She landed a light punch on his shoulder. "Because being cooped up with me all day is such a boring prospect?"
He winked at her. "Because my mind is far too creative in thinking about all the ways we could fill the hours as we wait here." He jumped up as if chased by a trooper and proceeded to browse the books on the shelf by the door.
Repentance, wanting to give him some room, wandered over to the shelf by the window.
Compassion came for the dishes.
Repentance smiled at her.
"What is it, then?" Compassion asked, giving Repentance an odd look.
"What do you mean? I've just had my breakfast and now I'm going to read."
"I never thought the cook's food was that good, is all, to make someone look as happy as you look."
Sober chuckled.
"I said something funny?" Compassion asked, throwing him a glance over her shoulder.
"What? Oh, no. I'm just looking at the books."
"Some funny volumes there, eh?"
He smiled at her.
As soon as the door shut, Repentance grabbed a small pillow from the settee and threw it at Sober.
He batted it aside and winked.
He chose a biography, she picked out a folktale, and they spent the next few hours sitting close, reading.
Every time he turned a page, he'd lean down and kiss the top of her head. She wasn't turning her pages as often. She kept drifting off into her own thoughts and having to read each page several times.
"Listen to this," he said.
She closed her book, her finger holding her place, and gave Sober her attention.
He angled his head to read the title of her book. "Oh, my. Are you sure you don't mind my interrupting that important book? The Yak Herder and the Lowland Girl? Sounds enthralling."
She bonked him lightly on the head with the book. "What do you want, Sober?"
"This is a biography of Lord Banniss. Do you know who he was?"
The name sounded familiar. She remembered one of the young princes spitting the name out with venom. "He was some kind of slave sympathizer, wasn't he?"
"He was sent to the swing frame almost a hundred years ago. Mistress Merricc told me about him. But listen to what he said in a speech a year before he was hanged. 'There are some things worth more than life and some lives not worth living. To die as an honest man is better than to live as a liar, to die fighting evil is better than to live with your eyes and ears and heart clamped shut to the pain around you, and to die serving a friend is to die the best way of all."
"That's pretty sad," Repentance said.
"You think so?"
"Considering he died a year later on a swing frame? Fighting evil, I presume. Yes, I think that's sad."
"I found it encouraging. He died as an honest man. And he died serving the slaves he'd befriended. He got his wish and died the best way."
"Why did he have to die at all?"
"That's beyond my ability to answer. It's a harsh world. But if we have to die, it's good to die well. I think Lord Banniss would have heartily approved of you, Repentance." He picked up one of her hands and kissed the palm. "It's better to die fighting evil than to button and breed for the overlord slave traders. You were right about that. You were willing to sacrifice for your beliefs. I'm happy to know you. And Lord Carrull, too. He risks his life to help slaves. I'm convicted. I have been far too complacent."
She frowned. "You didn't know. No one in the village knows anything. We didn't even know a place like Montphilo existed." She remembered her Geography books with the maps ripped out and her History books that told half-truths.
He paused, considering. "I was asleep. I think I could have known. I should have known. I was simply content to wait upon Providence to deliver us out of slavery, and I never took a stand for what was right."
Repentance shivered. She had never been content. That was her problem. She'd always railed against Providence and the unfair treatment he allowed. She hadn't run away from the village for such noble reasons. She wasn't so much loving her future babies as trying to protect her own heart and trying to strike back at the hated overlords and simply trying to escape the swamp where she always felt like she'd choke on the gray and where she never felt safe for one single minute after the overlords tore her brothers from the family. Her motives were all mixed up together but she knew she was not as noble as Sober was making her out to be.
"I see now," Sober continued, "that I was sitting contentedly by, while slaves were being beaten and hanged. I knew it when I saw those three boys on the swing frame the day we arrived in Harthill. I knew that very moment that Providence had used you to pull me out of the swamp and open my eyes to the evils of the world, because He wanted me to act."
"Act on what?" Lord Carrull said as he entered the room.
Repentance's heart skipped a beat. "You're back. Did the king believe you?"
"I didn't see him." He sat in a chair facing Sober and Repentance. "He was gone. I saw the prince. He says the king has gone away on business. He would not say where."
"That makes no sense," Repentance said. "Why would the king leave now?"
"Particularly when tomorrow night is the Moonlight Festival." Lord Carrull said,
Repentance had forgotten all about the festival. The preparations in the kitchen felt like a lifetime away. The time she spent in the dungeon had
