The Idiot King

by Patty Jansen

“I’m ready. I got Roald ready earlier this morning. I’ll go and get him.” She went down into the hold where Roald sat with his head buried in a book as usual.

  Until Nellie and Loesie had made him new clothes, his best garment was the red velvet jacket that he had worn on the night of their escape from Saardam. These days, it was more brown than red. The dunking in the harbour hadn’t done it much good, and the dirt had become so engrained in the fabric that even Nellie’s scrubbing wouldn’t budge it. On a day like this, it was also quite hot, but one of the oddities about Roald was that he never, ever, removed or put on an item of clothing by himself.

  “Come, Roald, we need to go.”

  He ignored her.

  She went down the stairs and put an arm on his shoulders. “Come. The council is waiting for us.”

  “The meeting is stupid.”

  She agreed with him, but if she said so, he was likely to blurt it all over the camp. “We have to go.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “Please, Roald. You’re the king.” She gently pulled his arm.

  “No.” His muscles stiffened. “Those men don’t like me and I don’t like them. They talk about me behind my back and laugh at me. They call me The Idiot King. I am the king, and I am not going to talk to people who are rude to me.”

  There was nothing Johanna could say to that. She wasn’t going to assure him that no, this was not the case at all. The men did talk behind his back and they did call him The Idiot King. How to change that would be the big challenge, but it probably wouldn’t be fought in the Council of Nobles. The rot had probably started with King Nicholaos and his son wasn’t going to change anything.

  “Is there a problem?” Master Deim asked at the top of the stairs.

  “He doesn’t want to come.”

  “The meeting is stupid! I want to go catching frogs.” He had that determined look in his eyes.

  Johanna glanced at Master Deim. What to do?

  “Leave him,” Master Deim said. “He wouldn’t do our cause justice. Not like this. We’ll go by ourselves and say that he’s unwell.”

  Johanna could agree with that, but what would the nobles say? Worse, how bad would the gossip get?

  Johanna followed Master Deim off the gangplank. The sentries posted there greeted both of them. Every time Johanna passed these men—and there were four taking turns—she felt less easy about why they were here. They were Johan Delacoeur’s men and the aims of the nobles and of Johanna and Roald started to diverge increasingly.

  It might be time to speak to Julianna again about finding guards in the camp who were more loyal to the throne.

  By the time Johanna and Master Deim arrived at the boat shed, Master Deim’s high forehead glistened with sweat. Big clouds built again on the horizon, so it was likely that there would be more rain.

  All the council members were already seated around the table. They had been talking, but fell silent when Johanna and Master Deim came in.

  Fleuris LaFontaine raised his eyebrows.

  “The king is indisposed,” Master Deim said. “There has been an illness of the stomach going around the camp.”

  There were some nods around the table. Johan Delacoeur seemed happy. He eyed Ignatius Hemeldinck, and a smile ghosted over Ignatius’ face.

  Johanna sat down at the position that would normally be Roald’s. “The king has authorised me to take care of his affairs.” She looked around the table, and it struck her that someone else was missing. “Where is the Shepherd Carolus?”

  “Late, probably,” Fleuris LaFontaine said. Yes, it was true that he’d been late at the first meeting, too.

  “Should we send someone out to get him?” Johanna asked.

  “I’ll ask Pieter,” Master Deim said.

  He rose from the table. Pieter was one of Johan Delacoeur’s men, and this meant that Master Deim had to walk back to the Lady Sara and would be gone for a while.

  Johanna made sure that the first subject of discussion was something relatively harmless: the upcoming wedding.

  The Baroness Viktoriya had sent her servants to inform Johanna of the arrangements, and frankly she felt that the entire ceremony was out of her control. She had even supplied a priest, because You have to be married in a civilised church, and somehow Johanna expected a summons to appear that the day prior to the wedding, she’d be expected to come to the Belaman Church to convert.

  “I’d like to hold something more intimate for our own people as well. I’d like the Shepherd Carolus to conduct a ceremony.”

  Distaste flickered over Ignatius’ face. “We will lose support from the Baron if we persist with that church.”

  “It is our church,” Johanna said.

  It was the church of Saardam, the church of the common people. Not the nobles. Not the Baron’s church. Not the church of pomp and ceremony and the church that was richer than many royal families.

  “I would like a brief ceremony just for our people, held on the deck of the Prosperity or if there is not enough room, in the camp. We can hold it on the day of the other feast, or the day before.”

  “I’m not in favour of holding it on the riverfront,” Johan Delacoeur said. “These days, gatherings of people along the waterfront seem to attract an increasing number of ghost sightings.”

  Johanna’s heart jumped. “Have there been any more apparitions?”

  “If my wife is to be believed, yes. She says if you go out at dusk and look into the reeds at a certain angle, you will see where the ghost sleeps.”

  Ignatius laughed. “And you believe this, too?”

  “Apparently, a lot of women have seen this apparition of Celine,” Johan Delacoeur said. His voice let little doubt about what he thought of this development.

  “It is rumoured that King Nicholaos was trying to have her resurrected,” Fleuris LaFontaine said.

  Ignatius laughed again. “Nonsense.”

  Johan held up his finger like a teacher. “Whether it’s true or not doesn’t matter. It’s what the people believe and we’ll have to deal with it.”

  “Can’t we just . . . remove the whole damn shrine thing overnight?” Ignatius Hemeldinck said. “Kick it over so that it falls in the water?”

  “No, we can’t.” Johanna was surprised by the amount of anger in her voice. If she had learned anything from Nellie, it was not to disrespect what other people felt, or at least not in public.

  He harrumphed. “It’s a thing to keep the women busy. Nothing substantial.”

  And you wonder why you’re not married?

  Fleuris LaFontaine said, “You can’t take it away and not have a lot of trouble and protest. I don’t like it either. My wife is taken with the thing, even though she never saw the apparition of Celine. If you take it away, all the womenfolk will be angry with us.” He might be a boor, but he wasn’t stupid.

  Ignatius snorted.

  “You will not take it away.” Johanna met his eyes, a hard expression in them. Oh, he hated to be ordered by a woman. He didn’t think Roald should be issuing orders, but he thought even less of her.

  Master Deim returned a bit later, without Shepherd Carolus. “I can’t find him anywhere. He’s probably gone harvesting somewhere.”

  This was met with comments of probably, and the meeting continued.

  Besides the wedding, and the “proper” ceremony, the council discussed arrangements for the running of the camp. With the wet weather, straw was becoming short in supply, and so much of the field was muddy that some tents had been moved to the other side of the road. This land belonged to a grumpy farmer who wanted a heavy payment for the use of his paddock. The council discussed options: move to yet another field or move to more permanent housing in town. The latter option confirmed Johanna’s suspicion that many of the nobles had little interest in returning to Saardam.

  By the time the meeting ended, Shepherd Carolus had still not turned up.

  “Does he often completely forget the meeting?” Johanna asked Master Deim while th
ey were walking back along the riverbank.

  “He usually remembers at some time. He’s not been this late before.” Master Deim gazed over the curve of the river, as if expecting to see the Shepherd come running towards the boat shed with hay in his hair but the path ahead was and remained empty.

  “I saw him this morning,” Captain Arense said.

  “Did he mention the meeting?”

  “No, but he did say that he was going to meet someone from town to speak about shoes for children.”

  “That sounds like him,” Master Deim said. “He’s probably just forgotten.”

  They passed the shrine to Celine. Three women stood watching it, one of them holding the hands of two children too young to play. None of the women prayed or cried. They just watched. Bathed in sunlight, the scene didn’t look so disturbing. Johanna was reminded of the statues of the saints in the church with the flowers and the candles and velvet-covered seats. Most of the nobles had grown up with the Belaman Church and might view it in the same way. To them, Celine had turned into a saint.

  If Johanna hadn’t seen the apparition turn into a spider-like monster, she would have thought nothing of it.

  The women greeted Johanna and Master Deim with polite nods of the head, and one of the children said, “Oh, look. It’s the queen.”

  The mothers greeted her with polite nods and Johanna returned their greeting. When she and Master Deim had passed, the women went back to staring at the shrine.

  “I still don’t know what to think about that thing,” she said to Master Deim when they were walking around the reed bed.

  “It gives them hope,” Master Deim said. “Something to pray to that their families are still alive.”

  “I’m afraid that one day, that monstrous thing will return and kill all of them.” She looked into Master Deim’s eyes. “This land is soaking in magic. We’re not equipped to deal with it. We need to go back to our own land as soon as possible. Before winter comes.”

  He nodded.

  “You will come with us, won’t you?” The thought of leaving him here made her chest constrict with panic. With Father not here, he had become like a second a father to her. “I wish we got some news about what is going on in Saardam. Why do you think those scouts we sent haven’t come back yet?”

  Master Deim gazed over the churning water of the river. “There could be any number of reasons, but I have to admit I don’t like it much.”

  “No.” Johanna shook her head.

  They looked over the river for a while. Two women walked down the path along the riverbank. They were probably going to visit the shrine. “I feel something is watching us. Watching and stalking, like a sea serpent under the surface of the sea, stalking a ship that does not know the danger it’s in.”

  ‎

  Chapter 13

  * * *

  THE THUNDER rolled in not much later, and Johanna went down into the hold. Nellie brought dinner and Johanna stood patiently for Nellie to take more measurements, while the rain pelted on the hold covers. Loesie had made good progress on the lace and declared that the dress would be ready on time.

  Johanna was just getting dressed again when there were footsteps and the sound of voices from outside.

  She went to look. The brief shower had come and gone. Julianna Nieland was on the jetty in the presence of a group of children.

  “There she is!” one of them yelled.

  Another one called out, “Can His Royal Majesty please come outside? We want to catch frogs.”

  Julianna pulled a face. “They’ve been spending too much time inside with all this rain. They’ve been driving us all crazy.”

  Roald must have heard the word “frogs” because he came to the top of the stairs carrying his net, to much cheering from the children.

  He led the group of boys into the reed bed with much chattering and excitement, in which terms of Your Majesty were often forgotten.

  Julianna smiled. “They love him so much and he’s so good with them.”

  He deserved a family of his own, and that brought Johanna back to the painful thought that this was not happening.

  Julianna said, “I really came here because you had a council meeting this morning and I was wondering if Shepherd Carolus had said something to you about going somewhere. He was meant to come and teach the kids, but he didn’t show up. He’s often late, but he always comes.”

  Johanna’s heart skipped a beat. “He wasn’t at the council meeting either. Master Deim went out to find him but he couldn’t. Someone seemed to think that he’d gone to harvest.”

  “In the rain?”

  They looked at each other. An expression of worry hovered in Julianna’s eyes. There was no need for words. They both thought the same thing: something has happened to him.

  “Pieter!” Johanna called out to the guards at the jetty.

  The man on question turned.

  “Have you seen Shepherd Carolus at all today?”

  “Yes, I remember seeing him—no, I remember wrongly. That was yesterday.”

  “He was meant to come to the council meeting, but he wasn’t there. He was meant to teach the children, but he didn’t show up. That’s not like him at all. Could you check his tent? In fact, I’ll come with you.”

  Pieter accompanied Johanna across the camp. Shepherd Carolus didn’t have any relatives in the camp, and shared with a group of single men. None of them had seen him.

  A young nobleman’s son said, “I thought it was funny that I got up early this morning, and it didn’t look like he’d been there all night. You know that we keep quiet about that sort of thing, and I thought it was a bit strange, him being a priest and all that, but you know . . .” He shrugged. His cheeks turned red. “I’m sorry, this is not an appropriate subject for a lady.”

  Well, thank you for thinking so much of him. “Why didn’t you say anything earlier?”

  “Because he’s often away. He does a lot of things.”

  “He’ll be all right,” another man said. “Likely, he got so smitten with a girl from town that he’s still with her. He’s a big and handsome fellow.”

  “But not turning up for teaching a class?”

  “A bit odd, I have to confess.” He looked uneasy. “Although he did say something about going into town for shoes for children.”

  “Have you seen anything unusual?”

  “No. I don’t think so.” But something made him hesitant.

  “Would you help me check around the camp just to make sure?”

  Master Deim came as well, and they walked over the road at the back of the camp and then up and down the river bank several times, past the reed beds and the little shrine that stood further from the bank than it had been when it was erected. They went as far as the boat shed and then back in the other direction. In places, the path had been claimed by the rising waters and they had to walk through the tall grass.

  There was no sign of Shepherd Carolus, no sign that someone had been this way.

  “He probably just went into town and got held up,” Pieter said.

  Johanna met Master Deim’s eyes. It was probably not wise to say anything about magic in Pieter’s presence. He would only report it to the nobles and they would use it against her at the next meeting.

  They checked the shed, the reeds and the river. If Shepherd Carolus had gone to town, he would have come this way.

  But there was no one on the path. The vast churning surface of the water remained empty. The riverbanks were deserted, the tall grass undisturbed.

  With the low clouds, it started to go dark quite soon and veils of mist rose from the water.

  “We better go back,” Master Deim said. “He’s obviously not here.”

  “I’ll go and ask in town tomorrow,” Pieter said. “If he hasn’t returned by then. But he will probably turn up soon.”

  Johanna wished she could believe that, but the cold fingers of magic were reaching for her again. She brushed her hands over a few tree trunks while they
walked, but they showed her nothing significant, except ducks. One showed the two scouts setting off in their dinghy towards Saardam.

  They haven’t returned either.

  Shapes swirled in the mist but every time she thought she saw ghosts in the corner of her eye, they disappeared again once she turned her head to look in more detail.

  Yet, there was something. Watching, waiting.

  Johanna shivered.

  When they came back to the Lady Sara it was dusk. Loesie and Nellie stood on the jetty, talking to Captain Arense.

  “There they are!” Nellie called out. She came towards the shore. “Oh, mistress Johanna, we were so worried about you!”

  But it was Loesie who drew Johanna’s attention. She was sitting on the hold covers, her arms around her legs which she held drawn up to her chest. Her eyes were vacant.

  “What happened?”

  “There were ghosts,” Nellie said. “In the reeds over there.” She pointed.

  “Did Roald see them?” That was where he had been looking for frogs.

  “I don’t think so. The children had already gone. We were looking for you because we didn’t know where you were. We worried that you’d fallen off the deck and no one had noticed. Loesie saw the ghost first. She’s been sitting like this since then. It’s like she went back to being bewitched. I’m afraid, Mistress Johanna.”

  Johanna climbed the gangplank and joined Loesie on the hold covers. Loesie was shivering and muttering to herself.

  “What did you see?” Johanna asked.

  “Must not talk to it. Must not look at it. Must not talk to it. Must not look at it.” Loesie stared into nothingness.

  “Not talk to what?”

  “Must not talk to it. Must not look at it.”

  “Loesie?”

  Loesie faced her. Her eyes were still alert, too alert for her to have become possessed again.

  “What did you see? A ghost?”

  “Must not talk to it. Must not look at it.”

  “Loesie, answer me.”

  Loesie screamed and clamped her hands over her ears. “Don’t talk to it! Don’t! Don’t! Leave me alone. Push me in the river. Put me in a boat without oars. Let me go, please!”