บท 14: RAGS

While the supervisor was busy with his crazy thoughts and ideas, I was being introduced to the three women that had been summoned from the worker's camp. The three women were the first worker women I had met after coming to this world. The rest had been the servants from the palace or the nobles.

Their appearance though not shocking, but it surely was a bit disturbing for me. The servants I had seen until now had all worn proper clothes at least, but the women in front of me were in clothes that could have very well been rags. It was only now that it struck me how the poor clothed themselves and how vast was the difference between the nobles and their entourage.

In the era that I had grown up in, clothes were one of the most basic necessities that was cheaply fulfilled. Due to industrialization, manufacturing of clothes had turned from a tedious job at the weaving mill to a simple machine press. This had led to significantly cheaper clothes, albeit of a lower quality, but still readily available for people from all walks of life.

This era however was one were making of clothes from either cloth, jute or silk was hard, tedious and expensive. Cloth merchants were the elite and rich and the varieties were limited. The people in this era did not buy new clothes for every occasion, they did not wear something new for different occasions.

Even the nobles were not so extravagant that they did not repeat their clothes. Only a king or people of similar standings were in a position that they would indulge themselves in clothes on their whims.

The women were wearing rags according to me but from the way everyone else including the captain looked towards them made me realize that my concept of clothing and theirs was totally different. To them this was how the women dressed and as long they had enough to cover up it was fine. I did not have much knowledge regarding the loom and the way to industrialize it, so I knew that I cannot change this in short term on a large enough scale and therefore decided to let it go for now.

The captain left them standing with the seven other workers and came to stand by my side again. The women who were now standing in front of me were easy to distinguish. While two of them stood a bit hunched and frightened, the third was standing upright and curious.

From what Bhima had conveyed there was only women in the entire workers camp who had been bold enough to even stand against the supervisor and nobles on their mistreatment towards the women of the camp. Only such woman would dare to stand straight in front of the crown prince of their kingdom while being a mere worker.

The thing that surprised me about Adishri was not the fact that she stood straight without fear in her bearings, or that she stood up to the nobles for her fellow women workers, as I had read enough history of the world to know that most women were capable of much more bravery than most glorified warriors in times of harm to what they cherished. The trait that surprised me was her age and curiosity.

From what I had heard of her, her feats, her acts and her standing among the workers, I had just assumed that the women I would be meeting would be a wizened middle-aged woman with an aura of fierceness that screamed that the owner had faced the countless cruelty of the world and now knew the way to tread this while protecting and caring for the new ones who had yet to understand the full extent of cruelty the world was capable of throwing towards those who were less fortunate.

The woman I was now seeing in front of me with curiosity in her eyes was but a twenty- to twenty-five-year-old. She too was in the almost same rags as the other women, but the way she carried it would make the observer believe that the ones she wore was better than the rest of the workers including the males.

Adishri was no doubt a bit malnourished and weak when compared to the servants I had seen in the palace but she was fuller of energy that they were. Here complexion proved that she had been working under the bright sun for more than the need for a woman her age, but the features of her face were nonetheless prominently striking.

I had no doubt that if she was born in a mediocre family, she would have grown up to be a beauty.

Seeing me just stare, Adishri could not help but ask the captain whether something was wrong with me. The captain's nudge finally took me out of my thoughts and I was reminded that I was still present among people and I should not blank out.

I asked them for their introductions and they did a brief one.

While I could see it on their faces, the women did not ask me on my purpose to call them here. I began by telling them to give their opinions on their camp and what they thought was overlooked in the day-to-day workings. I also asked them to list out areas and problems that they could use my help with.

While I knew by now that they would not give an answer and assure me that they were very satisfied in the fear that this was a trick and as soon as they showed discontent they would be punished. I still wanted to see if someone would at least be brave to list out one thing. To my pleasure, I got more than what I had wished for.

As soon as I had asked my question the two women who were clearly much older than Adishri, turned towards her and shook their heads frantically. I understood that they feared that this naive fearless girl would open her loud mouth once again and anger another noble, but unlike previous times when they were of a very low standing, I was the prince of the kingdom and my anger could easily spell deaths or worse on not just them but their peers and family.

Adishri however just smiled and did not pay any more attention towards them but instead took a step forward. This small step caused the face of the other two women and the most of the male workers to go a bit paler.

I looked towards her and gestured for her to continue.