Floodtide

by Heather Rose Jones

  “Twenty,” she said.

  I thought surely we must have gone farther than that. Twenty yards would barely take us a bit past the far side of the Vezenaf. I knew we were still heading straight toward the Plaiz and the cathedral because we could still see the opening to the river growing smaller behind us. The air smelled musty, but not in a rotten way.

  Liv and I had gotten into a rhythm pushing the boat along.

  “Forty,” Celeste said.

  My arms were getting tired. After two more counts, my grip on the oar slipped and I almost dropped it into the water.

  Liv jerked her head toward the bow of the boat and said, “Give it over to Maistir Brandel.”

  We swapped places awkwardly while Liv held her oar braced against the roof so we wouldn’t drift back. That left me to sit cramped on the narrow bow thwart next to Aukustin Atilliet and hold the lamp for him. That made me…not frightened. Not like that. He’d never done anything to make me afraid of him. It was just…who was I—a half-time dressmaking apprentice and not-a-lady’s-maid—to be sitting next to the son of the Dowager Princess? With the hem of my skirts brushing against his polished boots? It wasn’t restful, I guess is the best way to say it.

  My arm was shaking as I held the lantern up because I was still tired from pushing the oar. I put the lantern on my lap where I could hold it steady and tried to pretend I was like one of those carved figures on the front of a big sailing boat. Not that we got any like that up the Rotein, but I’d seen pictures.

  “One hundred,” Celeste said from the stern.

  We might be getting close to the edge of the Plaiz. The walls hadn’t gotten any narrower, but now they were dressed stone, not brickwork. Sometimes it was mortared blocks, but sometimes it was plain rock, smoothed off. On some of the blocks you could see lines as if something had been carved in them, but it was all worn away. Mesner Aukustin looked at them closely as we passed by and I moved the lantern so he could see better, but I don’t think he could read anything.

  From the stern I heard Maisetra Iulien say something about the upper town being built on rock. I’d heard a proverb about that, but I always figured it meant that rich people were less likely to have a fall, if you see what I mean. Celeste shushed her and said, “One hundred twenty.” After that, we all stayed quiet enough for her to count.

  I wondered what was going on overhead: people going back and forth across the square. How high up above us was it? The road to the Plaiz sloped up a bit from the river and even the highest floods didn’t wet the Vezenaf, Liv had said. That made me think about how much brick and stone was overhead and whether it was strong or whether it might come falling down on top of us. I had to stop thinking about that quick, so I stared ahead into the darkness, trying to see if the channel curved or turned anywhere.

  Once we passed a little drain outlet—a brick-framed hole in the wall with water trickling out. Another time the arched roof opened to the side and there was a bricked-over doorway right there in the wall. The roof was higher now—too high to touch even if you reached an oar up.

  “Three hundred,” Celeste said.

  I wasn’t sure if we were moving faster now or if I’d gotten used to being underground. The water was still and dark. Except for the scraping of the oars on the walls there was no sound. I thought about a story I’d heard in school about a boatman who carried souls of the dead to paradise. I thought it was paradise, though one of the nuns seemed to think it wasn’t a proper story for Christians to read. But if we were going anywhere out of the world, it didn’t feel like paradise.

  “Four hun—” Celeste called from the stern, then broke off. She was staring ahead like she could see something in the darkness beyond the circle of the lantern light.

  There was a change. I wasn’t sure at first if it was a change in the sound—like a faint splashing—or the feel of the air. I’d been staring into the dark so long I knew my eyes were playing tricks on me. So at first I didn’t believe it when the left hand wall of the channel disappeared into darkness.

  When I shone the lantern that way, we could see the wall was set back a little for several boat-lengths, making a shelf with blackness above it. A set of stone steps slanted down through the shelf, reaching halfway across the channel. When they came into view, it was clear we weren’t going any further. If the river was as high as it should be, we could have passed over the lower end of the steps easy. But if the river was higher, we never could have made it past the grating back at the start.

  It reminded me of the long landing at the Nikuleplaiz, where sets of steps cut through the edge of the wharf down to the river. Of course there were no floating docks or planks here. If there ever had been, they would have rotted away, I suppose.

  Liv had set the oars back in place, now there was room, and sculled until the bow bumped up against the bottom steps. Chennek picked up the mooring line in his teeth and jumped past Mesner Aukustin and me to take it up the steps, but he stopped halfway and whined when he didn’t recognize anything to loop it around. Liv whistled him back. Farther up, at the top of the steps where the shelf began, there were two round, smooth pillars, maybe three or four feet tall, but they were in the wrong place for tying off.

  “I’ll hold it here with the oars,” Liv said. “You be careful getting out.”

  Mesner Aukustin climbed out first and took the lantern from me as I scrambled after, then I held the bow line while the others worked their way forward and stepped out onto the stone steps. Finally, only Liv was left, arranging the oars inside the boat and turning around on the rowing bench to face me.

  “Could you take the line up and tie it off on the post, Roz?” The light dimmed a little as the others moved away. She didn’t look scared, but if it were me, I wouldn’t want to be left behind. Not in the dark like that. She didn’t have a second lantern.

  I remembered that first day we’d met when she’d been so angry about me seeing her crawling in and out of the boat. Then I remembered the day we went to the Strangers’ Market and how the riverman had helped her out. So I held out my hand and offered, “Liv?” In case she wanted to, you know? Though I wasn’t strong enough to lift her out like he had.

  I saw her give a little nod in the dim light. She bent to gather her crutches, then leaned on the edge of the boat to move up to the bow thwart. She handed me her crutches to set farther up on the steps.

  “Snug it up close as you can and stand wide to brace yourself.”

  The boat bobbled as she pulled herself up onto the rim and swung her legs over, and I gripped the line harder. She took my other hand. I don’t think we came near to falling in as I pulled her upright. I’d hate to go into that black water—not knowing what might be in it or how we’d get back into the boat. She gathered her crutches and started up while I followed after, letting the line out until we got to the top where I could tie it off. The steps were broad rather than steep, but I don’t think Liv would have wanted help in any case.

  The stairs opened up to a space you’d almost call a dock if it weren’t closed in like that. At the top of the steps a fountain stood against the wall. The fountain didn’t look like much. It had a half-round base about six foot across. Behind it, on the wall, was a carving with a picture of a woman and writing scattered around her. Below the woman water tumbled out of a hole into the basin. There was another spout at the front where it spilled down a channel cut into the middle of the stone steps and into the chanulez. I would have thought the water would be green and slimy without anyone to clean the fountain, but it was clear enough to drink.

  With only the one lantern, we all had to look at the same place. Mesner Aukustin was holding it and no one was going to challenge his right to decide what to see. So we didn’t get a good look at the fountain before he moved further down the ledge.

  There was a wall of rock dressed smooth at either end of the space, but the back was an arching wall of brick that curved up to join the roof over the chanulez. At either side of the fountain, you could see mor
e stairs curving around behind, but they stopped at a brick wall. Wherever the steps had led to when someone built them, there was no climbing them now. But back at the corner of the ledge, where the brick met the rock, a deeper dark turned out to be a narrow tunnel. It was too small for more than one person at a time to enter, and nobody but the first one in could see anything. So of course that was Mesner Aukustin.

  When he disappeared into the dark opening with the lantern, I stood frozen. It felt like the ledge was growing narrower around us. I could hear the scratch of Liv’s crutches on the stone between me and the chanulez and I wanted to grab her and pull her away from the edge. Inside my head I could feel it like a gaping hole right next to me and I didn’t dare move.

  There were muffled voices, then the glow of the lantern returned and Maisetra Iulien announced, “It’s a door. An old oak door with iron bands, but it’s locked or stuck or maybe bricked over from the other side. Celeste, you were counting distance. Do you know where we are?”

  Celeste didn’t answer at first. She’d been staring at the fountain since we first came up to it. I don’t think she’d moved at all in the dark because she was still standing next to it.

  “Celeste?” Now Maisetra Iulien was either curious or worried. She took the lantern from Mesner Aukustin and brought it over. Iulien was the only one who could boss him around without him getting all prickly. I don’t think even Maistir Brandel would have dared to take the lantern from him like that.

  “Who is she?” Celeste asked, looking up from the water in the basin to the carved stone behind it.

  In some ways, the lantern made it harder to see, because of all the shadows it threw off. You could tell the stone was supposed to be a lady with a long flowing dress. It wasn’t a very good statue, though. I don’t think they’d have paid a sculptor like that to do saints in the cathedral. Maybe it had been better at first, but the stone had worn away. You could tell she was holding a branch of something in her hand. And there was something round near her feet—maybe some sort of beast—but I couldn’t tell what it was any more.

  You could still read the letters, though. Maisetra Iulien leaned closely with the lantern and started reading them out one at a time. “R…O…D…A…D…E…D…”

  “No,” said Mesner Aukustin, taking the lantern from her again to go around the other side of the fountain. “It’s an old Roman stone. I’ve seen some like it in Akolbin. You read it all the way across. RODANAE DED…and then MA— The rest is too faint to see. Chautovil would know how to read it. He thinks I should study the ancient Romans more. But Rodanae is a name—Rodana—and Ma-something, that would be the man who set up the stone.”

  “Rodana?” Celeste said wonderingly. She whispered, “Mama Rota?” And then more loudly. “It’s Saint Rota. It must be. When people talk about water from Saint Rota’s well they usually just mean the river. But it’s a real well. A real well that flows into the river.” Her eyes followed the flow of water from the rim of the basin down to where it led into the chanulez.

  “Are you sure?” Maisetra Iulien asked.

  Celeste made a quiet noise. I could tell she thought it was a silly question but didn’t dare say so to a maisetra.

  “It’s a holy well. My eyes can tell me that.”

  I knew she meant she could see it like a mystic vision, like the ones she had when she was doing charms. Maisetra Iulien and the others wouldn’t understand that. Mesner Aukustin still thought she was no more than a fortune-teller. But Liv clumped forward to the very edge of the basin and dipped her fingers in the water, the same like she did every time she set out in her boat. She brought them up and kissed them, whispering softly, “Mama pelosme!”

  We all jumped a little as the air shuddered with the faint sound of a bell, but it was only the chimes from Saint Mauriz’s, somewhere high above us. You could tell from the pattern of the ringing.

  “Why is the fountain hidden away here?” Maistir Brandel asked, bringing us back to the carved stone. “Here where no one knows about it and no one can find it?”

  “They don’t care about Mama Rota,” Liv said, jerking her head upward to indicate the palace and cathedral above. “You didn’t even know about her. Think where we are: the chanulez must cut right across the Plaiz. Maybe people used it a long time ago, then someone decided it was in the way and covered it up, like the drains on the south side. They wouldn’t care about Saint Rota being shut away down here.”

  “Is she truly a saint?” Maisetra Iulien asked.

  Celeste shrugged. “That’s not for me to say, maisetra. That’s how we call her.”

  Mesner Aukustin had brought the lantern back around to shine on the carved statue of the saint. The light was flickering and he kept having to adjust the wick, which meant the oil was getting low. “Mefro Celeste,” he said. His voice had gone all stiff and formal. “Mefro Celeste, how is it that one is baptized by Saint Rota?”

  “I don’t know what you mean, mesner.”

  “She said—” Looking pointedly at Liv. “That day in the market, she said that to truly be a child of Rotenek, one must be baptized by Saint Rota as well as being baptized in the church.”

  “I suppose you don’t mean falling in the river by accident,” Liv muttered.

  “Is it like a charm or a mystery?” Mesner Aukustin persisted.

  It might have been curiosity, but he sounded hungry-like. As if there were something Mama Rota could give him that he didn’t have yet. Him with his fine clothes and living in the palace and all.

  Celeste shook her head. “There’s no such charm. I won’t go meddling in priest’s work, pretending to do baptisms.”

  “You could use the rivermen’s prayer,” Maisetra Iulien suggested. “The one Liv says every time she goes out on the water. And make it like a blessing.”

  Liv offered, “Didn’t you say you had some charms that called on Mama Rota?”

  We were all caught up in Mesner Aukustin’s hunger, wanting to do something special to mark what we’d found here.

  “It wouldn’t be like fiddling with a healing charm,” I said, knowing part of what held her back. “It isn’t to do something.”

  Mesner Aukustin was used to demanding that people do what he wanted, simply because he said so. That wouldn’t have worked on Celeste. But instead he looked around at us and said, “We’ll all be baptized by Saint Rota today. It will be like a guild.”

  I could feel Celeste relax about that. Guilds could say prayers and do mysteries and nobody thought anything wrong about it. Not like they might look sideways at a charmwife’s workings.

  So standing there around the old fountain, Liv taught us all the rivermen’s prayer—not the quick one she said when she kissed the water, but a longer one they used to bless the boats every morning. Celeste took that and another charm she knew of that called on the saint of the river and she put them together into a little mystery. It was a short one, but when we all said it together I got my magic feeling. I felt warm despite the cold of the water as we dipped our hands in the basin and washed our faces, then cupped a little to drink and asked for Saint Rota’s blessings and protection.

  A shiver ran down my spine and Celeste got a strange look on her face. She was seeing something that none of the rest of us could see.

  We all stood around quietly for a bit after that. The lamp kept dimming and being turned up again, but I don’t think any of us wanted to leave. Then Liv sat down on the edge of the basin and I knew she was getting tired of standing. Maisetra Iulien must have seen that too and she made a big show of rubbing her arms and complaining of the cold. We were waiting for Mesner Aukustin to say something. He went to the edge of the shelf and looked up the tunnel of the chanulez upstream from where the steps had blocked the boat.

  “I wonder how far it goes?”

  “Stands to reason the water must come in somewhere,” Liv said. “Somewhere out past the city walls, probably. You could look there.”

  Then we started to move back to the boat. Maistir Brandel
untied the line to pull it up to the steps and I walked close by Liv in case she needed me, but not touching her unless she asked. Celeste was still standing by the edge of the pool, staring at it. I called her name and she turned, like she was waking up.

  “Roz, Liv, do you have anything I can carry water in?”

  “There’s the bailer,” Liv said with a laugh. So I fetched the bucket and took it up to Celeste.

  She rinsed the river water out of it a few times, then dipped the bailer into the fountain and carried it as carefully as she could down to the boat. The others had gotten in except for Maistir Brandel holding the bow line. As I was about to climb over, the lantern winked out and I gave a squeak, I was that frightened.

  “Hush, it’s all right,” Maisetra Iulien said. I heard her moving in the boat and then felt her hand reaching for mine, guiding me over.

  The boat rocked as she returned to the stern and I held out my hands to Celeste until she put the bailer in them, saying, “Don’t you spill it!”

  I splashed a little bit settling into the stern next to Maisetra Iulien and then I could hear Celeste settling herself at Liv’s feet where I’d been when we came up the chanulez. The oars splashed as Liv called out, “All in, maistir!” The boat rocked and then we were drifting out into the dark.

  “How will we find our way out?” I asked.

  Liv laughed a little. “Only one way to go downstream. I could find my way in the currents with my eyes closed, so this is no different.”

  The trip back seemed like it took forever through a dark so thick I could see visions swimming in it. Liv was right: there wasn’t anywhere we could get lost. There wasn’t room to turn, but Liv used the oars to keep us away from the walls and let us drift. All I could think of was the weight of the stone overhead and how thick the darkness was.

  Maisetra Iulien could feel me trembling, where our legs pressed against each other on the bench. She started telling a story about Saint Rota and how her brother Mauriz, the soldier, had dedicated the fountain to her when it gave sweet water for his soldiers after a battle. It was her story-telling voice—the one she used when telling me about what she was writing. She didn’t mean anything by it except to dream up adventures. But Celeste said sharply, “You don’t know that. Don’t make up lies about Mama Rota.”