Miriam had expected the mattress in the corner, but the star design quilt surprised her. So did the orange and yellow chrysanthemum petals scattered over the dirt floor.

She had been tortured here. The roughly hewn oak table, now covered with a white knitted cloth, had a knothole in the upper right corner. They had bound her body to the wood in the vulnerable spread eagle position, favored by torturers for centuries. She had had no room to squirm to change the knothole’s position, just enough slack to grind it into her shoulder when her body convulsed in pain.

A crisscrossing of rafters held up the thatched roof. Strands of cut ivy now twined around them prettily, but she had stared at the bare beams for hours while her jaw muscles screamed for release from the unrelenting pressure of a steel bit jammed against the hinges of her mouth. As the hours passed, the rafters became bars of a cage that would never open. Palmetto bugs scampering in and out of the thatching taunted her with freedom won by insignificance.

She had stood on the dirt floor, where the petals lay now. They strung her arms over her head and tied her to those rafters so that they could poke pins in every place, their avid, lecherous eyes crawling over her body. Sweat had poured off her skin, turning the dirt floor to mud.

They finally found the numb place they sought, over her heart. By that time, she was numb everywhere. Miriam thought she should have died hours ago from the utter horror of it all. Perhaps she had already died, and these were the minions of Hell assigned to torment her soul for eternity.

The bucket they had forced her to use in front of them - it was that or soil herself – was still in the room. She saw the wooden curve of it behind a blanket curtain now strung in the corner. That surprised her, too. The bucket had been cleaned well; she did not smell it at all.

There were other changes, new details. Four pillar candles stood on an upside down crate next to the mattress. The aroma of the dried lavender mixed in the wax mingled with the smell of fresh bread and cheese sitting on a bread board next to them.

Grady watched her take it all in. In size, he was what she expected of a jailer. His farming life made him a strong, solid man. His linen shirt was clean, as were his trousers, and he had shaved since she had seen him this morning.

He had brought her breakfast without a hint of their plan, giving away nothing that would excite the suspicion of the day guard, a self important miller’s son who watched over her with gawky brutishness. He liked to brandish his rusted flint at her when she took her daily turn outside. Miriam didn’t fool herself that the judges intended compassion with the daily exercise. It was a warning to the giggling children and tight-lipped women who watched her shuffle about in the heavy irons. Do not go outside the flock, for the wolves will get you.

Of course, the judges were the wolves. They just laid the blame on Satan. No wonder that horned gentleman was always depicted in a foul mood. Miriam was in no fine spirit herself, being blamed for the ill that befell others because of their own vices.

“I wish it could be elsewhere, Mistress,” Grady murmured, “But I thought the changes might help you think of it differently.”

“So I’d act differently?” she asked, more sharply than she intended.

“No.” He shook his head and went to the fireplace to stoke the fire. When he was done, he looked at her over his shoulder, a long searching look that seemed to want to ask something. Grady was approaching forty. He had a big nose, callused by a hot forge. He served as the town blacksmith when he wasn’t farming his land. He had made the irons she wore now.

He wasn’t given to wearing a hat, she remembered, which explained the bronze tips of his brown hair, showing streaks of silver. The ends were uneven, suggesting he had attempted the job of cutting it himself. His thick eyebrows sloped down to the outer corner of his eyes, giving him a constantly kind, somewhat sad look. Simple, strong features. He had a nice mouth, the lips slightly curved, the chin cut well. Curly brown hair covered his forearms, revealed by the rolled up sleeves of the linen shirt. There was a sweat stain on his back, but it was a cool night. He was nervous.

Grady rose, went to what Miriam had assumed was another bench, and pulled the burlap covering away. The trough beneath released a cloud of steam. A stool drawn up next to the trough held a cake of soap, several cloths cut from old clothes, and a brush.

So he wanted her clean, then; fair enough. She hadn’t expected a common man to be particular about the cleanliness of a woman he intended to bed, but then the past fortnight had given her a broadened education on men. Their physical needs were as unpredictable as women’s emotional ones.

Miriam tightened her chin. Suffering was a purge; it stripped everything from one’s mind except brutal honesty. She could be bitter, but her eyes still clung to the bath greedily. Two nights ago, she had sobbed in her cell, a palm tightly clapped over her mouth so no one could hear. She wept not because she might be sentenced to hang, but because she would die filthy.

Whatever the morrow brought, she would face it clean. The judges preferred it the opposite way; filthy on the outside, as they believed a woman to be on the inside. By giving her the gift of this bath, Grady risked much, and he was not a stupid man.