The Gypsy King Read Online Free Page A

disgust, her leg irons clanking in sympathy. Pig , she thought savagely, as she tugged the laces of her shift tight. She knew the owner wanted her—he’d wanted her ever since he’d first set eyes on her when she was nothing more than a desperate little starveling. However, he knew—as he’d always known—that if he ever laid so much as a finger on her, he’d have to kill her or he was a dead man. Whether she slit his throat while he slept, burned his thatch-roofed cottage to the ground with him in it, buried a carving knife in his turned back or poisoned his dinner, one thing was certain: if he touched her she would be ruined—though not broken—and he’d be a walking corpse.
    The grim smile this brought to her lips was wiped off when the owner grabbed her by the arm, jerked her around and pushed his fat face into hers.
    â€œIt occurs to me that none of the other gentleman farmers lose half so many chickens as I,” he breathed, his small, mean eyes glittering with unfulfilled desire.
    Persephone’s only reply was to slowly turn her head to avoid his foul breath.
    The owner gave her a shake that made her teeth rattle. “If I ever discover that you are one of those traitorous slaves that sympathizes with the lowborn scum who skulk around the countryside, stealing and rioting and refusing to adapt to changing times—”
    â€œChanging times have brought them low,” said Persephone, as though in agreement.
    The owner’s face turned very red. “Not as low as a stinking Erok slave like you ,” he sneered, “who could only sink lower if you were a branded tribal savage.”
    â€œAnd not as low as an upstart New Man like you ,” she flashed back recklessly, “who could only sink lower if the dirty work you did for the Regent was first dipped in mud and then rolled in pig shit .”
    â€œWhat do you know about the work we New Men do?” bellowed the enraged owner, giving her a vicious backhand across the face. “What do you know about anything ? You are nothing but an ill-bred, ignorant little nobody . So keep your mouth shut, do your work and know that if I ever discover that you have aided or abetted a thief on my land, I shall drown that mangy dog of yours before your eyes. And then I shall drown you!”

    Persephone stared after the owner as he stormed across the yard and into the thatch-roofed cottage. Her face throbbed where he’d hit her, but she was savagely pleased for having said what she had.
    â€œHe thinks he’s so much better than me, but he’s just a lowborn thug who was raised up because he’ll do things that would turn a decent man’s stomach,” she muttered some minutes later. “Beating, burning, kidnapping, murdering, stealing, ravishing—I tell you, Mrs. Foster, I may be ill bred and ignorant but when that pig signed up for the Regent’s New Man army he sold his soul to the devil !”
    Mrs. Foster was so surprised to hear this that she mooed.
    â€œIt’s true!” insisted Persephone as she leaned her forehead against Mrs. Foster’s warm flank and continuedto milk her. “They say the Regent Mordecai is the very devil himself—horribly deformed, with a hunched, twisted back, withered, gnarled limbs and soul to match.” She paused her milking to demonstrate the meaning of the phrase “gnarled limbs” to a couple of goats who had wandered over to listen to the story. “My Cookie told me all sorts of stories about him. You remember me telling you about Cookie, don’t you, Mrs. Foster? She was the cook at the manor belonging to the merchant who owned me when I was very young. Well, Cookie always said that the things the Regent ordered his New Men to do were nothing compared to the things he himself had done. You’d think that such a great man would leave torture to his underlings, but Cookie said her cousin’s husband’s