Owlsight

By now, I’ll bet Shandi is probably wishing she waited long enough to gather up her work basket! she thought with a chuckle. I’ve never seen her sitting down without something to work on in her hands. Well, there ought to be at least one trader from Haven here at the Faire; I’ll box up all her handiwork and send it off to her with him. With luck, I may be able to send her some scarlet thread as well.

Would she be lonely, all by herself in a little way-station? Probably not; she’d have the Companion, after all, and everyone knew that Companions and Heralds had a special bond that was as close as anything two humans could have. I wonder if she can Mindspeak to him? I wonder what that would be like? Marvelous, but maybe a little scary; at least, that’s what she thought it might be like for her.

Did Shandi miss Keisha? I certainly miss her already. Brothers just aren‘t the same as sisters. It was hard to think of what things would be like without her. . . .

She found herself nodding over her work, so she folded the blouse pieces carefully, putting them away in her work basket and stowing everything on the shelf beside her bed. She blew out her candle, and curled up -

 - and even as she wondered if Shandi was awake or dreaming, she fell asleep.

Two

Morning broke clear and cool, with shreds of fog drifting above the fields and birds singing with all their hearts in the thatch of Keisha’s roof. The faint hint of wood smoke mingled with fresh air laden with the perfume of spring flowers and the tang of new leaves - normally she woke to the odor of cooking porridge or pancakes. Keisha’s nose, which was all that was peeking out from under the covers, was cold; she preferred to sleep with a window open. The birds woke her, and her cold nose twitched at the unaccustomed aromas; all the rest she saw from the small open window in her loft-bedroom.

She stretched luxuriously and snuggled underneath her down comforter and blankets, enjoying the simple pleasure of lying abed for as long as she cared to. Had she been at home this morning, she’d have been rudely jarred awake before dawn by the noise of five clumsy young men stumbling about the house, getting fed and ready to go to work. They couldn’t seem to accomplish this simple task without a great deal of hunting for boots and clothing, accompanied by shouting questions to each other concerning the location of those articles. Once awake, there was no point in even trying to go back to sleep, since Sidonie would come roust Keisha out to help with household chores before she joined her husband and sons on the farm.

Instead of being jolted awake, Keisha had been serenaded awake, and after dawn, not before. Instead of being hauled off to wash dishes - or, dear gods, pick up after last night’s enormous party - she had enjoyed absolutely undisturbed sleep.

Of course, the penalty for this is that I have to make my own breakfast and heat my own wash water, but I think that’s a fair trade. Given that Shandi was gone, there would have been twice the work to do on a normal morning, and after the celebration last night, well, the amount of cleaning up didn’t bear thinking about. And would Sidonie even consider taking care of the cleanup gradually, say, by putting off things like floor washing and yard cleanup for a few days? Not a chance.

Sidonie would insist that it all be done at once. Well, with neither Shandi nor Keisha there, maybe she’d finally get the boys to do their own share of the work - after all, each one of them made more mess than Shandi and Keisha put together.

It certainly wouldn‘t hurt them to start taking care of themselves. Maybe they’d start being more careful if they had to take care of the consequences of their own laziness.

That was a satisfying thought.

Well, what have I got left here to wear? How long ago did I bring things over? She took a quick mental inventory; since the last time she’d brought in cleaned smocks and breeches, she hadn’t had any major injuries to deal with, so all three outfits were still here. Good.

She always kept at least one spare outfit here in case she got particularly bloodied; Sidonie had an aversion to seeing her daughter come in with bloodstains on her clothing, though she had no such problem with the same stains on her sons. Why was that? Sidonie had no fear of blood; she’d been born and raised on a farm. She was a farmer’s wife, and the spillage of blood was part of farm life. Besides, women weren’t exactly strangers to blood themselves.

She sat up a little more and wrapped one of her blankets around her shoulders. As she propped her knees up, one possibility came to her.

You know, it occurs to me that Mum’s problem is less with bloodstains and more with the notion that it isn‘t ladylike for a girl to do things that would get her hands bloodied on a regular basis. I mean, even at slaughtering time, Mum doesn’t get into the butchering until the carcasses have been bled out and gutted.

That brought up some new things to think about; with Shandi gone, Sidonie would only have one female child to concentrate on rather than two. Now, that meant more than simply having the number of domestic helpers halved. Shandi had been as dainty and ladylike as her mother could have wished, relieving Keisha of the need to be either of those things. Now, though -