The governor general rapped on a cabin door.
No answer came.
He rapped again, then cleared his throat. “It’s Jan Haan,” he said in the deferential tone of somebody with rugs to sell. “You’ve been waiting for me.”
The door creaked open into gloom, revealing a figure seated in the corner. Its face was hidden behind a bloom of candlelight, but as Haan entered the cabin, it pushed the candle away with a long finger, revealing itself.
“Ah,” said Haan sorrowfully. “I was right then.”
The door slammed shut behind him.
In the ocean’s darkness, the Eighth Lantern opened its eye.
64
Still guarding the door to the passenger cabins, Drecht stared at the Eighth Lantern off the starboard quarter of the ship, desperation growing within him. He’d lost battles before. He’d been overwhelmed and forced to retreat, but never had he so singularly failed to comprehend the scale of his enemy, its intent, or the terms of surrender. How was he supposed to protect the governor general from something that could appear and vanish at will, speak without a voice, slaughter at distance, and pluck things out of locked rooms without leaving a trace?
Larme came clattering up the stairs and through the red door into the passenger cabins, emerging with Captain Crauwels a few minutes later. The captain had obviously been asleep, for this was the first time Drecht could remember him being disheveled.
The two of them went to the taffrail a few paces away.
“Even we don’t know where we are,” cursed Crauwels, staring at it. “How did it find us?”
“Governor general wanted us to train cannon on it if it appeared again,” replied Larme.
“It’s too far away, and it has the wind gauge,” said Crauwels irritably, glancing at the flag flying above them. “Even if it didn’t, our sails are still in tatters. We can’t maneuver, which means we can’t fight. Not even sure what we’d be fighting.”
“What are your orders, Captain?”
“All hands on deck and armed,” Crauwels said. “Until then, we watch.”
Governor General Jan Haan appeared from the passenger cabins after two hours and silently returned to his cabin. Drecht took his usual position outside, lit his pipe, and waited. After a few minutes, weeping sounded through the door.
65
They weren’t boarded that night or the next, although the Eighth Lantern appeared again. Both times, it disappeared before dawn.
Over the next two days, the sails were repaired and the Saardam made seaworthy. In a bid to sight land and take a bearing, Crauwels ordered they sail in arcs, covering the greatest area possible.
Where there should have been fresh hope, there was only new fear.
From the second they’d left Batavia, they’d been damned and damned and damned again, and now everybody was waiting to see what catastrophe would come next. The governor general had locked himself in his cabin, refusing to come out. Arent was laid low with fever. Vos was dead. The predikant was dead. The leper stalked the cargo hold freely, and the ship was only barely afloat. Each night, Old Tom whispered to the sailors of unholy miracles. Two had been performed and one remained. Anybody who had not bargained with him when it was revealed would be slaughtered by his other followers. That was his promise.
For most, the temptation was overwhelming. Safe passage for somebody else’s blood was too fine a deal to pass up, certainly better than they’d ever received from the Company.
Every morning, there were more charms hanging from the rigging. They tinkled in the wind, discarded. They served no purpose anymore. The crew had already shaken hands with the devil they were meant to keep at bay.
66
Arent writhed in his bunk, murmuring. Sara placed a hand over his heart, listening to it thump furiously in his chest. She’d only recently returned from her husband’s cabin and had been dismayed to find Arent in exactly the same state she’d left him in. For the last three days, she’d tried everything she could to break this fever, and there was nothing left except patience and prayer.
It wasn’t clear whether he’d caught the fever from his knife fight with Wyck or working the bilge pumps during the storm, but his life hung in the balance. Sara heard wagers had been placed among the sailors and musketeers. The odds were against him. For all his strength, they’d seen men similarly struck down after a battle, and they knew what it meant. What was shattered could be sawn off and bad blood ran clean eventually, but what couldn’t be seen couldn’t be healed. More men died murmuring than screaming.
“I’ve had rations sent to Sammy,” said Sara, knowing he’d like that. “The musketeer guarding his door—Thyman, I think his name is—offered to walk with him at night, so he’s had his exercise. I speak with him briefly each night. He misses you. He wanted to come up here and tend you himself, my husband be damned. I talked him out of it. I said you’d not thank me for letting him die while you were bedridden. It was hard for him. He loves you a great deal.” She swallowed, annoyed by how difficult this was. “I suspect he’s not the only one.”
She watched his face for any twitch, a suggestion of recognition.
“He tried to comfort me,” she continued, seeing nothing. “He told me you’d been into the dark before and found your way back.” Sara put her lips to his ear. “He said you’d called for God, and he hadn’t come. He said you believed there was nothing waiting. No God or devil, no saints and sinners. He’s in awe of you. He said you’re remarkable because you choose to do good, rather than because you’re afraid of what’s waiting if you don’t, like most people.” She struggled for words. “I don’t believe heaven is empty. I think God is waiting for you, but so am I.” Her hand pressed fearfully against his chest. “I’m waiting for you here, on a blighted boat, stalked by a devil I can’t stop alone. I need you to wake up and help me, Arent. I need you.”
Something heavy splashed into the water outside, startling Sara, whose hand leaped away from his chest.
Going to his porthole, she looked outside. A few ripples showed on the ocean’s surface, but there was no indication of what had caused them.
The sea was keeping her secrets, as usual.
From behind her, Arent said hoarsely, “Can’t people see I’m trying to sleep.”
67
Under the great cabin’s swaying lantern, the diners prodded listlessly at their food.
Many of the seats were empty. The governor general had barely been seen out of his cabin since Vos’s death. They’d heard him holler for Drecht as they took their places, but he’d gone quiet now.
The guard captain was stationed outside his door, as usual at this time. He was smoking a pipe, his face obscured by the miasma.
On the deck below, Arent Hayes tossed and turned in his hammock. Sara Wessel had spent every hour at his bedside, leaving only to complete her obligations to her husband. She was treating Arent with strange things she burned in trays.
Viscountess Dalvhain remained secreted away in her cabin. Captain Crauwels had checked on her after the storm, earning the same barked dismissal as Sara and Arent.
That only left Crauwels, van Schooten, Lia, Creesjie, and Isabel to push around the meager fare on their plates. They’d left Batavia with barely enough supplies to reach the Cape, and that had been assuming they could resupply from the fleet. But they’d been alone since the storm.
Van Schooten had ordered quarter rations for everybody, leaving them with a few hard bits of tack, a sliver of meat, and a gulp of wine or whiskey.
Unsurprisingly, given everything that had happened, conversation was muted, petering out quickly as it was sucked into the whirlpool of their thoughts. Even Creesjie was quiet, that twinkle of mischievous humor entirely absent from her tired face. The silence was so thick that a few people started in surprise when Isabel coughed her way into a question. By rights, she shouldn’t have been at the
table at all, but she’d taken up some of Kers’s duties, even offering sermons at the mainmast.
Fewer and fewer people came, but it wasn’t for a lack of zeal. God burned in this child brighter than he’d ever burned in Sander Kers.
“Captain, can you help me with something?” she asked.
Crauwels was midway through chewing a hunk of bread and made no attempt to hide his irritation at suddenly having all eyes upon him. He dabbed crumbs from his lips and reached for his wine.
“I’m at your service,” he said.
“What’s the dark water?” she asked. “I heard the men talking about it on deck.”
The captain grunted, putting his wine down again. “What were they saying?”
“That Old Tom was swimming in the dark water.”
Crauwels picked up the metal disk that had been on the table and rolled it around under his hand. “Did they mention if Old Tom had been whispering to them in the night?”
As one, the passengers gasped, exchanging frightened glances. Everybody had kept the whispers to themselves, treating them as their own secret. Whether invited or not, Old Tom was a devil. Its presence alone suggested some prior taint, some inclination toward depravity. The whisper exposed the sin they each felt within themselves.
Crauwels looked from face to face, nodding in satisfaction. “Thought so,” he said. “That’s all of us then. Maybe everybody on this ship.”
“What do you yearn for?” repeated Drecht from the governor general’s doorway.
“That was it,” agreed van Schooten, sounding sick to his stomach. Since the rations had been put in place, he’d managed to keep himself almost sober, though everybody agreed he remained a haunted man. His eyes were empty, red raw from a lack of sleep.
“Captain,” persisted Isabel. “What’s the dark water?”
“It’s what old sailors call the soul,” answered van Schooten from the opposite end of the table. “They reckon our sins lie beneath it like wrecks on the ocean bed. Dark water is our soul, and Old Tom is swimming within it.”
As if summoned, out to sea, the Eighth Lantern sprang into life, its light splashing through the windows onto their horrified faces.
It was so much closer than it had ever been before.
And it burned red.
68
Johannes Wyck was sitting on one of the slabs in the sick bay, being tended by the barber-surgeon, who was plucking maggots out of a dead rat in a bowl and placing them on the man’s wound, where they wriggled and burrowed.
Wyck’s stomach was doing something similar, threatening to send his lunch back up his throat, but he turned his head away and sucked in air, catching the voices of a few sailors discussing his fight with Hayes.
They were laughing at him. He’d promised he was going to humiliate Hayes, then kill him slow. Instead, the mercenary had beaten him so badly, it hurt to speak. Even a second knife in the crowd hadn’t been enough to help him.
Normally, Wyck’s glare would have scattered them, but they were emboldened by his injury. It wouldn’t be long before somebody came to slit his throat. That was how you got this job. It was how he’d gotten it, and it was why he was trying to leave it.
Wyck shook his head. He wanted to settle down, to have a life of toil and quiet, but part of him suspected it would always be like this for him, wherever he went. For as long as he’d been alive, he’d always had enemies. He was a man with a short temper, which meant he found himself endlessly wronged, stewing in perceived slights, and counting his grudges. But within that, he’d always courted a certain nobility. Being surrounded by enemies made him protective of those he loved.
He’d gone to the poop deck every morning to watch the sermon, and while the rest of them sang their prayers, he made his promises to the only person he’d ever keep them for.
That was when he’d recognized that liar on deck.
Wyck hadn’t been a bit surprised when Old Tom came calling, just as he had in that grand house where Wyck had worked in the Provinces. Back then, he’d refused to cooperate and lost an eye to that damn witchfinder’s torture. And so, when Old Tom had whispered to him the other night, Wyck had agreed, though he’d made his terms clear. He knew who Old Tom was protecting. He knew its purpose on this boat. In return for that secret, he wanted a new life for his family. A home. A decent job. And all his limbs, still attached to his body.
Old Tom went one better, whispering of wealth beyond his dreams if he’d kill Arent Hayes when they fought. The devil hadn’t mentioned that Hayes could wield a blade better than anybody Wyck had ever seen. He hadn’t mentioned that he was faster than any man that size had a right to be and could predict what you were going to do.
Never bargain with a damn devil. When would he learn?
Screams erupted from the deck beyond the curtain.
Leaping up and knocking the barber-surgeon aside, Wyck scattered the maggots onto the floor and strode out of the sick bay. Beyond was pandemonium. Panicked officers were rushing this way and that, screaming orders nobody was heeding. Deadlights were being slotted over the portholes, and the wooden screen dividing the deck had been taken down, allowing the kegs rolled out of the gunpowder store to reach the cannon.
It was battle stations. The Eighth Lantern was back, burning that bloodred flame. Last time she’d done that, she’d slaughtered their animals without firing a shot.
Striding into the morass, he searched the faces of the passengers, just in case she was among them. She often was.
“Fire!” somebody screamed.
Following the sound of the voice, Wyck saw white smoke was rising from the floor. People stampeded toward the staircase, crushing one another as they tried to climb into the open air.
“Stand, damn you!” he hollered. “Stand and raise water!”
They didn’t listen. That voice that had once struck fear into the heart of every bastard down here was now lost among the cries for help.
The smoke rose quickly, but it wasn’t fire. Any bugger could see that. It didn’t move right. Didn’t feel oily on the skin. This was more like a fog.
And through it came the leper.
The fog twisted and curled, swallowing it.
Wyck staggered back into the sick bay, grabbing a hacksaw off the walls. He’d intended on running, but that seemed senseless when he couldn’t see two paces in front of him. Instead, he waved the hacksaw, yelling for the creature to come no closer.
He gagged. The stink of the beakhead wrapping around him.
Something slashed his hand, the pain causing him to drop the saw as the leper’s bloody bandages appeared in front of him.
It raised its dagger to his face.
69
Screams below and panic above.
Creesjie stopped at the entrance to the great cabin, the hairs standing up on her arms. The burning red light of the Eighth Lantern was spilling through the porthole, casting everything in a hellish shade.
“Old Tom,” she muttered.
Part of her wanted to run back upstairs and clutch her sleeping boys, but even as she considered it, a small glow flared in the darkness. It floated toward her, like a spark come loose from a lantern.
Her heart thudded.
“Reckon you should return to your cabin.” Drecht emerged into the light with a glowing pipe in his mouth. “Something’s afoot.”
“I must see to the governor general,” she said. “He commands it.”
Drecht considered this, his eyes peering at her from under the brim of his hat. There was something in them, she thought. Some different quality she struggled to name.
He gave no indication of whether he would let her pass, so she simply strode by him and opened the door to the governor general’s cabin.
It was dim inside, only the red light seeping through the door to illuminate it. That was unusual for Haan. Due to h
is fear of the dark, he never went to sleep without a candle burning.
“Jan?”
In that hellish bloom, her imagination immediately made monsters of every shape. A hunched beast revealed itself to be a writing desk, the spikes on its back nothing more than bottles of wine. Haan’s armor stand lurked in the corner, like a footpad in an alley. A pile of bones on the shelves became scrolls, piled clumsily.
Approaching the bunk, she reached out a hand, feeling cold flesh beneath her fingertips.
“Drecht,” she called, alarmed. “Hurry, something’s amiss.”
The guard captain rushed into the room and over to the governor general. It was too dark to see anything, so he took his hand. It fell limp over the side of the bunk.
“He’s cold,” he said. “Fetch a light.”
Creesjie trembled, her eyes fixated on the lifeless hand.
“Fetch a light!” he screamed, but she was frozen by shock. He darted out of the room and collected a candle from the table. It trembled on its tray as he returned to the cabin.
The flame confirmed what they’d feared. The governor general was long dead, a dagger plunged into his chest.
70
Captain Crauwels took the steps two at a time, running toward the panic belowdecks.
The Saardam was paralyzed, his orders for naught. The Eighth Lantern had been near enough to board, but it had crippled them without firing a shot. Now it had sailed away again, its infernal work at an end.
Arriving at the compartment under the half deck, he found the staircase into the orlop deck jammed tight with bodies as sailors and passengers fought each other to get out.
The Devil and the Dark Water Page 34
