Well enough

“Ah, Brenan!” Ambrose greeted Brenan with a smile that made the ex-soldier’s stomach turn.

“Ambrose,” Brenan nodded at the small man as he took a seat on the other side of the table and Ambrose waved down a waitress.

“Hello my dear, a glass of your finest port for my good friend.” As Ambrose talked to the waitress as though she was a part of the tavern’s décor, Brenan reflected on the fact that the merchant was the sort of man who would buy you an expensive drink and then try to rob you blind while you drank it.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” Ambrose greeted Brenan again, with a friendliness that was so obviously false that it drove Brenan to wonder if he was attempting to provoke him.

“What’s the job, Ambrose?” Brenan asked, hoping to get away from the detestable little man as quickly as possible.

“Ah, straight to business, it’s a good quality in a captain,” Ambrose began, “But like I told you earlier this week, I have some cargo that needs to be shipped, and no one to ship it.”

“What kind of cargo?” Brenan was doing his best to keep Ambrose from talking too much about nothing, which he was very prone to do. Again, Brenan suspected that it was a tactic that the merchant employed to gain the advantage on the people with whom he was negotiating, wearing down their concentration by excess speech until he could strike a deal which was very advantageous to him.

“Well, it all depends on how much money you want to make,” Ambrose replied, seemingly a little disturbed by Brenan’s bluntness, “I have one cargo of a perfectly legitimate nature, although the perishable quality of its components is such that it requires a fast ship and a skilful captain to bring it safely to its intended port, less its value should be irrefutably lessened by the merciless advance of time.”

“What’s the cargo?” Brenan cut in, both because he was very keen on interrupting Ambrose and because he wanted to hear about the other cargo, which he suspected would be a lot less than legal.

“Perishable fruits and vegetables, grown and harvested right here on this very island, bought by me to be sold to the good people of the Empire,” Ambrose explained, and Brenan couldn’t help but suspect that he knew of his attitude towards said good people of the Empire.

“And the other cargo?”

“Ah…” Ambrose strangled his voice until it was barely more than a whisper, after which they were interrupted by the arrival of Brenan’s glass of port.

“Aren’t you going to drink it?” Ambrose asked of the glass which Brenan left sitting in front of him on the table.

“Maybe to celebrate our deal,” Brenan responded.

“Oh well, anyway, the other cargo is decidedly not so legal, but very profitable…” Ambrose was once more interrupted by Brenan asking what exactly it was.

“In a word, cheese.” Ambrose explained.

“Cheese?”

“Why yes, cheese and wine, nothing but the finest quality products from Cryn. As you no doubt are aware of, the consumption of products from said nation is unbecoming to any patriotic Veertorian, but some people are such that they rate their culinary fancies above their love of country, and who am I to judge them for it?”

“Huh…” Brenan exhaled as he considered his options. The transport of fruit and vegetables did seem as the less profitable but more secure choice, if not for the fact that he very much expected Ambrose to try to use him as an unwitting smuggler of some illegal merchandise or other. So if he picked that option, he would have to go through the cargo once it been loaded onto his schooner and then decide what to do with the illegal goods once he found them, which he didn’t doubt that he would.

Smuggling cheese and wine on the other hand would be more profitable, but it meant that he would have to avoid the Veertorian ports and instead make landfall in a bay or something like that, and it wouldn’t surprise him if the rendezvous point would be one that Ambrose and his partners had picked in advance, which meant that he would have to trust the ratty merchant’s judgment.

Either option would bring Brenan some much-needed cash, but both of them came with their own set of problems to deal with.