The Jongurian Mission (34 page)

“He said he was the imperial representative, and you said that was how it worked here, Edgyn,” Willem replied.
“The imperial representative speaks with the voice of the emperor, right? Well, from the way his face was reddening it was obvious that our polite attempts at negotiation, as you call it, were doing nothing more than angering him.”

“So you would have us head back to the ship and sail for home just like that?” Pader
asked. “I can’t agree to that. I didn’t sit on a ship for the past week to just turn around at the first small obstacle in our way.” He paused, taking in a few deep breaths. “We need to give them more time to think on it. I’m sure it was a shock to see us; he said himself that we were unexpected!”

Bryn listened to the men argue back and forth between themselves.
He was surprised at the reaction they’d received, and wondered what they would do next. He didn’t like arguing however, having heard enough of it over the two days at the conference. He decided there’d be no harm in him waiting outside on the porch for the mens’ tempers to cool.

The three Jongurians were still standing on the porch when he stepped
out the door, but his gaze immediately went to the two men in the street heading toward the docks. Bryn was startled, because he immediately recognized one of them as an Adjurian. The man was old, with dark hair going gray and a large goatee, but it was the eyes that really caught Bryn’s attention. They were the same eyes he had seen staring back at him from the book in Halam’s house in Plowdon. Bryn was looking right at Grandon Fray, the False King. His eyes went wide at the sudden realization and he found that he couldn’t move.

Both men quickly stopped right in the middle of the street and stared up at him.
After a moment the Jongurian accompanying the man moved his hand to the sword at his waist, causing a chill to run up Bryn’s spine. He turned and went right back through the door into the small empty room where the men were still arguing.

“If he wanted to see us again, he would have said so,” Halam
was saying. “It was obvious from his manner that he had no wish to speak with us at this time
or
at a future date.”

“Uncle Halam,
Uncle Halam!” Bryn nearly shouted as he came back into the small room. “I just saw–”

“Not now Bryn,” Halam said
as he brushed Bryn off, obviously upset with how things had gone in the meeting.

“But–,” Bryn began, tugging on his uncle’s sleeve.

Halam looked down, his anger now directed at his nephew. “Bryn, what did I just say? Can’t you see that we’re busy discussing something important here?”

Bryn backed-off at the cold look and kept his mouth shut.
While he had no doubt that what he just saw on the street was important, his uncle, and the rest of the men by the look of things, were not in the mood to hear of it.

“Is there no one else that we can talk with?” Rodden asked
after a moment, looking over at Edgyn.

“Each time that I’ve had to negotiate the contracts and go over the trading manifest
s in the past, it was in these buildings,” Edgyn replied, waving at the wooden structures outside. “I’ve never met this Yuan Jibao, but he’s the first imperial representative I’ve talked with who has acted this way. Most bend-over backward to make you feel at home and speak quite humbly. They would be embarrassed to talk with anyone, especially a foreigner, in such a way.”

“It
’d be a shame to get back on the ship and sail right back to Adjuria when we’ve been here no more than an hour,” Millen said. “Perhaps it would be best if we returned to the ship and let things cool. Maybe our sudden appearance brought up bad memories for the man.”

“Millen’s right,” Rodden replied.
“We cannot just turn for home. Let’s wait on the ship. I’d be surprised if they didn’t send to us for another audience, perhaps with another representative.”

“Do the rest of you agree?” Edgyn asked.

They nodded their heads and Edgyn shrugged.

“Well, then we’ll
wait on the ship until we hear otherwise.”

* * * * *

Leisu had walked down all of the streets and through most of the narrow alleys between buildings at least once before he finally found Grandon on a small rise at the edge of town, staring out at a small pool of water that probably served as the only freshwater source for the town. Grandon looked over his shoulder at Leisu’s arrival but then turned his attention back to the water when he saw him.

“Like I said earlier, I’m quite surprised Weiling is as small as it is,” Grandon said as much to himself as to Leisu.

Leisu walked right up to Grandon and put his hand on the back of his arm. This gesture caught the man’s attention quickly, and he turned to scowl at Leisu. Before he could say anything, however, Leisu was already pulling him back toward the town.

“We have to go now
!” Leisu told him as he turned the Adjurian back toward the town. “A ship full of Adjurians has just arrived.”

Grandon stopped suddenly and Leisu was forced to turn around and look at him.

“A ship full of Adjurians?” Grandon asked, confusion showing plainly on his face.
“Why?”

“It would seem that they
’re here to see the imperial representative about trade issues,” Leisu replied, taking Grandon’s arm once again and pulling him back toward the street.

Grandon shrugged off Leisu’s grasp and began moving quickly toward the docks on his own.
“Well, that
is
something. We were just speaking of that this morning.”

“The important thing is to get you back aboard the ship as soon as possible.”

“Oh, don’t be so worried,” Grandon said, showing Leisu a slight smile. “I’m sure these men are harmless. Besides, the last thing they’ll think to see is their False King walking the streets of Weiling.”

Grandon chuckled, but kept up his quick pace.
Even though he gave the appearance of aloofness, Leisu saw that the news had shaken him. Pictures of the man had been seen in Jonguria when he’d had his brief reign; no doubt they would have been much more widely known in Adjuria during that time. The men that he’d seen enter the office were of the right age to have fought in the East-West War, Leisu knew, and they would no doubt recognize Grandon on sight.

Leisu steered them through the back alleys and to the main street.
He was relieved to see that the three dockworkers were still standing on the office porch; the Adjurians were still in their meeting. He allowed himself a small smile at their good fortune and motioned for Grandon to step out into the main street and toward the staircase. They were passing directly in front of the office when the small boy that had accompanied the older Adjurians suddenly stepped out onto the porch. The boy’s gaze immediately fell upon Grandon, and he froze in the middle of the street when he saw him. Leisu could feel the hair on the back of his neck stand on end, and he reached his hand down to the pommel of his sword as he assessed the situation. The boy stared right at Grandon for a moment and then his brows rose up as if a sudden realization had come upon him. He stared for a moment longer then turned quickly and went back into the office.

Leisu pushed Grandon forward and down the street.
“He saw me,” was all the Adjurian could manage as he walked the last few feet to the staircase. Grandon was silent the rest of the way to the ship, but once they were safely aboard he turned to Leisu.

“The boy saw me
!” he said, his voice anxious and forced. “Did you see his eyes? He knew who I was. How a boy that age could know I have no idea, but I’m telling you, he knew!”

“Are you sure?” Leisu asked.
“He is just a boy after all. It could just be that he was surprised to see another Adjurian is all.”

“No,” Grandon said, shaking his head, “I could see it in the way his brows shot up and his eyes grew larger.
He knew that he was staring straight at the worst villain in Adjurian history from the past fifty years.”

Leisu lowered his head in thought for a moment then looked up at Grandon.
“I’ll take care of it,” he said, then walked back toward the gangplank. He told one of the crewmen that no matter their state of readiness, they must get out of this harbor before the Adjurian ship sailed. He turned back to Grandon. “It would be best if you now took my advice and retired to the captain’s cabin.”

For once Grandon listened.
With a nod he turned and headed to the cabin at the rear of the ship and went in. If only he would have done that earlier, Leisu thought with some disgust. This Adjurian was becoming more trouble than he was worth, he thought as he headed down onto the pier. He flagged down a passing dockworker.

“Do you report to the imperial representative…”

“Yuan Jibao,” the man finished for Leisu.

“Yes.
Tell Yuan that the Adjurians are not to make it back to Adjuria.”

The man looked at him for a moment, then
slowly nodded his head and headed toward the staircase. Leisu didn’t like to have to take that route. A ship full of Adjurian government trade delegates gone missing wasn’t good. It would raise unwanted questions. Inquiries would be made. This man Yuan would be questioned. It would come out that a large Jongurian ship, not built or equipped for fishing, had sailed in from the south just before their arrival. The fact that one of Zhou’s lieutenants was aboard it would be reported. This could only end badly. But what was the alternative? Let the Adjurians return to their country with news that they spotted Grandon Fray in Weiling? Leisu thought about it for a moment. The idea was farfetched. And it would come from the mouth of a boy. What harm could there possibly be in that? Who’d believe that he’d done anything more than read one too many histories and had his nerves rattled in a foreign port? Leisu decided that killing the Adjurians would create more problems than the overactive imagination of a young boy. He began to move toward the staircase to follow the man he’d just spoken to when Ko’s voice came calling down to him from the ship.

“We’re ready to depart, sir.”

Leisu stopped and looked toward the staircase. He warred with his thoughts for a moment before a dockworker came scurrying past him from behind.

“You there,” he called out.
The man stopped and meekly walked back to stand before him. “The man I just spoke to, do you know him?”

The man nodded without looking up so Leisu continued.

“Tell him to forget about what I just told him,” he said, then turned and headed back toward the ship.

The lines were being unti
ed and the sails unfurled when he got back on the deck. The gangplank was pulled back to the pier and they cast off. Leisu stood on the railing and stared back at the receding town of Weiling and the Adjurian ship that’d had such bad timing. No matter, he thought to himself, in little more than a day they’d be in Bindao and all their troubles would be over.

NINETEEN

Halam led the group
away from the trade office and back toward the wooden staircase and pier. The large ship that was tied up next to theirs when they’d entered the bay was just then leaving, turning back into the sea. They walked down the stairs and were soon back on their own ship, which was busy with activity. The crewmen were busy scrubbing down the ship’s deck when they returned and Edgyn stopped to have a few words with Sam while the others headed into the cabin. Bryn decided that since none of the others wanted to hear what he had to say he’d climb up into the rigging for a better look at Weiling, perhaps catching another glimpse of the Adjurian he was sure had been the False King.

Bryn was able to see nearly the whole island when he got up to the crosstree
s on the mainmast, including the tip of the island to the west, the waves making the black rocks white as they crashed over them. The site of Weiling was well chosen. The island tapered off creating a natural bay here, the high cliffs forming a bowl to keep the ocean waves out. Past the small bay and harbor were more wooden buildings set on the rocky shores. The city itself wasn’t much and couldn’t rightly be called a city at all, Bryn thought, and he decided that he’d call it a town from now on. The main street that the buildings crowded around tapered off after just a few hundred feet and the buildings with it. There wasn’t any vegetation to be seen at all, and only a small pool of water set further behind some of the buildings, whether fresh or saltwater he couldn’t tell. He looked down at the imperial office building they’d just left and wondered what they’d do. Everyone had expected the Jongurians to eagerly jump at the opportunity to trade again. At least that was the opinion at the trade conference in Baden, and they’d shared the assumption all way to Jonguria. It was a rather hard slap in the face to have their assumptions shattered this morning by the imperial representative. It just made no sense to Bryn for the man to act that way. Surely someone else would come forward, pardoning his colleague’s rude behavior and urging them to sail back as fast as they could, and with many ships full of goods for the Jongurian markets.

Bryn put away the spyglass.
There was no sign of the man he’d seen. He looked over to where the small bay turned back into the sea. The large ship that’d left when they came back to the docks was moving steadily away from the island and heading west. The tall masts already had all sails unfurled. Could the man he saw, Grandon he was sure, be on that ship, perhaps heading back to Adjuria in another attempt to seize the throne?