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fortunate that Elizabeth and Muriel entered through the other door at that moment. They had been to the fishmongers and Elizabeth still carried her shopping basket.
    “Whatever is going on?” she asked. “We could hear raised voices all the way to Master Scutt’s house.”
    Mother Anne, who was inclined to let Bridget have her way, now stepped in. “It will not do to have the entire neighborhood privy to our business. You will say no more, Bridget.”
    With a snarl, Bridget whirled around and stalked to the window that overlooked the street. From that vantage point she had a fine view of the back of the Cordwainers’ Hall, but I doubted she saw it. All her thoughts were turned inward. A visible tremor made her entire body vibrate as she seethed with frustration.
    “Master Petre,” Mother Anne said in the firm voice she used to correct the servants and apprentices, “I believe a compromise is in order.”
    She drew him deeper into the room and settled him in the Glastonbury chair that was Father’s favorite. Marking his flushed face and continued inability to string more than two words together at a time, she called for Ticey, another of the maids, and sent her to the kitchen for a soothing posset.
    Slowly, Master Petre regained his composure. After he had drained the goblet Ticey brought him—steeped chamomile with a few other herbs mixed in—Mother Anne informed him that he would be teaching all the daughters of the house.
    By that time, he had lost the will to argue.
    When my tiring maid arrived later that same day, Bridget’s wrath found a new target. Her name was Edith Barnard, a plump young woman who looked down her nose at the other servants in the household, especially Lucy.
    “You will also serve me,” Bridget informed her.
    Edith regarded my sister through heavy-lidded eyes that were most effective at hiding her thoughts, but she made no effort to adjust her implacable attitude. “I am here to serve Mistress Audrey,” she said, and thereafter ignored Bridget as if she had no more substance than an annoying bug.
    A quarter of an hour of such treatment and Bridget, fuming, went away. I heard her flounce down the stairs to the tailor shop. With any luck, flirting with the apprentices would put her in a better mood.
    “Your bedchamber is passing small,” Edith said when we were alone. She had already begun to reorganize my belongings, separating them from my sisters’ possessions.
    Light on her feet, Edith moved with an efficiency and sense of purpose I could not help but admire. At the same time, I found her self-confidence daunting. I had never met a maidservant who put on such airs, and it was not as if she had obvious cause to think so well of herself. She was no more than twenty years old and was afflicted with a splotchy complexion.
    “Lucy, poor thing, is slow-witted,” I ventured as Edith inspected my shifts and folded each one neatly before tucking it into a drawer in the wardrobe chest. I sat atop another of the storage chests we used for clothing, with Pocket once again nestled on my lap. It soothed me to stroke his soft fur. “We are obliged to repeat orders two or three times before she understands what it is we want. It would be a great help if you could assist her in her duties. My sisters—”
    “Indeed, I cannot, Mistress Audrey. I have been sent here to serve you and you alone.”
    That had a familiar ring to it, but Mother Anne had prevailed upon Master Petre to change his tune. I was certain I could reason with Edith.
    “What if I order you to serve them?”
    She shook her head, which was so thoroughly covered by a white coif that I could not tell what color her hair was, or even if she had any hair. She sent me a pitying look that said, plain as day, that she thought me slow-witted, too.
    “If you are here to serve me,” I said, trying again, “that means you must obey me.”
    “I must attend to your needs. And look out for you when you go to court. That is not the same