The Devil and the Dark Water

by Stuart Turton

  “Oh, we don’t need to go that far,” replied Sara. “We’re nobility. We can make the information come to us.”

  Flinging open the door, she gathered her voice and hollered imperiously, “Somebody fetch me a carpenter. I’m afraid this cabin simply won’t do!”

  6

  Sammy Pipps dangled in the air, hands and feet poking through the cargo net hoisting him onto the Saardam.

  “If you try to leap out, the weight of those manacles will drown you,” warned Guard Captain Jacobi Drecht, squinting up at him from the boat below.

  Sammy smiled tightly. “It’s been a long time since anybody mistook me for stupid, Guard Captain,” he responded.

  “Desperation makes us all stupid from time to time,” grunted Drecht, removing his hat and leaping onto the rope ladder.

  Arent followed him up, though much more slowly. Years at war had taken more than they’d given, and each rung caused his knees to crack and his ankles to pop. He felt like a sack of broken parts clattering together.

  Eventually, he dragged himself over the gunwale and onto the waist of the ship, the largest and lowest of its four weather decks. His eyes swept left and right, searching for his friend, but there was far too much commotion. Clusters of passengers waited to be told where to go, while sailors poured buckets of water into the yawls and stuffed the cannons with hemp to keep the weather out. Hundreds of parrots were screeching on the yard, cabin boys waving their arms, trying to chase them off.

  Cargo was being lowered into the hold through hatches in the deck as insults were traded, blame assigned for tasks gone awry. The loudest voice belonged to a dwarf dressed in slops and a waistcoat, who was spitting names from the passenger manifest held in the crook of his arm. He put Arent in mind of a lightning-­blasted tree stump, such was his stature and width, the roughness of his weathered skin and the strange sense of disaster he carried about him.

  As each passenger identified themselves, he blotted their name in his manifest and barked them to their berth in a heavily accented voice, flinging a hand generally in the direction they were supposed to go. Most he ordered down to the orlop deck, a stinking hotbox where they’d be crammed in shoulder to shoulder, feet to scalp, making them easy fodder for malady, sickness, and palsy.

  Arent watched them go pityingly.

  On his voyage to Batavia, almost a third of everybody berthed down there had died, and it made him heartsick to see children trotting gaily down the stairs, excited for the trip ahead.

  Wealthier passengers who still couldn’t afford the cost of a cabin were being shown through an arch on his right into the compartment under the half deck, where hammocks were strung alongside supplies and carpentry tools. They’d have space enough to stand and lie down—­so long as they didn’t stretch out—­but more importantly, they’d have a curtain for privacy.

  After a month at sea, such a simple thing would come to feel like a luxury.

  Arent had been berthed in this compartment on the voyage out and would be traveling the same way back. He could already feel his back grumbling. He fit in a hammock the way an ox fit in a fishing net.

  “Your man’s over here,” hollered Drecht from the far end of the waist, waving his hand to be seen over the heads of the crowd. He needn’t have bothered. The jaunty red feather in his hat was impossible to miss.

  Two musketeers were wrenching Sammy out of the tangled net, laughing coarsely at the bony fish they’d caught and wondering aloud whether they should throw him back.

  Outwardly, Sammy was bearing this humiliation stoically, but Arent could see his eyes flickering across their clothing and faces, pulling them apart for secrets.

  He wasn’t sure what he’d find.

  Arent knew these two from Batavia. They were an unsightly pair, their uniforms grease spotted and their faces filthy. The taller of the two was called Thyman. He had green teeth and a patchy ginger beard. The shorter man was Eggert. He was bald, with scabs covering his scalp. He picked at them when he was nervous, which was unfortunate, because he was nervous most of the time.

  “Where to, Guard Captain?” asked Thyman as Arent and Drecht approached.

  “A cell’s been built at the bow of the ship,” said Drecht. “We’ll take him through the forecastle and down into the sailmaker’s cabin.”

  Passengers and sailors parted to let them through, their whispers rising like a swarm of disturbed flies. Nobody knew why Samuel Pipps was in manacles, though they all had theories. Arent felt partially responsible for that. For the past five years, he’d written reports on each of Sammy’s investigations. At first, they’d been for the eyes of their clients, who’d wanted to ensure their investment was paying dividends, but over time, they’d become popular with clerks, then merchants, and finally the public. Now, copies of the reports were scribed and dispatched to every port that flew a Company flag. They were performed onstage; bards even set them to music. Sammy was the most famous man in the Provinces, but so fantastical were his adventures, so incredible his deductive methods, that many thought him a charlatan. They accused him of being responsible for the crimes he’d unraveled, believing it was the only way he could have solved them. Others accused him of conspiring with dark forces, trading his soul for supernatural gifts.

  As Sammy shuffled across the deck toward his cell, they pointed and whispered, believing their petty suspicions vindicated.

  “Finally caught,” they said.

  “Too clever by half.”

  “Struck a devil’s bargain and come undone.”

  Arent’s glare silenced them momentarily, but the whispers simply sprang up again when he passed, like grass trampled underfoot.

  Annoyed by Sammy’s slow pace, Eggert shoved him forward, causing him to trip on his chains and fall. Giggling, Thyman aimed a kick at his rump, but before he could swing his leg, Arent grabbed hold of the musketeer’s shirt and hurled him into the railing with such force, the wood cracked.

  Snatching up his dagger, Eggert swung wildly at Arent.

  With a quick step, the mercenary maneuvered around the musketeer, catching hold of his arm and twisting it upward, forcing the point of the dagger to his jaw.

  Drecht moved even faster, unsheathing his saber and thrusting it forward, touching the tip of the blade to Arent’s chest.

  “I can’t have you laying hands on my men, Lieutenant Hayes,” he warned calmly, lifting the brim of his hat to meet Arent’s eyes. “Let him go.”

  The sword bit into his chest. A little more pressure and he’d be dead.

  7

  Amid the clamor of Arent’s standoff with Drecht, nobody noticed Sander Kers climb aboard, which was impressive given his stature. He was tall, thin, and stooped, his tatty purple robes hanging from his limbs like rags blown into the boughs of a tree. His wrinkled face was the same shade of gray as his hair.

  Behind him, a second, smaller hand emerged over the side, strong fingers trying to find something to grip on to.

  Reaching down, the elderly man ineffectually tried to help, but the hand swatted him away as a panting Mardijker woman with curly brown hair appeared. She was much shorter and many years younger than Kers, with the broad shoulders and thick arms of a farmer. Her cotton shirt was rolled up to her elbows, her skirt and apron stained.

  A cumbersome leather satchel was hanging across her back, a brass buckle fastening it shut. Afraid the splashing water might have wormed its way inside, she checked it hurriedly, offering a small prayer of relief to find it sealed.

  Whistling to the boat bobbing below, she nimbly caught the wooden cane thrown up by the ferryman and held it out to Kers. He didn’t immediately take it from her, for he was transfixed by a fight happening nearby. Craning her neck, she peered through a gap in the crowd, recognizing the bear and the sparrow from the stories. They were evocative nicknames, but they concealed more than they revealed. In the flesh, Arent Hayes wasn�
��t merely large, he was monstrous, like a troll come stamping down from the mountains. He was holding a knife to the throat of a squirming musketeer, while a bearded soldier pressed the tip of a saber to his chest. Given Arent’s immensity, it was difficult to believe the saber would even pierce him, let alone kill him.

  Samuel Pipps was trying to get off the ground, his efforts reminding her of a bird with a broken wing. In this case, it was the manacles keeping him from rising. The stories described him as handsome, but it was a fragile beauty. His cheekbones were sharp, his brown eyes glistening atop them like glass orbs held on altars. He was even smaller than she’d imagined, and as delicately built as a child.

  “It’s already started,” muttered Kers, disturbed. He touched her arm and pointed at the quarterdeck, where the governor general had boarded earlier. “The ritual will work well enough from up there,” he said, resting his weight on his cane. “Come along, Isabel.”

  She went reluctantly. She enjoyed a good fight and was eager to see if Arent Hayes lived up to his fearsome reputation.

  Glancing over her shoulder, she helped Kers slowly up the staircase, every step an agony for him.

  The sky was darkening above them. It was monsoon season, and the afternoon frequently delivered violent storms, so Isabel wasn’t surprised to see clouds elbowing their way across the bright blue sky, obscuring the sun before unveiling it again. Shadows drifted across the water, raindrops beginning to patter on the deck as the grand flags of the United East India Company snapped in the wind.

  On the quarterdeck, Kers clumsily undid the buckle on the satchel Isabel was carrying, sliding out the huge book contained within.

  As drops of rain splatted on the sheepskin wrapping protecting it, he reconsidered.

  “Hold up your apron,” he commanded. “We need to shelter it from the rain.”

  Frowning, she did as he asked, prickling at the sharpness in his voice. He was afraid, she realized.

  Fear nipped at her like the first embers of fire.

  For over a year, he’d taught her his craft, but his stories of their enemy were passionless things—­horrifying but distant, the way somebody else’s tragedies always were. Compared to the torments she’d endured before meeting Kers, the labor ahead seemed to have a fairy-­tale quality. Foolishly, she’d thought of it as a grand adventure.

  But watching Kers’s hands trembling, she now felt the knife to her throat.

  Her eyes darted toward Batavia.

  It wasn’t too late to flee. By nightfall, she could have the hot dirt beneath her bare feet once again.

  “Your arms, girl!” scolded Kers, removing the wrapping to reveal the leather-­bound cover. “Keep the apron above the book. It’s getting wet. There isn’t time to daydream.”

  Doing as he bid, she dragged her gaze from the distant rooftops. Whatever danger lurked on this ship, she would not allow cowardice to convince her there was safety in Batavia. She was poor, alone, and a woman, which meant every one of its alleys had teeth. God was offering her a better life in Amsterdam. She simply had to hold her nerve.

  Resting the heavy book partially on the railing, Kers began turning the vellum pages as quickly as reverence would allow. On the first was a creature with a goat’s body and a haggard human face sitting on a throne of snakes. The next page showed a fanged torment digging its claws into the pile of screaming bodies it was climbing. After that came a three-­headed monstrosity with a spider’s body leering at a blushing maid.

  On and on, horror after horror.

  Isabel turned her face away. She hated this book. The first time Kers had shown her its contents, she’d emptied her stomach on the floor of his church. Even now, the gleefulness of its evil made her queasy.

  Kers finally found the page he wanted: a naked old man with spiny wings riding a monstrous creature that had a bat’s head and a wolf’s body. The old man had claws instead of hands and was using them to stroke the cheek of a young boy being pinned down by the wolf. The creature was snarling, its tongue lolling, as if laughing at the terrified boy’s predicament.

  On the opposite page was a symbol that resembled an eye with a tail. Beneath it was a strange incantation.

  Pressing his palm against the image, Kers returned his attention to the fight.

  Samuel Pipps had started talking, and all eyes were upon him. It was like in the stories. Despite being on the ground, despite being manacled and belittled, his authority was absolute. Even the giant seemed cowed.

  Rain was falling harder now, running down pulleys and collecting in puddles, seeping through the apron. The sky was soot, cracks of golden sunlight riddling the clouds.

  Something made Drecht tense, the sword pressing harder against Arent’s chest.

  “Do it,” urged Kers under his breath. “Do it now.”

  8

  Holding his dagger to Eggert’s neck, a sword pressed to his chest, Arent had to admit that boarding hadn’t gone as well as he’d hoped.

  “Easy,” he said, gripping the squirming musketeer a little tighter.

  He eyed Drecht, perfectly steady on the other side of his saber.

  “I’ve no quarrel with you,” said Arent. “But Sammy Pipps is a great man, and I’ll not have him treated ill by piss stains like this.” He nodded to Thyman, who was staggering to his feet in a daze. “I want the word to go out that Sammy isn’t sport for bored soldiers. From this point on, anybody who lays hands on him won’t live long enough to regret it.”

  Arent’s words betrayed none of his uncertainty.

  There wasn’t a fouler individual alive than a musketeer in the United East India Company. The job paid poorly and so attracted only the blackest hearts, those content to pursue a reckless course far from home because home was where the hangman was. Once away, their only concerns were amusement and survival, and woe betide anybody who came between them.

  The only way to command such men was through fear. Drecht would have to know which offenses to turn a blind eye to and which insults required blood. If Drecht didn’t kill him, if he didn’t defend the honor these men didn’t have, they’d call it weakness. For the next eight months, he’d be fighting to get back even a pinch of the authority he’d boarded with.

  Arent tightened his grip around the dagger, a drop of Eggert’s blood rolling down the edge. “Put the sword down, Drecht,” he demanded.

  “Release my man first.”

  They stared at each other, the howling wind whipping rain at their faces.

  “Your mate cheated you at dice,” declared Sammy, breaking the tension.

  Everybody looked at him, having entirely forgotten he was there. He was talking to Eggert, the musketeer being held by Arent.

  “What?” demanded Eggert, the movement of his jaw forcing Arent to lower the dagger lest he accidentally put a spare hole in his mouth.

  “Earlier, while you were freeing me from the net, you were scowling at him,” said Sammy, grimacing with effort as he got to his feet. “He’d annoyed you recently. You kept casting glances toward his coin purse and frowning. I heard it rattling under his jacket as we walked. Yours didn’t, because yours is empty. You’ve been wondering if he cheated you. He did.”

  “He can’t have,” sniffed Eggert. “They were my dice.”

  “He suggested you use them?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then you took a few rolls, but your luck soured after he won his first pot. Isn’t that so?”

  The musketeer picked at the scabs on his bald head in agitation. He was so taken with Sammy’s accusations, he hadn’t noticed Arent had released him.

  “How can you know?” he demanded suspiciously. “Did he say something?”

  “He had another set of dice in his hand,” explained Sammy. “He switched them when he scooped up your dice with his winnings. At the end of the game, he handed yours back.”

  The crow
d watching them murmured their surprise at this insight. More than one hushed voice accused him of devilry. It was always the same way.

  Sammy ignored them and nodded at Thyman, who was leaning weak kneed against a wall. “Open his coin purse. They’ll be in there,” he said. “Roll them five times, and you’ll win five times. They’re weighted in his favor.”

  Seeing Eggert’s anger growing, Drecht sheathed his sword and put himself between the two musketeers.

  “Thyman, that way,” he ordered, gesturing toward the mainmast. “Eggert, down there.” He pointed at the stairs onto the orlop deck. “Keep away from each other today, or you’ll have me to answer to.” His gaze suggested very clearly they wouldn’t enjoy that. “And you lot can see yourselves away as well. I’m sure you’ve something else to be doing.”

  Grumbling, the crowd broke apart and wandered off.

  Drecht made sure Eggert and Thyman were truly done with each other, then turned his attention to Sammy.

  “How did you do that?” He was filled with that curious mixture of awe and alarm that Sammy’s gifts often provoked.

  “I judged the character of the men and the relative heft of their coin purses,” said Sammy as Arent dusted him off. “I knew one was angry at the other, and money seemed a simple motive, so I led his anger where it wanted to go.”

  The implications of the statement moved across Drecht’s face with impressive speed.

  “You guessed?” he exclaimed disbelievingly.

  “I know the game,” said Sammy, spreading his hands as far as the chains would allow. “I used it myself in my youth. It requires quick fingers, lots of practice, and somebody stupid enough not to realize they’re being cheated. I saw all those qualities before me.”

  Drecht barked with laughter and shook his head, marveling at the audacity of it.

  “You cheated people at dice?” he said. “Where does a noble learn to cheat people at dice?”

  “You mistake me, Guard Captain,” said Sammy, becoming uncomfortable. Sammy didn’t speak much of his past, but Arent knew that it was something he’d worked hard to escape. “I wasn’t born to nobility. My father died when I was a boy, and my mother was the poorest widow you ever saw. I grew up with the dirt for a pillow and the wind for a blanket. I had to take any coin that came my way, even if I had to put my hand in somebody else’s pocket to get it.”