The Devil and the Dark Water

by Stuart Turton

  “You believe in demons, Vos?” asked Lia. “I wouldn’t have thought it. You’re so…”

  “Passionless?” supplied Creesjie.

  “Rational,” clarified Lia.

  “I have seen them firsthand,” he said. “My village was beset when I was a boy. Only a handful of homes survived the assault.”

  Sara addressed Arent. “I’ll speak to the predikant if you wish,” she said. “I need to arrange confession anyway.”

  “That would be a help. Thank you,” said Arent. “I’ll keep asking around after Bosey. If his master really is Old Tom, one of his friends may know how they became acquainted.”

  “I may have some useful information on that also,” replied Sara, who relayed to Arent what she’d learned about the carpenter that morning, including his last words before his tongue was cut out.

  “‘Laxagarr’?” mused Arent when she was finished. “I know a handful of languages, but I’ve never heard a word like that.”

  “Neither have I,” agreed Sara, gripping the taffrail as the ship smacked into a large wave. “The boy I spoke to thought it was Nornish, and the only person on board who speaks the language is the boatswain, Johannes Wyck, but he was the one responsible for cutting out Bosey’s tongue, so I doubt he’ll be amenable to our questions.”

  “He won’t be,” agreed Arent. “I’ve met him already.”

  “I’ve sent Dorothea to ask around among the passengers on the orlop deck, just in case any of them can help.”

  Arent looked at her in admiration, drawing a confused half smile in response.

  “If Old Tom feeds on suffering, why would it leave Batavia?” interrupted Vos in his usual monotone. “There are thousands of souls in the city, and only a few hundred aboard the Saardam. Why trade a banquet for a snack?”

  “It’s here for me,” said Creesjie, her voice frail. “Don’t you see? Pieter freed its followers and banished it from the Provinces. Old Tom butchered him in revenge, but I fled before it could finish its work. I kept moving so it would never find us, but I thought we’d be safe this far from the provinces. I became complacent and now it’s come for the rest of his family.” Her desperate gaze found Sara. “It’s here for me.”

  16

  As the day drew to a close, sailors sang, danced, and played their fiddles on the waist, heeding the occasional barked order from the quarterdeck. Up in the rigging, they laughed at ribald jokes and called down insults to those below. They were so boisterous that their sudden silence was louder than a thunderclap.

  Arent was striding past the mainmast.

  Up on the quarterdeck, Captain Crauwels cursed under his breath and considered calling out a warning, immediately realizing it would be no use. Even on short acquaintance, it was obvious Arent Hayes went where he wished.

  Sailors stopped fast in their labors, watching him pass. Once out to sea, everything afore the mainmast belong to them. Any passengers who ventured into their half of the Saardam surrendered themselves to whatever torments the sailors devised. That was the way it had always been, but Arent showed nary a concern. Even so, nobody moved. A few crew members squinted at him as he passed, weighing the chances of theft or intimidation, but his size swiftly put aside any uncharitable ideas. Cowed, they returned to their duties, leaving Arent to climb the stairs onto the forecastle at the bow of the ship.

  The foremast towered above him, the sails casting everything in shade. The beakprow stretched out over the sea, the golden lion figurehead seeming to leap from wave to wave.

  He was momentarily blinded by the molten orange sun. Its light was drawing across the white sails of the fleet, setting fire to them.

  Blinking, he heard cheers, then the soft, wet slaps of a fistfight. Peering through a crowd of sailors and musketeers, he caught sight of two shirtless bodies circling each other. They were bruised and bloodied, swinging wild, tired punches. Most missed, a few landed. The loser would be whichever one of them fell down first from exhaustion.

  Peering over the heads of the crowd, Arent sought out Isaack Larme.

  The first mate was sitting nearby on the railing overlooking the beak prow, his short legs swinging as he whittled a piece of wood with his knife. Occasionally, he’d glance up, eyeing the proceedings with the scowl of a professional fighter watching a very unprofessional fight.

  Arent hadn’t taken two paces toward him when Larme shook his head.

  “Cark off,” he warned, still intent on his whittling.

  “Captain told me you might know something about a carpenter called Bosey. Who his friends were? What he did before joining the Company?”

  “Cark off,” repeated Larme.

  “I saw your reaction in the great cabin when I mentioned Bosey. You flinched. You know something.”

  “Cark off.”

  “The Saardam’s in danger.”

  “Cark. Off.”

  Laughter rang out from the surrounding sailors. The fight had stopped and everybody was watching them instead.

  Arent balled his fists, his heart a jackrabbit. Ever since he was a boy, he’d hated being the center of attention. Most of the time, he walked with his shoulders slouched and his back bent, but he was much too large to go unremarked.

  That was why he enjoyed working with Sammy.

  When the sparrow was in the room, nobody paid attention to anything else.

  “I come with the governor general’s authority,” tried Arent, hating himself for having to invoke his uncle’s name.

  “And I come with the authority of being the only man keeping this rabble from slitting your throat in the night,” said Larme, flashing Arent a vicious grin.

  The sailors jeered. This was clearly a much better fight than the one they’d been watching.

  “We think Bosey has a master called Old Tom who’s trying to sink this boat.”

  “And you think he needs some clever scheme to do it?” retorted Larme. “Best way to sink an Indiaman is to leave her be. If a storm doesn’t get us, pirates will. If it ain’t pirates, it’ll be disease. This ship’s damned, leper or no.”

  The crew murmured their agreement, their hands instinctively reaching for their good luck charms. Each one was as distinct as the soul that owned it. Glancing around, Arent saw a burned wooden statue and a curiously knotted length of rope. There was a twist of bloodied hair and a strange vial of dark liquid, a melted scrap of iron and a colorful chunk of mica, the edges seared by flame. Larme’s was a strange thing. Half a leering face carved out of wood.

  “Will you answer my questions?” flailed Arent.

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I don’t have to,” responded Larme, brutally hacking a chunk from the block he’d been whittling. He tossed it into the ocean. After waiting for the laughter to die down, he pointed toward the bloodied fighters with the tip of his knife. “You should fight,” he said.

  “What?” replied Arent, confused by the sudden shift in conversation.

  “Fight,” repeated Larme as the sailors murmured uncertainly. “This is where we settle disputes, but there’s good coin if the odds are right.”

  The crowd tried to work out which one of them would be foolish enough to fight this giant. Johannes Wyck could do it, suggested somebody, bringing muttered assent.

  “I don’t fight for fun,” said Arent. Being fundamentally honest, he added, “Anymore.”

  Larme wiggled his knife, yanking it free of the block of wood. “They’re not fighting for fun; they’re fighting for money. We’re the ones having fun.”

  “I don’t do that either.”

  “Then you’re up the wrong end of the ship with no reason for being here.”

  Arent stared at him helplessly. He had no idea what to say next. Sammy would have noticed something or remembered an important fact. He would have found the key for the human lock before hi
m. Arent could only stand there and feel foolish.

  “If you won’t answer my questions, at least tell me how I can get the boatswain to answer them,” he tried desperately.

  Larme laughed again. It was a vicious, terrible thing.

  “A nice dinner and some soft words in his ear should do it,” he said. “Now cark off so we can finish this fight.”

  Defeated, Arent turned his back and walked away, the jeers of the sailors following him.

  17

  Dusk arrived in ribbons of purple and pink, a few stars puncturing the sky. There was no land in sight. Only water.

  Captain Crauwels ordered the sails furled and anchors dropped, bringing their first day of sailing to an end. The governor general had demanded to know why they couldn’t continue their journey at night, for he knew captains who made good time sailing by moonlight.

  “Is your skill not equal to theirs?” he’d said, trying to needle Crauwels into rashness.

  “Skill’s no use when you can’t see the thing trying to sink you,” Crauwels had responded calmly before adding, “If you tell me the names of the captains who sail by night, I’ll tell you the names of the ships they’ve sunk and the cargo they’ve lost.”

  That had put a swift end to the argument, and now Crauwels was listening to Larme ringing eight bells, summoning a new watch.

  Crauwels loved this time of evening, when his duties to the crew had ended and his duties to the damned nobility had not yet begun. This was his. One hour, around dusk, to smell the air and feel the salt on his skin and find some joy in this life forced upon him.

  Going to the railing, he watched the weary crew pass on orders, rub their charms, and say their prayers, tapping whatever part of the hull they could reach for luck. Superstition, he thought. It’s the only thing keeping us afloat.

  From his pocket, he removed the metal disk he’d given to Arent. Vos had returned it to him earlier, obviously annoyed that he was treating a gift from the governor general so carelessly. He rubbed its surface with his thumb and forefinger, then looked to the sky, a troubled frown on his face.

  For the past few hours, he’d felt that familiar itch on his skin telling him a storm was building beyond the horizon. The air was growing prickly, the sea subtly changing shade. Opening his mouth, he’d tasted the air. It was like licking a piece of iron dredged up from the seabed.

  It would be here in a day, maybe less.

  A cabin boy walked past him, carrying a flaming torch to the back of the ship, stretching on his tiptoes to light the huge lantern hanging there. One by one, the other ships in the fleet followed suit until seven flames burned in the endless dark, like fallen stars adrift on the ocean.

  18

  Dinner that night was a torment for Sara, who was much too full of worry to settle to small talk with the other passengers.

  Guard Captain Drecht had stationed a musketeer outside the passenger cabins, easing her mind a little, but that had been her last success. Dorothea hadn’t been able to find a passenger who knew what ‘Laxagarr’ meant, which left only Johannes Wyck to translate. Much as she wished to summon the boatswain to her cabin and interrogate him, she couldn’t risk her husband finding out. Calling for the carpenter had been risky enough, and she’d had an excuse for that.

  It was infuriating.

  She was the highest-­ranking noblewoman on board, yet she had less freedom than the lowliest cabin boy.

  At least this interminable dinner was almost over, she thought.

  The food had been eaten and the cutlery cleared, aside from a great silver candelabra, its dripping candles casting every face in a sinister light. The leaves of the table had been dropped, making room for the diners to scatter around the great cabin and engage in trivial, mostly tedious, conversations.

  Sara had taken herself to a chair in the corner, begging a few minutes rest to overcome a headache. It was a ploy she’d used at social engagements before, and it usually yielded at least twenty minutes of solitude after the initial barrage of concern had waned.

  Sitting silently in the shadows, she tried to make sense of the strange gathering before her. It was mostly senior officers Sara didn’t recognize, aside from Captain Crauwels, who was resplendent in a red doublet and crisp white hose, his silk ribbons immaculately tied and buttons polished, each one catching the candelight. It was a different outfit from the one he’d worn during the day but equally well tailored.

  He was talking to Lia, who was peppering him with seafaring questions. Initially, Sara had worried that her daughter was letting her cleverness slip. She often did when she was excited, but Lia was wearing her best disguise—­the vacuous expression of a dim noblewoman trying to impress a suitor.

  Crauwels seemed to be enjoying it. In fact, it was the most comfortable he’d appeared all night.

  He was a peculiar man, Sara thought. Caught at the crossroads of his own contradictions. For all his fine clothes, he was a ruffian at heart. Honeyed words greeted the nobles, but he was coarse and short-tempered with everybody else. His feast was lavish, and yet he ate very little of it. He drank from his own bottle of ale rather than the wine served and urged on the conversations around him even while speaking little and becoming impatient when anybody else spoke to him. There was no doubt he wanted to impress and equally no doubt that he was uncomfortable with the people he was trying to impress.

  Her eyes drifted to Sander Kers, who was lurking near the windows with Isabel, scrutinizing their fellow diners.

  He’d been avoiding her all evening.

  At first, she’d thought him merely awkward—­happier to observe conversation than participate in it—­but as the hours had gone by, she’d begun to discern a pattern. He wasn’t interested in the people; he was interested in their arguments. At every raised voice, he would lean forward eagerly, his lips parting, only to sag in disappointment when the argument dissolved into good-­natured laughter. He would then mutter something to Isabel, who’d nod her agreement.

  As far as Sara could tell, his ward had said nothing all night, but she wore her silence comfortably. For some, such as Creesjie, being quiet was the loudest thing they could do. It demanded investigation.

  Isabel was the opposite. Those watchful eyes were filled with candor. They did the work her mouth would not, admitting every moment of doubt and fear and surprise.

  There was a noise from the doorway, and Sara’s heart leaped, hoping to see Arent finally arriving. But it was only the steward bringing more wine.

  She shook her head, annoyed at her own eagerness. She wanted to know what he’d discovered, but his chair had remained empty, as had that of Viscountess Dalvhain, who hadn’t been able to attend because of ill health.

  This at least had given the diners something to gossip about.

  After trading theories on the imprisonment of Samuel Pipps for a full hour, they’d moved on to discussing Dalvhain’s wealth and lineage, but it was all speculation. Nobody in the room had ever met her, aside from Captain Crauwels, who spoke gruffly of a sickly woman with a cough that could knock the leaves off a tree.

  “Dalvhain,” murmured Sara, worrying at it.

  As a girl, she’d been forced to memorize reams of heraldry, ensuring she’d never shame her father by not immediately knowing who a wealthy stranger was at a party, but she didn’t recognize the name Dalvhain.

  Creesjie’s laughter rose above the chatter. Regardless of the danger, she was not capable of sitting in her cabin and moping. She thrived on the good cheer, which was handy because it was Creesjie’s great gift to be able to convince people that her day had been a wretched, gray thing before their arrival.

  Currently, she was talking with the chief merchant, Reynier van Schooten, her fingertips resting lightly on his forearm. By the rapt look on his face, the chief merchant’s heart was already twisting itself in knots.

  Sara couldn’t understand why
Creesjie was bothering. Van Schooten was a vexatious creature, permanently drunk and apparently incapable of conversing without spite. It was a measure of his evening that everybody else kept the table between themselves and him.

  As ever, Cornelius Vos was standing a little way away, hands behind his back, watching Creesjie with the expression of pained longing he always wore in her company.

  Pity mixed with frustration in Sara’s breast.

  Vos was a decent sort, with a great deal of power and, presumably, wealth. There would be plenty of suitors happy to share his life, but he pursued the one impossible choice.

  Creesjie Jens was the most desirable woman in the Company. Aside from her beauty, she was a fine musician, a witty conversationalist, and, by her own admission, talented in the bedchamber. Such women came around rarely, and their value was considerable.

  Her first husband had been a staggeringly wealthy merchant and her second the world’s foremost witchfinder. Haan had summoned Creesjie to Batavia to be his mistress after he’d heard of the witchfinder’s unsolved murder, and now she sailed back to wed a duke in the French court.

  Poor, dull Vos, writhing in his adoration, might as well have fallen in love with the moon itself. It would have been easier to talk into his bed.

  Spotting Sara in the chair, Creesjie begged a moment from her companion and flounced over.

  “What a wonderful company,” she said gaily, her eyes watering with wine. “Why are you skulking in the shadows?”

  “I’m not skulking.”

  “Brooding?”

  “Creesjie—­”

  “Go find him.”

  “Who?”

  “Arent Hayes,” Creesjie said in exasperation. “He’s the one you want to talk to, so go find him. You can lock eyes and talk chastely of lepers and demons and other dreadful things. It would do my heart glad to think of you two battling this evil together.”