One among those listening was already gainfully employed, but only for one piece a day. The word "gold" first got her attention, but she returned to her work until the basso voice enumerated exactly how much gold was up for taking here. A hundred gold pieces? Who paid that kind of money for the "simple sort of work"? She was doing simple work now, and that paid simple wages. Everyone knew that.

That thought reminded her of the work she ought to be doing. Tidy the beds, empty the chamber-pots (oh gods, what was in that one?) The man—or so she assumed by his voice—seemed friendly enough, but family wisdom advised against taking jobs from men with blue skin and horns. Actually, conventional non-familial wisdom advised that men with with blue skins horns were frequently not men by any measure of the word, so that was two strikes against him. Yet a hundred gold pieces! That was more than the whole family could make in two weeks!

She would have to talk to her family before embarking on such a risk, of course, but she needed more information to do that. That was her rationale, anyway, for leaving her vantage point to finish tidying this room, so she might follow this strange "man" and his companion—unnoticed, of course. A maid's cap concealed the ruddy gold hair that would give her away, so she feared little for discovery.