“Thank you for catering to my questions, but I simply can’t afford to purchase her. I have the future of an entire city I have to think about. Furthermore, I don’t even have a place to call home yet, so acquiring a maid now would be counter to that.”
“Actually, given the extreme cost of this woman, I think you’ll find she more than makes up for it,” Figuro added when he saw I wasn’t going to bite.
“What do you mean by that?” I demanded.
“Well, you’re looking for people to purchase to bring to Chalm as citizens, yes?”
“I suppose that’s true…”
“As a head maid, her expertise is hiring personnel and management. You see, as her master got older, she was in charge of the entire estate. She effectively ran a plot of land for about ten years while the son played around and was irresponsible. If that old noble was in his right state of mind, he’d have never passed his fortune to a child like that once he died. In the end, since she was just a slave, she couldn’t counter the son’s decisions. Despite his bad decisions, she managed to keep that province and the people in it happy for five years, until that son sold her. Without her managing things, well, I’ll just say he’s in a slave collar out in the courtyard the last I checked.
“So, you see, she’d be an ideal person to put in charge of this. You saw all the auctions going on out there. Although there are ten or twenty back here I can offer you, you’re going to eventually need to deal with the auctions. If you’re looking to purchase a couple of hundred slaves, you’ll need to be around to make bids, pay debt, and manage the whole process. It could take you weeks to buy everyone you want for your city.”
I frowned at his words, “Uh… that sounds really exhausting. Isn’t there someone I can just hire to take this over. Isn’t that what you’re here for?”
He let out a cough. “Uh… while yes, I’m always willing to assist my clients in finding just the right slave, that is… well, a small part of my job. It isn’t impossible to lend my services for such a job, but I lack the knowledge she does, so I couldn’t promise I wouldn’t hire a few bad apples and useless people. Furthermore, if you wish to hire me, I’d need to remain competitive. My price runs 100 gold an hour. That’s 800 gold a day, for one week… well, you can see why a slave would be preferable.”
I had a distinct feeling that he charged a bit more than your common slaver, but I didn’t feel like I could trust any of the others. They might just grab anyone so they didn’t have to work very hard. I might end up with criminals or useless people. They might even lie about the costs so that they could pocket extra money. A slave would be restricted by my commands. Furthermore, she would want to do a good job to please her master and since she’d inevitably be affected by who she picked, she’d have a personal investment in picking the right people for the job.
In the end, she really was a woman worth her cost. Figuro had once again accurately determined what I needed and what I could afford. I could only sigh at how good he was at his job.
“Since you put it that way, I suppose I should buy her then.”