Floodtide

by Heather Rose Jones

  * * *

  In that week after the trip down the chanulezes, Maisetra Iulien wasn’t going to classes yet and when I left for my sewing it was either well before or after the market delivery. So I hadn’t noticed that Liv hadn’t been by in that time until when the baroness was leaving to go south to Turinz for a bit. In the middle of all that, Tavit came hunting me one morning while I was tidying Maisetra Iulien’s room. That was enough to make me pay sharp attention.

  “Might I beg a favor, Mefro Rozild?” he asked.

  Nobody called me that unless it was Charsintek being all formal. I put down the walking dress I was brushing off and gave him my ears.

  “Could you… That is, did you know that Oliva Hald has been ill?”

  “Liv? No! I haven’t seen her since—” But then I remembered how she’d looked pale and sounded tired that day when she rowed us all around. I was ashamed to think I hadn’t said anything then.

  Tavit didn’t notice. “I went to see her a day ago. She’s been coughing for a week. I promised I’d bring her this.” He held out a brown-wrapped parcel that smelled of an apothecary’s shop. “I thought I’d have time this evening, but the baroness—”

  It didn’t need saying. He had his duties and they’d be leaving at first light in the morning. He must have thought he could get away this afternoon or he wouldn’t have promised.

  “Could you take it for me? And see that she has what she needs? Do you know the direction?” When I looked blank he added, “Ask any riverman. He’ll know where to take you.”

  I nodded and slipped the parcel in the pocket under my skirt. At first I wondered why he’d asked me and not hired a delivery boy or asked one of the grooms. But maybe he didn’t want his business being talked about. I already knew about him and Liv. And I cared about her. He knew that. He wouldn’t think twice about crossing over to the south bank. I didn’t want to go wandering through those streets by myself, but I’d promised, and it was for Liv.

  I took the package with me when I went down to Mefro Dominique’s at noon and begged, “Would you let Celeste go with me, after the work is done?”

  I only meant I was afraid to go alone, but she said to Celeste, “Petite, don’t you have a charm for the cough?”

  “Yes, Maman.”

  “Then go see to your friend. Go now so you won’t be coming back in the dark. I’d rather have you sewing by candlelight than crossing the river after the sun goes down.”

  I guess it’s true that the river folk all know each other. When we went down to where the boats waited at the plaiz, we didn’t have to do more than mention Liv’s name and our errand. The man set to his oars with a hard pull and we were angling over toward the warehouses on the opposite side. I hoped he wasn’t going to leave us there—the barge docks were full of rough men—but we slipped down past the Pont Berkor that crossed west from the warehouses and then into a wide chanulez that led deep into the crowded blocks of the south bank. The buildings were shabby and crumbling, but they felt home-like and friendly.

  He didn’t tie up to let us off, only pulled over by one of a row of boats that lined the sides of the chanulez and pointed up at one of the brick tenements. “That one. Ask anyone and they’ll tell you which door. And put those coins away. Tell Liv that Luk is praying for her.”

  We climbed across the boat and up a slippery ladder. I was afraid Celeste might spill her basket. The street was barely above our heads, so I went up first and reached down for it. With all the boats, I figured all the rivermen in Rotenek must live on that street. Most of the buildings had open arched arcades for the bottom story and you could see more boats and equipment stored there or carpenters at work doing repairs and such. We climbed the stairs in the building Luk had pointed out and I thought of Liv going up and down them every day with her crutches. There were three doors at the first landing, but two were open and Celeste called out a hello. A tired-looking woman came out to shush us. I figured that meant we were in the right place.

  “Tavit asked me to bring Liv something from the apothecary’s,” I told her. It seemed like the best start. “He wanted to come himself, but—” I shrugged and she nodded and stood aside to let us in.

  They had two rooms, but Liv’s bed had been moved out to be next to the stove. Mefro Hald went to shift her pillows and tell her she had visitors. Liv started coughing: a thick, wet cough that explained why she looked so pale and worn out. Lots of people got the cough in winter time, but Liv had it bad.

  I went over to kneel by the bedside and said, “Hey, Liv. Tavit sent me with your medicine.” I could see why he was worried and was mad he hadn’t told me sooner. Like he was the only one allowed to care about her because he was the one she liked.

  Celeste pulled the apothecary’s package out of her basket and gave it to Mefro Hald, who sniffed at it, then opened up the wrapping and emptied one of the little twists of paper into a cup to mix up for Liv to drink.

  “And Celeste brought her charm things,” I added, “so you can—”

  “Roz!” Celeste said sharply.

  I knew I’d broken some sort of rule about doing charms, but I didn’t care. “I don’t know why we lugged that heavy basket all the way over here if you aren’t going to use it.”

  Mefro Hald brought the medicine over and held the cup for Liv to drink. “Won’t say no, but we can’t pay, not with Liv’s fares not coming in.”

  Celeste started taking things out of her basket and laying them on the foot of the bed. There wasn’t any other good place to put them. “I won’t charge a friend,” she said.

  I didn’t remember much about what Celeste did for my bruised leg. Prayers and signs on a bit of paper and tying it on me with the red flannel. This time I watched more closely, but I still didn’t know why she used this and that to mix up an ink or why she needed to braid yellow and blue threads together or where she got the twigs she tied them around.

  Liv hadn’t said much more than hello and even that made her cough, but she pulled at my sleeve and said in a breathy whisper, “Put something from Mama Rota into it.”

  Celeste paused what she was doing. “This charm doesn’t call on her. I know some that do, but they aren’t for the cough.”

  “Put her in anyway.” Liv choked on a long coughing fit. “She looks after us river folk. Doesn’t matter what.”

  “I got this charm from Nana Charl, and she got it from her gran. It’s a good charm. I don’t know what’ll happen if I change it.”

  “You’ll know,” I protested. “You change things all the time when we—”

  “Roz!” But she sighed and looked up at Mefro Hald. “Can you get me some river water?”

  Liv’s mother turned to a small boy who’d come out of the back room to cling to her skirts. “Go down and fetch a bit of river water. Don’t you fall in and don’t you spill it!”

  When he came back, Celeste mixed a few drops of the water into the ink, then she knelt by the bedside and set to drawing and writing things on the square of paper. She frowned at it as the ink dried and added a few more marks, but it must have worked the way she wanted. I didn’t hear her add Saint Rota into the prayers and didn’t want to interrupt her to ask.

  Why she was so set against trying things? When we worked on the laundry charms, she was always changing it a little to see what happened. Finally she was happy with the charm paper and took the candle out of its wrappings for me to hold.

  “From Saint Mauriz’s altar at the cathedral,” she told Liv. “Maisetra Talarico got it for me. He helps in every battle.”

  She said it like it was part of the charm, but I think any holy candle would do. First she said a Pater and an Ave in Latin, then the bits of the charm she’d said while she was preparing the charm paper. It wasn’t the same as the words written on the paper and there were circles and lines and other things there as well. Then she rolled the paper up into a quill around the twigs and wrapped the braided thread around it, then off, then on again three times, saying, “Bind and loose, bind
and loose, in Belais’ name, let it loose.” She touched the quill to the candle flame, tilting the twigs down so the flame worked its way up the paper.

  “When it smokes, you breathe as deep as you can and hold it.” She pinched out the flame while saying, “Amen,” and held it under Liv’s nose.

  Liv took a breath and I could see her struggling not to cough, but she held it for the time it took Celeste to say another Pater. When she let it go with a little sighing whistle, she didn’t cough at all. Celeste pinched the candle out and wrapped it up to put away.

  “You let that work a bit, then see what comes up. Sometimes once does the trick. Sometimes it takes another. You send for me if it takes more than a few days.” She said that to Mefro Hald.

  I didn’t expect the charm to work all at once, but Liv already looked a bit less pale. Then she started coughing again. It sounded horrible, worse than before, and Mefro Hald brought over a basin and sent a worried look at Celeste as Liv spat out a whole mess. But when she was done, she gave a deep sigh that didn’t set her coughing again. Her mother took the mess away to throw in the chamber pot.

  “Thank you.” Liv sounded better too.

  “Now you drink what you can,” Celeste said. “And take the medicine Tavit sent you.”

  We sat with her for a while and talked as the charm and the draught did their work. Sometimes Liv would cough again, but always to good end, not like it was when we’d first come. I told her how Tavit wanted to come himself and he was worried about her. She smiled at that. Seeing her smile—that made me know they were right together, even if I didn’t understand it. On impulse I asked, “What is it you like most about Tavit?”

  She was quiet for a bit and I thought maybe I shouldn’t have asked her to talk. She was still so pale. Then she said, “I like him because even though he’s strong, he never makes me feel weak.” She waved toward the end of the bed where her crippled foot lay hidden under the covers.

  That made me think some more. “Celeste?”

  She looked up from where she’d started repacking her charm basket.

  “You’re so good at making healing charms, can’t you charm Liv’s foot?”

  Celeste stared at me like I’d said something awful. “Roz, charms don’t work like that. You can’t just make one up. Even mysteries don’t work like that. You have to ask the saints to put things back right the way they’re supposed to be. You can’t ask them to change things God did for a reason.”

  That was more awful than anything I might have said. “Don’t tell me God wants Liv to have a twisted foot!”

  Liv was tugging weakly at my sleeve, but all I could see was Celeste stomping across the room and out the door with her basket on her arm.

  “Roz, don’t,” Liv pleaded.

  “But why? Why shouldn’t I ask?” I said. “Don’t you want to not be crippled?”

  “I don’t want you to pick me apart! Like I was a seam you’d done badly and had to sew over again. Roz…let it be.”

  Now both my best friends were mad at me and all I’d wanted to do was help. I tucked the blanket around Liv and promised I’d try to come back in a few days, though I didn’t know how I could get away.

  Celeste was waiting for me at the top of the stairs outside. Before I could say anything I saw she’d been crying so I hugged her.

  “Roz,” she said. “I don’t have a charm to fix a crippled leg. Don’t you think I’d try if I had one? What if I did something wrong and then Liv couldn’t walk at all? Don’t you think I’d fix the whole world if I could? I can only use the charms I know.”

  I suppose that made sense. A person wasn’t a napkin you could wash all over again or use for a rag if you set the stain instead of taking it out. But people did get miracles sometimes, didn’t they? It seemed to me if anyone deserved a miracle, Liv did. What could be the harm in asking for one?

  Chapter Fourteen

  March 1825—Saint Rota

  Liv got better and was back on the river, though not till after Maisetra Iulien’s classes started, so I had a few weeks’ hard work getting her up and dressed in time to leave with Maisetra Sovitre in the carriage after the holidays made her lazy. It wasn’t every day. Maisetra Iulien didn’t have as many classes now and some days she went visiting instead. There was talk about letting her have a coming out ball in the after-season between Easter and floodtide. But the weeks of Lent slipped by with everyone too distracted to think about it. Lady Day came and went, but I didn’t see Papa this time and he sent word he’d trust me to keep my pay until mid-summer.

  Then the big to-do was that the baroness’s cousin had a baby. Women have babies all the time, but usually they have husbands first. Charsintek had kept a tight fist on gossip about it downstairs, acting like it wasn’t a scandal. I figured there was no harm in asking Maisetra Iulien if the baby was healthy and doing well.

  “I’ve added her to my prayers,” I said. “Babies need all the help they can get, especially if…” I closed my mouth and decided it was better not to finish.

  “Thank you, Roz.” She answered what I hadn’t said. “She’s an alchemist, you know.”

  I knew that the baroness’s cousin made magic rings for the princess, but I didn’t know what that had to do with babies.

  “She grew the baby the same way she grows the magic jewels, using alchemy. You mustn’t think that she’s a…a fallen woman.”

  That was exactly what Charsintek didn’t want us thinking, so of course we all wondered. “Can you really do that?” I asked. “Can you make a baby by magic? Is that proper?”

  “She did it, didn’t she?”

  I frowned, thinking about it. “It seems to me that it’s a hard thing to do to a child to bring it into the world all alone, magic or not.”

  “But she won’t be alone. She’ll have Mesnera de Cherdillac—” She caught herself, then rushed on, “—and the baroness and Cousin Margerit and…and everyone.”

  I’d sorted out that the baroness’s cousin shared a house with the Vicomtesse de Cherdillac, like the baroness and the maisetra did. I wasn’t sure that would be enough. And Maisetra Iulien didn’t always know what was proper, considering how she’d arrived in Rotenek.

  During Holy Week, she said we were going out on the chanulezes again, like we had in January and I was to ask Celeste to come with us to tell us what she knew about how the city was built. She’d already hired Liv for the day, she said.

  “Maisetra,” I started. I’d been thinking hard about that day. “Maisetra, is it really suitable—?”

  She got a look that was part stubborn and part pleading. “Aukustin wants to go and it all falls apart if I’m not there. Liv would refuse and Aukustin doesn’t dare ask any of the other rivermen for fear they’ll carry tales to the palace. You wouldn’t carry tales, would you? Brandel will be there. It won’t be any different from before.”

  I thought I really should tell Maisetra Sovitre, but then I’d have to tell about the last time. And the time in the Nikuleplaiz. If she didn’t approve, then more than Maisetra Iulien would be in trouble. The two boys as well and me in the bargain. Even if nothing else, I’d be a snitch and I didn’t want Maisetra Iulien thinking that about me.

  Whose secrets was I supposed to keep? If Maisetra Iulien got herself in bad enough trouble to ruin her reputation then, no matter what I’d done, I’d get splashed with the mud. But she might go anyway without me. I nodded. “I’ll ask Celeste if she can come.”

  * * *

  Liv’s boat was more crowded this time and rode low in the water, so it was good we weren’t crossing the river proper. We picked up Maistir Brandel and Mesner Aukustin at the public dock by the Pont Vezzen, not the palace dock. They squeezed together into the seat at the bow. I was sitting in the bottom of the boat right at Liv’s feet. The only other place for a sixth person would be on the rowing bench with Liv, and she laughed when I suggested that.

  “You’re not taking the oars! Not unless you’ve learned what you’re about.”

 
The water was low enough that the brick archway behind the dock looked like a cave or a mine opening. There was an iron grate across the top that would block it if the water was higher. Liv cast off and pulled strongly on the oars to take us up around the end of the dock, then nosed us slowly under the archway. The iron grating was rusted and crumbling and left barely enough room between it and the river that we could slip under if everyone crouched low. With fewer people in the boat we might have ridden too high to make it. Liv had to ship the oars and pull us through by the edge of the grating with Maisetra Iulien and Celeste in the stern pushing at it to take us the rest of the way through.

  Once we were past the grating, the air turned cold, like walking into a springhouse or a damp cellar. The small splashes of the water and the oars echoed faintly and the air was still, almost how a church feels between services. The light from the archway didn’t go much past the first few boat-lengths and Maistir Brandel lit the ship’s lantern Liv had brought. It still didn’t light up much of the tunnel, but at least we could see the walls and the brick overhead, right above the reach of your fingers if you stood up in the boat.

  The walls narrowed quickly from how they’d been at the opening of the chanulez. Liv pulled the oars out and despite what she’d said, she and I sat side by side on the bench and pushed them against the walls of the channel, like poling in the shallows except sideways.

  “If it gets any tighter we’re going back,” Liv said. No one argued with that.

  “How far have we gone?” Mesner Aukustin asked.

  “I’m counting,” Celeste said sharply from the stern.

  I could see her lips and fingers moving by the lantern light as she watched the walls of the channel slip past. She had an eye for yardage and I could tell she was counting out the stone as if it were lengths of cloth.