Repentance ran.
Where she was going, she didn't know. She wanted to head toward the small houses on the edge of the city. Once she found the wall, she'd figure out how to get over it and away. But she was running too fast to be able to study the houses.
She bolted out of the alley. Turned on a busy street. Darted into the next alley on her left. Zig-zagged across another street. Into another alley.
Behind her, shouts gave indication that she was still being chased. She didn't slow down to look.
Her lungs burned. She ran on. Twisting, Turning. Taking whatever path opened in front of her.
"Stop running, girl." The voice sounded right behind her.
A hand touched the back of her robe but didn't manage to get a firm grasp. She put on a burst of speed, darting out of the alley and into a sun-flooded square. A square with a frozen fountain in the center. She skirted some boys playing skipball.
Repentance looked wildly around. The slave market sat at one end of the square. Sober was still at his stake. Her heart slammed against her chest.
All for nothing.
She was right back where she'd started.
She ducked into an alley on the right.
Feet pounded the hard ice behind her.
This time the hand, instead of grabbing at her, slammed her between the shoulder blades. She stumbled. She was recovering from that when something hit her behind the knees and she went down. Hard. Her bare hands hit the ice, and she felt an immediate burn. One shoulder crunched against the ground.
Big hands grabbed her. She squirmed and kicked as she was thrown over a broad shoulder. She beat on her captor's back.
He ran down the alley carrying her as if she were no more than a sack of grub roots. He turned a corner and skidded to a stop behind a staircase. "For the love of Providence, hold still," he said. "My first rescue and it's all gone wrong."
She stopped hitting him.
Rescue?
It was a lie.
She set to beating his back with renewed vigor.
The man set her feet on the ground and, taking hold of her shoulders, he shook her until her eyeballs hurt.
"Listen to me," he said. "You have to be quiet. You'll bring the troopers down on us. What made you run back to the slave market?"
She stared, trying to focus her blurry vision.
Holding her with one hand, he removed his cloak and threw it over her shoulders. "Pull the hood up, and walk with me. Quietly. Or we'll both meet the swingman before the week is out."
She stared at him, weighing her options. That's when she saw the sky blue eyes and the scar above one eyebrow—he had been working on the wagon that blocked the alley. He wasn't a trooper, then.
She pulled the cloak shut to cover her robe.
They wound their way through alleys, slipping from shadow to shadow. At busy streets the man peeked around corners, studying the traffic for signs of troopers before quickly leading her across, back into the relative safety of the dim alleyways. She followed along quietly, hoping more than believing that he was trustworthy, and memorizing every turn, every block, every alley. If she had to run again, she'd not run back to the slave market.
She kept an eye on the buildings, too, wanting to see them get smaller. Looking for the city wall. But they were still surrounded by ice towers, when her guide stopped at the back alley entrance of one. She leaned back, peering up, trying to count the stories on the structure. A flag, with a red background and an orange triangle in the middle, waved from a flagpole at the top of the building.
The man knocked on the door, and a moment later a small slave woman let them in.
Thick carpets, fine tapestries, and the slave's purple satin dress, attested to the wealth of the house. The woman opened a door off the hall and ushered them into a great room, the size of which astounded Repentance.
In the swamp she had lived in a cave with several rooms, so she had grown up with sleeping quarters of her own. Others had considered her family rich, and they were, by village standards. It never occurred to her, though, that anyone would live in a house with rooms the size of her entire village center.
The high ceiling was hung with cloths, like clouds, which glowed with the same kind of yellow light she'd seen in the bowl lamp that morning. A slight hum came from them. The carpet radiated heat. The ice walls were carved and painted—full of pictures. Repentance, without really looking, vaguely registered pictures of meadows with streams, overlord hunting parties mounted on yaks, and portraits of regal overlord women and men.
The old slave woman led them across the room, in the center of which stood a table, twenty feet long, made out of a honey-colored wood and shining like a reflecting stone. Tall vases of flowers sat at both ends and in the center of the table. At the far end of the room a fire blazed. In front of the fireplace sat a grouping of chairs and settees. It was to that end of the room that the slave led Repentance and her rescuer ... captor ... the man.
Another man, sitting in front of the fire, looked up from a book he was reading, a smile on his face.
Repentance gasped as she took in the tan breeches and pale green eyes. It was the lecherous Lord Carrull from the slave dock.
The man who acts without considering the effects of his actions on others, ends life alone and never understands why. "I never hurt a soul," says he. "I simply tended to my own pursuits—minded my own
