building. She kept well out of their way, but out of curiosity, decided to go into the door in the east wing for a moment to see just what had been done there.
When she got inside, it looked like nothing so much as a stable for humans. Which, now that she thought about it, was a very good way to organize things. Most of the showfolk were used to sleeping either out in the open or several to a tent, and really didn’t have much thought for privacy. This was a good way to give them each a little room to themselves, while at the same time making the most of the space available.
It was a single large room with a fine—huge!—iron stove at one end. At the other, of course, was the stone wall of the tunnel that went beneath the second floor. Presumably the second floor looked just like this one, but twice as big. Along each wall and down the middle were something like rows of wooden horse-stalls: plain wood reaching about seven feet high, seven feet long, and five feet wide. Each of the “stalls” contained a wooden “box” bed full of hay attached to one side, and a small table with a holder for a candle on it at the back of the stall. Some of the beds already had bedrolls and packs on them. It seemed like a very good plan for housing a lot of men in rough comfort. The stove would heat the entire room efficiently, and if the fellows didn’t like the loose hay-beds, they could always sew up their own straw or hay mattresses. And meanwhile the hay certainly made a better bed than the cold, hard ground.
She decided to forego any further inspection until after she had gotten back into her own room to see if any changes had been made there. She could see a doorway at the end of this room, but rather than get in anyone’s way, she decided to use the courtyard to reach the tower instead.
She was relieved to see that nothing important in the tower had changed. There was still the small kitchen on the first floor and the library on the second, although there seemed to be some changes to the kitchen she didn’t trouble to examine for now. Rosa had made only the minimal addition of her own bed and some chests with her belongings on the third floor. It looked as if there was an iron stove on the hearth instead of the inefficient fireplace And on the fourth floor . . .
Everything was exactly as she had left it. With a single exception. There was another of those marvelous iron stoves. Someone had started a fire in it, and the room was delightfully warm.
I am going get some hot water very soon and have a real bath. There had been plenty of opportunities to get a good all-over wash in streams and springs when they had camped, of course, and she had taken them. And of course she could do a basin-wash in her vardo. But it had been . . . well, far too long since she had had a real, long, hot, soaking bath. And she had a wonderful old bathtub down there in the kitchen.
I’ll bet that Rosa’s used it too.
Someone had made up her bed with fresh sheets and blankets; the faint scent of lavender hung all about the bed. She tossed her new eiderdown on it, put her bags down beside it and decided to first go see about some food.
She went straight to the west wing, where Rosa had told her the kitchen was; this was when she noticed that with the exception of the east wing, which had two ground floor doors in it, all the wings had one door into the courtyard, set right into the middle of the wing. And sure enough, when she walked in the west wing door, there it was, a kitchen big enough and efficient enough to gladden the heart of the most exacting cook, in the north half of it, and benches and tables already full of hungry show folk in the south half. Presiding over it all was . . . a woman she didn’t recognize. She had grey hair braided and wrapped on the top of her head and wore a black dirndl, white blouse and apron, and a black shawl cross-wrapped and tied at her waist. Her face was round, with merry