The Prisoner's Release and Other Stories (48 page)

8: The Price

For the first half of the next day, I was on edge. I kept expecting my father to grab me and demand to know what I’d done, or Dereath to appear and ask me where the hell I’d gone, that he hadn’t sent any rabbit, or Kira or Rashi to tell me they’d seen me leave the rooms. None of that happened. I didn’t even see my father all day. Finally, I relaxed and started looking forward to getting my paws on my gold and my love.

I didn’t see Dereath at dinner, but I couldn’t stop thinking about my gold. I hurried through the meal, ignoring the looks my siblings gave me, and when we’d finished, I padded through the palace to the rat’s chambers and knocked on his door.

I couldn’t smell the rat, so I was surprised when the door opened. I looked down at a long pair of ears and the rabbit’s neutral expression. “Where’s Dereath?” I blurted out.

“Master Talison is away. But he did leave something for you.” He turned and walked back into the room, and though I itched to follow him, I waited politely by the door, tail wagging back and forth.

The rabbit was gone for a while. My ears caught the clink of what might have been gold coins. I shifted my weight and looked up and down the corridor. A lord I didn’t know passed and glanced my way, then walked on. I studied the gilt reliefs on the door, not really seeing them, just trying to occupy myself so that I wouldn’t pull my fur out from excitement.

Finally—finally!—the rabbit came back holding a large purse with both paws. He held it out to me and I snatched it from him, opening it and peering inside.

“That’s yours,” he said. “Did you need anything else?”

I didn’t hear him at first, captivated by the shine of gold as I had been with the first Royal the rat had pressed into my paw. There was enough money here to...well, I knew what I wanted it for. It was heavy enough that I got tired holding it in one paw while the other plunged into it, feeling the weight of the coins all around.

“Is that all?” he repeated, and this time I looked up and nodded. I must have looked like a foolish cub, with a broad grin, ears all perked forward listening to the clink of gold, but I didn’t care.

He shut the door, and I wandered some ways down the corridor before I heard the click of claws on the stone and realized I shouldn’t be caught wandering around the palace with forty Royals in my paws. I started to walk back to my room to hide it, but then I started to worry. What if Kira found it? What if someone saw me walk in and asked what it was? What if, what if, what if. There wasn’t any safe place for it here.

I could take it to the Cup and Crown. Dasha would...no.

I fretted, pacing back and forth, and then the perfect solution occurred to me. I would go buy Richy right now. I wanted so badly to see him, and then I wouldn’t have to worry about forty gold being stolen or discovered by my family.

I nearly skipped down the corridors and through the gardens, so excited the closer I got to the Jackal’s Staff that my tail couldn’t wag fast enough. The guards gave me a strange look as I walked quickly past them, hunched over the purse, but I didn’t have time for them. I shoved through knots of people on the street, barely registering any of them, focused on my destination.

When I got there, I just stood inside the door, looking around. The usual array of muzzles turned towards me, and turned away again. Many of them knew me already. Tally spotted me a moment later and tilted his broad muzzle curiously at my posture. His expression cleared, becoming more professional as he approached me.

“I hear you had a little trouble the other night, dear. What do you have there?”

“I’m sorry about the other night,” I said quickly, “but I’ve got it.”

“Got what?”

“Here.” I shoved the purse at him.

He took it and staggered at the weight. “Cef, dear, what...” He looked inside. “Oh my.”

“It’s for Richy.” I couldn’t stop my tail from wagging.

Tally looked at me. “Why don’t you come back to my office?”

“Okay.” I followed him, head held high as I walked past all the other poor slobs who could only rent their love for a night. He led me to one of the doors I’d only seen him or the raccoon come out of, and held it for me.

Inside, he made straight for another door. I barely had time to look around the small room and see a board on the wall that held several tags with names on them, one of them Richy’s.

He closed the second door behind me and motioned me to one of the chairs behind the broad desk that he dumped the purse on. He sat himself on the edge of the desk, fingers playing with the purse strings as he talked to me.

“You want to buy Richy?”

“Yes.” Tail wagging. Grinning. Unable to believe this was happening.

“Are you sure, cub?”

“Yeah.”

“How much is in here?”

“Forty.”

“Hmm.”

I leaned forward, the wag going out of my tail. “Is that enough?”

“Oh, it’s enough.” He smiled. “Let me go get Richy.”

All the while he was gone, I tapped my paws on the floor, drummed the edge of the desk, and wagged my tail. I glanced at the purse once or twice, and I know forty gold is a lot of money, but it never occurred to me to do anything else with it than what I was doing. My heart (and sheath) felt like they were about to burst.

I caught his scent before I saw him, and it perked me up right away. When I turned my head, there he was, looking down at me with a smile. I sprang up and hugged him, and he held me, and I wanted to cry, it felt so good.

Tally shut the door and sat himself back on the edge of the desk. He politely waited until we’d disengaged to talk.

“I hate to see a good employee go,” he began, “but Cef has enough money here to cover your contract, Richy. I’ve decided to accept his offer.”

Richy nodded and touched his nose to mine, still smiling. “All right.”

“Go ahead and get ready. I need to talk to Cef for a couple minutes.”

“Are we leaving right away?”

They both looked at me. My throat was dry. “Yes,” I croaked.

Richy nodded and left. I watched the door after he’d walked through it until Tally said my name.

“I want you to understand what’s going on here. He’s not a slave. When his father brought him here, I paid for that first seven-year contract. When it ran out, he was free to do whatever he wanted. He chose to stay here, and we signed a new contract whereby I provide a place for him to live and work for him to do, and I pay him for that work. In return, he agrees to work for the length of the contract unless he comes up with the gold necessary to buy the contract from me. Are you following this?”

I nodded, though I was barely hearing every other word.

“You’re still obligated to pay him, whether in money or room and board is up to you and him to work out. And after another five years, you’ll have to renegotiate a new contract. Though by then most likely you won’t want to.”

That caught my attention. “Oh, no,” I said. “I want him around forever.”

Tally smiled. “That’s very sweet.” He didn’t go on, but rummaged through the purse and sorted the coins into four gleaming piles on his desk. He handed three of the coins back to me. “The price of the contract is thirty-five gold. I’ll take two extra for the inconvenience.”

I nodded. I would’ve agreed if he’d kept all forty.

“So you understand the terms of the contract you’re buying?”

“Yes.”

Richy had come back. I could smell him waiting on the other side of the door. I started shifting my weight, wagging my tail, and fidgeting with my paws. Tally grinned at me. “All right. But don’t get any thoughts about setting up any competition for me.”

Shocked, I shook my head. “Oh, no no no!”

“Go on then.” He waved to the door. “Richy will show you out the back.”

I followed the wolf, my wolf, out the back in a sort of dream-like state. The door of the brothel closed behind us, and for the first time I saw him in real light. The sun was setting just behind him, outlining his ears in gold and making it hard to look at him, but I didn’t want to look away. He had put on a plain tunic with a nice leather belt, and he held a bundle under one arm wrapped in a worn cloth. He shifted it to the other arm and tilted his muzzle at my gaze.

“What’s the matter?”

“I just can’t believe I did it.” Forgotten were all my worries about how he felt, what we’d do, anything outside of the immediate moment. He could do that for me.

“You’re adorable,” he said, and smiled. “Do we have somewhere to celebrate? I presume we’re not going back to your parents’ rooms.”

“No, I thought we’d go to the Cup and Crown. I have friends there. Or we could go to your bar. Does he rent rooms? Oh, but he told me not to...” I trailed off.

“You went to the Dirty Dog?” He cocked his ears. “Why?”

That night was so far away now. It was as if another Cef had been crouched out in the alley where we were standing now, had plodded miserably across several blocks, and had gone home in a daze that morning. “Looking for you,” I mumbled.

“Aww.” He touched my cheekruff and I leaned into the paw. “I’m not allowed to play outside work, you know that.”

“I know. I just wanted to ask you something.”

“What’s that?”

“Oh, it, uh, doesn’t matter now.” I tried to pull my ears up. I knew they were flat, but I couldn’t help it.

He lifted my muzzle gently. “I’d like to know.”

“I wanted to ask how you felt. You know. About me.” I swear by Canis that I hadn’t meant to say anything, but the truth just spilled out when I looked at him.

He smiled. “Come here a moment.” The alley was much the same as I remembered it, except that it had been dark last time I’d been here. In the light, it didn’t feel as sinister, just empty. Though of course, with Richy there, it couldn’t be more full. He sat me down on the crate, set his bundle next to me, and took my paws. “I know how you feel about me, you know.”

This didn’t sound good. I nodded, ears still down.

“You know, I’ve fallen in love. Sometimes three or four times a night. It works the other way, too. A lot of people have fallen in love with me over the years. I knew there was something special about you, though. I always looked forward to your visits.” He knelt, so I could look down into his green eyes, tinged with gold from the sunset. “You know something else? Tally doesn’t just sell contracts to anyone who walks in with thirty or forty gold. He asked me if I wanted to be sold to you.”

I blinked at him, processing that information. “You said yes, right?” He gave me the most beautiful grin and a quick nod.

With a whoop that didn’t come close to expressing what I was feeling, I jumped off the crate to hug him, and we tumbled to the ground, tangled in each other’s arms. I was trying to kiss him and he was giggling, nuzzling back and saying, “Hold on, hold on.” Finally, I settled down, though my tail was still wagging, splatting against the wet ground. I looked up with ears perked for what he had to say.

“Shouldn’t we go to a room somewhere?”

“Oh. Right.” I kissed his nose, scrambled to my feet, and belatedly remembered to reach a paw down to help him up.

He took it, then retrieved his bundle from the crate. “The Dirty Dog, then?”

On the way there, I reached for his paw and he grasped mine in return. My wet tail sprayed drops back and forth in my enthusiasm.

Richy knew the bartender on duty, who was not Cori the weasel. I paid a gold piece for two weeks in a small upstairs room, and when we were finally alone there and Richy had set his bundle on the narrow bed, he gave me a grin and set his paws on my shoulders. “So. What now?”

I slipped a paw down and held the bulge of his sheath. “You can’t guess?” Our muzzles met in a kiss, and the night just got better from there.

9: The Knock

I woke up next to him on a blanket on the floor, with the sun streaming into the room. When I reached out to touch him, he was really there. His scent was all around and I just wanted to bury my nose in his fur. He was sleeping so peacefully that I just propped myself up on one elbow and watched.

When he opened his eyes and saw me, he smiled. “Hi.”

“Hi.”

“This is weird.” He reached over and touched my chest. “Not waking up in the Staff. First time in…five years.”

“I thought you’d been there longer than that.”

“I have.” He grinned at me, his tail wagging slowly. “Would you believe I spent a night in the palace once?”

“I’d believe anything.”

“It was a long time ago…” Richy sighed. “Hard to believe that’s all over.”

“Tell me about it sometime.”

“I will.” He rubbed my fur and looked up. “Are you going to stay all day?”

“I can’t. I’m already late. Last time I stayed out all night they worried. I want to, though.”

“It’s okay. I can wait.”

I nodded, and kissed him. “Probably not too long. Once I get married, we’ll work something out.”

He rolled onto his back and put his paws behind his head. “I’ll go downstairs and talk to Cori. And I’ll be here when you get back.”

I grinned. “Better be ready for more of the same.”

His green eyes sparkled in the light. “I don’t have anyone else to distract me now.”

My tail, matted and sticky from the night before, thumped the floor.

I wanted to wash before I went home, but I was already missing a lesson and I could imagine how upset my father would be. That led me to thoughts about the previous night. Strolling by the bright light of the sun, I felt a warm glow inside burn away any lingering unease. Dereath had gotten his letters back. I’d gotten my love. Everything was going to be fine.

I kept that feeling all through the lecture from my father, the tedious morning lessons, and the reminder of the formal dinner with Jelila for which I would be excused from my afternoon lessons to have my fur groomed. I enjoyed that, though I admit I was more looking forward to showing off for Richy later.

When I got back to my chambers, Kira was the only one there. “My, don’t you look fancy! Jelila sure is lucky.”

I snorted at her. “Where is everyone? We’re supposed to go down to dinner in half an hour.”