When Rosa was sure that everyone was going to get along, she cast her eyes over the tables full of hungry, tired show folk, spotted Giselle, and smiled. Since Giselle had finished eating at this point, she got up, left her dishes in the big tub of soapy water standing ready for the purpose, and joined Rosa.

“I am no mind reader, but I would risk a bet that you want a hot bath,” Rosa said, chuckling. “It was the first thing I wanted when I got here.”

“Oh, sweet Virgin, yes!” Giselle exclaimed. “And you can answer some of my questions while I soak.”

“I started the copper warming in the little tower kitchen this morning. You should have all the water you want. And wait until you see the clever things the . . . builders . . . did in that kitchen!”

By now, the sun had set, and they hurried around the courtyard in the cold as more snow began to fall. It looked as if the wooden doors had been closed on the entrance, although Giselle couldn’t tell if the portcullis was down. She wondered what Cody and the others had made of that particular facet of the abbey.

Probably they think this is a castle, and there are always iron portcullises on buildings in Germany. Certainly they had seen plenty of such things in the towns they’d played at. Almost all of them had been defensively walled towns, and most of them still had their gates and portcullises.

Now that she had the time to really look, it was evident that the dwarves had made some very important changes to the little kitchen. There was yet another iron stove, and a bread oven. There was a big copper boiler for heating water, and a real stone sink with a pump and drain, and the wooden bathtub had been given a drain in the bottom that let out into a grating in the floor. Giselle stared at that, and the drain from the sink. “They added plumbing?” she gasped.

Rosa laughed. “Yes, they did. They dug a proper cesspit for each building, including one for the stable, and built very nice conveniences for each building that don’t stink at all! They aren’t water-flushing, like the ones that the Graf has had put in, but just pour a pitcher of water down when you finish and it all goes . . . somewhere. I didn’t ask for the details. I am just happy we are not having to use latrines or garderobes.” She nodded at a little door off the kitchen that hadn’t been there before. “It’s in there, if you need it.”

“Not now. What I need is a bath. I haven’t had one since Freiburg. And I’m cutting my hair back, too. It’s not as if it isn’t going to grow again.”