Rough Negotiation

“How did you get this?” The assassin Barra Mohani growled in a hushed voice, holding up a gun that belonged to none of the six foreigners in the room.

            “I don’t know. Stop shouting at me,” Anne Hyland yelled.

            “I wasn’t shouting, you twit,” said Barra, his voice rising in volume as his cheeks flushed with rage. He took a deep breath, held it for a moment and let it go in a long sigh. “I just need to know what you can remember.”

            “I can’t remember anything,” she said, rubbing her forehead. Hear breath was more alcohol vapour than exhalation.

            “We need to know if we’re going to be arrested when we leave this room,” the assassin whispered, leaning closer to the hysterical soldier. His menace was undermined by the red tangzhuang jacket he wore. All but Anne had chosen the same outfit in various colours.

            “I don’t. I’m sorry. I don’t know. I was drinking with them. That’s all I remember. I wanted to be friends with them because I thought that would help.” Her flowing robe was the most beautiful garment in the district. Cranes flew across the leaf green silk. Trees beneath them reminded Danielle of Crann, her home.

            “Only if they gave you this,” the assassin lifted the gun again.

            “Give her a moment Barra,” Danielle said. She put a hand on his chest and pushed him gently away from her friend. She pointed to the door. “If we shout at each other, they’ll know something is wrong. We need to stay calm and think of a way out of this.”

            “Why don’t we hide it?” Una stepped forward in her grey tangzhuang.

            “Where?” asked Sir Euan? “There’s nothing in here.” Around them were four bamboo walls, beneath them a bamboo floor and the river that bordered Wubianjing.

            “Under the floor,” said the grey acolyte. Una got on her knees; she began picking at chords that held the planks beneath their feet.

            “That’s a river,” Sir Aled Cadogan said condescendingly.

            “You lack imagination, sir.” With nimble hands, Una had a stretch of the floor untied from the beam below. Water flowed three feet beneath. Danielle wondered if there were fish in there, waiting to be caught and eaten.

            Una smiled. Ripping her clothes from Niquin apart she created a bag with it before their eyes. In went the gun, wrapped tightly. The warrior of the assassin’s church lowered herself down through the floor.

            Danielle stuck her head through the hole. She watched the ingenious woman in her new finery climbing from post to post beneath the building with all the ease of a monkey. The grey acolyte tied the package to a pillar in shadow by the river’s edge and returned. Una took Sir Longbow’s hand to pull herself back up. Moments later the floor was tied again. Danielle had to admit she would not have seen the difference in the twine that kept the bamboo floor together.

            “If you’d kept your head, red, you might have thought of that.” Una patted Barra on the shoulder and strolled to the door. Seeing a local guard outside, she smiled, bowed, and said good morning to him as Barra had taught them all to do.

            The soldier assigned to look after and watch them barged into the room and began talking to Anne in a concerned voice.

            “He wants to know if you are alright?” Said mister Mohani, their interpreter.

            “I’ve got a headache. Nothing worse than that. Can you ask him what happened last night?” Anne, rubbing her temples, looked from Barra to the guard.

            The red acolyte who spoke Quingo questioned the man in an accent that was noticeably worse than usual. “He says you kissed him.”

            “Sounds like me.”

            “And some other men.”

            “Probably.”

            “There was a fight.”

            “Not the first, probably not the last.”

            “One of the men was disciplined for losing his gun during the fight.”

            “Oh dear, I hope he finds it.” Anne gave the man a blank, innocent look.

            “He hopes you do not think poorly of him and the soldiers.”

            “No. I’m sure they were all gentlemen, and excellent kissers.” She winked at the soldier, who blushed and smiled. “Can he show us around the city? We’ve been here for three days and all I’ve seen was the fishing district and the tailors. She plucked at her dress and gave the youthful man a grin that gave even Danielle some dirty thoughts.

            “He says it would be his honour.”

Wubianjing was a city with many qualities. Danielle enjoyed the floating markets. Fruits, vegetables and meat of all sizes and shapes floated past on little boats. The colours were incredible.

            She had never eaten such delicious food. Fruit that looked like green hedgehogs opened to release a foul smell, and yet it tasted wonderful. Red, hairy looking things had sweet acidic fruit inside.

            Only Barra had ever tried anything like them. For a while the foreigners forgot their mission as the locals crowded them in their boats to offer culinary wonders. Several were cooking in pots sitting on fires kept in larger pots.

            The smells of the food on the river and the voices were overwhelming. Everything about the place was a barrage of the senses. The locals liked to watch their facial expressions as they tried things for the first time. Anne drew the most laughter of the crowds as she expressed herself with primal enjoyment or disgust.

            All the while the guard named Din Jan sat in the boat with them. He wore his short sword on his left hip and a gun on the right. Over the days he learnt to speak to them with mister Mohani’s help. He was a quick study.

            No one had forgotten why they were there. Barra, as the only one who could speak the language, had petitioned to meet with a trade official. They wanted to buy guns. Buying guns in Quin Shi meant obtaining a special trade permit.

            All they could do while they waited for word from the trade officer was to explore the city. Din Jan showed them the sights of the city. Pride in his city and eagerness to show it off contrasted with his suspicion of outsiders. Though he blushed when he met eyes with Anne, he watched the rest with suspicion.

            Contrast between the rich and the poor was as stark as anywhere Danielle had visited. Paupers lived by the river, on lower ground. Their homes were mostly made of bamboo. Moving up the slope of the city, those who made more money had homes made half of stone and half solid timber. The rich at the top had their spacious houses made of stone, with beautiful, tiled rooftops that curved up at the corners. Woodwork was carved and painted with rich colours, mostly red. Red symbolised luck to the people of Quin Shi and neighbouring Niquin.

            Paper lanterns hung from strings across the streets. The travellers had seen lanterns of the sort in neighbouring kingdoms on the way, but not as many. Businesses had giant lanterns with their name across them to light up the night. With so many wooden buildings and paper lanterns, fires were inevitable. The guard/tour guide pointed out towers that looked out over the city. The towers were to respond quickly to fires as much as for security.

            The army in their brown armour were more intimidating than the city guard in their yellow uniforms. The Quin Shi gambeson they wore was accompanied by heavy clubs they used to hand out justice.

After five days in Wubianjing, Barra was told that a trade minister from a larger city was coming to see them. The casual banter of the guard was gone as he mentioned a man of such importance.

Two weeks after they had arrived, the trade minister met them at the city barracks. He had more guards than the commander they had met at the gate. Twenty men carrying spears formed two lines around the man in his purple shenyi robe. He wore a hat with beads hanging from the front and had a staff of office with a dragon circling it.

            The purple commander they had met stuttered an introduction between the trade minister and Barra. He bowed so low he almost lost his hat. Waving him away with a hand, the trade minister spoke to Barra.

            “The Empire of the Holy Proclamation paid an enormous bonus to Quin Shi to have exclusive rights to buy guns in the west. I have assured the trade minister that we are buying on behalf of our merchant’s guild, based in the south of Omnireg. We only want the guns to protect us from bandits.” Barra bowed so low his head almost touched the ground. Danielle didn’t know how it was possible to be so flexible.

            All five of them tried to bow as low as Barra. Sir Longbow couldn’t help looking up at the trade minister as she did. He looked like he got a kick from the genuflection.

They were invited to the administrative palace at the peak of the city. Early on Danielle knew it was going to be a bad night. The trade minister plied them all with drinks. For each one they drank, he gave Danielle two. The drink reminded her of vodka. It was a spirit that burnt her throat on the way down. Minister Qian was a man whose age showed in the grey of his beard and the liver spots that were starting to show on his hands.

            “He says that he can approve the trade agreement immediately,” Barra said. “All of the papers have been drawn up already. He wants to celebrate.”

            The room where they were having the meeting was covered with tapestries of battles and what seemed like mythical creatures. A bird wreathed in flames of all colours flew across a blue sky. Silk covered futons covered with cushions filled the room.

            Minister Qian liked smoking from a long pipe. The smoke was just another thing in the room that turned Danielle’s stomach. With ever puff and drink he took, the minister moved closer to her.

            “We should go and sign the papers,” Danielle said. “This is a beautiful place, but I’ve had enough to drink.”

            Barra translated.

            “He says that all business in Quin Shi takes a few days. It cannot be rushed.” Barra could see her tension, biting his lip.

            Minister Qian exhaled a puff of smoke in her face. Her eyes watered. Din Jan said something that made the minster pull away from her for a second.

            “Din Jan just agreed that we should sign the papers and asked if Minster Qian’s wife is well.” Barra was scowling openly at the old man in the purple robes.

            The trade minister raised a bushy grey eyebrow and yelled to his guards, who lined the walls of the room.

            Din Jan stood, bowed, but not as low as Danielle knew he was supposed to. He spoke to her directly. “I’m sorry.” He bowed lower to her before he was escorted from the room by a man wearing a yellow brigandine.

            “That’s not good,” said Barra.

            Minister Qian put a hand on her thigh.

            “He says-”

            “That I have to let him, or he won’t sign the contract?” Danielle asked.

            “Basically.”

            “Tell him I’d rather be whipped at the post.” She had been whipped before. The agony of it hadn’t given her the feeling of revulsion that was cooking itself into rage.

            Barra said something. Minister Qian yelled at him. “He wants us to leave, us but not you.”

            The old man dug his fingernails into her leg. Danielle grabbed his hand. He struggled but couldn’t move at all.

            “New agreement,” she growled. “He signs the contract now and apologises or I break his hand.”

            Barra said something less forceful. Minister Qian roared at his guards. Twenty men who had been standing around the room lowered their long spears and advanced on them all.

            “He just ordered them to kill us,” said the red acolyte. A knife appeared from the assassin’s red sleeve. “All except you.”

            Minister Qian drew a blade he’d had hidden somewhere and put it to her throat. Grabbing that hand with lightning speed, Sir Longbow forced his closed hand towards his throat.

            “I have the trade minister. Tell them to lay down their weapons.” Though the red acolyte yelled to the men with the spears, they kept advancing. Danielle let the point of the minister’s blade touch his neck. “Tell him to give the order.”

            Minister Qian barked at his men, who dropped their spears.

            “This place is a fortress. What next?”

            “Take the weapons, Anne, Barra, Sir Cadogan, Sir Errol, Una. All the weapons.” They followed her order feverishly. “Tell them to get on their knees.”

            Sweat was flowing down her face. The lecherous old man had stopped fighting her. He’d realised it was no better than an ant trying to move a mountain.

            “What now?” Asked Anne, her voice pitched for dogs to hear from miles away.

            “Tell them if they yell, we’ll have to kill them and the trade minister.” She let her instructions be passed on. “Tell them to drink all of the alcohol left as fast as they can.” The men on their knees downed bottles of hard spirit like it was water. “Take off their helmets. Now knock them all out. We need their uniforms.”

            “Danielle?” Anne looked at her with blatant fear in her eyes. She was shaking.

            Somehow Danielle was still.

            “You know what to do. Try not to kill them.” Qian muttered. “What is quingo for silence?”

            “Anzing di,” said Barra as he smacked a kneeling soldier across the back of the head with the butt of a spear. A moment later all the yellow garbed guards were unconscious.

            “Take off five uniforms, not all from the same men.” A jacket was taken here, trousers there. “Put them on.”

            Qian muttered.

            “Anzing di,” said Danielle, growling. When he saw the fire in her eyes, he kept quiet. Though her hands were still as stone, her heart thundered in her chest. “Now we’re going to go for a ride. Tell him to ask for twenty-seven horses. One for him and his guards, one for each of us.”

            “But-” Anne began.

            “I know, I want it to look as if everyone is going.”

            “What about the man he sent outside? He might know what’s going on.” Barra looked at the door.

            “If we must, we’ll hold this shrivelled old prick hostage until we’re out of danger. First, we need to be out past the wall.”

            With one blade to his neck and another hovering near his eye, Minister Qian yelled through the door for someone to fetch him twenty-seven horses.

            The acolytes of the Church of Red Knives hid the clothes of the foreigners all over the room. The guards looked drunk more than knocked out when their helmets were back on. They were staged with bottles in their hands.

            Minutes later a man entered the guest room to find many guards unconscious and five bowing to the minister. Danielle was wrapped around him as if he was the most wonderful man he had ever met. She hoped she could be half the actor Anne was.

            Qian played his part. They left the room to find Din Jan waiting at the end of the hallway. Their tour guide began asking her things which Barra could no longer translate because he had his head down, trying to avoid attracting anyone’s attention.

            Din Jan was not fooled. His eyes narrowed to nothing then he looked around with them wide.

            He didn’t shout.

            He asked something in a conspiratorial whisper.

            Barra couldn’t translate with other guards in the building.

            They walked as fast as they could to the horses with Din Jan following them.

            Danielle motioned for him to get on a horse with them. She sat behind the minister in the saddle as if she couldn’t stand to be parted from him. As they rode slowly downhill, she kept a blade against his ribs.

            “He knows what we’re doing,” said Barra when they were alone outside the city.

            “Really? I don’t know what I’m doing,” said Sir Longbow, wishing she could be further from the lecherous creep she was holding.

            “He keeps asking if you’re alright.”

            “Tell him I’ll be fine when Quin Shi has seen the back of me.”

            “What about the gun in our room?” Anne asked.

            “It’ll have to stay there. We have twenty now. We can’t go back. We need to be out of here before Minister Qian’s guards wake up and tell everyone what happened.”

            They reached the gate. Soldiers offered to escort the trade minister since some of his guards were elsewhere. He declined.

            Danielle’s heart soared as the metal gate creaked open to show the open mountains of Niquin. From there, all they had to do was keep riding.

            They rode, and rode.

            “Din Jan should go back,” Danielle said.

            “He says that he has been stuck with duties which dishonour him. Even guarding us was designed to disgrace him. He wants to come with us.”

            Qian insulted Din Jan. She didn’t know the words, but she heard the venom.

            “Anzing di.”

            The sun set.

            The moon rose.

            They rode on and on.

            “You’re going to have to kill him eventually,” said the red acolyte.

            “I know.”