter, Lady Aurelia, dropping into such a deep and respectful curtsey that it was hard to believe she’d recently tried to arrange to have Persephone thrown by a demented horse in the hope of seeing her neck broken.
    â€œGood day,” muttered Persephone, trying to step around her.
    Lady Aurelia fluttered to one side, blocking her way without appearing to have done so on purpose. “I can only imagine what a shock it must have been to discover your true identity, Your Highness,” she murmured in confidential tones. “It must be a great comfort to you to know that you already have at least one dear friend here at court.”
    Persephone—who knew of no such friend—looked puzzled.
    â€œMe, Your Highness!” cried Lady Aurelia with all the false sincerity of a courtier born and bred. “I know my brother, Atticus, behaved like a bit of a cad last night—”
    â€œJust before my horse kicked him in the head, your brother declared his intention to rape me, murder me and use my scalp to fashion a collar for his dog,” said Persephone.
    Those nearby gave scandalized gasps, but Lady Aurelia only laughed shrilly, as though her brother had meant to play the most marvellous prank. “Oh, men can be such beasts, can’t they?” she giggled, clapping her little hands in delight. “Well, never mind him. It is our friendship—yours and