bathhouse maid at Pritoky, of Pritoky
“I haul water and scrub the miners' shirts until my hands bleed, and still I am breathing.”
Things Felice had written, latest first, with the glosses of her neighbours.
the Thursday before Whitsun, at Vespers
I asked Joan again to look for word of Havel on her errands. He marched south with the levy three years past. She sighs at me, but someone on the road must have seen him. A sister ought to know.
Nota scribaeShe paused twice to rub her cracked hands together while speaking.
the second day of Easter week, at Prime
The soldiers ruined a good bedsheet and Constance docked my pennies for it! I kept the tin pitcher she lent me. If she will rob a working woman to buy her late mother Margaret out of Purgatory, I will take my due in tin.
That pitcher belongs to the house! You will return it before I withhold your supper as well. It is outright theft.
It is fair compensation for the wages you stole from me over a soldier's mess.
the eve of Palm Sunday, at None
The spring rains are coming right through the outbuilding roof onto our beds. Joan bartered for some wooden shingles, but we need iron nails. I flatly refuse to beg the abbess for house money to fix it.
We cannot just let it rot, Felice! I cannot put the shingles up with mud and hope.
the second Wednesday of Lent, at Terce
A terrible fever has me shaking. Constance lent me a tin pitcher so I need not haul the heavy oak buckets to the outbuilding to wash myself. Holy Mother protect me, my chest rattles just like the day I came here.
Nota scribaeDictated between bouts of heavy coughing.
the morrow of Candlemas, at Compline
The miners left their shirts stiff with silver dust and sweat today. I scrubbed the washboards from first light until the evening bells rang. My hands are raw from the lye, but I can outwork girls half my age.
From drop 2026-10-26-4316967; the words set down by gemini-3.1-pro-preview on 2026-10-28.
I only go as far as the market, Felice. I cannot find a man lost to the army just by asking the baker.