by Patty Jansen
The boys moved a bit up the riverbank, but stopped there to watch.
The ghost kept coming for Johanna. The closer she came, the more the flesh of her face sagged. The folds and canyons in the skin deepened, the skin pitted and scarred. She no longer looked like Celine, but like a skull with two gaping holes from which green light radiated.
Behind her, the boys screamed and ran, but Johanna stood rooted to the ground. Her knees felt like they would collapse on her if she took a single step.
“There you are again,” the raspy voice said. “You usurper. You common girl. Let you be cursed!” She pointed at Johanna with a discoloured, bony hand, uttering guttural sounds that resembled no spoken words. Green light flashed along the fingers, dripping off as if the skin itself turned liquid. Strands of silver-green coalesced into a giant spider web.
Johanna ducked. She landed on her knees in the tall grass with a loud splosh. Cold water seeped through her dress.
Loesie retreated against the trunk of a sapling. She broke off a twig at her back and waved it before her.
“I will get you, little queen.” The ghost laughed, a wheezy sound that made a chill crawl over Johanna’s back. The form of her was still changing. She discarded the grey cloak and the pale yellow dress. The skin underneath was lumpy and scarred. Her legs had turned into sticks. Buds sprouted from her waist, growing into long and thin legs with hair along the sides. The head grew two big fangs. The body inflated until it was fat and round, like that of a spider, but many times bigger.
A spider that was throwing out its sticky threads to reel in its victims.
Loesie lashed out at the web. The willow twigs went straight through the threads without leaving a mark but the twig ignited in Loesie’s hand. Threads of spider silk wrapped around Loesie’s chest, pinning her arms to her sides.
“Loesie, no!”
Johanna stumbled to her feet, but no matter how much she tried to grab the strands that held Loesie, her hands kept going through the material as if the threads weren’t there.
Loesie’s eyes had gone white again, rolled back into her head. Her back was rigid like a plank of wood.
Johanna called out, “Help! Help me!”
But the boys had run, and the camp was too far away for anyone to hear.
Then without warning, the spider-ghost vanished. The web retreated. Loesie dropped into the grass causing Johanna to fall on top of her.
Oof.
Johanna lay there for a while, dazed, while the trails of mist were reabsorbed back into the water.
“Loesie?”
Loesie’s eyes had returned to normal. She wiped her face.
“Loesie, are you all right? Do you know why it disappeared suddenly?”
“That was no common magic.” Loesie’s voice sounded hoarse. “That was no proper ghost.”
“Did it leave because of something you did?”
Loesie laughed. “Like I wave a willow twig and all the evil in the world flees from my sight? Wouldn’t that be handy?” She coughed.
They sat silently in the grass while a steady drizzle came down. Water was seeping into the back of Johanna’s dress.
“Loesie, can you see now that I need a magician to help men, and I’m asking you to be that magician?”
Loesie’s expression closed. “Can’t you see that magic is no good, and you don’t want to meddle with it?”
“Please. I don’t have anyone else I can trust. Even if you just take the position until we can find someone else.”
“I’m no magician. I’m struck mad by magic. And you shouldn’t be trusting me. That’s the last I’ll say about it.”
Johanna didn’t understand it. For years, Loesie had come to the markets flaunting her magic. Loesie’s magic ran much deeper than the little tricks she used to scare off little boys. She had never been one to hide it, talking about the warnings against magic by the church as They don’t know what they’re talking about and Magic is not something you can stop. It’s there or it isn’t, no matter what the gibbering priests say.
Johanna used to talk with her about that, because the preachings of Shepherd Romulus about magic didn’t sit well with her, either. Now it seemed like Loesie had completely closed to magic. What had changed her mind?
Surely it wouldn’t really be about magic lines and increasing magic, because she didn’t believe that for one bit.
She helped Loesie up and the two of them continued along the riverbank, Loesie moving like an old woman.
Chapter 12
* * *
THE STORY that the boys had seen princess Celine went around the camp like wildfire.
By the end of that afternoon, a group of people, mainly women, had gathered at the spot in the reeds where the boys had seen Celine, and they stood on the bank, staring over the water. A steady drizzle of rain fell from the sky, but that didn’t seem to bother them.
At first, Johanna had tried to explain that what the boys had seen was an evil construct of magic, but although the women listened politely, none of them said anything or asked any questions, and none of them went back to the camp.
Johanna looked around that circle of tired-looking, pale faces and empty eyes, wet and bedraggled clothes that had seen better days. A shiver came over her. No one had seen the green light coming from the skull-like eyes. No one had seen the spider. No one had seen how it had grabbed hold of Loesie and turned her rigid. And Johanna didn’t know how to alert people to the danger. Most people tolerated Loesie while she behaved normally, but Johanna had heard some rumours about her that indicated that people knew very well who she was.
Waiting and doing nothing had turned these people numb. Or so she hoped, because the empty look in their eyes reminded her uncomfortably of Loesie’s expression when she had first met Loesie in the market, when Loesie had been possessed.
What did it even look like when a demon entered a person’s body?
Or was it something in the air? Magic lines coming to the surface? Where did this magic even come from?
Johanna went back and watched the group from the deck of the Lady Sara, with frustration growing inside her.
“What has gotten into these people?” she said to Nellie who had come out of the cabin. “They never wanted to have anything to do with magic before.” They were mainly women and children, but also some younger men, staring at the water with dreamy expressions in their eyes. Occasionally one would point and the others would squint into the mist. A woman folded her hands as if in prayer.
Nellie said, “I’ve never seen these people inside the Church of the Triune.”
“No, there is only one church they follow: that of money.”
“You shouldn’t say things like that, mistress Johanna. These people have lost everything. Their safe houses, their servants, their nice furniture, their beautiful clothes. They don’t know how to look after themselves. They’re looking for guidance.”
“And they’re getting that from a ghost that’s a spider in disguise?” Johanna spread her hands. “Sometimes I really can’t believe how dumb people are, even those who are supposed to know better.”
“The people are desperate. They do desperate things.”
“Nellie, I love you and you’re a much better woman than I am, but sometimes I wish you could just believe that sometimes people do things for stupid reasons. Or evil reasons, or selfish reasons.”
“I’d rather be accused of being too good than being too selfish and inconsiderate. Anyway, I came to look for you because we need to take some measurements for your wedding dress.”
Johanna followed Nellie into the cabin.
It turned out that Nellie had been able to get some nice fabric from a seller at the markets. She got it for a good price because, according to the seller, no one was sure what to do with the fabric. It was quite stiff but of rough weave, like linen. Nellie showed it to her just outside the door to the captain’s cabin, because it’s too dark in there to see it properly. Johanna ran her ha
nd over the fabric. It was rough and well-made at the same time, if that was possible, and it made her think of the exotic markets she had visited on her trip to Lurezia with Father. Those fabrics spoke of strange lands where the sun rode high in the sky and where the land was covered in sand dunes as far as the eye could see. It was rather odd that something as exotic as this had been cheap, and they might discover that there was something wrong with it, but what could be wrong with a piece of fabric?
There was one problem: it was red.
“Then we shall have to make red lace,” Nellie said.
Judging by the pins and cushion on the table, she had already started the tedious work of making lace.
“Oh no, that’s Loesie’s,” she said when she noticed Johanna looking at the work.
“It’s nice.”
“Yes, she is getting much better, and making a lot of effort to learn, too.”
That was Loesie these days: doing everything to prove that she was just a normal, non-magical farm girl so that she could go on resisting Johanna’s pleas to learn about magic and be Roald’s court magician.
Loesie herself was on the deck hanging out the washing. As if she felt Johanna looking at her, she turned her head so that their eyes met through the little round window.
Nellie had managed to collect a gathering of sewing things, for which Loesie had made a basket. She bustled about with measuring tape, taking measurements across Johanna’s back both lengthwise and sideways. She measured around Johanna’s waist. “We shall leave a spare fold of fabric here that we can take out in case you need it.”
Yes, yes, she got the hint.
“Nellie, do you know what is going on with Loesie?”
“Going on? Nothing. Since we left that horrible house of the Duke’s she has been extremely helpful and kind. I can see her turn into a very useful servant.”
But that was just the problem. Johanna didn’t need another useful servant, and useful servant had not ever been words anyone would use to describe Loesie.
“Well, I guess you never knew Loesie before the . . . accident.”
“I guess not, but I’d say that she’s finally seen sense and quit that childish teasing and making fun of boys.” Nellie’s voice was prim. “Is it wrong to teach her sewing?”
“No, not at all.”
“I just thought I’d teach her to be useful.”
“You’re doing fine, Nellie. I’m sure the dress will be beautiful.”
After some talk about arrangements for clothing for Roald, because What he wears is completely unsuitable for a king. No wonder people don’t take him seriously, Johanna left Nellie to continue with her work.
To be honest, she didn’t really want to have an official wedding; she wanted to return to Saardam. She wanted to know what was going on there. And she was getting quite worried about those young men who had taken Master Deim’s dinghy and had still not returned, and she had become even more worried with Loesie’s explanation, which had been confirmed by Magda: magic was leaking out of the ground. Loesie said that the Saar River had always been rich in magic and she wondered if, since water came out of the ground, magic could come up with the water. Magda said someone had been digging.
Why would anyone dig for magic? Or if they weren’t digging for magic, what would they dig for? What would they do about the magic now that they’d found it?
A strange thought came to her: use it. Use the magic to defeat all their enemies.
If you couldn’t fight magic without invoking more magic, then wasn’t the next logical step to use that magic?
Johanna slid open the hold cover and descended into the darkness and its perpetual smell of dust.
Roald sat writing over the tiny desk, his silhouette gilded by the light. It didn’t look like he had moved since she left him here in the morning.
Johanna took off her wet cloak and hung it on the hook under the stairs.
Roald didn’t even glance aside, so she went up and looked over his shoulder at the book he was reading.
On Magickal Creatures Of The High Lands, The Sea And Orient, one of the books she had borrowed from Brother Reginald.
The page showed a couple of illustrations of huge lizards with wings and strange, snake-like beings that devoured ships. “What strange creatures.”
“They’re sea dragons and land dragons,” Roald said. “It says here that dragon magic is the highest form of magic and rules all others.”
Johanna studied the scaled creatures, with huge spiky heads and lots of sharp teeth. “I’ve never seen creatures like this.”
She would have said that they didn’t exist, but after seeing the magical spider, she wasn’t sure anymore. There were lands unknown beyond the Horn that harboured the strangest of creatures. She also didn’t know if “exist” was the right word for a being that was a figment of magic. If magicians could create what they wanted, then the ghost-ether could be shaped into any form.
“They had a small dragon at the farm,” Roald said.
“Did you see it?”
“I had to feed it. It was about this big.” He held his hands about an arm’s length apart.
“Did it fly?”
“No, but it bites.”
“Where did it come from?”
“The lands beyond the Horn. The abbot bought it from some peddler who came to sell silk and linen.”
“Why was it there? Was it a magical being?”
“Brother Lucius keeps it as a pet. It sits on his shoulder. It warns him if the air is starting to go bad.”
“Go bad?”
“Sometimes the air explodes. The dragon makes noises when it smells the bad air so the people can get out.”
“What sort of place is this?” She had never heard of exploding air.
“At the farm.”
“Yes, but what sort of place at the farm?”
“At the chapel in the valley behind the fields. Mist comes out of the ground. They’re building an oracle room to surround it.”
“Mist or ghosts?”
“Never saw a ghost in all the time I was there.”
Johanna pulled out the map of the town and surrounding forest that Roald had bought from a mapmaker at the markets. She rolled it out on the desk. The map was a thing of beauty, precisely made with the finest pen strokes.
The town of Florisheim was on the eastern bank of the Rede River, while the lower areas on the western side, part of Burovia, were mostly wild land of marshes and forests. To her, this very much started to sound like the people there had been digging up the magic lines and Roald had either not seen it or dismissed it as something he didn’t want to deal with.
On the map, the farm was marked with only a little black square. Underneath, it said in tiny letters: Order of the Guentherites.
Johanna pointed at the spot. “Is that what they’re called? The Guentherites?”
“Brother Guenther was the abbot. He was very old and died while I was there. I didn’t see him much because he was always sick. He’s the second cousin of Baron Uti. He inherited the land to the south of here, and had to battle Duke Lothar for the rights to the castle. He lost, so he started the farm.”
“Did he build it? Did no one live there before?”
“No. Because the land was haunted.”
She would ask him whether this order was officially recognised by the Belaman Church, but he probably wouldn’t understand the intricacies involved in church relationships. So she let the topic rest, but she was becoming more and more certain that a lot of the trouble in the world came back to this farm and its magic lines.
“Would you want to go and visit the farm?”
Roald turned to her, frowning. “Why?”
“Well, because . . . because you know people there. Because you have friends there?”
He stared at her, as if his brain was processing the concept of friends. “Does that mean I would see Selmus?”
“That depends on if he’s still there.” She had no idea who this person was,
but found some relief in knowing that Roald had made at least one friend. “Do people from the farm visit Florisheim?”
“They do, if the abbot lets you go. You need two strong rowers.”
And rowing across the river was not going to happen while the water was so high. But they had sea cows and could use them. “Do people visit?”
“Only important people.”
“That’s easy, then. As soon as the water calms a bit, we will announce a visit so that you can see Selmus.”
* * *
But the rains kept up, and although the water levels dropped a bit, the river remained a churning mass of water. Visiting that farm seemed like it might create more problems than she could deal with. Over the next week increasing numbers of people came to the riverbank where the boys had seen Celine. Someone put up a wooden post in the water with a platform on top and the next day a little statue appeared there, whittled from wood, and depicting a woman. It was a rough and coarsely-made thing, but the long hair and cloak made it clear that this represented Princess Celine. People stood at the riverbank and gazed at it. Some people even brought small offerings: flowers or whatever scraps of food they could spare. The riverbank became muddy and trampled, and the ever-rising waters came closer and closer to the platform.
“I didn’t think that the nobles were this superstitious,” Johanna said to Master Deim while watching this strange going-on from the deck.
It had stopped raining and the river was still high, only a few hand-widths under the deck of the jetty, but when the sun broke through the clouds, it didn’t look as threatening.
“It’s a feature of the Belaman Church to worship ghosts. They call them saints, but it’s all the same thing.”
That same Belaman Church that had a saint for mothers and babies, the church that was ever-present in all of life in Florisheim, and an institute that Johanna didn’t understand. There had been a small Belaman Church building in Saardam, but it was modest, nothing like the magnificent construction in the market place.
“Are you ready to go to the council meeting?” Master Deim said.
