"Clumsy girl," she'd said. "Don't you dare damage the merchandise, or I'll be forced to take sweet Comfort."
Repentance had cringed. Jadin had been treating her well—teaching her how to eat at an overlord table and how to drink and walk and sit. In the end, though, Jadin was an overlord slaver, same as any other. Repentance heaved a world-weary sigh.
"Oh, surely it isn't as bad as all that," Jadin said. "You have the richest of foods and the softest of beds."
"I was merely thinking how different my life would have been if I'd been ugly. Had I known what my beauty would cost me, I'd have scarred my face on the day before the Button Ceremony. Then you would not have purchased me. I'd have gone for a lady's maid or a nanny, perhaps."
"Hmm." Jadin studied her. "Yes, I do believe you would have taken a knife to yourself. You're that stubborn. But you didn't scar your face, and I did buy you. Your job now is to take care of yourself so I get a good price from the Prince. If he buys you outright—Oh please, dear Providence, let it be so—if he should buy you outright, then you can scar yourself all you want. Let him deal with your stubborn spirit. But as long as you stay with me, you will take care of my merchandise so I might exact a top rental price."
"I'm not really your merchandise, you know," Repentance said, selecting another potato from the basket on the floor. "You can't tell me what to think. What's inside is the real me, and that's between me and Providence. You can't own that part."
Jadin burst out laughing. "You are welcome to your insides, Repentance. I cannot package and sell them. No man cares to buy the thoughts of a silly girl."
Repentance felt as though she'd been slapped. Determined not to let Jadin see her cry, she swallowed down the tears, but she vented her anger by stabbing her knife deeply into the potato she held.
Jadin had gasped. "Give me that!" She'd snatched the potato and knife out of Repentance's hand. "I'll tell you what. You and Providence may have full control of your insides. But, know this: If I wanted your thoughts, I'd have them. Because I make the rules, not you. Is that understood, or should I send for Comfort so she can explain it to you?"
Repentance pulled her hand out from under her blanket and studied the white scar on her palm. It barely showed. Jadin had taken her off kitchen duty that day. She'd done no work of any kind after that, in fact.
She swam daily in the cool spring. Jadin encouraged her to exercise as long as she never went outside.
She pulled her robe on and headed down to swim.
Tawnic was in the hall at the foot of the stairs. She bowed. "Oh, pardon me, your highness," she said, "I didn't mean to breathe the same air you were breathing."
Repentance ignored her and headed for the pools.
"Jadin's girl," Tawnic said. "But not for long. The prince rides hard and you're too soft. Once he breaks you, you won't be worth two beads to anyone. See how much Jadin loves you then."
Repentance kept walking. She didn't need to listen to Tawnic. She'd heard it all before. Nineteen pleasure girls in the healing house—all overlords. And she, a slave, had a room on their floor. They all hated her.
She was sure Providence was laughing about that. When she'd left the swamp, she'd consoled herself with the thought that at least she'd be away from the foggy swamp and the villagers who hated her and whispered behind her back, calling her cursed. And there she was back in the heat, back in the fog, and more of an outcast than ever.
She dropped her robe, dove into the spring, and swam.
And she cried, letting the water wash her tears away.
She swam until her tears were spent and all the knots were gone from her muscles and until she was too tired to worry about how awful her night with the prince was going to be. Tawnic was lying about that, anyway. She had to be.
The dining room was empty by the time she got there. She always swam first so she could eat in peace.
Jadin entered, a bounce in her step and a sparkle of excitement in her eyes. "Had your swim? Good, you have to bathe and get dressed for the prince."
Repentance took a bite of scrambled egg cooked with ham and peppers and onions.
"And for the love of Providence, be sure to clean your mouth with mint. He's to arrive this afternoon. Why are you eating onions?" She pulled Repentance's plate away. "You don't need more, anyway. You'll eat dinner with the prince in a few hours. And you won't forget your manners." It was half question, half threat.
Repentance nodded.
"After dinner you'll go with him to the royal suite."
"Not the healing pool? Doesn't he come to soak in the hot springs?"
"The royal suite has a small healing tub. Plenty big for two."
Repentance's stomach clenched at the thought. "But then I'm not in need of healing," she said. "So it only needs to be big enough for one."
"I'm warning you, Repentance. One complaint from the prince, and I'll have Comfort brought over for breakfast tomorrow. And I don't mean she'll be here to dine."
"I can't help it if he complains. I don't know what to do." She looked at Jadin, pleading with her eyes. "I won't know what to do."
Jadin smiled, showing perfect white teeth. "Don't worry about that. The prince likes it that way. He'll teach you." She waggled her eyebrows.
"What if I displease him?"
"I'm telling you, girl, let go of any schemes you have in that foolish head."
"I don't have any schemes. I'm afraid I'll cry. The girls say he's ... he's ... he causes pain."
Jadin visibly relaxed. "Don't worry about that. Crying doesn't displease him at all. I don't think he feels finished until the girls cry."
Repentance trembled. "How long do I have to stay with him?"
"Until he's done with you."
Repentance went to her room and took out her parchment pad. She poured her hatred onto the page.
The warthogs steal and take and take and take.
I hate them when I sleep and I hate them when I wake.
They threaten and snarl and bare their teeth,
but one day, I'll be above, and they'll be beneath.
Tomorrow is another day. Tomorrow I might run away.
She read her poem back. Not her best work and she had no time to rework the lines. But it had served its purpose. The hatred kept her from crying. If she cried her nose would swell and turn red, and the prince would think she was ugly. She had to please him, or Comfort would pay the price.
Thinking of Comfort, she tore the parchment out of her book and crumpled it. She had to stop pretending. She would never run away.
Numb, she headed to the bathing room to prepare for the prince.
The slave knows well that he has no power over his fate. He is passed from master to master through no fault or merit of his own. But there is One who sits above slave and master both. It is the wise man, then, who holds his own plans loosely and bows to the interfering will and wisdom of Providence.
~Steadfast Atwater, Lessons Learned at My Father's Knee
Chapter 12
He looked nothing like the monster she had imagined. Sitting in the feasting hall, laughing with his friends, he looked quite pleasant. He was not young, but not ancient either. Maybe he'd seen thirty summers. When he lifted his gaze to her, she saw his pale blue eyes widen in surprise just before a glow of approval lit in them. Suddenly, her thin lowland gown felt too thin, and she blushed.
Jadin led her to the seat beside him. "Lord Malficc, I'm happy to introduce Repentance. She'll minister to your needs tonight."
He gave a slight nod without taking his gaze from Repentance.
She sat, relieved to be off of her shaky legs.
Around the table sat eight overlord men, all dressed as royalty, in fine satin shirts, brightly colored, and with their hair wrapped in silk turbans. To her left sat an older man, a lock of white hair escaping his head covering.
Repentance caught him studying her. She took a quick look at his eyes—pale blue. Lighter than the prince's, even. A little washed out from age.
A smile crinkled the corners of his eyes. "What year are you in, child?" he asked.
"My sixteenth."
"Indeed," the old man said. "Indeed. I would have guessed precisely that, had I been forced to venture an opinion." He twisted toward her and reached one hand up to her neck. "Your hair is an arresting color," he said, brushing it back behind her left ear and letting it fall through his fingers.
She nodded politely, and then angled her seat a bit so that her back was slightly toward the old man. She was, after all, supposed to be entertaining the prince, not conversing with everyone else.
The prince smiled at her. A nice smile. Lots of shiny, white teeth. Maybe the girls were lying. Maybe he was nice.
Some of the other girls sashayed in, dressed as Repentance was, in thin lowland gowns and with their hair piled in curls on top of their heads. Each one carried a covered serving dish. They looked the overlord men in the eye, giggling and mincing as they went. As they circled the table looking for empty spots for their food dishes they swung their hips and brushed up against the men, and as they put the food down, they bent low, letting their gowns gape open.
The men grinned—some chuckled—and pulled chairs out, bidding the girls to sit. As they fought for the chance to pour drinks, Repentance finally understood why the girls liked it when the royal party came. Of course the farmers and the owners of the eateries who came every week worshipped the girls. But to be so desired by royalty was another thing altogether. The greater the men, the greater the honor for the girls.
She glanced over at the handsome prince. Hers was the greatest honor of all, then.
He couldn't really be mean. The others were just jealous. How could a man with such a face be as cruel as they said he was?
Jadin surveyed the table. "Everything is to your satisfaction, your highness?"
The prince nodded.
"But not to mine," the old man said.
"Your worship?" Jadin looked stunned.
The noise in the room suddenly dimmed.
"I have been given no girl," the old man said.
"But, King Fawlin, you have ... never required a girl before. I was ... unaware …."
Repentance twisted in her chair to see the old man better. King Fawlin. This, then, was the man who had beheaded his button mate and enslaved the lowborns two hundred and fifty years earlier. How could he still be alive? The hot springs must have amazing restorative powers.
"I am not assigning blame," the king said. "You need not stammer out a defense. Simply rectify the situation."
"By all means, your worship. I'll have a girl sent immediately."
"I'll take this one," he said, indicating Repentance. "I'm sure Lord Malficc won't mind."
She gasped.
"Oh," Jadin said, looking at Repentance in a daze. "Oh."
"Woman!" the king said. "Retrieve another girl for my nephew."
Jadin jerked. "Oh, of course. Of course. Another girl for Lord Malficc."
Lord Malficc was smiling. With his mouth. Not with his eyes. "It's just as well," he said. His eyes, Repentance thought, burned with an anger that belied his words. "I was hoping for Tawnic tonight anyway. She knows how to take care of a man. Let my uncle break in this new girl. It's about time he did some work."
The other men burst into laughter.
The king smiled and lifted his glass in salute to the prince.
Jadin bowed and backed out of the room.
Repentance's mouth went dry. Two hours earlier if anyone had told her that her fortune was going to get worse she would have thought it impossible. She was glad Jadin had taken away her breakfast because her stomach, the one she thought couldn't tie itself any tighter, clutched in fear.
The king set to his dinner, completely ignoring her.
She drank. And drank. And still her mouth felt dry.
Tawnic came in, bathed and dressed and smiling, but Repentance, as she scooted her chair over to make room, smelled fear on the girl.
"Tawnic, my old friend," the prince said. "My uncle has stolen the new girl from under me and I'll have to drown my sorrows with you." He grinned at her. "But we'll survive it, and even enjoy it, I dare say."
Tawnic smiled, her lower lip quivering. "Of course, my lord."
The king put his fork down, burped softly, and coughed a couple of times into his napkin. He pushed his chair back and rose. All the others quickly stood with their heads bowed.
"Go on with your party," he said. "I'll take my old bones to bed." He looked at Repentance. "I trust you will accompany me, my dear, and tuck me in."
Several of the men snickered.
Not the prince. A muscle along his jaw twitched, but he didn't crack a smile.
Repentance took the king's arm, her knees weak, her stomach churning, and her mind wondering if she'd make it to the suite without throwing up on her velvet slippers.
At the top of the narrow stairway, a slave took a torch from the wall to light their way down.
They were going down to the guest rooms by the hot pool. Down to the dark, damp heat.
The king disengaged himself from Repentance, and, turning his thin back to her, he followed the slave with the torch.
She could push him. He was feeble. The steps were stone. It might work. And Providence knew he deserved it. He was evil.
Hatred rose in her chest until she felt like she might scream. All her trouble, all the pain she had ever born, all the pain of her family, and of the village, and of every lowborn for the last two hundred and fifty years could be laid at the feet of the wicked man in front of her.
The slave carts.
The dead boys on ropes.
All of it.
His fault.
And there he was, tottering down stone steps, practically begging her to give him a shove. But the slave in front would break the fall.
She clenched her hands into fists, and followed, her feet moving somehow, even as her mind screamed out in protest.
The lower level, usually dim, was lit by torches poked into holes in the walls. Apparently, the royal party gave Jadin enough beads to make it worthwhile for her to light up the cave like noonday on the mountain. The slave left them, heading back to wait for the next overlord noble who needed him to light the way down the stone steps.
The king led Repentance through the door to the largest, hottest pool and entered the first private room. As soon as the door closed behind them, he let out a strangled cough—as if he'd been holding it back. That first cough opened a floodgate. He fell into a coughing fit and dropped onto the bed, terrible spasms racking his chest.
Repentance watched, unsure of herself. If she did nothing, he might die. But if she did nothing and he didn't die …. She stepped forward thinking she'd pat him on the back, then stopped. A slave girl couldn't hit a king.
Instead, she filled a glass of water from a pitcher on the table, but when she offered it to him, he knocked it aside. Gasping for breath, he pulled a small, silver flask from his pocket and took a slug. Then another. The coughing subsided.
"Better," he said, exhaling slowly. He unbuttoned his silk shirt, revealing a wrinkly, pale chest.
Repentance thought about touching that withered flesh and fought down a gag.
The king slipped his shirt off. "Make yourself useful then, and unwind my turban."
She obeyed in silence, freeing a his shoulder-length, white hair.
"Now," he said, pushing himself off the bed with some effort and tottering for a moment before he gained his balance, "we will soak in the hot pool before we sleep. Before all the revelers finish their drinking and come down to invade our quiet. Get my robe." He waved toward the wardrobe in the corner of the room.
Repentance took a silk robe from a hook behind the door and turned around. The king stood with his back to her, naked, his pants in a pile at his feet. She focused her gaze on the back of his head—she couldn't bear to look at his shriveled body—and managed to slip the robe on him without touching him.
The king led the way out of the room.
The pool was lit like the passageway with torches closely spaced in the walls, making the whole cavern bright and warm.
The king stopped at the top of the steps, which led into the pool, his back to Repentance. She stopped next to him.
He sighed. "You are to help me off with my robe." His tone was tinged with irritation.
She stepped behind him and gingerly pinched the shoulders of his robe, lifted it, and slid it down his arms.
He walked sideways down the steps, balancing carefully, testing each step so as not to slip. He moaned with pleasure, when the water was deep enough to cover his chest. "Yes, that loosens me up," he said, softly. Then he turned to Repentance who still stood at the top of the steps.
"I don't care if you swim, or not," the king said, "But for appearances sake you must get in the water with me." He coughed into his fist then bent his face forward and took a deep breath from the steam rising off the pool's surface.
He turned and started paddling slowly toward the other end of the pool.
Repentance draped his robe over a nearby bench. She unbuttoned her gown, dropped it off her shoulders so it slid to the ground, and hurried into the bubbly water.
She found the bench cut into the side of the pool and sat with her back pushed against the wall.
He reached the end of the pool and turned to slowly paddle back.
Going up and back several times, he completely ignored Repentance. His breathing came regularly with an occasional cough echoing across the water.
Finally, he stopped his paddling and climbed out of the pool. He stood dripping, his back to Repentance.
She stayed where she was, rooted to the spot, hoping—no matter how unreasonable the hope was—that he'd pick up his robe and head into their sleeping quarters without her.
It has thus far worked out that each time I've reached the end of my strength and lost all hope of rescue, Providence has sent a hero. Why does He wait so long? I suspect it is because His heroes are always so unsuitable in my eyes that I would never accept their aid, had I any other options.
The Button Girl Page 9
