Tomorrow's Kingdom by Maureen Fergus Page A

over. Then, grunting with exertion, he knelt heavily upon her bleeding temple and pressed the crochet needle against her fluttering eyelid.
    â€œAnd even if the queen has defiled herself with the cockroach,” he hissed, his guts twisting with the hateful knowledge that she almost certainly had, “it matters not because she will soon be mine, and he will be DEAD !”
    The cow started to struggle. “What do you—?”
    Her words were cut short by a hideous, high-pitched scream from a nearby corridor.
    â€œDo not be alarmed—it is only the sound of General Murdock delivering instruction to a certain red-headed imbecile on the subject of what happens to servants who fail to take proper care of the belongings of their betters,” soothed Mordecai as he ground his knee harder into the side of her head. “Between you and me, I confess that I once doubted Murdock’s loyalty and had thoughts toward destroying him, but that is all behind me now—for the moment, at least. Now, what were you asking?”
    â€œI was asking … I was asking what you meant when you said that the queen will soon be yours,” stammered the cow, panting with pain.
    â€œI meant that within the hour I shall board a ship that will take me to her,” explained Mordecai. “On the very day of our joyful reunion, she shall take me as her wedded husband in a union so ironclad that even the great Lord Bartok will not be able to tear it asunder.”
    â€œAnd … and if she will not take you?”
    â€œAs you, yourself, have come to learn, obedience can come easily or with great difficulty,” murmured Mordecai, applying so much pressure to the crochet needle that he could feel the eyeball beneath getting ready to pop. “The queen will take me—one way or another. And then she will take me—and she will do so with vigour and enthusiasm, or I will know the reason why.”
    â€œI pray the gods help her,” whispered the cow as a single tear squeezed out from under her eyelid.
    Mordecai laughed loudly. Then he leaned very close and said, “Save your prayers for yourself.”

    Later that same night, while the rest of the palace’s inhabitants slumbered, Murdock rowed Mordecai out to a nondescript vessel that had quietly sailed into the royal harbour less than an hour earlier.
    As the rowboat came alongside the hull, Mordecai stood, grabbed the rope ladder the soldiers had let down and awkwardly began to climb. By the time he reached the top (having almost slipped twice), he was trembling so hard that one of the soldiers had to drag him over the deck rail by the back of his robe. Tight-lipped with rage and humiliation, Mordecai said not a word but lurched after the captain to the cabin that had been prepared in anticipation of his arrival. It was stuffy and small and not nearly as sumptuously appointed as the living quarters to which Mordecai had become accustomed.
    â€œWill there be anything else, Your Gr—”
    Mordecai closed the cabin door in the captain’s face. Exhaling heavily, he let his head droop and gave his aching neck a useless massage. Then he shuffled over to the tiny window. As he pulled open the shutters, he heard the captain quietly calling out the orders that would see the ship on its way.
    Mordecai felt the cool breeze upon his hot face; he watched the starlight play upon the rippling water of the open sea.
    Absently lifting his hand to the locket about his neck, he decided he would not think about how he’d just been dragged over the deck rail like a useless cripple. Nor would he think about the nursemaid’s haunting assertion that if Queen Persephone had truly discovered the healing pool, the king would yet be alive.
    Instead, he’d think about the woman he’d shortly take as his bride. He’d recall how she’d made him feel in those first heady days after he’d found her hiding in the alley pretending to be the