Crossing over the chanulezes, you could see the mud being churned up and scoured away and the air was thick with biting flies born out of the mud. They said it was worse on the south side of the river. Over there, the footings of the bridges were all underwater and no one went anywhere except a riverman rowed them down canals that used to be streets.
That was where the fever started: in the crowded tenements and taverns of the warehouse district. I thought about the street where Liv and the rivermen lived, but surely Saint Rota would protect them? The news came across in frightened whispers. And then the news stopped.
The city guards had pitched in to help in the flooded neighborhoods. But when reports of fever started coming, they were joined by soldiers in crimson uniforms riding tall horses. They didn’t want to get their shiny black boots wet. I suppose the soldiers were good enough people, just like the city guards were. Nan told me once her brother had gone for a soldier, though he was infantry, not like these.
The soldiers didn’t get down off their horses to help. They rode in groups to the bridges and the boat landings and ordered everyone to stop crossing to keep the fever on the other side. They threatened to shoot anyone who tried to get past. Anyone trying to come to the upper city, that was. Nobody cared if you went over to the lower side.
There were rumors they shot a man on the Pont Ruip who was coming back from taking medicine to his brother. Or maybe he was coming back from visiting his sweetheart. The stories kept changing. When I first heard that, I was scared for Liv. I hadn’t seen her since the day the bells rang and I figured she’d been busy carrying people back and forth. Celeste said the rivermen wouldn’t go against orders. Their charter said to obey the ban and once the word had gone out, you didn’t see a single boat crossing the river. But guns couldn’t keep the fever on the other side.
We tried to sew in odd quiet moments in the cramped upstairs away from the water. There was barely room to sit among the bales and baskets of stuffs and notions. When the waters went down, Mefro Dominique said, the ladies would want their gowns and we’d best have them ready. People tried to carry on, but they were pretending.
The river had stopped rising and I looked closely at the statue of Saint Nikule each time I crossed the plaiz to check the level against the saint’s legs. The market was closed now, with no easy way to bring in food even if there had been a dry place to sell it. The city guard brought bread in, carried in tall-wheeled carts. They said it came from the palace bakeries, kept fired day and night. I don’t know if that was true, but people took to calling it Annek’s Bread. I don’t know what people were eating on the south side of the river. Then I’d go home to Tiporsel House where there was plenty of food and a warm dry place to sleep, and in the morning it would start again.
When the carts came to the Nikuleplaiz, the church bells would ring and we’d go to fetch baskets of bread. We carried them on our heads like countrywomen going to market, up and down the streets to make sure everyone had some. Water was harder. No one wanted to drink the stinking floodwater, and the pumps on the street corners were fouled too. It was a long walk with a bucket to beg from someone with a good well. In early days, some had made do with beer and wine from the taverns, but that hadn’t lasted with no way to bring in more. The tavern keepers started taking the empty barrels on handcarts to see if they could fetch sweet water in. We got too tired even to pretend to sew.
Like I said, soldiers could keep people from crossing the river, but they couldn’t keep fever away. The news came in whispers first. Then the death bell rang at Saint Nikule’s and kept ringing until they muffled it. That didn’t mean the deaths had stopped.
Folks mostly started with the apothecaries to treat fevers. If they had enough money or were desperate enough they might call in a doctor or a thaumaturgist, but mostly those were for folks in the upper city. If you didn’t have money or the apothecaries’ medicines didn’t work, you went to the charmwives. I wished Celeste had finished her fever charm. Even without Mama Rota’s water, surely trying was better than nothing? That’s what I thought until they stoned Nana Tazek.
The charmwives were doing good business on the church steps. You tried almost anything when your family was sick. Charms didn’t always work. I knew that—not even all of Celeste’s charms worked if she was still poking at them. When someone wanted advice in love or luck in their trade or that sort of thing, you figured there were other forces at work if you didn’t get what you wanted. Maybe even other charms getting in the way. But a healing charm should work. That’s what folks expected. And it was hard to take when you’d spent good money and someone you loved died anyway.
We heard the wailing as we were sorting out the baskets of Annek’s Bread to take away from the plaiz. There was always wailing when the fever took someone, but this time there was shouting too. When we looked up, there was a knot of people gathered, like they might to watch a brawl, and the shouting was, “Cheat! Fraud!”
Celeste jumped at the sound of a thin shriek. She thrust her basket of bread at someone standing near and would have moved toward the steps except Mefro Dominique grabbed her arm.
“You let it be!”
“Maman, it’s Nana Tazek! Let me go!”
Mefro Dominique shook her sharply. “What can you do except get pulled down too? You know well enough that Mefro Tazek sells nothing but lies. It’s caught up with her, that’s all. Come away.”
We didn’t leave, because we’d have to go through the edge of the growing crowd to get past. So we watched as the old woman disappeared into the crowd that jerked this way and that like waves in a tub. Some of the other charmwives were shouting from the church steps and someone must have gone for Father Mazzu, but by the time he came out to scold the mob to quiet, Nana Tazek was lying still, half in the water that lapped at the steps.
I don’t think they meant to kill her like that—just frighten her a bit for selling useless charms—but it’s easy for an old woman to have a bad fall. Now it was the other charmwives sitting and wailing. Celeste didn’t cry. She let her mother pull her along and turned her head away as we passed the steps. We gave the baskets of bread to a neighbor boy to take around and went back to the shop.
I hadn’t always understood why Mefro Dominique worried about charmwork. Why Celeste didn’t want me boasting to people about her skills. I knew Celeste’s charms were good, but would that matter to folks the one time they failed? Hope could be a poison worse than despair.
I wondered what mysteries Maisetra Sovitre knew against the fever. She only did big mysteries, not the little practical things like cooling the blood when someone was burning away or curing a cough like Celeste had done. Up at the cathedral, I knew they were praying for the city to be saved, but what did that matter to the dead?
* * *
It felt like an age since the day I rang the floodtide bell, but when I counted back, it was barely a week. Maisetra Iulien was out of sorts. She must have said something peevish because Maisetra Sovitre came up to scold her while I was dressing her for supper.
“That was unkind of you, Iuli,” she said. Her voice was too tired to be sharp. “I want you to apologize to Brandel or you can have your supper here in your room.”
“Like a child!” Maisetra Iulien protested.
“If you act like one.”
I kept myself busy fussing with the dress she was to wear, not knowing whether I should leave.
“I don’t want to be treated like a child. I want to do something. Brandel’s allowed to go out. Mesnera Chazillen said I might help—”
And then Maisetra Sovitre started crying. I’d never seen her do that.
“Don’t you pester Antuniet! Not now. She—” Maisetra Sovitre sat down on the dressing table chair and took Iulien’s hands. “Little Iohanna has the fever. The message came a few minutes ago.”
I tried to pretend I hadn’t heard, but I couldn’t help a little sob myself. The alchemist’s baby wasn’t even half a year old. The river fever would burn her up
if all the maisetra’s mysteries couldn’t call up a miracle. I remembered how kind the vicomtesse had been to me and thought how sad she’d be even though it wasn’t her baby.
Maisetra Iulien dropped all her peevishness. “Let me go help nurse her. Let me do something. Please?”
The maisetra smiled a little and patted her hand. “Yes. Yes, I think that would be a good thing. Roz, pack what your mistress needs for a few days. For yourself too. You can come back for more if—”
She didn’t say if she lives that long because that would be bad luck. “Yes, maisetra,” I said. Then more hesitantly, “What about my work for Mefro Dominique?”
Maisetra Sovitre looked confused. “Surely you aren’t… Rozild, you aren’t still going down there, are you?”
“No one said not to.”
“Well, I’m saying it now. You could get sick and bring it back here. No, you go with Iulien to Mesnera Chazillen’s tomorrow and stay there until floodtide is past.”
It was like with the soldiers on the bridges, I thought. They wanted to lock the gates and keep the fever out. And what about everyone on the wrong side of the gates? But I said, “Yes, maisetra,” because what else could I say?
* * *
I got Maisetra Iulien’s clothes packed up while she was eating supper and another small bundle with my extra things. After I’d put Maisetra Iulien to bed I took them down to the common room for one of the footmen to take over in the morning. The river hadn’t come anywhere near high enough to flood the common room and kitchen, though they were full of stores moved up from the lower levels.
I was finding a clear space where Maisetra Iulien’s valise and my bundle would be easy to find when I heard a faint barking. It couldn’t be Liv’s little dog Chennek, I thought. There wouldn’t be deliveries in the evening. Then I remembered the ban on the rivermen crossing and was certain it couldn’t be her. But I knew that bark. If anyone else recognized it, there would be trouble. And someone else did.
I don’t know if it was chance or if Tavit would hear Liv’s dog from a mile away. In a blink, he was there beside me, slipping out the door. I followed into the garden and we felt our way down the path with Chennek dancing around our feet. There was no dock to tie up to now, but the water was high enough that Liv had hooked her gaff over the baroness’s marble bench to keep in place.
“Liv! What are you doing here?” Tavit called softly. “You could be shot!”
She was crying and it was hard to make out what she said.
“They’re sick. My mother and my brother’s child. He’s so bad off. They’ll die if I can’t get help. There’s no medicine left. None worth the name. Charms have done no good.”
Tavit had waded close and anchored the boat by wrapping his arms around her.
“Oh God, Liv!”
That was all he said, but we both heard what he couldn’t say. What could he do? Even if he could find medicine or a doctor willing to go, it would cost his position to cross against the blockade. It would break his heart to choose between her and his duty, and all he could offer was the slightest of hope.
Hope. My heart began pounding. It would cost me my position, but I still loved her, even if she didn’t love me back that same way. And both Liv and the baroness needed Tavit more than Maisetra Iulien needed me.
I remembered the fortune the charmwife told me that day at the Strangers’ Market. What is wise is not always best. This wasn’t wise at all. But maybe it was best.
“Liv, I can ask Celeste what she can give me. It’s not the cure she was hoping for. And I can only bring the charms that anyone can do. It could help a little.” It could help enough to keep Tavit from doing something foolish. “Is there anywhere you can meet me down closer to Mefro Dominique’s?”
“Roz—” Tavit began.
Before I could change my mind, I said, “You can’t, but I can. Maybe it won’t help at all, but it’s what I can do.”
Maybe it was as big a mistake as ringing the bell, but this time I’d be the one it would fall on.
He let go of Liv and nodded at me, like one of those silent signals the armins give each other.
Liv looked from him to me, then snapped her fingers for Chennek to leap into the boat. “Do you know the chanulez near where Celeste lives that ends at the bridge with the ironwork railings? I’ll wait where I can see it. Shine a light from the bridge. I’ll wait until midnight. Oh, Roz, thank you! I promise I’ll find a way to bring you back.” With another quick glance at Tavit, she pushed off with the gaff and took up the oars to slip farther out into the darkness of the river.
Maybe it was possible to run down to Mefro Dominique’s and take the charms over and come back to slip past the guards before dawn. Maybe. It didn’t matter. Someone would tell Charsintek if I was out all night again and she wouldn’t forgive me this time. Not when Maisetra Sovitre had forbidden me to go down to the lower city at all, never mind at midnight. I thought about Maisetra Iulien waking up ready to go help take care of a sick baby in the morning. Surely she’d understand that there were other sick babies that needed nursing too? Maybe Tavit would find a chance to explain I hadn’t simply run off.
If I left, I left. No lady’s maid, no kind maisetra paying my dressmaking ’prentice fee, no wages to send home from a grand house on the Vezenaf. I was throwing it all away. But Liv needed me. Tavit needed me. And I’d never ask Celeste to go in my place. I could almost laugh: it saved me from having to make the other choice about my future. I felt miserable. The thing that made it a little better was that I wouldn’t have to look at Maisetra Iulien’s face if I told her no.
I slipped back in the door to the common room long enough to gather my bundle of clothes, then went around the path at the side of the house up to the Vezenaf and set off.
Chapter Twenty-Two
October 1825—Blessing
It didn’t take much knocking until Mefro Dominique answered the back door. No one slept heavy these days for all we were tired.
“Child! What are you doing here?” she asked. She held up a candle to look at the bundle of clothes under my arm, then she stepped back to let me in.
“It’s Liv,” I stammered, not sure how to start. “They’ve got fever and I said I’d do what I can.”
Celeste was right behind her and I added quickly, “I only want what you can give me to take. Anything that doesn’t need a charmwife. I didn’t promise her anything except that I’d come.”
“What have you done, Rozild!” Mefro Dominique said, but not like it was a question.
“Come on up,” Celeste said.
I took off my muddy shoes to go upstairs, where her erteskir was packed tightly between the bolts of fabric and work baskets, and watched as she sorted through all the compartments and drawers of her chest of charmwork.
“This will help for heat in the blood,” she said, putting a candle wrapped in a strip of cloth into a basket. “You remember how we used it trying to build the fever charm? Tie it around the neck then light the candle.” She gave me two sealed packets. “These herbs will help even without charms. Tell them to make a tea with it. And—”
Celeste gave a gasp and lifted a small stoppered bottle out of the very bottom of the chest.
“It was all gone. I used it all up. I swear to God I looked and looked.”
It was some of the water from Saint Rota’s well. One bottle overlooked when she’d been sharing the blessing charm around at the beginning of the flood. Celeste closed her eyes and held it tight, moving her lips like she was praying silently.
“Roz, it’s a sign. I’m meant to try one more time.”
I wanted to protest. But I remembered Liv crying. And if Saint Mauriz had told her to go, who was I to say no?
She packed everything back into the chest. At the last, she took the statue of Saint Mauriz—the fine one that Maisetra Talarico had given her—all wrapped safely in a bit of flannel and tucked it into her carrying basket. “We’ll need every bit of help we can get.” Then we tied the chest
close with straps so I could carry it like a peddler’s pack.
When Mefro Dominique saw us coming down with the chest she cried out, “No, ma petite. Please, no. I don’t want to lose you.”
“Maman, I have to.”
So many dangers: the soldiers on the bridges, people angry if you couldn’t cure them, the fever itself. Mefro Dominique was afraid, but I could see she was proud too. She held Celeste in a tight embrace, then with a long sigh she said, “You have a gift, child. I can’t deny that. Go where it calls you.” She hugged Celeste tightly again like you might when you sent your daughter off to work in the city, not knowing when you’d see her again.
Celeste carried a lantern, and we made our way down to where the iron bridge crossed the swollen canal a block or more from where the river bank should have been. Now it was at the edge of the flood. Celeste knew the streets well enough to know where there were cobbles beneath the water and where there might be nothing but water itself, but it still took us a long time to step carefully. The arch of the ironwork was still above the water. We stood at the top of the span as if we were pausing to rest. If I had to carry the chest much farther, a rest would be nice. Someone else came splashing along the dark street, and Celeste covered the lantern with the edge of her cloak until they were gone. When she let it shine again, I caught the movement of an oar out in the dark. Liv’s boat silently nosed up to the edge of the bridge. If she was surprised to see Celeste, she didn’t say anything. We struggled to lower the chest down into the boat without a thump, then scrambled after it.
I had no idea how Liv could tell where to aim across the river with no moon and no lanterns on the wharfs. She said every inch of the river sounded different. I could only see the deeper darkness where we entered one of the chanulezes. Or maybe it was an ordinary street that had flooded enough to use as a canal. I didn’t recognize the rivermen’s neighborhood except for all the pale shapes of boats tied up along the edges. Except now they were tied to iron rings set in the walls of the houses and we could barely slip under the arcade where they’d been doing repairs before.
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