Chapter 74: Bids
"The auction will begin, starting at five thousand gold coins!" the masked man said.
Rose’s eyes nearly bulged from her sockets. She could count how many times she had seen a gold coin. She could count it on her right hand only, and only the baron owned gold coins in Edenville. With a gold coin, she could take her mother to the best physician in all of Edenville for a week, and here she was getting sold for five thousand pieces of gold.
No one in their right mind would pay that kind of money for a simple peasant simply because she had lived in the castle for a few days. No one was that crazy.
"Oh, we have a bidder. Five thousand, Lord Wolf. Anyone else?"
A bidder? Rose nearly pushed her head through the tiny space in between the bars. There was no way someone would pay that amount for her. She looked into the audience and saw a man seated in the crowd. She couldn’t see his face, of course, because of the mask, and even if he wasn’t wearing the mask, she was too far away.
However, it wasn’t the man who did the bidding; rather, it was the woman who sat close enough to touch him, but it was clear to anyone that she did it on his behalf as she kept whispering in his ear.
Rose was terrified to her toes. If anyone was willing to pay five thousand coins for her, she didn’t want to imagine what they would do to her. No one here seemed like a good choice.
"Oh, another bidder. Six thousand coins, Lord Bear."
Rose almost slammed her head against the bars. Six thousand. Why was it going even higher? Five thousand was already an exorbitant price. Now, six thousand.
"Seven thousand, Lady Fox. A nice bid."