The knowledge that Generosity was eyes-only for Sober, or heading that way, did nothing to dampen Repentance's excitement at the thought of seeing him at noon. Generosity could button him for all she cared. She only wanted him for a friend.
She hummed her way through the morning's workload, but put on a sad face at the lunch table.
"What ails you, child?" Cook asked as she slid a potato cake onto her plate. "You've not said a word since you sat down."
Repentance liked the cook. Spare with words and generous with food, she seemed to enjoy her job. She'd failed at the buttoning, as had every other woman on the mountain. Well, almost every one, anyway. Provocation had come up as a baby. Her parents had escaped from their village. They'd been quickly recaptured and hanged for runners.
"It's not like you to not greet me in my own kitchen, child," Cook scolded.
"I'm sorry," Repentance said. "I'm not feeling well today." She was determined to stay for the servants' lunch so she could see Sober, and that meant she wouldn't be going to Skoch's lecture that day.
"I hope," Skoch said from his seat across from her, "that your illness will not deprive me of your company in the schoolroom this afternoon."
He hadn't said anything about her behavior the day before. Still, she didn't like him. He reminded her of a slug—no backbone. No convictions. He believed in Providence but not really. He thought it was wrong to keep slaves, but he'd never say so in front of another overlord. She tried to glare at him but one look at his pink face and shy eyes drove the meanness out of her. Hating a weak person, even if he was an overlord, wasn't all that much fun. "I'm afraid I won't be able to make it today," she said. "I'm not feeling well enough. I hope you'll excuse me."
"Rest and get well, then," he said. "And I, since I shall have no students, shall visit the market."
"No students?" Provocation asked. "Where are the young princes today?"
"They no longer attend school with me in the afternoons. Their father is hiring another tutor."
Provocation lifted an eyebrow. "How long has this been in effect, and why wasn't I notified?"
Skoch turned bright red and began his stammering. "I believe Monday was their last d-d-day."
"Monday," she said fixing a glare on Repentance. "That would be the day you started. What did you do? Call them warthogs?"
Repentance stared guiltily at her potato cakes.
"She did no s-s-such thing," Skoch stammered out in her defense. "They refused to sit in the s-s-same room with her. She d-d-didn't say a word."
"We'll see what the king has to say about this. That's what." Provocation muttered.
"No!" Repentance dropped her potato cake. "Please don't say anything." The less the king knew about what the prince was doing, the better.
"I most certainly shall. He has the right to know what goes on in his own palace."
Piggetty, jiggetty, light the fuse.
Paggetty, jaggetty, close eyes and choose.
This or that? Both ways I lose.
That children's sing-song rattles in my head.
One man is deadly. The other will be dead.
~Repentance Atwater, Mountain Journal
Chapter 19
The others left, and Repentance, worrying about Provocation stirring up trouble but not being able to do one cursed thing about it, moved over to the high-backed wing chair in front of the kitchen fire. She took a book from her pocket and opened it, pretending to read. She wasn't reading, though. She was praying—her foot falling upon the well-worn path, irrespective of her recent decision to disregard Providence. She was praying that the king would leave the prince alone.
Cook put a cup of hot wine on the table at her elbow. "Good for the gray mood," she said.
Repentance reached into her pocket and pulled out her three gray buttons. They felt cool and smooth in her hand. She stirred them in her palm. She was used to gray moods.
Ensconced in the big chair in the dim, back corner of the kitchen, she heard the kitchen door swish open behind her. Several people entered, laughing and talking.
She heard Sober's voice among the crowd. "Cook! Friday is my second favorite day of the week. Your potato cakes are unmatched on the mountain."
His voice drove out all thought of the king and the prince.
She remembered his earnest face at the slave market. And his comical expression on Monday, when he winked at her.
"What's your first favorite day, then?" Cook asked Sober.
"Monday of course, when you slip me a mug of your onion and potato soup to take in the vegetable wagon with me."
Several people laughed.
Repentance started to rise from her chair to join the others at the table.
"Good thing the palace uses so many potatoes, then." It was Generosity's voice. "And you have to come twice a week."
Why she did it, Repentance didn't know, but she settled back into the chair so she wouldn't be seen. She had a vague idea that she needed to listen for a minute to see how Sober would answer Generosity.
Maybe he would button Generosity and live at the palace.
Her heart beat with a funny little stutter again.
No, it didn't.
She was being silly. She could never button—she was the king's concubine—and Sober and Generosity would make a good match.
A young man spoke next. "Unfortunate for you that you aren't required on Wednesdays, though. Cook's pork pie would spoil you for any other meal."
"We'll have to talk Cook into buying more vegetables so he can come up Wednesdays, too," Generosity said, with what sounded like a flirty tone.
"I'd like to come more, anyway," Sober said. "I have a friend who lives
