Page 6 of The Gambler's Prize
He turns back, his heavy eyebrows raised.
“You... you don’t have to lock me in,” I stutter. I’m trying desperately to sound like I’m not begging. Failing. “I won’t run away.”
“Why should I take that chance?” he says.
Good point. He has the legal right to do this. That contract gave him almost complete control over me. I’ll panic if I’m locked in here all night. Like being a teenager all over again. My father never locked me in until after my mother left. That’s when it started. Ironic. He doesn’t even like me, but he didn’t want me to run from him like my mother had. If Grimes locks that door I won’t be able to sleep, and I’ll be a mess in the morning, and barely able to work, and who knows what he’ll do to me.
“Please,” I say. “I know I messed up. I was stupid, I lost the bet, and you won fair and square.”
Still no expression on his face. I stare at the strong jaw, the crooked nose, searching fruitlessly for clues to his thoughts. His rocky features are hard enough to read, and the hood constantly shadowing his face and covering most of his forehead doesn’t make it any easier. He still has it up eveninside his own house. What kind of a freak have I landed with here?
“Look, I’m ready to step up to my responsibilities,” I say. “I’ll give you your two years.”
Two years. I almost choke on the words. Two years of my life.
“You will?” Grimes says.
I square my shoulders, praying I don’t vomit again, or worse still, cry. “Yes. I’m not going to bitch and whine about it. You don’t have to treat me like a prisoner.”
Something flashes across the blankness of his face. A flare of anger deep in his eyes. I step back, no idea what I said to offend him.
“I doubt a rich boy like you has seen the inside of a real prison,” he says.
So this is where his animosity is coming from? Jealousy. I’m used to that. Usually my charm works on people like this, eventually. With Grimes, I’m not so sure.
“You’re right, I haven’t,” I say. “But locking the door could be dangerous. What if there’s a fire?”
He scoffs. “Nice try.”
“I’m serious. What if one of us forgets to blow out a candle? I know you don’t like me much, but you don’t want me to die, do you?”
“What makes you think I don’t like you?” he says.
“Wild guess.”
A weird noise comes from deep in his throat. Was that supposed to be alaugh? I guess he doesn’t laugh much. We look at each other for a few moments. Winner and loser, master and indentured servant.
“I won’t lock the door,” he says. “Just in case of fire, you understand.”
There’s a glint of malicious amusement in his eyes. Heknows. He knows I’m scared and pathetic. I don’t care. I’ll take any reprieve I can get. In fact, I feel almost… happy. For the first time since he “won” me. How sad is that? How quickly my expectations in life have lowered. I’m starting to realize that happiness is going to be a relative concept for me from now on. I give him my sunniest smile, which feels extremely out of place in this joyless house.
“Thank you,” I say.
“I warn you, if you’re thinking of sneaking out, don’t,” he says. “I’m a very light sleeper.”
Without another word he turns and exits the room. He closes the door firmly, but true to his word there’s no sound of a key turning in the lock. He leaves me with the disconcerting mental image of his lightly sleeping, hulking form in the next room. He also left an oil lamp with me. In its soft light, I examine my new room. Or cell. There’s a tiny dressing table, half the size of the one in my boarding house. It’ll never hold all my beauty potions: I get through buckets of skin moisturizer due to the dry desert air. There’s a chest of drawers and a narrow wardrobe. The floorboards are bare. I open the window, which rattles in complaint, to let in the cool night air. And to make me feel less like a prisoner. The ancient pitcher on the dressing table is full of water, and there’s a bar of soap and fresh towels, which are clean if a little threadbare. It would feel nice, like he’d prepared for his guest, except for the fact that I’m not his guest. I’m his servant, and the readiness of the room proves that he went out with the sole intention of taking me by trickery and bringing me back here. The scheme winds its way around me like a wire trap. My skin crawls at the idea of doing exactly what he expected, but I don’t want to go to bed without washing. So I pour some water into the basin, trying to forget that I’m obediently following the path my new boss set out for me. I splash water on my face, washing off the sweat caused by my vomiting fits. Then I take off my jacket and shirt and wash under my arms. As usual I try not to look too closely at the scars on my torso. I won’t let Grimes see these.
Gambling is what caused me to flee my hometown of Rhennes. When I got too far behind on my debts, the loan sharks started demanding my jewelry. Then they started taking it. Then I ran out of jewelry, but they thought I was holding out on them.They inflicted pain to extract what they were owed. But I had no more to give. My father had already cut me off financially. I was forced to run, to Galbrava, out of the loan sharks’ reach, but now I’ve fallen into the hands of a man who might be every bit as ruthless. It’s all my own fault. My father’s voice runs through my head.Lazy, useless, feckless. Stupid. You bring your problems on yourself.
I take off my breeches, fold them, and place them on the hard wooden chair beside the bed. Grimes has left a nightshirt for me, but in a small act of defiance I ignore it and get into bed in only my underwear. I turn over to face the window, my chest tight with anxiety. The shitty mattress springs dig into my shoulder. My boarding house bed is far from luxurious, but it’s a lot better than this. I blow out the oil lamp and wait for sleep to claim me. It’s so fucking quiet here. There’s the sound of screech owls way out in the desert, but they’re faint and intermittent. Not sounding often enough to comfort me that there are other living beings in the world. I’m used to my rowdy boarding house with other tenants coming and going and banging doors at all hours of the night. And I’m not used to having my jailer, who appears to hate me, in the very next room. I fix my eyes on the somber moon looking in my window and try not to succumb to panic.
Chapter 4
Grimes
Next morning, I’m outside Lord Florian’s bedroom, ringing the bell I bought especially for him. At five o’clock.
“What the hell is that?” His voice comes from inside the room, loud and panicked.
