“Absolutely, dear. Anything for you and my baby daughter.”
But the midwife wasn’t to be found.
When Maurice stopped by her house the door was open, hanging there like an ill omen.
“Hello?” Maurice called out tentatively.
After a few moments and no answer, he let himself in—keeping one hand casually on his knife.
“Vashti? Hello? It’s Maurice, Rosalind’s husband….”
The midwife was old but in good health. In the back of his mind Maurice feared finding her on the floor with a broken hip or worse, but he suspected that was not the case. Here and there things looked out of order in the tiny house: one chair of three was pushed far aside, a single crock lay broken on the floor. And on the table lay half a baguette, a nice piece of cheese, and some grapes. Dinner, untouched.
“Hello?”
The inventor fretted. It didn’t look like a robbery—nothing was stolen, not even her fine woolen blankets. It was like she had just…vanished.
After a few more minutes of looking around, he left and asked her neighbors about her whereabouts, but no one knew where she had gone. Or even that she had gone.
Or, he gathered as he watched some sets of shifting eyes, they didn’t want to know.
He decided to see if any of Rosalind’s other friends had heard from Vashti—perhaps there had been some sort of emergency, a birth gone wrong, that she had been summoned away to.
But as he walked through the town Maurice noticed other doors that had nasty graffiti smeared on them, sometimes in charcoal and occasionally in something that looked very much like blood.
If the friends he sought were home, they ushered Maurice in off the streets quickly—or made a big deal of talking to him loudly where others could hear, about nothing in particular, emphasizing again and again how nice it was to have such a normal friend who wasn’t one of les charmantes.
None of them knew where Vashti was. No one even knew she was missing.
With a confused and heavy heart, Maurice decided before he went home empty-handed that he would at least fortify himself at the tavern with a drink and a chat with his friends.
There was a sign on the door.
UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT. NO DOGS, ITALIANS, OR CHARMANTES.
Maurice hesitated, unsure what to do. But habit took over his feet, and he found himself continuing in.
The place seemed darker. Small groups spoke in loud, lively tones, but it sounded forced. A new and sour-looking young woman made a big pretense of wiping down the bar with an already filthy rag.
Frédéric and Alaric were in their usual seats. The doctor had never moved in with the groomsman, even after Maurice had moved out; there were some differences of station that were insurmountable beyond drinking at a bar together. Yet they had still managed to stay friends. Both brightened upon seeing Maurice.
“Where is Josepha?” he asked in a low voice, indicating the barmaid with a tilt of his head.
“She was…bought out,” Alaric said distastefully. “Not of her own free will. Told to move to a more…accepting part of town.”
“She was paid,” Frédéric noted. But he regarded his cordial glass with a skeptical eye, obviously unconvinced of its cleanliness.
“Where did she go? Has she set up elsewhere yet? We should go see her….”
“No one has seen her since…this happened,” Alaric said. “Some suspect foul play.”
“Or she has merely seen which way the wind is blowing, taken her fee, and left town,” Frédéric suggested.
Alaric rolled his eyes.
“This is getting out of hand.” Maurice said. “All of it! This…boy…wrote some very nasty things on our door. Lots of doors, it looks like. And my wife is dead set upon this Vashti woman for her midwife, and she’s nowhere to be found. And no one will talk about her. I have a terrible feeling about it. What is going on around here?”
Alaric sighed and played with his cup. “Things are growing worse between…regular people—”
“Les naturels,” Frédéric interrupted primly—“and les charmantes.”
Alaric gave him a black look, then continued. “I’ve never seen it this bad. It’s out of control. Idiots are hassling anyone even the slightest bit unusual—from a self-declared goodwife peddling love potions, to Babbo, who sings to himself and makes those little toys out of twigs and moss. They are badgering them, pestering them—and, occasionally, beating the tar out of them.”
“Things are not out of control,” Frédéric said with the patience of someone who had been arguing the same thing with a friend for a long time. “Anymore. That is precisely the point. Normal people are trying to keep control of things, to keep things safe. And they are not hassling anyone who is innocent.”
“Innocent of what?” Maurice demanded. “Magic? Since when is that a crime?”
“It’s a crime against nature.”
“But you yourself are…”
“Tainted!” Frédéric hissed. “Yes, I know! Keep your voice down!”
Maurice slammed his fist on the bar, exasperated.
“But…but what about Vashti? Rosalind will be terribly upset if I don’t procure her for the birth. Where did she go?”
“She probably left after finding pig’s blood smeared all over her door,” the groomsman said moodily. “Les charmantes are leaving…disappearing out of the last safe haven for the fey and magical left in this world.”
“I would suggest that your wife choose another for her imminent birth, and seek her no more,” Frédéric suggested crisply. “Find a good doctor, perhaps.”
Maurice ignored him. “But surely the king and queen…I mean…well, the whole point of this place is that it’s safe, and different, and…”
“The king and queen are doing nothing about it,” Alaric said with a sigh. “Just like they are doing nothing about the salt scarcity and the trade embargo with Guerende. Perhaps they feel threatened, ever since they lost a couple of guards to errant spells. Or maybe they’re lazy and just don’t care. I’m not really sure what they do up in their towers all day. Guess I’ll find out. They certainly don’t take their precious stallions out enough for exercise.” He brightened suddenly. “Which reminds me! I have great news! Drinks are on me tonight, old friend!”
“What’s the occasion?” Maurice asked, cautiously hopeful for something to offset the gloom of the day.
Frédéric gave a thin smile. “You are looking at the new Master of the Royal Stables. Bow, as is only appropriate—but do not breathe in, for the aura of horse is hard to avoid.”
“And it’s all thanks to this chap here,” Alaric said, toasting his drink rather sloshily at the doctor. “He put in a good word for me to the king himself!”
Maurice smiled and shook Alaric’s hand formally but heartily.
“Marvelous news, Alaric! You’re moving up in the world!”
“Oh, in more ways than one,” the groomsman said with a suggestive waggle of his eyebrows. “There’s a head maid there in the castle, soon to be the housekeeper…”