The High Price of Medicine

THE HIGH PRICE OF MEDICINE

JANRAE FRANK

Dierdre Coombs slipped into the Surly Frog early in the evening. The tavern was located in the Black Dog District of Heatherford Town in the lycan kingdom of Red Wolf. The middle and upper classes referred to that district as 'the ghetto.' Her mother, Richenda, waited tables there and sometimes took a dog home to her bed in exchange for groceries, since her meager salary and tips barely paid the rent and clothed them. Dierdre had large periwinkle blue eyes, delicate features, and a pert nose. Curly flaxen hair feathered around her face like a wispy aureole.

Her modest, square-necked blouse had come to her second-hand from a local charity. Richenda had taken several inches from the bottom of a blue dress, used it to replace strips along the worn seams of the serviceable russet blouse, and then spent several nights carefully embroidering flowers along the neck and hems. Dierdre's matching skirt had been given a similar treatment and she considered them her best clothes, which she normally reserved for the Taladay services at the Church of the Holy Mothers.

She went barefoot: her mother could not afford to buy her shoes. Although the rest of her was clean, dirt already stained her feet that day.

The Surly Frog was a sea of round tables with booths along the sides and straw spread over the floor to make cleaning up after their rough clientele easier. A long hard rock maple bar at the far side had jars of peppermints and horehound sticks at one end.

Dierdre looked with longing at the candy. One of her mother's male friends, Winston, used to buy her candy, but he had not been seen in months. Of all the dogs who overnighted in her mother's bed, Winston had long been Dierdre's favorite. He always included treats for Dierdre and her two siblings in the sacks of groceries he brought. Some said he had simply gotten tired of them. Winston Doherty was the heir of the heir, grandson to the Thane of Heatherford. He had met Richenda three years ago while slumming with his cousins and been a frequent visitor until four months ago. Richenda had taken his absence in her stride, but Dierdre could not yet overcome her feelings of abandonment.

Dierdre would not come of age at fourteen until late spring and they were barely into summer. She had two siblings, five-year-old Charlotte and nine-year-old Roddy. Her brother was a sickly cub and recently his condition had worsened to the point that he could barely breathe on most days.

It was half full of myn. She knew all of them and had since her earliest memories.

Old Tony still wore his tinker's apron, and when he saw her he pulled out a pair of pliers. He waved them at her, chuckling. "Titty pinchers. Beware the titty pinchers now that ya've got tits to fit it, Dierdre."

Dierdre stiffened. She could not quite remember when he had started that joke, but it had been going on for months. She hunched her shoulders. She had tried binding her breasts down to make them less noticeable, but that had proved too uncomfortable and did not stop the jokes. "Stop that, Uncle Tony."

"Dirty Uncle Tony," Alfleck laughed.

Dierdre sucked in a deep breath, wondering if Tony was doing more than joking. She felt conspicuous, and although she had washed herself thoroughly once her menses finished, wondered if they could scent the blood on her still. The joking always seemed to get worse during her moon periods. At one time, she had called all of them uncle, but one by one as the joking increased, Dierdre had stopped doing so.

Then she caught Isling staring at her breasts as she tried to navigate the common room. "Stop that!"

Isling grinned. "Ain't had yer skirt lifted yet, Dierdre? Once ya do it, ya won't mind the eyes as much."

"I'll always mind the eyes. So stop staring at them." Dierdre crossed her arms over her breasts when she noticed that some of the other males were staring at them also. The only glances that made her more uncomfortable were the crotch watchers. They made her feel as if they were poking her with their eyes.

She found her mother in the kitchen, filling a tray with tankards of mead and bowls of stew. Richenda turned toward her. "Did you talk to him? Will he sell us the medicine?"

Dierdre nodded. "Fifty nobles. I can't talk him down any farther."

She studied her mother, as she so often did, trying to find something that was missing about her. Dierdre could never understand how a bitch as beautiful as her mother had never married and ended up serving drinks and turning tricks. Richenda Coombs had a sultry face, large soul-consuming eyes the color of ripe acorns, golden brown hair that waved down her back past her hips, a delicate nose and perfect lips. Everything about her was glorious to look upon.

"And how much of it would we get?"

"A month's worth."

"A month? I don't know where we'll get the money."

Dierdre ducked her head. "I know you told me not to, but I tried to get into the manor to see Winston. The guards wouldn't let me in."

Richenda dragged her daughter into her arms, hugging her fiercely. "Oh, Dierdre, if Winnie still cared about us, he would have come back by now."

Dierdre swallowed back a sob. "I know. The guards � they made lewd suggestions. One of them tried to kiss me."

"You didn't let him, did you?"

"Of course not."

"Sluts don't marry. No decent dog wants them. They just have cubs without fathers, without knowing who their fathers even are. Sometimes a dog will move in with a bitch, but he's gone as soon as he loses interest in her. My daughters are never going to be forced to trade sex for food or anything else. You're going to have a marriage, Dierdre. You hear me?"

"Yes, Mum. I hear you. That's what happened with Winnie, isn't it? He found someone prettier?"

Richenda sucked in a long breath. "Yes. That's what must have happened. So let it go."

"Roddy's going to die, isn't he, Mum?"

"Don't ask that. If the Holy Mothers want little Roddy to play in their gardens that badly, then they will take him and there's nothing we can do."

"I'll go back and talk to Gabhan again. There has to be a way to get the medicine."

GODWAR CENTRAL

The High Price of Medicine