With Oriana, in her Michelle persona, hunched over the very important documents for the upcoming Ball, the door had suddenly opened.
Standing there in the doorway was a Peacekeeper.
Momentarily stunned, Oriana wasn't sure what to say when he asked what she was doing. But she managed to pull herself together and answer.
"Organising the documents for the ball. I was told by Bethany to do this."
"Yes, I was told that that is what you were doing. But you have been in here for quite some time. I don't think it should take you that long to organise a few documents."
"Err, there are quite a lot of documents. It's not just a few."
She spread her hands out at the dozen or so documents that were strewn across the table, trying to indicate that it was a big job.
The Peacekeeper wrinkled his nose.
"For someone organising documents, they don't look very organised."
She blinked a few times at that.
Thankfully, she had been organising them, but it just wasn't very obvious. So, she made sure to properly explain how they were being separated, and that while it looked like a mess, there was a purpose to it.
He just wrinkled his nose again.
"I see. But I've been watching you through the window. You looked like you were doing a full review of the documents, rather than just checking to see what it's asking for to then organise it."
"I-I'm just being thorough."
"Maybe. Or maybe you are going through the documents to make changes to them. Just like what's been happening in other areas of the Merchants Guild."
"I'm not-"
"Have you been in the warehouse recently. Being part of the accountant team, I wouldn't have thought so, but I'm fairly sure there was mention of a few women in the warehouse when the ant incident occurred," he said, cutting her off before she could even finish her sentence.
The Peacekeeper, at this point, was quite agitated, and while talking, had laid his hand on the sword at his side.
At that, Oriana started to get worried.
This was the first time it had happened since she started on her mission.
Who was this Peacekeeper? It's almost like he knows everything.
But, she realised, he doesn't. Its all just assumptions on his part. Correct assumptions, but assumptions, nonetheless.
If he manages to confirm that she was in the warehouse when the ants got out, it would only push him to investigate her further. He might even try to take her in right now to be sure she can't just run away.
How can she get out of this?
"Is something going on here?"
"Wha-Sir, what are you doing here?"
At the door stood the man from earlier, showing off his authority as the Peacekeeper addressed him.
"I'm here for my documents. A few of the International Trade agreements were misplaced and ended up in the pile of documents for the upcoming Ball. It seems they mentioned castles in other kingdoms and were overlooked,"
"Okay, but why didn't you ask someone to get them for you?" the Peacekeeper questioned with his arms crossed.
"I did. I asked Michelle here to get them for me. I heard she was organising them, and so I asked if she could look through and find them."
"I see. Why didn't you just say?" The Peacekeeper asked as he turned back to Michelle.
She had to be quick on her feet here.
"I-I was going to tell you. But then you started accusing me of all sorts of things." She made herself look like she was about to start to cry, just for some added umph.
"Oh, err. My mistake. I apologise."
"Accusations. For what?" The man asked.
"For all the problems that have been happening around here, sir. I thought she was here changing some of the wording on the documents for the Ball."
"Makes sense. But I am certain that Michelle here is not involved. I spoke to her supervisor, and she has not had any problems with her. She can also attest to how good she is at her job."
"Really?"
"Really?"
Both she and the Peacekeeper asked that.
The Peacekeeper, because he was still on the fence about whether or not Michelle was involved. And Oriana asked because she truly was surprised that Bethany thought she was doing a good job.
Granted, she was doing her job. She needed to keep her cover after all. But she hardly thought that what she had been doing was enough to warrant praise. Especially with all the sabotage.
"Yes. Now, I think we can leave Michelle to her work. Let me grab those documents while I am here, then you can get back to actually organising the documents for when the Senior Accountant shows up, which is probably not long now."
The man moved over to her, lifted up a few of the documents she had placed on the table, and pulled out a few new documents. Documents she was sure were not there before.
"Come now, let's get back to work, shall we?" The man said as he beckoned the Peacekeeper out of the door.
"Ah, yes. Apologies again for the mistake. I hope you can forgive me." The Peacekeeper said as he bowed to Michelle.
"I-Its all alright. All is forgiven."
With that, he left, and so did the man.
But what they left was a very confused Oriana.
"Did he just…help me?"
She was sure there were no international trade deals in the documents she had received. So he made all that up to give her an excuse as to why she was taking so long. He even somehow managed to produce a few new documents to pretend he'd pulled them from the pile.
But why.
Well, not one to dwell on things for too long, as she was sure they would meet again, she got back to adjusting the documents and finally got to the food section.
---
It would seem that the height of fancy food would be served at the ball. Her guess was that it was a lot of snacks, nibbles and plenty of desserts. Small portions of them, probably, but still. And these would be around for the party goers to gorge on as they talked about…politics. Maybe. Gossip.
What would they talk about?
Well, she would find that out soon.
Going through the trade deals, it would seem that a wide range of meat was also being requested, all high-end.
But did it have to be?
Because Oriana had heard that rat meat is quite tasty this time of year. She was sure that the nobles at the party would enjoy such fare.
As long as the meat came already sliced and diced, as the request said, the chefs surely wouldn't be able to tell the difference from what was originally ordered.
She also swapped out a few of the fruits and vegetables with ones that were well known for being either incredibly sharp or having a sour note.
For this, surely it was the servants who would be plating things. Taking various pieces of fruit and adding them to many, many plates, they were not going to know that the fruit they were using was the wrong one.
Also, depending on the competence of the chef, of which there are probably multiple, they might just be putting things together, and not really know whether there is any issue with the ingredients.
After that, she moved on to the drinks menu.
The rich people and nobles who would be attending this Ball would be expecting the finest vintages of wine and alcohol.
But of course, she came to the realisation that they didn't need such expensive drinks. If anything, they should probably thank Oriana for saving them money by changing the vintage of the wine to ones that had been bottled very recently.
There were also requests for mead, to which she changed to just a fruit juice.
And lastly, she figured that, for one of the drinks, why not make it something that wouldn't be drinkable.
Whether that would actually make it into the drinks of the ball, she didn't know. How it arrived at the castle would indicate whether it would actually be used as a drink.
To that end, Oriana would have to wait until the event happened to find out whether things went well.
Thankfully, she had an invitation that allowed her to get a first-hand view of everything that would happen at the ball.
#And it wouldn't be long now till she had a chance to join high society…and ruin it.