We heard a lot about the maisetra’s school. It wasn’t for children like the Orisule school I went to in Sain-Pol but one for grown up young ladies who weren’t married yet.
“And we’ll still have to do all the summer cleaning,” Ailis said. She didn’t sound mad. More like how you’d be vexed but proud of something your husband did. She told me about Mama Rota too.
“Folks on the river call her that, but others call her Saint Rota. They say she was Saint Mauriz’s sister and she watches over the river like he watches over the city. There’s a picture in one of the cathedral windows that some people say is Saint Rota, but I don’t know about that. If she were a real saint, wouldn’t she have a feast day?”
The next time we were at services in the cathedral together, I asked Ailis to show me the window. It was above one of the side altars. You could see Saint Mauriz in the center window, with his armor and a white turban almost as big as his halo. One of the side windows had a whole group of his soldiers. The people in the other side window included a lady who looked dark like Mauriz, though they weren’t either of them as dark as Mefro Dominique. The lady was pouring water out of a pitcher, so maybe that was why folks thought she was Mama Rota. She was pretty, but she didn’t have a halo.
I didn’t ask Liv whether Mama Rota was a real saint, but floodtide seemed a safe topic. I didn’t remember a flood last year and I asked her about that instead.
“There’s low years and high years,” she said. “Mostly it’s middling. You know that statue of Saint Nikule by the edge of the water?”
I nodded. It seemed an odd place for a statue, right where the steps ran down from the plaiz into the water.
“They’re supposed to ring the floodtide bell when the water reaches his feet. Most years that’s how it happens, but the river does what she pleases. If it takes too long after Easter’s gone by, they’ll ring the bell anyway so the rich folks can have their holiday. You see that line in the gardens?” she said as we slipped past the last of the great houses on either side of the Pont Ruip. “It doesn’t usually go higher than that.”
I knew she was joking, because if the water went that high, it would run all across the Nikuleplaiz and flood the footings of the bridges.
* * *
If I’d done upstairs work, the summer might have felt more different with half the family off traveling. For me, the only difference was I didn’t have that start when I ran into Tavit. It wasn’t comfortable knowing that sort of secret about someone.
At the beginning of the summer, I might see Liv once or twice in the week. But as summer wore on, she was there more days than not. It got so I expected to ride with her. I teased her about it one day. “Cook must be sweet on you to always pick you for the delivery.” I didn’t know how these things worked. I’d never been to the east gate market, but I knew Liv had said there was less work over summer because so many of the rich folk left town.
She scowled like a storm cloud. “Oh, she’s sweet on me.” She pitched her voice to mimic the cook. “Find the little crippled girl to take my baskets.” Her voice grew rough around the edges. “Like I was a beggar in the marketplace! I earn my bread. I’ve never been late, never lost a basket, never cheated a customer. But is that why she chooses me? No, it’s ‘Let the crippled girl have the work.’”
I wanted to say something to make her feel better. “Liv, I don’t think of you as crippled.”
I was thinking of how strong she was and how easy she made everything look on the water, like the boat was a part of her.
“You don’t?” she asked sharply. “Then you don’t know me at all. Don’t pretend I’m something I’m not.”
Everything I could think of to say was going to be wrong. I wanted to say, I’m happy I get to see you more often. I thought Liv felt the same way. I mean, she was rowing me down to the Nikuleplaiz for free and I couldn’t think of any reason for doing that except for liking me since I wasn’t paying a fare. It wasn’t as if I could get her more work, though when I thought about it I wondered if part of Cook’s choice was because she knew Liv and I were friends. Cook didn’t play favorites, but when she teased me about Liv it was friendly-like.
So all I said was, “I’m sorry,” without knowing what I was sorry for except making Liv feel bad.
I learned a lot about the river that summer. If there weren’t any strangers around, Liv could talk up quite a storm once you got her going. But sometimes we didn’t talk. I’d sit there and watch her row, with the slow steady work of her arms, and the way she’d look quick over her shoulder every few strokes and pull a bit more in one direction or another to keep on track. Chennek had gotten used to me enough that he’d come back and sit in my lap, instead of standing in the bow, until it was time to tie up and Liv signaled him to take the line. I was learning the right words for things: bow and line.
I liked watching her. I liked how her hair escaped from under her bonnet and how her cheeks turned pink in the summer heat. Her face was always moving so you could tell what she was thinking. When you work in service, you learn not to show your thoughts that much. Celeste was like me: her face went all still and polite when there were customers in the shop, even if we were working in the back room. But Liv would always be laughing or scowling. Maybe I liked watching her too much.
“What are you looking at?” she asked me once when she caught me.
“Your shoulders,” I blurted out. I tried to explain, “I like watching your muscles.” It was true enough. You could see them moving and bunching as she worked the oars. But I liked all the parts of her that were round and curvy like that.
When she tied up briefly to let me out, she said, “You want to feel them?” She raised her arm to make a muscle.
I ran my hand over her arm. It was all hard and soft at the same time. I pulled my hand away so I wouldn’t keep feeling her all over—her shoulders and her back and down along her waist.
I never dreamed about Nan anymore. Now I dreamed about Liv.
There was nothing could come of dreaming about Liv that way. Nan and I had found each other because they’d put us in the same bed, and when you’re touching someone by accident at night you can work out whether they’d like to do it more on purpose. I’d never had to figure out what to do with Nan. One night we were lying there beside each other like usual, and then the next we were snuggled close together because it turned cold. I don’t remember whether I kissed her first or she kissed me first, but after that it just sort of happened.
Maybe what Nan told Mefro Mollin was true—it was my fault and she’d gone along because she didn’t know better. I didn’t think so, but how did you know if another girl wanted to kiss you? How did you know if she’d like kissing you? Could you even ask something like that? I thought about that as I watched Liv’s hands work and wondered how nice they’d feel and what it would be like to have her laugh like that right in my ear with her breath tickling on my neck.
Once I asked her, trying to find out if she felt the same way—I asked her why she decided to be friends with me.
If I’d asked Celeste a question like that, she would have taken a long time to think about it and looked at me sharply all the time she was thinking. And I would have ended up wishing I’d never asked. But when I asked Liv, she shrugged and said, “Because you expected me to carry the baskets like anyone else.”
“But you were mad at me for that,” I protested.
Now Liv did stop to pick over her words a little. “I was mad that the first thing you knew about me was that I couldn’t walk properly. Then I was mad because I thought you hired a ride from me for charity. But when I thought about it, I liked how you ordered me around. Before you knew.”
It wasn’t the answer I’d expected—not the one I wanted—and it left me in an agony of wanting and not daring to do anything about it.
Chapter Eight
September 1824—Broken
Everyone at Tiporsel House talked about how busy summer was with the maisetra staying in town, bu
t I didn’t know any different. The Fillerts hadn’t left the city last summer. But summer was nothing to when the rest of the family started coming back. The bustle was because of more people, but also getting ready for the maisetra’s school to open after Saint Mauriz’s day. I had no part in that, but it touched on everything we did.
During the summer, I’d gotten used to doing my sewing on the benches out in the garden, but now, like as not, one of the family was out there reading or sitting and I’d have to beg pardon for disturbing them and go somewhere else.
You could feel the change in the Nikuleplaiz too, though folks in that part of town hadn’t gone away from the city. With autumn, the markets crept later again and Liv started having more delivery work. Sometimes I only saw her on mending days and we didn’t have much time to talk. Not that we’d ever dawdled, but now it was just hello and no rides down to Mefro Dominique’s.
I knew that sometimes she came by other times as well, because I heard Chennek barking. Usually she’d be gone again by the time I could slip away to see her. But one afternoon she came while I was doing my mending outside and I figured there was time for hello. If anyone asked, I could always say I thought something needed fetching up.
In summer, it’s hard to see the dock when you’re going down the path because the bushes are so tall. The gardeners don’t trim them back until it starts getting cold, so mostly you only see glimpses through the leaves. I was almost down to the little clearing by the dock before I saw Tavit standing by the boat. That was strange, because I hadn’t seen him leave the house and Liv said she didn’t take passengers much. I stopped, trying to decide what to do. I didn’t want to talk to Liv with him hanging around, and I didn’t know if he was the sort to carry tales if he saw me dawdling on the dock with her.
I was about to turn around and go back up the path when I saw him reach down into Liv’s boat, and she reached her arms up and he lifted her right onto the marble steps beside him. They stood there, her with her hands on his shoulders and him holding her around the waist, steadying her because she didn’t have her crutches. The way she was looking up at him was like someone had hit me.
I hurried back up to the house as quietly as I could, and when Tavit walked past I was bent over my sewing with my heart pounding. I was thinking about two things, one bad and one good.
I knew what it looked like when someone wanted to be kissed. I’d spent all summer wishing that Liv would look at me the way she’d been looking at Tavit down there on the dock. But if she could look at Tavit that way, being how he was, then maybe she could think about me that way too. She didn’t know that I wanted her to. I’d been afraid to say anything. Now I needed to do something quick.
I don’t think I slept at all that night, thinking about what I’d say and how it would all go. I had this dream where Liv would say, “Why didn’t you tell me, you silly thing?” She’d throw her arms around my neck and we’d kiss and kiss like there was no tomorrow. And then I’d sit there grinning at her like a fool as we floated down the river.
It didn’t happen like that. I should have known, but I had it all worked out in my head and it was like it had already happened. I knew Liv liked me. Why wouldn’t she tell me yes? But it’s different planning something out in your head and actually doing it. It was two weeks before she came by early enough I could ride with her down to Mefro Dominique’s. I’d thought about what to say, but my tongue stuck in my mouth. So I sat there quietly as Liv rowed.
I was never quiet like that—not since we’d become friends. Even Chennek could tell something was amiss because he whined and nosed my hand instead of jumping into my lap. As Liv was tying off the boat at the Nikuleplaiz dock, she said impatiently, “Why are you mad at me?”
“I’m not!” I protested. It was time. I moved over to sit on the rowing bench next to her. I put my arm around her waist and said, “Liv, I’m not mad. I like you.”
She looked confused. “I like you too, Roz.”
Then all in a tumble I continued, “Liv, I love you—more than anyone else in the world.” And I leaned over and kissed her right on the lips. It was how I always thought it would be. Her mouth was soft and I loved the feel of her muscles moving under my hands as she turned toward me.
I wasn’t ready at all when she swung her arm up and hit me, knocking me off the bench into the bottom of the boat. She leaned over me scowling and saying, “What did you do that for? I don’t kiss girls!”
That hurt, more than anything ever had. It wasn’t her punching me, not with her fist. It felt like she’d punched my heart. “But I…I thought…I saw you. I saw you and Tavit…”
And then she did something worse than hitting me. She laughed. She laughed like I’d told the funniest joke. Or like I was one of the clowns in the marketplace at Carnival. There I was, lying on my back in the bilge of the boat with my legs and skirts up kicking in the air and she laughed at me.
“Is that what you think?” she said when she finally caught her breath.
“I know he’s—” Then I stopped. If Ailis learned I’d let out that she told me…
“You don’t know anything!”
I could tell Liv knew exactly what I meant. I couldn’t bear it anymore. I scrambled up out of the boat as quick as I could and settled my skirts as I rushed off without looking back. I’d ruined everything. I’d made a fool of myself and now Liv hated me—all for one kiss. And if anyone else found out… Had anyone at the riverfront noticed? Or did they think it was an ordinary squabble?
I’d stopped shaking by the time I got to Mefro Dominique’s. Celeste knew something was wrong, with my dress all filthy, but she didn’t say anything and helped me clean up. She was good at just letting you be. By the time I went home that evening, I was hoping I could forget it had all happened. All I needed to do was never talk to Liv again.
* * *
I took the mending back into the laundry room the next day, so no one would wonder why I didn’t jump up to help carry the market baskets like usual. The day after, I had to leave before the deliveries came. And the day after that, Charsintek needed the common room for something so nobody thought it strange when I went to the laundry to work again. I was glad to be alone because I was still too miserable to talk much.
When someone came in, I didn’t look up from my sewing until I heard the door close. I figured it was one of the lady’s maids with something quick to wash out. Then I saw Tavit standing there. I’ve never been that scared in my life, not even when I had to walk all night in the cold.
Before I even had time to squeak, he’d grabbed my arm and pulled me up and shoved me back against the wall.
“I don’t want you ever bothering Oliva Hald again. I don’t want you telling tales on her or badgering her or mocking her—”
I was certain he was going to kill me. That’s what armins do—they kill people. My head went dizzy and I think if he hadn’t been holding me against the wall I would have fainted. But he was wrong. How could he think I’d do anything like that to Liv?
“I didn’t!” I sobbed. “I didn’t! Please don’t—”
“Don’t lie to me. You were trying to stir up trouble and I want to know why. Who put you up to this?”
I remembered how Charsintek had warned me about hurting the family’s good name. And what Ailis had said about letting on that she’d told me about Tavit. If I hadn’t been certain I was dead already, I don’t think I could have told the truth. But truth was all that was left to me.
“I didn’t mean to make trouble! I just…I just kissed her, that’s all. I wanted to kiss her all summer and didn’t dare. But then I saw the two of you down on the dock and I thought…I wanted…and she—she laughed at me.”
Tavit got a strange look on his face, right there inches away from mine, then he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He loosened his grip and I almost fell down.
“Christ, what a tangle,” he said. It sounded like he was talking to himself. Then he opened his eyes again and the murder was gone o
ut of them. “Did it never occur to you to ask her if she wanted to be kissed?”
All I could do was stare at him and shake my head numbly. How could you ask someone something like that?
His voice was quieter now. “Liv didn’t tell me about that part. I thought… Never mind what I thought. You could have broken something past mending. It didn’t belong to you to talk to her about me. What if she hadn’t known?”
He didn’t wait for an answer. He opened the door and left with one last frowning look. I leaned my head back against the wall and twisted my hands together until they stopped shaking enough to hold a needle. I knew all about things that were broken past mending.
Chapter Nine
September 1824—Rising
I told Celeste about kissing Liv, but I couldn’t tell her why I was so frightened. Not simply that Tavit might hurt me, but because I’d done the thing Charsintek warned me against. I’d stirred up trouble in the household. I knew what would happen if it came to a choice between the baroness’s armin and a half-time sewing girl. But explaining that to Celeste would mean telling her what I knew about Tavit and I wasn’t going to make things worse by telling tales.
Celeste was content to think I was only pining over Liv. All she said was, “I hope you don’t want me to make a love charm for you.”
“Could you do that?” I asked. I thought everything was too broken for even a love charm to fix.
“I don’t do love charms.” It wasn’t really an answer, but she went on, “Nothing good ever comes of them. Divinations—that’s different. That’s telling you whether you’re already in love or not. They don’t work so well for people you haven’t met yet. Love charms can make someone think about you all the time or be all hot for you. But I don’t think they can make someone love you, if that’s what you want. Not the kind of love that lasts.”
Celeste always talked about charms like an ordinary thing, like saying prayers when you cooked or cleaned. Which was funny because she didn’t do household charms at all. I knew she did more than just healing charms. Sometimes neighbors would come by and hint to Celeste that they had a problem she might help with. Mefro Dominique would scowl at them, but she never asked questions if Celeste took her basket of charm-goods when we went to the Nikuleplaiz to buy ribbons and thread or food for supper.
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