Now this.
Now the interesting part of running a business: the bills.
A letter, from some bank, for- who? Oh, Kawakai. The lizard who got herself poisoned a few months back. She took out a loan, and now the bankers wanted their money back. He briefly considered explaining that Kawakai was both unconscious and not in the city, but that would only lead to trouble. Better, perhaps, to just pay it.
Also, the bank wanted part of the income. A quarter of the profits, they said. Well now. Hugo wondered if they knew how much of the 'profits' consisted of black money? Would they want a cut of that, or would they settle for just that earned by the bar? Once again, probably better to just give them what they asked for, no complications.
Taxes, of course. Always taxes. Isn't this an embassy? Since when do embassies pay taxes? Eh, probably best not to remind people about the Hacturi. Just pay them.
The income... two ducats. The bar earned but a small portion of that, given that few people would drink in a lizard's tavern. Fortunately, the Bleeding Fists paid their way as well, so the business still made a respectable income- but not enough to repay the loan, the cut of the profit, and the taxes. And whilst he wasn't poor, his pockets did not jangle with gold, nor did those around him. The Embassy was in the red.
Time to do something about that.
Hugo looked around his office. Piles of painting in various stages of completion littered the room. There were a few commissions which had postponed as he acclimatised himself to the bureaucracy, but he had managed to finish a few of those in the winter. Ah, but the horizon- he had spent so much time focused on the horizon. Too much time, really. He had spent days focused on nothing but painting the perfect horizon in a painting, and quite forgotten to pay attention to the world.
Well, now the world had come knocking. That time spent had better pay off.
Hugo sells that which his brush has wrought. Notable pieces in this period include 'The Lady's Play', showing a performance of early Ligorian Noble Theatre (possibly the first play in this style), 'Crows in red', a
murder of crows set against a blood-red sunset, and 'Hugo's lament', a self portrait of the artist sitting amongst piles of paperwork. Many pieces of this period feature crows in the background, often based off of the features of a single crow, a pet raven which belonged to the artist.