Bucky Rider

Esme managed to get three hours of sleep before she was up to run the tavern. As soon as she opened her eyes the migraine returned. Unfortunately for her, her new method was working splendidly and the tavern got very busy very fast. There was a long line of people waiting to eat this cheap, filling and delicious breakfast. There were so many people that the tavern workers had to give up their breakfast to be sold. Esme stood behind the front desk taking payments, Miyaicy joined her also taking payments. Souse and Wekya were assisting Eris in plating the food and every other person was serving.

Regardless of the migraine and the chaos that encouraged it, Esme's mind remained on the events of last night.

She had to make her move today. It had been a whole week since she came into Cheq and she would fall behind on schedule if she couldn't enter the palace in five days.

Her contact point was the bucky driver. She had determined that last night while walking back to the tavern. It had to be the bucky driver there was no way recruits could directly contact the palace eunuch.

She needed to catch a ride in that particular bucky and bait the driver into making her a recruit.

In the afternoon, when the buzz in the tavern significantly reduced. Esme went into her bedroom and put on the least shabby dress she could find. She carried a small but spacious satchel and wore a dark cloak over it all. She didn't leave the tavern through the doors instead she went out her bedroom window. As she left the lower neighborhoods she uncloaked and tried to fit into the character she had chosen.

A matrons lady's maid's servant.

Wealthy and noble families usually had highly respected matrons that assisted the mistress in running the household. Though the matrons were servants they were highly esteemed ones and often had access to an employer provided transport along with their own personal lady's maid.

This lady's maid was personal to the matron and had to stay close by her side to tend to her every bidding so she had a number of male and female servants under her to assist her in assisting the matron who was assisting the mistresses lady's maid who directly assisted the mistress of the house.

A lady's maid servant was just the kind of rank to need a public bucky in the upper class neighborhoods of Cheq.

After much thinking Esme had filled in a piece of the missing link. The palace Eunuch met the minister of Wars eunuch in the tavern.

So she knew how the minister of War communicated with their corrupt project.

She didn't know accurately how the Left prime minister and the minister of war communicated but she could guess. For noble men that ran in same circles it wasn't hard to meet or pretend to coincidentally meet at the numerous noble functions. But she didn't know how the palace Eunuch and the left prime minister communicated. The palace eunuch worked mainly in the harem which would be unusual for the prime minister to often visit. It would also be stupid for the palace eunuch to visit the prime minister's mansion often as that would raise suspicions.

This factors led her to the assumption of the trusted bucky rider.

The bucky rider operated within the higher neighborhoods so it wouldn't be unusual for him to be at several different ends of that district including moving from the palace gates to the prime minister's gates while carrying passengers. It was a reach but Esme couldn't predict any other way for the information to be transported. So she had to go by her theory.

It wasn't hard to find the left Prime Minister's residence. In the upper district, gold platted house tags were very common and were bestowed upon houses of officials. Even houses of rich people without any title tagged their houses by the closest relation they had to anything noble or impressive.

Esme stiffled a giggle as she passed by a house tagged with a name and a claim of 'Most beloved friend to the Marquis of Jrah'. Desperate claims like this ran widely among the untitled rich even in Sukech. People often paid money to titled individuals to have a distant claim to them on their house plaque.

Esme followed the house plaques. As she went the tags got less and less ridiculous until she came to a row of mansions with tags that were clearly bestowed from the palace. These plaques had a particular pattern to them and were made of thicker bolder gold and speculed with tiny diamonds that glinted enchantingly in the afternoon sun. She was now passing by mansions of actual Marquis, Viscounts, Dukes among other esteemed titles.

Her heart almost fell out of her chest when she came by a mansion tagged 'Abode of Lord Nican, Duke of Secre'.

This was Meksta's prison. For a brief moment Esme was tempted to scale the high walls just to check on how Meksta was doing and she would have if not for the sound of a bucky slowly climbing up the road. She immediately melted into the wall behind her. It could have been any bucky just dropping off passengers but something told her it was THE bucky.

And sure enough as the bucky climbed the slight hill and rolled past her, she was able to recognise the round middle aged man that rode it.

Esme followed. From the momentum with which the bucky was moving she could tell that the prime Minister's residence was not far off. Only three more houses down the street and the bucky rolled to a stop. Esme stopped too, on the opposite side of the road and did her best to watch from behind a high wall.

Two ladies dressed like her exited the bucky and after a brief exchange with the rider collected a small scroll in a casing.

The ladies turned and went into the massive gate of the Prime Minister's home and just as they did a guard from within the house stepped out with another scroll which he gave to the rider.