"How can you make fun?" Repentance demanded. "We're slaves. Just like you."
"I'm never like you." He gave her a hard look. "There's slaves," he gestured toward himself and Rebuke, "and then there's swamp scum." His glare traveled from Repentance to Sober and back again.
Then his look went from angry to slimy. "Of course you may do well in the ice city, little girl. Once they scrub the stink from you. You'll not be sold as a seamstress or milkmaid, I'll judge."
The greedy look on his face made Repentance feel like she'd fallen into the scummy end of the swamp.
Woeful jumped down from the wagon and approached the slave cart. "Rich overlords will line up to exchange beads for an hour in your bed, or I'm a blind man."
He climbed up on the wagon wheel and grabbed her by one wrist. "How about you come with me and let me teach you how to give them good value for the beads they put on your pillow?"
Carefully chosen routes don't always bring one to the desired destination. Ruts, washouts, and armed men are but a few of the things that may waylay or divert the weary traveler. Worse still is to get to your map's end only to find that the promises of riches, far out-spoke the reality.
~Babbcocc the Cartographer, Journal of My Journeys
Chapter 5
Repentance yanked her wrist back, but the slave tightened his grip.
"I'll break you in, little filly," he said.
"I don't need to be broken in, thanks all the same." Her heart was beating like a herd of stampeding hogs.
He laughed. "Already been ridden a time or two, eh? No matter. One hour with me and I'll break you of the bad habits the ill-bred swamp boys have taught you."
Rebuke placed a friendly arm around the man's shoulders. "Hold yourself back, now. We've been paid good beads to guard these two."
Repentance yanked on her wrist. Yes, she belonged to the overlords. Surely a slave wouldn't dare—
"Right you are." Woeful shrugged off Rebuke's arm. "But I got a burning in my loins what's worth all the beads in your pocket."
"Oh, I can give the beads back, I guess," Rebuke said. "You think that will satisfy the slavers? Or do you think they'll beat us and take us from our master, and sell us on the slave dock, if we damage their property?"
"Damage her? Rebuke, my boy, I don't intend to damage her. I plan to educate her and increase her worth. It's likely the overlords will reward me for my services." He made to step into the cart.
"Besides," he added, "the overlords need never know. Who's going to tell them? The girl? They won't listen to a word she says."
He released his grip slightly as he spoke, and Repentance wrenched her wrist free. She scooted all the way back in the cart, bumping into Sober.
He moved to the side, slipping out from behind her. "You chose this life, little filly," he said angrily.
Rebuke grabbed Woeful from behind, taking hold of his collar and his belt. He hauled him to the water trough and dumped him in. "As payment for saving your life, I'll keep your share of the beads."
When Woeful began a protest Rebuke shoved his head under the water. "None of that noise, now. You're upsetting Bargess."
Woeful climbed out of the trough, dripping and sputtering. "I've got but one change of clothes," he said, the pitch of his voice rising to a whine.
"Thank Providence for that, then," Rebuke replied, and he shooed the little man away.
Turning his attention to Sober and Repentance, he said, as he unlocked their ankle shackles. "Into the skim wagon, then, and not one word do I want from either of you. I've done my good deed for the day. You'll get no more from me than that."
In the quiet, a dark dread seeped into Repentance's heart like fog slipping into a hollow.
She gazed desperately out past the barns and prayed. Oh, please Providence. If only she didn't have to go to the ice city. If only she could work for a kind master and live in a sunshiny meadow dappled with shadows and dotted with wildflowers.
She could learn to be content as a slave. She would learn.
If only.
The overlords came from their lunch, sat up on the cushioned front seat of the skim wagon, and the journey continued up the mountain. There were no horses and the driver guided the wagon using a stick that came up from the floor. Repentance and Sober bounced along on the hard bench in the open back bed of the wagon.
As they went up the road, the slavers passed a canteen back and forth. Repentance's stomach rumbled and her mouth watered at the sweet smell that escaped the uncorked canteen. No one offered her anything to drink, though.
No matter. She looked over the side of the wagon and feasted her eyes on the colors of field and sky.
They skimmed up the mountain, passing several side roads. A few other skim wagons passed them going down. They also saw wagons pulled by horses and, as they got higher up the mountain, some pulled by yaks. Repentance counted fifteen farms, some with goats grazing, some with workers tending crops. In the afternoon, shaggy meadows of wildflowers and cultivated fields alike, gave way to a rolling carpet of snow, which sparkled like sugary frosting on a birthday cake. Repentance had never seen anything so clean and bright.
"Close your worthless swamp eyes halfway," the driver said over his shoulder, "else you'll be blind inside of an hour." He
