Chapter 5

Jane’s POV

By the second morning of washing the guardroom linen, the baskets were full again. There were rolled bandages stiff with rust-colored blood and sheets that had been caught beneath the fallen racks, with wet ash worked into the cloth. Three heavy coats lay underneath them, bloodied enough that I wondered how badly their owners had been hurt.

The baskets were set in front of me in the lower washing room, beside the cold-water butt and the salt crock.

I soaked the bloodied things in cold water first. While the bandages sat, I worked on the coats one at a time, rubbing at the seams with my thumbs. The women who had been there longer had taken the brushes. I looked along the benches for a spare, but no one offered one, and I went back to the coat in my basin.

After soaking came washing and rinsing, then lifting the wet cloth out to wring it. The sheets were heavy enough. The coats were worse. I had to brace my feet and use both arms, squeezing along each sleeve before lifting the body again.

By midmorning, my shoulders burned. The ache had spread up my neck, and turning my head pulled at it. I tried working with my elbows lower, but that only made it harder to lift the wool.

The cracks across my knuckles had begun to close, then opened again in the water. Lye stung in them, and the water in my basin had turned pale brown.

I counted the pieces as I hung them: eleven bandages, four sheets, three coats, and a shirt torn so badly through the body that it looked as though someone had cut it off its owner.

Two benches down, Ina glanced at my pile. She'd been working here longer than most of the women, and whenever a servant's name came up, she seemed to have something to say about them.

"You pulled that boy out of the racks," she said. "And what did you get? More washing. Did he even thank you?"

The woman beside her laughed. I bent over the coat and squeezed more water from it. The boy hadn't thanked me. He'd gone to the kitchens with the woman who came for him, and I hadn't seen him since.

"You could have waited before putting your hand up," Ina said. "Let the captain find out for himself."

"The boy's alive. I'm glad I got him out."

She looked at me as though she expected more. I lifted the coat onto the line and spread the sleeves so they would dry.

After a moment, she turned to the woman beside her and asked about the soap. I was relieved to be left alone. My shoulders hurt too much to stand there defending myself as well as doing the work.

By the time I hung the last bandage, my hands were pale and wrinkled, and the light from the high window was fading. I still had rinsing water to carry out. There would be more washing tomorrow; I could already see another basket waiting near the door.

Naomi was at the end of the shed when I finished, sitting against a post with a piece of bread. A bowl of porridge stood beside her, near the place where I usually sat.

"Somebody left that," she said.

"Did they?"

I sat down and pulled the bowl closer. It was still warm, though a skin had formed on top. I broke it with the spoon and began to eat.

After three mouthfuls, I looked at Naomi's bread. She was chewing the hard end of a loaf, and there was no bowl in front of her.

"Is that all you've got?"

"It's enough."

I pushed the porridge between us. "Have some."

She kept her eyes on the bread. "No."

"That's stale."

"I like bread."

"You can have both."

"I saved the porridge for you. Eat it."

"I'm eating it. I'm asking you to have some too."

She looked at me then. "You don't have to give half of everything back."

"And you don't have to sit there chewing that while I finish a whole bowl."

"You'd have finished it by now if you hadn't stopped to argue."

I wanted to laugh, but she was still trying to look annoyed. I left the bowl where it was. She'd waited for me to finish work and kept my supper warm as long as she could. I didn't want to repay her; I wanted her to eat something better than that crust.

"Half," I said.

Naomi looked into the bowl, then toward the shelf where the spare bowls were kept.

"Get another bowl, then. I'm not eating off the bench."

I fetched one, and she divided what was left with the spoon. She pushed my bowl back and took a mouthful before I sat down.

"There. Now eat yours."

I did. She broke her bread and dropped some into the porridge. We finished without discussing who owed whom anything.

The next morning, fog still lay in the courtyard when I took my buckets to the well. The stones around it were wet and dark. The cold rope pressed into the cracks in my hands as I hauled it up.

Darian stood on the far side of the yard with a guard whose arm was bandaged and whose loose sleeve had been pinned out of the way. They were talking about the night's watch. I kept working, but their voices carried across the stones.

"Six hours," the guard said. "I've done six on worse."

"Not in the rain," Darian said. "Have the surgeon look at it at noon. If he won't clear you for the wall, you can take the gate during daylight. I'll find someone for the night watch."

The guard began to answer, but Darian turned toward the well. His eyes stopped on my hands. He crossed the yard while I kept hauling.

"Are they any better?" he asked.

I looked down at my knuckles. "They were before I started washing again."

"Have the guards given you more work than I ordered?"

"No. I'm still doing what you gave me for not waiting."

"I know why I gave it to you. I'm asking whether anyone added to it."

"They haven't."

He waited while I brought the bucket up and set it on the stone rim. I was close enough to see his face clearly now. He didn't look amused by my answer, or impatient with it. He was looking at the raw skin near my thumb.

He put a roll of cloth beside the bucket. It was clean, thick, and still tied with string, narrow enough to wrap around my hands.

"That's for the sore places," he said.

I let go of the rope and looked at it. Cloth like that would cost several days of my wages. I had nothing of equal value to give him, and I didn't want to stand there while he waited for me to be grateful.

"Why didn't you have it sent down?" I asked. "You've enough people to send."

"I wanted to see how your hands were. I wasn't sure you'd tell anyone if they were worse."

"You could have asked."

"I'm asking now."

I flexed my fingers. They hurt, and he could see it. I wished he hadn't come over just as I was struggling with the rope.

"You don't need to come and check on me yourself," I said.

"Perhaps not." He stepped back from the well, leaving the cloth where he'd put it.

I looked toward the washroom windows. Anyone there could see us. If I carried his cloth inside, someone would ask where I'd got it, and I didn't want to explain why a lord had brought me a gift.

But the bucket handle had rubbed through the skin again. I could wrap my thumb before carrying the next load, and there would still be cloth left for my knuckles. I was tired of every small movement hurting.

I picked it up.

I didn't thank him. He didn't wait. By the time I'd set the buckets on the yoke and lifted it onto my shoulders, he was back at the arch with the guard, reminding him to see the surgeon at noon.

I crossed the yard with the roll tucked under my arm and my fingers around it. The blister at the base of my thumb pressed into the cloth the whole way. I kept hold of it and didn't take it back.