She listened to the Angelus bell, put down the basket, made the sign of the cross and recited her Ave Maria. As she stroked the beads of her rosary she felt how the wood, once carefully carved and polished, had become raw and sticky.

"... ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen."

She sighed as she picked up the basket again and descended the slippery stairs down to the canal. Above her brown traces could be seen against the wall. More than once she had asked the lord of the house to relocate the bog; said that it were his own clothes she had to wash, and that there was hardly any current at this corner. Yet he had told her to do what he paid her for. The rich obviously weren't interested in what went on below them, along the canals and in the tunnels.

If the lord wanted his clothes washed in his own pee, then so it'd be. There were worse things to worry about, especially now that the town was besieged.

The maid put down the basket, took out her master's shirt and plunged in the water.

Was it her imagination, or was the level lower than usually? She looked at the moss sticking to the bricks and saw that apart from the usual lines there was a new one which indicated where the water had been yesterday.

She washed the clothes and carried the basket back to the house. Maarten was waiting for her at the kitchen door. Of course he was...

" Won't you wash my clothes instead?", he asked.

" In the master's pee? With all pleasure, dear. Don't you have duty today?"

" I have been up on the wall all night."

" Is it really as bad as they say?"

" Considering the number of fires I could see in the fields, there must be tens of thousands of them, but I don't think they stand a chance against us. They tried it twice before, didn't they? No Hollander can ever take this city."

" I'm still a bit scared. They may not take us by force, but what if this siege continues? I've heard they already built fortresses and walls."

" It won't. They have built their little camps and strongholds around us, but I think they won't last if the Spanish return. It's said that the king sent forty thousand soldiers to rid us of the heretics."

" Really? Forty thousand?"

" And we have our walls and the rivers. I bet the Hollanders can't even get their cannons through the marshes. Nothing to be afraid of."

" And there's one more thing... You patrolling up on those walls. What if a sniper would shoot you down?"

" Do you think a sniper dares to come that near? He would get stuck in the mud and be shot before he can even load his gun. No sweetheart, there's not the slightest danger. Just a little inconvenience."

The maid nodded and carried the laundry inside. If Maarten said so, it had to be true. He knew a lot more about warfare than she did. Besides he was probably right: The Marsh Dragon had held itself against the Hollanders more than once. The walls were more than fifteen feet high and crossing the swamps with horses and cannons was nearly impossible.

She had forgotten all about the water's low level...