“Oh the soap and the suds wash all the dirt away,
Leaving the shirts so nice and clean!
The sun is warm and bright today,
The perfect day to do laundry...!”
Today’s sky was a beautiful, clear blue — it really was perfect weather for doing the laundry. I rubbed the soap into the dirty clothes laid out on the washboard, then scrubbed them vigorously against the ridges to get the dirt out. Seeing one after the other turn clean and white was such a wonderful feeling!
Looking at the next piece of clothing, I sighed. “This one is going to need Soap, isn’t it?”
No one answered — I was working alone in the back courtyard of Arldat Castle. The uniform I held was covered with a massive blue stain, and no amount of hand washing was going to get that out. Under the bright sun, the blue stain had an oily feel to it, nothing like the clear blue sky overhead. Just one look told me that this wasn’t dye; something sticky and viscous had stained the uniform.
I focused on the stain. “Soap!”
At my incantation, a flurry of rainbow-colored soap bubbles floated up out of the stained uniform. The bubbles enveloped the stain, which faded as if they were drawing it into themselves. Then they floated up into the sky, shimmering with all the colors of the rainbow. The stained uniform returned to its original crisp gray color. As the rainbow-sheened soap bubbles danced lightly under the blue sky, I couldn’t help but smile at their beauty. I never got tired of seeing this scene. I mean, it was just so pretty! That beloved blue sky, with my magic floating under it. As the soap bubbles drifted upwards, they sparkled in the sunlight like jewels.
“Now I just need to hang these up to dry!”
The tub was piled high with freshly cleaned laundry. With a huff, I heaved it up, and then left the chilly washing area and set off for the sunny spot where the clotheslines were. Getting around the big castle while carrying a heavy laundry tub was no easy task.
Now, with your permission, I would like to introduce myself.
I am Lucia Arca, sixteen years old. My chestnut-colored hair reaches to my back, with a slight wave to it, and my eyes are a violet color so dark that they look black. My height is average, neither short nor tall. Likewise, I’m not exactly well-endowed or slender. At most, I’m maybe a little bit curvier in the chest than most. Even my face is unremarkable. Just an ordinary person wearing everyday clothing. That’s me, Lucia.
If my eye color were just a little lighter, then at least you could tell that they were violet! But at a glance, they just look black, which makes me feel even plainer.
When my only family, my mother, died a few months ago, I left my familiar home of Hasawes behind and set off to make a fresh start in the royal capital of Arldat. Thanks to an acquaintance, I’m now making use of my special talent, working as a laundrymaid in the castle!
Why would I do that, you ask? Well...I have debts to pay. Mostly from buying medicine for my mother. I’d done my best to ease the cost by gathering medicinal herbs on my own, even from far away. But even so, it was never quite enough. With my mother’s life on the line, we’d had no choice but to pay however we could, even if it meant going into debt. But now that she was gone, I was left with enough debts that even selling my childhood home wasn’t enough to repay them all. Which, well, led me to working as a live-in laundrymaid.
Even a commoner such as myself could get a job as a laundrymaid washing dirty clothes or a kitchen assistant helping the head cook. Of course, there was no way you could get a job as a servant in the royal castle without references. But in my case, one of my long-dead father’s acquaintances referred me. There happened to be an opening for a laundrymaid! Laundry is hard work, so it’s not a popular job even among the servants. So I was able to get a job.
Next step, to pay back those debts!
Ah yes, about that “special talent” I mentioned...
Have you ever heard of a magic called Soap? No? You haven’t? Well, that’s not too surprising. I’ve never heard of it anywhere else, either. It might seem incredibly special, that an ordinary person like myself has a magic that only I can use, but...it’s not, really. My Soap is simply a magic that creates soap bubbles.
It’s only good for children’s games? Yes, when I was small I thought the same thing. Soap may be rather dull, but if I cast it on something dirty, then hey presto! The soap bubbles gather around the dirty part, no matter what it is, and clean it away. So it only makes sense that I would get a job as a laundrymaid, don’t you think? So my days are full of laundry. It is tiring work, but it’s very satisfying, so I actually enjoy it!
And now I’d reached the clotheslines. There were several places where you could wash clothes in the castle, but the back courtyard, which was in the sun most of the day, was the only place where you could hang them to dry. It was very large, because it was used not just by the laundrymaids attached to the knights, where I worked, but all the laundrymaids who worked on the regular laundry generated by daily life in the castle.
As an aside, the laundresses who worked for the royal family didn’t use the courtyard, they used clotheslines on the castle roof. Unlike we servant laundrymaids, the maids who handled the royal family’s clothes were lower-ranking attendants with references from noble families. So naturally, they used different washing places and clotheslines.
Now then, let’s get these clothes onto the line!
The clothesline was strung a little higher than I was tall. Piece by piece, I draped the items from my heavily-laden tub over the line and secured them with clothespins. It was a clear day, with a breeze. They would surely dry in no time.
“And...finished!”
Right now, it was early spring, at the transition between the windy month of Ventose and the sprouting season of Germinal. Although there were still plenty of cold days, the sunlight was warm. I’d gotten cold washing the laundry in the shade, but I could feel myself warming up again — especially since hanging the laundry made for quite a bit of exercise. Wiping the sweat from my forehead, I picked up the empty laundry tub. Five fully loaded tubs’ worth of laundry was now all on the line, flapping in the breeze. Oh, that’s satisfying!
“Look at you, all hard at work, Lucia!”
“Chicca!”