He couldn’t remember.
It didn’t matter. Unlike Arent, Old Tom was a poor man without powerful kin or walls to hide behind. He certainly wasn’t a demon, though he’d always been strange, sitting in the same spot in the market come rain, sun, or snow, begging for alms. Nothing he said made sense, but most had thought him harmless.
One day, a mob circled him. A little boy had disappeared, and his friends claimed Old Tom had led him away. The villagers hurled accusations and demanded a confession. When he didn’t provide it—when he couldn’t—they beat him to death.
Even the children joined in.
The next day, the symbols stopped appearing.
The villagers congratulated themselves on driving the devil from their homes and went back to smiling and laughing with their neighbors as if nothing had happened.
Arent’s grandfather, Casper van den Berg, had arrived in his carriage a week later. He removed Arent from his mother’s care, taking him back to his estate in Frisia on the other side of the country. Casper claimed it was because his five sons had all disappointed him and he needed an heir. They both knew it was because Arent’s mother had summoned him. She knew the truth about her son’s scar and the marks he’d drawn on the doors.
She was afraid of him.
“After you were taken to Frisia, we heard tales of that mark spreading across the Provinces.” Haan touched the parchment to the candle flame and watched the foul thing burn. “Woodcutters noticed it first, etched in the trees they were felling. Then it began appearing in villages and finally carved into the bodies of dead rabbits and pigs. Wherever it appeared, some calamity followed. Crops were blighted, calves delivered stillborn. Children disappeared, never to be seen again. It went on for almost a year, until mobs started attacking the houses of the noble families who owned the land, accusing them of conspiring with dark forces.” As the flame reached his fingertips, he threw the scrap of parchment out the porthole and into the sea.
“Why didn’t you tell me any of this?” demanded Arent, staring at his scar. It was barely visible anymore, but he could feel it underneath, like it was trying to dig its way out.
“You were young.” There was a shine to Haan’s face, an old fear taking hold again. “It wasn’t your burden to carry. We assumed one of the mark’s foul servants had come upon you in the woods, killed your father, and branded you in some perverse ritual, but you showed no ill effects. Then we heard a witchfinder had chased the mark over from England, where his order had been battling it for years. He claimed it was a devil’s work and set to scouring the land of its followers, slaughtering the lepers and burning the witches who’d appeared in its wake.”
Lepers, thought Arent. Like Bosey.
“The pyres burned across Frisia for months, until it was finally banished,” continued Haan. “Your grandfather was worried the witchfinder would mistake you for one of its servants, so he hid you away.” A dark shadow passed across his face, the wine trembling in his hand. “That was a terrible time. The devil twisted itself tight around the great and powerful, leading them into perversity. A few of the old families couldn’t be saved. They were already too enthralled to its evil.”
Lost in thought, Haan’s fingernails rapped the side of his mug. They were buffed to points, a style long out of fashion and somehow unsettling. They looked like talons, thought Arent. As if his uncle were slowly transforming into the bird of prey he’d always resembled.
“Arent, there’s something else you should know. According to the witchfinder, the devil called itself Old Tom.”
Arent’s legs felt weak beneath him, and he had to steady himself against the desk. “Old Tom was a beggar,” he protested. “The villagers murdered him.”
“Or maybe they found the right creature by accident. If you throw enough stones, occasionally you hit somebody deserving.” Haan shook his head. “Whatever the truth, those events were almost thirty years ago. Why would the mark appear again now? Half a world away?” He turned his dark eyes upon Arent. “Do you know my mistress, Creesjie Jens?”
Arent shook his head, confused at this new line of questioning.
“Her last husband was the witchfinder who saved the Provinces. The man we hid you from. It’s through him I came to know Creesjie. If he confided in her about his work, she may know more about Old Tom, why it threatens this ship, and what that mark on your wrist represents.”
“If you believe there’s some threat, wouldn’t it be wisest to return to Batavia?”
“Retreat, you mean?” Haan snorted his contempt for the idea. “There are almost three thousand souls in Batavia and less than three hundred aboard this ship. If Old Tom is here, it will be trapped. Do this for me, Arent. Any resource”—he spotted Arent’s objection—“aside from Pipps shall be yours.”
“I can’t do what he does.”
“You stormed a stronghold to save me from the Spanish army,” balked Haan.
“I didn’t go there expecting to succeed. I went there knowing I would die.”
“Then why go at all?”
“Because I couldn’t have lived with the guilt of having not tried.”
Overcome by the weight of love he bore his nephew, Haan turned away to disguise it. “I never should have taught you about Charlemagne when you were a boy,” he said. “It’s rotted your mind.” Uncomfortable around any feeling that didn’t end in profit, he went to his table and sifted through some papers. “You’ve served Pipps for five years,” he said once his documents were thoroughly reordered. “Surely, you’ve observed his method.”
“Aye, and I’ve observed squirrels running up trees, but I can’t do that either. If you want to save this ship, you need to free Sammy.”
“I know I’m not your uncle by blood, but I feel our kinship keenly. I’ve watched you grow up, and I know your capabilities. You were your grandfather’s heir, chosen above his own five sons and seven grandsons. He did not offer you that honor because you were stupid.”
“Sammy Pipps isn’t simply clever,” argued Arent. “He can lift up the edges of the world and peek beneath. He has a gift I’ll never understand. Believe me, I’ve tried.”
The face of poor Edward Coil flitted through his thoughts, followed by the usual shame.
“I can’t free him, Arent.” There was a strange expression on Haan’s face. “I won’t free him. I’d rather let this ship sink and know he drowned in that cell.” Draining his mug, he thumped it back onto the table. “If Old Tom’s on this boat, then you’re the best person to hunt it down.
“The safety of the Saardam is in your hands.”
14
Arent stared at his uncle, feeling queasy. He’d not truly reckoned with the idea that this task would fall to him alone. He’d been convinced that his uncle’s affection for him would sway the matter, but it was the same affection that had now doomed them.
Jan Haan’s faith in him was absolute, and it always had been. When Arent was a boy, his uncle had taught him swordplay by pitting him against full-grown men. First one, then two, then three and four, until servants would stop in their duties to watch him practice.
In his teenage years, when the clinking of the abacus replaced the clanking of swords, Haan had convinced Casper to send him to negotiate contracts with merchants so cunning, they would have had the hands off his arms if he hadn’t been careful.
Emboldened by those distant successes, his uncle now courted failure. There could be nobody less capable of protecting the Saardam than Arent.
“If I’m to do as you ask, I’ll require Sammy’s counsel,” he said desperately.
“Talk to him through the door.”
“Can we not move him to a cabin at the very least?” pleaded Arent, hating how weak he sounded. “Does he not deserve that for the service—”
“My family is in those cabins,” said Haan tightly, on the verge of insult.
/> “If we don’t give him air and exercise, disease will ravage him,” said Arent, changing the point of attack. “He’ll be dead long before we reach Amsterdam.”
“No more than he deserves.”
Arent gritted his teeth, his temper rising at his uncle’s stubbornness. “Will the Gentlemen 17 not object?” he demanded. “Will they not want to hear the accusations firsthand and render their judgment?”
Haan’s certainty wavered.
“If I’m not allowed to free him, then at least allow me to exercise him,” said Arent, sensing a crack in his uncle’s fortitude. “Even the passengers on the orlop deck walk the deck twice a day. He could join them.”
“No. I’ll not have his taint spreading any further than it already has.”
“Uncle—”
“Midnight,” Haan countered. “You may walk him at midnight.” Before Arent could press, he swept on sternly. “Don’t test my patience any further. I’ve already given more ground than I expected to, and it’s only because you’re the one asking.”
“Then I take it gratefully.”
Haan slapped the back of his hand into his palm, obviously annoyed at himself. “Will you breakfast with me tomorrow?”
“Are you not attending the captain’s table tonight?”
“I prefer to be asleep before dusk and awake before dawn. By the time the captain hosts the simpering idiots and bellicose fools sailing aboard this ship, I will be abed.”
“Breakfast it is,” agreed Arent. “Though I’d appreciate it if we could keep my family name secret.”
“You walk around in rags and yet it’s your name that shames you?”
“It isn’t shame, Uncle,” disagreed Arent. “That name runs ahead of me. It straightens crooked paths, and it’s the crooked paths I wish to walk.”
Haan examined him admiringly. “You were a strange boy, and you’ve grown into a stranger man, but a unique one, I think.” He blew out a breath. “Have it your way. Your true name will not pass my lips. As your past should not pass yours. Does Pipps know about your scar and your father’s disappearance?”
“No. Grandfather made me keep what happened in those woods a secret, and the lesson stuck. I don’t speak about it. I rarely even think about it.”
“Good. Keep it that way, even from Creesjie Jens when you meet her. She’s a fine woman, but still a woman. She’d believe the worst.” He rapped the desk with his finger. “Now, as much as it pains me, I have duties to attend.” He opened the door, revealing Cornelius Vos and Guard Captain Drecht talking on the other side.
“Vos, escort my nephew to Creesjie Jens. Tell her that despite appearances, he’s a fine fellow, and he comes under my instruction.”
“I’d like to start with the gunpowder store first,” countered Arent. “We need to know how this leper’s master intends to attack us.”
“Very well,” Haan agreed. “Take my nephew down to the gunpowder store, and see the constable answers his questions.” He leaned close, whispering into the chamberlain’s ear. “And then send Creesjie Jens to me.”
“Thank you, Uncle,” said Arent, inclining his head respectfully.
Haan held out his arms, drawing him into an embrace. “Don’t trust Pipps,” he whispered. “He’s not the man you think he is.”
Cornelius Vos led Arent out of the great cabin and back through the helm into the compartment under the half deck. Every stride was perfectly equal, his arms held close to his sides, as if he were wary of taking up more space than he had to.
“I’ll confess, I thought I knew every root and branch of my master’s genealogy, back to its ancestry.” Vos spoke slowly, blowing the dust off each word before it passed his lips. “I apologize for not recognizing you as family immediately.”
He sounded genuinely regretful, thought Arent. His grandfather’s older servants had been the same way. The family was their life, and being in service was their pride. His grandfather could have put collars around their necks and they would have polished them to a shine.
“I’m not related to the Haans; the governor general calls me nephew as a mark of affection,” explained Arent. “His lands are next to my grandfather’s in Frisia. They’re great friends and raised me between them.”
“Then who are your people?”
“That’s a matter I prefer not to speak on,” said Arent, making sure nobody else was listening. “And I’d take it as a kindness if you didn’t mention my connection to the governor general to anybody else.”
“Of course,” said Vos frostily. “I would not have this position if I struggled for discretion.”
Arent smiled at Vos’s disgruntlement. Clearly, it vexed him that anybody should wish to distance themselves from the privilege of the governor general’s friendship.
“Tell me of yourself, Vos,” he said. “How did you come to be in service to my uncle?”
“He ruined me,” said Vos without ire. “I was a merchant once, but my company came into competition with the governor general. He spread scurrilous rumors about me to my customers, putting my business to the sword, then offered me a job as his chamberlain.”
He spoke in the fond tones of somebody recounting their Christmas feast.
“And you accepted?” said Arent, aghast.
“Of course,” said Vos, frowning at Arent’s confusion. “It was a great honor. If it hadn’t been him, it would have been somebody else. I had no talent for business, but your uncle recognized my talent for figures. I’m exactly where I belong, and I thank God for his wisdom each night.”
Arent studied Vos’s bland face for some suggestion of wounded pride or repressed resentment, but there was nothing. He seemed grateful to have been crushed and added to his uncle’s collection.
Vos took a small lemon from his pocket and dug his sharp fingers into the peel, spraying zest into the air.
Arent watched him a moment, the boat rocking beneath them. “Do you know why Sammy Pipps is imprisoned?” he asked abruptly, hoping to catch him off guard.
Vos’s body stiffened. “No.”
“Yes, you do,” disagreed Arent. “Is it as bad as my uncle says?”
“Yes,” said Vos, biting into the lemon, bringing tears to his eyes.
The word was dropped across the conversation like a rock in front of a cave mouth.
The staircase down to the orlop deck was located opposite Arent’s berth, an almighty commotion rising up the steps.
Descending into the gloom, Arent felt like he was being swallowed whole.
A rib cage of thick beams held up the low ceiling, drops of humidity falling like bile. Six cannon were spaced at regular intervals along the bowed walls, and the center of the deck was taken up by the huge capstan wheel, its four long handles used to hoist the anchors off the seabed.
It was swelteringly hot, with passengers expected to bed down wherever they could find space. At a guess, Arent suspected there were fifty people down here. A few experienced travelers were stringing their hammocks between the gunports, where they’d at least have a breeze, but the rest would have to settle for mats on the floor and the feel of rats scurrying by their body in the night.
Arguments raged, sickly passengers coughing, snorting, spitting, and vomiting as they complained about their berths. Sander Kers and his ward, Isabel, were standing at the center of them, listening sympathetically and offering God’s blessings.
“The gunpowder store is this way,” said Vos, nodding toward the aft of the ship.
They hadn’t gone three steps when they were thronged by passengers hurling complaints over each other. An irate man tried to prod Arent in the chest, then realized how far he’d have to reach, so he prodded Vos instead.
“I sold everything to buy this”—he pointed at his hammock disgustedly—“berth. There isn’t even room for my possessions.”
“Fascinating,” sai
d Vos, plucking the offending finger away like a piece of dirt. “But I have no say over your accommodations. I had very little say over my own.” He trailed off, distracted by something.
Following his gaze, Arent saw two sandy-haired boys with prominent ears darting across the deck, trying to tag each other. They were dressed identically in yellow hose and brown breeches, pressed tunics, and short capes.
This was noble attire. Compared to the worn-out boots and faded clothes the rest of the passengers wore, it was painfully conspicuous. Their pearl buttons alone would have paid for one of these families to take quarters upstairs.
“Boys!” hollered Vos, bringing the two young nobles to an immediate halt. “I’m certain your mother doesn’t know where you are, and I’m certain she wouldn’t approve. Up to the cabins with you.”
The boys muttered but trudged up the stairs as ordered.
“They’re the sons of Creesjie Jens,” explained Vos.
He spoke her name with such yearning, he was momentarily rendered human. At short acquaintance, Arent had assumed Vos’s heart was a ball of parchment, but evidently there was warm blood in there somewhere.
A weeping woman broke through the crowd, tugging Arent’s sleeve.
“I’ve two children,” she complained, sniffling into a handkerchief. “There’s no light, no air. How will they endure eight months of this?”
“I’ll talk to—”
Vos slapped her hand away, earning an annoyed glance from Arent. “Lieutenant Hayes cannot help you any more than I can,” he said officiously. “We’re passengers like you. Harangue the first mate or the chief merchant.”
“I want to talk to the captain,” demanded the irate man, pushing the woman out of the way.
“And I’m certain he’d like to talk to you,” said Vos blandly. “Perhaps you should try hollering to him.”
Rather than wait for a response, he strode purposefully toward the gunpowder store and rapped on the door with the authority of a man for whom doors were always opened. Steps thudded on the other side, a panel sliding open, revealing suspicious blue eyes under wild white eyebrows.
The Devil and the Dark Water Page 9
