by Patty Jansen
She started screaming.
Similar screams also went up elsewhere as more and more trails of mist were sucked into the growing blob. People tried to run, were struck by the invisible magic and fell where they stood. Others tried to climb over the growing piles of bodies, only to be struck themselves.
The blob grew and grew, extending tentacles outwards, picking up bodies in its hunger for living souls.
It grew into a structure that resembled the ugly algae-covered growths that sometimes washed up on the shore. A red glow throbbed within, like a giant heart. With each beat, the structure grew and grew. Its tentacles now reached for the roof of the church, frantic, probing. It pushed at the windows up there, dislodging panes of glass. It reached onto the roof. Its heart throbbed so hard that the air vibrated with it. Whoop, whoop, whoop.
It was still sucking souls, mostly coming in through the door of the church or the broken windows. Each soul made the thing grow, made the heartthrob louder.
And then with one last WHOOP, it exploded.
Johanna ducked between the pews. Dust and debris flew over her head.
When she looked up again, the roof of the church was gone. The shepherd and the hooded men who had come with him lay like desiccated skeletons on the floor.
Now most of the noise came from outside.
Johanna made her way to the door of the church as quickly as she could, stepping over debris and arms and legs of dead people. Clouds of smoke blew through the church, and from somewhere behind the altar came sounds of wood popping in flames.
She stopped at the top of the steps.
All of Saardam was on fire. The houses along the marketplace, the palace, the remaining warehouses along the quay, even the few ships that had survived the previous fire, even Father’s sea cow barn.
She ran through the streets strewn with bodies to the harbour.
The flames reflected in the still water of the harbour, in the place where Li Han’s iron ship now lay. A chain of men was passing up buckets of water to the quay while others ran to and fro from the quayside to a burning building, tossing their futile efforts into the roaring flames.
The king’s armoury!
Johanna wanted to scream at them, “Get out of there!” but she had no voice.
As she watched, the roof of the building burst open and a fireball bloomed from the inside. Debris flew outwards.
The men abandoned their buckets and ran.
Too late. The expanding explosion engulfed them.
One jumped off the quayside, but the flames licked his back in midair. He fell into the water, a burning figure, and did not come back up.
From the fire emerged a vaguely human shape that, as it walked over the quay, resolved into a man. His clothes were on fire, his hair was on fire, but he kept walking as if that didn’t bother him.
She recognised his face: Alexandre had broken free of the tree that had trapped him. Someone else emerged from the fire behind him. Kylian, his orange hair trailing flames.
He laughed, and pointed at Johanna.
A sharp pain tore through her body. Johanna clutched her stomach, to find that she was yet in another possible future and the child was still inside her.
“What are you doing?” she gasped.
He laughed. His hand leaked fire, which he casually flicked at Johanna. It danced over her stomach. Another lancing pain tore through her.
“I am with child!” she gasped as soon as she could speak again.
“As if I didn’t know that.”
“Then be careful.”
He laughed.
“It’s your child.”
“I know that. It’s time for the child to face the world.”
Johanna gasped with the pain. She stumbled back until she hit the wall of a house. Stood there gasping. She could feel the child’s head pressing between her legs. It burned like fire. Something wet ran down her legs and when she shifted, she left bloodied footprints. The child was going to kill her.
She screamed and screamed.
“Hey, hey!”
Johanna bent over, gasping, clutching her stomach.
“Calm down, calm down,” a man’s voice said.
Li Fai’s face swam into focus. He was looking at her with an expression of concern.
She was still on the chair in Father’s office. Pale sunlight slanted into the window. A pigeon crooned on the roof.
“Oh!” Johanna gasped, and burst into tears. “That was the most horrible thing I’ve ever seen.” She cried with relief. She was safe. There was no fire. The shepherd was not a walking skeleton. The relic was whole. Her child was unborn. Greetje and her son were alive.
Everything was all right. For now.
Then she looked up at Li Fai. “You’re saying that this wood shows the future?”
“Possible futures.”
“But that’s horrible.”
“Then you must take steps to prevent those futures. Are you all right?”
“Yes, I’m all right. I think.” She was still catching her breath. A ghost of the pain lingered in her stomach.
Prevent those futures, he said. That was easier said than done. Many girls before her had tried to rid their bodies of children that had taken root. Many had died in the process. But if she would die giving birth anyway, then surely it was better if the necromancer’s child died with her?
She felt sick. Sweaty, trembling.
Li Fai knelt at her feet to untie her legs. Wherever he touched her, his magic sang in her veins.
She set down the wooden box that she still held in her hands.
She said, “Li Fai.”
He looked up, his perfect eyes meeting hers.
“I need your help.”
“I’m always happy to teach.”
“No, please. I need your help. Your dragon. Your magic. We need it badly.”
The ropes that had held her feet were now undone, and he moved behind the chair to undo the knot that held the rope around her body.
She swallowed hard. “The child . . . I don’t think it is the king’s. The crate you brought for the shepherd contains a newborn’s skull. It’s a horrible church relic. The shepherd just said. . . .” She had to stop to compose herself. “He said that I was the mother of the murdered child resurrected. The father . . .” She sobbed. “The father of the child is an evil magician. A necromancer. He plays terrible games with people. This child is a resurrection of the murdered child whose skull is in the box.”
“How does the shepherd know that?”
“I don’t know. He’s the shepherd. He knows things like this.” Johanna hid her face in her hands. “He is also a magician.” What else could she have done to prevent this? She’d been doomed from the moment she danced with Kylian. The moment she first laid eyes on him. The moment he kissed her.
If only she hadn’t listened to Father and hadn’t gone to the ball. If only Roald was able to father a child. If only she hadn’t been so keen to come to the Guentherite farm where she had witnessed Kylian’s necromancy, and where he had bewitched her.
But what would she be, except dead many times over, if she hadn’t done any of those things?
She met Li Fai’s eyes. “Please. Do you have anything, magical or no, to get rid of this child? It’s evil.”
Li Fai pulled her up.
Johanna rose so quickly that blackness encroached on her vision. Whoa.
“Careful!”
A pair of hands steadied her. Li Fai had to use all his weight to stop her falling. When she had regained her balance, he said, “Evil is rarely born. It is made, through lives lived in deprivation and lack of opportunities or learning. If I may?” His hand hovered over her stomach.
She nodded.
He laid his full hand on the swelling. His eyes widened briefly. Johanna’s heart jumped.
He said, “The child’s art is strong. If you teach her well, she will be a good queen.”
But Johanna hadn’t missed that first reaction, that brief expressio
n of horror that confirmed her deepest fears.
“I can’t have this child!” Tears leaked out of her eyes over her cheeks. “I have to get rid of it.”
“We have herbs that stop a woman from becoming with child. We have magic that expels a child that has just started growing. We have nothing that can stop a child growing once the woman’s belly has started swelling.”
Johanna cried, in big sobs. “I don’t know how to teach magic. No one teaches magic in Saardam. No one has magic. Please, help me.”
He gave her a stern look.
“About three years ago, when my family was in Lurezia, we met an astute businessman who had a very successful river trading business. My father liked this man a lot. He bought an awful lot of my father’s goods, far more than any river trader did. When my father asked this man why he did so well, he said that he had a clever, hard-working daughter who did a lot of his dealing with buyers, making sure that accounts were paid on time, and who would have ideas that made a big difference to the business. For three years, I looked forward to meeting her.”
Johanna fell quiet.
A deep shame crept up in her.
What had happened to that Johanna Brouwer? Why had she let the King’s Council push her aside? Why hadn’t she sent those letters about the investment in the port of Saardam yet? Why had she been afraid of a bunch of pompous, huffing and puffing nobles?
Because they don’t listen to me.
A voice, sounding like Master Deim, responded in her thoughts. Then you must make them listen, child.
Johanna wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.
Li Fai was still looking at her.
“I’m sorry, I . . . let myself get carried away. I swear you can still meet that merchant’s daughter.”
Ho nodded. “I will look forward to that.”
She knew what she must do. She had been wrong to let the King’s Council have their way. Wrong to try and remain polite.
She grabbed her cloak off the backrest of her chair.
“You’re leaving?” Li Fai asked. “You haven’t even opened the box.”
True. She held out her hands as he gave it to her.
She braced herself for another onslaught of images when she touched the wood, but this time the vision was gentler .
The box took her to a sun-filled meadow with flowering buttercups. The sky was blue, but the larks were no longer singing. The trees were still green, but autumn was in the air. Johanna lay on the riverbank, watching the water flow past the waving reeds, while willow fluff drifted on the air. Her feet hurt from carrying her and her hugely swollen stomach from the jetty that she could see in between the willow trees. Saardam lay on the other side of the inlet. The church tower poked out of the jumble of houses.
Li Fai sat next to her. He had ditched his armour and his black clothing and wore a simple white tunic and blue trousers, such as Saardam’s merchants would wear. His hair was loosely tied in a ponytail. He held a parchment on his lap that contained a map. New canals, streets, an entirely new part of the city which would be built right here, after they built a bridge over the creek.
But right now, he rolled it up, bent over her and gently kissed her lips.
Johanna yanked out of the vision, heart thudding.
And Li Fai in Father’s office was looking at her with the same intensity.
He smiled, oh so innocent. “You were in such a hurry to get out. Open the box.”
Johanna did. A puff of dust blew out. It whirled and shaped itself into strands and thicker strands. It formed a miniature trunk with real bark, and little branches and tiny green leaves.
She laughed. “It’s a willow tree.”
“It is your art. Carry it with you always. You can call on it when you’re in need. Do know that this is only the start.”
“Will you teach me more?”
“Where I can.”
His gaze was so intense that it made Johanna’s ears glow. Possible futures were really no more than that, were they? Images borne of wishes and fears. They did not necessarily become true, did they?
Johanna slipped her cloak over her shoulders. “Those horrible things I saw in the wood will not happen. I’m going to stop them from happening. I will write letters to all the royal families and other people interested in the port so that we can stop future wars. I will go to the shepherd and demand that he accept help in destroying the church relic. When my daughter is born, I will teach her not to become like her father.”
He nodded at her. One corner of his mouth moved up a fraction.
Chapter 20
* * *
JOHANNA HAD STAYED away much longer than she had expected. It was now time for supper before getting ready for church. And she was going to church tonight. She was going to confront the shepherd, and was not going to back down.
In fact, she wasn’t going to take no for an answer ever again. She had asked Li Fai to come to the church as well. If what they were facing was as bad as her visions had indicated, then she would need him badly.
In the dining room at the palace, she found Father and Roald at the dinner table. Father had the stack of letters and the draft plan on the table. For a change, Roald seemed to be listening.
Johanna sat quietly on the far end of the table, and ate while watching Father explain the plans that they had prepared and that had so skilfully been thwarted by the King’s Council.
He explained about the investment allotments which anyone could buy for warehouses and other necessary structures to be rebuilt. He explained about the warehouses and offices.
It was her idea and her plan, but Father was doing very well at keeping Roald’s attention, so she simply listened.
Johanna could see it now. If they were successful, there would be a need to build a bridge across the creek and build warehouses on the land on the other side, where she and Li Fai . . .
Her ears glowed. Just thinking about this was inappropriate. She should stop this while she still could. Her current situation was bad enough.
But those eyes . . .
And his singing magic.
And the little cavorting dragon.
And all the things he knew that she had never been taught before.
Including how to completely, utterly, hopelessly fall in love.
That realisation shook her. It was silly. It was stupid, impossible.
But many royals had mistresses and secret lovers said a little voice inside her. It was not that she didn’t love Roald. She did, like a brother. And it was not as if he’d shown much interest in her in that way recently.
She stared out the window, her chin leaning on her elbow, while Father exhausted Roald’s willingness to listen to the plans.
After dinner she asked for Nellie to see her in the dressing room. She came in carrying a stack of clean nappies which she put on a shelf. “That boy sure knows how to dirty his bottoms. He has a good set of lungs on him, too.”
“Has she named him yet?”
Nellie shook her head. “She’s still wondering why her husband hasn’t been to see her.”
“Maybe because he has other things to worry about?”
Nellie gave her a sharp look. “I haven’t heard that tone in your voice for a long time, mistress Johanna.”
“Welcome it back.”
“Did anything happen?”
Yes. I fell in love. “No. I’m sick of waiting for those stupid men to solve my problems. I’m done with being polite. I don’t think I’d ever be much good at embroidery and knitting.”
“No, mistress Johanna.”
“Is that a statement of criticism?”
“It’s the truth. Also, if you ask me, mistress Johanna, things get awfully boring around here if you try to be polite.”
Was that honestly a smile in Nellie’s eyes? “Anyway, Nellie, could you do my hair?”
“Are you going to church tonight, mistress Johanna?”
“I sure am.”
So it was done. Not much later, Johanna
made her way down the palace steps to the waiting coach.
It was only a short ride to the church, but it was busy in the market place and the driver had to ring his bell several times.
Johanna alighted from the coach at the bottom of the church steps. Many people were going up the church steps and filing into the doors.
Johanna walked down the aisle and sat down in her pew at the front. She looked over her shoulder. Li Fai had also arrived. He even stood talking with the old farmer who complained that sitting hurt his backside.
It looked like the service tonight would be well attended. She spotted some women with little gifts. Likely the news about the shepherd’s son had gotten out.
Behind the altar, two boys were lighting candles. One of them carried the big Book of Verses to the altar and opened it at the right page. It was that same altar where, in her vision, Johanna had shattered the skull.
She shivered.
The boys were ready with their preparations and took up position at the back.
They waited.
And waited.
Where was the shepherd?
“He should have been here by now,” Johanna said to Anton.
“I don’t know, Your Majesty.”
People at the back were also getting restless. Some half-rose and glanced at the door—which remained open and empty. The altar boys had trouble standing still. One of them was nervously shifting his weight from one foot to the other and back again.
Johanna rose and gestured for the boy to come down the steps. “Do you know where the shepherd is?”
“No, Your Majesty.”
“Did he say he was coming?”
“He didn’t say that he wasn’t coming, Your Majesty.”
“Will you run to his house and see if he has fallen asleep?”
“Yes, sure, Your Majesty.” He ran out, his tunic with tassels flapping.
There was a sound at the door, and voices. A moment later, the boy came back in the company of Shepherd Carolus, who strode down the aisle towards Johanna. His face was red and his straw-like hair even more dishevelled than normal.
“Oh, You Majesty, you must come. Something is going on with the shepherd.”
Johanna rose, her heart thudding. This was it.
