What do you say? What in the Heights of Hell do you say? You - you are going to have to name a public house, aren't you? Your nightly forays out into the Mount with father never took you anywhere near such establishments; was always either to the Burying Grounds or private residences. Certainly, you pass them by often enough, but you see shingles, not writ names. That is not to say that you don't know the names of any public houses on the Mount, quite the opposite. Three of them have forced themselves upon your memory; the Hooded Heads, the Blue Boy and the 'Poonist's Perch - and may the Maker have Mercy for you if you ever must return to any of them. Failing at mustering up names that aren't associated with terrifying near-misses, you switch your footing and try to recall shingles instead - only to find that they too are blurring all together. Damn it all, if you had just had a proper night's - Oh! There was an establishment like this one, right by the gates; they had an Omnibus style carriage that you considered trying to buy. Their shingle, it was ... a crab, with a weather-vane out of its back!
"I ...I'm sorry, it must be on account of the hour, but for the life of me, I cannot remember the name of the establishment. It was right by the Landward Walls, a crab - "
"With a weather-vane sprouting out of its back, yes? That's The Trade-Winds Companies' Cancer House. Owned by a cadet branch of the Prunuses family; a <span class="mu-i">junior</span> cadet branch, if I recall. Never met the Princeling - or rather, the Lordling- who actually owns the place, but I know the man who operates it well enough."
Of all of the black luck! Fraying Hell, it ... it shouldn't be a problem. The grooms don't know anything, that's why they're fraying grooms. So long as you are able to see the back of Nasturtium before anyone who might actually know who is staying at the house gets involved - especially the operator, if he knows the man - then you should be close enough to safe. Still, with the sorry state you are in and with so much bearing down on you, you are at the point where forgetting dangers and risks seems like an actual possibility. You weren't able to come up with better options, and somehow it seems that even your inability to name the house that you were staying at has not managed to flag the unflagging faith that this man has in you, so it is not as if you should be out cutting rods ... but at the same time, couldn't you have seen this as a possibility? Would you have, had you not been basically running yourself ragged over the past two days? It is not as if it is the furthest reach that a man in the Coaching trade might know other men in the same trade that run houses just a little further up the street from his. Again, there weren't any other options, you shouldn't dwell ... but what if this <span class="mu-i">does</span> bite you?
