Mercedes Lackey - Owlsight

With reluctant steps, she made her way back through the village, to be greeted at the door with the expected, “Where have you been?” from her mother at the sink, up to her elbows in soap and water.

“Working, Mum, and studying.” She didn’t feel any guilt over that - after all, that was her job! - and although she didn’t put on a defiant air, she did face her mother’s eyes squarely.

Sidonie sighed. “Well, next time the entire village decides to celebrate something, I hope they choose someone else’s house. I’ve been here all day, and I’m beginning to think we ought to move back to the farm.”

“Well, I’d have to stay here - ” Keisha began, and her mother interrupted her.

“I know, and that’s why I haven’t said anything to your father.” Sidonie rinsed a plate and stacked it with the rest to dry. “Go clean up the yard, would you? I’ve been that busy in the house, I haven’t had time to get to it.”

Since that was a better job than washing dishes by Keisha’s way of thinking, she was perfectly happy to go back outside and take care of the tidying up.

It was rather amazing, the amount of trash people could generate. Portable fireplaces had just been tipped over and the cold coals and ashes dumped before their owners carried the fireplace home, for instance. Sticks used to toast sausages were just littered about, and bits of kindling, the odd kerchief or scarf, and a wooden cup. The village dogs had already taken care of discarded food, and what they hadn’t gobbled up, the crows had - good enough reason to put off clean-up! Keisha worked her way methodically across the yard; coals and kindling went into the Alder’s own kindling stack, ashes were scooped thriftily onto the flower border, and other folks’ belongings placed on a window ledge where the owners would presumably find them. She swept gravel back onto the path, put ornamental stones back along the border, and put the tiny plot of herb garden back to rights. Where markers had been inadvertently knocked over or flattened, she replaced them, where sticky stuff - of unknown origin - had been spilled, she dusted a little ash over it so it wouldn’t attract insects.

She’d just finished when her mother emerged, bearing a basket full of wet clothing. Sidonie thrust it into her hands and bustled back into the house without a word.

Oh, dear. I suppose she’s pretty irritated with me.

Better say nothing, then, and stay out of further trouble. She took the heavy load of clothes and set it down next to the rosemary hedge.

Sidonie had her own order of things, one that was not to be deviated from. Keisha followed that order as faithfully as any medicinal recipe. She spread shirts and underthings on the top of the hedge where the sun would bleach them; since today there was little or no breeze, there was no need to pin each garment to a branch to keep it from flying away. Stockings and breeches she pinned to the clothesline with wooden pegs her brothers carved during long winter nights - but they had to go on the section of line that would be in the sun. Anything embroidered or made with colored cloth went on the line in the shade to preserve those precious colors.

When she did her own laundry, everything went on the line, regardless, but Sidonie felt that the shirts and other white things got more sun if they were laid flat on the hedge.

Not that it would matter all that much with my clothing!

Sidonie came out twice more with baskets full of wet clothing; by the time Keisha was done, there wasn’t a single bud or stem visible on the hedge and clothing on the line had been double-pinned, two garments sharing the same space. When Keisha brought back the third basket empty, Sidonie met her at the door with the Alder’s lone bit of carpet and a brush.

No need to ask what that was for either. Keisha took it downwind of the drying laundry, out to the railings of the neighbor’s fence, and laid it over the top rail. She brushed and beat the bit of rug until no more dirt or mud would come out of it and her arms were tired.

She brought both back, and this time her mother accepted them with a smile. She smiled back, relieved. Evidently she’d performed enough penance.

“Here - go sweep up,” Sidonie told her, handing her the broom. “I seem to have all our dishes and most of our neighbors’ as well - ”

And Sidonie would never return so much as a cup if it was still soiled. Keisha ventured an opinion.

“Mum, why aren’t the boys helping you?” she asked, digging the broom into the cracks of the wooden floor to dislodge crumbs that would attract mice. “They make more than their share of mess, and it wouldn’t hurt them to help.” At Sidonie’s quizzical look, she added slyly, “And they’re stronger; they could really do a good job of scrubbing.”

“Oh, they’re such clumsy louts,” Sidonie began, but she sounded doubtful this time, and Keisha took advantage of that doubt to press her point home.

“I wouldn’t trust them to do dishes, or to wash good clothes, but they can’t hurt anything scrubbing floors and walls or washing sheets and their own clothing. Maybe if they had to scrub their own clothes, they wouldn’t be so quick to get stains all over them.”

Her mother laughed. “Isn’t that the pot saying the kettle’s black?” she asked gently.

Keisha snorted. “At least my stains come from work, not drinking wine and beer with my friends - and what’s more, I do scrub my own, I’ve never asked you to do it, not since I started this Healing business.” She warmed to her subject. “What’s more, I never get stains on my good clothes!”

“You never wear your good clothes,” Sidonie pointed out.

“Because I’d get stains on them,” she countered. “And I do wear them, just not every other day to impress some girl! I just think they’d be more careful if they knew they’d be the ones doing the work.”

This time, instead of dismissing the idea, her mother actually looked as if she was thinking about it - and thinking about the fact that half her work force was gone, and the other half - as she’d discovered this morning - was not always reliably available. “You might have a point, dear,” was all she said, but Keisha was encouraged. “Would you go pack up Shandi’s things for me? Ruven of the Fellowship says that there will be a trader for their shawls and trims coming straight from Haven and going straight back after the Faire, and he’ll take Shandi some packages, probably in exchange for her embroidery threads.”

“Then I’ll give him a little more incentive,” Keisha told her. “Shandi and I had gotten some scarlet dye; I’ll go ahead and make up some thread, you know how hard it is to get scarlet, and that should seal the bargain.”

“Oh, now that would be a help,” Sidonie replied, brightening, since as Keisha knew, the trader would probably ask for a coin or two as well, and this would save the Alder household from having to part with those hard-earned coins. “Just - try not to get your hands all red this time, dear.”

Keisha pretended she hadn’t-heard that last as she went to the back of the house to the little cubby-bedroom she shared with Shandi. After all, it had been ages since the incident when she dyed her hands with red ocher, and how was she supposed to know the stuff had to wear off? It had been her first experiment with dye for Shandi!

Shandi was so neat that it didn’t take long to make her things up into a few tightly packed packages. Keisha left her a generous supply of embroidery threads for her own use but kept out the rest to use to bargain with the trader. Shandi’s friends would just have to find another source for their threads from now on - Or they can spin their own and pay me to dye them.