Anna

The Tuesday before Pentecost, at Vespers

That clerk Bartholomew at the Italian Court wants his forty groschen by Sunday. The bread is half again what it was at Christmas, and the Hungarian soldiers drink like holes in the ground but pay like beggars. I am short, Lord help me.

• 
  Matilda

  Save your breath and your stolen pennies, Anna. That roof is mine.

Nota scribaeShe wiped her hands on her apron so furiously I feared the cloth would tear.

The second day of Easter week, at Compline

If a man cannot tell his ale is half water, he has had enough already. Mended three tunics tonight while the innkeeper snored. My hands are raw from lye, but the silver clinks sweet enough when it is mine.

The Friday before Palm Sunday, at None

Someone moved the onion basket in the root cellar. Christ almighty, my heart stopped cold. If the innkeeper goes poking around the rotten ones at the bottom, I am done for. Keep your hands off my turnips, the lot of you.

• 
  Matilda

  Guarding a hoard in the dirt, Anna? It will not buy you a clean life.

• 
  Anna

  Mind your own tubs, old woman.

Nota scribaeDictated in a whisper behind the tavern, smelling strongly of old onions.

St Gregory's day, at Terce

Saw Matilda glaring at me by the stream. That bitter old hen is too close to the grave to waste a good roof on. She can wash the dirt off the miners at the bathhouse, but she cannot wash the poverty off herself.

• 
  Matilda

  At least I do not sleep in pig grease, you little thief.

The Monday before Ash Wednesday, at Prime

Old Katchka died of the winter fever. God rest her, up in heaven there is no damp. But her cottage by the stream is empty now. A door that locks from the inside. I will have it, if I have to scrub every floor in Kuttenberg.

Nota scribaeShe made the sign of the cross, though I suspect it was for the cottage, not the widow.