The morning after we finished the lockable storage room, the maid brought me the page recording her wages.
In the previous chapter, I had written down the quantities and damage for the cargo we took in, and moved the place where we stored wet boxes. The inn had turned invisible responsibility into locks and records.
But the wages of the people who worked there were still invisible.
“This is my wages.”
The maid held out an old sheet of paper.
It said she had worked for ten days, and listed ten meals and one old cloak.
The cash column was blank.
“So the meals and cloak count as payment?”
“That’s what I’ve always been told.”
“How much were those meals actually worth?”
The maid didn’t answer. I thought she couldn’t.
Things paid in kind could be held in your hands. But unless you set a price, they could become either wages or debt.
Maren poked her head out of the kitchen.
“I thought I was paying you for the work you did.”
“Thinking you paid me doesn’t tell us how much money I have left in my hands.”
I placed the wages page on the table.
“Today, we’re going to count the ten days.”
The maid clutched the paper.
“Did I do something wrong?”
“What was wrong was that we didn’t write down the form the payment took.”
This wasn’t about blaming the person who worked. Meals, a bed, clothing, and cash all had to be separated so we could see what each one was worth.
The gap this time wasn’t whether the maid’s wages were high or low.
It was that no one could see how much had been paid.
When the maid set the paper on the table, kitchen soot stained her fingers. The marks of her daily work remained, but there were no marks of the money she had received.
I tapped the blank cash column with my finger.
“A blank isn’t the same as zero. It only means we haven’t decided whether it was paid or not.”
The maid worked from morning until night.
Cleaning the guest rooms. Changing the horses’ water. Washing dishes in the kitchen. Every day, she took on the work Maren couldn’t manage alone.
And yet the wages page only said “one meal.”
I laid out the ten days of work, one day at a time.
The days she finished the morning cleaning, the days she changed the horses’ water, the days she washed the evening dishes. We could write down the number of tasks, but no one had written down the number of payments.
The maid stared at the empty columns, knitting her brows again and again.
Four denari a day. That was based on a worker’s daily wage. I wasn’t saying the maid’s work was the same as a worker’s. It was simply a marker, so we wouldn’t invent the value of a day spent at the inn out of thin air.
Forty denari for ten days.
Maren drew a sharp breath.
“We can’t afford to pay that much at this inn.”
“That’s why we separate payment in kind from cash.”
A meal was half a denari. Five denari for ten days.
If she used an empty room on nights when she worked, she could sleep there. Since it wasn’t a room sold to guests, we’d list it as two denari in her wages.
The old cloak was worth ten denari. But the sleeve was torn, and it would need repairs before it could be used in winter.
“Is this cloak really worth ten denari?” the maid asked.
“After deducting the cloth and labor needed to mend the tear, it’s worth four denari.”
Maren looked at the cloak.
“I thought it was worth ten denari.”
“What you think it’s worth and what it’s worth to use aren’t the same.”
If you wrote down too high a value for payment in kind, it looked as if you’d paid. But even if the maid sold the cloak in town, she wouldn’t get ten denari for it.
The cash column had been left blank while meals and old clothes were simply added up. That made it impossible to tell whether the amount was too little or too much.
I turned the paper over.
“For these ten days, it’s five denari for meals, two denari for a bed, and four denari for the cloak. That comes to eleven denari.”
“That leaves twenty-nine denari.”
The maid’s voice grew quiet.
“We need to pay twenty-nine denari in cash.”
Maren looked back and forth between the ledger and the inn’s money pouch.
The money owed hadn’t vanished because it hadn’t been written down.
It simply hadn’t remained in the maid’s hands.
I went farther back through the old wages pages.
Thirty days since the maid had started working. Thirty meals, thirty nights in a bed, and one old set of clothes.
The cash column was blank again.
Fifteen denari for meals. Six denari for the bed. Even if we valued the old clothes at four denari, the total was only twenty-five denari.
If we counted thirty days at four denari a day, that came to one hundred twenty denari, leaving ninety-five denari unpaid.
We couldn’t pay the whole amount today. That was why, at the very least, we would settle today’s ten days today.
“The same amount is still owed for the previous thirty days.”
The maid stared at the paper.
“I thought I was fine because I’d been given clothes.”
“If you need clothes, there’s nothing wrong with receiving them. But the price of the clothes has to be decided by both the person receiving them and the person paying.”
I turned the cloak’s sleeve inside out.
Two of the seams had come undone. It would take a day to repair.
If a worker’s daily wage was four denari, the labor alone was worth four denari. Even if we wrote ten denari for the cloak itself, its usable value fell to four denari.
“From now on, we’ll set the value of payment in kind on the day it’s received.”
“What about meals?”
“Half a denari each. We’ll also write down what was served.”
“And the bed?”
“Two denari for one night when you’re working.”
Maren looked troubled.
“If we use the inn’s rooms for wages, there’ll be days we can’t put guests in them.”
“We’ll use them only on nights when they’re empty. If a guest comes, we’ll convert it into another form of payment.”
Payment in kind seemed convenient, but it hid the price.
I wrote forty denari for the ten days, then listed five for meals, two for the bed, and four for the cloak beneath it.
Twenty-nine denari remaining.
The cash we could pay today was six denari.
The shortfall of twenty-three denari would be divided into six denari every five days, with the final three days paid as five denari.
“We’ll give you cash every five days, without fail.”
“What if the inn doesn’t have enough money?”
“We’ll set it aside from the horse fees first,” Maren said.
The innkeeper had decided the order of payments herself.
I put the six denari into a separate little pouch.
This pouch wouldn’t be used for anything except wages.
I wrote “maid’s wages” on the pouch’s tie. If we used it for kitchen purchases, we’d just have to search for another reason the cash had disappeared.
Every evening, we would check the inn’s earnings to see whether we could keep up the payments every five days.
That afternoon, six horses entered the stable.
Horse fees: sixty denari. Oats: eighteen denari. Dry straw: twenty-four denari. Eighteen denari remained.
Six of those denari were set aside as the maid’s cash wages.
Maren counted the copper coins one by one.
“Six denari. This is for today.”
The maid didn’t take them right away.
“Really? They’re for me?”
“Of the twenty-nine denari remaining from the ten days, six denari are for today.”
I wrote five denari for meals, two for the bed, four for the cloak, and six in cash on the wages page.
Six denari in cash. For the first time, a number other than a blank appeared on the nameless maid’s wage line.
The maid cupped the copper coins in both hands.
“They’re heavy.”
“They’re six denari.”
“No. I didn’t realize money left in my hands could feel this heavy.”
Maren lowered her head slightly.
“Until now, I thought feeding you meant you had enough.”
“Food is necessary. But food alone can’t buy you shoes.”
The maid looked at Tina’s new shoes. Shoes bought for four denari. Unlike the cloak paid in kind, coins could be exchanged for whatever she wanted.
“What are you going to buy with those six denari?”
“I haven’t decided yet.”
The maid put the coins into her pouch one by one.
“I’m happy I get to leave that decision open.”
Payment in kind decided what you needed before you had a say. Cash left you time to choose.
The next day, the maid opened the wages page on her own.
“Today’s meal is half a denari. I’m not using a bed. Cash will be six denari over the next five days.”
“That’s correct.”
The days worked and the things received now appeared together on the same page.
Five days later, four horses came in. Horse fees: forty denari. Oats: twelve denari. Straw: sixteen denari. Twelve denari remained.
Six of those denari went to the maid.
Her total cash came to twelve denari. Seventeen denari remained unpaid.
The remaining seventeen denari wouldn’t be filled in with meals or beds. We would earn the cash over the next five days and carry it onto the next page.
Maren put the little pouch on the top shelf. If anyone used it without permission, it would be the same as stealing the maid’s wages.
“I couldn’t write the ledger, so that’s why it got confusing.”
“Leaving it unclear is the gap.”
“Then I’ll read it from now on.”
The maid took the paper and traced the half-denari meal line with her finger. The numbers explained her day.
The amount hadn’t decreased. Where it was going had become visible.
That day, the maid left the inn and went into town.
In the evening, she returned with a small cloth bundle in her hand.
Inside were a needle and thread.
“I’ll mend the cloak myself. I’ll save the rest until winter.”
The cash had become a pair of hands making repairs and a future left intact.
The maid’s ten days came to five denari for meals, two for the bed, four for the cloak, and twenty-nine denari in cash.
Twelve of the cash had been paid in two installments. The remaining seventeen denari carried over to the next wages page.
Payment in kind had its value, and cash had its amount. When written separately, the money that vanished from someone’s hands became visible.
The maid began sewing the cloak’s sleeve with the needle and thread.
A blank wasn’t proof that the maid hadn’t worked. It was proof that after counting the days she had worked, we hadn’t separated what she had received.
From now on, the cash pouch would sit beside the wages page.
Meals filled the stomach, and cash let you choose what you needed. The two couldn’t be made into one.
The maid held up the sleeve after finishing the repairs. The hole in the cloak had grown smaller, and the twelve denari in her hands hadn’t disappeared.
On the next payday, the cash column wouldn’t be left blank.
The steam from the meals and the weight of the copper coins. The maid’s work was beginning to come back to her in two different forms.
The next gap I would examine was the ale served at the inn.
We were buying a country brew at city prices. The number of barrels was the same, but the amount we paid had doubled.
I looked at the empty barrels lined up in the back of the kitchen.