THIEF: THE MIDNIGHT VEIL

04: "I THINK IT'S MOSS"

     Mara followed Caffrey as they traipsed through the halls and passed countless doors to rooms abound, following the red running carpet alongside marvelous paintings and precious items encased in glass displays.
     Caffrey moved at a surprisingly brisk pace for such a portly fellow, Mara thought. She had to work to keep up.
     "Think Benny's drunk tonight?" Caffrey asked over his shoulder.
     "Hope not, for his sake. That man's more of a security risk than anything."
     The pair shared a chuckle as they headed to the main foyer. It was a grand room with marble tile and twin staircases on either side that curved upward to the second floor, both meeting at the center of the north wall on an indoor terrace overlooking the entire room. The foyer was still lit for the evening's earlier party, but two of the servants were snuffing out the candles and switching off the electric lights.
     The result was a dark, haunting anteroom sparsely lit by a few torches and tall rectangles of moonlight shining through the towering front windows at the manor's entrance.
     Caffrey stopped at the terrace railing and surveyed the foyer, taking in the luxurious scene with a sweeping gaze. "Bloody hell," he muttered. "This one room houses more riches than I'd see in five lifetimes."
     Mara continued onward down the left side staircase, stepping carefully as she looked up at the sprawl of magnificent paintings, some large enough to fit her body within the frame four times over. "I have to admit, I'm not used to it yet," she chimed. "Though I've only been here a week."
     "I'm coming up on three years, m'self." Caffrey sighed and left the terrace to follow Mara downstairs, clutching his sword and scabbard against his hip as he walked. "I don't think I'll ever get used to it."
     "That doesn't surprise me." Mara had to quell the urge to spout off about Jasper taking credit for her work. She came quite close to doing so; but decided that losing her job wasn't worth coming forward.
     Not yet.
     The two walked past one of the servants, who offered a polite greeting before turning into a hall leading to the west wing. Mara took a secret comfort in the folly of their armor clattering lightly with each stride, edged with their heavy steps on the polished tile; it was the sound of safety in numbers, and it echoed through the hallway before them. Windows lined one side of the corridor, casting dispersed luminescence of moonlight amidst the shadows.
     Caffrey snickered. "Can you imagine Benny on the second floor? Bloke could get lost on the porch, I swear."
     Stop," Mara scolded through a grin. "You never know. Maybe he'll get—"
     The woman trailed off mid-sentence and slowed to a stop when her steps suddenly felt soft, weightless - cushioned, even. Her steps had grown quiet, sounding as if she was walking on a plush rug or tall grass.
     Mara immediately looked down at the floor and beckoned Caffrey to her.
     "What?" asked Caffrey, lowering his torch slightly.
     Something green was splotched across the tile in patches that covered much of the floor in front of the door to their left, which led to the Leisure Room.
     "What the hell is that?" Mara breathed. She knelt for a closer look.
     Caffrey knelt with her, idling the torch so it illuminated the floor around them. "Don't touch it."
     "I'm not."
     "It looks like mold. Is it mold?"
     Mara crinkled her nose in disgust. "On tile? Would be an odd place for it."
     "But not impossible. Unless..." Caffrey stood and lifted his torch high, craning his neck upward. He swept the light carefully, inspecting the oaken ceiling and rafters.
     Mara followed his gaze. "I don't see anything on the ceiling, at least," she offered after a moment.
     Caffrey lowered the torch and shook his head with a sigh. "I think it's mold. Smell it. Does it smell like mold?"
     "Smell it?" she protested. "'Don't touch it!' he says, 'but stick your nose in it and see if it smells like death.' Piss off, Caff."
     "I didn't say to stick your nose in it, Mar," Caffrey countered. "Just close enough to smell it. See if it's... moldy."
     The woman stood with a grunt and expectantly held out an open palm. "Tell you what: give me the torch and you take a whiff."
     Caffrey snorted and strode to the nearby wall. "Be right back. Gonna light things up and then we'll have one of the servants to clean it up." He dipped the torch flame to a sconce between two of the windows, and then moved to the next.
     Mara looked again to the strange green formations scattered around the tile and gently bit her lip, her forehead creasing with thought.
     Caffrey had already begun lighting the other side of the hallway and had nearly returned. "If it is mold," he mused, "the Lady will be furious. Housekeeping staff of nearly twenty employed here, day and night, and they can't prevent mold?"
     Mara knelt again and drew a dagger from a sheath at her boot. She gingerly tested the substance with the blade before nicking some of it with the dagger's point and bringing it close to her nose. "It's not mold."
     "No? What is it, then?"
     "I think it's moss."
     "Wait - did you just smell it after you gave me shite for telling you to smell it?"
     "It is. It's moss." Mara stood and flicked most of the moss to the floor with a swish of her dagger before wiping the blade clean with her fingers.
     "How do you know for sure?"
     She would have been certain regardless, but Mara especially knew because she visited her sister often, and Lieutenant Mosley kept a garden that she cared for dearly in the backyard of her home. The sweet, earthen aroma was most familiar and it was quite obvious upon closer inspection that it was, in fact, moss.
     But she chose to skirt the subject, and instead flashed a cheeky frown at Caffrey as he neared. "When's the last time you looked at a tree? Or the fountain in the southern courtyard?"
      "Pah! A minute ago you didn't know either! What's strange is... why has it not been cleaned yet? The servants were just in the foyer."
     "That they were."
     "They would've had to walk through this mess to get there from the servant quarters downstairs."
     Mara shrugged. "Unless they came the other way. From the east wing. You know how they change things up every few nights."
     The pair stared down at the moss caking the tile for a silent moment, both equally bewildered, mulling over the odd situation.
     "I'll go fetch a servant," Caffrey muttered. "I'll meet back up with you?"
     Mara nodded and watched her companion retrace their steps back towards the foyer before turning her eyes back to the moss at her feet. She kicked at it passively before looking around again to see if perhaps they missed something... but she saw nothing.
     She mumbled something indiscernible to herself and took one more look up and down the long hallway before setting her sights on the door to her left, noticing that some of the moss was reaching under the closed doorway.
     The guard nudged the creaky door open and entered the room carefully, not entirely sure why she was being so cautious. She flipped the light switch and took a careful look around.
     The Leisure Room was used by guests during visiting hours. Lush furniture beckoned, set out evenly across a deep velvet rug that covered most of the room, leaving dark, polished spruce wood flooring exposed at the chamber's edges. Lady Arden's guests earlier had occupied it for some time before moving their festivities to the banquet hall. The servants had already cleaned up, and one would never have known there had even been a gathering that evening.
     An old handcrafted cabinet on the far wall showcased decorative dishes. A small table for cards and games of chance stood silent, its chairs long vacant. A long, low table boasted decorative jewel-encrusted vases evenly spaced out on the polished surface. A painting of The Builder that Lady Arden had commissioned years prior, bordered by other paintings in their ornate frames, gazed outward. An old suit of armor on display in the corner to her left kept silent watch over the room and its belongings, complete with a large two-handed sword in its grasp.
     Mara saw nothing out of order. She took a few steps in, her feet making a thump with each footfall on the floorboards.
     Looked for more moss; there was none. Checked for mold - because why not - none to be found.
     No shadowy figures or devious trespassers lurking about.
     She sighed and withdrew from the room to go find Caffrey, switching the lights back off before she did so.
     Now, Mara was a talented fighter, demonstrating near-unmatched prowess with the sword, the claymore, and the sword & shield during her training. She was impressively athletic, just as strong as many of the men she came up the ranks with in the City Watch before going private for Lady Arden, and had an exemplary service record.
     Strength and tenacity, however, only took a security guard so far.
     A more experienced sentry might have noticed the single silver goblet missing from the cabinet; or that one of the platinum-coated candleholders was absent from the others clustered together on the game table; or that a large emerald was no longer set snugly in the hilt of the sword resting in the suit of armor's hands.
     Perhaps after further inspection, a veteran guard might have thought to inspect the jewel-encrusted luxury vases, which appeared to be perfectly undisturbed, except that they were anything but. If Mara had spun the vases around, she would have found that every jewel was missing from their backsides, out of view of course from anyone casually strolling by.
     Mara Mosley had previously served well as a City Watch corporal - her company answered to Lieutenant Hagen, her sister's counterpart - but estate security was a different matter than chasing thugs and cracking skulls on the streets of The City.
     And so Mara strode through the warmly-lit hallway just outside, stepping carefully around the moss on the floor as if it indeed was mold, as Caffrey feared, and made her way back to the foyer to rejoin her fellow watchman - entirely unaware that a stranger had been watching her.

*

     Garrett waited for a couple minutes before stepping out from behind the tall suit of armor in the dark corner of the Leisure Room. He was still clutching the emerald he had plucked from the display sword, for he had hid immediately upon hearing the two guards outside in the hallway and didn't dare move for some time.
     The thief had overheard much of the guards' back and forth over what exactly had sprouted in the hallway, and he was rather amused with himself as he took a big step over the floorboards and onto the center rug.
     He stuffed the jewel into one of his many pockets on the inside of his cloak. He had scores of pockets stitched under the cloak, some larger than others, all well-insulated with cotton beneath the fabric so that his loot was compartmentalized; he didn't want metal clanging against metal, coins rustling noisily against stones, or an expensive chalice bouncing repeatedly with each step he took.
     Garrett also wore a custom-fitted harness around his torso that he simply called his "rig," which housed compact pouches where he stuffed smaller items like trinkets, coins, and jewels. The rig's pouches were so tight that he could cram a valuable as thin as a coin into one of them and never have to worry about it falling out, even while running or climbing.
     Separating items while securing them snugly against his body was the best way to move noiselessly. He still had to be careful, as his system wasn't perfect, but the method had served him well.
     Too many idiots thought they could sneak into a house, fill up a sack of loot and leave. Amateurs did not consider how much noise a bag full of valuables would make, rattling noisily with every step and likely waking up everyone in the building they were robbing. They did not stop to consider that a bag full of loot was also quite heavy. Too often, amateur burglars found themselves shocked by the sheer weight of the loot they would amass, quickly discovering their haul was too heavy and cumbersome to escape with.
     Garrett essentially wore his loot, snug and secure against his body and within his cloak - taking his past Keeper training a few steps higher. He was strong and could handle heavy hauls quite well, but he still had to be wary of how much weight he encumbered himself with for a hasty getaway's sake. Since he also carried a blackjack, sword, bow, dagger, arrows, and other gear, the weight added up very quickly.
     Besides staying alive, this was why it was quite important to never get caught. As athletic as he was, Garrett could still get just as easily overloaded as anyone else.
     Being forced to sprint away from sword-waving guards while encumbered with fifty pounds of gear was not ideal.
     He stood in the darkness of the Leisure Room and listened intently for any approaching footsteps. Satisfied with the silence that met his ears, Garrett eyed the jeweled vases again on the low table.
     The man had deliberately turned the vases so that the jewels that remained were facing outward to hide the empty sockets on the other side, up against the wall and not obviously seen by any prying eyes.
     But he had watched the woman enter, take a brief look around, and leave without much further thought.
     Low effort. She hadn't noticed the other missing items wither, even though they were missing in plain sight. She probably wouldn't notice if the rest of the jewels were swiped too, then, would she?
     Garrett decided there were too many jewels still left to ignore. They were there, ripe for the taking, and just a few of the stones would likely cover a month and a half's worth of rent... badly needed with how sparse his work had become as of late, thanks to Sheriff Truart's heavy-fisted City Watch.
     He loosened the remaining jewels from their settings and pocketed them before silently moving on through the darkness.
     Flor had informed him that according to her man on the inside, The Midnight Veil was on display on the second floor in a small art room that had had an observatory balcony overlooking the gardens.
     Ascension was always a risk, but there had been no safe second floor access points on the outside of the manor - not from ground level, at least.
     There was naught to do but make his way up through the inside of Arden Manor as quietly as possible... after he looked around on the ground floor, of course.
     The night was still young, after all. Garrett had only just begun.