Know Who to Count On

Chapter 1.5: ...Guess I'll Lie in it

They spent the rest of the morning cleaning the other rooms, the only major mess from a knocked over food cart in Jennifer's room which happened to be the second one they went to. She'd obviously requested a late night delivery of snacks and had seen fit to tip it so the leftovers rolled across the floor and soaked into the rug. Apparently this was easier dealt with now than in the past as duplicate rugs were stored in the linen closet on Lady Lane and they removed the dirty one–rolling it up and tying it closed so as to limit any further spills–cleaned the floor and left a fresh rug in its place. The dirty one they did have to set to the side in the hallway to be halted away by a couple of the kitchen boys. It was far too heavy and cumbersome for the two of them to carry down the narrow staircase.

Once they were finally done they made their way down the stairs and Sarah remarked on something Liara had wanted to ask about earlier but had gotten distracted by a number of other things. "I don't know how Em did it for so many years by herself. Girl has got the determination of a boar running full tilt downhill."

"She certainly must," Liara said chipperly, "though it sounds like she certainly earned her promotion!"

Sarah nodded as they entered the first floor corridor again. "She's super quiet, keeps to herself and volunteers to stay late in the evening to be on call a lot. Doesn't seem to have a life outside of work." The older girl frowned. "And she won't tell me her full name!" Liara let out a genuine laugh at Sarah's unbridled indignation. "Emily? Emilia? Ember? I've asked about a bunch of others too but she just smiles and shakes her head. It's a mystery that I am determined to solve someday."

"I hope I get to meet her soon. I plan to stay for long shifts a lot, at least at first so I can learn things extra quick!" Not to mention that some of the random things maids could be called to help with in the evening were more likely to be interesting things she could report back to Alexis.

"If you plan on doing evening or overnight shifts you'll definitely meet her soon, and she's easy to spot because she has her bangs over her left eye." Liara had a flash of the girl earlier carrying the basket. She'd thought her hair was coming undone from its bun, but it seemed more likely now that she'd already met Em. She opened her mouth to ask about the reasoning for the other girl's odd hairstyle, but Sarah was eager to talk and brought the subject up herself. "I asked her about that when I first met her and she said she was in an accident when she was young, something about a horse kicking out and catching her in the eye. The area around her eye healed up fine, but her actual eye was damaged beyond repair and she's blind in that eye."

Liara had seen many a person who'd lost an eye in the thieves guild she'd been a part of in the south. Usually the go to solution afterwards was either an eyepatch or no covering. Much more intimidating that way for the thugs, but for a young lady like Em, 'intimidating' wasn't usually the impression you wanted to leave people with after meeting you.

After getting back to the laundry room and telling Mrs. Stonewrite of their swift success in Lady Lane, she gave them a new list of things to take care of and expressed that everyone was ahead of schedule today thanks to many of The Family being gone on political trips. This explained why the atmosphere was so happy and carefree, Liara realized. Helene and Isabella were off to visit a potential suitor, Jonathan and Halstein the third were gone on a hunting trip and Violet and her mother were at the capitol to discuss the second youngest child's induction into the king's orchestra. Rumors were circling that King Walstrode himself would stop by to meet her since she was a child of one of his vassals, an honor for a child born so far down in the line of succession like Violet.

As the day wrapped up and Mrs. Stonewrite shooed Liara away, telling her to enjoy the night while things were slow, the young spy made her way back to the room she'd slept in and broke in from inside. Changing clothes, she headed into the city to do more rounds there to familiarize herself with the shops as a semi-rich daughter of a profitable farm down the coast who was visiting. Flashing just enough coin in front of the merchants to bring out their most ingratiating personas, she was able to learn a lot about how the flow of merchandise moved in Hillbranch as well as some of the opinions from the locals on their overlords. All of it went into the note she wrote out to send to Alexis via raven that night. Hopefully her information over the next month would prove useful to him so that he could right the wrong that was this city's aristocracy.