I appeared exactly where I was sure I would, in the same narrow alleyway in the lower city of Stonekeep that I used to depart from Lorond’s neighborhood. It was a place I knew well, and a place people generally avoided because of the close quarters. Unsurprisingly, there was no one within sight of my arrival.

  Holding up my hand, I admired the Arborean ring for a moment before setting out. It fit very well, and I wondered how they did that. They couldn’t have had these rings lying around waiting for human visitors of exactly my size to be named as Friends of all Arboreans. They must have used their talents at spellsinging to size it somehow. Just to make sure, I checked my pack’s contents. The purple fabric was on top, so I set the pack down on the ground and held the robe up in front of me. It was exactly what I needed, a royal purple silk bathrobe big enough to fit His Disgracefulness Lorond Washman. All my money was there in separate bags of one hundred gold coins each, all one thousand gold royals of it. Lorond had made the request of the robe in jest, knowing full well how impossible it was to procure one here in Stonekeep. I had no idea how I would convince him to honor his word if he decided to renege, but I had hope. I really didn’t want to hurt him if I didn’t have to. I folded the robe carefully and put it back in my pack. Shouldering my burden, I left the alley and walked back to Lorond’s business in Sevenday’s afternoon sun.

  When I arrived, I found that Lorond was assisting three women in fine dresses in his small front lobby. I thought for a moment about waiting my turn for the women to leave, but then a thought hit me. No one who depends on a good reputation likes their dirty secrets dragged into the light of day. I opened my pack and took out the robe and three bags of gold. It was every bit of the three hundred royals I had promised him.

  “Mr. Washman,” I said loudly. “A moment of your time, please.”

  He tried to ignore me at first, but he had to address me when I hailed him again, pushing the boundaries of politeness. “Just a moment, good sir. Ladies first.” He added a fake smile for the benefit of his wealthy patrons.

  “I apologize for interrupting, my ladies, but my heart will simply not allow me to wait!” I raised a hand to my heart, playing my part to the fullest.

  “Now see here…” Lorond began.

  I cut him off. “You see, Mr. Washman has arranged a marriage between himself and the woman I love, Mira Porter, but…” This time I was cut off by one of his customers.

  “Mira Porter? Didn’t she work here at one time?” the woman in the yellow dress asked. She scratched her head, thinking.

  “No, you must be mistaken…” Lorond stammered.

  “Why yes! Yes, she did!” I exclaimed.

  “Wait! Surely, she wasn’t the same waif who quit his employ in the Chamber Pot Incident, was she?” the woman in the blue dress asked.

  “Why yes, I believe that’s exactly who we’re talking about,” the woman in the yellow dress said.

  “Wait a minute,” the woman in the green dress said. “Why would you arrange a marriage to Mira Porter after she, ahem… embarrassed you like that?” She raised an eyebrow dangerously.

  “Yes. Do tell,” the woman in the blue dress said.

  Now the eyes of all three women were narrowed dangerously. The looks they gave him would have melted a candle.

  “Well, I… Ahem. I…” Lorond stammered, completely taken by surprise.

  He began sweating profusely and mopped his forehead with a handkerchief, trying to come up with some sort of story that wouldn’t lose him these valued customers. Time for me to step in.

  “Mr. Washman was thinking of revenge when he did that after having too much to drink one night,” I said helpfully. Or not so helpfully, as it was. “You see, the incident was still fresh in his mind, and he was overcome with shame and alcohol. It was a regrettable decision, he admitted to me recently, but one that we have come to an arrangement about. You see, Mr. Washman promised me earlier this very day that he’d give me the signed and cancelled promissory letter in exchange for three hundred gold royals and a purple silk bathrobe.” I held the items up with a big, innocent smile on my face. Lorond’s eyes bugged almost completely out of his head as he beheld the robe.

  “You did what?!” the woman with the yellow dress demanded. All three women saw right through his motives, though they may not have seen through mine.

  “It’s all forgiven, though, right, Mr. Washman?” I asked nicely.

  “Ah, yes. Yes, indeed. All is forgiven.” He clearly didn’t want to lose these three customers, nor did he want his true motives to be exposed to the rumor mill. He knew that no one in polite society would forgive the sort of abuse he actually had planned. He seemed to come to his senses and straightened his back. “In fact, I was expecting Johan here this evening. Just like he promised he’d be here. I’ll just get that promissory letter for you now, good sir.” His smile was so strained, I thought he might have cracked a tooth if he ground his teeth any harder.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “Thank you so much, Mr. Washman!” I said to his back as he left the room. I heard him going through the desk he had in an office in the next room. “He really was very apologetic about the whole scandal,” I said to the three women, emphasizing the word “scandal.”

  “Yes, yes. Very apologetic!” Lorond hollered from the office. “Aha!”

  Lorond came back into the lobby a moment later with a sheet of paper, which he hurriedly signed and thrust at me. Very slowly, I made a show of putting the three bags of gold and the gaudy silk robe on the counter for all to see. I decided to give him no mercy.

  “Would you like to count it?” I asked pleasantly.

  “No, no, thank you, Joman. I’m sure it’s all there.” Lomond quickly snatched the bags and the robe and hid them behind the counter then held the letter back out to me.

  “Thank you, Mr. Washman,” I said as I took the paper from his greasy paw. “Should I tell Mira that you apologized for this misunderstanding?”

  Knowing that he was soundly defeated, he muttered his reply. “Yes, good sir. You may tell Mira that I apologize unreservedly for this regrettable incident.” He coughed a bit and held a fist to his mouth.

  Though he had to choke out the last two words, he did well to mask his true feelings on the matter. Even though he profited from this transaction greatly, he was a thoroughly repulsive man. If he could have inflicted even more pain on Mira in some way, shape, or form, he certainly would’ve. The three women seemed to be sifting through what was really going on, so I thought it was high time to make my escape.

  “Thanks again. Have a nice evening, Mr. Washman,” I called as I left the lobby.

  That went a lot better than I thought it might have, I thought to myself. I didn’t know what exactly I would have done to prevent it, but it would’ve been over my rotting corpse that I would see Mira raped and dishonored by this gutter slug. I walked as quickly as I could back to the Porters’ home in order to get this odious business over with. I’d been thinking about the unpleasant ways that the last encounter could have turned out, so I didn’t have a smile on my face when I got to the Porters’ house. I knocked on the door politely. Mrs. Porter answered the door.

  “Oh, thank God,” she whispered when she saw me with the letter rolled up in my hand. “Please come in, Jeron,” Maureen said more loudly.

  Myhan Porter was sitting in his chair exactly where he was several hours ago. Briefly, I wondered if he was tethered to it. He got up, looking at the letter in my hand. I handed the letter to him without saying anything, and he inspected it carefully.

  “This is the one, all right. Signed and everything. I can’t imagine how you managed to get this, boy. You have my money?”

  “Yes, sir.” I took my pack off my shoulder and handed him the five bags of gold he asked for, one after another. “Would you like to count it? I put a couple extra coins in each bag, just to be sure.”

  By the sidelong look he gave me, he was thinking that I beat that letter out of Washman. Though he was a strong man, he saw in my face that I wasn’t going to put up with his nonsense. “That won’t be necessary. I guess we have a deal, then,” Myhan said a little morosely, despite his newfound wealth. “You’ll be wanting a new promissory letter to be drawn up for you, I assume?”

  I couldn’t stand to be in his presence any longer. “No, sir. I’ll trust your word on this. Mira and I will be married at a time to be determined later,” I said.

  “As you say,” Myhan agreed. Maybe he agreed a little too easily, but I was probably just overthinking it.

  “If you require nothing else, I bid you all a good night,” I said.

  I turned to go, and Mrs. Porter opened the door for me. I could tell she was very emotional about this when her hand trembled a bit on the doorknob, but she said nothing as she let me out the door. The entire ordeal left a bad taste in my mouth. Even though some very good things had come from today’s activities, and even knowing that I’d done right by Mira, I still felt like I needed to take a bath. My family would certainly pummel the details of my day out of me if I went back to the house, so I took a walk around Stonekeep instead. There was only an hour or two remaining until we had to report back to our barracks for duty, and I hoped that a little bit of walking might help clear my mind or at least settle my nerves. It was a miserable failure.

  -----

  Four days later, Mira was still seething internally over a certain person’s perceived untrustworthiness. She refused to bring the subject up because, at least in her mind, she was waiting to see what I would do. It was a test, and so far, it was one that I was failing at. In those two days, I’d mentioned nothing of my deal with her father, and though I seemed a bit distracted to her, I never tried to pull her aside and say anything about it, much less actually ask her to marry me. I could feel her coldness and decided to wait until I could arrange a walk in the park or something before asking her. Mira did her best to ignore me and unconsciously made things as difficult for me as possible. I was so thick-headed that I didn’t notice her passive aggression anyway.

  This was Fourday, and the talon was assigned to patrol the lower city. It was a hot day wearing armor, and the talon had stopped at a fountain to get a drink of the cool water flowing from Stonekeep Castle via aqueducts. The talon was milling around, loitering, really, not doing much of anything important when a passerby bumped into Mira.

  “Help him,” Mira heard in a low voice as the man grasped her hand. Then, louder, “Sorry,” the man said as he walked away.

  Mira recognized him at once, though his nature was completely nondescript. Actually, it was the fact that his nature was so nondescript that gave him away to her. Ykaens. Without looking, Mira squeezed her left hand a little and heard the slight crinkle of paper. Turning slightly away from her fellows, she used a bit of magic to transfer the scroll from her hand to a spot under her breastplate. I felt the magic she used and turned my head in her direction, but I didn’t say anything. After regarding her quietly for a moment, I turned away as if I noticed nothing.

  Later in the day, as the soldiers disarmed in the barracks, Mira snuck a look at the scroll. It was sealed with wax with the signet ring of the prince, and it had a star drawn next to the seal. So, she was being tasked to be a messenger again. Well, that was fine with her. Mira needed a little time by herself anyway. She’d do her duty, if not in the last remaining days of her official service, then as soon as she could break away after her militia service ended.

  There was one thing Mira hated with a particular passion, and that was for someone to tell her what to do. She had vowed to be the master of her own fate, to live her life the way she wanted to, and she was not going to let anyone treat her like property again. That included princes, spymasters, mentors, or would-be husbands. She’d deliver the stupid message, but she’d demand a heavy payment later.