Comfort!
To rush into danger—with no plan and no hope of success—in order to save a friend ... many would call that foolish.
I call it love.
~Professor Pottamous Scroll, Harthill University
Chapter 34
Repentance flew from the room, calling for Sober.
Bare-chested and with a towel in his hand, he stuck his head out the door.
"Comfort." She waved back toward the library and beyond. "In the street." She headed down the stairs, crying and praying and not thinking of anything but getting to her sister.
At the front door she paused. Comfort must be cold in her meager swamp clothes. Repentance dove into the cloakroom and snatched a couple of cloaks. Throwing on one, and flipping the hood over her head, she yanked the front door open and fled the house.
She stepped into the slow-moving crowd outside the door, and stumbled, her eyes not yet adjusted to the glare of the sun. Someone jostled her from behind.
"Well, move along, then, child," an old woman said. "You'll not want to stand here like a boulder in the river. The flow will run right over top of you."
Repentance allowed the crowd to carry her along. "I only came out to go shopping," she said to the woman. "What is all this celebration about?"
An eager look sprang into the old woman's eyes. "A swinging," she said. "A perfect way to start off the Moonlight Festival."
Repentance shuddered and stepped to the side, allowing several people from behind to push their way into the space she'd left between herself and the wicked old woman.
"Who'd she run from?" a man beside Repentance asked.
Another man answered, "The prince, I heard. Too bad. She's a pretty little thing."
Repentance pulled her hood farther forward and elbowed through the crowd in an effort to get close to the wagon.
The prince was using Comfort to lure her like a swamp slinker to a beetle, there was not a doubt in her mind. He had chosen well. Repentance would set her sister free or die trying.
She broke through the crowd at the back of the brightly painted wagon. Fabric streamers, blue and purple for the Moonlight Festival, trailed from the sides of the wagon, flipping and flapping in the breeze. The crowd, as if they were going to a party, jostled and laughed.
In the back of the wagon, Comfort stood on display, turning circles. She looked like a rabbit in a snare—all pitiful and terrified. She kept turning as the trooper poked at her. She wasn't like a rabbit in a snare—she was more like a rabbit roasting on a spit, with a slavering mob crushing against the wagon, waiting for a tasty morsel.
Repentance reached out and placed one hand on the smoothly painted wagon. She had no plan. But they were just three blocks from the swing frame. She had no time to think. She would simply jump up and offer the trooper a trade. Her life for Comfort's.
She looked around for the prince. In the front of the wagon was a driver. Lining both sides of the street were troopers walking along the edges of the crowd. They stepped up on porches and stoops every so often, scanning the faces below them. She counted ten on each side of the street. They were looking for her, she knew. And so they would have her. She put her other hand on the wagon bed and made to pull herself aboard.
Someone grabbed her from behind and yanked her back.
She spun around.
Sober.
He wore a workman's shabby cloak with the hood up and the lower part of his face wrapped in his button scarf. She could see just his eyes.
They were enough to break her heart—he looked at her with such love.
"Drop back," he whispered. "When I get her down, you'll have to cut her bonds and get her lost in the crowd and back to Lord Carrull's." He slipped a knife into her hands and shouldered his way in front of her.
Before she had time to protest, he grabbed one of the streamers, ripping it loose, and vaulted onto the wagon right in front of the trooper with the dragon stick. He threw the cloth in the trooper's face and followed it with a solid punch. The trooper fell backwards over the driver's bench.
A surprised roar rose from the mob.
Sober picked up Comfort, dropped her over the edge of the wagon, and jumped down after her.
He shoved Comfort in front of him, pushing his way through the people. Obviously shocked, the people in the crowd parted before them. Several of the men and women around Repentance laughed at the turn of events.
The two closest troopers worked their way through the crowd.
Repentance, struggling to cover the short distance between herself and her sister, took an elbow hard to the ribs but didn't slow down. She had to get to Comfort before the troopers did.
Sober shoved Comfort behind him and pushed his way straight for the troopers. He punched one, and quickly turned on the other.
Comfort pressed back.
The crowd circled around Sober and the troopers like a mob at a hog fight.
The second trooper jabbed Sober in the stomach with the muzzle of his dragon stick. Sober doubled over, and the trooper clubbed him over the head.
Repentance ducked when the dragon stick came down on his head as if she might help him avoid the blow.
Sober staggered. She lost of sight of him when he went down.
He popped back up in a moment, blood streaming from his head.
Repentance watched, horrified.
Sober screamed and charged the trooper that had clubbed him.
The crowd closed in as more and more people pressed forward from behind. Men cried out, shouted direction, laid bets.
"That's it. Don't go without a
