Danica’s washhouse serves the village because a village of two hundred cannot afford to wash its own linen — the fuel alone would be ruinous. Danica lost her husband in the same disaster that took Nikolai and three others, and the loss made her a widow and also, quietly, the village’s information broker. She washes anything anyone brings her, at prices set on a sliding scale she keeps in her head. She does not ask what the stains are. She does remember what they were. The two apprentice girls in the corner are Krezk refugees Danica took in three winters ago; they know things about Krezk that would matter to the Church, if the Church were listening.

The washhouse door is always open — the steam demands it. Inside the air is thick and hot and smells of lye. Danica looks up from the boiling copper. Two girls in the corner do not.

Sensory

• Lye, wet linen, coal-fire
• Steam so thick the interior always looks foggy
• Someone always crying quietly in the back — never the same someone