Repentance sucked in her breath when Generosity called her "my Lady" but she controlled her face. "I'm sure you're devoted. I truly want to know if the people here celebrate the same festivals we did in my village."
Generosity set the brush on the small table next to her and began ticking the festivals off on her fingers. "In winter we have the Snowfrost Festival to thank Providence for the snowcloth woven in Velvet Valley. In spring is the Lavaheat Festival. For the lavacloth, you know. From Smokey Peak." She paused, glancing at Repentance.
Repentance nodded as if she were well aware of Smokey Peak and knew exactly how to locate it on a map.
"In summer there is the Sunlight Festival for the suncloth." She waved a hand at the cloths that hung on the walls. The ones farthest from the window, in the shadows by the bathing room, glowed with yellow light and emitted a soft buzzing noise.
For the love of Providence! What was going on with all these cloths? And why was it that every slave village but hers seemed to weave some kind of special material?
"Fall is the time for the Moonlight Festival, as I've already said, and a few weeks later there is the Dragonbreath Festival."
"Of course. For the dragoncloth," Repentance said confidently.
Generosity frowned. Then she laughed. "Oh, you're having a joke on me. You looked so serious, you had me fooled for a moment. Dragoncloth indeed."
Repentance felt a headache coming on. She would never learn it all. She forced a chuckle. "I'm pleased that I've been given a maid with a good sense of humor. If you'll leave me, now, I'll go to bed. I'm tired from my travel."
"What will I tell His Highness? He's having an early dinner. You're expected."
Sighing, Repentance stood. "Then I'd best go, hadn't I? What shall I wear?" Preferably something the prince wouldn't like. She shivered.
Generosity helped her into one of the thin lowland gowns she'd brought from the healing house then led her through a maze of hallways, as she gushed forth on whatever topic caught her fancy. She stopped at the door of the dining room, ending with her thoughts on having Repentance in the palace. How nice it would be to have another young woman to talk to, Generosity said, and how boring life had been, what with all the other maids being much older and then with crusty Provocation lurking about and scolding at every opportunity, and how much fun they were sure to have now.
As much as Repentance liked Generosity's open friendliness, she wasn't sad to part company with her at the dining room door. All that chatter couldn't be good for the digestive system.
When Generosity left, Repentance patted her hair into place, smoothed her gown, and entered the room with what she hoped was a peaceful expression on her face. She wouldn't show the prince how much he had shaken her.
It turned out not to matter. The room was empty, save for a manservant—a slave—loitering in one corner. She breathed out in relief.
As soon as she entered, the slave sprang forward and pulled out a chair from the far end of the table.
Repentance sat.
As the slave poured her some of the milky drink she liked so much—yak's milk, she'd learned it was, thinned with mountainberry wine and sweetened with honey—she studied the room. Ice walls, thick carpet, like every other room. The carpet was a deep maroon, which matched the dark wood of the dining table. She bent forward to study the grain. Mahogany.
On the wall opposite her, a painting was carved in relief on the wall, like the cityscape in her room. This one was a man on a yak. A nobleman—she could tell from the turban—it looked like …. She leaned forward. It looked like the king. At his side, a woman stood, her back to Repentance. She was a slave woman—black hair. But she was dressed in a fancy gown. His button mate, probably. Before she'd lost her head.
Repentance stared at the picture trying to reconcile the king she'd been with for five days, with the king who had beheaded his button mate and enslaved all the lowborns in a fit of rage over her infidelity. She was guilty, if history books were to be trusted. But the history books were written by the overlords, so who knew if they could be trusted. And even if she was guilty, how was it right for him to cut off her head and take her people captive? And to still be punishing them two-hundred-and-fifty years later? The punishment hardly fit the crime. And now her brothers were to be sacrificed in an overlord war they knew nothing about.
The door swished open, and the king came in.
Repentance stood, wiped the glare off her face, and bowed her head.
The slave seated him then reseated Repentance.
The king raised his hands toward heaven.
Repentance bowed her head. He hadn't prayed in the healing house, but apparently in the palace he did things differently.
"For all you have provided, we give you thanks," the king said.
A serving woman came in with a silver tureen and ladled soup into their bowls.
"Will we begin without Lord Malficc?" Repentance asked. At the healing house the table was full for every meal. She had a vague idea that a king's table would always be crowded with friends and pretenders.
"He doesn't dine with us."
Joy swept through her. "Doesn't he live in the palace, then?" That was good news, indeed.
"He does. But he dines with his goodwoman and their four boys in their family quarters. Oh, no, you'd not catch me dead, sharing a table with those four boys."
"He's buttoned?"
"That surprises you?"
"He was with ... with ... " Repentance felt her cheeks burning.
"With?"
"Why does he go to Hot Springs? Why does he have Tawnic service him when he has his own goodwoman right here?"
"Oh, the men in your village have only one woman. Is that it?"
She blushed again. "We button for life."
"As do we. But our button mates don't have exclusive rights over us. We used to do it that way. It's an old-fashioned idea. I didn't know any of the villages still practiced it."
Repentance let her spoon fall into her bowl and stared at him in horror. Such a thing for him to say!
"But you decapitated your button mate for that very thing! That exact same thing. That's why you took all the lowborns into slavery, you hypocrite. You ... you warthog!"
"Warthog? Warthog!" His face had turned maroon.
"You've punished us for two-hundred-and-fifty years because you believed you had exclusive rights over your button mate, and now you say this idea of exclusive rights is old fashioned?"
He pushed himself to his feet, shaking with weakness and rage. "How dare you? And you a slave!" He glanced at the servant who stood by the wall, his face a mask of disinterest.
"It cannot be left to stand unpunished," the king said through clenched teeth. "You will go to your room and wait for me to determine your fate."
All the anger drained from Repentance.
What had she done?
Had she yelled at him?
Called him a name?
He glared down at her.
She slid her chair back. "I don't know the way to my room," she whispered.
When the lowborn grows too old to do your bidding, it is your responsibility to call in the swingman. When the slave can no longer provide you with pleasure, his purpose in life is gone. It is cruelty to keep him alive then, an unhappy, useless shell.
~Doctor Durr Raynjed, The Care and Feeding of Animals
Chapter 16
At the king's command, the manservant took Repentance to her room. He said nothing along the way and left her without a word.
Repentance sat in shock on the edge of her big, soft bed.
What had she been thinking?
She absently took her three gray buttons from the pocket of her gown and placed them on the bed.
She hadn't been thinking. That was what caused her trouble. Speaking first, thinking later. Her mother had always said her mouth would land her in a puddle full of trouble one day.
Picking up the heart-shaped button, she rubbed it between her fingers.
This time she'd done damage that no amount of prayer would be able to undo.
His face had been so red! Maybe he would hand her over to the swingman.
For certain she'd lost her comfortable room in the palace. "Gone the cushy bed." She whispered. She stood the heart button on its edge and flicked it off the bed.
"Gone the comfortable palace." She flicked the round button.
"Gone the concubine's head." The third button followed the first two. "The king lopped it off with malice."
And all she could do was sit and wait to die. If she tried to run, the king would take Comfort.
Of course, if he did hang her, he'd take Comfort anyway. The law stated that if you disobeyed and were killed, the master could take a member of your family to replace you.
So why should she wait for him to kill her? Maybe she could get down the mountain and get Comfort and the little boys before the troopers did. Or maybe she could get to Lord Carrull. Maybe he would help her. Or those Deliverance Day people he mentioned. They helped slaves.
She slid off the bed, scooped up her buttons, and headed for the door.
Just to check.
Just to peek out and see if a guard had been posted in the hall.
Silently, she twisted the knob ... cracked the door open ... and ... found herself staring into the king's face.
She slammed the door and raced to her bed.
The king entered. "You were going someplace?'
"I was just looking."
"Just looking. Just talking. Just unwilling to live wisely. That's the manner of girl you are. You rush into trouble. Am I right?"
She hung her head. "My mother has told me I have a bad habit of speaking rashly."
"Your mother." He crossed to the chairs by the fire and sat down with a sigh. "Your mother was a beautiful woman."
Repentance shot a glance at him. "How do you know that?"
He paused for the smallest of moments. "I've seen you. It's not possible that you came from an ugly mother. Besides, I have a sketch of her in the paperwork Jadin gave me. But is your mother wise as well as beautiful? That's what I can't see when I look at you." He twisted in his chair to look at her. "She scolded you for your rash tongue, you say, but she failed to train it out of you."
He patted the chair next to him. "Come here so I can see you without straining my neck."
Why was he sitting before her fire as if he'd come to tea? She couldn't figure this old king out. She went and sat.
"Tell me about your family," he said. "How many young? And how does your father occupy his time?"
She stared at him mutely, not sure what to say. Not sure how to best protect her family.
"When you should be silent, you spew forth unfettered. And when I command you to speak, you refuse. Your mouth needs instruction. That much I can see." He held up one finger. "Lesson. When the king asks a question, you answer. Respectfully."
She knew that. Jadin had taught her that rule.
She'd forgotten.
"Shall we try again?" the king asked. "Tell me about your family."
"My father fishes in the winter when the water cools and the holly pokes come downstream. He sells them two-fer-a."
"Toofurah?"
"Two-fer-a-bead. Two fish for one bead."
The king nodded. "And what does he do in summer when the holly pokes aren't running?"
"He builds things."
"Such as?"
She thought for a moment. "One summer he made a cooling system for our cave. Then he made several more and sold them."
"The cooling system must have worked well if he was selling it."
"It did work. Cold water from the cliff runs through a pipe on the ceiling. The pipe is full of holes so the water drips down like the curtain of a waterfall. It falls into a trough a couple of feet off the ground at one end and runs down the trough to land on a paddlewheel. The paddlewheel turns a fan, which blows air across the curtain of water. It cools the whole cave." She finished and felt her face flush as she realized her father's invention was childish and crude compared to the wonders of the mountain. Besides, the king had never asked her for a detailed explanation of how the system worked. She'd gotten carried away. Again.
"Your father is a smart man. What about the youngsters? You have one sister and two brothers, your papers say,"
"Plus the two boys taken as weanlings."
"Their names?"
"Tribulation and Devastation."
"Those are your parents?"
"Those are the boys taken for slaves when they were babies."
He gave her a hard look. "If they are gone you would do well to forget them. Tell me about your family as it is now."
She might as well tell him. If she lied, he'd be able to find the truth easily enough. "Comfort is after me. She's in her fourteenth year. Then there were the two boys taken from us—Tribulation and Devastation. They would be in their thirteenth and twelfth years." No, she would not forget them as her parents had. They were still part of her family.
The king flushed red, and Repentance pushed quickly on. "After that, Mother had two more boys—Restoration is in his eighth year, and Fullness is in his seventh."
"And did any of you go to school?"
"Of course we went to school!"
"Respectfully!" He reached out and rapped his knuckles on the top of her head.
"Ouch!" She scrunched back into her chair.
"Did any of you go to school?"
"Yes, your highness. We all went to school."
"And you learned in your history class that I'd killed my button mate and taken the lowborns captive?"
She nodded mutely.
"And believing me to be this kind of man, you dared rebuke me?"
"I didn't dare," she said quietly. "It wasn't that I thought you were a ... a ... murderer, but I yelled at you anyway, just because I was feeling brave. I spoke in anger. Without thinking."
"You need to learn to start thinking. If I allow you to hurl abuse at me, it won't be any time at all before someone else will do the same. And will they stop with verbal assault? No, they will not. They will refuse to pay taxes. Refuse to obey the laws. Chaos will reign. Do you see that?"
She nodded, considering his words.
"You not only rebuked me, you did it in front of a servant. And by now it is all over the palace. It cannot go unpunished." He gazed at her with a kindly look, like he really didn't want to punish her, and added, "I want you to know I've never killed anyone."
"I remember reading it in the fourth-year history book. You're saying the story was made up?" Maybe they made the whole thing up to intimidate the lowborns.
"I am saying that I am King Fawlin," he said. "As was my father before me and his father before him, and all the old-fathers, back to the ancients."
"Old-fathers?" She frowned, thinking.
"Your face, child. What a sight." He laughed. "Did you never get past fourth-year history?"
She thought back to her school. A damp, dark cave. Without the overlord teacher most days. More often than not he took the big boys out to the swamp and made them fish and hunt so he could sell meat and skins to the troopers who guarded the village.
The smaller kids never cared. Better to be alone than to have the teacher who loved to punctuate his lectures with knocks on their noggins. Her face grew hot. She was ignorant. She had always prided herself on being a trickle smarter than the rest of the villagers with their ambivalence and their superstitions and their beliefs in curses and such, but she was just an ignorant village girl in the end.
"You're not in your two hundred and fiftieth year?" she whispered.
They had few books in the school. No science. Nothing with maps. And only a couple of history books—all of which told stories of overlord victories and fierceness. She'd read all the school books. Several times over. She remembered nothing about the overlord kings all having the same name. She only remembered one overlord King. Sometimes the book called him King Fawli
n the Dragon Slayer and sometimes King Fawlin the Wise, and sometimes King Fawlin the Banisher, and so on.
She put her hand to her mouth. Oh, she was so stupid.
"I must look to be in my two hundred and fiftieth year to a young girl, like you." The king said, chuckling. Then he broke up laughing. He laughed until he fell into a coughing fit.
He dug into a pocket, came up with his silver flask, and took a swig. The coughing subsided. "Ah. Better. Now where were we?"
"You didn't kill your button mate."
His eyes sparkled. "I'm not in my two hundred and fiftieth year, and I've not yet killed a single person."
She tried to sort through the information she had about him. He was still the overlord king. The sound of the ropes creaking in the courtyard in front of the slave market played in her mind like a badly-tuned lute. He did kill people.
"A slave is a person," she said.
He looked at her, confusion written on his face.
"You have killed a person. More than one person."
He shook his head. "I've always treated my slaves well. Never killed one." He gave her a hard look. "Never had one so unruly so as to need killing. You should tread carefully, Repentance, lest you be the first."
She scooted back in her chair, wanting to get away from him.
"What now? Your schoolbooks told you something else? Who did I supposedly kill this time?" he said, his voice held a tinge of anger.
"The day I entered Harthill on the slave cart, three bodies hung in the courtyard by the slave market." Her cheeks burned at the memory. "Three young men—boys, really. Hanged for runners."
His eyes narrowed. "I didn't kill those boys. Their disobedience killed them. They broke the law, knowing the consequences full well. You'll not paint my hands with their blood."
She looked at him, silent.
"Say it," he said. "I see you thinking something evil of me."
"You could change your law, your highness. Free the slaves."
"It's not my law." Exasperation filled his voice. "I didn't order it into effect. You've always been slaves. How can I change that? Our industry and commerce would likely collapse. I'd be assassinated, for certain, and slavery would continue. You are an ignorant child. You have no understanding about affairs of state. And you keep speaking out of turn."
The Button Girl Page 12
