He was wearing a pair of loose, green silk pants with red trimming over which he had on a similarly styled and colored silk robe. A couple of gold chain necklaces hung from his neck and a single gold ring upon which was set a large emerald adorned his right hand.
With great deliberation, Severin took out a white handkerchief from a pocket hidden in his robe’s sleeve and wiped the sweat from his bald pate and his right temple, a look of relief coming over his face.
“Oh, um,” Rolf stammered, “er, good evening, Master Severin. Fancy meeting you here.”
“I’m so glad I found you,” Severin finally said. “I was beginning to fear you had left town already. Why, I heard tell you were fixing to leave this very evening.”
“Indeed we were,” Rolf replied, “and we should have gone hours ago. We are terribly late. Due at Redmound by morning, if you must know, for a very important appointment. I can’t tell you any more than that, I’m afraid. You know how it is. Client confidentiality and all that.”
“So if you’ll excuse us, Master Severin,” he continued, “we really must get going.”
Sven nodded in agreement.
“Ah, no,” Severin protested. “Please, my friends, I have urgent business with you and I am prepared to pay you handsomely, I assure you, for I am in dire need of your services.”
“I know you’re good for it,” Rolf stated, “but--”
“Then stay and listen to what I have to say at the very least.”
“But,” Rolf persisted, unwilling to give the man any more chances to speak lest his words sway him, “that is not the issue here, I’m afraid. As I have already mentioned, time is of the essence. I’ve been working on this deal for more than a week now and if we don’t make it to Redmound by morning, we’d lose the contract. It’s a pretty sweet gig. Pays quite well for the labor involved so as much as taking another job sounds tempting, we simply don’t have the time.”
“And the perks,” added Sven. “Don’t forget about those perks you mentioned before.”
Rolf grinned. “Yeah, them, too”
Severin paused, his lips pursed in thought. After a while, he said, “Very well then, my friend. As much as it pains me to do this, you leave me with very little choice. Between your urgency and mine, I deem mine to be of higher priority. Whatever you’ll be receiving from that contract, I will pay it if only you would stay and listen to my proposal.”
“What!?” Rolf and Sven exclaimed in unison.
Rolf could scarcely believe his ears. To hear such words issue forth from the old merchant’s lips was the last thing he expected. He was actually expecting Severin to call in one of the favors he owed him.
“Surely you are jesting,” he managed to say.
“Oh, I am serious, I assure you,” came the answer. “I will pay you what you had hoped to earn and with your time thus reserved, we may converse without reservation. Now come, my friends, let us retire to a table for we have much to discuss and I hope to send you on your before the waking of the midnight lark.”
“But you don’t even know how much we were going to be paid,” Rolf continued to protest.
But Severin was quite adamant. “I will pay it nonetheless,” he said.
The two adventurers looked at each other.
“Your call, man,” Sven stated.
Rolf sighed and then shrugged in surrender. It was clear that the old merchant was not going to take no for an answer. Any further refusals on their part was simply going to result in him calling in a favor, he was sure.
“Alright, Master Severin. You win. We’ll hear you out. No promises though. But first, Sven and I need to take this besotted friend of ours back to her room.”
Rolf paused.
“Wait,” he said, “where’s Yumi?”
Much to Rolf and Sven’s dismay, they found her back at her table, a tankard of hard ale in each hand.
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