The dyehouse is downwind of every other building, but its location does little to diffuse its smell. The building is squat and dark and windowless. Its roof is pierced with chimneys, like arrows sticking out of Saint Sebastian’s chest. The air around it is soaked in the moist, acrid stench of dyestuff, lye and urine. After a day’s work, I’ll carry that same stench, and everyone who walks within ten feet of me will know I have again incurred an Elder’s wrath.
The work is hard, the hours are long; the dying is no easy task. Pilgrims, still wan and weak-legged from their voyage across the ocean, must bring their garments to be dyed black before they can become citizens of God’s kingdom here on Earth. In so doing, the Elders say, they obliterate the sin of pride, and come into the kingdom humble as penitents.
In the dyehouse, we submerge the aristocrat’s bright velvets and the pauper’s faded woolens into the same steaming, stinking tub of boiling water and ammonia which we have distilled from urine and some other sources. We stew the garments longer than a tough cut of meat, until the threads are weak enough to accept the dye. The dying takes time, but we will wait. Within the wall, time is something we do not lack.
Once the garments have been soaked and softened, we submerge them in a vat of black dyestuff laced with arsenic to help the color stick. We stir this pot for hours before it is time to remove the sodden mass of black clothes. The dye makes our hands rough and gray. The arsenic makes our skin pale and our bodies weak.
There is no punishment worse than the dyehouse, save the tannery and the distillery where our chemicals are made. But that work is heavy and hard—the men labor with their coats removed and sleeves rolled back. I have been told that the sight of men working at such labors would be not purify my soul, but cast me deeper into sin. We women are weak, and must be protected from such sights. Thank goodness. Read the rest of this entry »
