Chapter 18
NELLIE DIDN’T WANT to see Julianna. Neither did she want to go into the artisan quarter, where many houses were strange, reflecting their occupants, the artists, the musicians, the modistes.
But she had promised Madame Sabine to bring her something for stomach cramps, although Madame would be better off finding someone who knew about remedies.
The artisan quarter of the city lay on the western side of town, in between Saardam’s centre and the marshy ground between the city and the strip of sand dunes that protected the land from the sea.
In the past, this used to be grazing land, and during the summer months caravans of travelling artistes used to camp here. When the people of the city dug canals to get rid of water, the land became useful for building, even if floods still
