by Patty Jansen
“What brings you here today?” Shepherd Carolus asked when they finished.
“I want to ask you something.”
“Ask away.”
“Tell me if it’s an inappropriate thing to ask or if you don’t want to talk about it. I’m asking this as a citizen with concern for the safety of our city.”
The laughter faded from his face.
“Apparently, when he came to Saardam, Li Han brought in the hold of his ship a crate that had been given to him by a monk in Seneza to be delivered to Shepherd Victor. It seems that many people are keen to get their hands on whatever is inside. Word goes that the shepherd doesn’t have it, but no one knows where it is.”
“Oh, he has it all right.”
“What is inside?”
Shepherd Carolus sighed and shook his head. The serious look on his face didn’t suit him terribly well. “Rumours abound about this thing. Word goes that when the Most Holy Father Severino of the Belaman Church made the decision to cast the Church of the Triune out, he also no longer wished to hold onto the relics that the Church of the Triune had trusted him with.”
“Did he have any of our relics?” This was the first she heard of it.
“There is some discussion over that. The Church as we know it and we practice here . . .” He gestured around the empty pews. “. . . is quite a new thing, but apparently the forebears of the Church of the Triune arose in poor farming communities in the area where Saarland, Estland, Burovia and Gelre join. Those poor people are very much into relics because they have so little and treasure each possession.”
Johanna nodded. She had seen the heartbreaking poverty of those people and the incredibly poor land they farmed, and where the father was happy to receive coin from bandits seeking pleasure with his daughter.
“It is said, but I don’t know how true any of this is, that the early shepherds came from that area and brought their relics, which were later transferred to the Belaman Church for safekeeping.”
Johanna frowned. “But they’re objects, things made out of wood or stone. Or bones. How can they be more valuable than gold?”
But as she said that, she already knew the answer: they were objects to which magic was ascribed.
Shepherd Carolus continued, “Other people say that the relics didn’t belong to the church but to some ancient pagan settlement which died out. They say that the relics impart witchcraft on those who have them. And other people again say that this crate is something sent by the Red Baron under the guise of being a religious relic in order to bring about our destruction.”
“Now that is something I can believe.”
“Whatever it is, Shepherd Victor has the crate.”
“At the church?”
“I don’t know. I’ve asked him if he wants help in dealing with it, but he keeps changing the subject. If it were something simple, he would have dealt with it. I don’t think it’s simple, which goes against the most obvious answer: that the contents are sent by the Baron purely with ill intent. In that case, the shepherd could just toss the crate in the fire and be done with it. I think there are relics of some description involved.”
“What sort of things would relics be?”
“It could be anything. Many of the old relics are not pleasant things. I’ve seen relics that are necklaces made of human teeth. Some relics are the bones or scales of strange animals. There is usually a horrible story related to the relic, and many are objects of dark magic and shouldn’t be disturbed for that reason, especially not in here in Saardam, where some like to think we have no magic.”
“Could one turn a magic relic harmless?”
“I guess you could. I guess that might be what he’s trying to do.”
“Or destroy it?”
“Hmmm. A magic relic would unleash terrible powers if you tried to destroy it. You’d have to be very careful that you didn’t end up with a worse situation than when you started. But again, I don’t know much about it, much less about what’s inside that box that he’s got. But one thing I want to say. He loves that girl and would never harm her. If this thing made him do that, then it’s something terrible indeed.”
After some small talk with the shepherd—and it was good to see him again—Johanna went back to the palace.
She needed something to eat before going to see Greetje, but as she sat in the kitchen, Nellie came in, carrying a pile of bedsheets, her face red.
“Oh mistress, there you are. I’ve called Helena. Greetje is complaining about cramps.”
Chapter 14
* * *
JOHANNA ARRIVED AT Greetje’s room at the same time that Helena came out. She shook her head in response to Johanna’s unasked question. “Not yet, but she is very close. I’ll come back tomorrow morning.”
“Can I go in?”
“Yes, of course.”
Johanna went into the room. Greetje sat in the bed, nibbling at a slice of bread that stood on a plate on the cover. Her stomach was so round and big that she had to lean back.
She looked at Johanna when she came in, but said nothing. Johanna sat down on the chair next to the bed. “How are you feeling?”
“I’m sick of this. I can’t sleep, I can’t walk, I can’t sit, I can’t breathe. Everything hurts. It’s not fun at all.”
Johanna could see that. “It won’t last much longer.”
“No.” Greetje stared into the distance.
A moment of uneasy silence passed.
Then Johanna said, “I need to talk to you about something.”
“Oh?” She turned to Johanna. There was a slightly alarmed look in those grey eyes.
“I asked you yesterday about a crate that your husband received. You said that you didn’t know anything about it.”
“I don’t.” The answer came a bit quick for her liking.
“Has he mentioned anything to you about it?”
“No. Not that I know.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes, why do you keep asking?”
“Because it’s important, because I think your husband might be in trouble.”
“He’s not hiding anything from anyone, if that’s what you think.”
Obviously, he was, and Johanna was unsure why Greetje was becoming so defensive on behalf of her husband who had mistreated her. “But at the same time you have to agree that he’s not himself and that there has to be a reason. I spoke to Shepherd Carolus.”
Greetje gave her a sharp look.
“He says that rumours are that following the verdict by the Most Holy Father Severino of the Belaman Church that the Church of the Triune can no longer be part of that organisation, he arranged to ship back to Shepherd Victor the relics of the church which had been held in safekeeping by the Belaman Church—”
“That’s a lie.”
“I didn’t say it was the truth. It is what people are talking about on the streets. Failing better information, they consider it the truth.”
“It’s still a lie. The whole thing is a lie.”
“For something that you say your husband doesn’t have, you seem to know a good deal about it.”
“He talked about it.”
“Then what did he say?”
“Why is this so important? It’s just a thing.”
“There are many objects that are not just a thing. Is the king’s crown just a thing? Is his Carmine Cloak just a thing? Or is a flag just a thing? And the statue of the Triune that Alexandre’s men went to the effort to drag to the harbour and drop there, if that were just a thing do you think the church would have made such an effort to raise it and clean it?”
Greetje looked down at the bedspread. There was one piece of bread left on the plate that stood next to her, and she picked crumbs off the crust.
Johanna continued. “Things can be symbols, but worse, things can contain magic. I am beginning to suspect we’re dealing with such a magical thing. If your husband is in any way as stubborn as he used to be when he worked for Father, he would no
t admit this. Because magic doesn’t exist, according to the church—”
“I don’t know what you’re getting at. You’re making underhanded comments about my husband. He’s a good man.”
“He may need help, Greetje, and he may be too stubborn to admit it. And something doesn’t add up in all your tales. I don’t think you’re telling the entire truth of what happened.”
“I am!” Her eyes were wide.
“Or you’re leaving some key bits of information out. I don’t know why and I don’t need to know exactly what went on in your family, but tomorrow, I will be sending guards to your husband to ask him about it, because in the time you’ve been here, he has not once come to the palace to check on you. If you think like me, that’s not normal, and if you think that he is going to tell the guards something that you haven’t told me, that’s not going to look good, is it?”
Greetje looked up at her. Tears welled in her eyes. “I don’t know why everyone is so mean to me. I should have stayed at home.”
Maybe you should. “You’re tired, and maybe it’s the wrong time to be worried about it. I’m going to write some letters. If you want me, I’ll be in my office.” Johanna rose.
“No. Don’t go. I’m scared.”
“The birth pains are a natural thing. Your body will know what to do.” Helena always said this, anyway. Johanna felt terrible, because she was scared, too.
“No. It’s not that.”
“Then what?”
Greetje hesitated. Met Johanna’s eyes. Looked down again. Then she said, her voice barely audible, “I looked.”
Johanna went back to the chair next to the bed and sat down again. The child inside her was giving her a most unbecoming set of kicks.
Greetje continued, “That crate you were talking about? It’s in his room upstairs, with all the skulls and the teeth and the other terrible things that he collected.”
“Why did you say he didn’t have it?”
“Because . . .” Greetje’s lip trembled. “Because it is an evil thing. Because . . . he made me promise not to touch it or look at it . . . because . . .” She covered her face with her hands.
“What, Greetje?” Johanna’s heart was thudding. “Because what?”
“Because . . . I couldn’t help myself and I was stupid, and I looked anyway when I thought he wasn’t watching . . .”
She burst out into tears, sobbing so hard that her words came out as incomprehensible wails. Johanna moved from the chair to the bed. Greetje fell into her arms, crying into her shoulder in long, gasping wails. Johanna patted her back.
“Why did you do it?” she asked when the worst seemed to have passed.
“Because I’m a stupid woman! He even told me that. But honestly, this thing was calling out to me from the moment he brought it into the house.”
Johanna shuddered, thinking of the twisted tree that held Alexandre prisoner that called out to her when she came to the market place. “So, what happened that you haven’t already told me?”
“I’ve not told you any lies!”
“No, but you held back information.”
Greetje’s mouth twitched. After a short silence, she started in a low voice. “So he brought this thing home and as soon as he took it inside the door, I could feel its evil. I asked the old maid who has been with his family for years, but she said I was making it up. She always thinks I’m crazy. Then I asked my husband, and he said that it was something he needed to deal with, and that I shouldn’t go into the room upstairs until he said it was safe. I was not to open the crate or look at it or have anything to do with it. That’s when he started spending so much time there praying, and sometimes crying. And I really could not stand it anymore so I told him to take the thing out of the house, and he said he would but he didn’t. I asked the maid to tell him the same thing, because he listens better to her than to me, and he got angry with me for pulling his trusted maid into it. And then I thought enough is enough, so one day when he was at church, I went into the room.”
Her chin trembled. She took a big, shuddering breath.
“The crate stood on the table in the middle of the room. The lid was off, but I couldn’t see into it from the door. And, I don’t know how to say this, but it was calling out to me.”
“I understand that feeling,” Johanna said.
“He had pleaded with me not to go into the room, but I so desperately wanted that crate out of our house. I was going to pick it up, walk outside and dump it in the canal.” She stared at her hands. “But I had to get close to it first. As I came closer to the table, I told myself I was not going to look inside. I was going to put the lid on. The lid was on the floor, leaning against the table leg. I crouched so that the bottom of the box was out of my view. The inside of the box was lined with red velvet, I could see that, and I was wondering what sort of thing justified this luxury. But I didn’t look. I crouched to pick up the lid. It, too, had red velvet on the inside. I turned it over so that the velvet faced the bottom, and I held it in front of my face so I couldn’t see into the crate. Apart from the red velvet lining, there was also something like a gold staff with a ruby on top. I could see that. I thought that wasn’t such a bad thing to look at, but I promised him that I wouldn’t, so I kept the lid in front of my face. And then I bumped into the table because you know I couldn’t see where I was going. The golden staff thing fell over and the ruby hit something that made a dull hollow sound.” She shivered visibly.
“And you looked.”
“I looked. A black thing, a bit bigger than a man’s fist, lay on the velvet. It was a bit bumpy and round on top and it was this round part that the staff had hit. At first I couldn’t make out what I was looking at. It was dark in that room, and black is not the usual colour you’d expect . . .” Tears welled up in her eyes.
“Not the colour you’d expect what to be?”
“It was terrible. As soon as I looked at it and I realised what it was, I saw these . . . these . . . horrible visions. This girl screaming and screaming like an animal. A man with a knife, cutting her. There was blood dripping from his hands, on his clothes, even in his face.” Greetje covered her face with her hands. Her shoulders shook. “I couldn’t stop the visions. I couldn’t stop her screaming, I couldn’t stop him slashing at her. I could feel her pain.”
She took a few fast breaths.
“And then I was yanked away. My husband was yelling at me at the top of his voice, saying all these horrible things. Holding me with my back against the wall. I screamed that I had to go back into that room. I was trying to get out of his grip, scratching his arms. This was when he hit me. I’ve never seen him so angry . . .” She cried in big racking sobs. Her shoulders shook. Her whole body shook.
“What was the black thing in the crate?” Johanna asked when Greetje had calmed down a bit.
“It was . . . it was . . . a skull of a newborn child.” She started crying again. “It could have been our child! Murdered. With rubies stuck in the eye sockets.”
Johanna held Greetje, waiting until she calmed down again.
“At the time when the Church of the Triune came to Saardam, there was a Belaman Church monastery in town.”
Johanna had heard about that.
“Apparently, the abbot took a liking to deflowering young girls and would keep seeing these girls as a part of their repentance for whatever minor disobedience they had come to confess. Whenever the girl became with child, the monks would hunt her down and kill the girl. They would sometimes cut out the child to make sure it died. Apparently one girl managed to escape the monks until the day her child was born. The babe drew one breath before her head was chopped off and the mother cut to pieces. That is the skull of the child in the crate.”
“And it’s a church relic?” That was horrible. Disgusting.
“After this happened, a lot of people took to the streets and burned down the monastery and chased the monks out of town. The Church of the Triune gained a good deal of influence because of this
. And because the newborn girl had drawn a breath, she became a ghost. Murdered people often become ghosts. No one murders young children. They’re the most horrible powerful ghosts. Demanding, crying, powerless in anger. The church kept this skull to protect the citizens. My husband has been seeking ways to destroy it. I was so stupid to undo all his work. I should have listened to him. I’m not worthy of him.”
“Come on, now. It’s not easy to withstand a thing of evil magic. Even the best magicians have trouble with that.” Johanna put a hand on Greetje’s knee. “He will have to accept help. We’ll talk to him tomorrow.”
Greetje nodded, although she still looked scared.
Johanna rose. “You look exhausted. Go to sleep now. We’ll talk to your husband in the morning.”
Greetje leaned back in the pillows. She looked so pale and tired that she would probably be asleep very soon. Johanna also had a feeling that her pains would start before morning.
Chapter 15
* * *
JOHANNA WAS RIGHT about Greetje. Nellie woke her up when it was barely light, sneaking into the linen cupboard in the room.
“What?” she whispered.
Roald was still asleep. Nellie put her index finger against her lips, so Johanna rolled out of bed and followed her into the hallway.
“The pains have started,” Nellie said. “Helena should be here soon.”
Johanna went into the dressing room and got changed into her housedress. Her hands were sweaty with nerves while doing up the buttons over her own swollen stomach. Guess she was about to find out what was going to happen to her in late summer. The child mocked her by doing somersaults inside her.
Greetje sat on the rug in the middle of the room on her hands and knees. She didn’t look up when the door opened, but let her head hang forward. She still wore the nightdress that Johanna had lent her. The fabric was thin, and the light that came into the window showed Greetje’s body under the dress. Her belly was round as a water bag ready to burst. She moaned softly and rocked from side to side.
