These things the prince was doing did concern her. She was sure of that. And his schemes meant no good for anyone.
Feeling her way through the dark tack room, she slipped into the barn's central corridor. The yaks knew her scent. She prayed they wouldn't start to bawl and give her away.
Peeking toward the bales of greens at the end of the barn, she saw no one.
She tiptoed along, heading toward the secret room.
Before she got there, the back wall split apart. A door she'd never seen before, its seams blending in with the natural seams of the wall, scraped open.
Repentance dodged into the closest stall. The yak gave a startled little jump. She looked at his face. Bramble.
He sniffed at the large pocket of her work smock.
Oh, please Providence. She hadn't brought him anything.
He snuffled and snorted.
"Tonight, then," A man's voice. "I had the brew delivered to the gatehouse an hour ago, and I've ordered their dinner. The guards should be drunk and distracted by the time you leave. Your yak will be tethered down the lane."
"Finally," a second man said.
The first man laughed. "Ah, anxious for the kill, I see."
"Anxious to be done with the evil deed and to get home to my family."
Bramble snuffled at Repentance's pocket.
"Oh, well then, pardon me, dear Consecration, for making you wait. I could have let you kill him the first night, of course. But then I couldn't have allowed you to escape. We had to wait for the prince's feast, you see. It takes a trickle of time, not to mention expertise and cunning, to execute a flawless assassination."
Repentance sucked in her breath and slammed a hand over her mouth. Her heart beat faster than a thumping hare on race day.
Bramble nosed her pocket, throwing her against the door of the stall. A pitchfork that was leaning on the wall nearby, clattered to the floor, but, praise Providence, the door latch held.
"Who's there?" one of the men said.
Repentance crouched in one corner. Bramble hunched over her, still snuffling about for a treat.
Footsteps approached.
"Just the yak knocking over a pitchfork. What about the prince?"
"He'll be in the company of lords and ladies at his dinner—very much in view of many witnesses who are beyond reproach. He'll go, with a select group, to the king's library at precisely nine o'clock and be shocked and grieved to find his uncle dead."
"I don't care about that. I meant what will he do with me? Will he send troopers to search for me?"
"Of course."
"How do I know the prince will keep his word? How do I know that I won't hang for an assassin on the morrow?"
Bramble, finding nothing to eat, snorted crankily. Repentance held her hands up for him to sniff and lick.
"You can't trust him. Why would you think such a thing? Still ... let me sketch this out for you plainly, Consecration. You can do as he asks and maybe live, or you can refuse and I'll kill you now. After I kill you, I'll go down and take care of your button mate and slavelets. So what will it be? The choice is yours." He laughed. "There you see? You do have a choice. And all those silly anti-slave people, those Deliverance Day pieces of dung marching at the Hall of Justice with their "Free the Lowborns' signs, say we never give you people any choices."
"You leave my children alone."
"Then quit complaining and do the deed. Give me five minutes to get back to the party."
Footsteps padded back down the corridor. The secret door scraped shut.
She held perfectly still while Bramble nibbled her ear and dribbled on her hair.
The double doors at the end of the barn slid along the rolling tracks once, then again. Open and shut.
She waited in the dark.
So the prince had decided the king had sufficiently fallen from favor with the people. An assassination! This was how Lord Malficc was going to take care of the king and move her back to the queen's chamber. The truth hit her like a mudslide.
She pushed Bramble away and slid out of his stall. And then paused in indecision. She wasn't sure she wanted to warn the king. If he was so weak that the prince had ordered the assassination, it would be unwise for her to throw her lot in with his. Besides, he'd accused her and cast her aside, not caring if she lived or died.
But, mad as she was, she didn't want him to be killed. She was fond of him. He'd saved her from the prince, once upon a time. She didn't hate him. But even if she did, she'd still have to warn him. If he died, Malficc would gain the throne. And she was willing to risk anything to keep that from happening.
She turned to go warn the king but stopped before reaching the door. He wouldn't listen to her. He'd throw her out.
Maybe she could tell Provocation. The king trusted her. Repentance had never been to her rooms but she knew which hallway they were on.
The door to the secret room behind the feed bins began to scrape open.
No time.
Repentance grabbed the pitchfork, sprinted to the end of the barn, and crouched behind the bales of greens.
Justice is hard to come by in the palaces where rich and powerful men decide the course of the world. We all know that's true. But she is just as hard to find in the back alleys. There is no honor among thieves. Wherever people gather, bringing their sinful hearts along, justice will always be hard-pressed and scrabbling for a hearing.
~Judge Bekkett, Nobody Knows the Trials I've Seen
