“We never had anything like this where I grew up,” said Ipis. “I don’t know where to go first.”

“Follow me and learn, little cub,” said Xilsi with a laugh. “We’re a friendly group here, most of us.”

She shaded a sneer toward Jirvy. He went aside into a private room, closing its curtains behind him.

“Coward,” muttered Xilsi.

Ipis sighed and exchanged a conspiratorially long-suffering look with Kem.

Elen said, “Isn’t Lord Genia meant to examine his wound?”

“I suppose she is, and I guess it’s best she does,” Xilsi agreed grudgingly. “In her youth, she was a surgeon in the army.”

They entered a large communal washing chamber with separate ceramic pipes for cold and hot water, a luxury not available even at the Orledder Residency. Here they stripped and handed their clothing over to menials to be brushed or cleaned overnight. Elen wondered if Kem would show any reserve in front of the others but, of course, they already knew; they’d bathed together at the Halts, so there was nothing to explain. His earlier Declaration had been recorded and sealed by the magistrate two years ago. That was all that mattered to the empire.

Xilsi chased out the menials who had remained behind to assist. They doused each other with water, laughing, and washed with scented soap. There were different fragrances and textures of soap, as if it were ordinary to have so much choice. Kem’s eyes were as big as saucers. He kept holding a particular blue-striped bar of soap to his nose.

“What is this? It’s got lavender, but something else. Usually I can tell.”

Xilsi sniffed, shrugged, then handed the soap to Ipis, who rubbed her nose and sneezed, then hastily handed it to Elen with a muttered, “Too strong for me.”

Elen inhaled, and was struck by the hammer of a memory. A hot night when she and Ao had found a secret trove of uncollected bitternuts, that they’d hidden by twisting the nuts into the hems of their hand-me-down tunics. Later, at night, they’d secretly ground down the bitternuts for their nourishing oil. They’d never been caught, although it was a crime to possess them. All had to be turned over to the master, since the oil was valuable.

“Are you all right?” Kem said anxiously.

They were all staring at her as if her face had melted. But as the shock wore off, the situation struck her as funny: all of them naked, dripping, consumed by an interest in soap.

She handed the soap back to Kem and was about to say she couldn’t place the scent when he said, combatively, “You recognize it. I can tell.”

Xilsi looked between Elen and Kem, curious at the interplay.

“It’s bitternut oil,” said Elen. “It doesn’t grow in Orledder Intendancy, only farther north. But it’s rare.”