***

I’m so glad I managed to finish washing the sheets in time!

Standing before the maids with Arnold’s attendant Oliver at her side, Rishe was panicking on the inside. She’d had so much to do this morning that she’d put off the laundry to the last minute. She took deep, controlled breaths, praying no one would notice that she’d raced here at a dead sprint.

Oliver was none the wiser as he spoke to the assembled girls. Rishe took the opportunity to look them over. She locked eyes with Elsie, who was gaping at her. It was a nice change—usually her face was as blank as a rock wall.

I’m sorry for the deception. I figured blending in would give me the best picture of your working conditions.

The new maids wore similarly shocked expressions, while others watched her with delight. Meanwhile, the veterans, including Diana, had all gone pale. They trembled, stunned into silence. One seemed locked in a terrifying trance, while another looked on the verge of tears. All of them had spoken to Rishe with derision. As the ringleader, Diana was covering her mouth with both hands, like she was holding in a scream.

Oliver had finished his introduction. “Your Highness, if you would?”

Rishe stepped forward. “First, I must apologize to you for what has transpired prior to this meeting. My deception, that is. However, it has granted me insight into how each one of you works.”

Oliver’s face creased in confusion. The newcomer maids began to panic, whispering among themselves.

“Doesn’t this mean that she helped us out with the laundry?”

“We’re going to be fired!”

“If I lose my position, my brother will have to quit school!”

Noticing the commotion, Oliver glanced at Rishe. “Your Highness, two-thirds of these maids are newly recruited from the city. Since the majority of the castle maids were elderly, His Highness assumed you would prefer maids closer in age to yourself.”

Rishe was startled. Shehadfound it odd that most of her potential servants were new hires, but she hadn’t expected this to be the reason.

“While the prince has entrusted the selection of your maids to you,” Oliver went on. “Hiring someone with no experience will not do. Despite Prince Arnold’s views, I urge you to reject the newcomers.”

“Oliver.”

“I have a list of their names here. Elsie—”

“Elsie, Nichole, Hilde, Marguerite, Rosa.” Rishe began listing the names of the newly recruited maids. She’d made a point to memorize them in the washhouse. “Elke, Amelia, and—”

Oliver looked at her wildly. “You know them all?! Even though they’ve never served you in the past?”

“Yes, of course I do. Servants are essential to the maintenance of our lifestyle, why wouldn’t I get to know them?” Rishe listed the remaining names for good measure. “All twenty of you, listen to me.”

The new maids stiffened. Diana and the other maids whose names hadn’t been called were getting their wind back, wearing increasingly triumphant looks.

Rishe said, “The twenty names I just called will be my maids.”

Time seemed to stand still a moment, and then Oliver broke in with an astonished, “B-but, my lady! They are all inexperienced—”

“Yes. And my palace will be the perfect place to learn.”

The new recruits were completely speechless, unsure of exactly what was happening.

Rishe smiled at Elsie. “I hope you’ll serve me well, Elsie.”

Elsie was still frozen in place. “Huh? Y-yes, my lady, but—”

A shaking Diana cried out, “But why, my lady?! You’ve seen their work! They’re useless, the lot of them! The rest of us get so much more done in a shorter amount of time!”

“Watch your tongue, girl,” Oliver said sharply.

Diana ignored him. “We’re hard workers! Any job you assign us, we can do it! Please, I beg you, my lady!”

“Step back,” Oliver warned. “Do not take a single step closer to Lady Rishe.”

Diana spoke in a rush, words pouring out of her. “I-I freely admit that I was impolite before, but I didn’t know who she was! I’ll take any punishment, so please, give me the chance to show you how well I can work!”

Rishe said, “Diana, I have a request.”

“Th-thank you, my lady!” Diana heaved a sigh of relief. “You mean you’ll—”

Rishe cut across her. “As of today, you are no longer a maid in this palace.”

“What?” Her face, usually so fixed with determination, paled. “But why? I’m so much better than any of them! I’ll do a perfect job no matter what task you set before me. Please don’t dismiss me, my lady!”

“Listen to me, Diana.” Rishe dropped her lofty tone, speaking as one woman would to another. “You have noticed it, haven’t you? No matter what you claim, these new girls aren’t worthless.”

“I…I don’t understand.”

“Can you remember your first month in service? How difficult it was?”

Diana looked completely bewildered. Her gaze darted around as if looking for help.

Pulling herself together, she forced herself to follow Rishe’s directions. She thought back and finally alighted on a response. “I…I didn’t know how to do the job. Before, when my family was still prominent, I’d washed shirts and bedsheets. Never gowns or military uniforms.”

“Perfectly reasonable,” Rishe said. “Only natural for someone just starting out.”

“The older girls were so busy, they told me to just watch them since they didn’t have time to teach me. When I had questions…well, there was nobody to ask.”

“I bet. And did you have any other problems?”

“Well, yes. There was a lot to learn. Different kinds of soap and washboards depending on the cloth. You use different tools for different materials. I had to learn how they worked and how to put them away. I was…punished if I didn’t get it right the first time.”

The newcomers were exchanging surprised looks. Rishe understood why.

Everything Diana said was familiar to them. They spent valuable time searching for their materials and the proper ways to use them, but they shrank from asking for help. Everyone always looked so busy. This was a universal problem.

“Despite all that, I got better!” Diana protested. “I only needed to be taught once. Unlike them! They’re useless!”

“Yes, well. There’s a difference between you and them,” Rishe told Diana. “You can read and write.”

“Oh!” Diana started in surprise. Elsie looked at the floor.

The literacy rate among commoners was low no matter where you went. Very few families had the means to afford an education, especially for daughters. Diana had been born to a merchant’s family—she’d received formal schooling. The maids she was close friends with were likely from similar backgrounds. The majority of those in service were not so fortunate.

“What if you only received instructions on how to do a job once and weren’t able to write it down to remind yourself later?” Rishe asked. “Would you be so confident?”

“I-I don’t—” Diana reflexively thrust a hand into her apron pocket, where she had a list of daily tasks recorded in her neat handwriting to reference throughout the day. Hopefully now she would understand how much of an edge her privileged literacy gave her over the other maids.

“Everyone else works as hard as they can, just like you do,” Rishe said. “Remember how it was for you at first? They all have to start somewhere. I hope you’ll keep that in mind.”

“They’re no different from me,” Diana mumbled begrudgingly, glancing around the room, looking at the less experienced maids. As if coming to a decision, she said, “I’m sorry.”

“Diana?”

Like a child enumerating her regrets, Diana went on, “I’ve done you wrong, all of you. It’s just, I had nothing. Or so it felt like. No money, no title. I thought I had to make my way in the world on my own. That I had to start from zero.” Her shoulders trembled as she buried her face in her hands. “But I was wrong! I wasn’t starting from zero. I had everything that I learned growing up. I didn’t realize how fortunate I was. I let it all go to my head.” Her voice rose to a wail. “How could I have said all of those terrible things?! Even though you were all working so hard—trying your best even while feeling as helpless as I did all those years ago. I should have understood what you were going through. A-and I failed you.”

“Oh, Diana…”

“I’m sorry,” Diana sobbed. “I’m so, so sorry.”

The new maids stared at her, stunned. But then they clustered around her.

“It’s okay, Diana. We’re sorry for not being faster learners.”

“My lady, please reconsider! Diana scared us, but she’s always flawless with her work. And that goes for the other maids with more experience than us too.”

“It’s fine.” Diana scrubbed at her eyes. “It makes sense she wants nothing to do with us. Don’t beg—”

“Diana.” Rishe smiled and held out her hand. “Didn’t I say that I had a request?”

“Huh?”

“I don’t want you as a maid. I want you as an instructor.”

A murmur rose among the maids. Even Oliver looked surprised.

“I want the inexperienced maids to come to this palace to learn. And not just by observation alone—with thorough demonstrations and explanations. Come up with a system to allow girls to ask their questions, to perform the tasks again and again until they learn them. And once they have all they need, they’ll be promoted to work in the main palace for the royal family.”

Rishe recognized these problems—they were rampant the world over. Those with work didn’t have the time to train those who were new to the same work, rendering the amateurs stranded at sea, forced to learn on their own or quit before they even had a chance. If only someone had sat them down to teach them what they needed to know. When you learned from observation rather than foundational skills, mistakes were more far more likely.

If the palace couldn’t afford the staff or the time to train its servants properly, Rishe would take it upon herself.

“You can’t lose a skill once you’ve acquired it, whether that be reading and writing, how to do a job, or how toteacha job. Knowledge is a weapon you can wield wherever you go, not just here. You can apply your new skills elsewhere—wherever you want.”

The maids listened to Rishe, wonder in their eyes.

“That’s why I’ll be taking the twenty newcomers as my maids. Diana, you and your friends shall teach them. You’ll be their tutors.”

“Their tutors, my lady?”

“I would like all my maids to be able to read and write. One hour of study a day should be sufficient. You and your friends will be their teachers. I expect you to come up with materials for them as well as a handbook for new maids.”

Diana was utterly stunned. “You want us to teach reading and writing? And…and write a book?”

She could never have imagined this sort of opportunity. Rishe drew something from her breast pocket. It was one of Diana’s pages of notes. “I took a look at this.”

“Where did you get that?”

Rishe ignored the question. She didn’t want to say she’d specifically joined the maids this morning to swipe it. “Your handwriting is neat, and your steps are logical and succinct. You have a gift for transcription. I believe you’ll make an excellent teacher.”

Diana’s cheeks flushed. “You would praise me so? After all of those rude things I said to you?”

“Hah! I have no idea what you mean.”

Diana bit her lip and took Rishe’s outstretched hand, then bowed deeply. “I will do my utmost to live up to your faith in me. Thank you.”

“Excellent.” Rishe turned to Elsie and the other new maids. “As for the rest of you, you’ll have your hands full with your new duties. Let me know if you have any problems or find the workload too taxing.”

“Yes, my lady!”

And thus came about the formation of Lady Rishe’s School for Wayward Maids.