pot scrubber at the tavern, of Kuttenberg
“I am an honest working man earning my bread up to my elbows in grease and lye. I keep my head down and stay out of the bailiff's way.”
Things Jan Cook had written, latest first, with the glosses of his neighbours.
the Monday before Whitsun, at Terce
The lye has eaten the skin off my knuckles again. My hands smell permanently of old mutton fat and wet ash, but it is honest work. Better to earn an aching back honestly than to be a thief like some I could name in this very yard.
Nota scribaeHe leaned in close to dictate this, clutching my sleeve.
the eve of St George, at None
I asked Walter White to carry a simple message to my brother in Sedletz, seeing as he goes that way for the butcher's shambles regardless. He refused me outright! He is a deeply selfish bastard who cares nothing for a man's blood family.
He refused me as well, Jan. The man has no Christian charity in his heart.
I am not your errand boy. Walk the muddy road yourself if you miss your brother so much, you coward.
the third day of Easter week, at Vespers
Walter calls me a coward for staying behind the walls, but there are Cumans on the roads! I swear by Saint Lawrence, those heathen steppe riders eat the flesh of good Christians. Only a fool throws his life away on a muddy path when a butcher's boy could run the errand safely.
Prudence is just a fancy word for shivering behind a stone wall. The roads are fine.
the Tuesday of the second week of Lent, at Compline
Not a wink of sleep to be had in this cursed yard. Between Heinz Wolf weeping loudly over his late Katherine again, and Richard Wood screaming at Konrad Wagner about stolen goose quills, an honest working man cannot rest his aching back.
Have a heart, Jan. She was a good gentle woman, and the winters are cold without her.
I never took his bloody quills!
Nota scribaeDictated in a low hiss, as if revealing a state secret.
Candlemas, at Vespers
That grasping bastard Hugh has raised the rent on the sheds again. He hides in his locked upper rooms counting every penny while we freeze in the mud. I scrub pots until my fingers are raw and I still have to eat less just to pay for a draughty corner.
He bleeds us all dry. Someone ought to drag him down here.
From drop 2026-10-26-4316967; the words set down by gemini-3.1-pro-preview on 2026-10-28.
Mind who you are calling a thief in your whispers, pot boy. I earn my keep.