Celeste didn’t want me gawking while she was doing charms for people, but sometimes she’d ask me to try one, like she had with the washing charms. Then she’d write down what happened in her receipt book. She said it was important to know how they worked for someone who wasn’t a charmwife. There were different types, she said. There were charms you did on people, where it mattered who did them. And there were charms you did up like a little package, where you put the magic inside and anyone could open it. And then there were charms that you taught someone else to do, and it might work or not, if they had the talent or if they didn’t. So that’s what she wanted to see: which ones would still work if I did them.
Celeste said I could only do the charms that worked for everyone. Sometimes I thought I could feel them working when Celeste did them, like I had that first day when she charmed my hurt leg. I’d started thinking of it as my “magic feeling,” but it was a bit like what I felt during church mysteries too.
The first time I remember it was at the Orisule school in Sain-Pol, before Mama decided I’d had enough schooling and needed to work. One time during the special mystery for Saint Orisule’s feast day, I was staring at the statue of the saint spreading her cloak out over all the little girls to keep them safe. I imagined I was one of those girls under her cloak and a wave of…of wanting washed through me. Like something was about to happen.
The Sisters said that grace finds people in different ways and maybe that was mine. That was one reason why I hadn’t thought what Nan and I were doing was a sin. Because when I kissed her and we got all tangled up in bed touching each other, I got that same wanting feeling, and sometimes I got what I wanted. It was all mixed up in my head with trying to feel the Grace of God.
That’s why I asked Celeste, “Are charms the same as mysteries?” If my magic feeling meant the same thing for both of them, maybe it meant God didn’t mind about me kissing girls.
“Maisetra Talarico thinks they’re different,” she said. “At least, she said once that she couldn’t teach me mysteries because they were different from charms.”
Celeste didn’t talk about Maisetra Talarico a lot, but I could tell from what she did say that she liked her. And it sounded to me as if maybe Maisetra Talarico was teaching her. They talked together about charms the same way Celeste was doing with me. I know because Maisetra Talarico came by the shop to ask Celeste for help.
Celeste and I were in the workroom. We’d heard the bell at the door jangle, of course, but there was nothing in that. With the season started, customers often came unannounced to see the new fabrics or to show Mefro Dominique a picture from Paris and ask if she could make it up for them. We knew Mefro Dominique would call us up front if she needed us to fetch samples or fashion cards. But that day there was a soft tap at the half-open door and we looked up to see Maisetra Talarico standing there.
Celeste turned all bright—like lighting a lamp. She jumped up and said, “Maisetra! What can I do for you?” She fetched a chair without even stopping to curtsey.
I loved how elegant Maisetra Talarico looked. I don’t mean her clothes. I’d learned enough to recognize that her blue coat was old even if I hadn’t seen the frayed cuffs. It was the way she moved and how she spoke. Her skin was as dark as Mefro Dominique’s, but her face had odd angles in it where Celeste and her mother were rounder. I started thinking about what colors of fabric and styles of dresses would make her look even more elegant. Mefro Dominique was teaching me how to turn those thoughts into actual dresses.
You could tell from how Maisetra Talarico talked that she hadn’t been speaking Alpennian very long. I imagined her coming all the way from some distant land with bright birds and flowers all year round—like a picture I’d seen once—all that way just to study mysteries here.
“Celeste,” she said. “I would hope you can do me a big kindness. In a few days it will be the feast of Saint Mauriz.”
She said Mauriz funny, as if she were used to calling him a different name. She didn’t have to tell us that Saint Mauriz’s day was coming. Everyone in the city knew that! The maisetra would give us a half-day off even aside from going to church, and there would be a special dinner. He was the patron saint for the whole city, but I knew he was special for Celeste. She had a picture of him as part of her erteskir, the little shrine in her bedroom, and he was part of a lot of the charms she had me try.
“It will be the feast of Saint Mauriz,” Maisetra Talarico repeated, “and Maisetra Sovitre has asked me to study the mystery in the cathedral for her. I was hoping…you see, when I look closely at mysteries, sometimes I go away in my head. And I was hoping you might come to watch over me. I asked your mother and she said you may, if you please.”
Celeste said yes, she’d be happy to. She didn’t show much to people, not unless you knew her like I did. But after Maisetra Talarico left, Celeste let out a long, quiet sigh. “Saint Mauriz. In the cathedral.”
“You’ll get to see Princess Anna and all the lords and ladies,” I said. I wouldn’t see them because mostly only the upper servants went with the family for the special Mass that the palace folk came to.
Celeste gave me one of her sharp looks, but they didn’t bother me anymore. “Is that all you think about it? The tutela of Saint Mauriz is the most important mystery of the year. And this time I get to be there.”
I did understand, at least a little bit. It was partly the Mass for Saint Mauriz, but partly being there because Maisetra Talarico asked her.
The day after, I asked her about it. Celeste had been quiet all morning and I worried that she’d been disappointed.
“He spoke to me,” she said.
“Who?”
Celeste looked around like she sometimes did if she was talking about charm secrets. “Saint Mauriz. He spoke to me.”
I was a little frightened at the thought of saints talking to you—to you personally. “What did he say?”
“I’m not sure,” Celeste answered with a bit of a frown. “I’m still listening.”
* * *
The start of the season meant there wasn’t much time to worry about Tavit being mad at me or saints talking to Celeste. Mefro Dominique spent most of her time talking to customers and taking measurements and looking at cloth samples with them. She remembered all of them: what they liked and what they’d worn before. I tried to learn their names, but only being in the shop half the time, there were some ladies I never saw.
I didn’t remember waiting on the Vicomtesse de Cherdillac before, and I would have remembered her for the French name. But when Mefro Dominique asked me to fetch the sample books for them, the Vicomtesse called me by name like she knew me.
“Rozild! Dominique has been telling me how well you’re doing.”
“I…I beg your pardon, Mesnera de Cherdillac?”
Mefro Dominique took the sample books from me and put them on the table, saying, “Rozild, the vicomtesse was the one who asked Maisetra Sovitre to hire you.”
“Oh!” I curtseyed very low and said, “Thank you.”
The vicomtesse patted me on the cheek. “I think the last time I saw you, you were trying not to drop a tea tray. And look at you now! One of my small successes, I think.”
I wasn’t sure what to say to that, so I curtseyed again.
“Now let us see what you’ve been learning. Tell me which of these colors you think would suit me best.”
I looked over at Mefro Dominique and she nodded to give permission. So I looked at what the vicomtesse was wearing and her coloring and thought about what the other ladies in the shop had been choosing and I picked three samples I thought might suit her.
She laughed, but it was a merry laugh and not making fun. “There, you see, Dominique? She agrees I should not wear the brown you chose for me. But you will make me a dress in the brown and it will be glorious and I will tell everyone you are a genius!”
After the vicomtesse left, I asked, “Did I make the wrong choice?”
Mefro Dominique turned back t
o the fabrics I had chosen. “No, child. If it were only a matter of the colors and the patterns, those would suit her. But Mesnera de Cherdillac is a very strong woman. And a strong woman should either wear bold colors to defy the world or something soft to conceal her fire. There’s a time for each and you will learn it.”
There was so much to learn. I was glad that both of them had given me the chance.
* * *
It always happens that right when you’re feeling high in the world, something pulls you down. When Charsintek came to fetch me from the common room the next morning and told me to go put my work away, I figured that was the end of it. She had her stern look.
“The maisetra wants to see you in her office. I’ll take you up.”
I was sure it was about the trouble with Tavit. I took a moment in the laundry room, after putting my work basket away, to wash my face and check that my hair was tidy. It never hurts. Then I followed Charsintek without either of us saying a word up the stairs and around to one of the rooms I’d never been to before. Maisetra Sovitre was sitting behind a desk with papers and ledger books. She reminded me a bit of the nuns at the school back in Sain-Pol. Maybe running a school makes you look like that.
When I made my curtsey I could feel my legs shaking. Where would I go this time? I could beg Mefro Dominique for a few days, but she’d said before she couldn’t take me on as charity and I didn’t think anything had changed. I knew there was trouble because Maisetra Sovitre was frowning and I’d never seen her angry like that before.
But when she looked up and nodded at Charsintek, her face got a bit more friendly.
“Rozild?” She said my name like she didn’t quite remember who I was. “Do you like your work here? Or would you be interested in a new position?”
I had no idea what to say. Nobody cared if you liked your work, as long as you did it well. Was I supposed to say I liked where I was? What new position? Here at Tiporsel House or somewhere else? Charsintek poked me in the shoulder where the maisetra couldn’t see, so I curtseyed again and said, “Yes, maisetra,” which could mean anything.
She nodded. “My cousin, Iulien Fulpi, will be staying with us for a while. She’ll need someone to look after her.”
I tried to pretend I didn’t know anything about that. There was some scandal—maybe trouble at home—and she’d been shut up in a room since she arrived. Nobody except Maitelen was allowed in, and Maitelen wasn’t saying anything.
“She doesn’t need a lady’s maid,” the maisetra continued. “Only someone to help her dress mornings and evenings. She’s here to attend my school, not to enjoy the season. That should fit into your half-days. Do you think you could manage that?”
I must have gaped at her because Charsintek poked me again. You didn’t go straight from mending to waiting on family. “Maisetra,” I said, “do you really want me? Not Ailis, or—” Then another thought came to me and before I could think better I asked, “What about the dressmaking?”
I heard Charsintek take a sharp breath behind me, and Maisetra Sovitre looked up in surprise.
I stumbled on. “If I’m to be half-time maid to Maisetra Fulpi—” Or was it Maisetra Iulien? I wasn’t sure which was right. “What would my other half be? Would it be mending or dressmaking?”
The maisetra looked over at Charsintek, but she was standing behind me so I couldn’t see her face.
“That’s right. I sponsored your apprenticeship. Would you like to continue with it? Iulien will only be here for the one season.”
I was already calculating in my head. Doing the mending, I’d alternated days here and there. But dressing a lady was an everyday thing, even if it was just mornings and evenings. I’d be running back and forth all the time. Doing for the family wasn’t something you said no to, but I didn’t want to give up the dressmaking either. So I curtseyed yet again and said, “Yes, maisetra, I’d like that very much.”
And that was settled. Maisetra Sovitre said, “Charsintek, why don’t you take her up to Iulien’s room. Her new clothes have arrived, so I think she’s ready to join the world again. Ask Maitelen to keep an eye on things and make sure Rozild knows what to do.”
I knew most of the family bedrooms from being sent up to fetch mending, but I’d never been in the blue room where Maisetra Iulien was, because it was for guests. It was small, and the window looked out over the front courtyard. I would have preferred looking to the garden and river, but it wasn’t my room, was it? When my new mistress got up from the edge of the bed where she’d been sitting, all I could do was stand and stare.
Charsintek pushed further into the room and said, “Maisetra Iulien, this is Rozild Pairmen. She’ll be taking care of you while you’re here. Maisetra Sovitre says you may come downstairs after you’ve changed.” She set down a package we’d picked up on the way, then left and closed the door behind her, for all the world as if she were introducing two strange dogs to each other.
Maisetra Iulien was dressed in boy’s clothes: a brown broadcloth suit like something a tradesman’s son might wear to church. When I put together all the little things that had been said, I guessed it was all she’d had to wear until today and that was why they hadn’t let her out of her room and why Charsintek had been so fierce about gossip. She looked something like Maisetra Sovitre. Their hair was the same. But where the maisetra was pretty in a sweet sort of way, you couldn’t really say whether Maisetra Iulien was pretty or not. Her face was changing all the time so you never got a chance to have an opinion on it. I don’t mean she was making faces. More like she was always trying on a new face like you might try on a new dress to see how it looked. To see if it would make people want to dance with you.
That’s what I figured out later. That first day I didn’t know what to think. Standing in front of her, I only knew two things. I’d never met anyone like Maisetra Iulien, and I didn’t know anything about my new job.
I thought maybe I should wait for her to say something first, but I couldn’t stand it any more, so I said, “I’m not really a lady’s maid.”
She laughed. “And I’m not really a lady—at least that’s what Cousin Margerit would tell me. I’m being punished, you know, for running away like this and coming here. That’s why they gave me you and such dowdy clothes.” She waved at the bundle on the bed. “But I’m here, in Rotenek, and I’m going to see the world before they lock me away again, so I don’t care!”
You might have thought I’d take it wrong—that she said I was part of her punishment—but she made it feel like we were in a grand adventure together. And now I knew what to say to the girls downstairs. Nobody could turn up jealous about that. I settled my face into what I thought a lady’s maid should look like and said, “What would you like to wear today, maisetra?”
* * *
Dressing wasn’t simply helping Maisetra Iulien with the clothes themselves, of course, no matter what the maisetra had said. It meant setting everything out in good order and keeping the room tidy, seeing to mending, laundry, and spot-cleaning. At least I knew that part! I’d need to learn hairdressing. Charsintek said to ask Maitelen for help. That was as terrifying as talking to the maisetra herself, but I needn’t have worried. She took me in hand quick enough and said I didn’t need to call her Mefro Finnil any more.
“You’ve got a steep hill to climb,” she said as we took an inventory of what I’d need. “I climbed it pretty quick myself.”
As she got me sorted out and taught me all manner of little tricks, she told me the story of how she’d laid claim to doing for the maisetra back in Chalanz. As she talked, her voice fell into a soft east-country burr and it made me feel better about not talking proper myself.
“That was back before the baroness knew her name,” she continued, not with an air of telling confidences, but just saying what was what. “Back when she was the maisetra’s armin. But I could tell she’d open the door for me. So when Lozenek—that’s the Fulpis’ housekeeper—went all high and mighty about where she would sleep, I sai
d she could bunk with me. You think about that when you have a chance to do a kindness for someone. Think about how I spent half a year sleeping next to a future baroness and calling her by her Christian name.”
It was so much like something in a fairy story it made me stare. But if Maitelen was willing to give me a hand up, I was glad to be part of that story.
If Maisetra Iulien had been out in society, it would never have worked for me to do for her half-time. She would have been changing clothes four times a day, going out visiting and for dinner and then to balls. Instead she spent most of every day with the maisetra at school, so I only had to get her up and into her school dress in time for when the maisetra was leaving at dawn, and then I was off to Mefro Dominique’s until the afternoon. She wouldn’t change again until dinner except for special days.
I’d worked hard enough before Maisetra Iulien came, but I could set my own time. Now my life was ordered by the clock. Before, it was enough to be in the common room in time for breakfast. Now I had to get up when Lufise headed down to the kitchens. I’d slip into Maisetra Iulien’s room as quiet as could be to open the curtains and see that the fire had been tended to. The fire wasn’t properly my job, but if the scullery maid hadn’t put on enough coal or poked it up properly, it was easier to fix than to fetch her up again. Then down to the kitchen to set up a breakfast tray and maybe grab a bite to eat myself if I had to wait. Family breakfast in the dining room upstairs was later, but Maisetra Iulien would already be off to school by then. So I’d take up a tray with tea and pruzzelin, and while she was eating I’d lay out her clothes and check them over and fetch up hot water for washing.
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