Floodtide

by Heather Rose Jones

  Maisetra Iulien looked at her drawings. “Through there into the next chamber, and then look for a door to the right.”

  We had to go back the way we came to find someone to send for the keys. The keys came firmly attached to the hand of an under-cellarer who demanded to know our business. He was polite, but I could tell we weren’t going through that door unless he said so.

  “If it were anyone else but you and the young lady,” he said, nodding at Maisetra Iulien who had left her ’prentice smock behind some time ago and looked the lady once more, “I’d think you meant a bit of carousing.”

  He likely still suspected that but knew better than to say so.

  “We’re looking for the old passage to the hidden chanulez,” Mesner Aukustin explained. “The one that runs under the Plaiz.” He said it as if it were an ordinary thing, like looking for a lost dog.

  “Who told you a wild tale like that? I’ve worked in these cellars twenty years and never heard of such a thing.”

  So Maisetra Iulien spread out her drawing and traced out what we were looking for with her fingertip. “We’ve been up the chanulez from the river—where it comes out by the Pont Vezzen—and seen the door that must be here somewhere. There should be a series of arches and a little corridor leading off the seventh one.”

  The cellarer squinted into the darkness beyond the iron gate. “You’ll be disappointed, I think. But best to show you.”

  He opened the gate with a jangle of keys. We finally lit the lamps we’d been carrying and followed him in. There were arches along the wall, like Maisetra Iulien’s drawing showed, but they were filled with shelves of barrels. We passed down through the first room and into the second.

  “There you are,” the cellarer said, pointing down to the wall at the end. “If your door is behind there, you’ll have to wait until that lot’s been drunk because nobody’s going to shift those barrels full. Not without we get orders from Her Grace, and I wouldn’t go asking her for hide-and-seek games until floodtide’s past.”

  Mesner Aukustin looked like he just might do that, but Maisetra Iulien was looking back at the room we’d come through and then counting up the darkened archways.

  “Six. There’s only six. It should be the seventh, but there isn’t one.”

  The cellarer scratched his head and counted off the same as her. “You’re right. It’s come to me now, they closed off the end of the room before my day. I don’t know why.”

  We stared at the bricked-off wall past the sixth archway in dismay.

  “We could…” Mesner Aukustin faltered a bit, then found his commanding voice again. “We could knock it down.”

  “Oh, no need to do that!” the cellarer said. “There’s a bit of a door round the other side.”

  I think he’d been caught up in the adventure. He took the lamp from Maisetra Iulien and took us back to the first room then out through a different door to a narrow passage running behind the barrels on the left side of the room. It was open shelves on that side and we could see through to where we’d been before.

  “Here we go.” His voice was more cheerful now. “Seventh arch on the left and to our right…” He held up the light before a slab of rough boards. It wasn’t even a proper door, only a barrier blocking the opening in the brick wall. “Hold the lamp now.”

  He poked at one side and the other, then found a knot-hole to grab ahold of and pulled the boards open enough on one side to get a pry bar behind them. On the far side of what had once been the end of the wine cellar we could see a proper iron-bound door framed in the archway. I heard Maisetra Iulien catch her breath in excitement.

  The cellarer’s keys jangled again as he said, “Let’s see what we can do here.”

  Maisetra Iulien said later that it would have been more of an adventure to find our way all on our own. But it seems to me adventures are enough work, and you should take help when you can. No one does great things all by themselves, except maybe in Maisetra Iulien’s stories. Look at Celeste’s charmwork. She’s the one with the knack to put together a charm against the fever, but she never would have tried using the well water except for Mesner Aukustin wanting to explore the chanulezes and Liv providing the boat. And she wouldn’t have had dared to finish the charm, except for Liv’s nephew needing the cure. Even I’d done my part, carrying the chest of charm-goods for her, so I wasn’t going to grudge the cellarer his bit.

  The iron-banded door took three of us to drag it open once we’d cleared out the rubbish in the way, found the right key, and oiled the lock into life. The passage went on and on until it felt like we must have crossed under the whole city. But in the end it led straight to a door with a simple bar, like it was meant to be opened by someone from inside the palace. When we pushed it open, there was a rush of damp air and the hollow mutter of the current in the hidden chanulez. The water was higher, most of the way up the steps to the well, but sweet water still flowed down from the fountain into the dark.

  “Well, bless me!” the cellarer said. He held the lantern high to look back the way we’d come and then out at the flowing darkness. “It must have been built to bring in stores, back before the chanulez was closed off. Must have been a hundred years ago or more. And this is Saint Rota’s well, you say?”

  After all we’d been through, he didn’t need much convincing that there was something special about the place, so he was the one who went back into the wine vault and found a small cask that had once held brandy and a handcart to roll it on.

  We filled it up and pounded the bung in tight. He showed us the long, sloping passage from the wine cellar where they brought the barrels in now, so we wouldn’t have to go through the palace hallways, and he sent us on our way.

  I hadn’t realized how long we’d been until we came out into the delivery yard with dawn barely lighting the sky. No wonder I was so tired, being up all night again! There was no point to carting the water barrel back to Mesnera Chazillen’s house, so we parted ways: me to wheel the barrel down to Mefro Dominique’s and Maisetra Iulien to go fetch Celeste. Mesner Aukustin frowned as he watched us go. Maybe he was sad his part in the adventure was over.

  Mefro Dominique must have worried, with us gone so long, but she didn’t say anything about it. She hugged me like she would have hugged Celeste and gave me a bit of bread saved over from the day before. I told her everything that happened, so she wasn’t frightened when a hired carriage came down the street bringing Celeste back. The street out front was nearly dry, but no one expected the return of the sort of custom that came in carriages yet.

  Celeste looked tired. Maisetra Iulien stepped down from the carriage too and handed the driver his coin, saying, “You needn’t stay.”

  “I wasn’t told I’d be leaving you here, maisetra,” he said. But then he shrugged and twitched the reins for the horse to start.

  “What happened to Mesnera Chazillen’s baby?” I asked.

  Maisetra Iulien said one simple word, but it held so much. “Better.” She took Celeste’s hand and pressed it to her heart like a stage actor. Maisetra Iulien was always doing things like that, but somehow they felt real when she did them. “What do we do next?”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  October 1825—Charmwork

  There was plenty of work for two more hands, though I wondered what trouble Maisetra Iulien would be in later. I asked her, but she shrugged and said, “At least my father can’t drag me back to Chalanz for disobedience now.” She didn’t say what Maisetra Sovitre might do.

  I didn’t know how we’d cross back over the river. They were supposed to keep people from crossing north, but now nobody was being let past going south either. It was easier that way. We had enough to prepare without worrying about that yet.

  There were parts of making the charms that Celeste needed to do, like writing out the prayers. Another charmwife could have helped. Celeste asked a few, but only Nana Rossel was willing. “The rest are too afraid now,” she said, and we all remembered what had happened to Nan
a Tazek. “I’m too old to care what happens.” But the rheumatism cramped her hands and the pen stuttered and shook.

  Maisetra Iulien and I fetched cases of smaller bottles to fill from the cask of water. We didn’t want to risk losing it all in an accident. We cut up the edges of Mefro Dominique’s dress magazines from Paris for the paper to write the prayers on. The stationers had nothing to use—everything was spoilt by the water and damp—but we bought more ink. Maisetra Iulien wished she’d known we’d need paper, but she didn’t dare go home for it in case they wouldn’t let her come back.

  Celeste took the ink and some other things to Saint Nikule’s to put blessings in them. She said it wasn’t the proper order of things, but she hadn’t done things in proper order when she cured Liv’s nephew, so she figured any blessing would do and she didn’t know if she could get to a church later. We couldn’t wait to make everything up before starting out, not knowing how many we’d need. By evening we’d made a good start on everything that could be done ahead. What we still didn’t have was a way to cross the river.

  I’d gone up to the Pont Vezzen and even the Pont Ruip to see if the soldiers were still there keeping watch. I tried to ask if they’d let us cross, but they waved me off before I could get close and I was frightened of the guns.

  “There are people sick here too,” Maisetra Iulien suggested when we paused for a late supper.

  “I promised I’d go back” was all Celeste would say.

  A promise was a promise. And if it hadn’t been for Liv’s plea, Celeste wouldn’t have finished the charm at all. There was still sickness in our own neighborhood, though not as much as before and not many dying. But it was worse on the south side of the river. The streets were still rivers, even with the water going down. People would be sweating and shivering in flooded buildings, not able to get out for bread and good water, never mind finding medicine.

  It split the city in two. You’d think people would chafe at the soldiers on the bridges, but even common folk in the plaiz were afraid of fever coming from the other side. Every new case, there were whispers that someone must have snuck across from the warehouses or the factories or the Jewish neighborhood. The soldiers were mostly to keep the upper town safe, but you didn’t hear much talk against it anywhere. Not even when you heard a gunshot in the distance and didn’t know if it was just a warning or if someone had died.

  Celeste had promised the rivermen so that’s where we needed to go. If we’d had a way to signal Liv, we might have tried to cross in the night. But a beacon would bring the soldiers down on them. That wouldn’t do.

  “Morning has better ideas,” Dominique said in a sing-song voice like it was a proverb or something. We arranged ourselves to sleep, Celeste and her mother upstairs and Maisetra Iulien and I in a nest of pallets on top of the work table downstairs. The floors were almost dry now except when we tracked mud in.

  Maisetra Iulien had been quieter than usual that day, listening and asking what was needed. She brought out her sweet-talk to assure Mefro Dominique there’d be no trouble from letting her stay. I couldn’t say she was right about that. I remembered how sharp Maisetra Sovitre’s words had been forbidding me to come here. Would she blame Mefro Dominique for not sending her back? Or would she understand it was beyond any of us to change Maisetra Iulien’s mind?

  It was a habit for me to do for her as we got ready for sleep, hanging her dress up as neat as I could and plaiting up her hair.

  “Oh, Roz,” she said, “you needn’t. You aren’t my maid here.”

  I made a little noise. I meant it to be a never-mind, but it came out like a sob.

  “Don’t worry, Roz. I’ll put in a word for you when this is all over. I don’t know how much good it’ll do. Cousin Margerit may lock me in my bedroom again for a year. But I can’t think of anyone I’d rather have taking care of me to face a Rotenek season.”

  It was nice to hear her say it. But I thought she was right. Not even Princess Anna putting in a word for me could get me hired back at Tiporsel House now.

  * * *

  I was awake at first light, trying to think through ways to cross over, so I was on my feet quick when there was a knock on the door, hard and insistent. We wouldn’t have opened to anyone that early regular-like, but nothing was regular. I worried it might be someone who’d heard about the fever charm, come pounding on the door asking after Nana Celeste. We’d tried so hard not to let it out, but the charmwives knew we were up to something. Nana Celeste. The thought would have made me laugh except none of this was to laugh at.

  It was Maistir Brandel at the door, looking as tired and worn as all the rest of us felt. He must have come straight up from Urmai. Or maybe, down from Tiporsel House because there was only one reason he’d have come to Mefro Dominique’s.

  “She’s here,” I said.

  I thought he’d be glad or maybe angry, but he said, “I know. May I come in?”

  He had to stay there in the shop front while I got Maisetra Iulien dressed proper, of course. By then Celeste and Dominique had come down as well.

  “Cousin Margerit’s sent you to fetch me home,” Maisetra Iulien said with that stubborn look that spoke trouble.

  Maistir Brandel looked unhappy. “She doesn’t know you’re here. It was Mesnera Chazillen who told me. Iuli, what do you think you’re doing?”

  “We’re taking Celeste’s fever charm over to the south side of the river.” She put her chin out like she was daring him to drag her back to Tiporsel House.

  “And what if you get sick? What do I tell them? I’m supposed to protect you.”

  “I won’t get the fever,” she said confidently. “None of us will. Weren’t we baptized by Mama Rota?”

  Maistir Brandel looked nervously at Celeste. Dominique stood behind her with her arms wrapped around her like that alone could keep her safe.

  “You can’t be sure. Market charms are—”

  “Market charms cured little Iohanna,” she said hotly. “Antuniet saw it work. Celeste’s charms are as good a miracle as Cousin Margerit’s mysteries. It’s still a miracle if it’s just for one person and not the whole city. And Antuniet gave us some of her fever-stones.”

  She held out a small heavy purse. It was more than the two we’d had before. That was a sign Mesnera Chazillen really did believe in the charm.

  He raised his hands in surrender and looked like he was going to leave, but at the last he turned. “Did you really convince Aukustin to find a way through the palace cellars to Saint Rota’s well?”

  A hint of the usual spark returned to Maisetra Iulien’s eyes when she answered. “You’re only sorry you weren’t there with us.”

  He shook his head, then grinned. “Do you need anything?”

  “What we need,” Maisetra Iulien said firmly, “is to be allowed to cross the bridge without trouble.”

  “Those orders come from Princess Anna and the council. It would take word from the palace to counter them.”

  Maisetra Iulien stared at him like he was a dullard.

  It would have been easy for Maistir Brandel to shrug and say there was nothing he could do. It would at least keep her safely in this side of the city. But she had that way of making you want to do what she wanted and he wasn’t any stronger against it than the rest of us.

  “I’ll try,” he said. “Wait for me before you do anything foolish. More foolish,” he added.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  October 1825—Crossing

  It was noon before Maistir Brandel was back, looking even more tired than he was at dawn. We’d done as much as we could preparing the charm-stuff. Maisetra Iulien sent me up to a stationer’s on the main Plaiz to buy more paper, but they were closed and boarded up. I would have come back empty-handed except I met a boy selling broadsides and bought him out. We’d still have to cut them up. Celeste said you couldn’t have any other writing on the charm-paper or it could go awry. But it was more than nothing.

  We were working on that, using Mefro Dominique
’s good shears, when Brandel came back. Standing right behind him was Mesner Aukustin, wearing a crimson-trimmed uniform of the city guard, like he might have dressed for a parade or at one of the public mysteries in the cathedral. After I’d opened the door for them, Maistir Brandel stepped back and stood a little bit behind him, as if he were an armin keeping guard.

  In that stiff palace voice he used when he was nervous, Mesner Aukustin said, “I understand that Mefro Celeste would like assistance in bringing her fever charm to the lower city.”

  I stared for a moment, thinking that would be a cat among the pigeons, then let him in quick-like before anyone on the street started wondering. Not that anyone would see more than the uniform, but that would be enough to start talk.

  Maisetra Iulien did all the talking needed. I went back into the kitchen and put a kettle on for tea. The kitchen was dry enough to keep the stove going again, though the coal wouldn’t last too long without deliveries. It always made me feel good to think of doing things like that and have them ready before anyone thought to ask. It was part of what I liked about being Maisetra Iulien’s maid, and it felt the same doing for Mefro Dominique.

  Everyone felt awkward, of course—that couldn’t be helped—but Maisetra Iulien made it smoother. By the time we’d passed round cups of tea, it was settled. We borrowed a handcart from the tavern two blocks over to carry Celeste’s chest of charmwork and the case of bottles with Saint Rota’s water. Mesner Aukustin said he’d see us through the barricades on the Pont Berkor. It was farther to go than the Pont Vezzen where I’d tried before, but he had his reasons.

  “My cousin is in command of the detail there,” he explained. “He’ll listen to me and let you through.” He held up a paper with seals on it.

  His voice didn’t sound as certain as his words did. We made ourselves look as respectable as we could and Maistir Brandel and I took the handles of the handcart to make our way along the Nikuletrez down the curve of the river. We must have made a queer little parade. It felt like a saint’s day procession back in Sain-Pol when people would gather to dress up one of the wayside shrines and walk from there to the church, singing and carrying candles. Mesner Aukustin went out at the front in his guard uniform. That helped when we passed a troupe of soldiers going the other way. They looked at us curiously but gave him a lazy salute and kept going.