Blanche frowned. “I’ve seen it done,” she said. “And I’m a fine sewer by trade—none better.”

“Boil the thread and fire the needle,” Nell said. “I seen that part in Morea.”

Three minutes later, it was done. Nell looked at the neat, even stitches with something like reverence.

Blanche also looked pleased. “Never sewn flesh afore,” she said. “Yech. What a day. That boy—your husband?” she asked.

Nell laughed. “Lover,” she said. “I want to be a knight, like Sauce, not a baby maker.”

Blanche gave a little cough. Her shock must have shown. Nell shrugged. “In the company, you do what you like as long as you don’t make waves. I never been treated like I am here. Almost like I was a man.”

Blanche grinned. “I don’t want to be treated like a man,” she said, and giggled despite her fatigue.

Nell managed a giggle, too. “Not like that, silly,” she said. Then shrugged, no doubt thinking of Oak Pew. “Unless that’s what suits you. All the captain cares about is work and fighting. There really ain’t no other rules.”

“Aren’t any other rules,” Blanche said. She smiled in apology. “Sorry, my ma was a daemon for words. Don’t you have any women—no offence—in this company?”

Nell shrugged. “There’s some. You meet Sukey?”

Blanche nodded. “Dark hair—brought all the sheets.”

“She couldn’t stay because she’s in charge of everyone’s billets. Like an officer. Her mother’s the head woman of the whole company. Course, her mother’s a sorceress, too. And a seamstress.” Nell sat back. “Mag does near everything. She knows all the songs, too.” She looked down at her arm, which Blanche was patting with a hot, wet rag.

Blanche took a strip of clean, dry linen, looked at it critically, and put it down to wash her hands.

“You have a boy?” Nell asked.

“No,” Blanche admitted.

“No boy?” Nell asked. It seemed terrible to her.

Blanche smiled. “I’m no better than I ought to be, as my mother would say with a sniff. I’ve had a few boys. But at the palace, it makes trouble if you do aught more than flirt with staff, and out in the streets—” She pursed her lips. “There’s a host of apprentices would like to have me. But I’m not ready to be caught.” She laughed.

She wrapped Nell’s arm quickly, and a little too tight.

“Where are you going to sleep?” Nell asked.

“Right here, on the floor,” Blanche said. She began putting the filthy linen into the nice clean boiling water, as if she was the lowest laundry girl back at the palace.

Nell shook her head. “We have straw pallets and blankets and all proper—”

Blanche laughed at the idea that a straw pallet and a blanket was proper.