The Prisoner's Release and Other Stories (21 page)

“
Sure is,” Jonas said. He wondered how many people had been to both the Great Cathedral in Divalia and the cathedral of Caril. Not many, he thought with a small amount of satisfaction.

He was in good spirits until he got back to his rooms and found Mikka waiting there. The grey fox greeted Hazel, then headed upstairs without waiting for Jonas.

“
Looks like you got another customer,” Hazel said.

“
Yeah.” Jonas braced himself and marched up the stairs.

Mikka was already taking his clothes off. “How’s business?”

“
Good so far. Thanks for sending customers over.”

“
It’s my business too,” the fox said, stripping down to his fur.

Jonas closed the door to his rooms. “Look, Mikka…”

“
Your money’s on the table. You know what I want.” The fox climbed on the bed and crouched on all fours, lifting his tail.

For a moment, Jonas was about to try to continue to apologize, but he wasn’t sure it would do any good. He could see that Mikka was closed to him, and he would have to wait until the fox opened up. He stripped his clothes off and climbed onto the bed behind Mikka.

Afterwards, Mikka seemed to open up a little while he was getting dressed. “How many of my referrals came to see you?”

“
Three, I think. Xaric twice.”

“
And you’re charging four silver?” Jonas nodded. “That makes three silver and two copper you owe me.”

“
Take it from the box,” Jonas said. He didn’t want to admit he had no way of knowing if Mikka was correct or not.

Mikka reached in and pulled the coins out. “And Hazel gets one and six. Do you want to do that now or wait until the end of the month?”

“
I think she said end of the month.”

“
All right.” Mikka rested his paw on the door handle. “Jonas…”

“
Yes?”

“
Would you like to come to dinner tomorrow night?”

“
Sure.” Jonas smiled. “Are you coming to dinner tonight?”

“
Here? I hadn’t planned on it.”

“
Would you?”

Mikka hesitated, then nodded. “I’ll ask Hazel.”

“
It’ll be nice to see you again.”

“
It’s good to see you, too. Good luck, Jonas.”

Mikka did come to dinner, and even seemed to enjoy himself. Jonas realized that it would be tricky to remain friends with Mikka while simultaneously keeping him as a client and business partner and not letting himself get trapped into a more confining relationship. It would be easier, he reflected, to just drop all pretense of friendship.

But he didn’t want to do that. As wary as he was of letting the fox get too close, he also realized that he felt comfortable around Mikka, that their shared experiences gave them a bond that he’d last experienced with Pike and Sasha. When they were saying their good-byes at the door, and Mikka thanked Jonas for inviting him, Jonas smiled and said, “Thanks for being there,” and he meant it.

He saw Mikka twice more over that month, once for business, once for dinner, and he would’ve spent more time thinking about how to handle his relationship with the fox if he hadn’t been busy worrying about money and working out the details of his job. “I never realized how much Tally had to manage,” he said to Hazel one day after he’d had three clients waiting at the same time in her lounge.

“
I don’ mind,” she said. “Two of them bought cakes to take home.”

Jonas grinned, but still asked her to help him draft a schedule, and he began making appointments to avoid conflicts—on days when he had any customers at all. It seemed as though he would have two or three days in a row with no customers, and on those days he grew more and more convinced that he would never succeed, that in a month he would be unable to pay his rent and would have to leave. He watched the sun set, thinking of his friends in Ferrenis and wondering if he could possibly walk there.

The drought would end with a flood, and leave him exhausted on his bed at the end of the day, wondering how three clients could tire him out when only a year ago he’d been serving six and still had energy left at the end of the day. It was a happy, or at least content, kind of wondering, as he had silver in the box and the sunset on those days brought relief rather than anxiety.

At the end of his first month, he had enough to pay his rent, his commissions to Hazel and Mikka, and still have a box lined with silver. The fact that he’d survived his first month and had three regular clients now (not counting Mikka) eased his mind. He knew that however much they liked him, if he stopped making money, he would be back out on the street. When the droughts came, as they still did, he pushed his worries back and allowed himself to enjoy the freedom from work, helping Hazel with chores around the house or strolling around the neighborhood.

The following Gaiaday was bright and sunny, the first promise that the heat of summer was coming. Jonas had purchased a new outfit, a simpler one than the fancy clothes Mikka had sold him (which he now thought of as his work clothes). He wore it to the cathedral for the day of Sacrifice, a joyful festival with a somber sermon describing Gaia's giving of her body to her children so that they might thrive and multiply. The service, twice as long as a regular one, seemed familiar to Jonas, though he wasn’t sure whether it was gaudier and larger because he was in a different Church, or just in a gaudier and larger one.

Hazel held an party at her house afterwards, which Jonas attended for the first hour, before his busy afternoon. She had piled her tables and counters with small cakes and bowls of fruit-laced wine and mead, and the small room was crowded with people. An “Indulgence” party, she called it, but she was too busy with preparations for Jonas to ask her what that meant.

Jonas talked for a short time with one of Hazel’s daughters, then drifted away and found himself standing near Mikka as the fox was picking a raisin-covered cake from the table. They’d said ‘hello’ when Mikka arrived, then drifted apart, and this was the first time Jonas had seen him alone since then. He watched the fox’s ears for a moment, unsure of what to say to him in this social situation. Mikka didn’t seem to be avoiding him, but neither had he sought Jonas’s company. Jonas recalled that Mani hadn’t been eager to be seen with him in public, but at least Mikka wasn’t running away. He smiled at the fox as he turned.

“
Hi, Jonas.” Mikka returned the smile and sipped the glass of wine he’d filled.

“
Hi. So, what’s an Indulgence party?” Jonas asked, taking a black-currant cake and nibbling on it.

Mikka waved a paw around the room. “This.”

“
Mmm.” He chewed and swallowed. “I know, but what does it mean?”

“
We’re celebrating Gaia’s sacrifice by taking advantage of what’s been given us. Sundown tonight we observe the Priva.”

“
Priva?” This was definitely new to him.

Mikka looked up at him. “You never heard of Priva? When you give up something for a month? Mostly people give up on baked and cooked food, eat raw vegetables and only cook meat very simply. No sauces.”

“
Oh.” He licked the pieces of cake from around his teeth. “So this party is to eat the good stuff while we can.”

“
If you observe strictly.” The fox shrugged. “I’ve always thought that Gaia sacrificed herself to leave us this earth and the good things in it, and to deprive yourself of them for a month is rude. But it does get difficult to get more than just lettuce and roast fowl for the next month.”

“
Not so bad.” He’d subsisted on worse, and it was only for a month.

“
Don’t worry about my visits, though.” Mikka smiled at Jonas as he said that, and then walked across the room to talk to a weasel who was trying to catch his attention, leaving the cougar confused.

Jonas found out what Mikka meant in short order. Apparently, many of his clients believed it was permissible to eat cakes and flavored meats if you gave up something else you enjoyed. His business dropped off precipitously over the next few weeks, with Mikka alone accounting for over a quarter of his earnings. By the last week of the month, he had barely made half his takings from the previous month even before he gave Hazel and Mikka their shares.

Two days before his rent was due, he watched the sun go down from his window, staring at the stacks of silver on his table. The lock box lay empty in front of him. He had two stacks of ten silver coins and one stack of two. Some of that money would have to go to Mikka, some to Hazel. And he would not have enough left over for his rent. He cursed himself for buying clothes, for buying his meals at the pub and paying to have them sent over (he’d stopped that last week and was now paying slightly less for Hazel to cook for him), and for his general inability to predict that once things had gotten good, they might not always stay that way.

Where would he go when he couldn’t pay the rent? He was back to where he started. He would have to leave in the middle of the night, take what silver he had left, leave Hazel and Mikka without their money and rent, and hope he had enough to make it back to Tephos. Or he could just live on the streets. Twenty-two silver would keep him alive for half a year, perhaps. Maybe he could join a brothel.

He turned quickly from the window at a heavy creak on the stairs. The scent floating up to the landing was unmistakable. Terrified that she’d heard his thoughts or had guessed his intentions, he scooped the silver back into the lock box and closed it just as Hazel’s black and white muzzle appeared around the corner of the landing.

“
Oh, son, you don’t need to worry ‘bout ol’ Hazel. I ain’t after your money.” She grinned at him. “’Sides, I kept a spare key to that box when I gave it to you.”

He wasn’t sure whether or not she was kidding, but he smiled. “No, I was just, um, counting…”

“
Been a slow month, I know.”

“
Yeah.”

“
So I thought, since you ain’t busy, and I’m all done with cookin’ tonight, maybe I could get a first-hand closeup look at what’s goin’ on in my house these last two months.” She grinned at him and dropped four silver on the table.

He stared at her.

“
That how you greet all your clients?” She clucked. “It’s a wonder any of ‘em ever come back. You want the money?”

“
Uh, if you’re…I mean, if you want…”

She tapped his nose with a black fingertip that reminded him fleetingly of Alexan’s, with a sharper odor. “I may be your landlord, but I’m still female. I got needs too. And you’re handsomer than any of the boys who come a’courtin’ lately.”

“
Sure, okay.” Still bewildered, he got up and extended a paw. “Would you step inside with me?”

She smiled and took his paw. “Now you’re talkin’.”

Jonas hadn't had a female customer in a long time. Males he knew: he could smell and see in the way they carried themselves what kind of thing they liked, and rarely did he make a mistake. Fortunately, Hazel was not one to leave her desires to his interpretation. By the end of a half hour, she was panting, a blissful, lazy smile on her muzzle as she straddled him.

“
Good?” he asked when her eyes opened.

“
I can see why you get paid so much.”

“
I didn’t really do anything. But I’m glad you enjoyed it.”

“
Mmm.” She leaned over to nuzzle his ear, and then slid off him. He reached back and handed her a towel, seeing her searching for one, and she smiled as she wiped herself. “Well, I think you’re worth keeping around.”

The comment rekindled his worry about paying his rent and killed any arousal he had left. He got dressed silently and followed her out into his foyer. “Listen, Hazel,” he began, “about the rent this month…”

“
Don’t you worry your head about it.” She paused on the landing of the stair. “We’ll take care of it. You’ll be okay.”

And he was, miraculously. When Mikka came over and went through his money and his records with Hazel, they left him with three whole silvers in his box. He thanked them, suspecting that they were short-changing themselves to allow him to stay, and after dinner, went upstairs to his room.

He had discovered in his floor a small hole that looked down into Hazel’s rooms. From the placement of it and the fact that it was hidden by the rug the previous tenant had left behind, he suspected that the tenant had used it to spy on Hazel’s private moments. Jonas had no desire to do so, but he was curious to hear what she and Mikka were talking about. He made sure his lamps were extinguished and then carefully lifted the rug, angling his ear towards the opening.