Chapter 3

Jane’s POV

The old man came down the line before daylight reached the windows, checking a list worn soft at the folds. When he reached me, he pushed over coarse sheets, bandages stiff and brown at the edges, and guards’ shirts with grey, worn collars.

The women behind me fell quiet. I looked at their piles, then back at mine. No one offered to exchange anything. I rolled up my sleeves. It was my first morning, and I didn’t know whether complaining would do anything except delay the work.

"Bloodied things go in cold first," the old man said. "Not hot. Hot sets it into the cloth. You’ll scrub through the threads and it’ll still be there. Cold water and salt, then wash them."

He waited until I nodded, then went back to his list. I separated the bandages and began.

The laundry was long and low. Through its high window I could see fog, but nothing of the courtyard beyond it. As the coppers heated, steam collected overhead and my face grew damp.

Claire had worked in another part of this same court. Somewhere beyond the service stairs were the dress rooms she’d gone to every morning. I wanted to know what they looked like, who had stood beside her, whether she’d been as tired as I was already. I hadn’t yet found a door I could go through without being sent back.

For now, I wrung out a guard’s shirt and reached for the next.

While I worked, I looked around. I noted who stood at each copper, who washed the fine things separately, and who had the fouler loads. The old man had crossed out one name on his list and written another above it. I could have leaned closer to read them, but I stayed where I was. Yesterday I’d kept quiet when the warden asked for people who could read. I still didn’t want to be noticed for it.

Toward the middle of the morning, the stewardess came in with a bundle under her arm. She dropped it on the trestle, and the women nearest her stopped working.

She shook out a blue wool overgown. It had shrunk through the body and across the shoulders, pulling the seams tight around the armholes.

"This was sent down for cleaning this morning," she said. "Look at what you’ve done to it."

The girl at the third copper was perhaps fourteen. There was ash on her cheek, and her thin wrists were red above her wet hands.

"I used cold water," she said. "I did it the way I was told."

"Then why has it shrunk?"

The girl began to cry. "I don’t know. The water was cold when I put it in."

I looked toward the door. The shallow basin intended for the wool had stood there at first light. Now it was against a copper at the far end of the room, with steam rising from it.

I crossed the floor and crouched beside it. The rim was warm under my thumb. When I put my fingers in, I found hot water.

"Her basin’s been moved," I said.

The stewardess looked at me. I stayed crouched, with my hand on the rim.

"It was by the door this morning. Now it’s here, and the water’s hot. If she put the gown in cold water, someone changed it afterward."

No one spoke. I looked back at the basin. The stewardess could have come over and felt it herself. That wouldn’t tell us who had moved it, but at least she could ask before she punished the girl.

Instead, she kept looking at me.

"New ones always have an excuse."

A few women nodded. I couldn’t tell whether they agreed or simply wanted her to move on. A broad-backed woman at the second copper had stopped with her hands in the linen. I waited for her to say something, but she went back to folding.

"Feel the water," I said. "It’s still hot."

"Did you see who changed it?"

"No."

"Then get back to your work."

She took a small book from her belt and turned to the girl.

"A month’s wages. And this goes against your name, so the next household knows what to expect."

She wrote it down while the girl stood wiping her face. Then she looked at me again.

"You can have the guards’ breeches as well. Since you have time to leave your place and tell me how to do my work."

I went back to my copper. I wanted to argue that I hadn’t told her how to do anything; I’d asked her to check the basin. But she was closing her book, and no one else had spoken. I began on the extra washing.

The girl was sent out to beat dust from the matting. The gown went into the rag basket. By noon, my knuckles had split in the creases, and the lye stung each time I put my hands back into the water.

I tried to hold the wet clothes differently, but I still had to bend my fingers to wring them. There was too much left to stop. Every so often I looked at the door, wondering whether the girl would come back.

I’d expected the hot water to matter. Even if the stewardess didn’t believe me, she could have checked what I said. I hadn’t known what to do when she refused, and the girl had lost her wages while I stood there.

By lamplight, my hands were swollen and sore. I sat on the edge of my bed with them in a bowl of clean, cold water. It helped while I kept them still.

Naomi watched from opposite me. After a while, she got up, took a corked pot from her box, and set it on the floor between us.

"Grease and beeswax," she said. "Something else the herb woman puts in it. I’ve used some already."

"How much?"

"Pay me when you’ve got it."

I let my hands dry and worked the salve into the cracks. It stung at first, then eased enough that I could close my fingers. I put the cork back and left the pot beside me.

I broke my bread roll in two. One half was larger. I turned them over, trying to judge how much to break off, then gave Naomi that half. She took it without comparing them, and I was glad she hadn’t made a fuss.

We ate for a while before I asked, "Who here would speak up for a servant?"

Naomi finished chewing. "Depends who they’d have to speak against."

"That girl didn’t ask me to help. I saw the basin and thought I should say something."

"I heard you."

"Then why didn’t anyone else?"

She glanced at my hands. "Because they didn’t want the extra washing."

I looked down. The salve shone in the cracks across my knuckles.

"You’re new," Naomi went on. "Be careful about leaving your place to argue. She can write that down too."

"I went to check the water."

"That’s what you’ll say. She’ll say you weren’t where you were told to be, and then you’ll have to find someone willing to contradict her."

My hand stopped on the blanket. Unauthorized departure from assigned post. I could remember exactly where those words appeared on Claire’s record.

"I didn’t think she’d punish me for it," I said.

"You’d better think about it next time."

Naomi lay back and turned toward the wall. I finished my bread, brushing the crumbs off the blanket before I put away the salve.

I waited until the room had quieted and the others’ breathing was steady. Then I knelt by my box and lifted out the work clothes. Beneath my good grey dress were Claire’s things. I turned back the oilcloth around her dark wool dress and looked at it for a while without taking it out.

If someone had spoken for her, would it have made a difference? I’d thought finding the right person to ask would be enough to start with. After this morning, I wasn’t sure how I would get anyone to listen.

I covered the dress, replaced my clothes, and lowered the lid with my palm over the catch. Then I sat against the box and went over what I’d seen: the basin by the door, the hot water, the book in the stewardess’s hand, and the woman who had stopped working but said nothing.

The basin had been moved. I hadn’t imagined it. But I hadn’t helped the girl keep her wages, and now the stewardess knew me as the new servant who argued. I needed this job. I would have to work beside her again in the morning.

Below us, a copper made a faint noise as it cooled. Then footsteps came along the corridor.

They slowed near our door. I sat still and listened, wondering whether someone would knock or lift the latch. The steps stayed there long enough that I began to worry they’d heard me at the box. Then they moved on, turned at the end of the passage, and faded.

I got into bed. Under my pillow, I found the two halves of Claire’s horn button and closed my fingers around them.