31 Monstrous Regiment by Pratchett Terry

Author:Pratchett, Terry [Terry, Pratchett,]
Format: epub
Published: 2010-04-10T22:08:33.233000+00:00

It was womens work, and therefore monotonous, backbreaking and social. It had been a long time since Polly had got her hands in a washtub, and the ones here were long wooden troughs, where twenty women could work at once. Arms on either side of her squeezed and pummelled, wrung out garments and slapped them into the rinsing trough behind them. Polly joined in, and listened to the buzz of conversation around her. It was gossip, but bits of information floated in it like bubbles in the washtub. A couple of guards had taken liberties - that is, more than had already been taken - and had apparently been flogged for it. This caused much comment along the tub. Apparently some big milord from Ankh-Morpork was in charge of things and had ordered it. He was some kind of wizard, said the woman opposite. They said he could see things happening everywhere, and lived on raw meat. They said he had secret eyes. Of course, everyone knew that that city was the home of Abominations. Polly, industriously rubbing a shirt on a washboard, thought about this. And thought ^bout a lowland buzzard in this upland country, and some creature so fast and stealthy that it was only a suggestion of shadow . . . She took a spell on the copper boilers, ramming the stewing garments under the bubbling surface, and noted that in this place without weapons of any sort she was using a heavy stick about three feet long. She enjoyed the work, in a dumb kind of way. Her muscles did all the necessary thinking, leaving her brain free. No one knew for sure that the Duchess was dead. It more or less didnt matter. But Polly was sure of one thing. The Duchess had been a woman. Just a woman, not a goddess. Oh, people prayed to her in the hope that their pleas would be gift-wrapped and sent on to Nuggan, but that gave her no right to mess with the heads of people like Wazzer, who had enough trouble as it was. Gods could do miracles, Duchesses posed for pictures. Out of the corner of her eye Polly saw a line of women taking large baskets from a platform at the end of the room and stepping out through another doorway. She dragged Igorina away from the wash trough and told her to join them. And notice everything! she added. Yes, corp, said Igorina. Because I know one thing, said Polly, waving at the piles of damp linen, and its that this lot will need the breeze . . . She went back to work, occasionally joining in the chatter for the look of the thing. It wasnt hard. The washerwomen kept away from some subjects, particularly ones like husbands and sons. But Polly picked up clues here and there. Some were in the keep. Some were probably dead. Some were out there, somewhere. Some of the older women wore the Motherhood Medal, awarded to women whose sons had died for Borogravia.

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