Repentance sat staring into the fire and kept her peace while the servant quietly poured and served.
After she left, Lord Carrull patted Repentance's knee and said, "Of course we are friends. And of course our friendship is an odd one. This mountain makes for odd friendships. I am afraid, though, that my friendship will be of little help to you. If you are blamed for trying to assassinate the king—" He shook his head. "Entire villages have been wiped out for less."
Repentance gasped. He spoke the truth. She had learned of several village-wide slaughters in school. But surely the king wouldn't ... he was not evil as some of his predecessors had been. The prince, though, was another matter. She could believe he would kill innocents without blinking an eye.
"Sober?" she asked in a shaky voice. "Tell me how you know my family is safe."
"Last week, Mistress Merricc sent through a request to buy your family."
"Mistress Merricc?" Lord Carrull said. "How do you know her? A fine woman, that."
"I work for her."
"Why didn't you say so earlier? She actually pays her slaves. Lets them earn their freedom. Amazing woman."
Repentance had forgotten that. She looked at Sober. "You gave up a farm where you could earn your freedom, to become a runaway slave with me?"
"Get back to the request to buy Repentance's family, please," Lord Carrull said. "Where is the family now?"
"The king granted Mistress Merricc's request to buy the family." Sober looked at Repentance. "The Hot Spring slavers knew they would get no babies out of your sister or your brothers. They knew no one would agree to button with them. So they were happy to sell. Mistress sent the king recompense for his loss, and paid the Hot Springs slavers the balance. Your whole family is at the farm."
It was all she could do to keep from kissing him. Comfort was in the sunshine and the little boys were cavorting with colts and calves. She'd never dreamed it possible.
"That's why it took me so long to come for you," Sober said. "I had to wait until they were safe before I stole you away."
Was it her imagination or did his dark eyes reproach her?
"Sober—" Tears filled her eyes and she gulped down the lump in her throat. "You asked her to buy my family? How can I ever repay you?"
He shook his head. "I'm not looking for payment."
She pictured Comfort on the farm with her parchments and char-sticks. It seemed too good to be true. "But won't the prince be able to find them? Don't the slavers keep track of their transactions?"
A shadow of doubt flitted into Sober's eyes. "We planned to have you and your family in Montphilo before the prince came looking."
She stared at him, trying to think through all the new information and wondering what her failure to get out of the city would do to her family.
Turning to Lord Carrull, she said, "Now that I'm stuck here, won't the prince go down to the Hot Springs, find my family missing, and track them to Mistress Merricc's farm? Won't he use them to teach me a lesson?"
He shook his head. "You've left me back in the valley. Why are we talking about the prince? I thought the king was after you."
"Both." She squirmed under his scrutiny. "The king sentenced me, but the prince is the one who really wants me dead."
"You could not have made a worse enemy. I suppose you know that." He poured more wine into her glass. "I think you need to tell me everything that has happened since last I saw you. We can't make plans unless we know what we're up against."
Sober and Lord Carrull listened as riveted as her little brothers had always been when she wove danger and dragons into their bedtime stories. The Lord kept her wine glass filled, the flames in the fireplace danced, and Repentance told Lord Carrull of her journey down to the healing house and back up the mountain. She told him about her dream of getting the King to buy Comfort and later her brothers. And how she even hoped he might find and buy her other brothers, the ones that had been taken as weanlings. She explained her plan to become a trusted friend to the king. She told him of the prince's threats to kill the king and of his desire to take more lowborn boys and to build an army to invade Westwold. She recounted her fears, her losses, her mistakes, and her lies. She ended up with her arrival at his door, on the threshold of freedom. She'd be caught and killed or she'd escape. Free from slavery, either way.
"The king would probably let me go," she said in closing, "but the prince needs me dead. Not only do I know he tried to kill the king, but he thinks I'm heir to the throne. He can't let me live."
The room fell silent.
Finally Lord Carrull said, "Well, we can thank Providence you didn't bring the Prince's son to my house with you. Good great dragon guano, child, you're a menace. I can't believe only one person has died in your company so far. Even more, I can't believe you're still alive. Providence must have plans for you." He stood and approached. "May I see the birthmark?'
She turned her head and pushed the edge of the turban back.
"I wouldn't have believed it if I'd not have seen it." He went back to his chair shaking his head. "I knew your father well. No wonder the king felt kindly toward you. Lord Baldin was a fine young man, and he and the king were inseparable before he was killed."
She felt a warm glow. Her father—the one who'd raised her—was a fine
