Crooked Kingdom

by Leigh Bardugo

  He changed his stroke, making as little noise as possible, and forced himself to think. Instead of heading straight to the side of the canal the way his freezing body longed to, he dove under a nearby market barge and came up on its other side, swimming along with it, using it as cover. The dead weight of his satchel pulled hard at his shoulders, but he couldn’t make himself relinquish it. My things, he thought nonsensically, my flute. He didn’t stop, not even when his breathing grew ragged and his limbs started to turn numb. He forced himself to drive onward, to put as much distance as he could between himself and his father’s thugs.

  But eventually, his strength started to give out and he realized he was doing more thrashing than swimming. If he didn’t get to shore, he would drown. He paddled toward the shadows of a bridge and dragged himself from the canal, then huddled, soaked and shaking in the icy cold. His bruised throat scraped each time he swallowed, and he was terrified that every splash he heard was Prior coming to finish the job.

  He needed to make some kind of plan, but it was hard to form whole thoughts. He checked his trouser pockets. He still had the kruge his father had given him tucked safely away. Though the cash was wet through, it was perfectly good for spending. But where was Wylan supposed to go? He didn’t have enough money to get out of the city, and if his father sent men looking for him, he’d be easily tracked. He needed to get somewhere safe, someplace his father wouldn’t think to look. His limbs felt weighted with lead, the cold giving way to fatigue. He was afraid that if he let himself close his eyes, he wouldn’t have the will to open them again.

  In the end, he’d simply started walking. He wandered north through the city, away from the slaughterhouses, past a quiet residential area where lesser tradesmen lived, then onward, the streets becoming more crooked and more narrow, until the houses seemed to crowd in on him. Despite the late hour, there were lights in every window and shop front. Music spilled out of run-down cafés, and he glimpsed bodies pressed up against each other in the alleys.

  “Someone dunk you, lad?” called an old man with a shortage of teeth from a stoop.

  “I’ll give him a good dunking!” crowed a woman leaning on the stairs.

  He was in the Barrel. Wylan had lived his whole life in Ketterdam, but he’d never come here. He’d never been allowed to. He’d never wanted to. His father called it a “filthy den of vice and blasphemy” and “the shame of the city.” Wylan knew it was a warren of dark streets and hidden passages. A place where locals donned costumes and performed unseemly acts, where foreigners crowded the thoroughfares seeking vile entertainments, where people came and went like tides. The perfect place to disappear.

  And it had been—until the day the first of his father’s letters had arrived.

  * * *

  With a start, Wylan realized Jesper was pulling at his sleeve. “This is our stop, merchling. Look lively.”

  Wylan hurried after him. They disembarked at the empty dock at Olendaal and walked up the embankment to a sleepy village road.

  Jesper looked around. “This place reminds me of home. Fields as far as the eye can see, quiet broken by nothing but the hum of bees, fresh air.” He shuddered. “Disgusting.”

  As they walked, Jesper helped him gather wildflowers from the side of the road. By the time they’d made it to the main street, he had a respectable little bunch.

  “I guess we need to find a way to the quarry?” Jesper said.

  Wylan coughed. “No we don’t, just a general store.”

  “But you told Kaz the mineral—”

  “It’s present in all kinds of paints and enamels. I wanted to make sure I had a reason to go to Olendaal.”

  “Wylan Van Eck, you lied to Kaz Brekker.” Jesper clutched a hand to his chest. “And you got away with it! Do you give lessons?”

  Wylan felt ridiculously pleased—until he thought about Kaz finding out. Then he felt a little like the first time he’d tried brandy and ended up spewing his dinner all over his own shoes.

  They located a general store halfway up the main street, and it took them only a few moments to purchase what they needed. On the way out, a man loading up a wagon exchanged a wave with them. “You boys looking for work?” he asked skeptically. “Neither of you looks up to a full day in the field.”

  “You’d be surprised,” said Jesper. “We signed on to do some work out near Saint Hilde.”

  Wylan waited, nervous, but the man just nodded. “You doing repairs at the hospital?”

  “Yup,” Jesper said easily.

  “Your friend there don’t talk much.”

  “Shu,” said Jesper with a shrug.

  The older man gave some kind of grunt in agreement and said, “Hop on in. I’m going out to the quarry. I can take you to the gates. What are the flowers for?”

  “He has a sweetheart out near Saint Hilde.”

  “Some sweetheart.”

  “I’ll say. He has terrible taste in women.”

  Wylan considered shoving Jesper off the wagon.

  The dirt road was bordered on each side by what looked like barley and wheat fields, the flat expanses of land dotted occasionally by barns and windmills. The wagon kept up a fast clip. A little too fast, Wylan thought as they jounced over a deep rut. He hissed in a breath.

  “Rains,” said the farmer. “No one’s got around to laying sand yet.”

  “That’s okay,” said Jesper with a wince as the wagon hit another bone-rattling divot in the ground. “I don’t really need my spleen in one piece.”

  The farmer laughed. “It’s good for you! Jogs the liver!”

  Wylan clutched his side, wishing he’d shoved Jesper out of the wagon after all and jumped right down with him. Luckily, only a mile later, the wagon slowed before two stone posts that marked a long gravel drive.

  “This is as far as I go,” said the farmer. “Not a place I want truck with. Too much suffering. Sometimes when the wind blows right, you can hear ’em, laughing and shrieking.”

  Jesper and Wylan exchanged a glance.

  “You saying it’s haunted?” asked Jesper.

  “I suppose.”

  They said their thanks and gratefully slid down to the ground. “When you’re done here, head up the road a couple miles,” said the driver. “I got two acres still need working. Five kruge a day and you can sleep in the barn instead of out in the field.”

  “Sounds promising,” said Jesper with a wave, but as they turned to make their way up the road to the church, he grumbled, “We’re walking back. I think I bruised a rib.”

  When the driver was gone from view, they shrugged out of their coats and caps to reveal the dark suits Kaz had suggested they wear underneath, and tucked them behind a tree stump. “Tell them you were sent by Cornelis Smeet,” Kaz had said. “That you want to make sure the grave is being well maintained for Mister Van Eck.”

  “Why?” Wylan had asked.

  “Because if you claim to be Jan Van Eck’s son, no one is going to believe you.”

  The road was lined with poplars, and as they crested the hill, a building came into view: three stories of white stone fronted by low, graceful stairs leading to an arched front door. The drive was neatly laid with gravel and bordered by low yew hedges on either side.

  “Doesn’t look like a church,” said Jesper.

  “Maybe it used to be a monastery or a school?” Wylan suggested. He listened to the gravel crunch beneath his shoes. “Jesper, do you remember much about your mother?”

  Wylan had seen a lot of different smiles from Jesper, but the one that spread across his face now was new, slow, and as closely held as a winning hand. All he said was, “Yeah. She taught me to shoot.”

  There were a hundred questions Wylan wanted to ask, but the closer they drew to the church, the less he seemed able to capture a thought and hold it. On the left of the building, he could see an arbor covered with new-blooming wisteria, the sweet scent of the purple blossoms heavy on the spring air. A little past the church’s lawn and to the righ
t, he saw a wrought-iron gate and a fence surrounding a graveyard, a tall stone figure at its center—a woman, Wylan guessed, probably Saint Hilde.

  “That must be the cemetery,” Wylan said, clutching his flowers tighter. What am I doing here? There was that question again, and suddenly he didn’t know. Kaz had been right. This was stupid, sentimental. What good would seeing a gravestone with his mother’s name on it do? He wouldn’t even be able to read it. But they’d come all this way.

  “Jesper—” he began, but at that moment a woman in gray work clothes rounded the corner pushing a wheelbarrow mounded with earth.

  “Goed morgen,” she called to them. “Can I help you?”

  “And a fine morning it is,” said Jesper smoothly. “We come to you from the offices of Cornelis Smeet.”

  She frowned and Wylan added, “On behalf of the esteemed Councilman Jan Van Eck.”

  Apparently she didn’t notice the quaver in his voice, because her brow cleared and she smiled. Her cheeks were round and rosy. “Of course. But I confess to being surprised. Mister Van Eck has been so generous with us, yet we hear from him so rarely. Nothing’s wrong, is it?”

  “Not at all!” said Wylan.

  “Just a new policy,” said Jesper. “More work for everyone.”

  “Isn’t that always the way?” The woman smiled again. “And I see you brought flowers?”

  Wylan looked down at the bouquet. It seemed smaller and more straggly than he’d thought. “We … yes.”

  She wiped her hands on her shapeless smock and said, “I’ll take you to her.”

  But instead of turning in the direction of the graveyard, she headed back toward the entrance. Jesper shrugged, and they followed. As they made their way up the low stone steps, something cold crawled over Wylan’s spine.

  “Jesper,” he whispered. “There are bars on the windows.”

  “Antsy monks?” Jesper offered, but he was not smiling.

  The front parlor was two stories high, its floor set with clean white tiles painted with delicate blue tulips. It looked like no church Wylan had ever seen. The hush in the room was so deep, it felt almost suffocating. A large desk was placed in the corner, and on it was set a vase of the wisteria Wylan had seen outside. He inhaled deeply. The smell was comforting.

  The woman unlocked a large cabinet and sifted through it for a moment, then removed a thick file.

  “Here we are: Marya Hendriks. As you can see, everything is in order. You can have a look while we get her cleaned up. Next time you can avoid a delay if you notify us ahead of your visit.”

  Wylan felt an icy sweat break out over his body. He managed a nod.

  The woman removed a heavy key ring from the cabinet and unlocked one of the pale blue doors that led out of the parlor. Wylan heard her turn the key in the lock from the other side. He set the wildflowers down on the desk. Their stems were broken. He’d been clutching them too tightly.

  “What is this place?” Wylan said. “What did they mean, get her cleaned up?” His heart ticked a frantic beat, a metronome set to the wrong rhythm.

  Jesper was flipping through the folder, his eyes skimming the pages.

  Wylan leaned over his shoulder and felt a hopeless, choking panic grip him. The words on the page were a meaningless scrawl, a black mess of insect legs. He fought for breath. “Jesper, please,” he begged, his voice thin and reedy. “Read it to me.”

  “I’m sorry,” Jesper said hurriedly. “I forgot. I…” Wylan couldn’t make sense of the look on Jesper’s face—sadness, confusion. “Wylan … I think your mother’s alive.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “Your father had her committed.”

  Wylan shook his head. That couldn’t be. “She got sick. A lung infection—”

  “He states that she’s a victim of hysteria, paranoia, and persecution disorder.”

  “She can’t be alive. He—he remarried. What about Alys?”

  “I think he had your mother declared insane and used it as grounds for divorce. This isn’t a church, Wylan. It’s an asylum.”

  Saint Hilde. His father had been sending them money every year—but not as a charitable donation. For her upkeep. For their silence. The room was suddenly spinning.

  Jesper pulled him into the chair behind the desk and pressed against Wylan’s shoulder blades, urging him forward. “Put your head between your knees, focus on the floor. Breathe.”

  Wylan forced himself to inhale, exhale, to gaze at those charming blue tulips in their white tile boxes. “Tell me the rest.”

  “You need to calm down or they’re going to know something’s wrong.”

  “Tell me the rest.”

  Jesper blew out a breath and continued to flip through the file. “Son of a bitch,” he said after a minute. “There’s a Transfer of Authority in the file. It’s a copy.”

  Wylan kept his eyes on the tiled floor. “What? What is that?”

  Jesper read, “This document, witnessed in the full sight of Ghezen and in keeping with the honest dealings of men, made binding by the courts of Kerch and its Merchant Council, signifies the transfer of all property, estates, and legal holdings from Marya Hendriks to Jan Van Eck, to be managed by him until Marya Hendriks is once again competent to conduct her own affairs.”

  “‘The transfer of all property,’” Wylan repeated. What am I doing here? What am I doing here? What is she doing here?

  The key turned in the lock of the pale blue door and the woman—a nurse, Wylan realized—sailed back through, smoothing the apron of her smock.

  “We’re ready for you,” she said. “She’s quite docile today. Are you all right?”

  “My friend’s feeling a bit faint. Too much sun after all those hours in Mister Smeet’s office. Could we trouble you for a glass of water?”

  “Certainly!” said the nurse. “Oh, you do look a bit done under.”

  She disappeared behind the door again, following the same routine of unlocking and locking it. She’s making sure the patients don’t get out.

  Jesper squatted in front of Wylan and put his hands on his shoulders.

  “Wy, listen to me. You have to pull yourself together. Can you do this? We can leave. I can tell her you’re not up to it, or I can just go in myself. We can try to come back some—”

  Wylan took a deep, shuddering breath through his nose. He couldn’t fathom what was happening, couldn’t understand the scope of it. So just do one thing at a time. It was a technique one of his tutors had taught him to try to keep him from getting overwhelmed by the page. It hadn’t worked, particularly not when his father was looming over him, but Wylan had managed to apply it elsewhere. One thing at a time. Stand up. He stood up. You’re fine. “I’m fine,” he said. “We are not leaving.” It was the one thing he was certain of.

  When the nurse returned, he accepted the water glass, thanked her, drank. Then he and Jesper followed her through the pale blue door. He couldn’t bring himself to gather the wilting wildflowers scattered on the desk. One thing at a time.

  They walked past locked doors, some kind of exercise room. From somewhere, he heard moaning. In a wide parlor, two women were playing what looked like a game of ridderspel.

  My mother is dead. She’s dead. But nothing in him believed it. Not anymore.

  Finally the nurse led them to a glassed-in porch that had been located on the west side of the building so it would capture all the warmth of the sun’s setting rays. One full wall was composed of windows, and through them the green spill of the hospital’s lawn was visible, the graveyard in the distance. It was a pretty room, the tiled floor spotless. A canvas with the beginnings of a landscape emerging from it leaned on an easel by the window. A memory returned to Wylan: his mother standing at an easel in the back garden of the house on Geldstraat, the smell of linseed oil, clean brushes in an empty glass, her thoughtful gaze assessing the lines of the boathouse and the canal beyond.

  “She paints,” Wylan said flatly.

  “All the time,” th
e nurse said cheerily. “Quite the artist is our Marya.”

  A woman sat in a wheeled chair, head dipping as if she was fighting not to doze off, blankets piled up around her narrow shoulders. Her face was lined, her hair a faded amber, shot through with gray. The color of my hair, Wylan realized, if it had been left out in the sun to fade. He felt a surge of relief. This woman was far too old to be his mother. But then her chin lifted and her eyes opened. They were a clear, pure hazel, unchanged, undiminished.

  “You have some visitors, Miss Hendriks.”

  His mother’s lips moved, but Wylan couldn’t hear what she said.

  She looked at them with sharp eyes. Then her expression wavered, became vague and questioning as the certainty left her face. “Should I … should I know you?”

  Wylan’s throat ached. Would you know me, he wondered, if I still looked like your son? He managed a shake of his head.

  “We met … we met long ago,” he said. “When I was just a child.”

  She made a humming noise and looked out at the lawn.

  Wylan turned helplessly to Jesper. He was not ready for this. His mother was a body long buried, dust in the ground.

  Gently, Jesper led him to the chair in front of Marya. “We have an hour before we have to start the walk back,” he said quietly. “Talk to her.”

  “About what?”

  “Remember what you said to Kaz? We don’t know what may happen next. This is all we’ve got.” Then he rose and crossed to where the nurse was tidying up the paints. “Tell me, Miss … I’m ashamed to say I didn’t catch your name.”

  The nurse smiled, her cheeks round and red as candied apples. “Betje.”

  “A charming name for a charming girl. Mister Smeet asked that I have a look at all the facilities while we’re here. Would you mind giving me a quick tour?”

  She hesitated, glancing over at Wylan.

  “We’ll be fine here,” Wylan managed in a voice that sounded too loud and too hearty to his ears. “I’ll just run through some routine questions. All part of the new policy.”