The tutor dropped his eyes, his cheeks a shade pinker than a moment before. "It seems the king thought your g-g-grasp of history was not all it should be."
Heat rose in her cheeks. Was there anyone who hadn't heard? But it made sense that the king would tell everyone that she thought he was half way through his third century. If she looked like a foolish child, others would think him kind, rather than weak, when he spared her from the swingman. He was a smart man, her king.
"And as for the deportment classes, if the king had not suggested them," Provocation said, "I certainly would have. You'd best learn manners, before the whole palace is in an uproar. The Moonlight Festival is next month, too, and you're not fit to be seen at the King's side."
"I'm going to the festival with the king?"
"Did I not tell you, Skoch? Ignorant as a block of ice."
Lectures started right after lunch. Skoch showed her to the schoolroom.
There were four other students—Lord Malficc's sons. Three of them were small replicas of their father with pale blue eyes, golden hair, straight noses, and perfect chins. The fourth, the youngest, had hair that was more orange than golden and eyes the color of jade.
"She's sitting in on our lectures?" the biggest one asked, in an offended tone. "Why is she not in school with the slave children the king insists on educating?"
They stood at the front of the class, by the tutor's desk, staring at Repentance.
"Boys," Skoch said, "it's imp-p-polite to stare." Then looking at Repentance, he introduced them. The tallest—a boy eleven or twelve years—was Gaylor. Next came Baeler, then Tigen, and finally, little redheaded Rrow.
Tigen, she remembered was the boy who had been in the hall with the prince.
"Boys," Skoch said, when he was done naming them all, "meet Lady Repentance."
"Lady?" Gaylor said, with disgust. "Are you mad?"
"Her p-p-position requires the title."
Gaylor turned a cold eye on the tutor. "She's my old-uncle's whore."
Skoch blushed. "For deportment today we'll discuss how to address p-p-people.
"And she's a slave, besides." Baeler nudged his older brother. "Do you call a slave, lady?"
"I don't," Gaylor said. "I call slaves, scum." He laughed at his little joke. Baeler and Rrow joined in.
Tigen, second from the smallest, looked at Repentance with serious eyes and said, "I think she's beautiful."
Baeler rolled his eyes. "She's a slave, dragon dung. Slaves can't be beautiful. Not really. Even if you clean up their outsides, they still have dirty innards. Like animals, is all they are."
Repentance wanted to slap him, but she looked at her red, chapped hands and remembered that she was on a new path. She wasn't going to strike out rashly anymore. She had to stay with her plan to save Comfort. The king hadn't sent her to the swingman, but the Prince ... she wasn't about to test him by slapping one of his sons.
"Dirty innards," the littlest one sang.
"Sit!" Skoch said.
"I am not sitting with a slave," Gaylor said.
"The king, has commanded her to attend lessons. Sit or l-l-leave."
Gaylor and Baeler turned toward the door. Tigen scuttled over and sat in the chair next to Repentance. Little Rrow stood looking between Tigen and the other two.
"If you go, I'll have to t-t-tell your father."
"You won't have to t-t-tell," Gaylor said. "I'll t-t-tell him myself. And I can promise you, he's not going to like this." He grabbed Rrow by the collar and yanked him out of the room.
I tried to walk on Providence's road and found the going hard. The rewards were little to none. Or is it that I haven't been on His road, after all, but on a man-made road all along?
~Repentance Atwater, Mountain Journal
Chapter 18
Skoch lectured for two hours—one hour on deportment and one on history—amazingly without the stutter. He seemed to forget to be nervous once he was teaching. Repentance heard very little, though. Gaylor's sneering voice played over and over in her mind. Her cheeks burned, the soup in her stomach turned sour, and her neck muscles ached from holding her head up, high and defiant.
When the lectures ended, she shot out of her chair and made for the door.
Tigen jumped up, too. "Where are you going, my Lady?" His voice held a hopeful note as if she might invite him along.
She glanced down at the boy. He was in seventh year or maybe his eighth. Around the age of her brothers. But he looked so much like his hateful older brothers and his father. She left the room without answering him. It was the kindest thing she could muster.
She went to the washroom, as if to collect her dried suncloths, but slipped from the palace through the back door.
The sun was sliding toward the peaks in the west. Chilly air bit at her nose and made her eyes water, but it felt good. It felt free. She could breathe on the mountain in a way she never breathed before. They didn't really own her. She might have to bow down on the outside, and drop her gaze as if she weren't good enough to look them in the eye, but on the inside she was cursing them, and they were powerless to stop her. She just had to remember to keep that cursing from bursting out of her mouth and getting her in trouble.
She walked past the kitchen courtyard and past the outbuildings—the dairy and a freeze barn. After that were three more barns—one for sows and two for yaks. She stopped when she reached a bluff overlooking the city only because
