"Tell me."
"Tomorrow morning there will be no washing of suncloths for you. Tomorrow, we trade laundry baskets and schoolbooks for the real world."
"Meaning?"
"We go into the city to see some of the oldest buildings. We will tour the original palace in the Old Village Circle, and when we are done, we will dine at the Fin and Feather."
"Fin and Feather?" Provocation said. "Who's paying for that nonsense?"
"The M-M-Ministry of Education." Skoch looked defensive. "It's an important part of the social education."
"A waste of beads, you mean." Provocation said. "Why spend such money on a slave girl and four little boys."
Without regard to Provocation's objections, the carriage dropped them early Monday morning in the old section of the city, where two-storied buildings, gray with age, squatted around a circle.
"That's the Hall of Justice," Skoch said, pointing to one of the buildings. A small gathering of overlords milled around in front of the building, waving signs at folks in passing skim carriages.
"Who are they?" Repentance asked.
"They are always here, m-m-my Lady. They are part of Deliverance Day."
"The group that wants to free slaves?" Lord Carrull had told her about them.
"They buy and free as many slaves as they can afford. Many overlords w-w-want the slaves to be freed. I'm not sure how we can free them, though. If we had to pay the slaves wages, our economy would crumble."
"Better that slave families are ripped apart than that the overlord economy should suffer," Repentance muttered.
"Next to the Hall of Justice, is the Hall of Records," Skoch said. "And the short building, there is the Ministry of Education."
Repentance noted the different style of the buildings on the circle. They were shorter and fatter than the buildings in the neighborhoods by the slave market and palace. And the carvings in their faces looked somehow fiercer—less refined.
"This building is the Military Command." Skoch pointed a building just to the left of them. "And this one—" he indicated the building before them "—is the old palace. Now a museum."
"And there's the Fin and Feather," Tigen said, pointing to a low building next to the museum. "The best eatery in all of Harthill."
Gaylor, Baeler, and Rrow, ran up the stairs and into the museum ahead of the rest.
Repentance looked back at the Deliverance Day group before she went in. There were overlords who didn't hate her. That gave her hope.
The museum was dark and cold, with its threadbare lavacloth carpets and suncloths. The rooms were not nearly as comfortable as those of the newer palace. But the worst part, for Repentance, were the gruesome carvings in every wall of bloody battles of old. She averted her eyes and concentrated instead on the furniture or the dinnerware as Skoch carried on about the importance of this king and that king in the shaping of the present-day Harthill.
After going through all the bed chambers upstairs, and considering how hard life was back before the overlords had lavacloth in abundance, they entered a great room and found one entire wall given to the destruction of a lowborn village. Gaylor, who had gotten there first, stood before the picture chortling. Repentance turned away in disgust.
"Are you feeling ill, my Lady?" Skoch asked.
"I need the relief room."
"Do you recall the one we passed downstairs in the main hallway when we came in?"
She nodded.
"We'll be right behind you. We have only two more rooms up here."
After washing her face, she felt better, but she had no desire to see more of the dark, old palace. She stepped out on the wide porch to suck down some fresh air.
Across the circle, the Deliverance Day people were crowded around an open skim wagon loaded with chignets of potatoes. Repentance strained to see better. The driver looked a lot like Calamity, but she couldn't be sure at such a distance.
"This tongue of mine," quoth the fool, "will take me to the swingman, if it doesn't learn to be still."
"Then you must teach it to be still," the wise man replied.
"Alas, alas, then swing I must, for my tongue refuses to attend lessons. Of an afternoon it can always be found down at the pub, a lapping and a flapping, all fast and free."
~from The Fool and the Wiseman, by Lord Kawklin
Chapter 22
Repentance wandered down the steps in front of the museum and headed across the circle toward the Hall of Justice.
As she neared the potato wagon, she saw that Calamity was indeed sitting in the driver's seat. He was talking with the Deliverance Day people.
Sober walked around from the back of the wagon, balancing a chignet of potatoes on his shoulder as if it were a small basket of berries. His black hair gleamed blue in the midday mountain sunlight.
He looked up and gaped. Then set his chignet of potatoes down on the seat next to Calamity and walked toward her. "Repentance, you're the last person I expected to see here." His soft flannel buttoning scarf was wrapped loosely around his neck and Repentance had to force down the urge to reach out and touch it.
He'd offered that scarf to her once and she'd turned it down. She'd had a good reason for turning it down. She was sure of it. But as he stood next to her in the sunshine and crisp mountain air, she couldn't remember what that reason was.
"Are you not well?" he asked, leaning forward to look into her face.
"I'm fine. Just surprised to see you. The tutor brought us to the museum. Why are you here?"
"We deliver potatoes to the Fin and Feather," he pointed to the eatery. "And you? Why are you not in the museum with the porcupine tutor?"
She laughed. "The tutor I
