Maggie raised a brow at Eleanor who was trying to work out how to carry both clean clothes and dirty without transferring the problems of one to the other, then held out her basket. “Pop your muddy ones in here, and we’ll get to scrubbing.”

They followed a swaggering Martha into the bath house, where Eleanor was met with a wholly unexpected wave of support and sympathy. A chorus of commiseration, advice and, forest ladies bless them all, active help, wrapped around her and the tedious task of re-washing.

As she scrubbed, Martha pulled her family’s clothes from the pipes, folded them into a basket and paused next to Eleanor’s tub. “If you ask nicely, I’m sure Cadan will take you back to town where you belong. You’re not good enough for Woodbine.”

Martha’s superior smirk put steel down Eleanor’s spine. She looked the girl over and said. “I think I’ll grow into village life. Most of the people are nice, and very good teachers.”

Martha’s expression turned ugly, but her reply was interrupted by her father walking in behind her. “If you’ve quite finished gossiping, lass, your Ma’s waiting on your help with the sweeping.”

His expression soured when he saw Eleanor, but he said nothing, and simply urged his pouting daughter into the soft dusk beyond the door.

Eleanor squeezed the clothes as best she could, and tumbled them into an empty rinsing tub, most of the others held children with screwed-up faces being scrubbed and scolded by parents wanting to start on dinner.

A clean group, banned from going outside as their mothers or fathers attended to siblings poked at each other and squabbled, then slowly, stealthily, congregated around Eleanor’s tub.

One of them, a freckle-faced urchin with hair near as scruffy as Cadan’s but of an uncertain light brown frowned. “You’re none so good with the washing, are you?”

Elanor sighed. “Would you like to show me how to do it better?”

The group brightened and clustered closer, this didn’t feel like a good idea. She eyed them suspiciously. “What?”

The boy said. “Tilly told my sister you have good stories. If we help with your wash, will you tell us one?”

Eleanor cast a slightly panicked glance at the other adults in the room. One of them called out. “So long as you don’t get in the tub with them, Daren, I don’t want to have to dry you, or your clothes, again today.”

Maggie winked at her. “Take them up on it, it’s a good trade.”

Daren added. “So long as it’s a good story.”

Eleanor straightened. “Very well, but I may need advice on what you feel is a good story. I’d hate to tell you a not good one.”

The junior negotiator looked sly. “How about you tell us one, and if it’s not good, you tell us another.”

She laughed. “I’m not completely gullible you know. I’ll tell you about the time I was at the docks in Gandry and found a boy, about your age, stowed away on one of the trade barges. Least, I thought it was a boy…”

Daren’s eyes widened and he pulled up his sleeves before plunging skinny arms into the tub. “I’m washing, start telling.”

Eleanor took a breath, then dove into the tale of Ruth – only slightly embellished – a girl who’d stolen her brother’s clothes and run away from a miserable apprenticeship to a particularly bad-tempered lace-maker in Gandry. She had to pause to explain apprenticeships and lace, but by the time she’d finished (Ingrid stayed in Gandry but became an apprentice baker) every child in the bath house was listening, and her clothes were clean if not dry.

They waved the children off with their parents and Maggie nudged her. “We need to be leaving too, so the men can come in to wash. Just hang your things to dry and if Matthew doesn’t collect them after bathing, they’ll be here in the morning for you.”

Eleanor began draping items over pipes then picked up the basket with the clothes that hadn’t tipped out. “They won’t be if Martha gets to them first.”

Maggie shook her head, piling her clothing, done and dried in the time it took Eleanor to complete her second wash, into her own basket. “Too many people saw her, heard her, and even if she’s not aware of consequences, her Pa surely is. He may not be happy, but he’ll keep her in check.”

There was a small group of men milling about outside when they emerged. Eleanor winced; they didn’t look happy. One man said. “You’re done then?”

Maggie replied. “Aye, no thanks to the help you didn’t give.”

He flushed as the other men chuckled. “Sorry Ma.”

Maggie humphed. “Tell Matthew it’s his household’s washing on the pipes if he wants to take it with him after.”

With that, she led Eleanor out of the clearing and through the forest path to the central hub of the village and Matthew and Sarah’s cottage. As they entered the main clearing, a flash of colour against the dark trees caught Eleanor’s eye. She looked again, then gasped and tried to look away. “Cockatrice!”

Maggie raised her voice. “Samuel? Samuel Westernson! Get those weasels of yours out of bed and doing their job!”

From the corner of her eye, Eleanor saw the door of Ingrid’s house open, and a tall, thin man emerged, heading for an enclosure on the side of the building with an awkward, gangly-legged gait. He reminded her of a heron trying to hurry over uneven ground.

He bent and unlatched a little gate and hissed between his teeth. “Come now, lads and lassies, hunting’s afoot and they’re starting close for you tonight.”

Five red-brown streaks with white bellies blurred across the clearing, arrowing towards the large, reptilian cockerel that had Eleanor caught in its acid yellow gaze. They barrelled into it, breaking its paralysing stare. It gave an affronted squawk and scuttled into the woods, sinuous brown bodies in pursuit. Eleanor’s breath heaved in on a sob and the man gave an apologetic wave before picking an unsteady path back into the house.

“Is that Ingrid’s husband? Who has the sore leg?”

Her companion nodded. “Aye. Not the best master for the guard weasels, for all they’re fond of him. But we’ve no one else they’ll tolerate, so he does the best he can.”

That had been the third job Sarah had mentioned, alongside healing and weaving. She found herself guiltily hoping the weasels wouldn’t like her either. She wanted nothing to do with cockatrices.

There was a trill at her feet, and she looked down to find one of the weasels staring up at her. Its brown gaze flicked over her face, before it tipped its sharp-featured head to one side, trilled again, and streaked off into the shadows. Eleanor said. “I feel like I’ve been judged and found wholly inadequate.”

Maggie waved her off with a chuckle and Eleanor staggered through the cottage door, aching to flop into the chair by the fire and simply sit. And probably fall asleep.

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