"Stay down, boy. It's a lost cause."
Sober's head was no longer visible above the crowd.
"Kick the dirty swine!"
"Let him up. Give him a fighting chance. Let's have a bout to bet on."
"Leave off, boys. You'll want to leave something for the swingman to work with."
Repentance pushed forward, tears clouding her vision.
And then she saw a black braid gleaming blue in the bright mountain sun. It lay over a shoulder clad in thin swamp cloth.
She reached one hand through the people in front of her and grasped that shoulder.
Comfort turned, her eyes full of fear.
When she saw Repentance her eyes snapped wide in shock, and then she began to cry.
Repentance shook her head, and pulled Comfort to her, dragging her through men and women who had eyes only for the fight.
With everyone packed so tightly, she couldn't work the knife to cut Comfort's bonds. She was afraid someone would jostle her and she'd stab her sister. She draped her extra cloak over Comfort's shoulder and lifted the hood over her dark hair. "Stay with me," she whispered. "If anyone stops us, act like my slave."
She wanted to keep her arm around Comfort's shoulder, but overlord women didn't hug their slaves. She gave Comfort one last squeeze and dropped her arm.
The mob pressed forward, and all Repentance and Comfort had to do was stand still, looking forward, pretending to watch the fight, while they allowed people to push around them. In this way they got squeezed further and further back as the people closed in, in front of them.
Slowly, so slowly, they fell away from the fight.
Away from Sober.
Her knees went weak.
But for the crowd she might have fallen. She had no room, thank Providence, with all the people pushing against her, holding her up.
Next to her, Comfort trembled violently. Under the hood, Repentance saw tears streaming down her sister's face.
Something hard slammed into her back.
"Out of the way!" A trooper commanded.
Comfort gave a startled little scream.
Trying to get out of the trooper's way, Repentance pressed against Comfort, squishing her into a woman on the other side.
The trooper pushed past, hurrying toward the fight.
"What are they after?" the woman asked, her eyes locked on the trooper pushing through the crowd.
"Some fight going on," Repentance answered.
"I don't see the slave in the wagon anymore," the woman said, straining to see over the tops of the heads in front of her.
"She's run away," Repentance said.
"Such a pity. I always sell cases of mountain magic at the swingings." Her face brightened. "They'll catch her yet. She can't get far. They never do."
Comfort jerked and Repentance gave her a warning glance.
The trooper who had shoved his way through shouted out, "Alive! The prince will want to speak to that one."
At the mention of the prince the two troopers stopped beating Sober. "Oh, he's alive, Captain," one said. "A little less cocky now, is all."
The other trooper bent down and came back up a moment later with Sober in his grip.
Repentance stood on tiptoes to look. His face was covered in blood. She gagged.
The woman beside her chortled. "Oh, there may be a double swinging now. Won't that just be too good for business!"
"Where's the girl?" the trooper captain asked. He scanned the sides of the streets, apparently looking for his troopers. Repentance followed his gaze. Several of the men had left their stoops and were working their way toward captain.
"The girl," the captain called. "Where has the girl gotten to?"
The crowd immediately shifted. It began to ooze away from the troopers and Sober.
"Come on, then," the woman standing next to Comfort said. "We'd best be moving. Watching a good fight is one thing. Having a skein of angry troopers searching for a runaway is another altogether."
Repentance moved with the woman back toward the building on their right, pushing Comfort along and looking for an opportunity in the thinning crowd, to get across the street to Lord Carrull's.
"Those troopers," the woman said, "are none too discriminating about batting people out of their way when they are thinking of saving their own hides from the swingman."
The woman reached the wall. "Here we are, safe and sound." She fell into the doorway of a pub.
Repentance turned toward Lord Carrull's house. There, on his steps, stood a trooper.
She swerved and pushed Comfort toward the pub.
"Hush," she said when Comfort started crying. "Stay with me. It will be fine. It will all be fine." The picture of Sober's bloody face rose in her mind. Nothing would ever be fine again, she was pretty sure. "Everything will be fine," she repeated.
"Find her or you all swing," the captain said. "She can't have gotten far."
His troopers scattered, and he looked up. Directly into Repentance's eyes.
She dropped her gaze and pushed into the pub. In the dimness she barely made out tables and chairs and a long bar at the back of the room.
"Ah, there you girls are," the woman from the street said. She stood behind the bar. "Come have yourself a jug of mountain magic. It will perk you right up of an afternoon."
Someone else stumbled in through the doorway behind Repentance. She turned to look. Two overlord men. "Wild out there," one said.
"In truth," the other answered. "How fortunate that we can sit out for a trickle in this comfy little pub."
Comfort, pasty-faced and dull-eyed, sagged, and Repentance steered her to the bar. "Where is your relief room?" she asked the Pub Mistress. "My slave has taken ill."
Comfort's head was down and she was holding her stomach, so the mistress caught only the top of her hood. She waved at a door to the side of the counter.
Repentance led Comfort into the small room with its sink
