Free The Gilded Fan (Choc Lit) by Christina Courtenay Page A

once.
Even if she is an outsider here like me.
He didn’t have any guarantees that Kumashiro wouldn’t just use him and leave him to his fate. After all, he barely knew the man.
    Nico sighed.
Obviously I’m not sane in the least, but now the die is cast and I have to go through with it.
    Following Kumashiro’s instructions, he had poured an entire keg of
sake
down the front of his jacket and drunk a few mouthfuls as well. The alcoholic fumes and cloying smell of the rice wine was making him feel nauseous, but he swallowed hard and tried to ignore it. Summoning up his best acting skills, he began to make his way along the street outside the prison. He weaved drunkenly from side to side and made sure he stumbled on anything big enough to trip over. He filled his lungs with air and began to sing a loud and raucous ditty, the only one he could remember the words to at the moment. Inwardly, he prayed.
    The effect of his little charade was almost instantaneous, as Kumashiro had predicted. The gate was flung open and guards swarmed out of the prison compound as if they were under attack, surrounding him faster than he had thought possible. Swords were pointed at him, and he held up his hands in mock surrender and laughed out loud. Then he ended his song with a large belch and a hiccough.
    ‘What’s this?
Nani?
Are we having a parade?’ He swayed exaggeratedly on his feet, danced a little jig, then took a step backwards, almost tripping over his own feet.
    A stream of Japanese words were fired at him by the man who appeared to be in charge. Although Nico understood the gist of it, he pretended ignorance and raised his
sake
bottle in a clumsy salute. ‘
Kampai!
’ He nodded at the man. ‘Bottoms up.’
    More angry words followed, but Nico became engrossed in the fact that his bottle was now empty. He shook it repeatedly, as if to see whether there was anything left inside. ‘I want more!’ he bellowed. ‘
Mo ichi
,’ he repeated in Japanese, pointing at the bottle.
    The head of the guard was now holding a whispered conversation with a fellow officer and Nico heard him muttering, ‘
Baka gai-jin
’ – stupid foreigner – several times, which he took to be a good sign. If they thought him a fool, they might consider him harmless. There was a lot of pointing towards the prison, as well as in the opposite direction towards the harbour, as if the two men couldn’t agree on a course of action. Nico ignored them and started on another ditty in a voice which was anything but melodious.
    The muted conversation was interrupted by some newcomers on the scene, a group of men seemingly on their way home from a night on the town.
    ‘What’s going on here? Can we help?’ one of them shouted.
    ‘Yes, we’ll do our civic duty,’ called out another, or at least that’s what Nico had been told he’d say. Kumashiro had prepared him so that he’d know if things were going wrong. He pretended he wasn’t paying attention, but he listened closely and picked up the words which told him the conversation was going mostly as Kumashiro had planned.
    ‘It is none of your concern,’ the head guard replied haughtily, but his fellow officer whispered something in his ear which made him look at Nico again and mutter, ‘Hmm.’
    ‘Is the stupid foreigner bothering you?’ the civilian persisted. ‘Shall we throw him in the harbour for you?’ His companions erupted into loud guffaws, shouting agreement.
    ‘Yes, yes, let’s dunk him, serve him right. They are too full of themselves, these
gai-jin
.’
    ‘No, thank you. He is to be arrested. I have the matter in hand.’
    Loud protests followed by the civilians. ‘No, surely not!’
    ‘He’s probably just lost, didn’t mean any harm.’
    ‘Yes, look at the state of him!’
    ‘We’ve all been there, a bit too much
sake
and before you know it …’
    The second officer again whispered something to his superior and Nico wanted to shake the man. His nerves were stretched to