Floodtide

by Heather Rose Jones

  Maitelen had taught me all sorts of tricks to make the work easier, like scent to put in the wash water to help her wake up or soothe her if she was worried and little verses to help remember them. Some of it was house-charms like the maids all traded around, and some was ordinary tricks.

  When Maisetra Iulien was dressed, all that was left was to find her coat and bonnet and gloves and collect up her school things from the library so she’d be waiting by the front door when Maisetra Sovitre came down to kiss her good morning. Then off they’d go to the carriage. I knew it was time to scramble if we were still upstairs when we heard the carriage being brought into the yard.

  When they were gone, I’d set the room to rights and do the light cleaning, then lay out the clothes I thought she’d need for evening. She didn’t have more than a couple gowns, but I’d been set to make a few more under Mefro Dominique’s eye. If I hadn’t had time to eat earlier, I’d grab a bun from the kitchen. Sometimes when I was there, I’d hear Chennek barking up the path, and I’d think about the long sweet summer when hearing him meant taking the river down to the Nikuleplaiz. I figured Liv didn’t want anything to do with me now and the best I could do was keep out of her way.

  Mefro Dominique had me until the clock chimed three, then it was back to Tiporsel House and dress Maisetra Iulien for the evening. Nothing fancy, just for dinner. Then I had some hours to see to her things and do my other work until she came upstairs. I liked that part, especially the bits Maitelen had taught me. The way you’d lift off the cares of the day along with each bit of clothing, with a charm to hum when you brushed her hair. That sort of thing. You did it all quiet and inside your head so you wouldn’t disturb her, but it was as much a part of putting her to bed as warming the sheets and sprinkling lavender water around the pillows.

  When that was all done, I still had sewing to finish, even though the ordinary mending had been given back to the laundry women. People still brought me fine work, and there were the clothes I was making for the household now that Mefro Dominique thought I was ready.

  Days were longer. There were idle moments, but not like I could take a nap, so I was always yawning in the morning. What I wouldn’t have given to sleep a bit longer!

  Maisetra Iulien would have liked to sleep in too. She wasn’t used to being up so early, even though she wasn’t going to balls and parties. “Classes don’t start for hours after we get there!” she said as I did up her buttons. “Cousin Margerit disappears into her office. There’s nothing for me to do but read and study until the other girls start arriving.”

  It didn’t seem fair and I asked her why she couldn’t go later.

  “Oh, I’m not allowed!” she explained. “Cousin Margerit says she won’t have a second carriage tied up going down to Urmai everyday. I’m not allowed to hire a public fiacre unless I have a proper chaperone: Aunt Bertrut or Brandel or you. Aunt Bertrut says she’ll take me visiting, but she isn’t about to kick her heels at the academy all day. Brandel has his own lessons, and he’s so stuck up about it. If you weren’t apprenticed, you could go down with me. Maybe you could even take some classes. Cousin Margerit says that all girls should have a chance to be educated.”

  That wasn’t the sort of learning I was interested in, but I wished I could help her. “I don’t know what sort of chaperone I’d be. Not like Maistir Brandel as he’s training for an armin.”

  “Yes,” Maisetra Iulien said with a sigh. “It’s all positively gothic. Brandel’s no older than I am, but he can go running all over the city by himself. If I want to step out the door, I can’t be alone.”

  “If you took a fiacre, you wouldn’t be alone,” I pointed out. “You’d have the driver.”

  “Ah, but he’s a man,” she said, making a face. “I can’t be alone with a strange man! Think of my reputation!”

  I could have told her a thing or two about what could happen to a girl’s reputation alone with a man, but I didn’t think she’d listen. Funny how some things are the same at the top and the bottom. Liv had said almost the same about why she didn’t carry passengers.

  I was getting used to Maisetra Iulien’s complaints. She didn’t mean anything by them. You could tell, because she’d sigh loudly and wring her hands like an actress on stage and then fall to laughing. I liked how she laughed. And I liked that she included me in the joke.

  Chapter Ten

  October 1824—Loyalty

  Maybe I was meant as a punishment for Maisetra Iulien but that didn’t mean I intended to do my work badly. I had lots to learn and half-time didn’t mean half the work. No one except Maisetra Iulien could have made me glad to be that busy.

  That time I saw the baroness riding out with her sword, I would have followed her to the ends of the earth. Maisetra Iulien made me feel that way, too, but more like she’d invite you along. She…glowed somehow and the glow drew you in.

  When I got her ready for bed, she’d talk about poetry and music and everything else she was studying. It was like listening to Celeste talk about charms and mysteries. Maisetra Iulien said she didn’t have a talent for mysteries—not like the maisetra—but she did have a talent for writing poems and stories. Sometimes she’d read them to me while I was brushing out her hair. Some of it was all birds and gardens, but some was thrilling adventures. I could tell when she was writing one in her head because she’d stop talking and her eyes would go somewhere else, and then she’d jump up from whatever I was doing for her and go to her little desk to write something down quick.

  One morning she must have been staying up late working on a poem, because I saw it all spread out on the desk when I went to open the curtains. She was still sound asleep when I brought up the breakfast tray. And still asleep when I came back with the wash water. I stood beside the bed not sure what to do until I heard the clip-clop of the carriage horses in the yard.

  I shook her gently by the shoulder, like I used to do for my little sisters, and said, “Maisetra Iulien! Maisetra Iulien, it’s time to wake up!”

  She gave a little groan and turned over to face away from me. I bit my lip, wondering what would make her more angry: for me to wake her or for her to miss her ride.

  “Maisetra Iulien, the carriage is in the yard. You need to wake up. You don’t want to make Maisetra Sovitre wait.”

  I remembered the scolding she’d gotten from the maisetra when that happened before.

  That made her sit up quick enough. “Oh, no!”

  She was on her feet and reaching for the breakfast tray.

  “Never mind that, maisetra. I’ll tie up the bread in a napkin for you to take.”

  I had her nightgown off and a lick and promise for washing. Her dress would have buttoned faster if she hadn’t been squirming and saying, “Hurry, Roz, hurry!” And then we nearly flew down the stairs. I went to fetch her coat and things while she went to find her books. But even as I came into the entryway, the footman shook his head.

  “Maisetra’s gone already. Said she couldn’t wait this time.”

  I swallowed a little curse and followed Maisetra Iulien to the library to tell her the bad news.

  She sank down on one of the soft chairs by the library fireplace and you would have thought that her best friend had died. “She left?”

  “Is it that bad?” I asked. At first I thought she was acting like she often did. But this time she really was frightened. I laid her coat across the second chair and took the book satchel from her lap. “Maisetra Sovitre will understand.”

  “No, she won’t. She said she’d send me back to Chalanz. What should I do?”

  Maisetra Sovitre would say she should’ve gotten out of bed on time. I got up even earlier and couldn’t go to sleep until she was in bed. But it wasn’t for me to say such things.

  “Could Maisetra Pertinek take you?”

  She shook her head. “She has visitors coming this morning. Roz…could you accompany me? Just this one time? I can find the money to hire a fiacre, but I can’t go alone. I know when Cousin Margerit
really means something, and that’s a hard rule.”

  I wanted to. If I said yes, she’d smile at me like the sun coming out and it might be worth it. But I thought about how long it would take to go to Urmai and back and how late I’d be for the dressmaking. All the work that Celeste and her mother would have to make up for on the dresses that needed to be done today. And I thought about how if I said yes this one time, it would be hard to say no the next time.

  “I can’t. I’m sorry, maisetra, but—”

  Then I heard a faint barking. The library windows faced toward the river, and I could hear the sound of Chennek announcing Liv with the market delivery. I remembered what I’d thought about Liv—how she and Iulien had some of the same rules.

  “Maisetra, put your coat on quick and come with me.”

  I snatched up the book satchel and led her down the back stairs, through the common room, and out into the garden. I dashed ahead of her and down the steps, dodging around the kitchen girls who were bringing the baskets up.

  “Liv! Liv, wait!” I called, hoping she wasn’t so mad that hearing me would make her rush away.

  Liv stared at me as I tried to get my breath back enough to explain. I glanced back up the path, but no one was in sight yet.

  “Liv, I know you said you don’t take passengers much, but Maisetra Iulien needs a ride.” I explained about how she couldn’t travel alone with a strange driver. “But I was thinking that the maisetra wouldn’t mind if you took her.” I didn’t know if she’d mind, but it fell in the cracks of what she’d forbidden.

  Maisetra Iulien had caught up with me and was giving Liv one of her hopeful looks. The one that made you want to smooth the road for her. I guess that did the trick. Liv only frowned a little and asked, “How far?”

  “Down by Urmai,” Maisetra Iulien said. “The Tanfrit Academy.” When Liv looked confused, she added, “They call it the old Chasteld place.”

  “I know where it is, maisetra,” Liv said. “But what am I supposed to do for coming back? It’s a long haul upriver afterward and I’m not likely to pick up any deliveries there.”

  “I could pay you for both ways.”

  Liv raised her eyebrows at that. Upriver usually cost twice what downriver did because the rowing was harder. I wondered if Maisetra Iulien was that worried about missing classes or if she had enough money it didn’t matter. Liv named the fare. I couldn’t imagine spending that much all at once, but Maisetra Iulien nodded.

  “I’ll need to go fetch the money.”

  “I’ll trust you for it ’till tomorrow,” Liv said and reached out a hand to help her in.

  I handed the book satchel down into the boat and turned to go back up the path, but Liv said, “You might as well ride on down with us as far as the Nikuleplaiz. If it’s all right with the maisetra, that is.”

  That was how I got back in Liv’s good graces. We didn’t talk about what had happened. Not then. I tried to apologize once, but she cut me short saying, “Tavit makes too much of a fuss over things.”

  But she had a proud smile when she said his name that hurt as much as her fist had.

  * * *

  After that Maisetra Sovitre gave Iulien permission to take the river down to Urmai sometimes as long as it was Liv. She didn’t do it a lot, especially once the winter set in. But there weren’t any arguments between the two of them in the mornings anymore about sleeping late.

  The rest of the year settled into an easy pace, with one day much like the rest except that they got shorter and the wind turned cold. I started feeling a bit higher in the world. Once I overheard Charsintek talking to Ponivin and call me “Mefro Rozild.” Isn’t that something? Now I wore a nice dress for work instead of a plain dark one. Charsintek gave me money for it even though it wouldn’t be clothing day until January. I squeezed it out into two dresses by doing my own sewing, of course. Mefro Dominique let me work on them in spare moments by making it a study. I had to do everything all by myself and perfectly. If I made a mistake or it wasn’t up to her standards, she’d make me pick it all out and start again.

  After that, she said if I could do work that good without instruction, she’d trust me to sew anything in the shop. I glowed a bit at that, but the sewing was only the first bit of it. There was taking the measurements, making up patterns, changing the style of it to flatter the woman who would wear it. I listened to how Mefro Dominique talked to the customers. How she’d coax them into a color that suited them better or out of a style too young or too fancy for them.

  Mefro Dominique said I had a knack for fabrics and colors, but sweet-talking customers was harder. Celeste was still ahead of me. She’d been helping her mother all her life, but she wasn’t as interested in dressmaking as she was in charmwork. I think if it paid a good living, she’d do charms all the time. I asked her once and she shrugged.

  “Might as well wish for the moon. Charmwork’s barely a step up from begging. And what would Maman do for an assistant if she didn’t have me? She’d have to pay wages and someone else wouldn’t work as hard or care as much.” And then she smiled. That made up for a lot of sharp looks because she didn’t smile very often. “I like having you here, Roz. We don’t have to hire much out and most of the time the work’s done early. No more candles until midnight.”

  I felt the same, but from the other side. Celeste wanted to make my apprenticeship easier because the better I got, the more time she had for charmwork. And when she asked my help for that, it was like being in one of Maisetra Iulien’s stories. I wished there was some way we could both do what we loved most, but you have to do what pays for the bread.

  * * *

  The end of the year changed things, because Maisetra Iulien got permission to do more than go back and forth to school. I’d wondered about that. At first I thought she was joking when she said the maisetra was punishing her, but it was true. She’d run away from home to come to the city. If I’d done something like that, my mother would have beat me purple. Either that or washed her hands of me and said it served me right when I came to a bad end.

  I don’t know why Maisetra Iulien really came. I don’t know if she knew, but when Advent came and then the school term ended, she had a chance to start finding out. Now she could go visiting or to the Plaiz to go shopping. Not the Nikuleplaiz—the big one up by the cathedral. That meant I went too, sometimes. Not for the visiting—Maisetra Pertinek took care of that—but for the shopping as long as she stayed in the upper town.

  It wasn’t only to have someone carry her packages. A girl like her never went anywhere alone. At her age I’d already traveled to Rotenek all by myself and was working for a living. It might have been nice to have someone watching out for me like that, especially when I was dismissed. Girls like me have to watch out for themselves. Maisetra Iulien had four people watching out for her: Maisetra Sovitre at school, Maisetra Pertinek for visiting, and for everything else either Maistir Brandel or me.

  “Everything else” included wanting to see a bit more of the city than taking tea with the maisetra’s friends and shopping in the Plaiz.

  “They’d let me go almost anywhere with Brandel,” she told me with a sigh. “But I have to ask him, you see. And he’s so full of himself. It’s always, ‘Aukustin and I are going riding’ or ‘I have lessons at the palace.’ You’d think he was appointed Chustin’s armin or something, instead of them sharing a tutor. So I can ask, but he’s always busy.”

  I knew that wasn’t true. I knew everywhere she went because either I’d dressed her for it or I heard about it when she came back. Maistir Brandel looked after her regular-like in the upper town, which was a relief for me. I liked going out with her, but I had my work for Mefro Dominique as well. There are parts of the day that will stretch and others that won’t. I could move my duties around, but I couldn’t make them take less time. Not and do them proper. Mostly it meant I’d bring sewing back from Mefro Dominique’s to work on in the evenings when I was waiting around for Maisetra Iulien.

  Mefro
Dominique didn’t complain as long as the work got done. I knew why that was, because she’d told me. “You don’t have a proper apprenticeship contract, you know—not a real one. It’s all by Maisetra Sovitre’s leave. So she has the say in the end.”

  I figured out how to see to Maisetra Iulien and made it up as best I could. I was more tired than I’d ever been, even doing laundry for the Fillerts. But I liked making everything work for her, like I had that day she slept late and I set her up with Liv.

  Even when the reins were loosened, there were plenty of places Maisetra Iulien wasn’t allowed to go. Never outside the upper town if it was me waiting on her. Never south of the river—not even if Maistir Brandel was with her. Sometimes when we were walking along the Vezenaf that ran beside the river, she’d go out and stand in the middle of one of the bridges and lean on the railing to watch the water and the boats flow by. I think she did it to push at the edges.

  I’d never thought of the Nikuleplaiz as a dangerous place to go, but I was thinking about it for a girl like me, not one like her. When Maisetra Iulien wanted to spend a day shopping at the Strangers’ Market to buy gifts for her family back in Chalanz, Maisetra Sovitre hemmed and hawed a bit. At Advent the market was busy with bargemen selling things they’d picked up on their travels or things they made when they had time. Things from downriver in France, but from lands far off across the sea too. Lots of folks from the upper town went there to buy gifts.

  Maisetra Pertinek said she was too busy for dawdling in market booths all day. Maisetra Sovitre said she’d try to find time to go with her, but we knew that wasn’t likely to happen. I think it was the baroness who told Maistir Brandel to go and sweetened it by giving them both some money to spend. Brandel was above carrying parcels and baskets, so of course I went too.

  What started out as the three of us grew to a regular party by the day itself. Mefro Dominique told me to consider the day a holiday and told Celeste to do the same. That got me thinking. That evening at bedtime I suggested, “Maisetra, my friend Celeste—the dressmaker’s daughter—she knows the Nikuleplaiz like no one else. Who has the best goods and who’d try to cheat you.”