Sara hadn’t stopped shaking. Before van Schooten had arrived, it had been fear. Now it was anger.
“It’s been a grueling day,” interjected Crauwels in a pacifying tone that would make an angel throw its cloud at him. “No one would blame you for having weary eyes, my lady.”
“You think I imagined it?” she said incredulously. Nobody else had seen the leper. Even Arent had been too slow. It had scrambled away when she screamed, frightening the animals in the pens above them, which were still making an unholy din.
“Of course not, my lady. I simply think you mistook the…” Crauwels crouched a little, putting his head at the same level as Sara’s, and then stared through the porthole. “The moon!” he declared triumphantly, seeing it outside.
“Does the moon wrap itself in bloody bandages?” demanded Sara witheringly. “How strange I’ve never noticed that before.”
“My lady—”
“I know the difference between a face and the moon,” she yelled, furious at having to defend herself against so ridiculous a charge. If the leper had appeared at her husband’s porthole, the Saardam would already be sailing back to Batavia.
“The only thing out there is a long drop,” grunted van Schooten, his breath thick enough to make her eyes water. “There’s no ledge to stand on and no way to climb down from the poop deck.”
Creesjie laid a gentle arm on Sara’s. “Calm now, dear heart,” she soothed.
Sara took a breath.
It wasn’t the done thing to shout at a man in public, especially not high-ranking Company officers. Deference was something she was supposed to put on every morning, along with her cap and bodice.
“Please understand, my lady,” said Crauwels ingratiatingly. “Indiamen sail on superstition as much as wind and waves. Won’t be a man on board who doesn’t have a piece of the hull he kisses for luck or a token he swears saved him from some catastrophe on his last voyage. If word gets around you saw a leper, whether it exists or not, these men will create it. Every dead bird as hits the mast, every broken arm, every bit of blood spilt on a crooked nail, they’ll collect in a pile and claim it’s the work of something malign. Next thing you know, sailors are getting their throats slit because they babbled in their sleep and it sounded like devilry.”
Dorothea bustled into the cabin with a mug of spiced wine for her mistress. She’d gone down to the galley to fetch it. Sara had tried to dissuade her, but Dorothea believed spiced wine was the best thing for a nasty shock and wouldn’t be dissuaded from her errand.
“Whatever you think you saw, keep it in this cabin,” demanded van Schooten.
Dorothea handed the mug of spiced wine to Sara, then turned her iron glare on van Schooten. “Know your place, merchant,” she warned. “This is a high-born lady you’re addressing. My mistress knows what she saw. Why do you think you know better?”
Van Schooten bore down on her. By his expression, it was obvious he thought that indulging the nonsense of a spoiled noble was intolerable enough without being ridiculed by an insolent servant.
“Listen to me—” he said, pointing.
“No! You listen to me, Chief Merchant,” interrupted Sara, stepping between them and jabbing her finger into his chest. “Bosey threatened the Saardam in Batavia. That strange symbol appeared on the sail, and now he’s peering in portholes. Something’s happening on this ship, and you need to take it seriously.”
“If the devil wants to sail aboard the Saardam, he buys a ticket like everybody else,” snapped van Schooten, his jaw clenched. “Speak with your husband. If he tells me to investigate, I will. Until then, I’ve got real problems to attend to.”
He stalked out. Crauwels bowed courteously and followed.
Sara tried to chase after, only to be held back by Lia and Creesjie.
“It won’t do any good,” advised Creesjie. “Anger makes good men stubborn and stubborn men petty. They won’t hear you.”
Feeling wretched, Sara stared into Lia’s concerned face. Her only duty aboard this ship was to protect her daughter, but nobody wanted to listen. They seemed hell-bent on sailing into whatever dark water awaited them.
“I’m sorry for this,” said Creesjie, sitting heavily in the chair and putting her head in her hands.
“It’s hardly your fault,” said Sara, confused.
“The leper was searching for me, Sara. Don’t you see? Old Tom must have sent it.”
Three heavy knocks shuddered the doorframe.
She didn’t need to turn around to know it was Arent. Only his hands could be mistaken for battering rams.
“Anything?” asked Sara.
“No sign,” he said, still standing in the corridor, shy of entering. “I’ve been up and down the weather decks.”
“Weather decks?”
“Those the sky can get at. The leper wouldn’t have had time to get by me into the guts of the ship.” He held out a dagger in its sheath to her. “If it appears again, stab it in the face with this.”
Sara took the present gratefully, weighing it in her hand.
“I swear to you, I saw it,” she said.
“That’s why you’re holding my dagger.”
“It was him. It was Bosey. I know it.”
Arent nodded.
“We watched him die,” she said, letting her fear out for the first time. “How is that possible?”
Arent shrugged. “Sammy once solved a case where a mason’s dead wife asked him to build her a church,” he said. “He investigated a case where two brothers dropped dead of broken hearts at exactly the same time, despite having not spoken to each other for six years. He isn’t called unless the problem is impossible. Luckily for us, he’s on this boat.”
“He’s a prisoner, Arent. What is he going to do?”
“He’s going to save us.”
Belief lit those delicate eyes. It was so fierce, it burned away the arguments brewing within her. Sara had seen the same thing in predikants and mystics, usually before they went marching into harm’s way with only the Lord’s love for a shield.
Arent Hayes was a zealot.
His religion was Samuel Pipps.
20
“Nerves,” grumbled a footsore Arent as he crossed the waist, carrying a sack over his shoulder. Van Schooten had given Sara’s tale short shrift, but he hadn’t seen her kneeling by Bosey’s burnt body on the docks. He hadn’t heard her voice when she’d asked Arent to give the leper mercy.
Sara Wessel had seen a man’s flesh melted, and it hadn’t made her hysterical. It hadn’t clouded her reason. She’d remained calm and clear eyed, full of sorrow and compassion.
No, Sara wasn’t one for nerves.
Arent stared at his scar, wondering why he hadn’t told her about his connection to Old Tom. Much as he’d wanted to, the words had refused to pass his lips. Sammy always said to hold on to what you knew until you understood what it meant. It was a fig leaf for Arent’s pride, but he accepted it gratefully.
The bell was ringing for midnight watch, hatches clattering open as sailors came grumbling onto the deck, bleary eyed and bad tempered from their bunks. Finding Arent abroad after dark, they glared and cursed under their breath, but they weren’t any more inclined to interrupt him than they had been this afternoon.
Finally, he arrived at the compartment under the forecastle, where the crew took their recreation. From inside, he heard a young voice whimpering for mercy.
“I never. I swear I didn’t. It wasn’t—”
“Go spilling ship business to strangers, will you?” responded an angry voice. “How much did she pay you?”
There was a thud and a howl of pain.
Squeezing himself inside, Arent entered a room that was low ceilinged and cheerless, lit by a swaying lantern belching out more smoke than light. Sailors sat against the walls, smoking their pipes and wa
tching a young boy being beaten senseless by the slab of gut and shoulders that was Johannes Wyck.
The boy was on the floor, Wyck looming over him, his fists clenched, blood running off his knuckles.
“No, Mr. Wyck, I didn’t. I never—”
“You’re a damned liar, Henri,” said Wyck, kicking the boy in the stomach. “Where’ve you hid the coin? Where is it?”
This must be the boy Sara spoke to this morning, Arent realized. She’d paid him three guilders for information on the leper’s true identity.
“That’s enough of that,” said Arent in a threatening rumble.
Wyck glanced over his shoulder, squinting at Arent’s presence.
“This is ship business,” he sneered, revealing the rotten teeth in his mouth. “Get yourself back where you belong.”
“And what happens to him when I do?” said Arent, nodding at the boy.
Wyck reached into his boot, withdrawing a small, rusty dagger. “Whatever I damn well please.”
Arent showed no reaction. “Is that the same dagger you used to cut out Bosey’s tongue?”
That gave Wyck pause, but only briefly. “It is at that,” he said, pressing his fingertip to the blade. “Not the sharpest thing, so I had to saw rather than slice. Took a bit of sweat, but it was a nice enough job in the end.”
“Was that ship business as well?”
Wyck spread his arms wide, indicating the breadth of his kingdom. “Everything I do is ship business, isn’t it, lads?”
The crew murmured their agreement. Some grudgingly. Others with more enthusiasm. Evidently, ship’s business wasn’t always popular.
Wyck leered at him. “And I’ll tell you what else is ship’s business. The disappearance of a passenger who wanders past the mainmast and is cut to ribbons by the crew.”
Steps approached from behind, half a dozen sailors slinking out of the dark, faces full of murder.
“Nothing but misfortune on a ship like this,” said Wyck.
Arent stared at him, meeting his one good eye. It seemed to glitter with the remembrance of every dreadful thing it had witnessed.
“What does ‘Laxagarr’ mean?” asked Arent. “I heard it was Nornish. They say you speak the language.”
“Run along now, soldier,” said Wyck.
“Not without the boy.”
Wyck squatted down next to the stricken lad, driving his dagger into the floorboards beside his head. “Did you hear that, young Henri? This nice soldier’s fretting over you. Fears for you in nasty Mr. Wyck’s company. What do you say to that?”
Wyck’s eyes lingered on Arent as Henri lifted his beaten head from the floor.
“Cark off, soldier,” gasped Henri through bloody teeth. “Better dead than”—he swallowed painfully—“be helped…by you.”
Exhausted, he thudded back onto the floorboards.
Wyck tapped the boy’s cheek. “You’re not welcome here, soldier,” he said in a low, dangerous voice. “And this is the only warning you’ll get.”
“No,” said Arent in a flat voice. “This is the only warning you’ll get. I’ve business at this end of the ship, which means I’ll be passing through this time every night. If any of you bastards makes me lose a single step, I’ll slit your throat and throw you overboard.”
Something savage showed itself in his eyes, and they each took a half step back. But as quickly as it had come, it was gone. Arent lifted the hatch and started down the ladder into the sailmaker’s cabin.
The sailmaker himself was snoring in his hammock, and he didn’t stir as Arent lifted the second hatch, descending into the compartment housing Sammy’s cell. The ladder was as awkward to navigate as it had been that morning, but he eventually managed to wriggle himself down.
As promised, Drecht had stationed a musketeer in the room. To Arent’s surprise, it was Thyman, the one Sammy had accused of cheating his friend that morning. Eggert was guarding the passengers, and Thyman was guarding Sammy. Evidently, Drecht wanted the bickering pair as far apart as possible.
Thyman leaped up as Arent entered but quickly settled back down.
A tiny hatch led into the cargo hold behind them, the smell of spices scratching Arent’s throat as he struggled to work the locking peg to Sammy’s cell free. Finally, it creaked open, the acrid smell of vomit and excrement elbowing its way into the open air.
“Sammy?” coughed Arent, covering his mouth as he peered into the cell. Shards of moonlight struck through the hatch above, revealing three empty hooks on the wall and the lower corner of a pillar, but everything else was ink.
Something thumped, and Sammy came scrambling out in a mad panic of arms and legs, desperately sucking in air. Moonlight touched his face, and he hissed in pain, shielding his eyes from the glare.
Arent kneeled beside him, laying a reassuring hand on his arm. Sammy’s body was quivering, and he was terribly pale, his whiskers coated in vomit.
Arent balled his fists in rage. He couldn’t leave his friend to this torment.
Sammy squinted at him through his fingers, bewildered. “Arent?”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t come sooner,” he said, handing over the jug of wine from his sack.
“I didn’t expect you to come at all,” replied Sammy, ripping the cork out of the jug and gulping the wine, the red liquid spilling down his chin. “I thought I was trapped in there forever.” He stopped, suddenly agitated. “You shouldn’t be here, Arent. If the governor general finds out—”
“He knows,” interrupted Arent. “He’s agreed to allow midnight walks, so long as I accompany you. I’m going to work on getting you daylight.”
“How did you make him…” Sammy frowned, confounded. “What did he want from you? What did you have to barter for this boon?” His voice was rising. “Tell him you don’t want it. I’ll not have you indebted to a man like Jan Haan. I’d rather rot in the dark.”
“Nothing was bartered,” said Arent, trying to calm him. “There’s no debt. It was a favor.”
“Why would he grant you such a thing?”
Arent glanced at Thyman uncomfortably, then lowered his voice. “Does it matter?”
Sammy stared at him suspiciously, those keen eyes narrowing as he began to burrow for Arent’s secrets.
Shaking his head, he turned his face away. Out of courtesy, he didn’t use his gifts on Arent.
From above them, the sailmaker stamped on the floor, shaking dust down from the ceiling.
“Take your sweet nothings outside,” he barked. “I’m trying to sleep.”
Still perturbed, Sammy climbed the ladders, eventually finding his way into the open air. The sailors had scattered to their duties, and Arent joined his friend outside without incident. He was staring at the moonlight running down the rigging and sails like molten silver.
“It’s beautiful,” Sammy said in awe. He lingered on the view a moment, then walked over to the railing. “Turn your back, please,” he said.
“Why?”
“I must attend my ablutions.”
“Just go. It’s nothing I haven’t—”
“Arent, please,” he exclaimed. “I have very little dignity left, and I’d like to keep hold of what remains.”
Sighing, Arent turned his back.
Sammy yanked down his breeches, sticking his arse over the water. “The governor general is a dangerous man,” he groaned as excrement poured out of him, splashing in the sea. “I’ve tried to spare you his scrutiny, so tell me, for my own peace of mind, why would he agree to let me out of that cell?”
“Because he’s as family to me,” admitted Arent, taking a step away from the smell. “I call him uncle, but father would be nearer to it.”
“Father?” replied Sammy, in a strangled voice.
“He’s my grandfather’s best friend,” explained Arent. “Their lands are nex
t to each other in Frisia, the province where I grew up. I spent weekends at his estate when I was a boy. He taught me how to fence and ride, among other things.”
“Forgive me, Arent,” said Sammy, wiping his arse on a piece of rope before hitching up his breeches. “I know your manners aren’t those of a soldier born, but how did your grandfather come to befriend somebody as powerful as Governor General Jan Haan.”
Arent hesitated, struggling to make the words fit. The answer had been buried in him so long, it had grown roots.
“My grandfather is Casper van den Berg,” he said at last.
“You’re a Berg?” Sammy took a half step back, as if the information had been tossed into his arms. “The van den Bergs are the wealthiest family in the Provinces. Casper van den Berg is one of the Gentlemen 17. Your family practically run the Company.”
“Really? I wish somebody had told me that before I left home,” said Arent wryly.
Sammy’s mouth opened and closed. Then opened and closed again.
“Why the hell are you on this boat?” he exploded. “Your family could buy you a boat of your own. They could buy you a fleet!”
“What would I do with a fleet?”
“Anything you damn well please.”
Arent couldn’t deny the logic of it, but he didn’t have an answer that wouldn’t embarrass them both. He’d left home at twenty because after seven years of studying under the Gentlemen 17, he’d seen the breadth of the life on offer and realized how small it was. The rich mistakenly believed their wealth was a servant, delivering them whatever they wanted.
They were wrong.
Wealth was their master, and it was the only voice they heeded. Friendships were sacrificed at its behest, principles trampled to protect it. No matter how much they had, it was never enough. They went mad chasing more until they sat lonely atop their hoard, despised and afraid.
Arent had wanted more. Having turned his back on power and wealth, he found himself immune to their lure. Instead, he went searching for a place where honor mattered. Where strength was used to protect the weak, and thrones weren’t automatically handed from one madman to the next.
The Devil and the Dark Water Page 13
