Floodtide

by Heather Rose Jones

  She caught my meaning. “Would she come?”

  “I could ask her,” I said. I was being a bit selfish too. Because if Celeste came I’d have someone to talk to and feel less like I was only there to carry things.

  Maistir Brandel said he’d meet us at the Nikuleplaiz because he had an errand at the palace first, and the maisetra said that was fine as long as we took a boat and he was there to meet us. So Liv picked us up at Tiporsel House, and Maisetra Iulien asked if she wanted to join us too.

  That made my heart fall. I remembered that first day I met Liv: how hard it had been for her climbing in and out of the boat and how she’d cried. It came to me that I’d never seen her on land since then except for that one time on the dock when Tavit had lifted her out.

  “Maisetra,” I began. “Liv can’t—”

  “I have a tongue in my head!” Liv said sharply. “Don’t you tell me what I can’t do.”

  “I know all about the crippled foot,” Maisetra Iulien said. “It’s a long way down to Urmai. We talk about everything.”

  That made me jealous. I hadn’t thought about how much time they’d spent together without me. Now I wanted Liv to say yes, to come with us so I’d have that chance to be with her too. But I also wanted her to say no, because I didn’t want to see her all tired and hurt in front of other people.

  Liv said, “Thank you, maisetra. That’s a kind offer.”

  I wasn’t sure if it was a no or yes until we got down to the bend of the river. Liv usually let me out at one of the floating docks, but this time she went to the broad steps in the middle where the statue of Saint Nikule stood. There was always a crowd of sturdy boys there standing around to give passengers a steadying hand up the steps for a mite of a coin. I never bothered with that, of course, but Maisetra Iulien accepted the help without a thought, so I took it as well and scrambled to find the right coin in the purse I was carrying for her.

  Liv called out to one of the other rivermen. “Hey, Luk. Could you tie me off somewhere out of the way?”

  “Sure thing” came the answer. The man crossed over to the boat as Liv gathered up her crutches from the bottom.

  I’d wondered how she managed that sort of thing, but she reached out a hand to Luk as she stood and put one crutch on the stone step and between them she swung over as smooth as water, with Chennek racing around her feet. Then she tucked her crutches under her arms and worked her way up to the dry part of the steps as the riverman untied the lines and moved the boat off and farther down the river wall.

  Celeste was waiting for us, perched on the low wall that surrounded the statue of Saint Nikule. She jumped up as we approached and made her curtsey to Maisetra Iulien and nodded at Liv. I’d talked about Liv so much there was no need to say who she was.

  I looked around for Maistir Brandel because the maisetra had been firm about him meeting us at the boat. A voice called out, “Iuli!” and we turned to see him working his way through the crowd. He looked around at all of us in something like dismay. I guess he hadn’t known that Celeste and Liv had been added that morning. But before he said anything, someone else came up behind him, and my heart nearly stopped because it was Aukustin Atilliet, the Dowager Princess’s son.

  I’d seen him that once in the entryway at Tiporsel House and he wasn’t dressed fancy for court. But you remember a face with the name Atilliet attached to it. I don’t know that I’d recognize his cousin—Princess Anna’s son—if I saw him dressed plain-like in the street, and I’d never seen him but once or twice in the cathedral at services or across the Plaiz.

  As he came up to join us, I was all in a panic, not sure whether I was supposed to curtsey or pretend I wasn’t there. I was saved from having to figure it out because Maisetra Iulien skipped past the greetings to say, “Don’t tell me you’re going to cry off, Brandel! You know Cousin Margerit only said yes because you’d be here with me.”

  Brandel looked back over his shoulder and shrugged a bit sheepishly. “He wanted to come.”

  I saw it all in that moment. How Maistir Brandel was caught in between because he couldn’t say no to Mesner Atilliet. How Maisetra Iulien was afraid her special holiday was being snatched away from her, because she shouldn’t be spending time with a man from outside the family unless she had a proper vizeino. A grown-up one. And then she relaxed when another man, an older one, pushed through the crowd behind them.

  Maisetra Iulien made a curtsey to them both. “Mesner Atilliet, Maistir Chautovil. I’m honored you want to join my little party. I hope you won’t find shopping too tedious.”

  I worked out later that Chautovil was the boys’ tutor, but all I knew then was that they acted like him being there made everything respectable.

  Mesner Atilliet bowed stiffly in return and said, “I thank you for the invitation. It is a pleasure to have the opportunity to speak to the people.”

  I heard Liv smother a laugh at the way he said “the people.” But as we began moving through the market and haggling with the bargemen and sailors, he was always quick with questions about boats and trade. Where they’d traveled, what the cargos were, and all manner of questions about the river.

  Maisetra Iulien made it clear this was still her party when some jewelry caught her eye and she insisted we stop to look. Celeste helped her haggle over the price of a gilded bangle bracelet. I think Maisetra Iulien was doing it for fun, but when the price had been settled, she had to buy it, so I found the right coins and tucked the bracelet into my carrying basket.

  We hadn’t gone fifty steps before she was calling him “Aukustin” the same as Maistir Brandel did, as if they were all brother and sister. That shocked me, but maybe well-born folks were easier about such things. He didn’t seem offended at all.

  The space they called the Strangers’ Market was mostly a couple rows of booths along the river wall, but for Advent it spilled out further into the square where the farmers set up in the rest of the year. We did a lot of walking and I’d been worried about Liv, but we stopped to look at almost everything. I think Liv preferred walking to standing because sometimes while we were waiting, she’d edge over to the wall and lean on it, half-sitting. The first time I asked if she was tired, but she scowled and shook her head so I didn’t ask again.

  Maisetra Iulien was true to her word about finding gifts for her family back in Chalanz. When she talked about how her mother would like this or she wished Sofi could see that, her voice was sad as well as excited. Like she was happy to be here but missed her family. I’d been sad like that the first winter I’d spent in Rotenek.

  We all liked looking at the curious things the sailors had brought from the far ends of the earth. Little carved boxes, shawls and ribbons in bright colors, perfume bottles, toys and trinkets. When something caught her fancy, Maisetra Iulien would start telling stories about what it was for, who had made it, and how it had made its way to Rotenek.

  It was made-up stories—we knew that. But she could make you believe they were true. Mesner Aukustin drank it all in and sometimes he’d add little details that she’d pick up and include. Some of the sailors would grin and play along, agreeing with everything she said, until they figured out she wasn’t buying. One chuckled and said he was going to remember the story to tell the next customer. Maistir Brandel was bored, I think. He was quiet except when we stopped to look at a selection of knives with carved handles. They must have been too dear for his purse because he didn’t even try to bargain.

  No one seemed to treat Mesner Aukustin special. I didn’t notice that at first because of how Maistir Brandel and Maisetra Iulien acted with him. He didn’t look like you’d think the son of a princess would, and Celeste said later that people didn’t know his face. The older Mesner Atilliet, Princess Anna’s son—he was always out riding around in his cavalry uniform or doing things where people could see him. But Mesner Aukustin wasn’t out where he’d get noticed.

  The only time he made a fuss was when we stopped to look at a tray of charms and amulets at the end o
f the arcade on the west side of the plaiz. It was a jumble of strange carved stones and pinchbeck lockets. Nothing special. Celeste turned her nose up and said they were useless. But Mesner Aukustin turned pale and demanded we move on.

  “What about the fortune-tellers, then?” Maisetra Iulien asked.

  We hadn’t quite finished with the Strangers’ Market and Maistir Brandel grumbled about being hungry, but we were there at the arcade where the charmwives gathered and it was tradition to get a fortune for the new year. Some of the charmwives called out greetings to Celeste and teased her about the fine company she was keeping. They were mostly talking to us girls, of course. Everyone knows women are more interested in fortune-telling than men are.

  I was surprised that Maisetra Iulien wanted her fortune told. Why would you need cards read for you when your cousin is the royal thaumaturgist? But she was lingering in a way that let the charmwives know they’d hooked a fish and she offered to pay for all our fortunes. Celeste refused so I counted out coins to the five who pressed most closely around us, one fortune from each. Celeste was watching with that sharp look of hers. She’d know if we were getting told true or not, but she wouldn’t say anything. Not in front of the charmwives.

  I knew how to do simple fortunes that anyone might do at a festival, like cracking nuts at New Years or true-love charms on May Day. Liv picked Nana Rossel, an old woman with little burn scars on her trembling hands. She melted a bit of lead in a ladle over a brazier and poured it into a pan of water, then fished out the cooling metal to read. It was all melty little shapes like the stump of a burnt candle, except in dull gray metal. With a shaking finger, the woman pointed at the loops and layers of the flow and said, “There, my dear. You see? You have a chance at love as long as you don’t hold it too tight.” She pointed to where a small bead of lead was caged loose in two arms of the rest of the metal, barely held in place by the flow around it. “You see? Capture your chance like a tender bird and it’s yours.”

  Liv turned all red as she was talking and wouldn’t even thank her, though she nodded at the words. I hoped the fortune was about Tavit. I wish it could have been me. But I couldn’t tease her in front of the family. Armins weren’t supposed to have sweethearts.

  Maisetra Iulien chose the seeing glass held by Nana Tazek. Tazek had a crafty look and asked if she wanted to know the name of her future husband, glancing at the two boys. She shook her head and said, “Tell me about my future. What will come for me.”

  I don’t think that suited Tazek because she frowned a little and made her movements bigger and more showy, to distract from her words. “You will come to your heart’s desire,” she intoned. “There will be a choice, but not your choice.” Her eyes went a little unfocused as if she were having a vision, but I think that was just for show too. “When it rises—that will be your time.” Then she shook her head as if to send the vision away and finished, “You will know what it means when the time comes.”

  Maisetra Iulien looked a little puzzled and a little doubtful, but she thanked her as if it meant something and waved at the rest of us.

  I didn’t hear what fortune Maistir Brandel got because Nana Efriza had taken my hand to read. She was the old bent-backed woman Celeste visited sometimes. She traced her fingers across my palm with a light tickling touch muttering, “Yes, there, you see? Three breaks. And then a line that stretches out clear. Three times your life will change before you know your path. But your path is on the heart and not the head.”

  She traced a sharp nail-tip along each of two lines with the words.

  “Choose well: what is wise is not always best.”

  I repeated that to myself. Choose with the heart and not the head. Wise is not best. But it seemed to me that following my heart was what had gotten me in trouble so far.

  Mesner Aukustin had been standing behind us as the other fortunes were told. Brandel turned after his own was done to say, “Your turn, Aukustin.”

  He stepped up at last to the remaining charmwife, who had been shuffling a handful of cards. But when she heard Brandel’s words, she peered at him more closely and became frightened.

  “No, my lord. Not for you. It’s not worth my life.”

  Like I said, mostly people hadn’t recognized him that morning—you see what you expect to see and there are plenty of men named Aukustin. But people did say he had a look of his father, the old prince, and maybe the woman saw true. She slipped the stack of cards back into the pocket of her skirts and held out the coin she’d been given saying, “It’s not for me to say your future.”

  Mesner Aukustin looked half-parts embarrassed and pleased. He waved his hand to refuse the coin in a way that made him look all royal-like. “You needn’t fear, mefro. It was only in fun.” He turned to Brandel and said, “I don’t need a charmwife to tell me my future, do I? Some day I shall be prince—please God the day is far away for Princess Anna’s sake.”

  “You will never be prince of Alpennia.”

  We all jumped to hear that. It was Celeste talking, but her voice sounded strange. She’d been staring at Nana Tazek’s seeing glass and now she looked up like she’d been woken from a dream.

  “What do you mean?” Mesner Aukustin’s voice turned cold and formal. When she wouldn’t answer, he demanded, “What would a foreigner know about it?”

  Celeste looked like she was trying to sink into the stones, but Liv answered him back.

  “She’s no more foreign than you are. Her mother is French, but so is yours. She was born here in Rotenek the same as you. You may have been baptized by the archbishop in Saint Mauriz’s cathedral, but she was baptized by Mama Rota and that counts for more among Rotenek folk.”

  I knew she didn’t mean the rich folks in the upper city but the people here along the river. It was true about Mesner Aukustin’s mother. People forgot that—that Dowager Princess Elisebet had been born in France. But it wasn’t a foreignness you could see on her skin the way Celeste’s was.

  When Liv started talking, I think I was as scared as Celeste was, though I was the only one who had a position to lose and I was keeping my mouth shut.

  But when Mesner Aukustin stepped forward angrily, the old charmwife who’d refused to tell his fortune took him by the arm and cried out, “A riverman’s tongue!”

  It was an old proverb I’d learned from Liv: No lock on a riverman’s tongue. She said in the old days it was part of the charter for the rivermen’s guild that they couldn’t be punished for anything said on the water. The story says that Prince Domric granted it after his boat was saved when the men rowing the royal barge had to give him orders to save his life in an accident, but Liv thinks it’s because every riverman needs to be the captain of his boat, no matter how small. It was a tradition that rivermen are allowed to speak their mind to high and low, even on land. That’s what the charmwife meant.

  Maisetra Iulien broke the tension. “I want to know about Mama Rota. Brandel, you must be starving. Maybe Maistir Chautovil knows where to eat.”

  Now Mesner Aukustin was looking more sheepish than angry, as if he remembered that someone who was going to be a prince took no notice of little things.

  Finding a place to sit in the crowd at the tavern wasn’t a little thing, but Chautovil got someone to clear a table for us. Not all of us, of course. Maisetra Iulien insisted that Liv sit down. Liv hadn’t said anything, but she’d been leaning more and more on her crutches every time we stood still and she didn’t argue. I was too busy helping bring out pastries and cups of hot spiced wine to sit, and nobody was going to invite me to in any case. And Celeste took up the story of Mama Rota, standing before the rest of them like a player on a tiny stage. She didn’t look frightened any more.

  “Saint Rota watches over the folk on the river,” she explained. “You pray to her to keep from drowning and against the fever. Folks say if you drink the water from Saint Rota’s well it will cure river fever, but that’s a way of saying it’s in the hands of God, because there isn’t a well. If you work
on the river—or beside it—you’re going to fall in sooner or later. That’s when people say you’ve been baptized by Mama Rota and she’s got her special eye on you. Some folks will dip a baby in the river before they take it in for baptism. Most of the priests say it’s a heathen thing, but some won’t mind if you slip a bit of river water in the font before the baby is blessed.”

  Mesner Aukustin had started out stiff and quiet while she was talking, but now he said, “I’ve seen all the statues of saints in the cathedral. I’ve never heard of a Saint Rota.”

  Celeste pressed her lips together and didn’t contradict him.

  Liv said, “She doesn’t belong to the cathedral, she belongs to us. You can’t see half the chanulezes that run under the city, but they feed the river just the same.”

  Mesner Aukustin pricked up his ears. “Under the city?” Then he and Liv were back to friends again, talking about the chanulezes and where they ran and what they were used for.

  By the time we’d finished eating, Maisetra Iulien decided she was too footsore for more. Maybe she was pretending for Liv’s sake.

  The mood was back to what it had been at the beginning of the day. But I kept thinking about how Celeste had looked when she said Mesner Aukustin wouldn’t be prince. The charmwives sometimes got that faraway look when they were telling fortunes. Was it a true vision? It didn’t take a crystal ball to guess that the noble folk were more likely to pick Princess Anna’s son when the time came to choose the next prince. But it wasn’t good manners to say that to Mesner Aukustin.

  Chapter Eleven

  January 1825—Secrets

  I’d never entirely forgotten Nan—you don’t, you know. I never dreamed about her any more, but cold January mornings I’d remember how it was waking up lying against her. It was as much the warmth I missed as the touch of her skin and how nice her hair smelled. Then one morning, when I was out shopping with Maisetra Iulien in the Plaiz, I saw her again and it all came back.