As much as Repentance liked Generosity's open friendliness, she wasn't sad to part company with her at the dining room door. All that chatter couldn't be good for the digestive system.
When Generosity left, Repentance patted her hair into place, smoothed her gown, and entered the room with what she hoped was a peaceful expression on her face. She wouldn't show the prince how much he had shaken her.
It turned out not to matter. The room was empty, save for a manservant—a slave—loitering in one corner. She breathed out in relief.
As soon as she entered, the slave sprang forward and pulled out a chair from the far end of the table.
Repentance sat.
As the slave poured her some of the milky drink she liked so much—yak's milk, she'd learned it was, thinned with mountainberry wine and sweetened with honey—she studied the room. Ice walls, thick carpet, like every other room. The carpet was a deep maroon, which matched the dark wood of the dining table. She bent forward to study the grain. Mahogany.
On the wall opposite her, a painting was carved in relief on the wall, like the cityscape in her room. This one was a man on a yak. A nobleman—she could tell from the turban—it looked like …. She leaned forward. It looked like the king. At his side, a woman stood, her back to Repentance. She was a slave woman—black hair. But she was dressed in a fancy gown. His button mate, probably. Before she'd lost her head.
Repentance stared at the picture trying to reconcile the king she'd been with for five days, with the king who had beheaded his button mate and enslaved all the lowborns in a fit of rage over her infidelity. She was guilty, if history books were to be trusted. But the history books were written by the overlords, so who knew if they could be trusted. And even if she was guilty, how was it right for him to cut off her head and take her people captive? And to still be punishing them two-hundred-and-fifty years later? The punishment hardly fit the crime. And now her brothers were to be sacrificed in an overlord war they knew nothing about.
The door swished open, and the king came in.
Repentance stood, wiped the glare off her face, and bowed her head.
The slave seated him then reseated Repentance.
The king raised his hands toward heaven.
Repentance bowed her head. He hadn't prayed in the healing house, but apparently in the palace he did things differently.
"For all you have provided, we give you thanks," the king said.
A serving woman came in with a silver tureen and ladled soup into their bowls.
"Will we begin without Lord Malficc?" Repentance asked. At the healing house the table was full for every meal. She had a vague idea that a king's table would always be crowded with friends and pretenders.
"He doesn't dine with us."
Joy swept through her. "Doesn't he live in the palace, then?" That was good news, indeed.
"He does. But he dines with his goodwoman and their four boys in their family quarters. Oh, no, you'd not catch me dead, sharing a table with those four boys."
"He's buttoned?"
"That surprises you?"
"He was with ... with ... " Repentance felt her cheeks burning.
"With?"
"Why does he go to Hot Springs? Why does he have Tawnic service him when he has his own goodwoman right here?"
"Oh, the men in your village have only one woman. Is that it?"
She blushed again. "We button for life."
"As do we. But our button mates don't have exclusive rights over us. We used to do it that way. It's an old-fashioned idea. I didn't know any of the villages still practiced it."
Repentance let her spoon fall into her bowl and stared at him in horror. Such a thing for him to say!
"But you decapitated your button mate for that very thing! That exact same thing. That's why you took all the lowborns into slavery, you hypocrite. You ... you warthog!"
"Warthog? Warthog!" His face had turned maroon.
"You've punished us for two-hundred-and-fifty years because you believed you had exclusive rights over your button mate, and now you say this idea of exclusive rights is old fashioned?"
He pushed himself to his feet, shaking with weakness and rage. "How dare you? And you a slave!" He glanced at the servant who stood by the wall, his face a mask of disinterest.
"It cannot be left to stand unpunished," the king said through clenched teeth. "You will go to your room and wait for me to determine your fate."
All the anger drained from Repentance.
What had she done?
Had she yelled at him?
Called him a name?
He glared down at her.
She slid her chair back. "I don't know the way to my room," she whispered.
When the lowborn grows too old to do your bidding, it is your responsibility to call in the swingman. When the slave can no longer provide you with pleasure, his purpose in life is gone. It is cruelty to keep him alive then, an unhappy, useless shell.
~Doctor Durr Raynjed, The Care and Feeding of Animals
Chapter 16
At the king's command, the manservant took Repentance to her room. He said nothing along the way and left her without a word.
Repentance sat in shock on the edge of her big, soft bed.
What had she been thinking?
She absently took her three gray buttons from the pocket of her gown and placed them on the bed.
She hadn't been thinking. That was what caused her trouble. Speaking first, thinking later. Her mother had always said her mouth would land
