Free Fool's Errand by Maureen Fergus Page A

stone balustrade, how his small neck had felt as though it would snap under the weight of the golden crown upon his head and how he’d later been scolded by Mordecai for waving too enthusiastically and smiling too much.
    Persephone enjoyed Finn’s stories very much, and though her own stories were bleak by comparison, she shared them with an uncharacteristically willing heart. She described years of waking each morning before dawn to haul water for the master’s bath and to polish silver and beat rugs and chop vegetables and wash floors and hang laundry and scrub out fire-blackened pots that were nearly as big as she was. She recalled collapsing exhausted into the warm ashes by the dying fire late each night only to lie awake for hours wondering about the parents she’d never known. She told of the terrible evening she’d been wagered by the Master, who’d lost her to a tavern owner in a game of dice; she recounted how the tavern owner had been forced to drag her, kicking and screaming, away from her beloved Cookie and the only home she’d ever known. She told how the tavern owner had soon thereafter given her to the man who’d tried to stick his hand up her skirt and received a fork in the arm for his troubles, and how that man had turned around and sold her to an overseer at the Mines of Torodania. She spoke of arriving at the mine to find herself brutally shorn, clothed in rags and driven down into a section of the mine so restricted that it was guarded not only by soldiers but also by huge, slavering dogs trained to tear out human throats. She told of working to the point of collapse and of never having enough to eat, of being too terrified to sleep and of befriending a clever rat named Faust. In a tremulous voice, she told how Faust had been eaten by one of the feral children who inhabited the darkness, how her grief had spurred her escape from the mines and how she’d ended up on the owner’s farm, where she’d laboured until that fateful moonlit night she’d surprised Azriel in the act of stealing a chicken.
    Though plainly horrified by all that his lost twin had been forced to endure, Finn nevertheless abided by Persephone’s request that they not allow the mood of the day to be ruined by sadness for things that could not be changed. Calling for a pair of slippers with intact heels, he gallantly got down on bended knee, slipped them onto Persephone’s feet and then led her out to the beautiful royal garden. There, the two of them enjoyed a scrumptious picnic amid the blooms and the songbirds. Later, they made their way down to the harbour. Clambering down off the high, sturdy quay, they kicked off their shoes and spent a golden afternoon walking barefoot in the sand. They explored tidal pools, poked sticks at brilliantly coloured snapping crabs and stuck their heads into the treacherous sea caves that dotted the cliff behind them until the roar of the incoming tide sent them scrambling to the safety of higher ground.
    That evening, although a second night of feasting and entertainments had been planned in honour of the king’s birthday, Finn was so enjoying his time alone with Persephone that he refused to attend. Instead, he ordered food and drink brought up to his private chambers. His handsome face shining with eagerness, he suggested to Persephone that they sup while sitting cross-legged upon the bearskin rug before the fire as they might have done when they were children, if they’d but had the chance. Laughingly, she agreed.
    And when they’d finally eaten their fill, and the first twinkling stars had begun to appear in the night sky beyond the open windows, and Finn was intently studying the playing cards in his hand, trying to decide how many white beans to wager, Persephone could not help thinking what a very marvellous thing it was to have a brother, and what a very terrible thing it would be to lose him.
    Again.

EIGHT

    B Y DAWN THE