Floodtide

by Heather Rose Jones

  * * *

  It was suddenly quiet after the bustle of departures. Those who left Tiporsel House would be back at the end of summer. But they weren’t the only ones leaving.

  When I came to Mefro Dominique’s one morning, Celeste wasn’t in the workroom. That wasn’t too odd. A couple weeks back we’d been busy bringing the fabrics and stores back down from upstairs. Mefro Dominique had us inspect and inventory everything as we put it away. With that done, the work was summer-light now and sometimes Celeste was out and about on her own errands. She was working on some new charm that she wasn’t ready to tell me about.

  Mefro Dominique followed me into the workroom to show me my tasks. A year past, she would have begun by pointing out the mistakes in the last day’s sewing and telling me what would have to be picked out and redone. It was months since I’d had to pick anything out, though she had a few words today about the evenness of a ruffle.

  “It will do this time,” she said. “Keep your mind on the small things and the large ones will take care of themselves.” Then she sighed and looked toward the stairs that went up to the bedroom.

  “Is Celeste well?” I asked, trying to guess what that look might mean. Sometimes Celeste had monthly pains that even her own charms couldn’t touch. I thought maybe she was lying down.

  “She’s had a disappointment,” Mefro Dominique said. She reached out to pat my hand softly. “We’ll let her be for now. Why don’t I teach you how to lay pleats more easily.”

  Mefro Dominique was keeping something back, but she was a good teacher and I knew to jump at the chance of learning anything she offered. When midday had come and gone and it was time to eat, she said, “Why don’t you go see if you can coax Celeste down to join us.”

  The summer had already turned warm enough to make the upstairs close and stuffy. There was no point to opening windows this near to the river unless you wanted to live with the stink of the mud well into the night.

  I’d thought to find Celeste lying in bed, so when I didn’t see her there I wondered if she’d slipped out during the morning while we were working. Then I heard a catch of breath and saw she was sitting on the floor up against the wall next to the erteskir where she kept her candles and charms.

  She was holding something in her lap. I couldn’t quite make it out in the dim light until she set it gently on top of the erteskir and scrambled to her feet. It was a little carved statue of Saint Mauriz. A fancy one—the sort you might expect to see on a table at Tiporsel House. Maisetra Sovitre had a lovely statue of her name saint in her bedroom, along with a gilt crucifix and a Madonna painting.

  “That’s beautiful!” I said, touching the base to turn it so I could see better. The saint was carved out of some sort of dark wood—darker even than Mefro Dominique’s skin—and his halo shone like it was real gold. I wondered where Celeste had gotten something that nice. The answer came when she threw her arms around me and wept.

  “She’s gone. She’s gone to Rome and she’s never coming back.”

  So I knew Maisetra Talarico had been here and given her the saint as a farewell present. I don’t think I’d ever seen Celeste cry before. I’d seen her mad or sad, but not like this. She’d dried enough of my tears over the last year, so I held her as tight as I could without saying anything. At last she moved a bit and we sat on the edge of the bed, side by side.

  “Why did she have to go?” I asked.

  “I don’t know.” There was still a little catch in Celeste’s voice. “It doesn’t matter. There’s nothing I could have done.”

  I thought about putting my arm around her shoulders again and got a funny feeling in my stomach, but that moment had passed, so I pointed at the little statue on the table of the erteskir. “You’ll have that to remember her.”

  She leaned over and picked the statue up and handed it to me. I was real careful, holding it only by the base. I could see the details now even though the lamps weren’t lit during the day. Ebony, I thought, because in Maisetra Iulien’s stories things were always carved from ebony. You could see the features of Saint Mauriz’s face and the tiny tight curls of his hair. Bits of it were painted, but his armor was laid over the wood in thin metal plates. I couldn’t guess whether it was tin or silver, but I decided it should be silver. And the halo was real gold—or at least silver-gilt, like in the stories. It was much too fine a thing for a dressmaker’s shop. It wasn’t the sort of gift you gave someone you were just friends with.

  “I’m sorry.” It was a very small thing to say.

  “She said…” A little hiccup. “She said if I ever wanted to know more about mysteries that I should go to your maisetra and tell her that Serafina Talarico said to teach me. She did that for me.”

  “But why don’t you?” I asked. “Maisetra Iulien said the same thing: that any girl who wants to learn is welcome at the maisetra’s school.”

  “I can’t.” Celeste shook her head. “I told you why I can’t. Maman needs me here.”

  “Have you asked her?”

  My parents had been glad enough to let me walk a path to something better. But that was different. To them I was another mouth to feed. They had hands enough for the work without me and I could send some pay home every quarter. School didn’t pay wages. Celeste was all Mefro Dominique had. Whether that was by choice or chance, it was how things were.

  “Maybe she’ll come back sometime to visit,” I offered.

  Celeste shook her head violently.

  I was sorry I’d said it. No use in raising false hopes. So I squeezed her again and said, “Your mother said you should come down and eat something. You’ll feel better.”

  * * *

  Summer should have been quieter than the rest of the year and in a way it was. The maisetra spent most days down at her school and Maisetra Iulien usually went with her for company. She wasn’t taking regular summer classes, but she had music lessons. Charsintek figured it was as close to empty as we’d get and set everyone to doing the summer cleaning. I got pulled into it often enough since there wasn’t much to do upstairs.

  When the maisetras were around, you could feel they were all on edge. At first I thought it was only Maisetra Iulien being worried about her father’s decision. He’d sent a message that he’d come visit in July, but he still hadn’t said yes or no, at least in the part of the letter that Maisetra Iulien saw. But the tightness went beyond Tiporsel House.

  Everyone in the city was worried about something, though they all talked about different things. For Liv it was the river and how the next true floodtide would stir up trouble. The woman at the fruit stall in the market grumbled that the cherries had been bad and the apples looked to be worse and if there weren’t a decent frost next winter she didn’t know what to do. The bargemen muttered that if the water dropped further, they’d need to start unloading down at Iser. And Celeste was working on a charm for river fever, though she made me promise not to tell anyone in case it came to nothing.

  “Maisetra Talarico said I should try,” she said. “So I’ll try.”

  Liv knew about it, because they’d gone up the hidden chanulez again to bring back more water from Saint Rota’s well. If a charm could cure the fever, wouldn’t someone know one already? But no one else had used Rota’s water and Mama Rota was the one you prayed to against river fever. It helped keep Celeste from thinking all the time about Maisetra Talarico leaving. She still cried about that sometimes, sitting there staring at the icon of Saint Mauriz. But afterward she’d work even harder.

  I wish I could have gone up the chanulez with them, but it was on a day I was waiting on Maisetra Iulien. I still got to help. Celeste would ask me to test things when she poked at the parts of the charm she was putting together. She said I was good for that because I didn’t have any magic of my own. She could tell whether the charm was working by itself or whether it only worked for her. You might not think that was praise, but helping Celeste made me feel strong. That’s the wrong word. Not strong the way Liv was out on the river,
but more like the way Maistir Brandel always looked when he was watching over Maisetra Iulien, at least when he wasn’t bored and out of patience. The strength that was being there and ready any time you were needed.

  We’d finish the sewing as quickly as we could—never sloppy or shoddy—then I’d say the words and work the charms like Celeste told me to. She’d watch with a frown, then the next time the words would be a little different or she’d write something different on the paper or there’d be something to wrap up in it when I put it to the candle. Sometimes I’d use the water to draw marks or taste a drop of it or we’d use it to make up the ink. I figured that if any of it worked, we’d both be safe from the fever all our lives.

  “How can you know it’s a cure,” I asked one day, “if I don’t have the fever to begin with?”

  Usually Celeste was impatient when I asked questions like that. Like either I should already know the answer or that it wasn’t even something you should ask. But that time she looked worried. “I can’t know. I have…a feeling. I can tell if it does something. Like I’m wandering in a dark room, trying to feel my way out. But if you had the fever, I wouldn’t dare waste my time poking and picking at it. I’d do the regular things to cool the fever—wet rags and cutting your hair short and maybe charms to keep you strong. And anything the apothecaries could offer. The things everyone knows about. If you were really sick, I’d have to know that I was helping you and not maybe making it worse. Like the one we tried last week where you felt all hot and dizzy.”

  That made me understand Celeste’s worry better. She’d made it stop quick enough, but what if she couldn’t? You heard about healing charms going bad. That’s why good charmwives didn’t promise cures, they only promised help.

  Having something to do meant we could sweep away the unsettled feeling. The whole city was twitchy like a dog with a flea. When you could get folks to talk about it, they said it felt like the city’s luck had run out. Like Saint Mauriz was sleeping or something. Some would look around and lower their voice and say things hadn’t been right since Prince Aukust’s day, though no one complained outright about Princess Anna, and that was how people always talk about old days being better.

  Then late one evening, at the end of twilight, there were shouts and a clatter of hoofbeats from out in the yard by the street. I heard them as soon as anyone because Maisetra Iulien had come up to her room for the night and I’d barely taken her hair down when the noise started. She pulled away and went over to throw open the windows and look down into the yard.

  “Brandel?” she cried and turned to rush downstairs without even waiting for me to put on her dressing gown.

  We knew something must be wrong because Maistir Brandel should have been traveling in the south with the baroness. It was almost time they might have returned early, but not if he’d come alone on a horse near spent. I chased after Maisetra Iulien and we came into the foyer by the door at the same time someone fetched Maisetra Sovitre.

  Maistir Brandel looked both flushed and pale, like someone who was about to swoon. He was gasping, not like he was out of breath, but almost like he was crying.

  “Cousin Margerit!” he started.

  I’d never heard him call her that before, and he wasn’t her cousin, he was the baroness’s cousin.

  “Cousin Margerit, you must come as quick as you can. Barbara’s been shot!”

  The maisetra gave a little strangled noise like a whimper.

  Chapter Seventeen

  May 1825—Reading

  In the following babble of voices I could only hear bits and pieces. The wound didn’t look to be mortal, but she must come at once. It had happened on the road back from Turinz. Tavit had killed the man who did it—not a bandit, but I couldn’t understand the rest of that bit. Ponivin the butler tried to quiet everyone, saying that “at once” couldn’t mean before morning. One of the parlor maids started to shriek in fear until she was bundled off downstairs where she wouldn’t upset the maisetra even more.

  Then Maisetra Sovitre loudly called out, “Stop! Everyone stop!”

  We all fell silent and stood waiting.

  “Brandel, go down to the kitchen and get something to eat if you can. Then be ready to tell me everything you know. Marken—” The maisetra’s armin had come straight to the noise, but it wasn’t his way to add to it. “See to a post carriage. The fastest one you can find. Have it ready at first light.”

  The Pertineks had the maisetra’s traveling coach, of course, and the baroness had taken her own. None of the town carriages would be up to fast traveling.

  “Maitelen, go pack my things, and you’ll be coming with me. Iuli—”

  Maisetra Iulien was trembling and shaking and had her hands clapped over her mouth to keep from making any noise.

  “Iuli, I need you to take charge of the household. I’ll send for Aunt Bertrut to come back as quick as they can.”

  Maisetra Iulien nodded. The staff could have managed on their own, but I could see it gave her something useful to hold to.

  “I don’t know how long before Barbara is…before we can return. Do your best to keep this quiet until we know what’s happened.” The maisetra looked around fiercely. “All of you! And…and…”

  I could see she was starting to crumble, and I gave Maisetra Iulien a little nudge to lead the maisetra off into the parlor to sit.

  I went back up to Maisetra Iulien’s room to fetch her dressing gown and then went back up to wait on her needing me. I’d be in the way downstairs.

  I dozed off in the stuffed chair by the window until the sound of horses and a carriage on the stones out front woke me at the first edge of dawn. The bed was unmessed, so I knew Maisetra Iulien hadn’t been up to sleep. I guessed Maisetra Sovitre hadn’t slept a wink either before leaving. I slipped downstairs yawning and found Maisetra Iulien still standing in the entryway before the door, looking like a lost child with her dressing gown all rumpled and her hair still loose and down.

  “Maisetra,” I said quietly. “You should try to get some sleep. Go on up and I’ll ask the kitchen for hot milk. I’ll be there in a moment.”

  I undressed her like a doll, all quiet and unprotesting, and said all the quiet bedtime charms in my head. But after Lufise showed up with the milk and I tried to get her to drink some, she started crying in awful sobs. There weren’t any house-charms for that, but some things don’t call for them. I patted her hand and made quiet noises and smoothed the hair away from her face until she was crying more regular-like. When that had run its course, I washed her face and helped her sit and made her drink a bit of the milk.

  I think they’d put something in it in the kitchen to help her sleep because she started nodding real quick and talking the way you do sometimes in a dream.

  “She can’t die! She can’t! What would Cousin Margerit do? They love each other so much. So very much. Her heart would be broken in a million pieces.”

  “Hush. Hush,” I said and gave her another sip of milk.

  Instead of getting quieter, she got more upset. “That’s not how the story’s supposed to end! The Duke of Lautencourt saves his true love and they live happily ever after!” And then a lot more nonsense about dukes and ladies and true love and fate before she slept at last.

  I thought she was babbling. Who was the Duke of Lautencourt? We didn’t have any dukes in Alpennia. But the name sounded familiar, like I’d seen it somewhere. I tucked the blankets more closely around her as Aunt Gaita had for me that time I’d had a fever, and it came to me. It was the name of one of the books Maisetra Iulien kept in her writing desk. I’d seen it when I was straightening up her papers.

  I didn’t want to leave her alone, but I couldn’t do any cleaning in case it woke her again and I hadn’t brought any sewing to work on. That made me think of Mefro Dominique—I hadn’t thought to let her know I wouldn’t be there today. My mind kept chewing on all sorts of things while I sat in the chair by the window, but when I almost nodded off myself, I thought it wouldn’t
hurt to look at that book and see if I could figure out what Maisetra Iulien had meant.

  I don’t have much time for reading. We’d take turns passing around tattered books, bought cheap at the bookstall because they’d been discarded. Charsintek didn’t like them but she never forbade it. Sometimes Celeste and I would take turns reading from the fashion journals while we worked. But now reading was something to keep me awake while I watched over Maisetra Iulien.

  If it had been a hard book, I don’t think I would have kept at it, but it was the sort that put pictures in your head. The words were fancy in a pretty sort of way, like the ones Maisetra Iulien used when she was telling me stories. In fact, the more I read, the more I could hear the story in Maisetra Iulien’s voice. I’d heard enough of her poems to recognize how she wrote. Why hadn’t she ever said she’d written a real book? From a printer and everything? It didn’t have her name in the front, but there was nothing in that. Lots of books only said “by a lady.” I mostly skipped through looking for the name Lautencourt but sometimes it would pull me in and I’d read pages at a time.

  It was exactly the sort of adventure Maisetra Iulien loved, about a beautiful woman who inherited a fortune and a bad man who wanted to marry her for the money. She was an orphan and her guardian wanted her to marry the bad man because he was going to be the Duke of Lautencourt. That didn’t make sense from what Maisetra Iulien had said before. The Duke of Lautencourt was supposed to be the hero. But he wasn’t the duke yet. There was another man who might be the old duke’s heir, but no one knew where he was. The woman refused to marry the bad man and her guardian set it up so he would kidnap her.

  You didn’t need kings and castles to put that sort of thing in a story. Women got forced to marry men they didn’t like all the time. It didn’t need kidnapping. Being caught alone with him was enough so that you had to say you were betrothed or you were ruined for life. That’s one thing armins were for, after all: to guard a girl’s reputation. It was why Maisetra Iulien wasn’t supposed to go anywhere without me or Maistir Brandel or both of us. It was why she was never ever supposed to be alone with someone like Mesner Aukustin, because he’d never be allowed to marry someone like her who wasn’t noble. She’d be ruined with nothing to gain from it.