Floodtide

by Heather Rose Jones

  When I opened my eyes there was a bit of light shining through the colored windows and someone had put a blanket over me. That made me sit up quick when I noticed it. One of the priests was standing there watching me. I scrambled to my feet and folded the blanket in a rush, but still neatly, like Aunt Gaita had taught me. I was too embarrassed to look up when I handed it to him and said, “Thank you, Father,” with a little curtsey, as I tried to tuck my hair under my cap and make sure it was on straight.

  “Would you like a bit of bread to break your fast?” he asked.

  Now I did look up. I wasn’t going to refuse that. Not when he looked at me so kind, like there wasn’t anything wrong with sleeping the night on a pew because you had nowhere else to go. The priest watched me while I ate. Not the sort of sharp eye that folks had given me in the plaiz last night, but like he was trying to figure me out.

  “I don’t believe I’ve seen you here before yesterday,” he began.

  I shook my head. “No, we went to Saint Churhis, up by the Plaiz Nof.”

  He nodded as if that told him something. It probably did. The Plaiz Nof was mostly big houses. Someone like me who lived there would be in service.

  “And you need work.”

  It wasn’t a question really, so I shrugged.

  “Can you read and write?”

  That was an odd thing to ask, but I nodded. “The Orisules had a grammar school back in Sain-Pol. And I can do sums—not just tallies for the laundry, but accounts and such.”

  He smiled a little at that. “Would you like a more comfortable place to sleep? There’s a place I know that helps girls like you. Before they get into trouble. You aren’t…”

  I knew exactly what sort of trouble he meant and quickly shook my head. “Thank you, Father.”

  Later that morning he led me to an old stone building—maybe as old as the palace itself. There were women and girls everywhere, that was what I first noticed. It was all girls, and I wondered if it was a convent. They were all wearing gray uniforms with white pinafores and caps, which made me think it as well, but the older women didn’t look like nuns except for the colors.

  The woman in the office where he took me was as stern as old Mollin and the office was much the same: all bare and stiff. She rose, saying, “Father Mazzu, I received your note. What have you brought me today?”

  He pushed me forward and I made a little curtsey and said, “Good morning, maisetra.” I wasn’t sure about the maisetra part because she looked so important and she might have been a mesnera instead.

  “Maisetra Nantin,” the priest said, “this is Rozild Pairmen. She’s very recently fallen on hard times and I think the Poor Scholars might keep her from falling further.”

  Maisetra Nantin looked me over with the same hard look the matron at the agency had. “Well, Rozild, if we take you in you’ll learn a good trade and make something of yourself. The Poor Scholars aren’t a workhouse or a charity. No one will force you to do the work. If you don’t do your best, you’re out the door. And if you’re going to be trouble, you aren’t in the door to begin with. Did you steal anything?”

  The question was like a slap. “No! Of course not!”

  “Don’t lie to me, girl,” she said. “Everyone in service steals something, even if it’s the dinner leftovers.”

  That wasn’t fair because the dinner leftovers belonged to the cook, so if she gave them out it wasn’t stealing. I said, “I didn’t wait at table.”

  She gave a little humph. “Are you pregnant, girl?”

  I felt my face grow hot. Father Mazzu hadn’t said it in as many words. I shook my head and looked down at the floor.

  “We’re here to keep girls out of trouble, not pull them up after they’ve fallen. So tell me: why were you dismissed?”

  If it had only been Maisetra Nantin I could have made up a story. There are lots of reasons girls get turned off. I could say I was lazy or that I’d been cheeky to the housekeeper. Maisetra Nantin might work me hard for it, but I could make her believe it. But you can’t lie to a priest. I didn’t know if what Nan and I did together would send me to hell, but I knew that lying to a priest would, even if it wasn’t in confession. And I couldn’t…I just couldn’t say it. My tongue stuck in my mouth because I didn’t even know what to say. Not in front of the two of them. All the words I knew for it sounded rude and dirty. The longer I stood there not saying anything, the worse they thought of me and the more I started shaking until there was nothing left to do but turn and run out the door and back into the street. I wasn’t back where I’d begun. Now I couldn’t even go back to Saint Nikule’s tonight.

  Chapter Two

  January 1824—Refuge

  I walked for a long time after that. I don’t remember how long or where. All I knew was if I stopped walking, I’d freeze. I forgot why it was important not to freeze. Walking made it look like I had somewhere to go. That was important, especially at night. I don’t know if it was one night or two. Probably not three. I don’t think I could have kept going that long. I stole some bread. I think they saw me but didn’t say anything. If I’d been back in Sain-Pol, I’d know how far I walked, but here it was all in circles. I didn’t dare cross the river, though I wouldn’t be noticed as much over there. That was what I was afraid of: something would happen to me and no one would notice. No one would care. But I didn’t dare stray into the upper city, so I kept close to the river.

  The next thing I remember clearly was shuffling along a narrow street as dawn turned into real daylight. I was hugging myself and looking for a place to get out of the shadows, but the street was lined with row houses and shops set too close for the sun to get through. I knew I had to move on because the shops might be opening up soon and they were too respectable for someone like me to linger there. The sort of shops where rich folks might come to buy things. I’d been sent to this sort of place on errands for the Fillerts.

  Then it hit me that I’d been sent exactly to this place. The bow windows were shuttered and you couldn’t see what was on display, but I recognized the sign above the door: Madame Dominique. I remembered what was behind that door, and it hurt almost worse than being cold and hungry. I’d been sent to the dressmaker’s shop when the maisetra’s gown needed making over and then again when the young maisetras wanted ball gowns in a hurry and the dressmaker needed extra hands for the sewing.

  Oh the colors! And the feel of the fine fabrics in my hands! Watching cloth turn into something beautiful, even though I was only doing the plain sewing. All the lace and ribbon and buttons, better than sweets and bonbons. That week had been like being in heaven, and I dreamed that maybe some day I could climb up from washing and mending to that kind of fine sewing. It came back to me now. Now that the dream was farther away than it had ever been.

  I was still standing there dreaming when the door opened and a dark-skinned girl came out to fold back the shutters on the front windows. Even if I hadn’t remembered the shop front, I wouldn’t have forgotten Mefro Dominique and her daughter Celeste. You saw a lot of different-looking people in that neighborhood. When I told Nan about Mefro Dominique, she said they were black like that because they came from the Indies and the sun was so hot there it burned you. But that was silly because I knew Celeste grew up here in Rotenek, so why should she be any darker than me?

  When I saw Celeste, I thought maybe God had given me one last chance. I grabbed at that chance as hard as I could and called out, “Mefro Celeste!”

  She turned and looked me up and down like she didn’t recognize me. Why would she? Someone who looked as cold and ragged as I did now didn’t have any business here.

  “Could I—” I could feel my teeth chattering from more than cold. “Could I speak to Mefro Dominique? To your mother?”

  “Go round the back,” she said. That and nothing more before she disappeared back inside and closed the door. I remembered Celeste had been sharp-tongued, so it was as good as an invitation.

  It took me a bit to figure out how to
get to the back door of the shop. The shops and houses all lay cheek-by-jowl along the street and it was a long block. I had to count off doors to the end of the street, then find the back alley and count again to a little gate into a yard barely big enough to turn around in. I knocked on the back door, hoping it was the right one. Celeste answered, looking too self-satisfied for a dressmaker’s daughter. Like there was no reason to send me around the back except because she could.

  “Mama!” she called out, looking back over her shoulder. “There’s a girl here wants to talk to you.”

  Celeste sounded like Nan, with that sharp, clipped way of talking that most of the working girls had, but Mefro Dominique had a soft rich foreign voice, sort of like tasting honey. She asked what I wanted. I wished she’d send her daughter out of the room. I didn’t want to have to explain everything with Celeste there, looking at me like that. But she listened when I reminded her who I was.

  “So, if you are not here on Maisetra Fillert’s business,” Mefro Dominique asked, “what may I do for you?” She said it all polite as if I were a customer and not some girl in dirty clothes begging at the back door.

  There wasn’t any point in dancing around with her. I was tired of telling half-truths so I said it plain. “I’ve been let go. I’ve been starving and freezing and I don’t know what to do. I can work. I can sew, plain or fancy, whatever you need. Or I could scrub floors, if that’s what you need. I can cook a little.” It struck me that I hadn’t seen any sign of a housekeeper or maid of all work when I’d been here before. It was a tiny place that wouldn’t need much keeping, but you’d think they’d have someone to come in. “I want to learn to be a dressmaker.”

  I heard Celeste make a rude noise, but Mefro Dominique shushed her.

  “You wish to learn to be a dressmaker,” Dominique said, looking me up and down again.

  “Yes, maisetra,” I said. I didn’t mean to call her that, but it just came out.

  She scowled. “Don’t think you can sweet-talk me by ‘maisetra’-ing me.”

  It made me wonder, because most of the fancy dressmakers were Maisetra This or Madame That. The shop sign said Madame, but I’d never heard her called anything but Mefro Dominique.

  “The thing is impossible.” Her voice was kinder now, but that didn’t help. She held up her hand and ticked off on her fingers. “First, you’re too old. Why, you must be at least seventeen, the same as my Celeste.”

  “Sixteen,” I whispered.

  “Second, the guild won’t let me take apprentices without a special license. I’m not allowed to join the guild because of being a foreigner. And who would pay your prentice fee?”

  I looked down at my feet and felt my face grow hot. I hadn’t known about all that.

  “Please,” I begged. “I need to work. I could be your cleaning girl and do sewing too. You wouldn’t have to pay me or teach me.” Maybe dressmaking had been too high a dream, but the kitchen was warm and there was a loaf of fresh bread on the table, and I thought if she threw me out I might as well go straight to the river and drown myself.

  “The guild would see a charity girl the same as an apprentice. Why did Maisetra Fillert let you go?” she asked, cutting to the heart of the matter.

  Now I really wished Celeste would go away. She’d catch me in a lie even if I could talk round her mother. But she sat there at the table, holding a cup of tea and tearing off small pieces of the loaf to eat as she watched me.

  I had to tell the truth this time. “I…” I still didn’t know how to say it. “Someone told the maisetra that my friend Nan and I…that we were doing wicked things together.”

  “Wicked things?”

  My voice was barely a whisper now. “Wicked things…in bed together.” There. I’d said it and I could see they knew what I meant. I hadn’t said I was wicked. I didn’t think I was wicked. But I hadn’t lied one way or the other. I wanted to beg and plead and promise I’d be good. I was certain Mefro Dominique was going to put me out in the street again.

  “When did you say this happened?” Her voice seemed a little softer now.

  I tried to count back the days. “I’m not sure. I’ve been walking for days and I don’t think I’ll ever be warm again.”

  She pulled out one of the chairs at the table. “Sit here and have a bite while I think what might be done. I’ll set you some work to earn your keep for a few days. Celeste, would you take up some hot water for washing and fetch our guest a nightgown.”

  Celeste gave me another one of her sharp looks, but she filled a pitcher from the kettle on the stove and disappeared into another room.

  “Now listen close, child,” Mefro Dominique said and took me by the shoulders so I had no choice but to look her in the face. “It’s not my business what you did in that other house, but it’s my business what you do in mine. My Celeste has a hard enough life before her without any nonsense like you’ve been up to. So you let her alone, do you hear me?”

  I nodded quick as I could. Then I spoiled it by yawning. Celeste came back and I tried to stand up, but my legs wobbled like a newborn calf’s.

  “Celeste, help her upstairs and put her to bed.”

  Without a word, Celeste grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the back stairs and slowly up into the room over the shop. I was limping now and shaking.

  Celeste pulled at the sleeve of my dress. “Take off those filthy clothes.”

  While I got undressed, she poured out some warm wash water into a bowl, then gave a low whistle as she handed me a wet cloth.

  “Who did that do you?”

  My leg was all purple and bruised. I tried to remember how it happened, stumbling around in the dark streets.

  She frowned and some of the bossiness fell away. “Want me to do something about it?”

  I dabbed at the dirt over the bruise with the washing cloth and winced.

  “You’re going to have to do better than that before I let you touch my sheets,” she said, all bossy again. There was only the one bed, and I know it must be the one she shared with her mother.

  “What do you mean ‘do something’?” I gritted my teeth and washed myself as clean as I could, then slipped on Celeste’s second-best nightgown.

  “I’ve got a charm for bruises. I got it from Nana Charl. It’s a good one.”

  “You can’t be a charmwife,” I said. “You aren’t old enough.” I didn’t mean household charms like what Aunt Gaita taught me, but a real charmwife.

  Celeste shrugged.

  Now that I was starting to warm up, my leg was aching something fierce. “I can’t pay.”

  “If I offered, it’s no charge. You only have to pay if you ask first.” She said it like it was a law or something. That wasn’t how the charmwives around Sain-Pol worked, but maybe Rotenek was different. Celeste went and pulled out a small wooden chest from under a table by the window. There was an erteskir—a little private shrine—set up on the table with holy pictures and a candle that she lit with a spill from the fireplace. The chest was filled with the usual sort of things charmwives sold in the market: little scraps of parchment with writing on them, bits and bobs, jars of herbs and things.

  “You sit quiet and let me work.”

  I pulled up the hem of the nightgown so my leg was bare and sat on the edge of the bed. By the light of the candle I could make out the pictures on her shrine: Mary and the Christ Child were in the middle and on one side there was Saint Mauriz with his spear and armor. I couldn’t make out the other part. Celeste took out a bit of paper—ordinary paper, not the stiff slips of parchment I’d seen—and started drawing signs and words on it while she said things quietly. They sounded like prayers, but not the ones I knew. She waved the little bit of paper until it was dry, then rummaged in another drawer for a red rag.

  “Turn this way so I can see,” she ordered. She lay the charm against the middle of the bruise and started repeating the prayers she’d said before. Three times, for each, that was the usual way of it except when it was nine.

>   I tried not to squirm. Sometimes charmwork gave me that warm feeling that made me want to touch myself—or to have Nan touch me. I remembered what Mefro Dominique had said and didn’t want Celeste carrying tales. So I said the Ave Maria to myself while she worked to keep my mind on proper things and not on Celeste’s hands on my leg as she passed the cloth around to hold the charm in place and tied it up tight.

  “There,” she said as she finished the knot. “See if it’s better when you wake up.”

  I thought I could feel it working, but maybe I was just that tired that I couldn’t feel the ache any more. I wanted to ask Celeste who she’d learned her charms from and how long it took to learn and what else she knew, but as soon as I was underneath the covers I was asleep.

  I had strange dreams. Celeste was winding me up in a cloth, but it was a shroud, not a bandage. I wanted to shout, “I’m not dead! I’m not dead!” But all she said was “Stop squirming,” in my mother’s voice. As she kept wrapping me up, I got a heavy ache in my belly, the way I sometimes do right before I start bleeding, and I worried that I’d get stains all over Mefro Dominique’s sheets and the borrowed nightgown and that Celeste would kill me. But when I woke I was tangled in the sheets, that was all.

  Chapter Three

  February 1824—Hired

  Mefro Dominique was as good as her word. She put me to work cleaning and running errands. After the first few days she set me to sewing—just plain seams, but I did them as perfect as I could. She even had me make tea for one of the customers. I’d never done parlormaid work and I knew I must be doing it all wrong, but the lady smiled at me. Whatever Celeste had done with her charms had fixed up my leg. There was barely a bit of yellow from the bruise left.