The mob pressed forward, and all Repentance and Comfort had to do was stand still, looking forward, pretending to watch the fight, while they allowed people to push around them. In this way they got squeezed further and further back as the people closed in, in front of them.
Slowly, so slowly, they fell away from the fight.
Away from Sober.
Her knees went weak.
But for the crowd she might have fallen. She had no room, thank Providence, with all the people pushing against her, holding her up.
Next to her, Comfort trembled violently. Under the hood, Repentance saw tears streaming down her sister's face.
Something hard slammed into her back.
"Out of the way!" A trooper commanded.
Comfort gave a startled little scream.
Trying to get out of the trooper's way, Repentance pressed against Comfort, squishing her into a woman on the other side.
The trooper pushed past, hurrying toward the fight.
"What are they after?" the woman asked, her eyes locked on the trooper pushing through the crowd.
"Some fight going on," Repentance answered.
"I don't see the slave in the wagon anymore," the woman said, straining to see over the tops of the heads in front of her.
"She's run away," Repentance said.
"Such a pity. I always sell cases of mountain magic at the swingings." Her face brightened. "They'll catch her yet. She can't get far. They never do."
Comfort jerked and Repentance gave her a warning glance.
The trooper who had shoved his way through shouted out, "Alive! The prince will want to speak to that one."
At the mention of the prince the two troopers stopped beating Sober. "Oh, he's alive, Captain," one said. "A little less cocky now, is all."
The other trooper bent down and came back up a moment later with Sober in his grip.
Repentance stood on tiptoes to look. His face was covered in blood. She gagged.
The woman beside her chortled. "Oh, there may be a double swinging now. Won't that just be too good for business!"
"Where's the girl?" the trooper captain asked. He scanned the sides of the streets, apparently looking for his troopers. Repentance followed his gaze. Several of the men had left their stoops and were working their way toward captain.
"The girl," the captain called. "Where has the girl gotten to?"
The crowd immediately shifted. It began to ooze away from the troopers and Sober.
"Come on, then," the woman standing next to Comfort said. "We'd best be moving. Watching a good fight is one thing. Having a skein of angry troopers searching for a runaway is another altogether."
Repentance moved with the woman back toward the building on their right, pushing Comfort along and looking for an opportunity in the thinning crowd, to get across the street to Lord Carrull's.
"Those troopers," the woman said, "are none too discriminating about batting people out of their way when they are thinking of saving their own hides from the swingman."
The woman reached the wall. "Here we are, safe and sound." She fell into the doorway of a pub.
Repentance turned toward Lord Carrull's house. There, on his steps, stood a trooper.
She swerved and pushed Comfort toward the pub.
"Hush," she said when Comfort started crying. "Stay with me. It will be fine. It will all be fine." The picture of Sober's bloody face rose in her mind. Nothing would ever be fine again, she was pretty sure. "Everything will be fine," she repeated.
"Find her or you all swing," the captain said. "She can't have gotten far."
His troopers scattered, and he looked up. Directly into Repentance's eyes.
She dropped her gaze and pushed into the pub. In the dimness she barely made out tables and chairs and a long bar at the back of the room.
"Ah, there you girls are," the woman from the street said. She stood behind the bar. "Come have yourself a jug of mountain magic. It will perk you right up of an afternoon."
Someone else stumbled in through the doorway behind Repentance. She turned to look. Two overlord men. "Wild out there," one said.
"In truth," the other answered. "How fortunate that we can sit out for a trickle in this comfy little pub."
Comfort, pasty-faced and dull-eyed, sagged, and Repentance steered her to the bar. "Where is your relief room?" she asked the Pub Mistress. "My slave has taken ill."
Comfort's head was down and she was holding her stomach, so the mistress caught only the top of her hood. She waved at a door to the side of the counter.
Repentance led Comfort into the small room with its sink and its stool, and locked the door behind them. Sitting Comfort on the stool, she whipped out her knife. "You're going to survive this, Comfort." Tears sprang to her eyes. "I'm so sorry I caused you so much trouble."
The confusion in Comfort's eyes didn't lift any. "What was Sober doing out there?"
Repentance lifted the cloak and started sawing at the ropes on Comfort's wrists. "I'll tell you everything later. Where are the others? Mother and Father and the boys?"
Her sister shook her head. "I don't know. The troopers dragged me from my bed this morning. We were on a farm. We were going to move to someplace called Mont…Mont…"
"Montphilo," Repentance said. She finished cutting through the ropes and pulled Comfort against her in a serious hug. "We'll figure it out." She sighed. "One step at a time, though, is all I can see right now. First we have to figure out how to get across the street without discovery."
"What's across the street?"
"Safety." She picked up Comfort's braid. "I have to cut your hair."
Comfort's hand flew to her head. "No!"
"They'll be looking for you. They'll never think you've had time to cut your hair." The knife was sharp. The braid fell neatly into her hand. She shoved it into her pocket, unwilling to leave any evidence behind in the relief room.
Comfort's hair hung above her shoulders in a shaggy mop. Repentance gazed at her. Any trooper who had taken the time to look at her before would know her still. And she was sure they had all looked. Her face was pasty, and her eyes were full of fear but she still had that beauty that made men notice. "Comfort, remember when we were little and you used to make that face like someone born accursed?"
A glint of recognition entered Comfort's eyes and she twisted her face into a grimace with one side of her mouth hanging down and one eye popping open wide. She looked like one born under the wrath of Providence himself.
They stumbled from the relief room. The Pub Mistress looked up and jerked back at the sight of Comfort. "Is she not feeling better then?" she asked.
"A little, but I'd best get her home."
"Please do. She'll scare away business, that one will."
Repentance led the way. When she got to the front of the pub she peeked out the window. The crowd was gone.
One minute. That was all it would take for her to get to Lord Carrull's. Less than a minute. She said a prayer and pulled open the door.
And there, with his hand on the knob stood the trooper captain.
Against the backdrop of darkness in an evil world, the selfless deeds of friends blaze brighter than stars in a moonless heaven. With sorrows and trials come opportunities to sacrifice for one another, and both the givers and the receivers benefit. Nothing fills bruised hearts with joy like sacrificial love.
~Lord Willikk, Look to the Night Skies
Chapter 35
In the space of a second, Repentance took in the grim set of the trooper's mouth and his hard eyes—they were like chunks of ice-cold jade.
She stepped back, dropping her eyes.
He moved forward, blocking the doorway.
Repentance shrank into her hood. The troopers had, no doubt, all studied her picture. They'd been scanning the crowd for her. The sketches were never completely accurate or clear, thank Providence.
Comfort made a gurgling noise, and the trooper shifted his weight and leaned around Repent
ance.
Turning slightly, Repentance saw Comfort, with her hair draping down in front of her face and her tongue sticking out of her mouth, giving the trooper a slobbery smile.
"How is that you were not drowned at birth?" he said with disgust.
Comfort bobbed her head and giggled like an imbecile.
The captain suddenly jerked forward as if he'd been hit from behind.
"Oh, do excuse me. I didn't mean to bump you." Lord Carrull's maid, Compassion, slipped in the door and stood beside the Captain, looking sorrowful.
He turned and laid a stinging slap across the old woman's face.
Repentance gasped.
Compassion grabbed her cheek and sidled away, pulling the trooper's attention after her, away from the door. "I'm so sorry, sir. I meant no harm. Clumsy old thing that I am. I'm so sorry."
"Not nearly as sorry as I'd like to make you," he answered, his face twisted into an ugly sneer.
Repentance slipped behind the man and out the door, pulling Comfort behind her.
"Unfortunately, I have more pressing matters at hand."
The door swished shut.
Repentance forced herself to walk.
Without looking back.
Across the street.
Up the steps.
Into the house.
The door slammed behind them and Repentance fell upon Comfort, hugging her and crying and laughing all at once. What a brilliant sister was Comfort. It made sense that in studying people's faces she would learn to duplicate them not only on parchment but with her own face as well. But where had Comfort found the courage to grin at the captain that way?
"Were you scared?" Repentance asked.
"He was looking at you like you were swamp muck on his good sandals. I knew that if I didn't distract him, we'd be in trouble."
"And you were right in that assessment." Repentance hugged Comfort for the fiftieth time. "Because if he'd looked any longer he would have seen I wasn't swamp muck. He'd have seen I was the one the prince wanted him to find."
Compassion came home, her cheek bruised.
"Oh, Compassion, are you hurt badly?" Repentance asked. "We were dead, but for you!"
"Upstairs into the hidden room," Compassion said, breathlessly. "They'll be searching door to door."
The door burst open behind her. "They've taken him to the palace," Starved said. He won't swing tonight. Tonight will be for tor—" he threw a pitiful look at Repentance. "—tonight they will interview him."
Repentance stopped, her foot on the bottom step. They were going to torture him!
"He said an odd thing," Starved reported. "And I think he wanted me to pass it on. When the troopers threw him in the wagon, one of them said, 'It's the frame for you come sunup, or there's no ice on the mountain.' And Sober answered, 'Then I'll look forward to the sunup. I would have those I love, know I die content.' And then he looked straight at me and winked."
"Upstairs," Compassion said, shooing them from the hall.
A dull ache spread through Repentance. Sober had jumped right onto that wagon, thinking no more about it than he'd thought about diving into the waterfall to save Ambivalence. And it was her fault. All of it. From the very beginning.
She could have buttoned him. Why did she think she had to be the one to stand up to the overlords and refuse to give them slave babies? Why, in the name of Providence, had she hated the village so much? She'd felt lost there. As though she didn't belong. But if she'd have buttoned Sober she would have belonged.
Things were more complicated than that, though. Ever since the troopers had taken Tribulation she'd been afraid they'd come for her and her parents would let her go without a fight. When her mother had taken to rocking and humming Repentance had sworn to protect Comfort, but she'd grown up knowing she couldn't do it. And she hated that feeling of helplessness and hopelessness. Whether she buttoned or not was the one thing she was able to control in her life.
Once in the hidden room, Comfort asked a million questions. What was Sober doing at the wagon? How did Repentance know she was there? Why had the troopers taken her away from the family?
"Where were you when they took you?" Repentance asked.
"A fat woman, Mistress Merricc, do you know her?"
Repentance nodded.
"She bought us. The whole family. And she took us to a farm. Oh, Repentance, we saw the sun and the moon and the stars. We thought the world was wonderful. But then ... but then ... "
"Where are Mother and Father and the boys?"
Comfort gave Repentance a pitiful look and tears overflowed. "I didn't see them today. The troopers came and pulled me from bed and loaded me on the wagon. Mistress Merricc told them she owned me, and they couldn't have me without compensating her." She shivered and put her hands over her face. "Her old slave, Calamity, tried to pull her back to keep her from getting beaten by the troopers, and one of them asked him what he thought he was doing placing hands on an overlord woman. He knocked Calamity to the ground and he ... and he ... " she broke down sobbing.
Repentance hugged her, rocking her back and forth. "Never mind. Don't tell it."
She thought of Calamity with his wide, gap-toothed grin, sucking down Cook's potato soup.
"His dragon stick," Comfort mumbled, her face buried in Repentance's chest. "And he was screaming, and you could smell the burning flesh ... "
Oh, Calamity. Poor old Calamity.
Repentance felt a raging anger flow over her. If there were a trooper in the room just then, she felt sure she could rip his face off with her fingernails.
But as she patted Comfort's back her anger drained away and was replaced by a sense of hopeless dread.
Calamity was dead.
And Sober would soon join him.
She had no idea where her family was and Comfort wasn't even safe. Here they were, huddled in a small, hidden, tomb-like room. Freedom felt like myth and make-believe.
Maybe Comfort could yet be saved. Maybe Lord Carrull would be able to smuggle her out of the city.
When Lord Carrull finally arrived, Repentance dove on him with questions. Where were her parents? What was going on outside?
He ignored her, staring at Comfort in shock.
"Why is she here?" he whispered. "How can this be?" He looked at the faces of the people around him. Repentance, Comfort, Compassion, and Starved all stared back. "Where's Sober?" he asked.
"The troopers took him while he was saving Comfort," Repentance said.
His face reddened, and he clenched his fists. He stepped toward her as if he might strike her. "Sober left this house, kidnapped this girl from the troopers, and he brought her back here?"
"I brought her here," Repentance whispered.
"So whereas the prince did have a young woman who knew nothing about your whereabouts or my work, he now has Sober—a young man you brought to my house. A young man who has seen the secret room and who knows I steal slaves and smuggle them to freedom."
Repentance jumped up. "You wanted us to leave my sister to die? Just to save your sorry skin? Well, you needn't worry. Sober will never tell about your secret room. He knows Comfort and I are hidden here. He'll never give us up."
Lord Carrull looked at her sorrowfully. "I pray Providence you're right. You are, though, completely unaware of how persuasive the interrogators can be. I dare not chance it." He jumped into action, handing out orders. "Starved, the yak wagon, we'll be traveling all night. Compassion, pack food. For them," he indicated Repentance and Comfort, "and for us."
Repentance stared with her mouth hanging open. "What about Sober? Are you going to abandon him?"
A look of pity crossed his face, followed quickly by resolve. "I can do nothing for Sober. I'm sorry about that. I liked that young man, so don't try to blame me. He has you to thank for his fate. You fight when you have no way to win, and you seem determined to drag others down with you."
She winced.
Comfort stood and hugged Repentance.
Lord
Carrul's expression softened. "I know you don't mean any of it, Repentance. Sober knows it, too, I'm sure. He was full-force in love with you, that one. Any fool could see it." The lord studied her face. "And it's easy to understand why. You're stubborn as stone, but when you blurt out your opinions there's usually a lot of truth in them. You're full of vim and vigor, and there's something attractive about that in this world where we so often feel beaten down by forces so much bigger than we are."
She shook her head. Because he loved her, Sober would swing. There was nothing noble or good about her.
"I'm sorry I can't help you or your sister, now," Lord Carrull said. "You're welcome to hide out here. It will be safer than on the street. And you are right about one thing: Sober will not give you up without a fight. If Sober doesn't talk, my friends will get me word, and I'll be able to come back. Then I'll be able to help reunite you with your family."
"My family?" She looked at him hopefully. "You saw them at Mistress Merricc's farm?"
"They are safely on the way to Montphilo."
Relief flooded her and she couldn't speak.
"You were at the farm?" Comfort asked.
"Not so as anyone would have known. I spent the night there. I didn't meet your family because I was trying to avoid any ties to your sister or Sober. But I did see your family leave, and they will get to Montphilo safely. I promise. No one was chasing them. The troopers left with you, confident that you were all the bait they needed."
Repentance nodded. They were right about that.
After the others left, Repentance sank to the floor and wept. If she lived, by the time she left the hidden room Sober would be dead.
He would be dead by sunrise. And maybe all of Hot Springs along with him. She wouldn't put it past the prince to wipe out the village in a rage. The pain in her chest rose into her throat and she felt like she might choke on it.
Comfort knelt next to her, patting her back, as her own tears splattered on Repentance's neck.
After she was cried out, Repentance sniffed and swallowed and wiped at her swollen eyes with the sleeve of her gown.
Comfort rose and moved to the settee. She sat down with a heavy sigh. "Will we ever get out of this room?" she asked. "Or are we locked in forever?"
The Button Girl Page 29