“It’s not lies, it’s…stories,” she protested. “Didn’t Liv say that Rota was Saint Mauriz’s sister? And someone must have built the fountain. I’m trying to think through how it might have happened.”
For Maisetra Iulien, her stories were just for fun, like the ones in the cheap novels we passed around downstairs. But she could tell it meant more to Celeste so she stopped.
Finally one of the winking lights in the dark tunnel grew larger and I knew it was the opening back to the river. When we came out into the sunlight, it was like the whole trip had been a dream and we were waking up, except that I was still holding Liv’s bailer in my lap, filled with cold clear water.
Chapter Fifteen
April 1825—Longing
We were always given time off for services on holy days and the important feasts and it was expected that everyone would go. Tiporsel House fell under Saint Mauriz’s up in the Plaiz, but during Holy Week the cathedral was so crowded we had to stand in the back. On ordinary days we could use the Tiporsel pew if the family wasn’t using it, but on Easter a lot of the downstairs folk went to Saint Luk’s. It was almost as close, up at the far end of the Vezenaf. I usually got permission from Charsintek to go join Mefro Dominique and Celeste at Saint Nikule’s instead.
I liked the priest at Saint Nikule’s. He made you feel like you were really in the presence of God. It wasn’t anything special he did or said different. More a feeling you got when he led the services. Saint Mauriz’s was—well, not frightening, except in the way the idea of judgment day is frightening—but the cathedral felt too important for people like me. I don’t know if Father Mazzu remembered me from that night I slept in the church. If he did, he was polite and didn’t say anything. Mostly I liked going to Saint Nikule’s because I could spend time with Celeste. It felt a little like I was back in Sain-Pol and we were a family. I missed my family most during holidays, especially since I hadn’t seen Papa at the last quarter day. I didn’t know when I might have a chance to go back and visit.
There wasn’t any regular market on Easter Sunday, but of course there was always someone selling food and drinks any time people were gathered in the Nikuleplaiz. So we bought hot buns and chicken pies and strawberries as a treat and sat at one of the tables outside the wine shop hoping the morning’s rain wouldn’t come back.
We didn’t often have an idle afternoon like that, but Mefro Dominique had said we’d have a holiday. There wasn’t much sewing to be done right before summer. There might still be balls and parties—Maisetra Iulien was dreaming of hers—but the rich folk were getting ready to leave the city when floodtide was declared. The river gave no signs of rising so it might be another month before they’d give up and throw the bucket at Saint Nikule. It looked to be the same as the last few years with the river low and stinking all through the summer. I’d asked Liv if the rivermen thought it would rise. She said they didn’t presume to bid the river come and go.
That’s why I didn’t think much of it when people kept looking over past the statue of the saint to the river’s edge. What was there to see? We’d finished eating a long time ago and Mefro Dominique had bought a bottle of wine to share around with some of her friends who joined us: the milliner and a girl who helped with extra sewing when the work was too much for even Celeste and me. Celeste had been sitting with her back to the river, that’s why it took her longer than others to notice. And it was only a few people looking.
Something made her turn around, maybe a change in how people were talking. She gasped out a little “Ah!” As if she’d seen a good friend or a wonderful sight. She stood and took a step like she was walking in a dream. Mefro Dominique reached out and touched her arm, but she kept heading toward where Saint Nikule stood, so I followed after. A clump of people were gathered there, all staring out at the water. I recognized one of the charmwives who told fortunes in the arcade, but mostly it was ordinary people.
“Celeste, what’s wrong?” I asked.
She started, like waking up, and said, “The river. It’s on fire.”
My heart jumped, because some of the warehouses had burned down over the other side of the river, but I didn’t see any smoke this time. “Like flaming brandy?” I asked. I’d seen that once when Cook was practicing for a special dinner.
The charmwife muttered, “Mama Rota won’t be denied. The river knows what she wants.”
I took Celeste’s hand because she took a few more steps, and I was afraid she might come to the edge and fall in. Could all these people see visions like Celeste did? They looked around at each other in that way people do when they want to make sure they aren’t going mad. You don’t expect visions to happen outside of church, not unless you’re a saint. Or maybe a thaumaturgist like Maisetra Sovitre. Nobody else said anything. It was all sidelong glances and maybe taking note of who else was there.
“What does it mean?” I asked.
Celeste shook her head. “I don’t know. I can hear it calling but don’t know what it wants.”
Someone must have gone and fetched Father Mazzu because he came out to stand near us in the circle of steps around Saint Nikule’s statue. Celeste said once that he was a holy man. That when he blessed you, you were truly blessed. But I could tell he didn’t see whatever it was that Celeste was seeing. People were crowding around him, asking him what it meant. He raised his arms and said some prayers and preached a little sermon about the miracle of the resurrection and God’s wonders and that made people more comfortable. Later Celeste said the fire never really went away. It faded down and sank into the waters, but if you looked deep in the river you could see it flickering like sun in the water at noon.
Celeste didn’t know anything more until days later after she’d talked to Maisetra Talarico. Maisetra Talarico thought it was something to do with a mystery they celebrated up in the Plaiz by the cathedral. It wasn’t a regular mystery, more like the mystery plays the guilds perform at Carnival. At least I thought that was what she said.
I’d almost forgotten about the whole thing a few days later when Liv picked me up at Tiporsel House. Maisetra Iulien didn’t have classes any more so it was Liv and me, with Chennek sitting on my lap. Liv pushed off and prayed to Mama Rota as she kissed the river. Then she made a face and tasted the water again. Instead of keeping close to the edge, Liv pulled out into the middle of the river like she meant to cross or to catch the current to go all the way down to Urmai. Liv pulled one oar in and let us drift briefly as she dipped her hand in the water and brought it up to taste again.
“It’s coming,” she said. “Don’t know how high or how long, but it’s coming.”
“Floodtide?” I asked.
She nodded as she put the second oar back in the water and angled back toward the north bank again.
People were muttering about it in the Nikuleplaiz over the next few days. The rivermen had seen the signs in a streak of color toward the middle of the current. Mefro Dominique took Liv’s word, and rather than sewing, we spent two days carrying all the stock upstairs from the workroom.
“It isn’t often the water rises high enough to fill the streets,” Mefro Dominique said. “It’s only happened three times while I’ve lived here. But if it does, we won’t have time to move things.”
So the fine fabrics were tied into bundles and carried up to the bedroom. The baskets of ribbons followed them, and the printed magazines with their fashion plates and anything else the water might spoil, until the upstairs rooms were stuffed like a warehouse and the downstairs was bare except for the worktable and the dresses we were sewing.
The muddy streak in the middle of the river grew wider, and the river crept up one step toward the statue of Saint Nikule and then part of another. Three days went by without the water rising farther. Whoever it was that decided to declare floodtide must have figured it was all we’d get, so Father Mazzu went down to the edge of the steps and dipped a bronze bucket on a little chain into the water, then took and poured it over the saint’s feet.
<
br /> There were a few half-hearted shouts of “God be praised,” or “Bless us, Saint Nikule,” but also more than a few of “Saint Rota protect us.”
Celeste and I had gone down to the plaiz to watch the ceremony, and Liv had come to join us when she spotted us from where the rivermen were tied up to watch.
“How does he decide?” I asked as we heard the sweet, piercing floodtide bell ring in the tower beside the church.
“In an ordinary year,” Liv said, “children keep watch over the saint and run to tell when it reaches his feet.”
“But how do they decide when to throw the bucket instead?” It wasn’t really throwing, but that was what you said: that they’d thrown the bucket at Saint Nikule.
Celeste shrugged. “Nana Charl always said the prince told them—that was back in Prince Aukust’s day. I think they ask the palace. Sometimes Princess Anna might want to keep folks in town longer. That only matters to folks who can take a holiday.”
“Will there be river fever?” I asked Liv. She was the one always talking about how floodtide brings fever.
“Not from this,” she said. “Maybe a few people, but not bad. When a real flood comes, it’ll be bad.”
I didn’t know if she meant the sickness or the flood or both.
Celeste looked worried, but it wasn’t like there was anything she could do. Not unless one of the charmwives had something against river fever that she could learn.
* * *
With the maisetra staying in Rotenek for her school, the announcement of floodtide didn’t affect us much at Tiporsel House, no more than it had last year. Ailis said the maisetra used to have a summer place in Chalanz—she got to go there once with the traveling staff—but that had been sold to buy the school. I figured I’d never have a chance to leave the city in the summer. That was fine with me, because of working for Mefro Dominique, but it would have been nice to do both.
The baroness was getting ready to go see to her properties, and Mesner and Maisetra Pertinek would go visiting friends in the country, so the upstairs would be emptier.
Maisetra Iulien was the only one whose plans were upset by floodtide. Everyone expected at least a month after Holy Week before they gave up and rang the bell. And Ailis said when floodtide came right after Holy Week usually people would come back to the city for a late season before leaving for the summer, but this year they were staying away because of how the river stank. I was starting to realize I’d never been in Rotenek when floodtide happened regular.
We all knew Maisetra Iulien was to stay in Rotenek for the one year. She’d been promised a grand ball at the end as a reward for being good, but you can’t hold a ball like that during Lent, and you can’t hold one if nobody’s left to dance.
At first I thought Maisetra Iulien was unhappy because of the ball. She didn’t say anything about it, but she was sadder and quieter with every day. When I came back one day and she wasn’t up in her room to change for dinner, Lufise told me, “If you’re looking for the young maisetra, she’s down by the dock.”
She was sitting on the marble bench down by the water. It wasn’t a very pleasant place on a hot, still day, but it was private. There was that.
“Maisetra?” I was ready to slip away quietly if she wanted to be alone, but she looked up at me with a sorrowful face. The sort that made you want to comfort her and make things right.
“Oh, Roz!” she said. Just that: oh, Roz.
She had a letter all folded up in her hand. She got letters regular from her family, but they made her happy, not sad.
“It’s not…not bad news?” I ventured.
She shook her head. “Nothing unexpected. My father wants to know when I’ll be going home.” She gave a little laugh. “Home. But I agreed. One season. It’s like when you wake up from the most beautiful dream. And in the dream you thought it was real. And then you wake up.”
I thought about sitting down next to her on the bench and taking her hands, but that seemed too forward. So I stood there wishing I had a clean handkerchief to offer.
“Were you unhappy in Chalanz, maisetra?”
I didn’t think that was the right question to ask. I cast my mind back to when Maisetra Iulien had first come to the city, all madcap and full of ginger. She hadn’t seemed unhappy exactly. I remembered times when I knew she missed her family, especially at the holidays.
“No.” She shook her head and thought hard for a moment. “I was hungry. Hungry to see what the world was like. To meet people like the people in my books. Like the people I wanted to write about. People like Cousin Margerit who think about interesting things and do things. It’s been everything I wanted. Everything I imagined it would be. And now I’ll go home and marry some boy with a promising future. They’re all right.” She shrugged. “The boys, I mean. I even liked some of them. But this was it: my dancing season. It isn’t that I don’t want a husband and a house of my own and children and all that. I want that too. But Chalanz is such a…a smaller place. It’s harder to breathe there. I wanted to take deep breaths for a while.”
That made me wonder what she’d think about Sain-Pol. You didn’t worry about breathing in Sain-Pol, you worried about eating. Hungry, she’d said. She’d never been hungry like I’d been before Aunt Gaita took me on. But if I thought about going back home someday, I could understand. It wasn’t being hungry I worried about, it was never seeing Celeste or Liv again. Never having a chance to become a real dressmaker. Never finding another girl who’d want to kiss me. The thought of making do by kissing boys was like being hungry.
“When do you go?” I asked.
“That’s what my father asks. Whether Cousin Margerit will send me in her carriage or he’ll need to come fetch me when he has time in July. I’ll have that long, at least. Cousin Margerit is lending her traveling coach to the Pertineks, and we can’t have me returning on the public coach, the way I left.”
Maisetra Iulien leaving made me want to cry too. Doing for her made me feel like I was part of something bigger. Not that I liked it better than dressmaking, but I liked it different. And I liked Maisetra Iulien. She made the world brighter, like a garden with flowers and birds singing in place of an ordinary field.
Chapter Sixteen
May 1825—Parting
Maisetra Iulien was a different girl than she’d been when she arrived last fall. She still broke the rules to get what she wanted, then found a way to get people to agree afterward. But now she found ways to get around the rules while still keeping them. Like how she had leave to go almost anywhere if Maistir Brandel and me were with her but never mentioned Mesner Aukustin being there, though that was as much him breaking rules as her. I was sure Maisetra Sovitre would have forbidden the trip up the chanulezes if she’d been asked about it, but we’d followed the rules she’d set.
When it came to going home to Chalanz, Maisetra Iulien was trying to accept it as the price of the bargain. You couldn’t help seeing she was unhappy, but I didn’t hear her wheedling the maisetra or making plans to change her mind. That’s why I don’t think it was her idea, when it all changed a few weeks later.
I was waiting up in Maisetra Iulien’s room in the evening for her to come up after supper. I wasn’t expecting the evening to run late. They’d dined in and there weren’t any guests so I hadn’t brought any sewing up with me. But the family keeps their own time, so I tidied the schoolbooks and papers one more time.
When Maisetra Iulien finally came up, she was quiet and thoughtful-like, but you could see there was something tumbling around in her head.
I held my tongue as I started undoing the ties and buttons on her dress, because I didn’t want her to think I was prying. But when she was down to her chemise, Maisetra Iulien sat on the edge of her bed and her eyes were shining.
“You mustn’t tell anyone, Roz. Nothing’s settled yet.” She bit her lip, maybe thinking twice about whether to tell me. As if I hadn’t kept her secrets till now. “I may be able to stay in Rotenek. As long as I want. You m
ustn’t tell anyone,” she repeated. “It all depends on if Papa agrees. Cousin Margerit has offered to make me her heir. That is, not really her heir but…there’s a funny legal name for it. Taking me on her purse. So she’d be responsible for me and give me a dowry.”
“You mean like adopting you?” I asked. It sounded almost like what Aunt Gaita had done for me.
“No, nothing like that. But it would be a reason for me to stay in the city. Papa might agree. He wants me to make a good marriage. I could make a good enough one in Chalanz, but I’m nobody much here. You need a bit more to stand out in Rotenek. But with what Cousin Margerit has offered…”
I had no idea what a good dowry might be for rich folks, but I knew enough to see that the maisetra could offer it. “That’s very generous,” I said. I was curious and Maisetra Iulien seemed in a mood for confidences. “But what if Maisetra Sovitre marries and has children of her own? Would you still be her heir then? Would her husband agree to that?”
Maisetra Iulien got a strange look, like she wanted to answer my question but didn’t want to at the same time. “No, she doesn’t plan to marry.” That was all she said.
I knew she didn’t need to marry, but it was a new thought that someone like the maisetra might choose not to.
“You mustn’t tell anyone, Roz,” she repeated. “It’s a secret for now, because he might say no. But if I stay, then I’ll need a real lady’s maid, for all the time.” She must have seen me frown because she quickly added, “You, Roz! I’d want you.”
In one moment I was grinning at her, all excited. And in the next all I could think was that a real, proper lady’s maid wouldn’t have time to be a dressmaker too. I wanted to do both. That might be how Maisetra Iulien felt about staying in Rotenek: she wanted to stay and to go home at the same time.
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