6
Ladies That Laundry
I moved into the courtyard, keeping my head down. The sun was out. Gulls crying overhead. Like the others, I was dressed in magnolia. A flowing cotton dress down to my feet, where the toes of my pumps peeped out.
The courtyard was sheltered by high white walls topped with terracotta tiles. I saw a small bell tower in the far right corner.
The courtyard had a sawdust-stone floor, with four huge wooden vats in the centre. Like open barrels, only bigger and fatter, filled with soapy water.
A woman stood at one of them, wringing out a sheet.
Could it be?
It looked like her, but her long blonde hair was in the way. And I didn’t want to get my hopes up, so I moved in closer, all the time glancing around the courtyard for spying eyes.
But the guards roaming the high
