TWENTY-SEVEN
The goose girl felt something drip onto her face. She glanced up, expecting rain, but all she saw was the red-painted gate with a horse head hanging beneath it. As she watched, a large drop of blood detached from the head and splattered to the cobbles by her feet. Something landed in her hair and when she touched it, her fingers came away red. Nothing made sense to the goose girl; this least of all.
Herding geese, hanging horses from gates, wearing a scratchy brown robe, sleeping on a straw pallet that she was certain contained fleas...she longed for a hot bath, big enough to immerse herself in to scrub off all the filth. The thought was gone as quickly as it had come, for how would a peasant girl who tended to geese ever receive the luxury of a hot bath? She bathed with a
