The Button Girl

by Sally Apokedak

  "Child," the assassin said, looking at Repentance. "It's over. We tried. We lost. The king will die another day."

  "No!" she screamed. "You're lying! Do you think the prince is going to save you? You coward. Tell the truth."

  "Child, it's not honorable to carry on so. Killing the king was an honorable plan." He spat on the carpeted floor in front of the king.

  The trooper in front of him backhanded him. Consecration crumpled under the blow.

  "Tell the truth!" Repentance yelled.

  He pulled himself up slowly, blood dripping from his lip. "He has kept our people captive too long and he deserves to die," he said. Then he looked at Repentance. "But you and I will not be the ones to do the glorious deed."

  She shook her head, speechless. He wasn't going to tell.

  "Now we know," the prince said. "Lock them up."

  The troopers looked to the king.

  "We know next to nothing," he said. "Who is this man? How did he get into the palace grounds? How is he connected with Repentance?"

  "Uncle, please don't let your fondness for the girl fog your vision."

  "I don't see a motive. Why would she kill me? What would she gain by it?"

  "I have nothing to gain! I would never kill—"

  "But you have a confession from the assassin himself." The prince walked over to Repentance and stared down into her face. "Some people are simply motivated by hate, your Highness. They hate, and you can't train it out of them no matter how hard you try. With every suncloth they wash, their hatred grows."

  "You're lying. I don't—"

  The Prince slapped her. "How dare you accuse me of lying?"

  The sting of the slap brought tears. She swallowed them and glared at the prince with every bit of hatred she had.

  He stepped aside. "This one is full of hate."

  She looked at the king, "I never—"

  The king interrupted. "Your expression gives you away, I'm afraid. You stare at me with such malice." He shook his head sadly. "I've told you before that you need to control your tongue and the expressions on your face. And now they betray your heart toward me. I don't know why you hate me, Repentance. I've been kind to you from the start, and you've repaid me with violence at every turn."

  "Not so!" she shouted.

  "Take them away," he said to the trooper standing by. "I can't stand to hear another word."

  "And I shall inform the swingman," Prince Malficc said.

  "No, you shall not. I've not sentenced them." the king said.

  "Uncle, surely—"

  "No more talk! Leave me, all of you."

  Two troopers walked them down a brightly lit stairway. Repentance had never been to the dungeons before. But surely they weren't so horrible. Tigen had told her he played in them. He was not afraid.

  The air grew cold as they descended, and an icy fear seeped into her soul. She could die in the dungeons, and no one would know. No one would mourn. She stuck her free hand in the pocket of her work smock and worried her big gray buttons back and forth between her fingers.

  "The prince won't let you go," she said to the assassin, her breath coming in white puffs. Maybe it wasn't too late for him to change his mind and tell the truth. "He'll kill you and your family, too. It amuses him to wield his power."

  Her trooper gave her arm a savage yank. "Enough noise from you. We don't none of us believe you, so you might as well give it up."

  A desk squatted at the bottom of the stairs, but no one manned it.

  They walked on, reaching a door on the right, twenty feet past the desk. One trooper rapped with his bare knuckles on the wood.

  An overlord man opened the door.

  "We've two prisoners for you."

  He put on a pair of spectacles and inspected the trooper as if to see if he was, perhaps, a young prince, dressed up and playing a joke. "There have never been prisoners here as long as I've been dungeon master."

  "There are prisoners now. Come out and show them to their new quarters."

  "Hold your yaks, then, while I get the key. Never had need of it afore." He ducked back inside and returned in a moment with a large key.

  Crossing the hall he inserted it into a door. "One prisoner in here."

  Consecration's trooper gave him a shove. He landed on his face on the icy floor and cried out.

  The dungeon master moved to the next door and inserted the key again. "And this one for you, my dear," he said looking intently at Repentance. "I hope you find the accommodations comfortable. If not, don't hesitate to tell me." He laughed, his eyes distorted and eerie-looking behind thick glasses.

  Repentance hurried in to keep from being pushed.

  The door slammed behind her.

  She let her eyes adjust to the dim light in her cell. There were no suncloths but a small window in the door let light in from the bright corridor.

  Bitter cold came off the bare ice floor, passing through her slippers and burning her feet. The cell had no furniture—nothing she could climb up on. She lifted one foot and then the other, like a trotting yak, trying to keep her feet off the floor. In one corner she spotted a bit of material bunched up. Lavacloth. She spread it on the floor and sat down.

  Her cell was ten feet by ten feet, solid ice. Nothing in it at all except for one square of yellow light lying, like a golden brick, in the middle of the icy floor. She saw a shadow in the corner opposite her and went to investigate. It turned out to be a hole in the floor big enough for a baby to fit through but not big enough for Repentance. A freezing fog rose from it. She couldn't have escaped that way, even if she had fit. Under that hole was the freezing lake. She'd die in an instant if she fell in there.

  Repentance returned to her lava cloth and curled up on top of it, hugging herself to stay warm, and staring at the patch of light on her floor.

  All she'd wanted was to keep from having her babies stolen, really. She could have been content on a sunny farm, working hard and minding her own business. She could have even learned to be content in the choking fog, down with the whispering villagers who supposed she was cursed. If only the overlords would have not have forced her to button and breed.

  She'd stood up to the overlords.

  Had it been worth it?

  She'd never have to give sons to the evil warthogs. They could kill her, but at least she wouldn't leave behind any pieces of herself to go on suffering. And she had a little sunlight besides. She'd longed for sunlight ever since she'd read about it in her schoolbooks. And now she had one little square of the lovely stuff, sitting on her cell floor. The yellow light wasn't thrown from the sun directly, but it was still good.

  Had it been worth it? She worked her buttons around and around in her pocket. She could have buttoned with Sober. She closed her eyes and pictured his smile, his warm eyes looking into hers with that look ... the one that made her knees feel a weak. She could have shared a home with him.

  But she wouldn't have been happy. She would have hated herself for giving in. For giving up. For giving away her babies.

  A picture of Comfort flitted into her head. She had ruined Comfort's life. Oh, if only Providence would wake up and start looking after the lowborns.

  She didn't remember even closing her eyes, but when she opened them back up, she knew she'd been asleep. She didn't know for how long. The little square of light on her floor hadn't moved. It would never move unless someone covered the suncloths in the corridor.

  She stretched, looked around the room, then, because she had no reason to keep them open, she shut her eyes again.

  Thoughts of her first trip up the mountain—the first time she saw sunlight, and snow, and trees dripping shadows in green meadows—washed across her mind. She remembered the stars, glowing like drops of molten metal on black velvet. Who knew the world was so beautiful?

  She slept again, this time waking with a raging thirst.

  And other needs. She looked for a waste stool so she could relieve herself. Ah, that's what the hole in the floor was
for. It was hard to manage, without touching the ice and burning her skin. She had to hold the lavacloth against the wall and balance carefully as she leaned back.

  Exhausted from that meager effort, she slept again and dreamt that she was eating hot sand that burned her mouth and throat.

  The key in the lock grated into her dreams and yanked her from the sandy bank at the village swimming hole back into her cold dungeon cell.

  Her small square of light grew narrow, and ran ahead of a large golden rectangle, which raced across the floor as the door swung open. The large rectangle finally caught the smaller one and gobbled it up. Repentance felt a stab in her heart as if she'd lost a friend.

  "Stand and bow." It was the prince. So he was come to torture her before she died. She was not to die in peace, after all.

  Her tongue felt fat and dry, but she managed to speak with venom, all the same. "I don't bow to murderers."

  "You are still not ready to admit your guilt?'

  She began to hum. She chose one of her mother's favorite tunes. She didn't have to listen to the prince.

  He left.

  Her square of light returned.

  It gave her some comfort to find it always there when she woke.

  Some time later the key scraped in the lock again.

  She kept her eyes closed so she wouldn't have to witness the death of her square of light.

  Common stock or royal prince, lowborn man or high,

  There isn't any difference, when Swingman draweth nigh.

  ~Folk saying on the mountain

  Chapter 27

  "My Lady?" A woman's voice. It sounded trembly and tentative.

  Repentance opened her eyes and stared. She knew the face but couldn't remember the name. Someone from the mountain. She squinted in concentration.

  "I've brought you soup."

  Ah. Her maid, Generosity.

  Her tongue felt like a block of wood "We thouldn't be here." Her words came out all lumpy and ill formed. "Thith ith no plathe for uth."

  "I know. But don't talk now," Generosity said gently. "Here's some yak's milk. I know you're thirsty. We didn't find out where you were until a few hours ago."

  "How long have I been here?"

  "Two days. Drink first and then we'll talk."

  Repentance drank half of the milk—it was sweet and cooled her burning throat and shrank her fat tongue. Lowering the flask she noticed that a blotch of shadow was biting into the light on the floor. She looked up at the door. A small head peeped around the jamb.

  She smiled in spite of everything. "Why are you here, Tigen?"

  "Came to see you," he said stepping into the room.

  "Well, I wish I could offer you a proper a place to sit, your highness. This cell is hardly fit for royalty."

  Tweaking Tigen's ear, Generosity said, "I told you to wait in the hallway until I could see how she was." Then she handed Repentance a bowl of soup. "You need to eat."

  Repentance looked into the bowl. Warm broth with a couple of hunks of potatoes floating in it. Closing her eyes, Repentance prayed. "For your bounty ... of course, it's not bounty, really, is it? For this meager bowl of soup, then, I thank you. You've not given me much in life. I don't expect much in death. And yet I thank you for giving me something, little though it be."

  "I've never heard you pray before," Generosity said.

  "You've never seen me sentenced to death before, either." She lifted the bowl to her lips and drank.

  "The prayer wasn't a very good one, though," Generosity said.

  "What was wrong with it?"

  "You were accusing Providence of being stingy."

  "Did he give me a feast, here?"

  "I would have brought more but the guards would not allow it. Prisoners are to be kept barely alive—just enough to face the swing frame. In fact, the prince meant to starve you completely, I think. The king thought the prince had ordered your meals. But Cook didn't even know you were locked up down here."

  "Cook didn't know I was here, but Providence did. The reason you didn't bring more was that you could not. Providence, however, could have given more. He chose not to. I'd call that stingy."

  Tigen whistled. "Why are you still alive after talking like that?"

  She sighed. Why indeed? Because Providence was in the habit of ignoring her. He'd been doing it all her life. Why would he start listening now?

  "I'd call you a lucky leopard," the young prince said in an awe-tinged voice.

  "Yes, but you are only in your eighth year, so no one cares for your assessment." She forced a smile and gave his head a friendly pat.

  "Providence ought to slap you cross-eyed," Generosity said. "You know it's true."

  Repentance lifted her bowl and drank some more before answering. "I'll grant I have not always been his most grateful subject. I haven't had much to be grateful for, though, you must admit. Still, now that I am destined to go and meet him, I'm trying to mend my ways. Hence my prayer of thanksgiving for the soup. I'm sorry you don't approve."

  "It's not determined that you're going to meet Providence any time soon," Generosity said. "The king has yet to pronounce a sentence."

  Repentance sighed. If her mother were there she'd have said the same thing. She'd kiss her forehead and whisper, "Hush, Repentance, Providence will make it all come out right in the end." She'd heard it so many times growing up. Yet here she was at the end, and nothing was coming out right. She drained her bowl and handed it back to Generosity.

  "Did you really try to kill the king?" Generosity asked. "Shamed has been worrying ever since you vanished. Whispering and crying about how he should have stopped you."

  Repentance sat up straighter. Shamed might be able to help her. He could go to the king and tell what he knew. She shook her head. All he knew was that there were a couple of strange yaks in his barn and a trooper visiting every day. And maybe someone was hiding in the secret room. He couldn't prove that the men weren't there to meet Repentance. The prince was never near the barn. He was blameless as far as anyone could prove. And if Shamed got involved, the prince would find a way to punish him.

  She shook her head. She'd not take Shamed to the swing frame with her.

  "Tell Shamed to stop talking about it. It's not safe. He needs to forget he ever saw anything. Lord Malficc—" she broke off, looking at Tigen's sweet, open face.

  "What happened?" Generosity asked. "Surely there has been some mistake."

  "It's not a story worth telling," Repentance answered, wearily. "I was trying to save the king, not kill him. But I have no way to prove my innocence."

  "We'll pray on it," Generosity said. "Maybe Providence will be pleased to save you. In the meantime, I'll work on improving the menu the next time I come. Providence does care about you."

  Tigen nodded. "And Generosity and I love you, too," he said shyly. "And we'll get you out of here. You'll see."

  Generosity shushed him. "Maybe you shouldn't make such promises, Tigen. We don't know what the will of Providence is."

  "I do know," he said.

  Repentance reached for him and hugged him tight.

  His kindness—his sympathetic smile and childlike confidence—undid her. Tears sprang to her eyes and overflowed. Bless the boy. He loved her. He did. And he would save her, if only ….

  If only he were king.

  Maybe one day he would grow up to be king. Oh, please Providence, knock his evil brothers aside, and set Tigen on the throne. He was such a good boy. He would free her people and never again would a slave girl, unjustly accused, lie in a dungeon. Never again would a slave boy swing for a runner. Tigen wouldn't stand for it.

  She kept holding him and weeping, unable to let him go.

  He stood sweetly, patting her back and letting her cry all over him.

  She set him away from herself. "I'm sorry! I got you wet." She swiped at his hair, pushing the damp, blonde strands back behind his ear, and curling the wet ends around her fingers. The shaft of light from the door, gave his hair a
golden glow. So shiny and pretty.

  And then she saw the mark on his neck. Just behind his left ear. It stood tan against his white skin. She brought him closer.

  "It's all right." Tigen said. "I don't mind the wet hair." He pulled back from her.

  "Hold still, I'm trying to see your neck." She stood and tilted his head. There! A tiny sun—a circle with sunrays all around it.

  "It's my birthmark," he said.

  "It looks like a sun."

  "Of course. They all do."

  "You have more?'

  "Not me, Silly." Tigen laughed.

  "You said 'all'—you said, 'They all look like suns.'"

  "We all have suns behind our ears."

  "All overlords have this birthmark?"

  He laughed again. "Not all overlords. All who are from the royal house."

  She reached up and laid a hand on her own neck. Royal house?

  "Are you ill?" Generosity asked.

  Her mother's sin. Her mother's great sin. She finally knew what it was.

  Her mother had been pregnant on her buttoning day. Did her father know? Of course, he wouldn't have said anything. He was in his fifth year. If Mother hadn't buttoned him, he'd have been taken off in the slave carts.

  She remembered the king looking at her with that sad look, saying, "You reminded me of someone I knew." And then there was the time he'd said, "Your mother was a beautiful woman." He knew her mother.

  Intimately.

  That was why he'd tried to protect her.

  Dizzy, she stumbled back to sit on her lavacloth. "I'm his daughter?" she whispered.

  Generosity shook her shoulder. "Repentance, what's the matter with you?"

  She looked up. "I'm sorry. I forgot you were here."

  "It's from going two days without food and drink." Generosity laid the back of her hand on Repentance's forehead. "You're ill. I'll bring you better food next time."

  "I'm thirsty more than hungry."

  "I'll bring you more yak's milk with mountainberry wine."

  "I think you'd better bring me something else."

  "What do you want?"

  "I think you should bring me the king."