She jabbed a playful elbow into his ribs. "I know what it is. I mean, why are you giving it to me?"
He looked over at her, laughing. "I can't enjoy my lunch with you staring at me with that hungry expression on your face."
Heat rushed to her cheeks.
Merit jumped into the conversation. "Are you saying you want Tigen's older brothers to die?"
Sober chewed and swallowed. "I'm not saying anything about the older brothers. I'm simply saying I think Providence has plans for our young Tigen."
Repentance laid the piece of potato cake back on his plate "I'm not hungry. I ate lunch right before you got here."
"Hmm," he shrugged. "My mistake. I thought you looked hungry." He popped the whole piece in his mouth and washed it down with yak's milk.
She looked away. Was she that transparent? She was hungry ... for so many things. She was hungry for the freedom to come and go as she pleased. She was hungry for her mother's hug, for her father's laugh, and for Comfort's whispered confessions in the middle of a night. But she wasn't hungry for the swamp. She'd never fit there. What she was really hungry for—she glanced sideways at Sober—was for a place to fit.
Saturday was her rest time every week. Repentance spent the day snuggled in the stuffed chair by the kitchen fire. After deciding to attack the library in alphabetical order, she'd started Adoration, the biography of Adoration Hogswallow, an overlord woman who had left the mountain to serve as a doctor in a village called Lumberline. The villagers had given her the front name of Adoration when she'd arrived, and she'd gotten her back name when she'd buttoned with a lowborn widower, Urgent Hogswallow.
Late Saturday afternoon, Repentance closed the book, thinking about what Adoration had given up in order to button a lowborn man. She'd lost everything. She'd given up her right to ever go home again. She was like Repentance, running away, only Adoration had been born free and she'd buttoned into slavery. But how silly! Or maybe they really were alike, she and Repentance. Both living in a society that told them what to do and never asked their preference.
Still! Adoration must have really loved her lowborn button mate to have given up the mountain for him.
Repentance sighed, wondering what it would be like know a man worthy of such love.
After dinner with Provocation and Skoch, she made to go back to her room, as usual, but since she had finished Adoration's story, she stopped off in the library for another book. It was by the grace of Providence she took that detour. She was returning to her room when she saw Lord Malficc in the hallway ahead of her, several dresses draped over one arm. She drew back into the nearest doorway. He threw open her door without knocking and went right in. She raced back to the kitchen, looking for safety.
The kitchen was full when she arrived. Generosity jumped up as she entered. "Do you need me, my Lady?"
"I thought I'd read here for a while and help Cook clean up later." She sat in her usual chair in front of the fire while the others ate.
After dinner, Repentance jumped up to help several of the maids wash the dishes while the men stretched out on the benches and tamped smoke-weed into their pipes. While they worked, several of the buttoned slaves came in—mothers with children hanging on their skirts and fathers settling in at the table and lighting pipes. When the dishes were done, the women joined the men at the table. Repentance, having never been in the kitchen this late before, sauntered over to investigate.
Several men and women started a game with eight-sided dice.
Repentance watched for a moment before moving on to see what Favor and Merit were doing. They sat across from one another with a large piece of soft suede spread across the table between them. The suede had been painted to show rolling hills covered with meadows and woods and with a rushing stream traveling from one side to the other. Standing at various spots on the surface were small statues of animals, wild and domestic. There were dragons, sheep, pigs, and assorted others.
Repentance watched for a few moments then continued on to see what everyone else was doing.
Tigen, had slipped in at some point. He squatted in the corner with several slave boys, playing some game with shiny stones laid out on a sheet with a grid marked on it. Repentance stood over him trying to understand how the game was played.
The young prince looked up. "My Lady, why weren't you at lectures on Friday?"
"I took the afternoon off," she said.
"I know that, my Lady. I wanted to know why you took it off."
She smiled. "Did you miss me?"
His cheeks took on a slight pink tinge. "I did."
"Do you come here every night?"
"Almost."
"Your father doesn't mind you being here?"
Tigen moved a stone from one square to another. "My father doesn't know where I am most nights."
She spent the evening reading by the fire while the others played their games. When they left for the night, she went with them, and then she sneaked back and lay down on the rug in front of the hearth.
The following day was Sunday. Repentance went wearily back to washing the same suncloths that had been washed fifty times already. By noontime she was thoroughly sick of suncloths and thrilled to join Provocation and Skoch for lunch, silent though the two of them always were.
Skoch surprised her by greeting her with a broad smile. "You look like you need cheering up, my Lady. I have just the thing that will make you feel better. Today we will have lectures as usual,
