Kers cast an anxious glance at Isabel, who tightened her hands around her satchel. “What specifically do you speak of?” he asked.
“A leper cursed the ship in Batavia, claiming his master would bring us all to ruin. The same leper appeared at my porthole last night. We think the leper is connected to a symbol that was drawn on the sail yesterday. The symbol first appeared in the Provinces thirty years ago, and carnage followed in its wake. It’s said to herald the arrival of a demon called Old Tom.”
“No, no, I’ve no knowledge of that,” said Kers, waving his hand as though Sara were a smudge he was trying to wipe away.
Sara couldn’t remember having met a worse liar.
“Please, Predikant,” interjected Creesjie. “My husband battled this creature and lost his life doing so. Now I think it’s come for my family.”
Recognition flickered on the predikant’s face. He took a painful step toward her. “Who was your husband?”
“Pieter Fletcher.”
Kers touched his hand to his mouth, his eyes brimming over. Blinking the tears away, he appealed to the heavens, then Isabel. “Did I not tell you our faith would be rewarded?” he said jubilantly. “Did I not say that our mission was divine?”
Creesjie peered at him inquisitively. “Did you know my husband, Predikant?”
“Oh yes, we were great friends once. He’s the reason I’m aboard this ship.” Kers became suddenly fretful, casting around for danger. “Is there somewhere we might speak privately? I have much to tell you, much that can’t be said openly.”
“I’m supposed to breakfast with my husband,” said Sara, gritting her teeth. “If I’m not there, he’ll send Guard Captain Drecht to fetch me. If you tell Creesjie—”
“I’ll not do this without you,” said Creesjie, clinging to her arm.
Sara stared at her friend. Creesjie was deathly afraid. “Very well,” Sara replied hesitantly. “But we’ll have to be quick.” Sara sought Dorothea. “Would you take a message to Arent Hayes—”
“No!” cried out Kers. He flushed, embarrassed by his outburst, then lowered his voice conspiratorially. “There are matters here you do not fully understand. Let me explain, then you may decide whether to deliver the information to Lieutenant Hayes.”
24
“How did you know my husband?” Creesjie asked the predikant, closing the door behind them. “You called yourself a great friend of his.”
Dorothea had stayed on deck with the boys, but the rest of them had retired to Creesjie’s cabin, which was identical in proportions to Sara’s but didn’t have a huge harp in the corner, making it seem almost spacious in comparison. A comfortable rug was laid across the floor, wooden toys littering it. Pictures hung from the wall, including one of Creesjie’s last husband, Pieter Fletcher. He was standing among his hounds, in front of their magnificent house in Amsterdam. Aside from his resplendent dress, he was the image of his boys, sharing their prominent ears, mischievous eyes, and the half smile that suggested some mishap was on the horizon.
Something about the picture bothered Sara, but she couldn’t immediately say what it was. Perhaps it had to do with the contrasting fates of the witchfinder in the picture and the witchfinder examining him. Kers’s robes were a few stitches away from being rags, and his frail old limbs were crooked. Everything he did seemed to cause him pain.
“Predikant!” said Creesjie, drawing his attention.
“Oh yes,” he said, tearing himself away from the picture with a sorrowful expression. “You’ll forgive me, but I haven’t put eyes on my friend for a very long time. Seeing him again, even like this… Well, it brings back memories.”
“Of what?” asked Lia, who shared her father’s impatience for sentiment.
“Pieter was my student for a time,” he replied, “though I’ll freely admit he was far more accomplished than I.” He shook his head, unable to keep his eyes from the painting. “He was a great man, a hero.”
Creesjie was pouring herself wine, her hand shaking.
She didn’t talk about Pieter a great deal, but Sara understood how deep their love had been. Creesjie had been born to prosperous farmers who needed sons for the fields, not daughters for the hearth. They’d married her off young, then forgotten about her. Her first husband had been a beast, but as her beauty had blossomed and she began to perceive its power, she realized that she need not suffer.
Fleeing to Rotterdam, she’d become a courtesan.
Officially, she met Pieter at a ball. Unofficially, she met him in a brothel, the two of them captivating each other from the first. From this unusual soil, an unusual life grew. Sara never met him, but by all accounts, Pieter was a generous, good-natured soul, free with his coin and his laughter and entirely devoted to destroying maleficium wherever he found it.
Kers sighed, running a wrinkled gray hand across his equally gray face.
“It’s my admiration for your husband that brings me here,” he said as Creesjie gulped wine to steady herself. “Two years ago, I received a letter from him begging for my help. He told me he was being hunted by a demon called Old Tom that he’d battled across the Provinces. He told me he was fleeing to Batavia and sent funds that I might book passage on a ship and join him. Together, he believed we could finally put an end to this devil.”
Creesjie put her wine down softly, confusion writ plain on her face. “That’s not how it happened,” she said. “The demon found us, yes. But we fled to Lille. And that was four years ago, not two. My husband was long dead by the time you received that letter.”
Kers was perplexed. “Perhaps he meant to travel to Batavia afterward, but—”
“He’d never heard of Batavia,” disagreed Creesjie. “Neither of us had. The only reason I’m here is because Jan Haan summoned me to Batavia after he heard about my husband’s death.”
The predikant’s old face wrinkled, his thoughts drifting into unmapped waters. “But he sent for me,” he repeated stubbornly.
“Are you quite sure of the details?” asked Sara.
“Of course,” he huffed, annoyed at the question. “I’ve read that summons a hundred times if I’ve read it once.” He looked across to Isabel. “Would you fetch it for me, my dear? It’s in my trunk.” She took a step toward the door. “Please leave the book. We’ll have need of it.”
She stared at him with misgiving, earning a reprimanding scowl. Cowed, she lifted the heavy satchel over her head, depositing it with great care on Creesjie’s writing desk.
A moment later, she was gone.
“After I received Pieter’s letter, I booked passage on a ship to Batavia,” continued Kers, hobbling over to the desk. “But when I arrived, I learned Mistress Jens was already widowed. I assumed it had happened in the city and tried to see you, but you’d already taken residence in the fort. The guards were unsympathetic and sent me away. They wouldn’t even hear a message, so I set about establishing a small church and asking my congregation to bring me news of the city’s infernal happenings. My investigations had reached an impasse when a carpenter came to my church for confession. He said that he’d heard a whisper in the darkness calling itself Old Tom. It had bargained with him, offering to make him wealthy in exchange for a few small favors. The carpenter wanted to know if God would forgive him.”
The predikant’s words were so thick with judgment, Sara was surprised he hadn’t choked on them.
“Was the carpenter’s name Bosey?” she asked.
“Something along those lines,” he replied vaguely, waving his hand. “He was lame.”
“That’s Bosey,” confirmed Sara. “Did he have leprosy when you met him?”
“No, but that would certainly have been Old Tom’s doing.” His eyes gleamed savagely. “Those who bargain are enthralled to him. If they resist his will, they begin to decay and can only restore themselves by obeying his commands. He uses these blighted c
reatures as heralds. They’re his foot soldiers.”
Lia fidgeted anxiously. “Mama,” she hissed. “We can’t be late for breakfast. Father will—”
“Did Bosey tell you what favor was asked of him?” interrupted Sara, gesturing for Lia to quiet down.
“Apparently, Old Tom planned to sail aboard the Saardam, but first it needed to be made ready.”
“Made ready how?” wondered Creesjie.
“He didn’t say. He only told me that Old Tom planned to feast on suffering so great, it would nourish him for years, though he knew nothing more about it.”
Unlatching the satchel, he carefully slid a leather-bound book out of its sheepskin wrapping.
“That’s a daemonologica,” said Creesjie in amazement.
“What’s a daemonologica?” asked Lia, approaching the book.
“A taxonomy of devils,” replied Kers, rubbing a spot of dust from the cover with his sleeve. “It lists their hierarchies, their particular methods of corruption, and how to rid ourselves of them. It’s a witchfinder’s greatest weapon. Everybody in my order keeps their own copy.”
“I’ve heard King James has compiled a tome of similar purpose,” said Lia, peering over his bony shoulder nervously.
Sara smiled. Even terrified, her daughter couldn’t resist knowledge.
“Incomplete and speculative,” said Kers scornfully. “Its conclusions are derived from hearsay.” He ran a loving fingertip along the spine of the book. “Members of my order meet regularly to share what we’ve learned during our investigations, and we scribe this new information into our own books. Every daemonologica contains the collected wisdom of all witchfinders, obtained from several lifetimes spent investigating maleficium. Only the Bible rivals it for wisdom.”
Kers turned the vellum pages of his daemonologica with trembling fingers. Each one was covered in intricate drawings and framed by ornate Latin script. After finding the one he wanted, he stood aside so they could see it.
The company shied back. Lia made a small gurgle of disgust, while Creesjie instinctively drew the sign of the cross in the air. Even Sara averted her eyes.
The drawing was horrific.
It showed a naked old man with spiny wings and claws riding a monstrous creature that had a bat’s head and a wolf’s body. A crying boy was being held down by the wolf so the old man could stroke his cheek. A ring of cowled lepers surrounded them.
“Is that Old Tom?” asked Sara, shivering with disgust.
“Yes,” replied Kers.
“If this thing were aboard the Saardam, we’d know it,” said Creesjie disbelievingly.
“This is one of the devil’s many forms, but not the one it’s using currently,” he said. “Old Tom walked aboard the Saardam looking just like one of us.”
“Are you saying it’s—”
“Possessing one of the passengers.”
Stunned silence fell upon them.
“Who?” asked Sara eventually.
Kers shook his head. “That is what I’m here to determine.”
25
There was a knock on the door as Isabel returned with the letter, which she handed to Kers. He immediately gave it to Creesjie, who was staring out the porthole in thought. Sara’s head was bowed with fierce concentration over the picture of Old Tom.
Creesjie unrolled the letter gingerly, as if afraid something sharp would fall out. Upon reading its contents, her face hardened. “This is my husband’s seal but not his quillmanship,” she said abruptly. “Pieter didn’t write this summons.”
“What does that mean?” asked Kers.
“That you were lured here.” Sara closed the book with a thump. “Something wanted you in Batavia, Kers. And the same thing likely lured you onto the Saardam. Can you think why?”
Shocked caused his legs to buckle, forcing Isabel to rush beneath him.
“I’m the last of them,” he said, running a hand over his face.
“The last of whom?”
“My witchfinding order,” he said. “After Pieter died, they started… There were accidents and murders. Some of them disappeared, but…I’m the last now. I’ve been hiding for years. I changed my name and abandoned my vocation to become a predikant.”
“If you were hiding, how did this summons find you?” wondered Creesjie.
“My order traveled extensively, so we’d send all our messages to a church in Axel. We knew to stop by there every few months to check them. That’s where I found the missive from Pieter, but only those in my order would have known to leave it there.”
“My husband was tortured before he died,” said Creesjie painfully. “It’s possible he relinquished the name of the church.”
“Then I’m being hunted by Old Tom,” said Kers. Fire came into his eyes, and he glanced at Isabel. “The demon has made a grave miscalculation by delivering itself to God’s judgment.”
“You have to find it first,” murmured Sara, unnerved by his zeal. “If Old Tom could be possessing anybody on this ship, why do you trust us?”
Kers peered at her. “You’re unimportant,” he said bluntly. “Old Tom is prideful. Those he possesses are powerful or strong. They have influence enough to go where he wishes, and that influence grows in power the longer he controls them. Rancor and ruin emanate from Old Tom the way shadows follow us across the deck. I’ve heard the stories about you, Sara. Your husband beats you, isn’t it so?”
She flushed.
Kers continued relentlessly. “Old Tom would never have allowed such a thing to persist. Mistress Jens is absolved of suspicion because of her husband. He was the foremost expert on Old Tom and would not have been fooled.”
“Is it not conceivable Old Tom took control of Creesjie after Pieter was murdered?” asked Lia, who had retaken her seat on the bunk. Creesjie shot her a glance, but Lia shrugged. “I don’t believe you’re a devil, but somebody had to ask the question,” she said seriously.
“Only a soul that bargains with Old Tom can be possessed by it, and I can see little in your personal circumstances to suggest you’ve acquired that kind of power,” he said. “The same reasoning absolves Isabel, who was a beggar when I apprenticed her into my order.”
“And you, Sander Kers?” asked Sara. “Why should we trust you?”
She’d expected him to become angry, but he laughed merrily. “A question worthy of a witchfinder,” he said. “If I were Old Tom, I would have little reason to divulge what I have, and besides”—he plucked at his tatty robes—“witchfinding offers few rewards. I had to beg alms enough for our berths from my congregation in Batavia.”
Lia fidgeted. “Mama, we have to go. We’re going to be late for breakfast.”
“We’ve a few minutes yet,” said Sara. “If you don’t know who Old Tom’s possessing, why did you react so badly when I suggested Arent accompany us?” asked Sara. “He’s strong, I’ll grant you, but a servant nonetheless. Besides, I’ve seen little from him that wasn’t honorable, courageous, or kind.”
Her stout defense of him earned a glance from Creesjie. Even Sara was surprised by her own words. They’d only known each other a day. They’d met over a burning body. He was the loving nephew of the most dreadful man she knew. Truth was, aside from his loyalty to Samuel Pipps, his ability to play a song she’d enjoyed as a girl, and his refusal to take payment for helping her on the docks, she didn’t know anything about him at all.
“You mustn’t be fooled by Arent’s demeanor,” Kers said, rebuking her. “Demons disguise themselves all sorts of ways. I’ve seen it time and again. It’s their skill to make themselves as appealing as possible, so we follow them willingly into damnation.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I don’t know if Arent is the demon, only that he could be. Any of the wealthier passengers or the senior crew could be. Any soul that bargains with Old Tom can shelter it. Thirty years ago in the Pr
ovinces, Pieter chased it from noble to noble and was constantly surprised by the petty trifles they agreed to give their souls away for. Arent Hayes is a famous soldier, with a life lived entirely in bloodshed. Through Samuel Pipps, he has access to any king in the land. He cannot be discounted.”
“And how do you think we three powerless creatures unworthy of Old Tom’s attention can help you?” asked Creesjie mischievously.
“We need to uncover the demon’s identity.”
“How?”
“Questioning. This devil is a capricious creature, malevolent and spiteful, intent on spreading suffering wherever it goes. Even when hiding, it cannot conceal its true nature for long. If pressed, the devil will reveal itself.”
“And then?”
“I kill it,” said Isabel.
Kers demurred. “Once Old Tom takes possession of a body, it does not give it up, even in death. Look to Bosey if you doubt me. To save the soul, we need to slay the body, then perform a banishing ritual contained in the daemonologica. Old Tom will be sent back to hell until some fool chooses to summon it again.”
Kers flipped through the daemonologica, then called Sara over.
The page was split into a triptych of tragedies. The first showed a village filled with mothers wailing at empty cots while lepers carried their babies into the forest where Old Tom was waiting for them. Next to this was a picture of their river burning, and finally, a picture of men tending fields where the crops had turned to snakes.
“Close it, close it!” demanded Creesjie in disgust.
Kers ignored her. “After Old Tom’s herald announces its presence—as it did on the sail—three unholy miracles always follow, each carrying his mark. They’re different every time, but they’re meant to convince us of its power.”
“Like the burning bush that appeared to Moses,” supplied Isabel.
“Once the unholy miracles begin, that’s when we’ll hear Old Tom’s voice, offering our heart’s desire in return for some terrible deed.”
The Devil and the Dark Water Page 16
