“Who’s that?” rasped an old voice.
“Chamberlain Vos, representing Governor General Jan Haan. This is Arent Hayes, the companion of Samuel Pipps.” He gestured for the metal disk Crauwels had given them in the great cabin, which Arent handed him. He held it up to the slot. “We’re here with the blessings of your captain.”
Something scraped, the door swinging open, revealing a weathered sailor with only one arm, bent double like an overdrawn bow. He was shirtless, in slops that reached his knees. A twisted lock of blond hair hung from a cord around his neck, his own hair springing off his head like sparks from a gray bonfire.
“Come in then,” he said, gesturing them inside. “But bar the door after you, if you please.”
The gunpowder store was a windowless compartment with tin plates nailed to the walls and dozens of small casks of gunpowder laid flat in racks. There was a hammock in the corner and a privy pail beneath it that was thankfully empty.
A thick, wooden beam scraped back and forth above Arent’s ducked head.
“Connects the rudder to the whipstaff in the helm,” said the constable, who’d noticed Arent noticing. “You get used to the squeaking after a while.”
At the center of the room was the huge box containing the Folly. It was being used as a table by the constable, who sat down and swung his feet on top of it, sending a pair of dice skittering to the floor.
He was barefoot, like every other sailor Arent had seen.
Arent stared at the box in bafflement, wondering how something so precious had ended up being treated so carelessly. The Folly was the reason they’d been called to Batavia all those months ago. Only a handful of people knew what it was, and even Sammy wasn’t one of them. It had been quietly built, quietly tested, quietly stolen, then quietly retrieved. They’d spent an hour in its company after recovering it and had examined it from top to bottom.
Even so, they couldn’t make head nor tail of its purpose.
It came in three pieces that locked together. Once assembled, a brass globe lay inside a circle of wood, surrounded by rings of stars, a moon, and a sun. Whenever you tilted it, cogs spun and everything shifted, such that trying to keep track of even one piece had given Arent a headache.
Whatever it was, it was important enough for the Gentlemen 17 to send their most valuable agent to find it, knowing full well the journey from Amsterdam might kill him first.
Fortunately, Sammy had not only survived but succeeded in his errand, uncovering four Portuguese spies. Arent had been tasked with bringing them before the governor general ’s wrath, but two had taken their own lives before he laid hands on them, and two had spotted his approach and escaped.
The failure still embarrassed him.
“What brings fine sirs like yourselves down to the arse end of the ship?” asked the constable, putting a dried piece of fish into his mouth. Far as Arent could tell, there wasn’t a single tooth waiting for it.
“Has anybody approached you about putting spark to this room?” replied Arent, finding no better way to frame the question.
The constable’s old face collapsed in confusion, like an orange that had just had all the juice sucked out of it.
“Why would anybody want to do that?” he asked.
“A threat’s been made against the ship.”
“By me?”
“No, by—” Arent faltered, aware of how ridiculous the answer was. “By a leper.”
“A leper,” repeated the constable, looking to Vos for confirmation of this foolishness.
The chamberlain bit a chunk out of his lemon but said nothing.
“You think a leper’s convinced me to take part in a plot that drowns me along with everybody else?” The constable munched his fish noisily. “Well, let me think on that a minute. I get so many lepers down here, it’s difficult to keep them straight.”
Arent kicked at the floor.
Investigation wasn’t his work, and he wasn’t comfortable doing it. They’d tried once before. Sammy thought he saw the sparkle of some talent in Arent and a quick way to retire. He’d trained him, then given him a case. It went well enough until they nearly hanged the wrong man on Arent’s good word. Only caught the mistake because Sammy put his bottle down long enough to peer hard at the facts, spotting something Arent had missed.
Until then, Arent had been arrogant. He’d seen Sammy’s talents and thought them magnificent, but only in the way a fine display of horsemanship was magnificent. They were something admirable but learnable.
He was wrong.
What Sammy did couldn’t be trained or taught. His gifts were his alone.
Sensing Arent’s discomfort, Vos took pity on him and turned his hard gaze on the constable.
“Know that Arent Hayes comes at the behest of Governor General Jan Haan himself,” he said. “Whatever his questions, you will answer them thoroughly and with courtesy, or we’ll see you flogged. Do you understand?”
The old man blanched.
“I’m sorry, sir,” he mumbled. “I didn’t mean no offense.”
“Answer the question.”
“No lepers, sir. No plots neither. And I’ll tell you this, if I wanted to kill myself, I’d spend a night whoring and drinking with the bastards out there,” he continued, pointing past the barred door. “I don’t because I’ve got coin enough and family waiting, plenty of reasons to go home.”
Arent had none of Sammy’s gifts, but he had his own talent for spotting lies. People had been trying to deceive him his entire life, whether to persuade him into a bad deal when working for his grandfather or to convince him that the dagger held behind their back wasn’t meant for him. Upon the old man’s wrinkled face, he saw hope and nervousness but nothing to suggest he was lying.
“Who else can get in this room?” asked Arent.
“Nobody most days, everybody when battle stations are called. Crew would be in and out collecting gunpowder for their cannons. Only folks with a key are myself, Captain Crauwels, and the first mate, though,” he said, wriggling his toes.
“Do you know a carpenter called Bosey? Had a lame foot? Might have a grudge against the Saardam?”
“Can’t say I do, but I’m new to the crew. Only joined in Batavia.” The constable chewed more fish, saliva running down his chin. “You worried somebody wants to sink the ship?”
“Aye.”
“Then you’re seeing this all wrong,” he said. “This room’s got bread either side and tin all around.”
“I don’t—”
“Bread is packed in the compartments either side,” he clarified. “Even if a spark did ignite it, the explosion would be snuffed out by the tin and the bread. Wouldn’t put a hole in the hull. The fire wouldn’t be a charm, but we’d have time to douse it before it ate us up. That’s why they build them this way.”
“You understand I’ll be putting this same question to Captain Crauwels?” said Vos sternly.
“And he’ll say the same, sir,” replied the constable.
Arent murmured, “Can you think of a better way of sinking the Saardam?”
“Few ways,” said the constable, fingering the dirty twist of hair around his neck. “Another ship could turn cannon on us, sink us the honest way.” He mulled it over. “Could leave us be and trust pirates, storms, or pox to finish us. That happens more often than not, or…” He became troubled.
“Or?” prompted Vos.
“Or…well, if it were me, and it ain’t me. I’m just talking.” He looked up at them for acceptance that he was “just talking.”
“Tell us your idea,” demanded Vos.
“Well, if it were me, I’d try and put the captain out of the way.”
“Crauwels?” said Arent, surprised.
The old man picked at a splinter on the table. “How much do you know about him?”
“Only th
at he dresses like he’s at court and hates the chief merchant,” responded Vos.
The constable slapped his thigh in mirth, stopping when he noticed that Vos’s blunt assessment hadn’t been meant to be humorous.
“True words all, sir, but Captain Crauwels is the finest sailor in the fleet, and everybody knows it, including that whore’s son of a chief merchant, Reynier van Schooten. Could sail a longboat back to Amsterdam and arrive safe with his cargo, could Crauwels.” There was awe in his voice, but it was gone when he spoke again. “Company pays poorly, which means the Saardam crew is comprised of malcontents, murderers, and thieves to a man.”
“Which are you?” asked Vos.
“Thief.” He tapped his stump. “Once. But here’s what matters. Bad as this crew are, every one of them respects Captain Crauwels. They’ll grumble, they’ll plot, but they’ll never move against him. He’s fierce, but he’s fair with the whip hand, and we know he’ll get us home, so these animals bow their heads and accept the leash.”
“What would happen if he died?” asked Arent. “Could the first mate keep this crew together?”
“The dwarf?” spat the constable scornfully. “Not likely. If the captain dies, this boat burns, you mark me.”
15
Sara and Lia were standing on the poop deck at the very rear of the ship watching Batavia recede into the distance. Sara had expected it to disappear by degrees, like a blot being scrubbed out of cotton. Instead, its chimneys and rooftops had simply vanished between blinks, leaving no time for goodbyes.
“What’s France like, Mama?” asked Lia for the hundredth time that week.
Sara could see the trepidation in her eyes. Batavia was the only home her daughter had ever known. Even then, she’d rarely been allowed to venture beyond the walls of the fort. As a child, she’d pretended it was Daedalus’s labyrinth, spending hours fleeing the Minotaur in the maze. Her father had filled the monster’s role nicely.
Now, after thirteen years surrounded by stone walls and guards, she was being shipped off to start an entirely new life in a grand house with gardens.
The poor girl hadn’t slept soundly for weeks.
“I don’t know it well,” admitted Sara. “I last visited when I was very young, but I remember the food being exquisite and the music delightful.”
A hopeful smile crept onto Lia’s face. She loved both those things, as Sara well knew. “They’re talented inventors, scholars, and healers,” carried on Sara wistfully. “And they build miracles, cathedrals that touch the heavens.”
Lia rested her head on her mother’s shoulder, her dark hair falling down her arm like black water.
The running lantern creaked on its long pole above them, the ensign flag snapping in the wind. In the animal pens, chickens clucked and sows grunted, trying to communicate their displeasure at the deck heaving beneath them.
“Will they like me there?” asked Lia plaintively.
“Oh, they’ll love you!” exclaimed Sara. “That’s why we’re doing this. I don’t want you to be afraid of who you are anymore. I don’t want you to have to hide your gifts.”
Lia clutched her tightly, but before she could ask the next question on her list, Creesjie came hurrying up the stairs, her blond hair flying. She’d changed out of her nightgown and was now wearing a high-necked chemise with ribbon-tied red sleeves and a broad-brimmed hat with plumes. She was holding her shoes in her hand, sweat standing up on her brow.
“There you are,” she said breathlessly. “I’ve been looking everywhere.”
“What’s wrong?” asked Sara, concerned.
Creesjie had arrived in Batavia two years ago at Sara’s husband’s request, falling on their drab lives like sunshine. Creesjie was a natural flirt with a gift for tall tales and the skill to tell them well, something she practiced daily. Sara couldn’t ever remember her being in a bad temper or anxious. Her natural state was delight, and there was always some suitor around to provoke it.
“I know what’s threatening this boat,” said Creesjie, panting. “I know what Bosey’s master is.”
“What? How?” exclaimed Sara, all her questions elbowing out at once.
Creesjie rested herself on the railing, catching her breath. Directly beneath them were the square portholes of the passenger cabins, and from inside, they could hear Crauwels continuing to bicker with van Schooten about his cabin.
“Did I ever tell you about Pieter Fletcher, my second husband?” asked Creesjie.
“Only that he was the father of Marcus and Osbert,” replied Sara eagerly. “And he knew my husband at one time.”
“Pieter was a witchfinder,” said Creesjie, speaking his name painfully. “Thirty years ago, long before we were married, he arrived in the United Provinces from England, investigating a strange symbol that was spreading across the lands of the noble families like a plague.”
“Was it the symbol that appeared on the sail this morning?” asked Lia.
“Exactly the same,” said Creesjie, glancing anxiously at the billowing white sheet. “When he was investigating the mark, my husband freed the souls of hundreds of lepers and witches, and they all told the same story. In their worst hour, when their hope was exhausted, something calling itself Old Tom had whispered to them in the darkness, offering to fulfill their heart’s desire in return for a favor.”
“What kind of favor?” asked Sara, unable to conceal her excitement.
She felt the way she did whenever a new Pipps case arrived in Batavia. She would playact them with Lia, refusing to read the ending until they’d devised their own theory. She was right more often than not, though she usually got the motive wrong. Jealousy and spurned passion weren’t concepts Sara could understand, let alone comprehend somebody murdering for.
“My husband wouldn’t speak in detail of his work. He believed it wasn’t for a lady to hear.”
“Wise counsel,” said Vos, climbing the staircase. “My master requires your presence immediately, Mistress Jens.”
Creesjie acknowledged him with distaste.
Arent loomed up behind him, bowing his head to Sara. Something had changed since she’d seen him on the docks, she thought. He carried his body heavily, as if some fresh weight had fallen upon it.
“Abide, Creesjie,” said Sara as the men joined them. “Have you met Lieutenant Hayes? He assisted me with the leper on the docks.”
“Arent,” he corrected in a low rumble, smiling at her. She found herself returning it.
Creesjie’s eyes shimmered as she took him in. “I hadn’t, but I’d hoped to,” she said, curtsying. “The stories of your size aren’t overstated, are they, Lieutenant Hayes? It’s like God forgot to stop making you.”
“Seduce him later, Creesjie,” chastised Sara gently before addressing Arent. “Apparently the mark on the sail belongs to a devil called Old Tom.”
Recognition flashed across Arent’s face.
“You know the name?” she asked, cocking her head.
“The governor general gave me the story.”
“Well, I spoke with a young boy today who told me the leper on the docks had been a carpenter on the Saardam named Bosey,” she said. “Before he died, he’d bragged that he’d struck a bargain with somebody in Batavia that would make him rich, and all he had to do in return were a few favors.”
Creesjie shook her head sadly. “Whatever favor Old Tom asked of this Bosey, it’s only end would have been suffering.” She wiped sea spray from her face. “Once you bargain with Old Tom, you become its servant. You’re never free of it. It feeds on our pain, and those who don’t serve it a banquet are made to suffer themselves. Pieter was possessed of formidable will, but even he balked at recounting the depravities he’d witnessed.”
If it was grievances Old Tom sought, it would have no want of them here, thought Sara. Everybody on this ship had cause for complaint. Everybody felt m
istreated. Everybody wanted what somebody else had. She could only imagine the price these people would pay for a better life.
Look at the price she was willing to pay.
“Plenty of grievances on the Saardam,” rumbled Arent, echoing her thoughts. “Did your husband say what Old Tom actually was?”
“A devil of some sort, but he never confronted it directly. Not until…” Creesjie faltered, her eyes flooding with tears. “Four years ago, Pieter came home in a panic. We were living in Amsterdam, in a grand house filled with servants. He rushed us into a carriage leaving for Lille without any explanation or any of our possessions.”
“Lille?” interrupted Arent, startled.
“Yes.” She tried to make sense of his discomfort. “Does that mean something to you?”
“No. I…” He shook his head, his expression that of a man who’d seen an awful shape flit across the window. “We investigated a case there once. I have bad memories of the place. I’m sorry to have interrupted your account.”
Sara knew all their reports by heart, so she knew he’d never written about Lille. She wondered what this lost case could be and why it so unsettled him, but she had too many other concerns to linger on it.
“My husband told me Old Tom had found him and we had to flee,” continued Creesjie, a throb in her throat. “I begged him to tell me more, but he wouldn’t say another word. We traveled for three weeks to arrive at our new home, and two days later, he was dead.” She swallowed. “Old Tom tortured him and left its mark on the wall so we’d know exactly what was responsible.”
Sara clutched Creesjie’s hand. “Do you have strength enough to tell my husband this?” she asked. “It may be enough to convince him to turn back for Batavia.”
“It won’t,” said Arent. “The governor general already knows what that symbol represents. He’s asked me to investigate, but he won’t turn the ship around.”
“That damn stubborn fool,” cried Sara, glancing at Lia in concern.
“It’s unbecoming to speak of your husband in such a manner,” scolded Vos, earning a venomous glance from Creesjie. The chamberlain wrung his hands, speaking quickly to disguise his embarrassment. “If it’s a devil we face, might I suggest we consult the predikant. Surely, this would be closer to his realm than our own.”
The Devil and the Dark Water Page 10
