The narrow corridor between the linen press and the washroom stayed colder than the rest of the upper story, even with both hearth fires banked for the night. A thin skim of river mist crept beneath the north sill, carrying the raw smell of alder mud and soaking gravel from the lower wharf where the West Quay timber booms held back the flood debris.
Jon stood in the shadow of the doorway, his pulse slow and even against his ribs. He did not step out into the hallway. Across the hemlock boards, young Bren had reached the threshold of the office, his fingers trembling on the brass latch. The scout’s breath came in ragged, wheezing gasps that sounded like a pair of bellows with a split seam.
Then the wooden door of the washroom swung open.
Elin had not stayed on the straw pallet. She moved without the heavy scuff common to town women who spent their days in heavy skirts. She wore her gray wool work dress, the sleeves pinned up past her elbows with brass bodkins, carrying a heavy stave-bound wooden basin half-filled with cold lye-water. She had risen to rinse the linen strips she kept soaking for Nell’s ear-ache, moving by memory through the dark she had scrubbed every day for ten years.
