The Jongurian Mission (13 page)

Halam scanned the hall, his eyes narrowing as he searched among its occupants.

“Do you see anybody that looks familiar?” he asked.
“Orrin should be around here somewhere, although I think this scene is beyond even his threshold for debauchery.”

Rodden put his hands on his hips and cast his gaze out into the crowd.
Bryn thought that it must be incredibly difficult to track down one person in this room; people were constantly moving from their tables to the center of the room to talk or dance or grab more to drink, and then moving back again. All of the servants hustling about the crowd didn’ help matters either. Perhaps Rodden could pick out a familiar face better than Bryn; after all, he knew no one here.

Rodden’s face lit up in recognition.
“Orin,” he shouted toward a far corner of the room, his arm waving above him. “Orin Dale!”

Bryn looked in the direction he was waving.
A small group of men stood clustered around a table covered in empty plates and glasses. One man seemed to perk up at Rodden’s shouting, and began to look around him. After a few moments he looked in their direction, and spotting Rodden. His face broke into a smile and he waved his arm, moving out of the group he was with and toward them.

Bryn judged the man to be in his mid-sixties.
He was shorter than average, and wore a light cotton shirt under a burgundy tunic with matching pants, his belt doing more to hold his bulging stomach in than keep his tight trousers on. He had stark white hair, but was near bald on top, just a fringe of hair around the side and back of his head. He made up for this with large bushy sideburns and eyebrows, and a substantial amount of hair coming from his nose and ears, but other than that was clean shaven.

He ambled over to them, and held out his hand as he approached.

“Good to see that you, Rodden” the man said, his wrinkled face becoming more so as he broke into a wide smile. “I was beginning to think that you wouldn’t make it.”

They shook hands and Rodden gave him a familiar slap on the back.
“Well, we’re here now, and it looks as though we haven’t missed much.”

“Just the usual letting off of steam before the important decision
s are made,” he said with a chuckle, moving over to Halam. “My good, man, how are you?”

“Quite well, Orin,” Halam answered, “and you?”

“Oh, the usual aches and pains of a body getting beyond its use, but my mind’s as sharp and quick as ever. It’s
good
to see you.” His smile turned to a look of concern as he looked over Halam’s dusty clothes. “I trust the journey was not too arduous now, was it?”

“No, not at all.
We would have arrived sooner in the week, but I wanted to make a side trip first,” Halam said, motioning toward Bryn.

The man turned his attention to Bryn for the first time since coming over, a quizzical look on his face which quickly changed to a reassuring smile as he came over and offered his hand.

“Orin Dale,” he said, “Royal Representative to the Province of Tillatia.”

“Hello sir,” Bryn stammered, “my name is Bryn
Fellows, from Eston, sir.” He pointed toward Halam. “Halam is my uncle.”

“Of course, of course,
” Orin shook his head knowingly. “Your uncle mentioned a short time back that he was thinking of bringing you along. So tell me, how was your journey here? First time out of Tillatia, I imagine?”

“Yes sir, it is.
First time out of Eston in fact,” Bryn said, blushing a little and looking down a moment. “The journey was quite good. I’ve always wanted to see what Adjuria looks like.”

“Well, there
’s still a lot out there for you to see, lad.”

Orin turned his attention back to Halam and Rodden.
“So gentleman, what do you think?” he asked, holding his arms out toward the room before them.

“Seems more of a circus than a trade delegation to me,” Halam said.

“Oh no, sir. Many of these men are just unwinding and forgetting their concerns before the serious business begins. You forget that you’ve just arrived. Most have been in the city discussing matters privately amongst themselves for several days now. The Sheffield delegation arrived more than a week ago, in fact.”

The sound of a dozen plates and glasses shattering on the floor caught their attention from the middle of the hall as a serving girl went down
, either from bending away from an unwanted hand on her bottom or slipping on the copious amounts of spilled ale and wine which covered the floor.

“Unwinding
?” Halam said with an arched eyebrow and a bit of disgust in his voice.”

Orin let out a loud laugh.
“Come now Halam, don’t worry. Many of the men in the hall tonight aren’t those that’ll be sitting around the table discussing trade with you for the next several days. Most of these people are members of the various provinces’ entourages.” He let out an audible sigh before continuing. “An ungodly amount of people have accompanied the various provincial delegations into the city. Scribes and pages, knights and squires, advisors and servants; for each provincial representative it seems there are a dozen official men to support and help him make his decisions, and for each of them another dozen to mend clothes, cook the meals, see to the horses, and heaven knows what else. Not that we don’t have more than enough men and women in the palace to do all of that ourselves, mind you, but they couldn’t reduce their perceived importance by coming to the capital unescorted.”

Rodden snorted.
“We had no trouble in that area.”

“
The only exception I’ve seen so far, and the government thanks you for it,” Orin said with a smile. “Now gentleman, you must be tired and hungry after such a long journey. Let us retire to one of the far tables and see you are properly fed and watered. I can fill you in on some of the discussions I’ve heard over the past week, and what the likely intentions are of the various members. Come.” He motioned them toward an empty table at the side of the room, far enough away from the boisterous crowds in the center of the hall that they could have a quiet conversation.

Halam and Rodden took one side of the table while Orin and Bryn took the other.
They sat down on the rough wooden benches which Bryn thought seemed very out of place in such an extravagantly decorated hall. Then again, judging from the antics of many of the men, he no doubt guessed that most of these benches had to be replaced after such feasts, either stained or damaged beyond repair. Orin waved at a passing serving girl, and a short time later they had large plates of roast fowl, steaming vegetables, and an assortment of fruits in front of them. To wash it down they had a choice between dark red wine or foaming mugs of ale. They quickly set to their meals. Even though all three had eaten a hardy meal at the inn a short time earlier, the days on the road had caused their appetites return quickly. Orin sat back and let them eat, content to take sips from a large glass of wine. He had eaten more than enough earlier in the day at the lunch feast, he explained, patting his swollen belly. In fact, he said, many of the men in the hall were still here from the lunch feast, and probably had no idea that they were now well into dinner. There were no windows in the immense hall, it being set in the middle of the palace, so there was no way to tell time, which Bryn thought the men didn’t show much concern for anyway.

Their meals finished
and washed down with ale, the three sat back to savor the best meal they’d had since setting out nearly a week before. It was the best meal Bryn had eaten since last autumn’s feast day in Eston, in fact. They each took a glass of wine from a passing serving girl and watched the room around them.

“Well, Orin, what have you heard over the past week?” Rodden asked as he sloshed his wine around in his cup.
“We’re the last of the provincial delegates to arrive. Now that everyone is in the city, what’s the mood among the participants? How do the common people feel about our little get-together? Regale us,” he finished with a smile.

Orin smiled
. He set his cup down and folded his arms on the table. “I’ve heard quite a lot, but also very little. As to the common people, all seem to agree that trade needs to be resumed. And from what I’ve gathered from reports on other provinces, this seems to be the view held over all of Adjuria. As to the other delegates, well, some are quite talkative, while others are more close-mouthed.”

“How so?” Halam asked.

“Well, the intentions of Culdovia and Duldovia are well known; they’re the ones who’ve organized the conference in the first place. Both provinces want to resume trade, but I think they were both taken aback by the demand expressed by the other provinces. Now both of them favor a more cautious approach to opening relations. They want to ensure that trade is carried out in a more regulated fashion this time around.”

“Anything to reduce the smoldering animosities of before,” Rodden said.

“Before?” Bryn asked, looking at the three older men, unsure of what Rodden meant.

“Yes Bryn, you see, before the war with Jonguria thirty years ago, healthy trade existed between the two countries, but in different
ways. Jonguria is ruled as an empire, which means the emperor decides all things. They declared that all goods that the citizens wished to trade with Adjuria be sent to imperial officials, then the officials would make the arrangements to trade them to Adjuria. This way it was the government that really made the trade policy.”

“In Adjuria,” he continued, “each province will set trade regulations and standards.
Because the central government has no real control over how the provinces administer their trade, each tries to obtain the most lucrative deal that it can. It’s really province against province because of this.”

“You see Bryn,” Rodden said, taking up the explanation, “before the war
, trade was a very cutthroat enterprise. Take Tillatia and Fallownia as an example. Both provinces produce the most grain in Adjuria, and whatever surpluses they have after selling on the local markets, they tried to trade to Jonguria. Well, since there was no regulation by the central government, each sought out the best deal with the Jongurian trade officials that they could.”

“Most of the time,” Halam continued, “Tillatia would get the better deal.
We were closer to Jonguria, and could therefore reduce our shipping costs and the delivery time much further than Fallownia was able to. It was natural that Jonguria would then come to us first for an agreement, while Fallownia was forced to sell at a significantly lower rate.”

“Unless she sent her goods overland or by sea to a port closer to Jonguria, or even to Jonguria itself, to get the better deal,” Orin said.
“This happened quite often, but cut into the province’s profits quite a bit.”

All thr
ee looked at Bryn and laughed. He was frantically trying to process all of this information and somehow make sense of it.

“Don’t worry,” Rodden said, slapping Bryn on the back and laughing, “it
’s not the easiest thing to understand. That’s why we have provincial trade offices, to make sense of it all. The important thing to take away from our overlong explanation is that many provinces developed animosities toward one another because of the deals they struck with Jonguria. Tillatia and Fallownia still have a rather acrimonious relationship today because of the way trade was conducted before the war.”

“Yes, even though there is no trade at all now, so we all suffer,” Halam said.

“Well, that’s why we’re all here, to come to some sort of understanding,” Orin said. “All of the provinces agree that the time is long past to continue trading, but nearly all of them disagree on the best course to take.” He paused to take a drink from his wine, and then looked at Bryn before continuing. “One of the factors in the Civil War, Bryn, were these disputatious trade agreements with Jonguria. They in no way caused the war, mind you, but they did play a large part in determining who rebelled and who sided with the crown.”

“Yes,” Rodden said, taking over, “there are many provinces that step on each others
’ toes besides Tillatia and Fallownia when it comes to trading the same type of goods. Shefflin and Mercentia compete over the weapons they produce, Oschem and Hotham with their mining and mineral wealth.”

“Regidia and Allidia with the products that come from their large forests,” Halam added.

“Culdovia tries to find better markets for its products out of Bargoes Lake, while Duldovia competes with her on what’s pulled from the Duldovian Sea,” Orrin said.

“And Equinia seems to be in competition with everyone over livestock and horses, about the only thing she has in abundance, as do most other provinces,” Rodden finished with a laugh.

“How many of the other delegates are in the hall tonight?” Halam asked Orin, changing the topic.

Orin picked up his glass of wine and looked into it for a few moments before taking a sip.
He set it down in front of him, and then looked around the hall before speaking.

“Not too many at all, actually.
There were quite a few at the lunch banquet, but I think many of them feel a good night’s rest is better preparation than feasting and drinking into the early hours of the morning.”

“Not a bad idea,” Halam said as he looked around the hall.
“I’ve a feeling there’ll be a lot of sore heads come morning.”