Knight in Dulled Armor

Chapter 8: Healing Hands

I once again seal myself in the storage room. The linen basket is overflowing with the many bedspreads I'll need to wash. To my surprise, it compacts easily, and not much force is needed to press everything down. Before heading out I make sure to grab my fabric detergents, tossing a couple small sealed containers in my pocket.

A strange realization hits me that I've never thought about who had been washing my own bedspreads at my estate. It was never anything I'd had to worry about. I'd get out of bed and dressed for my scheduled day of schooling and hobnobbing until I came home to fresh sheets on a made bed.

I brace my arms around the basket. "Hup," I let out, forcing the hefty object up off the ground. I shuffle my way out to the porch, trying my best to hide a slight struggle.

I leave the laundry bin just beside the tavern stairs and head out to grab two of the washtubs leaning up against the bathhouse wall. The laundry loads are prepped by adding soap and running the water over the linen clumps in the tubs that sit next to one another. As the water pours, the cloth sinks and darkens as it is drenched and drowns in the tub. I watch the glittering suds grow voluminous as the water fills and churns.

My time washing the laundry and hanging it out to dry I quickly realize is going to be spent with my mind often drifting off and snapping back to work. "So, Marietta is off the next two days, huh?" I think to myself. I wonder if Kenrik has anyone to fill her place, or if he'd limit our workload another way.

A small part of me was nervous about the idea of meeting new coworkers. I knew Hidorah wasn't the only one in the kitchen most of the time but I'd only caught glimpses now and then of a couple of unfamiliar faces through the serving window. For a moment I wonder if Hidorah knew them well, he seems to be sociable enough to know most around the tavern. My mind reaches for a thought, immediately sending a feeling of unease through my body.

"Do you think Hidorah has gossiped about me?" I ask myself. Tucking away my initial vain response of wondering what people think of me, I consider the deeper, more sinister possibilities.

If Hidorah, or anyone at the tavern for that matter, gets word out about my presence here it could lead to any number of incidents. I'm sure my family has set some kind of reward for my safe return, and I've quickly learned the type that occupies this barren wasteland. It's a miracle Val hadn't been a bounty hunter of some kind, ready to haggle for my life's worth with my parents.

I shake away the thought, looking down after I feel something wet hit my cheek and splatter over the bottom of my apron. I find myself churning the water far too erratically in my anxious state, needing to steady my breath as well. At least I can say I've ensured the clothes were clean the best I could.

My hands waste no time moving on to the next part of laundry, and my mind indulges in the free time in a more lighthearted tone than before. After I'm finished with laundry I assume I'll just be helping Marietta with tables. That shouldn't be too exhausting of a task until I finish work.

While I enjoy the thought of relaxing after work, something tells me this evening won't entail anything as... unexpected as last night with Val having left early this morning. By the time he returns in a week, I doubt he'll remember his proposition. That's considering that he was able to remember the morning after, anyway. I do my best to subdue any arising expectations. After all, I wasn't actually considering going with him, was I?

Ready to wring the laundry, I dump the water from the tub onto the dry, cracked earth. The dark liquid fills the crevices in the compact soil, being drained into and absorbed by the dirt. However, this does nothing to quench the thirst of the desert, as the ground is only wet for mere seconds before gradually evaporating and returning to its normal color.