The Prisoner's Release and Other Stories (49 page)

“Dinner’s canceled. Dad said he had something important come up.”

“Canis above. What could be more important than shackling his son to a soulless husk of a bitch?”

“Jelila’s nice,” Kira said. “Have you ever talked to her?”

“No, and I don’t care to.”

“Just because she isn’t as crude as that bar girl…”

I stuck my tongue out at her. “So I’m free for dinner? No family dinner even?”

“I don’t know where Mom and Dad are. I was going to go down in a bit, if you want to wait.”

I gave her a toothy smile. “I don’t feel like wasting a rare night of freedom.”

She sighed. “Just don’t stay out all night again. You’ll be confined to the palace or something and then I’ll have to listen to you whine all night for a month.”

“Don’t worry, big sister. I’ll be back before we lock up.”

“Oh, that reminds me. Did you go out night before last?”

All my good cheer turned to ice. “No. Why?”

“Dad said the door wasn’t locked in the morning.”

My fur prickled. I’d forgotten. “He didn’t say anything to me about it.”

“He asked me and Rashi.”

“Well, I didn’t go out.”

“Okay, okay. Rashi and I didn’t. Maybe one of us was sleepwalking.”

“Maybe Kigi came back.”

She shrugged. “Nothing’s missing. Not that anyone could get into the palace to steal anything anyway.”

I nodded. “Okay. I’m leaving now. I’ll be back tonight, I promise.”

“You’d better be.”

I considered staying out all night again, just to annoy her, but with the whole unlocked door problem, it wouldn’t be a good idea. I hurried out and past the guards, and through the streets of the city. If I got to the Dirty Dog before it was too late, I could have dinner with Richy.

The bartender from the previous night, a weasel like Cori (probably a relative), recognized me and waved me upstairs. I waved back and bounded up the stairs two at a time.

Richy was in our room (our room!) and greeted me with a hug and a kiss. I licked him sloppily back and ran my paws down his sides. “Guess what?” He was smiling.

“What?”

“Cori says I can help out serving below when they get busy. He’ll pay me some.”

“That’s good.”

I guess I wasn’t quite enthusiastic enough. He lowered his ears and said, “I thought I’d work for a while. Just to keep busy. You know, I can only exercise for so long.”

“I know. I’m sorry! I just thought…I mean, I didn’t think of what you’d be doing all day. I’m sorry about that. I never even…”

“Shh, it’s okay.” He smiled. “I’m just not used to having all this time. But it’s not bad.”

“Okay. Just tell me if you want anything.”

“Dinner, right now. I presume you’ve already eaten?”

I shook my head. “Dinner was canceled. What would you like to eat?”

“Let’s just go downstairs.”

So we left the room, locking it, and went down the hallway. From the top of the stairs, we couldn’t see the main room below, but when we turned on the landing, we got a nice view of the bar and about two-thirds of the tables. I was talking to Richy, but when I started down the second flight of stairs, I glanced down and slowed. There was a large wolf talking to the weasel at the bar, a wolf with a brightly patterned orange tunic and red velvet vest on. I knew that vest.

“What’s the…” Richy followed my gaze.

“That’s my father,” I whispered.

As I said that, the weasel at the bar saw us. I saw him start to point, and scrambled backwards on the steps. Richy followed me as I hurried down the hall, muttering to myself, “Don’t panic, don’t panic, don’t panic.” But he had to take the key from me because my paws were shaking too much to fit it into the lock. Footsteps sounded on the stairs as we ducked into our room and closed the door.

I collapsed on the bed. “He knows. What am I going to do?”

“Won't it be in his interest to keep this secret?” Richy sat next to me and put an arm around my shoulders. “Maybe it’ll be a good thing.”

“No, no, not that. I…” I swallowed. At this moment, he cared about me, he loved me, maybe—somewhere in the back of my mind I realized he’d never said that—and he wanted to be with me. If I told him how I’d gotten the gold, would all of that change? Instead of Cef the romantic, lovable wolf cub, I would be Cef the thief. I hadn’t stolen the papers myself, but I’d helped. When I'd talked myself into it, I’d told myself that it wasn’t stealing and that I wasn’t the one actually doing it, but now those arguments buckled and broke under the pressure of discovery.

I took a breath. If I hid this from him, if I didn’t come clean, then I would be Cef the liar. Whatever else I was, I could never be that to him.

Head down, tail wrapped around my hips, I talked quickly, anticipating a knock at the door any moment. “I stole—I helped steal some papers from him. Someone who works with him got in trouble with a lover—I mean, his lover got in trouble, and my father was keeping his love letters. He gave me forty gold to help him get them back.”

He didn’t answer. His arm didn’t move. “I didn’t think it was wrong. I mean, I knew it was wrong, but it wasn’t as wrong as stealing the money would have been. I was so afraid.”

“Afraid? Of what?”

“That I’d have to get married and I couldn’t come see you.”

He nudged me gently with his muzzle. “I have lots of married clients. Who put that idea in your head?”

“I couldn’t afford…” I was starting to get confused now. It had all seemed so clear earlier.

“Once a week?” He nuzzled me again. “I’m not that expensive.”

Now I had to look at him. “I’m so happy when I’m with you,” I said, aware that everything might have changed forever and the present tense might no longer be valid. “I wanted that for always.”

That, of course, was the exact moment that the knock came.

I looked at the window. “We could jump.”

Richy shook his head. “Did you tell me everything about what happened?” I nodded. He gave me an encouraging smile. “Maybe this is about something else. Better to face it than to run and never know. Go ahead and open the door.”

I looked into his eyes for a long time, and then kissed him. “Okay.” Shakily, I got up and walked to the door, and opened it.

My father’s grey eyes looked down at me. They flicked to Richy, whom I heard stand up, and then back. His ears were perked, but there was no smile on his muzzle. “May I come in?” he asked evenly.

I stepped aside and closed the door behind him. He gave Richy a longer look then. “So this is your accomplice?”

“No. He had nothing to do with it.”

He was sniffing the air. His eyes widened. “Not just an accomplice.”

“Not an accomplice at all!”

“You and Rashi both. How strange.” He stroked his muzzle.

“What? Oh, Dad. Rashi’s not gay.”

He looked at me. “He was seen in that brothel. He bought a service there.”

“He was only doing that to impress the bitch in the bar.”

“The one you were dating?”

“I wasn’t dating her.”

“So you lied to me.” He waved a paw. “Obviously, I know very little about the romantic lives of my children. But that’s not why I’m here. I want to know what you plan to do with the forty Royals you stole from my office. And to ask you why I shouldn’t turn you over to the guard.”

Richy stared at me, and I gaped at my father. “I didn’t steal anything!”

“Cef, I was holding fifty Royals for an operation in my secure trunk in the office. Two nights ago, our chamber door was unlocked and forty of those Royals were taken.”

“Someone could have broken in and gotten the key,” I said. Both Richy and my father were looking at me, neither seeming particularly inclined to believe me.

My father produced the key from his pocket and held it to his nose. “Your scent and mine are the only ones on this key.”

“What?” I yelped. “What about the rabbit?”

He dropped the key back into his pouch. “What rabbit?”

The one with no scent, I almost said. I realized that would sound crazy, but nothing else came to mind. He folded his arms. “Well?”

I remembered the other person who had handled the key that night. “What about Dereath?”

“Stop changing the subject. I want to know why you stole that gold.”

“I’m not. And I didn’t. I…Dereath said you had some papers of his that he wanted back, and he would give me forty gold if I got the key for him. He promised he wouldn’t take anything else. His scent should be on that key too!”

He closed his eyes and pressed his paw to his forehead. “Just tell me you were going to run away with your lover. Don’t make up stories.”

“I’m not!”

“Cef, Dereath watched me lock the money in the chest two days ago. I had the key on my person from that time until the time I put him in a coach after dinner and sent him to Saraffin to check on troop movements. He won’t be back for two weeks. He never touches this key.”

“That’s not possible.” Of course it was. Dereath had removed himself from the scene very neatly, leaving his scentless rabbit to do his work, and me to take the blame. “He…wanted his letters. Love letters.”

“Love letters?”

What had sounded so plausible through the filter of my hope now sounded ridiculous. “He said you’d kept them because they were evidence in some case.”

“Do you expect me to believe that?”

“I don’t know!” I was shouting, near tears. “It’s the truth!”

“Don’t lie to me! I know you heard some rumors about him, but don’t try to pin this on him. He’s in trouble, yes, but he’s not a thief.”

“Sir.” Richy spoke quietly. He was holding out a piece of paper. “This is a receipt for about thirty-five in gold. I think we have two more in coins. If we give that to you, will you let us go?”

My father paused, then walked over and examined the paper. He looked up at Richy. “You keep your money in a brothel?”

“I have friends there,” Richy said. “It’s safer than a bank.”

“How do I know this is any good? My son’s a liar and a thief, what’s to say you’re any better?”

“Hey!” I snarled. “He’s not lying!”

My father turned and fixed me with a stare that had always intimidated me in the past. This time, I didn’t back down. “If he says it’s worth that, then it is.” I tossed my purse to him. “Here, that’s everything we have.”

He caught the purse and held it and the paper, looking back and forth between us. Richy said, gently, “You don’t want your son to be imprisoned, do you?”

“I don’t know.” He looked at the paper again. “I’m going to go claim this. If it’s good…”

“It’s good.” My hackles were still up, ears still back.

“Calm down, Cef,” Richy said. “Sir, I should go with you. It is made out in my name.”

“I think you both should come with me.”

“Fine.” My hackles were lowering and some of my fear was coming back. Richy walked over to stand with me, and grasped my paw. My father saw that, and turned toward the door without a word.

The walk to the Jackal’s Staff took forever. My father kept us in front of him, as though we were going to make a break for it—with no money and no belongings—and I was so worried about how the situation would end that I tripped over cobblestones several times. Richy kept hold of my paw and squeezed it several times. He didn’t seem worried at all, and that more than anything else kept me from descending into all-out panic.

The raccoon was working as host at the Jackal’s Staff that night. His eyes widened when he saw the three of us. “Richy?”

“Hi, Pike. Is Tally around at all?”

Pike shook his head. “What do you need?”

“Can you get some money I have on deposit?” Pike eyed my father as Richy said that, and my love managed a small laugh. “I’m not being coerced. It’s okay.”

“Sure. Do you have your receipt?”

My father handed it to him. The raccoon looked at it, up at my father, and then at Richy. “You sure about this?”

“Very.”

“All right. Come on back.”

He led us through the tables, to a couple comments of “Nice wolf pack!” and “Need a fourth?” back into the back room I’d visited just the day before.

“Wait here,” he said, and went into the office himself.

We stood around the room silently. I noticed that Richy’s tag was still hanging at the bottom of the board, so I unhooked it and slipped it into my purse. Richy saw me and smiled. My father looked stonily at the door and said nothing.

Pike came out again with a large bag that clinked. “Here.” He handed it to Richy. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine, Pike.” He handed the bag to my father. “There it is.”

My father glanced into it, shook the coins around, then closed the bag. “All right. You are honest, it seems. Maybe you can be a good influence on my son. I don’t expect to see either of you again.”

“Dad…”

“You may have given back most of the money, but you still stole it.” His ears, flat as his gaze, told me that he was still angry, no matter how calm he was. “If I see you again, I’ll turn you over to the guards.”

I shrank back against the wall. My father turned to Pike. “Is there a back way out of this place? I would prefer not to leave through the front.”

“Of course. Let me show you. Richy, you know the way out?”

“Wait a moment.” Richy glared at my father. “That's all? You're turning your back on your own son?”

I loved him for saying it even though I knew it was futile. The set of my father's ears and the coldness in his eyes told me his answer before he uttered a word. “You know nothing of our family. I'll thank you to keep your mouth shut.”

“I know your son,” Richy said. “Maybe better than you do.”

“Aye,” my father said. “Then you're welcome to him.”

“Listen,” Richy started. My father took a step toward him and growled, his ears even flatter.

“No. You listen.” He stabbed the air in my direction. “He knows what he's done. He knows that trust and honesty are how he was raised. He has lied to me and betrayed my trust, and he was destroyed the last hope of his family to maintain everything I have worked so hard for twenty years to build.”

Richy, Canis bless him, leaned back but did not step back. “Nobody needs to know,” he said. “We can go back to the palace. I can be...I can work in the kitchens, or as a servant somewhere. You have the gold back. Cef can be married just as you planned.”