Once they had all sat down the meeting began in earnest.
“Good day your lordships my name is Neil Ryder and it has been my pleasure to have for the past thirty-two days served as the sergeant of the fourth squad of the third platoon of the Ebony Hyenas mercenary company. It is in that capacity as the newest sergeant in the company that you invited me here today to try to mediate the situation you now find yourself in. To wit the mercenary companies in your employ whose captains are also present here today have managed to capture each of you in turn. You so far have been unable to arrange to facilitate each other's release via payment of ransom or other means, is this so?”
“Unfortunately”, replied Cecil.
“Yes”, replied Rudolf.
“Now having met me do you wish to proceed with the negotiations today?”
“Yes”, they both replied at the same time.
“And do you and the two mercenary captains present today agree to abide by any decisions reached in these negotiations.”
They all replied, “Yes”.
“With that in mind, I ask that you join me in a binding oath to Telondian that we will try our best to reach such a negotiated settlement and abide by it if we manage to do so.”
When no reply was heard for a minute I took that to mean they all consent to do so.
“Taking your silence as an indication that you are agreeable to do so please repeat after me. I Niel Ryder do hereby affirm that under threat of the severest penalties imaginable for breaking my word and in the presence of our Lord God, Telondian pledge to do my utmost to settle the current difficulties and to further abide by any such settlement reached.”
They all joined me in making the oath and thus the long negotiations began.
“Alright with that out of the way if you would just bear with me before we get down to the nitty-gritty of the negotiations you have all no doubt noticed that on the table in front of you is an envelope. You are probably wondering what it is for, well your lordships what I want you to do is write down on the paper provided the highest amount of ransom you are willing to pay for your release and place the paper within the envelopes provided. I also want the two mercenary captains to do the same with the lowest ransom amount they are willing to agree to. These envelopes will not come into play unless or until we have exhausted all other avenues of negotiation, if this is agreeable to you then please proceed.
Once they had all done as I asked it was time for them to lay out their stance on the negotiations and from there we proceeded to try and resolve the situation.
I tried my best to remain calm but there were many times in the proceeding hours that I nearly failed to do so and it was only by the skin of my teeth that I managed to stop myself from losing my cool.
The negotiations were going nowhere fast and even when coming back after stopping to eat for an hour nothing seemed to change. Eventually, when we were all starting to tire and darkness was nearly upon us it was time to finish for the day.
“Alright I do not foresee us coming to any agreement today and thus I must regrettably adjourn this negotiation for the day. We will reconvene here tomorrow and try to somehow break the deadlock we find ourselves in.’
Once they were over for the day I headed over to the small nearby temporary encampment the two sides had agreed to allow the Ebony Hyenas to set up. Once their over dinner, I walked Captain Walker through how the day had gone.
“The only thing I was able to get them to agree to was that whatever ransom they ended up paying would be the same for the both of them and I’m not sure whether that will make the rest of it easier or harder.. Any news on Albert’s condition, I can’t be sure but if he dies I think they might be more amenable to reaching a consensus on the ransom amount.”
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“None I’m afraid, he’s still hanging on but hasn’t regained consciousness. I’m beginning to regret ever signing up for this one, I was this close to agreeing to another contract but that’s life. Well, we’ve only got another seven days till the contract is over and the payments have already been lodged with the Guild just waiting for us to meet its terms. Perhaps you’ll have better luck tomorrow, get a good night's sleep and hold your nerve.”
The second day of negotiations dragged on like the first with no sign that they might reach an agreement. On the third day on the advice of the captain, I decided to try something different. I meet independently with the two parties to see if they would be more amenable to reaching an agreement without having to be in the same room as each other. That didn’t work out quite as well as we hoped, they each spent most of the time bad-mouthing each other and complaining about a never-ending list of affronts and slights they had received from the other over the years. I also met alone with the two mercenary captains to see if they could be reasoned with but it turned out they weren’t on the best of terms with each other either. They had both served in the same company when they were first beginning their careers and something had happened that drove a wedge between the two of them that had never healed.
After the disaster the whole day had turned into I began to despair that an agreement could ever be reached. Then Captain Walker informed me that Albert had temporarily regained consciousness for a few minutes during the day. Whether this was a sign that he might recover or simply a last hurrah only Telondian could tell. The news if it had reached them didn’t make any difference in the negotiations the following day as they dragged on as usual without a single sign that they might be amenable to resolving their current predicament.
The news on the Albert front that night was encouraging, he had regained consciousness several times and had even been able to speak for a few moments, but nothing coherent unfortunately.
“Alright Sergeant Ryder if things don’t improve tomorrow then we’ll have to enter the end game, we’ve wasted enough time on this already and it’s not as if we’re getting anything extra out of this anyway.”
The next day of negotiations went no differently than the rest, if anything they seemed to have reached a new low.
“Alright I’m through being polite I’ve already wasted enough time on you lot, the negotiations are over for the day and I must now place you on notice that if they are not resolved tomorrow then myself and the Ebony Hyenas Company will wash our hands of the whole affair. You can find someone else to waste their time trying to resolve this, so I advise you all to think long and hard about how this could be resolved to everyone’s satisfaction and then tomorrow enter into negotiations determined to end the current impasse you find yourselves at.”
The news from the Manor House at Winters Rose that the captain had for me that night was welcoming, Albert had regained consciousness for a whole ten minutes during the day and his doctors were hopeful. What impact if any that might have on the final day of negotiations remained to be seen but neither of us was hopeful. Nor were we sure what would happen if or more likely when they failed, even if their respective employers were each other's prisoners it was always possible they could again come to blows. The rules of mercenary warfare were ambivalent when it came to such matters and it would likely come down to whatever orders they might have received beforehand, the minutiae of their contracts and the personalities of the two mercenary captains.
In any event, the last day’s talks didn’t get off to a good start, Sir Cecil Messenger-Wright outright insulted his cousin and they nearly came to blows. Getting him to apologise for his remarks wasted over an hour and made getting Sir Rudolf Messenger-Darnley to even agree to the time of day that much more difficult.
“Alright that's enough of that, if you can’t at least be civil to each other then I don’t know why I am even here. Yesterday I gave you notice that if things weren’t resolved today these negotiations would have to go on without me or anyone else from my company. I don’t know how serious you took me when I said it but I can assure you that I meant each and every word of it.
I am going to make one last attempt at resolving this and then I’m done, is there anyone who doubts my resolve, if so speak now or forever hold your tongue.”
None was forthcoming so I proceeded.
“In case you forgot on the first day I asked you to place into the envelopes in front of you either the largest amount you were willing to pay for your ransom or the lowest amount you were willing to settle for. If you wouldn’t mind could you now pass those envelopes up to me so I can see what was recorded in them? I will then take the mean value of both sets of numbers and meet them in the middle. The resulting figure will be the basis for one last attempt to resolve your impasse and if you are unwilling to agree to it then whatever may happen next is upon your heads and I wash my hands off it.”