Behind them came a girl with a tray. She poured hot wine into a cup and handed it to Repentance.
"Come here, child," the king said to Repentance. "Let Provocation see to your burns."
She touched her cheek and then looked at her blistered fingers and winced, feeling the burns for the first time. She pushed herself off the floor and sat on a settee across from the king.
Giving the king a hard look, she said, "I never tried to kill you. That slave and I were coming to tell you that the Prince was trying to kill you."
"I found that out. After you ran away with your young man—it was the farmer that helped you, wasn't it? Sober?"
Her young man. Oh, holy Providence. Why give me the young man, only to snatch him away so quickly?
"After you ran away with your young man, the prince came to tell me of his plans for hunting you down. I told him to leave you. I told him ... " he sighed. "I told him I had no heart to see my own kin swinging on the frame." He covered his face with his hands. "What a fool I was. Malficc was surprised that I'd seen your birthmark. I told him of course I had. Why did he think I took you away from him? I'd seen the birthmark on the first day I met you."
He paused to take a swig from his medicine flask. "Malficc thought I was saying I was your father. That night he came into my room and knocked me over the head. I woke up in the dungeon."
Provocation, slathering a cool balm on Repentance's cheek, broke in. "I blame myself. I should have known. But why would he lock you up? Even if you did think Repentance was your daughter, you still thought she was an assassin. We all did."
"Because I was going to let her go, and she was a threat to him. As long as she lived he couldn't be sure she wouldn't come take the throne from him someday. Or so he thought."
"So his plan was to keep you locked up until you died?" Repentance asked. "And tell everyone you were away on business?" That seemed like a foolish plan.
"His original plan was to have the slave kill me, and have you for a concubine. With me dead, even if you thought your birthmark meant you were my daughter, you'd not be able to prove it. When you spoiled that plan, by coming with the assassin to warn me, he decided to hand you over to the swingman and let me live. For a while, anyway. When I told him to let you go, he had to change his plan again. He put me in prison and went after you. Once he found you, he was going to kill me and claim you got loose and succeeded in assassinating me. I would be dead, you would go to the swingman, and he would ascend to the throne."
The king rubbed his forehead as if it ached and then added in a whisper, "He took great joy in the dungeon, telling me exactly how he was going to do it all."
"He told us you'd left early in the morning to go to Hot Springs," Provocation said. "I wouldn't have taken his word for it. You never left before without waking me. But the footman told me he'd put you in the coach himself."
"The footman will pay for his misplaced loyalty," the king said. "As will all the of Lord Malficc's friends."
"And the troopers," Repentance said. "There was one in the barn. He threatened to kill Consecration's children if he didn't assassinate you."
The king sighed. "We'll sort it all out. Everyone who played a part in this scheme will be punished appropriately. I promise you that."
"Why didn't you tell the prince I wasn't your daughter?" Repentance asked.
"I did. Not that I expected it to do me any good. He had sent an assassin after me and then he'd imprisoned me. He couldn't let me live. But I thought he might let you live if he knew you weren't my daughter. He didn't believe me, though. He thought it was a ploy to spare your life. Besides, by then he hated you for besting him and he was determined to hunt you down and kill you, along with your entire village."
There was a knock on the door and Generosity came in. "The doctor says Tigen has lost much blood. If he's still alive in the morning, we should have every hope he'll live, but he cannot say if Tigen is strong enough to make it through the night."
Repentance said a quick prayer. Not Tigen, too.
The king nodded at Generosity. "Thank you."
She stood there still.
"Something else?" the king asked.
"One of Repentance's friends from the village came to the festival tonight. I thought she might be wanted." She hesitated. "Shall we wait?"
"Bring her in, Generosity. Friends are helpful in times like these."
Comfort pushed past Generosity, bobbed her head at the king, and threw herself into her sister's arms.
Repentance hugged Comfort, weeping, and shushing and petting her all at once. Comfort was safe.
There was that to be thankful for.
Comfort held on to her and cried with her, as they followed Generosity to the queen's chamber.
Repentance crawled into bed beside her sister, utterly exhausted and numb, and sobbed into her pillow while Comfort rubbed her back.
She finally drifted to sleep.
The next thing she knew, Generosity was waking her and asking if she felt well enough to eat in the kitchen. A certain stable boy, she said, Shamed, by name, had been asking after them and all the servants wanted to see Repentance again.
"Do they not know that Sober is dead?" Repentance asked. "How can they eat?"
