Maud Venn smelled of coarse lye soap, clean cold water. The clear, earthy stone scent of heavy clay slip that never entirely left the pores of her forearms.
She had scrubbed her skin until her hands were raw and pink. But the grey clay was still embedded in the fine creases around her knuckles and beneath her short, blunt fingernails. She had changed into a clean, dry woolen over-vest, its pewter buttons fastened neatly to the throat. She held a folded square of raw, unwhitened drying linen in her hands, slowly wringing it between her fingers. She walked into the pool of lantern light.
She didn’t look at the tea mugs or the dressing scissors. She walked straight to the long pine table, stepped between Paxa and Yseld without asking their leave. Then she looked down at the freshly inked conditions along the margin of the Hushwood canvas.
“You have six days of my cooperative’s silver written down here, Paxa Sel,” Maud said, her voice quiet, steady, and gravel-rough from the kiln fumes. “And two supply depots that will cost eighteen jars of our best glazed butter pots to stock with dry meal and smoked salt. If my daughter is going to spend our winter reserve on northern mud, I want to hear the truth of what she thinks she’s doing. No songs. No guild recitations about moving mountains. Tell me what happens when you step past the last turnip field.”
