Needle in the Blood by Sarah Bower

nun’s habit, with a girdle to match from which Margaret has a thread box hanging. “Sister Jean never tires of telling us that art is the master here. Apparently it’s not our skills as needlewomen, nor hers as designer, nor even the earl’s as…whatever he’s good at.”
    Looting , thinks Gytha, killing, imposing curfews, inflicting floggings, bundling defenceless, grief-stricken widows into carts and packing them off into oblivion. Not art, not the beautiful images pinned to the walls outside.
    “It’s all art,” continues Margaret. “Come on now, before the water gets cold. The others will be here in a minute.”
    “Others?” Gytha has pulled off her dress and, her clothes being so wet, her shift has come with it, leaving her naked. She bows her head, shaking her hair forward so it covers her breasts, notices her garters, stiff with water, have left livid wheals in the pads of flesh just above her knees. “What others?”
    “Oh, some of the others who stay here. There are some local women who embroider vestments and things for Saint Augustine’s, but the rest live here, in the castle. Alwys is coming, and Emma who’s…well, you’ll see, and Judith. She’s a thegn’s widow and never lets us forget it. We sleep in this dormitory.”
    “Like nuns yourselves.”
    “Sister Jean seems to have very particular views about us sharing beds, but we do when it gets so cold you’d rather be kicked all night than freeze. Would you like me to wash your hair for you?”
    The water is hot enough to make her gasp as she slides into it, sitting a little gingerly on the crossbench, and to bring out goosebumps on the parts of her back and shoulders that remain exposed. Steam envelops her, warm tongues of water lap her aching backside, and the tender skin on the backs of her thighs chafed by the saddle. Her toes tingle as the blood begins to flow back into them.
    She tips back her head to wet her hair. “Why not?”
    “You have such lovely hair.” Margaret kneads Gytha’s scalp with camomile and thyme until she feels as though a new skin is being pulled over her head. “I wish mine was straight.”
    “Nettle is good for straightening hair. Pound it into a paste, comb it through, and leave it overnight.” Gytha closes her eyes, surrenders herself to the pummelling, to the soothing gurgle of water and smells of the herbs blending with woodsmoke and hot copper. Even when she hears the door open again, and the rustle of floor rushes disturbed by several pairs of feet, she feels too lazy to be curious.
    “I’m just rinsing her hair,” says Margaret to the newcomers, “then we’ll get her dry and dressed.”
    “I’m not an invalid,” says Gytha idly. “I can dress myself.”
    “It’s just something we like to do,” says a strange voice, “to help make you one of us.”
    Gytha bridles at the imperious tone. She sits up straight and opens her eyes.
    The speaker is taking clothes out of the linen chest at the foot of Gytha’s bed and laying them out. Gytha notices that her own small bundle of possessions has been relegated to the floor and her old clothes handed to the servant, Leofgeat, who is even now pushing them into the fire with a long poker, grumbling that the cloak is too wet to burn properly. A pile of towels has been placed beside the tub. Gytha signals impatiently to Margaret to hand her one, which she wraps around her hair, and another, with which she covers herself as she steps out of the tub.
    “How can you know that I want to be one of you?” she asks. “Or that you want me to? You know nothing about me. And why is she burning my clothes? I never said anyone could burn my clothes.” Unaware of how she looks, with her hair scraped back from the strong upward sweep of her cheekbones and her dark brows arched, she feels foolish and powerless, clad only in a towel and smaller than the rest of them.
    “Well, you’re here, aren’t you?” The older woman straightens up, having completed her