Jenny: Quiet Morning

"Mm che!" the Guttersnipe protested as she hurled herself out of bed. Teeth chattering, she stood upon her thin sheepskin rug and dug through her trunk for her clothing. Over her best cloth gown - the one of rich dark red - she clasped her belt, then dragged her surcoat of brindled deerskin over her head, hauling her larger belt on over that to keep it close. She put her feet in her rabbit-skin boots, ran her fingers through her hair, shoved up the mass of it with a single pin of silver, and made her way hurriedly to the kitchen where Portia would be making a batch of lambs'-wool to drink. Because she was so small, she was never allowed much of the drink, but the smooth apple-tasting beverage, warm and frothy, was to her the drink of every autumn.

She found Domitia in the kitchen on the stool by the oven, curled up like a cat. On Lord's days, anything that could be made beforehand was made the previous night; only the bread was baked in the morning, eaten in companionable quiet before service in the cloister. She pulled up a stool alongside Domitia, took a piece of bread and a mug of lambs'-wool, and said, "It is so gloriously quiet this morning. And so chilly! You can smell autumn." The kitchen cat leapt up on her lap and circled while she held her drink and breakfast high out of reach. She turned to Domitia. "Not that it really matters, but what do you think of Gaius' teaching? People say he is young - people outside of the valley - but I do not think he is. I have not heard a better teacher."