Repentance looked at the rolled up material above the suncloths. Oh. Night covers. She wouldn't have slept, anyway.
"But all is well this morning," the maid continued, happily. "You will break fast every day in your room, my Lady," Generosity said, shaking a napkin out and laying it on Repentance's lap. "Provocation instructed me to tell you."
Repentance looked at the girl, trying to focus on what she'd said. Break fast every day in her room? She wasn't going to swing?
"And you are to lunch in the kitchen with Provocation and Skoch," Generosity continued. "You are to be there at noon." She paused, frowning. "Are you ill, my Lady?"
"I didn't sleep well."
"I'd better tell Provocation. She said I was to teach you how to take down the suncloths and wash them." She stopped smiling then and gave Repentance a hard look. "I may be speaking as a fool, but I have to say it's an easier punishment than you deserve. What would possess you to call the king a warthog? And him being so good to all his servants."
"What's an easier punishment than I deserve?"
"Washing the suncloths on the whole fifth floor. You'll have to do them on your own, and it will take a year at least. I'm sorry about—In truth, you do not look well. I'd better tell Provocation."
"No! I'm fine. I want to work." Thank Providence! She was to remain in the palace. The boys were safe for the time being and there was still a chance that the king would save Comfort. She was going to do nothing to jeopardize that. She threw back her covers and climbed out of bed.
Generosity provided her with a work smock—one with a big pocket in the front, like the maids wore—and showed her how to take the suncloths from the walls without burning her fingers. A yak bladder filled with water and lavacloth gloves were the only tools needed. The cloths were frozen directly to the wall at the two top corners. One squirt from a pinhole in the bladder melted the ice tack for a split second—just long enough to pull the corner of the fabric away from the wall.
Hanging the cloths back up was done in the same manner. Squirt the corner of the suncloth and stick it up quickly where it would freeze-dry to the wall immediately. During the reattachment process the lavacloth gloves were of the most importance, Generosity explained. They kept fingers from being burned or frozen to the wall.
"When I arrived at the palace I saw maids hanging suncloths downstairs," Repentance said. "Do they get dirty fast? How often do they need to be washed?"
"Those maids weren't washing the cloths," Generosity said. "They were moving them from inner rooms to outer rooms."
"Why would they do that?"
"To enliven them," Generosity answered. "They draw their light from the sun, so they must be in the rooms with windows every three days. They are rotated on schedule."
So that's why she'd never seen suncloths at the healing house. There was no sun there to enliven them.
"None of the cloths up here on the fifth floor need rotation," Generosity continued. "They are all in rooms with windows."
Repentance looked out the windows on one side of the room in which they worked and saw that the fifth floor was made up of a ring of rooms. In the center of the ring was a courtyard, built on the fourth-floor roof, which was carpeted in lavacloth. And in that courtyard were settees, and stuffed chairs, and tables. There were also evergreen trees in big pots, and fanciful ice sculptures—dragons and goats and rabbits and squirrels, all scampering among the trees and furniture. Repentance had never seen anything so lovely.
Once she had the suncloths down in one room, Generosity took Repentance to the washroom in back of the kitchen downstairs. A vat that was as big as her washtub back home sat over a fire pit. Boiling water roiled inside the vat, pouring out steam.
Generosity taught her how to wash the cloth, using a paddle to stir it in the vat and then to flip it from the boiling water into a basket, which sat on the floor. From there she took it to the drying rack in the back of the washroom.
And then, with many apologies and much good will, Generosity left Repentance to wash the rest of the cloth herself.
She set to work with earnest, stirring her wash loads, heaving them from the water, and dragging them to the drying rack.
Hunched over the boiling water, she could almost imagine she was back home in the swamp. The windows were open but the work was still hot, and mist rose, engulfing her as she stirred with the long wooden paddle.
Backing away for a quick break in the middle of her fifth load, she wiped her damp brow with the hem of her work smock. She sighed and stretched her aching shoulder muscles. The work was hard. And she had a year of it stretching before her. But at least she got to smell the cool air, which came in from the windows. And she was alive. That was something. And she still might save Comfort.
Digging the paddle back into the vat, she began to wrestle the heavy panel of cloth from the water. Halfway through the process she heard a familiar voice.
"When I prayed for fog to hide you from your enemies, I'd no idea I'd get a literal answer."
Sober!
Balancing her loaded paddle on the edge of the vat, Repentance turned to look.
It was Sober.
"I almost didn't see you under all this mist," he said. "How fortunate that I was raised in Hot Springs and can see
