by Patty Jansen
“Can I help you, child?”
“I . . . um . . .” There was no going back now.
He came towards her in the aisle. From close up, under the candlelight, he looked older than he did in the service. He wore his customary brown robe, a simple garment without any embellishments except the white knotted cord around his waist. He had grey hair cropped short and a short beard, also grey. His green eyes were kind, but surrounded by a spider’s web of wrinkles.
“You look disturbed, child.”
You would, too, if you’d seen a person possessed by evil. But she said only, “I came here to pray.”
He smiled. “You’re in the right place for that. Do you want to pray together?”
That seemed like a good starting point. Better than the question she would have to ask later: What can I do to exorcise a demon from my friend? Because that question would mean acknowledging that magic existed, or maybe even that she had magic.
Johanna sat next to the Shepherd in the front pew, directly opposite the giant statue of the three-headed Triune. The light cast deep shadows over the dog face that jutted out above her. An angry and snarling thing it was, depicting the evil Spirit in the Triune. The head of the Ghost was on the far side of the statue, a long-haired man with hollow eyes, and the middle head embodied the Holy God, a man with a kind face and a short beard. He looked a bit like King Nicholaos, although she’d seen children clipped on the ear for saying that.
The Reverend folded his hands in his lap and neither of them said anything for a while. The calm beauty of the place soothed Johanna’s rattled mind. The wood under her hands showed images of people filing into the church and taking place in the pews. See? There was nothing to panic about. There might be demons and bandits on horseback in the border regions. They might even be on their way to Saardam. But the city was strong and the king’s guards would deal with them. She ordered her thoughts into a couple of perfectly rational questions.
“I seek advice about a friend,” she said when the Shepherd raised his head.
“Is this a friend who has strayed off the right path?”
“A friend who is possessed.” Did she see him do a little double take? “She has lost her voice and her sanity, and speaks gibberish. Maybe she’s trying to tell me something, but I can’t understand her.”
He gave her a thoughtful and calculating look. “Does she roll her eyes and secrete fluids?”
Johanna nodded, and the chill of seeing the white slits of Loesie’s eyes returned.
His expression went hard. “She is possessed by evil. Any such should be banished from the city.”
“She’s my friend. She frightens me, but I have to look after her or no one else will. I don’t think she has anyone left in the world. I know her as a kind person, and this is not her fault. Please tell me how to help her.”
He turned around and fixed her with his green eyes. “Your heart is kind, sister, but playing with evil will beget more evil. You can pray for her, but the evil of magic is strong. You should not get further involved with her.”
“Should I let her die then? She can’t look after herself like this.” It was a wonder that Loesie had even made it to the markets.
“Your friend is already dead. All that’s inside her is the spirit of evil.” He folded his hands before his chest as if in prayer.
“She tries to talk to me. She recognises me.”
The Shepherd put a hand on her shoulder. “Sister, I see that this upsets you. But demons take on the memories of human bodies. They seek to seduce us with something we want, maybe the voice of someone long ago deceased. Take it from me: most likely, this demon has killed your friend already.”
Johanna again heard the penetrating woman’s scream that Loesie’s basket had played back to her. She didn’t think it was Loesie’s voice, but from that sound, it was hard to tell.
“If, however, your friend’s soul is still alive, the demon will leave after it has completed its task. For that reason alone, it is better not to stay close to her.”
“You’re sure?” How could he know all this? “Have you seen this happen?”
“It’s written in the Book.” He reached in the pocket of his robe and drew out a well-thumbed copy of the Book of the Triune. With a pale-fingered hand he leafed through the pages. His fingers trembled.
“Ah, here it is.” He pressed the book open and read. “Two days after the encounter on the road, Coran woke up one morning, speaking in tongues. No one in his household, not even his dear wife, could understand what he said. They were afraid and went into the church for guidance, but the Shepherd was not there, since he had gotten up at dawn to spread wards around the edges of the village. When they returned home, Coran was gone as well, and the villagers reported seeing him wander around the fields that surrounded the village for days. Although he had no weapon, his hands were covered in blood. He would not reply if they spoke to him, and would not look them in the eye. His eyes were rolling in his head and when he tried to speak, milk-like fluid would leak from his mouth. After four days, the madness vanished from his eyes, and he came back home, clean and washed. When his family asked him about his absence, he said that he had seen much evil and would never speak to a demon ever again. The next day, the neighbour who had been cheating found his prize cow dead in the paddock, ripped to shreds.”
Johanna knew that passage. It was a metaphor for a man learning his lesson after trying to make financial gains at the expense of his neighbour. It held no authority on the subject of demons.
She clenched her hands in her lap, biting her tongue in frustration. There was so much she wanted to say about magic, that it wasn’t always evil, that it belonged to objects and not people, that some people couldn’t help being able to see it. That you were born with it and it was not something you could choose to engage in, or, for that matter, disengage from. But this was probably not the right time.
“Who is this friend of yours, pray?”
“Someone I know from the markets.” She also couldn’t say why she knew Loesie—because they both had willow magic, because she had felt the magic in Loesie that first day she’d met her at the markets as a little girl. “She comes in from the eastern border. She’s seen evil things that are coming this way. She may be possessed, but her mind is still fighting the demon. I don’t believe that she’s evil. And I don’t believe that the demon has taken her over completely. I want to know how we can get rid of the demon and restore her speech.”
The Shepherd’s face became a closed mask. “You’re asking for someone who can perform an exorcism. The Church does not provide these people. Exorcisms are quackery that most likely make matters worse than they are. Demons are manifestations of the Triune. They are repelled by prayer, not by fake magicians with horseshoes, goat’s blood and other items that wouldn’t look out of place in the Lord of Fire’s dungeons.”
Johanna had never seen an exorcism and had no idea how it was done or if it was effective, but she didn’t believe him anymore. He didn’t care about Loesie.
What was more, she suddenly had an irrational desire to get out of there. This church was not a place where she could get answers. This Triune was not her friend.
Chapter 7
* * *
JOHANNA SPENT most of the night worrying about Loesie and what to do. She could only try to imagine how scared her friend must feel, and this made her more determined to ignore the Shepherd’s advice to stay away from her. She couldn’t leave Loesie to her own devices, especially not now.
When Johanna came into the barn the next morning with breakfast, she found Loesie sitting on the side of the walkway, dangling her legs over the water. For a moment, it looked like she had been cured, but when she turned around, her eyes were still wide. She looked so thin and sickly.
Johanna knelt and put down the basket with food at a safe distance, never losing sight of Loesie. “I’ve brought you eggs and bread, a piece of ham, some butter and cheese.”
; Loesie dragged the basket over.
“Do you need any more help? I can get you onto the river barge so you can go back home.”
“Ghghghghghgh!” Loesie shook her head.
“You don’t want to go home?”
“Ghghghghghgh!” More headshaking.
“You can’t go home? Where is your family?”
“Ghghghghgh!” Loesie made a sideways motion in front of her throat.
“Killed? All of them?”
She nodded. Her eyes glittered.
Johanna still hesitated to come any closer. The voice of the Shepherd said in the back of her mind, They seduce us with what we most want to see.
Loesie folded her hands in her lap. A tear ran over her cheek and hung at the angle of her jaw. Her shoulders shook.
“Just be strong, all right?” Johanna said. She wanted to hug Loesie, but at the same time, she could feel the magic that seeped from her friend.
“I’ll come back, I promise. I’ll find someone who can—”
“Ghghghghgh!” Loesie pointed out the open door of the barn.
There was a lot of activity of boats in the harbour. From here, you could see the far side of the quay where freight was being unloaded. The Burovian ship still lay there, all the windows and doors closed.
The space where the Lady Sara had been yesterday had now been taken by the Lady Davida. Adrian walked on the deck.
“What is it, Loesie? What did you see?”
“Ghghghghghgh!” She pointed, but Johanna couldn’t make out what she was pointing at. The Prosperity, one of the barges belonging to Master Deim, one of Father’s friends and competitors, was just coming in. Jakob, Master Deim’s sea-cow handler, yelled something to Adrian and Adrian laughed so loud that the sound carried all the way across the harbour to the barn.
“I don’t know what you mean, Loesie. I see nothing unusual.”
Loesie bent her fingers so that her hands resembled claws and mimicked attacking.
“I don’t see any demons,” Johanna said. “Why don’t I come back this afternoon and bring a slate so that you can draw what you mean?” She should have thought about that earlier.
“Ghghghghghhgh!” Loesie mimicked attacking.
“Yes, I understand.”
“Mmmmmmmm!” Loesie shook her head, spreading her hands in a gesture of frustration.
“I’ll bring a slate, I promise.”
* * *
It was only after she had left the barn that Johanna remembered that she had to go to that dratted ball tonight—how could she ever have forgotten that? Maybe she could have some time before leaving?
This stupid ball would be so embarrassing, with her as a dressed-up sugar cake a thousand times less elegant than the girls to whom nobility came as second nature.
She could already hear the scorn as soon as she walked up those palace steps.
She should have stayed with the sea cows.
That dress would have looked nicer on a bitch in heat.
That would be unbearable. She wished the whole thing was already over. Of course the royal family would have no real interest in her. What was Father thinking?
She could, of course, refuse to go, or refuse the dance her father had brokered with the prince, but he was right about one thing. Octavio Nieland should not get the business. Those ships were going to remain under the Brouwer flag.
When she came home, she met Nellie walking up the stairs carrying a box with a ribbon that would contain the dress Mistress Daphne had adjusted.
“You’re just in time for dinner, Mistress Johanna, and then we should get ready.”
What, already? What about Loesie? “But the ball is not until tonight.”
“Yes, and that will be only just enough time to get everything done.”
“The whole afternoon?” But the horrible realisation sank in. Last time she’d gone to a formal occasion—her cousin’s wedding—she had also spent ages sitting in her room being primped up by Nellie.
“We need to do your hair, your powder, your jewellery.” Nellie counted off on her fingers. “We have a lot to do. The coach comes at six. You have to be ready by then.”
But, I promised Loesie . . .
There was no point in resisting. Whatever needed to be done needed to be done.
First Nellie started on Johanna’s hair, combed, braided and fluffed it up so it would sit neatly under the beaded hairnet that used to be her mother’s. Nellie took forever putting it up in a pile on her head.
Koby brought some tea and biscuits. “Don’t eat too much, Mistress. It will look rude if you don’t eat at the banquet, and people will gossip.”
“People find the silliest things to gossip about.”
She gave Johanna an exasperated look.
Then the dress. Nellie helped her do up all the fiddly buttons and hooks and laces at the back.
Nellie brought the pretty box that sat on the dressing table in her bedroom, mostly untouched. Inside, gold and silver chains, gemstones and strings of pearls lay draped over a bed of red velvet. Most of these had been her mother’s, pure Estlander silver with precious stones. Johanna felt like a fraud trying on the different pieces. Her mother had been a minor royal, and Johanna was nothing but a fishwife in comparison. She didn’t want to meet prince Roald. She knew of the balls, of the infighting between the royal families of neighbouring kingdoms, of the gossip between nobles, and wanted no part of any of it.
Johanna chose her mother’s silver necklace with its huge ruby pendant. It lay cool against her skin in the hollow between her breasts.
“Isn’t this a bit scandalous?” Johanna asked, putting her hand on the skin of her chest. So much skin. Since when had the open and low-cut dresses become the fashion?
“Not if we make your skin all nice again.” Nellie draped a cape over Johanna’s shoulders to protect the dress from powder. She already had the powder box out, tut-tutting at Johanna’s expression. “If you covered your hands in gloves and used an umbrella when going out, you wouldn’t get all these horrible freckles and you wouldn’t need so much powder.” She dusted powder over Johanna’s face.
The smell made Johanna’s nose tickle.
Then Nellie took the cape off, brushed some hair off the dress and declared Johanna ready to go. She caught sight of herself in the mirror. That young woman in the blue dress with her hair curled and piled in a bun and covered with a gemstone-studded hairnet didn’t look like her at all. In fact, she had to move her hand and turn around a fraction just to make sure.
“You look so elegant, Mistress Johanna. You’re sure to turn the heads of all the young men at the ball.”
Johanna felt like rolling her eyes.
She rose, and found that with the dress’ hoops, she could no longer see her feet. When she had tried on the dress with Mistress Daphne, that hadn’t been so important, but now Nellie had to help her down the stairs to make sure that she put her feet on the steps.
Father waited in the hall, dressed in his best silk shirt with ruffled collar and the magnificent purple cloak he’d bought on one of his recent travels. Apparently it was dyed with the pigment of thousands of snails. His hair was tied at the nape of his neck, and he had trimmed his beard. He wore his watch and gold chain and enough perfume that she could smell it halfway down the stairs.
He stared at her, his mouth open.
When Johanna joined him, she noticed a glitter in the corner of his eye.
“You look so much like your mother,” he said, his voice unsteady. He cleared his throat and went on, “We went to the ball together a few times. I would be waiting here and she would come down just like you. Looking beautiful. You should wear pretty dresses more often.”
Johanna felt uneasy and didn’t know what to say. She’d just spent the entire afternoon hating getting dressed up. If it pleased Father, why did she complain?
The rattling of wheels on cobblestones, and the clip-clop of a horse’s hooves, drifted in from outside.
“There is the co
ach.” Johanna was glad to break the silence.
He offered her his arm. They left the house and went down the steps and into the street, where people stopped to look. Even though he greeted the people politely, Johanna could feel, beneath his clothes, that Father was nervous, maybe even more so than she was.
She knew the cab driver and his magnificent black horse.
“Good evening, Master and Mistress,” the man said. He held the horse by the reins and patted its flank. The animal breathed out through flaring nostrils, tossing its head.
“Nice weather today,” the man said.
“That, it is,” Father said.
Indeed the sky was cloudless, though less clear than the previous day. The first stars were already visible.
Father helped her up into the cab with the awkward hoops in her dress, climbed in himself, and the driver shut the door while Johanna and her father sat down, facing each other. The driver then walked past the cab and jumped onto the driver’s seat. The cab wobbled under his weight and a moment later jerked forwards.
Father stared out the window, pulling at his ruffled sleeves.
“We are not in any kind of trouble, are we?” she asked him when the silence lingered.
He sat with his hands interlaced, elbows leaning on his knees. “We are not, but Saarland is, or, more precisely, the royal family,” he said in a low voice. “Johanna, please don’t speak of this to anyone else.”
“What sort of trouble? Is Estland making threats? Or Burovia?” Most of the inland nations envied Saarland’s position, because of its harbour city and the river trade. There had been plenty of threats in the past, but Saarland had been at peace for a long time. She remembered the visions in the wood. Demons crawling through the marshes, unseen to the unsuspecting citizens of the city.
“No threats, as far as I know. Not that sort of trouble.” He paused for a bit, looking at the streets glide past out the window. “Or, not that kind of trouble initially.”
Why didn’t he just say what was going on?
