Chapter 2

Jane’s POV

I came up the last stretch of track before dawn and found a queue already waiting outside Blackthorn Court.

It began at the foot of the service steps, ran along the wall, and doubled back toward the road. People stood in the frozen ruts with their bundles against their chests, their breath rising in front of their faces. I’d thought I was early. I joined the end and tried to see how far ahead the first person was.

The walls rose above us into the fog. I tipped my head back but couldn’t see the top. Carts were already coming through the lower gate, their loads roped down beneath oiled cloth. The wheels creaked and jolted over the frozen ground. We were packed so close to the wall that there was barely room to move when one passed.

I counted the people ahead of me twice. Two more came up the track, and I counted again. Thirty-eight of us now, waiting for work. I hoped they needed more than a handful.

Some stood in groups of two or three, talking as though they’d walked here together. Others were alone. I listened without turning around. A few had the flat vowels of the northern hill packs. The woman behind me had said twice that her aunt kept the linen at the east lodge. A boy of perhaps fifteen was explaining that his family couldn’t afford to feed him. They’d told him to say that if anyone asked why he wanted a place.

I wondered whether I ought to say more than that I could mend and needed wages. I had no aunt inside, no one waiting to put in a word for me. I went over the answers I’d prepared and decided to keep them. I didn’t want to start explaining Claire before they’d even let me in.

A gate warden stood at the top of the steps holding a slate. Beside him, a boy called out numbers. His voice was hoarse, and the people nearest him sometimes had to repeat them for those farther back.

"Anyone here who can read and write?" the warden asked.

My thumb tightened against the strap of my bundle. I kept my hand down. My application was inside, but someone else could have written it for me. If they needed a reader, they might ask more questions or send me somewhere I hadn’t intended to go. I wanted ordinary household work, at least until I knew my way around.

Two men ahead of me were talking. One mentioned a girl in the dress rooms the previous winter, then laughed as though he expected his companion to join in.

"Don’t," the other said.

The first laughed again, but dropped the subject.

I looked at the ground and kept listening. The man who’d laughed wore a green scarf and had a chipped front tooth. His companion had a shaved head and a pale burn across the back of his right hand. I tried to remember their faces. I hadn’t heard enough to know who they meant, but I wanted to hear more about that girl. Neither man mentioned her again.

When the doors opened, the warden counted us through in groups. No one asked our names yet. I followed the woman ahead of me into a long, low hall, still cold enough that I kept my hands under my arms while I waited.

A steward sat behind a table with a ledger open in front of him. The lamp beside it gave so little light that he leaned close to the page as he wrote.

I took out my application. When my turn came, I stopped at the mark on the floor and held it out. He set it beside the ledger without looking up.

"Can you mend?"

"Yes."

"Can you manage hard work?"

"Yes."

I nearly added that I was used to it, but he was already asking the next question.

"Anyone here to vouch for you?"

"No."

He looked up briefly, taking in my bundle and clothes, then lowered his eyes.

"Name?"

"Jane Finley."

His pen stopped above the ledger. I watched his face. Had he heard the name before? I wanted him to write it down and move on, but he kept me waiting while he glanced at my application.

I’d considered another name on the road and again in the queue. But the court was so large. Claire had been one servant among hundreds, and Finley couldn’t be an unusual enough name to make every clerk remember her.

I had no way of knowing whether this one did. I stood still, trying not to stare at him.

Then he began to write. He made the F too large and had to squeeze the end of my surname into the column. I watched each letter appear, then watched him reach for the stamp. He hadn’t asked about Claire.

My sister worked in the dress rooms here. The words were ready, and I swallowed them. He might know someone who had worked beside her. He might also stop writing if I told him why I’d really come.

He stamped the page beside my name and pushed a wooden token across the table. It had six sides, a notch in one edge, and a number burned into it.

"Outer-court laundry. Give that to the woman by the door."

The boy behind me stepped forward. I picked up the token and moved aside.

They put me in a room above the laundry, on the west side of the outer court. Heat from the washing coppers came through the floorboards. At first it felt good after the wait outside, though the room smelled of soap, wet wool, and too many people.

Eight beds stood four to a wall. The only window was too high to see out of. The woman carrying the bed list pointed me toward the far wall and began telling us the rules while I unpacked.

We were to fetch hot water early and keep quiet once the lamp was out. We weren’t to go asking about business beyond the outer court.

She slowed down for the last rule, looking from one bed to the next. I kept my eyes on my clothes, but I heard her. Getting to the dress rooms might be harder than I’d hoped.

I took out my good grey dress, wrapped in oilcloth. It had been our mother’s. Claire had taken it in at the waist for me and let down the hem. I folded it small and laid it at the bottom of the box beside my bed, with Claire’s things underneath. My coarse work clothes went on top. I lowered the lid with my palm over the catch so it wouldn’t snap shut.

"Why’d you leave home?" the girl in the next bed asked.

"There’s one less wage coming in," I said.

The woman opposite looked up. She had dark hair braided back and a mended tear in her sleeve. I waited for one of them to ask what had happened, but the girl returned to her unpacking and the woman went on arranging her bed.

I was grateful. I’d answered questions on the journey, and I didn’t want to explain again. I sat for a while with my empty bundle beside me.

Later, as the light at the window faded, the woman opposite held out a cup. It was earthenware, with a chip about the width of my thumbnail missing from the rim.

"Fetch your hot water early," she said. "Go late and it’ll be cold."

"Thank you." I took it. "I’m Jane."

"Naomi Reed."

She turned back to her bed without waiting for anything else. I ran my thumb carefully along the chipped edge. The cup was worn, but she’d seen I didn’t have one and offered it. I set it where I could reach it in the morning.

Around me, the seven other women put away their bundles and pulled off their boots. I knew only Naomi’s name. I was going to sleep beside them, get dressed beside them, and leave my things in a box they could all reach. I hadn’t thought much about that while I was trying to get hired.

I looked at the token again before putting it away. I had work and a bed. For tonight, I didn’t have to pay for either, and I was inside the court where Claire had lived.

When the lamp went out, I lay down. The heat had become stuffy, and I could hear every movement in the beds around me. I reached under my pillow for the two halves of Claire’s horn button and held them in my hand.