by Patty Jansen
It soared low over the water.
The screams from the panicked crowd on the quay reached fever point. More people had fallen into the harbour, and others were throwing ropes and pieces of wood to help them out. Guards gathered around the Regent, easing him onto the ground. The front of his white shirt was covered in blood. He wasn’t moving.
Shepherd Wilfridus had climbed on his chair and waved his arms.
The dog and the dragon clashed in the middle of the harbour in a giant burst of magic that exploded with a bang. The water was whipped up into waves. Boats bobbed violently on their moorings. In some places, the waves were so high that water washed over the quay, dragging more people into the harbour.
The dragon and the dog fought each other in a glowing ball of bright magic. Sparks rained over the surrounding water and the boats that lay moored there. It made the water bubble and boil. Clouds of steam rose in the air. Sparks exploded in all directions. From the deck of the Guentherite riverboat, part of the harbour was obscured by the rising clouds.
The dragon that flew back to the riverboat was only the size of a cat, and he obediently went inside the box when Nellie held it up. There was no sign of the fire dog.
She closed the box and gave it back to Prince Bruno.
He gave her a wide-eyed look.
Meanwhile, the sea cows pulled the ship through the mouth of the harbour.
The last thing Nellie saw disappear behind the headlands was Shepherd Wilfridus on his chair, screaming that the Lord of Fire was going to curse them.
Chapter 25
ONCE THE BOAT was out of the harbour on the open water of the delta, the peaceful silence that surrounded them was unbelievable. The only sound was the rippling of water against the side of the boat.
Nellie and Henrik leaned against the outer wall of the Captain’s cabin. Nellie was half expecting a call for help from Gisele, Koby or Floris at the bow of the ship, but it didn’t come.
She expected smaller boats to follow them, but it took time to get a boat organised and collect a team of sea cows who were unused to a harness.
“We’re free,” Nellie said to herself as if she still couldn’t believe it.
“That was amazing,” Henrik said.
“No, you were amazing. I’ve never seen anyone shoot two arrows in such quick succession.”
“It’s a skill learned with age.”
Nellie chuckled. “I guess you won’t be going back to the palace now.”
He laughed, the sound sad and hollow. “I’d longed to do that for years. Every time that gluttonous bastard would order us to run his foul errands, I’d wanted to tell him what he could do it himself.”
Nellie couldn’t imagine Henrik doing that.
“But you know, being a guard is about respect. I respected King Nicholaos and King Roald and their wives. I never respected Regent Bernard very much, although I respected the position of regent, because the shepherd and the Regent were looking for a more permanent solution. But I finally lost the last shred of respect for the Regent when he was going to kill the mother of his sons before the boys’ eyes. As a father with children and grandchildren, how anyone could do that is beyond me.”
“What about the shepherd?”
“That man is evil and I knew it the moment he stepped into the palace for the first time. The Regent was his puppet. I’ve been forced to listen to conversations where the shepherd forced Regent Bernard to do his will, and meetings where the Regent argued that he should be made king and the shepherd telling the man repeatedly that he was stupid, that everyone in town hated him and that he would never amount to anything unless he listened to the church. A truly evil man.”
“The shepherd had a hand in the killing of Lord Verdonck.”
“Of course he did. He saw Lord Verdonck as a thorn in his side because he was trying to talk sense into the Regent about letting himself be controlled by the church. Whatever happened with the poisoning, it was all of Shepherd Wilfridus’ design, which was another reason the Regent was so keen to blame someone from the kitchens as quickly as possible.”
“I saw him infusing his magic into food. And I know the magical poison was in the gin.”
Henrik frowned. He said in a low voice, “And he was blessing the food at all the Regent’s banquets.”
“By the Triune.” Nellie raised her hand to her mouth. “You’re right.”
Did that mean Shepherd Wilfridus could have poisoned all the people who came to these banquets?
Her mind raced.
Were there magical poisons that changed people in other ways, such as making them agree to be quiet and support a ruler they wouldn’t normally support?
Had he poisoned Lord Verdonck because the gentler kind of magic hadn’t worked very well on him? By the Triune, she had noticed that Adalbert Verdonck never ate the food provided by the palace.
Had Lord Verdonck known this and taken a remedy and made a mistake in assuming that the gin was safe? Or was the poison in the gin extraordinarily strong?
If there was some kind of magic that made people agree with the Regent, the common citizens wouldn’t be affected because they never came to the banquets, and they had never been influential enough to worry about. But now the Regent was going to distribute food from the city’s stores to them, no doubt under orders of the shepherd.
And who ordered it didn’t matter anyway, because the Regent was dead, and the shepherd could appoint another puppet noble as temporary leader and make this person behave so badly that the people begged for the good shepherd to save them.
That was the true reason the shepherd wanted a regent.
While they watched the shore go past, Nellie explained these thoughts to Henrik, who nodded at every sentence and didn’t contradict her once.
When she finished, he said, “That’s a pretty good summary of what’s probably going on. For us, in the guards, it has been hard, because to mention magic means to acknowledge its existence, and the shepherd has made good work of preventing that from ever happening.”
“What now?” Nellie said. She couldn’t see how they as a small group of people would make any difference on a population that was likely to be controlled through magic they couldn’t see.
“I’ll go where you are going.”
“We’re going up the river, looking for a safe place to stay the winter and decide what to do next.”
“And what to do next might include going back to Saardam and start a rebellion?”
“There won’t be a point unless we can stop people being influenced by magic they can’t see. No one in Saardam is ever going to agree with us, or see what is happening to the city, unless we can unmask what is happening.”
Then another chilling thought. The kitchens were providers of food in the palace. By working there, had Nellie unknowingly contributed to the spread of the magic?
She had eaten the food herself—and only in the last few days when no longer relying on kitchen handouts had her plan come to fruition. Not only that, it had taken that long for the women to be prepared to support her.
Nellie’s cheeks grew hot. It was likely no one in the kitchens had realised this.
Henrik was still talking. “Well then, if you are going to start a rebellion, you seem to be short of a few people who know how to handle a bow and arrow.”
“But we have a dragon.”
“True. I can’t compete with that.”
Nellie laughed, and he laughed, too, and then they both fell into an uneasy silence.
And then he said, “I’m sorry for the things I said to you. I could explain why I said them, but it would just sound like excuses to you. So I just offer my apologies.”
“I accept them. I don’t need to hear the entire story. I will have things to explain as well. I can imagine. I understand.”
“Thank you.”
And then neither of them said anything for a while.
Koby and Gisele were laughing, having a great time at the bow.
Th
ey should go inside because there was so much work to be done and people to be looked after. Jantien and her children, prisoners who were injured, and prisoners who were demanding—good grief, Madame Sabine was on the ship. Whatever were they going to do with her?
Nellie sighed and made to get up.
“Wait,” Henrik said.
He put a hand over hers.
Nellie met his eyes. Grey, unwavering, honest. Her heart was thudding like crazy. She had just done all kinds of crazy stuff, but this little exchange made her feel like she was standing at the edge of a cliff ready to jump. It was ages since any man had shown any kind of interest in her.
“I’d like to make it up to you,” he said, his voice soft. “I’d like to prove that I’m not a puppet who blindly obeys what my superior tells me.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Well then.” She pulled her hand out from under his. “Let’s prove it.”
And she preceded him along the deck and into the cabin, swaying her hips. She hadn’t done that for a long time either.
Thanks for Reading
Thank for you reading The Wizard Priest. The story concludes in The Dragon King, where Nellie embarks on a daring plan made necessary by Bruno’s lust for revenge.
The Dragon King
Chapter 1
A CUP OF HOT TEA was a risky thing to carry on a boat even if this boat only rocked gently. The tea was still hot enough that the heat was spreading to the handle on the metal mug.
So Nellie held the steaming cup through the sleeve of her dress as she carried it out of the cabin onto the deck.
The riverboat had been travelling slowly since escaping the harbour of Saardam the previous afternoon, and the silent, oppressive night had made way for a pale morning.
Through the cold and misty night, the water had lapped gently against the bow, and the ship had rocked softly in the current and with the movement of the sea cows in the harness. They’d stopped briefly to allow the animals to rest, but kept going again as soon as it was light enough to see, because they were refugees and Nellie had no doubt that someone would come after them, if not to recapture the prisoners then to take back the shiny Guentherite order’s riverboat they had stolen.
But, so far, the trip was peaceful, and it was assuring to think all was well with the world and that the journey out of the city would lead to safety.
The cabins were spacious and luxurious, but so many people were in the group that it was cramped on board anyway. They hadn’t planned on taking quite so many people—people like Madame Sabine, who demanded her own room, or the hapless monk Brother Martinus who had been unfortunate enough to be on board when Nellie and Mina climbed onto the deck.
Nellie had bandaged Martinus’ head from where she had knocked him unconscious with a broom, and apologised profusely.
At least it was relatively warm. There was a stove on the far end of the main cabin and plenty of wood to burn.
The children and a few prisoners who were unwell took the benches, which would normally be used by monks studying scripture. Some others were so tired that they slept on the deck, but Nellie had only dozed while seated leaning against the wall. It might be warm inside the cabin, but the deck was cold, and she kept sagging sideways. The cabin was full of the noise of people snoring and children talking.
On top of that, she worried about pursuers and kept an ear tuned for shouts drifting in from outside. But it had been quiet all night, and when she came to the deck with the tea, it was still quiet.
The ship was indeed very pretty. The wood was gleaming dark, the railings polished, the windows and portholes clean and covered with red curtains. The deck was scrubbed, and a strip of tar and sand ran just inside the railing so you didn’t slip when walking there. The mooring ropes lay neatly coiled on the deck.
Henrik stood on top of the wheelhouse. He had his hands in his pockets and looked vigilantly over the countryside as it passed.
He noticed Nellie and smiled at her.
“Here’s tea for you,” she said. “Drink up before it gets cold.”
“Thank you.”
Nellie set the cup down and climbed up the ladder to the roof. “Anything to see?” she asked as he warmed his hands on the tea. They were big hands, too, with hair on his fingers. His nails were clean, which was always a good sign that a man looked after himself.
“It’s been very quiet,” he said. He sipped from the tea.
“That’s good, isn’t it?”
“You would think so. Although I would have expected someone to follow us.”
Nellie turned around and let her gaze roam over the misty fields and the churning expanse of the river, completely empty.
Frost dusted the grass and the bare branches of the willow trees that grew by the riverbanks. With the recent rain, most of the reed beds were flooded. Patches of ice stuck to the dead stems to show that the level of the river had been even higher.
“It might take them a little while to get a ship organised, now that we’ve taken theirs,” Nellie said. “But they’ll come after us.”
“You would think so,” Henrik said.
“What are you saying?”
“Trouble might wait for us further up the river. They don’t pursue us because they know we’ll be stopped further upstream.”
Could that be? “What makes you think that?”
“The Regent regularly sends patrols out to the borders. If they’ve gotten word to them, they’ll be waiting for us.”
That was a worrying thought. “How can we find out who they are and where they hide?” Henrik might know that, being a palace guard.
But he didn’t. “The men who get sent out here have nothing to do with the palace guards,” he said. “They’re rough and unsavoury types and, most often, they’re sent because they need to be taught a lesson. The Guard Commander gives them their orders, and they carry them out by any means available. If they want a post in the city—and most of them do—they have to provide ‘evidence’ that their orders were carried out satisfactorily. The orders often involve hunting down and killing criminals, and the evidence consists of items that the thief would never be without. Ears. Hands. Feet. That sort of thing.”
Nellie shuddered. “Would they do that to a group of women and children?”
“I don’t know. These are not civilised men, and we don’t want to run into them. I don’t know where they are. They consist of nimble teams of a few men and horses each. They travel around and go where they’re needed.”
Nellie knew one way of finding out if trouble lay ahead: magic. They could use water magic by checking what was going on upstream, and wind magic if the wind came from that direction.
Except none of the “witches” who were in the cabin of the ship, after having escaped being drowned for witchcraft, were real magicians in possession of any useful magic. In fact, the only person who had any magic on board the ship was a six-year-old girl.
She asked, “So what can we do?”
“I think the closer we come to Aroden, the more likely it is that we’ll run into the Regent’s patrols. As soon as they see this ship, they’ll know we have no business being on it.”
“We can dress up as monks.”
“Do we have enough habits for everyone?”
Nellie didn’t know. On a first inspection of the ship, she had seen some cupboards that might contain clothing, but she had been too busy to check the contents.
She said, “We can simply tell them why we’re here: because we want to leave town, and the Order lent us the boat because the monks needed to pick up produce from the farm.”
“I don’t think that story will have any legs,” Henrik said. “They’ll know that not even ordinary monks get to travel on this ship, let alone people who are not monks. I don’t know that Brother Martinus is going to cooperate and tell outsiders that we’re real monks.”
No, that was probably true.
Brother Martinus was an unfortunate comp
lication. Apart from having a sore head, he had also quietly pointed out that he was now a prisoner of theirs. If any of the Regent’s men questioned him, it was likely that he would tell the true story.
“Would the mercenaries know that the Regent has died?”
“Probably not, but telling them may not have the desired effect. If the Regent is dead, the men are free from their obligations to the city guard and whoever sent them out here as punishment. They’ve now got weapons, and a ship with people they can rob has just arrived.”
“Really? Would they do that?”
“They’re not nice men. We should avoid talking to them or getting close to them.”
“And these men work for the Regent? I thought they would need to be honourable.”
“In the city, yes, but out here, it’s about survival.”
Nellie shivered. Henrik had placed his empty cup on the roof of the cabin and continued studying the riverbanks.
If they encountered those men, what could they do to prepare? Most people could hide below the deck, and a few of them could dress up as monks. With a bit of luck, the guards would recognise Gisele as a regular monk and would let them through.
Henrik changed the subject. “How is everyone down there?”
“Most of them are still asleep, thankfully,” Nellie said.
“No more complaining?” He referred to Madame Sabine’s demands about sleeping space.
“They’re too tired for that.”
“Today will be interesting.”
“Yes.” She didn’t need to say any more.
After escaping from the harbour, the full implications of what they had done had dawned on her. The group of supposed witches whom they had rescued from the harbour didn’t just include the people they had wanted to rescue. It included a captured monk, and the Regent Bernard’s wife, Madame Sabine.
Having gone for a bath in the ice-cold water of the harbour, Madame Sabine had been too shaken to cause any trouble last night. She had even consented to taking off her clothes so that Agatha and Gertie could dry them in the galley, and she had sat quietly with the other women under the blanket, her face pale and her pretty hair dripping with dirty harbour water.
