The Prisoner's Release and Other Stories (39 page)

“
Just walk, and ignore them, they’ll go away,” the grey fox muttered, stepping behind Volle and Streak and putting a paw on each of their backs to push them in the right direction while keeping the kits back from them. “They’d take us to some other merchant that the bobcat has an agreement with, not Tamar.”

Tamar was a large, friendly porcupine, surrounded by his family, and when they showed him the shirt, he knew instantly which trousers to get. “The merchants all know each other,” Streak murmured as the porcupine’s wife was fetching the trousers and Volle paid the merchant.

“
Of course,” Kevar said. “They work here side by side for years.”

“
Why not just sell from their stores?”

The fox shrugged. “And make the nobility walk all over the city? Here they can show off their best next to the best of their competition, and the nobles, or their servants, need only stroll through a small space to see what they can purchase.”

Streak nodded, looking across the stalls, and his ears and whiskers perked up. “Oh, fox,” he said. “There’s a nice scarf over there. That would look good on you.”

“
I know where to find a scarf!” one of the chubby porcupine girls piped up, and this time Kevar let her guide them.

Ten minutes later, Volle let Streak tie the scarf on him over his dusty travel clothes. Kevar raised an eyebrow, and said, “You should really not wear it with that tunic,” but Volle grinned and shrugged, and left it on because of the smile the white wolf got when he said he liked it.

Streak thought they were done, but Kevar insisted on purchasing a doublet for Volle to wear over the shirt, and then a pair of dyed calfskin armbands to go with them. By the time they reached the jewelers, to pick out some wrought silver clasps for the new clothes, they had acquired a retinue of shouting cubs of various ages, all trying to pull them in different directions and running to bring things to show off to them. Streak laughed and looked at each thing they brought, and Volle tried to maintain his good humor, but he was exhausted and the shrieking was giving him a headache.

Kevar, somehow, managed to ignore them, except when one of them brought a shirt he liked. How he picked it out of the hodgepodge of items being thrust at him by grubby paws, Volle couldn’t say, but once he’d gotten Volle’s nod of approval, he nodded curtly to the mouse holding the shirt, and they were off to another stall, where he bought the second shirt from an old mouse who seemed to have an army of children scouring the market for potential customers. He haggled more with her than he had with the other merchants, and their banter made it obvious that they knew each other. When he handed Volle the shirt, Kevar was wearing a huge grin, the kind Volle was used to producing himself only when he was relaxing in the warm glow of a fading orgasm. The grey fox’s dedication to shopping reminded Volle of Welcis, the skunk who had served him faithfully back in Tephos for five years.

Welcis would also have helped him dress, but for that he now had to rely on Streak. Once they’d made their way back to the inn, Kevar waited while Volle returned to his room and tried to dress in his new clothes, guiding Streak through the lacings as best he could. In the end, he thought, looking at himself in the mirror and adjusting a silver clasp with an amber gem to match his yellow shirt, it turned out rather well.

“
You look very noble,” Streak said. “I feel like I should kneel, or something.”

“
Not because I’m noble,” Volle said, winking at the wolf. “But time for that later. I think I hear the carriage out front, and I don’t want to be late. You’ll be okay with Kevar?”

Streak nodded. “Of course.”

“
Find us a nice place for dinner. We can eat here if you want, but we don’t have to.”

“
All right. You don’t have a favorite place to go back to?”

Volle shook his head. “No. Not around here, and not really anywhere. The places I used to eat were...” Smoky taverns, with cheap food and available young males to spend an hour with. “...not that good.”

Streak nodded. “Good luck at the palace.”

“
Thanks. I’ll see you back here tonight.” Volle stretched his neck up for a kiss, and when their muzzles parted, Streak was grinning widely. “What?”

“
I never kissed a noble before,” the wolf said, chuckling.

“
These are for special occasions,” Volle smiled, gesturing to the clothes. “Don’t get used to it.”

Waving to the white wolf as his carriage pulled away, he thought about those words and wondered again what fate awaited him at the palace. Given the choice, what did he want? Remain at the palace as an expert on Tephos? That was what Seir had guessed, but it sounded extremely dull and Volle wasn’t sure whether he wanted that, to be constantly reminded of what he’d left behind. He wasn’t even sure he’d be offered it, considering that no matter what Seir had said about him preventing a war, he’d failed in his mission: he’d been caught.

He didn’t particularly want to go back to the Academy, either, though he could probably be a valuable asset to them. He’d been in constant conflict with the teachers there, and his best friend from those days had remained in Divalia, a valuable point of contact for future spies.

Of course, all the wondering he was doing was pointless; the decision would most likely not be his. The head of the Academy, and the person he would report to in the government, was the one who disliked him most in all of Ferrenis, and the more he thought about that meeting, the less certain he felt that he would even be allowed to remain in the country.

He tried to control the fear, knowing it was affecting his scent, but he was sure that everyone from the footservant who greeted him at the palace gates to the secretary who told him to sit and wait in the antechamber of the office could smell it. He forced himself to think about all he’d accomplished in the nearly six years since he’d sat in this office, and had managed to soothe himself into a reasonable facsimile of calm by the time the secretary said, “Duke Avery is free now.”

The formidable wolf behind the desk was the most familiar sight Volle had yet seen in Caril. He could never have forgotten the broad physique, the shaggy cheek ruffs, the perfect claws, and the searing eyes. Just the scent of the office took him back to his days as a nervous young student. He’d steeled himself for the glare he received, but when the wolf rose and extended a paw, Volle found himself caught completely off guard. He stared blankly.

Avery grinned at him, another memory Volle would never lose, but this grin was not menacing. “Don’t they shake paws in Tephos?” he said.

“
Uh,” Volle stammered, and stepped forward, extending his paw. Avery’s tough pads closed around it and held it as the wolf leaned forward. Volle couldn’t bring himself to touch muzzles, but he got close enough to exchange scents, and sat down heavily in the chair in front of the desk.

“
Don’t get me wrong; I still don’t like you,” Avery rumbled in his deep bass voice. “But there’s no need for you to be afraid, any more. You’ve done a fine job and served your King well. So relax, Volle. You managed to outdo even Seir’s inflated expectations.”

“
I’m sorry I got caught,” was all he could think to say.

Avery sat down as well, and shrugged his massive shoulders. “It was in a good cause. Did they torture you?”

Volle nodded slowly. “Dereath was afraid to leave marks, I think, or he didn’t want to...” The thought had occurred to him more than once that the rat’s obsession with him might have saved him from disfigurement.

“
What did they use?”

Volle swallowed. “The rack. Sticks. Needles.” He held up his right paw. “Broken fingers.”

The wolf’s eyes narrowed. He leaned forward. “Healed well?”

“
Yes. Thanks to your training.”

Avery snorted. “Glad to see you absorbed some of it. Well, obviously you didn’t give away any secrets. No one was compromised. So thank you, again. Now...” He unrolled a pair of documents onto his desk, and motioned for the fox to sit forward. Volle did, though he didn’t need to be any closer to recognize the documents he’d taken from the Minister of Defense’s office, six months and a lifetime ago. “What do you make of these?”

Volle shook his head. “There’s not been a war. Have the troop movements matched what’s recorded here?”

“
Some of them.” Avery indicated the numbers with a claw. “None for almost seven months. Which corresponds exactly to the time of your capture.”

“
That was the plan,” Volle said. “The theft was supposed to make them think twice about launching the attack. Surprise was of the essence, and if the documents were gone, then so was the element of surprise. They would have to fear the worst, especially since Prewitt.”

“
They know that one was us,” Avery said. “How are the two connected?”

“
It established our ability to strike inside the palace despite their security.” Volle had heard many conversations about this in the year after a noble had been assassinated by Ferrenian agents inside the palace.

Avery nodded. “How much do you know about their security?”

“
Some,” Volle said. “My last year there I was in line to be on the Defense council. I’ve told Seir everything I know.”

The wolf stroked his chin thoughtfully as his eyes slid back to the parchment. “We have notes on all that, of course. But back to the war plans. The curious thing about them is the haste they call for. A campaign such as this is traditionally built up years in advance, especially with a bear on the throne. Weasel, even a wolf, might strike quickly to gain the element of surprise, but a bear?”

“
The Minister of Defense is a wolf,” Volle said.

“
Quite,” Avery said, studying the plans. “These are in his writing, unless I miss my guess.”

“
Yes,” Volle said. “That’s what I told Seir.”

“
So they could be legitimate.”

Volle blinked. “You’d thought they weren’t? “

Avery looked back up at him. “Since no action has been taken, we can’t discount that possibility.”

“
Then why…?”

“
A hypothetical exercise. The King might have asked the Minister to write out the steps necessary to perform an operation, for his inspection. Or he might have asked for the plans to be drawn up as a contingency if we moved against the Reysfields. That last is rather unlikely, since we did not move any troops into the area in the past year, but I can tell you for certain that our own King has made such requests of his own Minister of Defense.” He grinned again.

“
Oh.”

“
The other option is that it was deliberately set as a trap for you.”

Volle’s fur prickled. “For me?”

Avery nodded. “You had some trouble in your first year, and the assassination made them suspect that there was an agent inside the palace. This could have been bait.”

“
Bait? But my…” He had so effectively removed the name of his contact in the palace from his mind during his time in prison that even now, he couldn’t recall it. “My contact didn’t say anything about a trap.”

“
If it was a trap, then it would only have been revealed to those who absolutely needed to know. Your contact would not necessarily have been told. But that possibility is also remote. To go to the pains of moving these troops, all for the sake of a trap, seems excessive, especially years after the initial suspicion.”

Volle stayed quiet. Avery might be right, even knowing about the Tephossians’ obsession with security and Dereath’s vendetta against him. But Volle was disturbed that the possibility hadn’t occurred to him before.

“
So, in your opinion, what action should we take in regards to these plans?”

“
Me?”

Avery grinned again. “Yes, you. We have the opinion of your “contact,” but I want your thoughts as well.”

Volle had given advice before, but had never expected that it would be asked of him by Avery. He collected his thoughts. “Well…if they haven’t moved yet, then either it wasn’t real, or they’ve reconsidered because the plans were stolen. In either case, I see no need to precipitate a war. I would have our troops remain on alert for any more movement matching those plans, but otherwise…do nothing.”

The large wolf nodded. “That matches the other advice we’ve received. And my own thoughts. Good.” He made a notation on another paper on his desk. “So. The next question is, what do you want to do now?”

Volle hadn’t expected to be given the choice, but he was ready for it. “I just want to rest. I don’t want to teach, or anything. If you need advice on Tephos, I’m happy to give it, but I don’t want to sit here thinking about it all the time.” Not when each moment would remind him of the palace, and when the people he would be asked to consider as elements of intelligence were real friends of fur and bone.

“
All right. We can arrange that. In recognition of your services, the King has found some run-down farm in the country that he’s chosen to bestow upon you.”

“
A farm?” He thought about the dreadful tedium of the farms they’d stopped at. Then he thought about Streak’s enthusiasm in helping with the work, and his ears lifted.

“
I know you’re not a farmer, but you’ve been pretending to be one for years now. Think of it as a punishment befitting your crime.” The wolf grinned. “I believe it’s a County by the name of Farrian.”

“
So I’d be Count Farrian?”