by Patty Jansen
It was Maartje, the younger of the two sisters, and the less boisterous one. Nellie couldn’t decide whether she looked happy or disturbed to see her.
She gave Nellie an uncertain smile. “How are you these days? How did you know where to find us?”
“The people in the palace kitchens told me you haven’t been working there, and I happened to know where to find you, because I once spotted your sister entering this warehouse.”
“I don’t think it’s that much of a secret anymore. Most of the sailors know where to find us.”
“I came to look for your sister, because I want to ask her a question.”
“She went out, but I think she’ll be happy to hear from you. We heard you left the palace. She asked about you, but Dora said she didn’t know where you were.”
There were a lot of unsaid statements in the pleasantries. Nellie had left the palace because of the dragon, and Nellie, the paragon of virtue, had a dragon in her room—like that was something a kitchen maid just had in her pocket.
“I couldn’t work in the palace anymore,” Nellie said. “Apparently the Regent has been spreading the rumours that I killed Lord Verdonck, because I visited his room and he asked for herbs.”
“Really?” Maartje’s eyes widened.
“I did visit his room, and I brought tea, but he drank none of it.”
“Then why don’t you tell them so?”
“Because they won’t believe me. Like they don’t believe Wim and Jantien. Between us, someone will get the blame for the killing, whether they’ve done it or not.”
“It could have just been his health. He was not a young man.”
“Many people would like that to be the case. However, I saw him, and I know it was poison. We know that nothing that came through the kitchens was poisoned. We know the wine wasn’t poisoned. It had to have been something else because no one at the banquet got sick either. Anyway, I’m here to get a small bottle of gin.”
“You? I didn’t think you drank gin.”
“I don’t. It’s a payment for a favour by someone else. I thought it would be fair to ask because you two owe me some favours.”
“All right. Wait.”
She disappeared into a door at the back.
Nellie walked around the tables and installations, looking at, but not touching, all the equipment.
The fire under the big metal vat kept the huge space warm. Steam blew from a vent at the top.
Three lines of bottles stood on the table. They were all made from clear glass, but they weren’t all the same. Some were round and plain, others more elaborate with a stamp from the maker. Others again were square.
Wait—she remembered seeing a bottle like that in Lord Verdonck’s room. It had been empty and there had been a label with a goat on it.
The labels Els used were different, but no one had mentioned that bottle.
“Here you are.” Maartje put a small round bottle next to Nellie on the table.
“Thank you so much.” Nellie slipped the bottle into her basket. Then she hesitated. “There was a bottle of gin in Lord Verdonck’s room. It was empty.”
Maartje’s eyes widened. “My sister doesn’t sell anything to the palace. They only buy from the official distilleries. We don’t sell bad gin either. If we did, all the sailors in the harbour would line up to kill us.”
“Do any of the gin suppliers in town use a label with a goat?”
“I don’t know. It’s not ours, that’s all I know. You’ll have to ask my sister.”
“Do you think someone could put poison in gin, maybe just one bottle?”
She looked at the bottles that stood on the bench.
“I’m sure that could be done. A lot of the poison tastes foul though, so you would have to mask the taste, and you’d have to use something that doesn’t have a colour.”
“Gin has a strong taste already.”
She shrugged, uneasy. “I know little about it. My sister has been running this plant, and I’m just helping.”
It sounded like half admission to Nellie, but she didn’t want to press any further. Maartje was only thirteen and knew little of her older sister’s machinations. And when Maartje said Els didn’t sell to the palace, Nellie believed her. Oh, those two girls were up to their ears in mischief, but it probably had little to do with the palace.
“So are you still working at the palace at all?” This gin-selling business could go nowhere good. It was only a matter of time before the Regent’s attention would shift from magic to the next thing to be declared illegal. Contraband gin was always a popular black sheep to target.
“We’ll try to go back to work, if it’s safe enough to return.”
“But if you have nothing to hide, then wouldn’t it be safe enough already?”
Once, Nellie had tried to do everything in her power to make the girls abandon this risky path. They had a whole life in front of them. They couldn’t start it by doing illegal things. Before they knew it, they would be stealing and breaking in or whoring and then they’d end up in prison. But Nellie wasn’t doing so well herself, so she had no right to tell others to do things she couldn’t do herself.
Maartje hesitated, then her expression turned defiant. “I don’t think it’s safe. Wim had nothing to hide. He was just doing his job. It’s just that someone didn’t like him. As far as I understand he is in the palace dungeons. Should I return to a place where people get locked up for doing their jobs? Me, I’d like to stay as far away from those guards as possible. That’s the safest place for us to be.”
Oh, she sounded so much like her sister when she said this.
Thirteen years of age, and full of street smarts.
And Nellie would do best to stop telling her what to do. All she could try to do was be there when they needed help.
“Thank you for the gin. I can bring you some fish, or carrots or anything else, except money.”
“If you can, bring juniper berries. Don’t worry too much about giving something in return. You’ve done a lot for us, but don’t tell my sister that I gave this to you.”
“All right, I won’t tell her.” Nellie looked around. “Is this installation all hers, or is it someone else’s?”
“Oh no, it belongs to the other girl.”
“The one who dresses like a monk?”
“Something like that.”
She didn’t meet Nellie’s eyes.
Nellie could ask many questions—about Els’ relationship with Gisele, about Gisele’s past, about her intent to go through life while pretending to be a monk.
“Look, I don’t want to do either of you any harm. I helped you and offered you a job at the palace. But a man has died, and I am one of the people they may accuse of the murder. Like Wim, everyone who worked in the kitchens during the banquet could be a suspect. I visited the dead man’s room to bring him tea, so I’m even more likely to be wanted for questioning. If I can, I would like to find out what happened, because the murdered man’s son is determined to find out, and he’s holding threats over the Regent’s head. So if you happen to know who sells this gin with the goat label, I’d be happy to hear it.”
“I said you’d have to ask my sister.”
“When is she coming back here?”
“I don’t know. She took some of her stock and went to sell it this morning.”
“All right, I’ll come back later.”
But Nellie didn’t have time to wait that long.
Chapter 14
* * *
ONCE SHE GOT to the harbour, Nellie was dismayed to find how many taverns there were. She thought she knew the one where Els’ mother worked most of the time, but she had never been inside. This was not the type of establishment that respectable women entered. Unlike in some other places she had heard about, there was no official rule that women couldn’t enter a tavern, but people thought poorly of those who did. She had to admit that the prospect of facing drunk men frightened her somewhat.
Although there sh
ouldn’t be anyone drunk at this time of the day, should there?
There were several visiting ships in the harbour, most of them moored on the far side of the pier. Nellie walked past the taverns a few times, thinking about an excuse to go in, but with all her might she could not think of one. Her newfound boldness only went so far.
She was cold, it was drizzling a bit, and if she stood here long enough, people would wonder what she was doing.
So she gritted her teeth and went up to the door. She pushed it open and stepped into the tavern room beyond.
The room was dark, and my, it smelled bad in here. No wonder these men were so unhealthy.
As she had already suspected, there were few people inside.
A man came out behind the bar on the other side, wiping his hands on a cloth. He raised his eyebrows when he saw Nellie.
“Good morning,” he said.
“Good morning.” Nellie’s voice came out high.
“You look nothing like our normal customers,” he said. “Which of the drunkard husbands is yours?” He laughed, showing a mouth with missing teeth.
Nellie looked over her shoulder. A man with grizzled hair and a couple of days’ worth of beard was asleep on the table. She shuddered.
“I’m not married, thank you.”
“Then are you here to buy a drink?” He laughed again.
“I’m here to look for someone who sells gin.”
He smiled vanished. “What do you know about that? We don’t sell any gin and we don’t buy it from strangers either.”
He seemed touchy all of a sudden.
“I said am looking for someone who sells gin. I was told that this person might be in here. I know nothing about gin, but I’m just looking for her, because she did a job at the palace, and we need her to come back.”
“Oh.” He smiled again, this time much more friendly. “I thought you were going to talk about the illegal gin trade for a minute.”
Of which there was evidently a lot. “I know nothing about that. I didn’t say I wanted to buy gin. Do I look like I would do that?”
“Well, could be that the guards are sending around anyone now.”
An old woman was clearly “just anyone”. No one had told him how to be polite to people.
He continued, “With what they’ve been doing in the rest of town, shutting down people’s businesses, nothing surprises me anymore. I don’t want any trouble. It’s hard enough keeping the safe stuff from the magicked stuff.”
“I know nothing about trouble. I’m just looking for this girl. Her name is Els.”
Now he gave a big belly laugh. “Oh, that one. Yes she came in here, but she’s probably in one of the other taverns.” He winked. Nellie hadn’t known how quickly she could leave again. She had to make an effort not to run past the sleeping drunk man. Even when she got outside, she still felt jittery from the experience. What an unpleasant, sleazy man. But she had learned something. Gin could not just be poisoned, but it could also have magic. Maybe she was looking for poison in the wrong place.
She clamped her arms around herself, walking through the rain. The man had said Els might be somewhere around here, but Nellie didn’t feel like going into another one of those disgusting establishments.
Heavens, she might run into a whore. She would just have to go back to the warehouse to find Els later.
Nellie was about to return to the sea cow barn when a tavern door opened, and two young women came out chatting and laughing. It was Els and her sometimes-monk friend Gisele.
Both stopped when they saw Nellie, and an expression came to Els’ face that she sometimes showed in the palace, that expression of looking guilty and having been sprung.
“Good morning,” Nellie said, keeping her voice casual, but failing utterly.
“Good morning to you, Nellie.”
She sounded far too cheerful.
Both girls carried baskets, but the cloth cover lay folded up inside, indicating that they had already delivered the contents.
“Are you out shopping?” Els asked.
“No, I wanted to ask you some questions,” Nellie said.
“I don’t work at the palace any more. I handed in my aprons and my dresses if that’s what you’re after.”
Well, well, that was different from her sister’s story. “I don’t work at the palace any more either.”
Els gave her a strange look. “What? Why not? Does it have something to do with that dragon?”
“It’s long story, and I’ll tell it to you, if you can find somewhere we can talk where it’s dry.”
Els exchanged a look with her monk friend. The girl nodded.
“All right. We know a place.”
They walked silently along the harbour front.
It was kind of uneasy. Nellie had never been easy with Els, cunning as she was. That whole business with the juniper berries “for my mam” was still fresh in Nellie’s mind. She’d wanted the berries because they needed them to start a new batch of gin and no supplies had reached the shops.
Whatever Nellie told Els was likely to be used in unusual ways.
They came to an alley in between two houses that led away from the quay and around the back. It was so narrow they couldn’t walk next to each other.
Els went up the steps to the left and through a doorway.
The wood had once been painted green, but the paint was coming off. An emblem had once been painted in white at eye level. Most of it had flaked off, but the letters BR from “Brouwer Company” were still visible.
This used to be the old office belonging to Mistress Johanna’s father. Even when Nellie came to work for the family, he barely used it, but the company had several employees who worked here, and he would sometimes use it when visitors came.
When Mistress Johanna had been queen and she and her father lived in the palace, they had sold this office to another river trader, who had occupied it until a few years ago when they had left town. Rumours were that the business had gone to Burovia.
The girls had turned the dusty space into a comfortable sitting room. There were four mismatched old chairs, a table with one of its legs missing, propped up by several bricks, and a metal barrel placed on bricks that served as a fire pit. Some half-burned logs still glowed, keeping the room at a higher temperature than outside.
“This is quite a nice place,” Nellie said.
“The owner kind of allows us in here, because if we were not using this building, there would be people ripping up all the wood for fires.”
Yes, that was probably true. Nellie remembered how Zelda and the others were getting their firewood from one of the old warehouses next door.
They sat down and Nellie told a simple version of the information she was willing to share about her flight from the palace. That she didn’t control the dragon—true—that he had abandoned her once they reached freedom—half true—and that the women convicted of being witches were innocent. She also told Els that the Regent suspected her of killing Lord Verdonck.
“You? But that is ridiculous.”
“I know, but they are desperate. Adalbert Verdonck demands that Regent Bernard find the killer. I’m a suspect, Wim is a suspect, the dragon is a suspect.”
“The dragon?” Els laughed.
Her cheeks were turning red with the warmth from the fire that the monk girl had stoked and fed with some pieces of wood.
“So now you know my story. But why did you leave?” Nellie asked.
“There were just too many questions being asked there,” Els said. “I have to protect my sister, because I didn’t want her questioned.”
“Why would you worry about your sister in particular?”
“Because she is too young for this sort of thing. If the guards ask her questions and they get insistent, she may well admit to something she hasn’t done, just to please them. These men are very good putting words in people’s mouths.”
That was true, but Nellie suspected that Els was afraid her sister might give
away things about her little illicit gin business here that might lead to her arrest. Which, all things considered, was fair enough.
“They’ve been scraping the barrel trying to find someone to blame for this poisoning. They’re blaming the kitchens, because they haven’t a clue. So we poor women will pay because we can’t defend ourselves. That’s why we left the palace. Not that I don’t appreciate you, Nellie, but that’s just how things are for people like us. If there is a crime that people can’t solve, the poor people are always the first to be blamed. So if you’re like us, and you’re poor, and your mother is a whore and you have nine brothers and sisters from nine different fathers and there is never enough food on the table, then you learn to recognise the signs, and you get out of there. You get out before they can do anything to you or your family.”
“It’s always the same,” the monk girl said, and it was the first time she’d spoken. Nellie remembered that her name was Gisele. “They blame the ones who can’t defend themselves. They drag us off to the dungeons, they make out that we’re witches, and then they banish us or they kill us or they sell us off to some slave trader or some other thing.”
She had a distinct accent that Nellie couldn’t place. Her hair was short, her face looked boyish—necessary when she was wearing a habit, which she was not today—but in her loose trousers and jacket she looked just as much a boy as she did in the habit. She was very skinny, and quite tall.
Nellie said, “I understand that this gin production is all yours.”
“It is.” She lifted her chin in the air as if daring a challenge.
Nellie wasn’t sure what to think of this girl, unsure whether to trust her. “I’m looking for somebody who might have sold poisoned gin to the palace.”
At the same time Els said, “We have no idea, I already told you that.”
Gisele said, “You don’t really want to know.”
And Els turned to her friend, her expression aghast.
Nellie looked at Gisele. “Do tell me more about this.”
“We only make good gin. If we made foul stuff, then there would be hundreds of sailors who would come after us, and we wouldn’t see tomorrow morning.”
