maid at the bathhouse, of Malesov
“I boil lye and scrub miners. Sakra, keep your head down and you get a roof.”
Things Matilda had written, latest first, with the glosses of her neighbours.
the eve of Whitsun, at Vespers
Johanka is weeping for her mother Martha again. She wants me to find a traveller to take a message. I told her straight, peasant women do not send their girls to scrub backs if they have bread at home. She is better off here with a roof.
Nota scribaeShe waved a wet rag at me the entire time she spoke.
the feast of St Mark, at None
Isabel and Joan are glaring at each other across the tubs again. Isabel keeps checking that pouch under her mattress straw. I am keeping my head down and my brush moving. I will not hang for whatever dead man's coin is in there.
the second day of Easter week, at Prime
Alice and Ellen are still bickering over the militiaman Stislav. Ellen says Alice killed him sending him for wood in the rain. I say the flux had him already. We should be glad we left that miserable mud camp at Suchdol and came back to our own yard.
He was a good lad. He would be alive if she had not worked him into the freezing mud.
He drank bad water like the rest of the weak-chested fools. The rent will not pay itself while you weep, Ellen.
Nota scribaeDictated in the yard. The woman seems genuinely terrified of returning to the roads.
the Tuesday after St Gregory, at Sext
The spring mud is thick and the stream water is freezing my hands raw. But a roof is a roof. Drslav across the river is selling ale dearer than last year, and Ellen has already spent her wages. At least the abbess keeps us fed.
Drslav holds my good padded jacket in pawn. I will get it back once the miners tip better.
If I catch that pawnbroker taking any more of my good linen in pledge, I will boil him in lye.
the week after Candlemas, at Compline
Johanka bumped a fresh bucket of lye soap, and the abbess docked us all ten groschen. Sakra. I am not paying for a foolish girl's clumsy feet. I took her carved wooden flute and it stays in my apron until someone hands me the coin.
The bucket was already cracked before I touched it. Please, give it back, it is all I have of home.
Ten groschen, Johanka. You can cry until Whitsun, but the flute stays in my pocket.
Nota scribaeShe slammed a scrub brush on the table to make her point. The soap was allegedly expensive.
From drop 2026-10-26-4316967; the words set down by gemini-3.1-pro-preview on 2026-10-28.
My mother loves me. She just needs to know I am alive. Please, Matilda, send word for me.
Sakra, I am not wasting good groschen on parchment to tell your mother you broke another bucket.