Tigen nodded. "And Generosity and I love you, too," he said shyly. "And we'll get you out of here. You'll see."
Generosity shushed him. "Maybe you shouldn't make such promises, Tigen. We don't know what the will of Providence is."
"I do know," he said.
Repentance reached for him and hugged him tight.
His kindness—his sympathetic smile and childlike confidence—undid her. Tears sprang to her eyes and overflowed. Bless the boy. He loved her. He did. And he would save her, if only ….
If only he were king.
Maybe one day he would grow up to be king. Oh, please Providence, knock his evil brothers aside, and set Tigen on the throne. He was such a good boy. He would free her people and never again would a slave girl, unjustly accused, lie in a dungeon. Never again would a slave boy swing for a runner. Tigen wouldn't stand for it.
She kept holding him and weeping, unable to let him go.
He stood sweetly, patting her back and letting her cry all over him.
She set him away from herself. "I'm sorry! I got you wet." She swiped at his hair, pushing the damp, blonde strands back behind his ear, and curling the wet ends around her fingers. The shaft of light from the door, gave his hair a golden glow. So shiny and pretty.
And then she saw the mark on his neck. Just behind his left ear. It stood tan against his white skin. She brought him closer.
"It's all right." Tigen said. "I don't mind the wet hair." He pulled back from her.
"Hold still, I'm trying to see your neck." She stood and tilted his head. There! A tiny sun—a circle with sunrays all around it.
"It's my birthmark," he said.
"It looks like a sun."
"Of course. They all do."
"You have more?'
"Not me, Silly." Tigen laughed.
"You said 'all'—you said, 'They all look like suns.'"
"We all have suns behind our ears."
"All overlords have this birthmark?"
He laughed again. "Not all overlords. All who are from the royal house."
She reached up and laid a hand on her own neck. Royal house?
"Are you ill?" Generosity asked.
Her mother's sin. Her mother's great sin. She finally knew what it was.
Her mother had been pregnant on her buttoning day. Did her father know? Of course, he wouldn't have said anything. He was in his fifth year. If Mother hadn't buttoned him, he'd have been taken off in the slave carts.
She remembered the king looking at her with that sad look, saying, "You reminded me of someone I knew." And then there was the time he'd said, "Your mother was a beautiful woman." He knew her mother.
Intimately.
That was why he'd tried to protect her.
Dizzy, she stumbled back to sit on her lavacloth. "I'm his daughter?" she whispered.
Generosity shook her shoulder. "Repentance, what's the matter with you?"
She looked up. "I'm sorry. I forgot you were here."
"It's from going two days without food and drink." Generosity laid the back of her hand on Repentance's forehead. "You're ill. I'll bring you better food next time."
"I'm thirsty more than hungry."
"I'll bring you more yak's milk with mountainberry wine."
"I think you'd better bring me something else."
"What do you want?"
"I think you should bring me the king."
Generosity looked worried. "Shall I stuff him in my pocket for you? Repentance, are you having a joke on me, or are you ill?"
"Tigen, can you take a message to your old-uncle for me?"
He nodded.
"You have to make sure your father and your brothers are not around."
He nodded again.
"You have to be really careful. You have to be alone with the king."
"I'm not very good at memorizing. Can you write it down?"
She pulled aside her hair and bent her head forward so he could see the tiny sun birthmark behind her left ear.
Generosity gasped. "Holy Providence."
Tigen stared, wide-eyed.
"Tell him I showed you this mark," Repentance said. "I need him to come talk to me."
She spent the hours, while she waited, thinking about her own father. The father she grew up with. He must have known that she wasn't his daughter, and yet he never treated her as if she wasn't his own flesh. She remembered him taking her swimming when she was a tiny girl and kissing her tenderly when he put her to bed at night. She remembered his gentle smile. And the way he laid a hand on her shoulder and squeezed when he wanted to encourage her.
Tears slipped down her cheeks when she thought about how well he'd loved her and how much she had hurt him.
And the king ... he'd gotten her mother pregnant, and he'd left her down there to have a baby with no one to help her. And he'd left Repentance down there suffering for so long.
He must have forced her mother. She wouldn't have lain with an overlord by choice. No lowborn would do such a despicable thing. It was unthinkable.
And yet ... her mother had named her Repentance Joyous Forgiveness Abounding Atwater, as if she had repented of some sin. As if she had chosen to give herself to the overlord king and was sorry about it.
She tried to imagine her mother and the king together. He was much older, but he was a handsome man. And her mother ... the king had been right when he'd said she was a beautiful woman. Repentance could understand why he would want her. But why had her mother wanted him? He was an overlord king!
Repentance wondered if she had done the right thing, telling Tigen to get his old uncle. The king had never made a move to claim her
