The maisetra’s armin, Marken, reminded me of my father. Papa never got in fights or arguments at the tavern, but he once made a vicious dog back down simply by staring at it. I figured Marken would be like that. He’d never even need to draw his sword. He’d just stare at you until you felt foolish and stopped what you were doing. That was the sort of protection Maisetra Sovitre needed: someone to keep silly men out of her way so she could get her work done.
Then there was Maistir Chamering—the downstairs folk called him Maistir Brandel like he was only a boy. He was the baroness’s cousin, and he wasn’t an armin for anyone yet. He was still learning. Because he was family, he lived upstairs.
Tavit was a lot younger than Marken and didn’t look much older than Maistir Brandel unless you looked at his eyes. There was something all tight and fierce inside him, like a wildcat you mistook for the neighbor’s tabby until it turned on you. That’s how Tavit made me feel when I bumped into him in dark hallways. Especially if he was all got up for working. It was like, if he picked up his sword he suddenly got even more quiet and watchful and he looked at you like he wanted a reason to stab you. Maybe that was what the baroness needed him for, because everyone was still talking about how he’d had to kill a man for her in a duel at the New Year. The last thing I ever wanted was to have him look at me like that.
* * *
I hadn’t realized how long it had been since that awful day Mefro Mollin threw me onto the street until quarter day came around and I lined up with all the rest to be paid. It wasn’t a full quarter’s worth, of course, and half-pay at that because of the apprenticeship. But there would be something to send back with my father to Sain-Pol, even after keeping a bit for myself. Those of us who didn’t wait on the family direct got an extra half-day off with a strong scolding from Ponivin, the butler, that we weren’t to buy drink or anything else that would bring disrepute. He said that very solemnly like in a sermon: bring disrepute.
No fear of that, because it was little enough for me to hand over. I thought of my brothers and sisters and how hard my parents worked to keep food on the table. I’d been the one picked to come to the city for wages and here I was sending back half what I’d promised. I couldn’t even tell Papa about how close I’d come to having nothing.
Two of the other girls were meeting family at the Lady Day Fair the same as me and we spent the first part of our half-day walking across town out past the west edge of the city. Lots of country folks from out that way came to sell and meet family in the city, if they could get away. We went in a group because people knew it was quarter day and it was safer that way. I found Papa in the same place as last quarter and hugged him so tight I didn’t think I’d ever let go. It was like everything that had happened in Rotenek was somewhere else in a story. Not that I wanted to go back to Sain-Pol, but it was familiar-like. I didn’t have to think about who I was.
“Oh, Rozild, my love, you’re so tall!” he said.
I laughed, because that was what Papa always said when he saw me, even back when I was staying with Aunt Gaita and he saw me every Sunday. And then he asked if I was well and I told him the parts that I wanted him to know and handed over my pay.
“It isn’t as much because of the ’prentice fee, but some of that will come back to me when my contract’s done,” I told him before he could count it up for himself. “And when I’m a dressmaker myself, there’ll be more.”
He nodded and slipped it into his bag, then took me by the shoulders like he did when he wanted to say something he thought was important.
“Don’t you worry about that, Roz. You send us what you can, but save a bit to set yourself up some day. Or to get married. Look to your future. That’s what we sent you here for.”
After that we didn’t talk about money. I stayed until it was starting to get dark and the other girls and I put our pockets together to hire a lantern-boy to see us back across the city to Tiporsel House. Then thoughts of Sain-Pol faded away for another quarter.
* * *
When I first started working at Tiporsel House I thought the mending was mostly going to be linens because that was what was piled up in the work baskets. But that was because no one else had paid any mind to the sheets and napkins. As Mother always said, what’s everyone’s job is no one’s job.
Mending for the family always came first. I dreamed about being called upstairs to fix a hem on a gown when one of the ladies was dressing to go out. That had never happened yet, but it made me feel important to think that it might.
Maisetra Pertinek’s maid was always giving me bits of this and that to mend, and when she found out I was learning dressmaking, she gave me an old gown to make over. I don’t think Maisetra Pertinek bought new ones very often. I took the gown off to Mefro Dominique’s so she could teach me all the tricks of making it look new again.
Maitelen, who did for Maisetra Sovitre and the baroness, didn’t send much work my way. She was jealous of her duties. I could tell from how she talked that she was a country girl like me and hadn’t been trained up strict as a lady’s maid. But someone like her you wanted on your side. I was always careful to call her Mefro Finnil and not Maitelen like the others did.
The mending for the men of the family was little things like frayed shirt cuffs and maybe a torn coat lining. They’d send things back to the tailor for anything else. Next after them was the uniforms for the household folk, and one of the things I worked on at Mefro Dominique’s was women’s uniforms for the next clothing day.
People might leave the work in my mending baskets or say, “There’s a petticoat on Maisetra Pertinek’s bed with a torn ruffle,” or “Can you see if you can get that wine spot out of the mesnera’s blue gown? It’s on the chair in the dressing room.” I loved having a reason to go upstairs and see the beautiful parts of the house without feeling like I was gawking. I might get a glimpse of the family and their guests, though I was supposed to make sure they didn’t notice me. That was how I saw the baroness going out with her riding breeches and sword, looking like a hero in one of the cheap novels we passed around in secret. Charsintek wasn’t against us reading when we weren’t on duty, but she thought novels were vulgar.
Eventually I did see Maisetra Talarico, the woman that Celeste had told me about—at least I figured it must be her unless there was more than one black lady that came visiting at Tiporsel House. Once, when I went to fetch a cushion from the parlor to see if I could get an ink stain out of it, I saw Maistir Brandel leaving by the front door with an older boy. Sikipirt, who was footman on duty, told me it was Princess Elisebet’s son Aukustin. Princess Elisebet was the dowager princess—the old prince’s widow—and no one knew whether it would be Aukustin or Princess Anna’s son who would be prince next. That was the closest I’d ever been to royalty and it made me grin.
I was used to being sent into parts of the house where I didn’t usually belong to fetch things that needed mending. That was how it happened with Tavit’s shirt. One morning the common room was all agog about the duel he’d fought the day before when the baroness had been at the palace. Hannek, one of the grooms, had seen it all. The baroness had come back furious, he said. And we’d seen Tavit afterward all quiet-like. He didn’t say anything about the duel, but he never talked about that sort of thing. So we were all hanging on Hannek as he described it for us, waving his arms like a sword.
“The other man makes a sudden lunge like this!” He turned to me. “Roz, there’s a torn sleeve Tavit’ll need those fine stitches of yours in.”
I gasped. “Was he hurt?”
Hannek scoffed. “Not him! He won, didn’t he? Duel’s to first blood, not to first linen.” He poked at my shoulder. “Tavit got him right there, and that was that. So long as Tavit stands by our baroness, you’ll never have to worry about getting blood stains out!”
I knew Tavit was upstairs somewhere—Hannek had waited to tell the story until he was out of hearing—but I figured I’d fetch the shirt and have it fixed before he even thought to a
sk.
If his door had been closed, I don’t think I would have had the nerve to knock. You know how it is when you’re so certain of something but you’re still afraid you’re wrong? I knew I’d seen Tavit go upstairs, but we were told over and over that you don’t disturb the armins when they’re sleeping. It was cracked open a little, so I called out hello, then went in.
My candle wasn’t enough to see by. The room was small and didn’t have much in it: the bed and a washstand, a wardrobe, and a low box along one wall that looked like a sailor’s trunk. I didn’t see a shirt lying out, so I opened the wardrobe and began hunting through it. Tavit had a lot of suits—more than a footman or valet would. I’d never really thought about it before, but the armins didn’t wear livery and you could tell where the baroness was going by what Tavit was wearing: nice clothes for the palace, something rougher to go out riding.
I found where the shirts were to one side, but they were all neatly folded and stacked. Nothing that looked like it had been worn and tossed aside for repair. I was standing there, holding the candle up to look around the corners of the room when the door banged open and I jumped, dripping wax on my hand.
“What are you doing in here?”
Tavit’s voice was all cold and sharp, like I imagined a sword must be going in. My tongue stuck in my mouth. He made me feel like I’d done something terrible though I couldn’t think what. He walked toward me and my heart started pounding, but it was only to slam the wardrobe door shut.
“Who sent you in here?” he demanded.
“I…your shirt…the duel,” I stuttered. “I was going to mend it.”
His eyes narrowed as if he didn’t believe me, but he went over to the head of the bed and picked up something I’d taken for a bit of tumbled sheet and thrust it into my hands.
“Never come in here again. I don’t care who sends you.”
I stammered out an apology. I didn’t know why he was so angry, but he’d never have to warn me again, that was certain. Then I fled back to the laundry room to get my sewing box.
I fixed the tear in Tavit’s shirt so neatly you couldn’t tell it had ever been there. I took more care with it than I did with Maisetra Pertinek’s lace caps. Then I gave it to Marken to give back because I was still shaking at the thought of speaking to Tavit again. When I went up to bed that evening, Ailis was there, sitting on the edge of the bed brushing out her hair. She could tell there was something wrong even though I tried not to show it, so I told her the whole thing about going to fetch the shirt and Tavit being angry and me thinking he might run me through right there and then.
Ailis laughed at me. “That’s what you get for sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong. Don’t go digging up secrets in this house. You might learn things you aren’t supposed to notice.”
“Then how am I supposed to know what I’m not supposed to notice!” I thought Ailis was lording it over me like she always did, because she knew things I didn’t.
She stared at me for a long minute like she was calculating something, then went over to the door and looked up and down the corridor before closing it and came to sit beside me on the bed. “People in this house…they aren’t always what they seem.”
For a moment I felt cold and wondered if she was talking crosswise about me. If she’d guessed why I’d been let go.
She leaned closer in and whispered, “Tavit, he’s…well, he wasn’t always a he if you know what I mean.”
I didn’t know, not at first. Ailis kept staring at me as I puzzled things through and smirked when she knew I’d worked it out. “But why…how?” I was going to protest that it was impossible for a woman to be an armin, but I remembered they said the baroness had been one. “Why?” I repeated.
Ailis shrugged. “You think I’m going to ask that? I know where the butter for my bread comes from. If the baroness says Tavit’s a man, then Tavit’s a man. I like my place here too much to worry about why and how. If you like it here, you’ll keep your mouth shut. You keep your nose out of Tavit’s business or you’ll find it cut off. And if you tell anyone I told you, I’ll make you sorry.”
She meant it. I wasn’t really afraid of her, but I was afraid of Tavit…whoever he was. Though when I thought about it as I was falling asleep, it felt nice to know I wasn’t the only one in the household with secrets.
Chapter Seven
May 1824—Falling
That summer I was happier than I’d ever been. The Fillerts had been steady work and there had been Nan to fill my nights, but I never could see beyond endless tubs of hot water, scrub boards, and mangles. But dressmaking had become a dream—a road stretching in front of me—and I wanted to know where it led. Maybe I didn’t have the skill yet to work a dress up from nothing, but I could see it in my head. I could see how a plain piece of cloth could turn into something beautiful. Celeste had been working longer at it and was far ahead of me, but she didn’t love it as much as I did. Not like she loved charmwork.
Celeste and I got easier with each other over the summer. She was still all sharp at the edges and impatient, but it was like when I first came to the city and everyone talked just different enough it was hard to understand them. I got used to it. Celeste was like that. Once you got used to her, you could tell what she meant and didn’t mean.
The other thing that made that summer good was that Liv and I became real friends. Maybe she figured out I was sorry for embarrassing her that first day. Or maybe she liked testing people. I saw her test other folks to decide whether they were worth talking to.
During the spring I’d kept offering to help carry up the market baskets on days when Liv’s little dog came yipping up the path. I’d say, “Hi, Liv!” Then one day she said, “Hi, Roz,” back at me. For a few weeks that was all there was to it. When we had all the baskets off the boat I’d stand and watch as she loosed the ropes and kissed the water and spun out into the current, like a bird taking wing. I liked watching that. The boat was like a part of her. I never offered to pay for a ride downriver again. I couldn’t spare the coins and it hadn’t worked the way I’d meant it to.
Spring turned to summer after floodtide. Liv was the one who explained floodtide to me. We weren’t only saying hello to each other at the dock any more. We’d started talking a little before she left—enough that Cook scolded me for dawdling. Liv asked why I’d gone down to the Nikuleplaiz that time and I told her about Mefro Dominique and how I went down there every other day for dressmaking lessons.
“I could row you down, if you like,” Liv said, casual-like.
I had to tell her that I didn’t have the money for it. “That time—that was so I could talk to you.” My face got hot when I said it.
“I knew that,” she replied with a touch of scorn. “I don’t take passengers much, just deliveries. And I’m not supposed to carry men, because—”
She shrugged and I knew what was left unsaid.
“But I go down that way after the market run. People always need things carried away from Saint Nikule’s market, so it wouldn’t be out of my way.”
Mefro Dominique expected me to be at work when the clock tower chimed, but the markets opened at dawn on the sun’s time. So in summer I was still at Tiporsel House if Liv came by. Cook teased me about being friends with Liv, but she wasn’t mean about it. Since no one knew my secret, they didn’t tease me that way.
At least once a week I’d ride with her downriver and we’d have time to talk. It was on one of those trips during Holy Week when she asked me, “Are you going away after floodtide?”
“I don’t know,” I told her.
She gave me a look like Ailis did sometimes, like she thought I didn’t know anything. Liv nodded her head toward the row of tall houses with their gardens and docks that we were slipping past.
“They all go off for the summer. The families do. They leave a few servants to take care of the house. Not as many deliveries to make. I didn’t know if you’d be going or staying.”
“No one’s said
anything.” I’d ask Ailis about it. I was pretty sure it wasn’t the sort of question that would get me in trouble. “When is floodtide?” Sometimes people talked about it as if it were fixed like a quarter day, but sometimes like it was moveable like Easter.
Liv squinted up at the sky and then out along the river, like a farmer thinking about the weather. “It’ll be late this year. Late and low. The river doesn’t smell like rising much.”
That made her sound even more like a farmer, and I laughed. “Is that what you’re doing when you taste the river water? Checking if it’s going to flood?”
Liv looked confused at my question. I hadn’t meant anything serious by it.
“You know—when you taste the river.” I mimed dipping my fingers over the side and bringing them to my mouth.
I was startled when Liv dropped the oars for a moment, sending us spinning loose in the water. She grabbed my wrist. “Don’t mock Mama Rota,” she said. She was real serious, like the Orisule sisters at school had been about taking God’s name in vain. She let me go and grabbed the oars again and had us back on course in three strokes. “Show respect. If you want Mama Rota to keep you safe on the water, you say thanks every time. And if you don’t know what you’re talking about, then keep your mouth shut.”
I wanted to ask who Mama Rota was, but Liv wasn’t the right person to ask right now. So I kept my mouth shut.
Ailis answered the rest of my questions. She rolled her eyes and made a rude noise, but she liked showing off that she knew more than I did. “We’re all sixes and sevens about the summer, with the maisetra deciding to stay. I was hoping this year I’d be part of them that go off south to Saveze, but the baroness is traveling light because the maisetra is staying for her school.”
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