Innocence Lost: A story from the kingdom of Saarland (For Queen And Country Book 1)

by Patty Jansen

  “Yes, I’m happy that you got food.”

  He flashed a childish, innocent smile that made her choke up. Imagine the bliss of not being able to comprehend the horror of this invasion.

  Loesie had taken all the washing off the line. There were sheets, trousers and shirts.

  Next to the burnt-out barn they found a wheelbarrow that was still useable. They piled the sheets and clothes in, together with the pan and its contents, and went to the other houses.

  In the forecourt of the village lord’s house, they disturbed a group of crows picking at a corpse. Neither of them felt inclined to look closer. The sweet scent of decay told the story louder than anything else could.

  The house next to the mill was unaffected by fire, yet still uninhabited. Inside they found sacks of grain and some flour, but also some cheeses and a smoked ham, as well as plates, cups and tableware.

  They found a metal bucket and went to milk the cows. There were also a blankets and sheets neatly folded on shelves in the wardrobe.

  The miller had to be a newly-married man, for everything in the house was fresh and there was not enough of it for an entire family.

  Johanna felt terrible going through another person’s house and stealing their possessions, but the little voice in her head said that the people themselves were unlikely to be able to use it.

  But what if anyone has survived?

  This happened days ago, they would already have come back if they were alive.

  It was true, and the thought that all these people had just been killed was too big to comprehend.

  Why would anyone do that?

  They piled everything into the wheelbarrow and pushed it back through the waving grass. The sun was at its highest and when they came over the rise, the Lady Sara looked peaceful, as if they were simply underway to Lurezia and nothing had happened.

  Nellie sat on deck, peering anxiously at the riverbank.

  “We have food and clothes,” Johanna shouted up to her.

  They clambered up the ladder. They fashioned one of the horse blankets into a sack so they could haul the supplies up. The sack was heavy, but Roald took the rope from her and seemed to have little trouble with its weight. He lifted the sack to the deck. When he unwrapped the blanket, his eyes glittered like a child’s.

  “Look, we have cheese, I like cheese.” He held the cheese out to Nellie, who almost dropped it. “You like ham? We have ham, too. And eggs. You have to be careful with them, or they’ll break.”

  Loesie stood a little back, as if she was hesitant. Throughout the expedition she hadn’t once tried to communicate. The look in her eyes chilled Johanna. Empty, vacant, as if her mind was being consumed from within.

  “Did you see anyone while we were away?” Johanna asked Nellie.

  She shook her head.

  Johanna told Nellie about the burnt-out farmhouse.

  “And what happened to the people who live here?”

  “They’re all dead. And if they’re not, they’re somewhere else. It was horrible, Nellie.” Her voice wavered. She was tired, she wanted to know where Father was, and wanted to see at least one town that was unscathed.

  They cut the cheese with one of the knives they had brought from the farmhouse, and ate from the plates that they’d found in the miller’s house. Nellie put a sheet on the bed in the cabin and kept one for the two of them. They climbed down and got some hay to fashion into a bed in the hold.

  When it grew dark, they snuggled under the new blankets.

  “They’re much warmer,” Nellie said.

  Johanna lay down, staring at the small gap of moonlight that peeped in between the covers.

  She could still see the burnt corpses. A woman with a baby on the floor, white skulls in black ash, a piece of pink blanket. “What sort of monsters would do a thing like this? What sort of monsters would burn an entire city? Why?”

  “I don’t know, Mistress Johanna, but I’m scared.” She breathed out heavily. “Your friend scares me. I think the prince is also possessed by evil.”

  “The prince is ill. He has always been like this.” As for Loesie, yes Johanna could agree with her.

  “You know how the Church says . . . the Shepherd says there isn’t any magic? You have never believed that, haven’t you?”

  “You cannot deny what you know to exist. The Church may not like it, but magic exists.”

  She wondered what had brought this change in Nellie. “People who work on the land know it. Many have the magic. Many see the magic. It helps them grow their crops and look after their animals. If the Shepherds left their churches and got their noses out of their holy books, they would see that magic is all around.”

  “I never saw it.”

  “Then you also never looked, or didn’t want to see it. This terrible disaster started with magic, it’s wrought by magic and it’s about magic. Turning away from magic does no one any good.”

  ‎

  Chapter 17

  * * *

  THEY SAW NO ONE on the river the next day. No merchant sloops, no farmers’ barges. Once they came past a punt moored on a jetty, but there were no people. When Johanna had come with Father to Lurezia, the river had been quite busy with merchants and other vessels. On that trip, there had been people crossing the river in small boats, people riding horses on the banks, people fishing. This time, it was as if the country had died.

  Towards the end of the day, they arrived at the fork where the Rede River joined the Saar River. Both rivers were wide, softly churning expanses of water, and the Rede River especially was brown with the extra water from molten snow. The country on the left-hand bank would now be Estland, that on the right still Saarland. Past the Rede River, the left-hand bank would be Burovia. The tongue of land at the point between the two rivers was a kind of no-man’s land that was claimed by Estland, Saarland, Burovia or even Gelre depending on who was speaking. It was marshy ground, not worth much except for its strategic position.

  Upriver from the fork, the Saar River curved around in a big loop. Loesie’s farm was there, in an area people called The Bend.

  Johanna stood at the bow looking over the vast expanse of water while the sea cows made slow progress through the churning water.

  Aroden castle was on the Rede River, so they kept to the left.

  Past the fork where the Rede River joined, the country became more hilly and the river faster. Dark swathes of forest spread on both banks.

  Johanna had never been here. This had been considered dangerous country until quite recently. She had not attended the Aroden court for that reason, but had heard enough from Father about the bandits who would raid ships and steal all the cargo.

  * * *

  The Lady Sara continued up the river. Progress was slow because the current was strong and they had to make regular stops to rest the cows. Loesie mostly kept to looking after the cows and the ship. Nellie cleaned and tidied, even things that didn’t need cleaning and tidying. Roald was happy to do most of the cooking, and turned to be decent at it, albeit very messy, which then annoyed Nellie because she had to clean up after him.

  This left Johanna with precisely nothing to do except worry about the lack of people. When she had come with Father, they had stopped at a lot of places along the river to buy and sell. Because the river flooded, no one lived near the banks. At some places houses had been built on artificial mounds so that you could see them from the river. The houses were intact, but they saw no people. Once, they spotted a man on a horse, but he was too far away to talk to.

  Three days went by like this. At night they stopped in a safe place, ate from their supplies, and slept. They would leave someone on deck as watch—usually Loesie, because she didn’t seem to need any sleep at all. When Johanna came up the deck in the morning, Loesie would shake her head at the question of had she seen anyone.

  Then they would harness the sea cows for another day of travel. Johanna was both keen and anxious to get to Aroden castle. Above all, she hoped that her u
ncle remembered who she was and that they wouldn’t turn the group away once they saw Roald.

  It was one thing taking Roald to Aroden. It was another expecting the Estlander royals to forget their problems with the Carmine House. The further upriver they went, the bigger and more unsurmountable they became, until she was quite certain that her uncle would order Roald hanged as soon as they entered the castle. The Estlanders hated the Carmine House. It was not for nothing that they allowed minor princesses, like Johanna’s mother, to marry rich Saarlander commoners, rather than the royal family. Added to that, Estlanders spoke in a thick dialect and Johanna wasn’t sure she could make herself understood.

  Why didn’t she think about all this before setting out?

  Was there any point in going on? Maybe they should go back to see if Saardam was safe—no, that was stupid, too. The bandits wouldn’t have destroyed the city and left. Saardam was such a strategic place that no one would give it up without a fight.

  * * *

  It was getting towards the end of the third day on the river when a whistle came from the bow of the boat.

  Loesie stood at the bar handling the leather straps of the harnesses. The sloop had stopped and drifted into a bed of reeds, where the sea cows were busily tearing up stems by the roots.

  “Why have we stopped here?”

  “Ghghghghgh.” Loesie pointed at the horizon. Her eyes were wide.

  Johanna looked.

  At first she saw nothing unusual. Just an undulating field surrounded by a hedge, then a path and another field and—smoke. Jagged ruins. Her heart jumped.

  “Is that Aroden?”

  Loesie nodded.

  The castle and the surrounding town, where her mother grew up. “Have you seen any people?”

  She shook her head.

  Nellie had come up behind them. “Why are we stopping here—oh!” She raised her hand to her mouth. “Is this Aroden?”

  Johanna nodded. She couldn’t speak. All the hope she’d had to find a safe haven fled with the sight of this destruction.

  “Ghghghghghghgh.” Loesie pointed up and down the river and then shrugged.

  “Keep going,” Johanna said.

  Loesie flicked the reins to make the cows continue. The sloop slowly gathered pace. Johanna, Loesie and Nellie remained at the bow, looking over the landscape.

  Around the next bend they came across more burnt-out ruins, some still smouldering. Not a thing moved, not a bird called. A waft of burnt air drifted on the wind. Oh, if only she could read the wind. Was all of Estland in ruins? Were any of her relatives still alive?

  A couple of people, a woman and two young men, ran to the riverbank, shouting. They were filthy, covered in soot. The woman had an ugly sore on her forehead.

  Nellie raised her hand over her mouth. “Look at those people. What are we going to do?”

  “We can’t do much. We must protect Roald.” Her voice wavered. She was so tired. The temptation to jump from the deck into the river was great.

  “Should we moor here and check the castle?”

  “I don’t see that there is a point, Nellie. I’m pretty sure that burnt tower there is part of the castle. These bandits have laid the world to waste. There is no town unscathed, and if there are any royals still alive, they will be like Roald, in hiding.”

  A chill went over her. What if there were none left alive? What kind of chaos would descend upon the western lowlands? Many major royals had been at the ball. What if the Carmine House, the Aroden family and Baron Uti were all dead? Then Roald would be the only royal heir for all of those lands. And he would need to step up soon, so that people could have hope that peace and prosperity would return.

  Neither of them said anything for a long time. The sloop moved slowly upriver and the woman and her two teenage sons slid from view. Their voices faded in the distance. Johanna felt horrible about not stopping and helping them, but with Roald on board, they couldn’t afford to get involved in trouble.

  It started to rain, a soft drizzle that barely made the ground wet at first, but grew more persistent. They went into the tiny cabin where Roald had spent most of his days and where it smelled uncomfortably of male sweat.

  Johanna lit a candle and they shared some of their supplies. Roald chatted about cheese and ham and which kinds he liked, but no one else said much. Eventually, he fell silent as well, heaving a sigh.

  “Is there anywhere your uncle could have fled to safety?” Nellie asked Johanna, her voice low.

  Johanna shrugged. “The duke has a hunting lodge, but I don’t know where it is.” At any rate, the forests of Estland had never been the safest of places.

  “What are we going to do now, Mistress Johanna?” Nellie’s voice was timid.

  Johanna didn’t know, and felt irritated that making the decisions was all up to her.

  “Maybe . . .” She stared into the flame of the candle. By its feeble light, Loesie looked wide-eyed and crazy. Johanna was no longer sure if they could trust her. Nellie’s face was pale in contrast with her red and raw lips. Her bonnet was in need of a wash, and that made Johanna feel embarrassed. Nellie would normally rather die than wear something dirty.

  Roald’s beard had grown unruly. He looked the healthiest of all, but his mind was elsewhere.

  Johanna let out a deep breath. “Let’s find a place to stay for the night away from Aroden. Then tomorrow we’ll see if we can turn around and go back. Maybe we can stay at Loesie’s farm until we get news.”

  “Ghghghgh!” Loesie shook her head. She curled her fingers like claws and then made swimming movements with her hands.

  Johanna frowned at her. “Do you mean that the men who attacked your farm came from across the river?”

  Loesie nodded.

  Across the river from Loesie’s farm was the marshy no-man’s land. They had passed it on the way here, but had not thought anything of it or seen anything unusual. It was a useless piece of land, inundated when it rained and too wet for forests, grazing animals or farming. Some farmers went there to cut peat, and maybe hunt ducks, but it wasn’t much good for anything else. That, of course, made it good for hiding. Was that where the bandits lived?

  “Do they have a leader?”

  “Mmmmm.” Loesie nodded. She made some hand gestures.

  Johanna guessed what they meant. “He has long hair . . . He rides a horse?”

  “Ghghghgh.” Loesie shook her head. She pointed at the river.

  “He swims?”

  “Mmmm.” She shook her head again and mimicked riding and pointed at the river.

  “A water horse,” Roald said.

  Johanna frowned at him. “What is a water horse?”

  “It’s a creature from the fables,” Nellie said. “It’s a horse that has duck’s feet so that it can swim.”

  Oh. She frowned at Loesie and again at Nellie. Did either of them believe in water horses?

  “Well, it’s not going to help us much now. We have to decide where to go. We could go to Lurezia for help.” Because Burovia wouldn’t give it, since they never liked Saarland much in the first place, and Lurezia would probably be indifferent, too far away to care.

  She sighed. Was there even a place to go?

  “We are what’s left of free Saarland,” Nellie said into the depressed silence.

  There was nothing anyone could add to that. The free city of Saardam was dead, and Estland had been gutted. Johanna rose. She needed to be out of this smelly cabin.

  It had stopped raining.

  Johanna walked along the deck to the sloop’s bow and sat down at the driver’s bench. The sea cows were unharnessed. Their ropes dangled in the water, moving occasionally. One of the animals was chomping noisily and wetly in the dark somewhere beyond the edge of her vision.

  Foggy air blanketed the riverbanks, rendering the greens of the willows and grass in muted grey. Johanna hugged herself against the cold and humid air.

  Someone else came from the cabin. Nellie, judging by the sound of careful
footsteps.

  “Mistress Johanna? Are you all right?”

  “Sit down.”

  Nellie settled on the bench next to her. “Oh, it’s all so awful. Those poor people. I can still hear them calling out for us.”

  Yes, Johanna could, too. The woman and her two sons begging for help was probably an image that wouldn’t leave her for the rest of her life. “Do you know we hold the freedom of Saardam in our hands? We have the only surviving member of our royal family with us. If he dies without an heir, the holding of Saardam will fall into the hands of the nearest relative, who is . . . I don’t even know. Not someone who cares about us.”

  Horror was written on Nellie’s face. Everyone knew the story of how the young Nicholaos had settled feuds that went back centuries by opening the port of Saardam for trade. Simply put, Saardam was too important to landlocked countries, and it suited the rival nations that a small and insignificant royal family had possession of it.

  “We must find a way to take Saardam back from those bandits.”

  “Yes.” Although that wouldn’t happen until they had found other survivors.

  “And Roald must have an heir as soon as possible.”

  “Yes.” Johanna nodded, grimly. “But everyone who would be a suitable candidate for a wife is dead.” The memory of the destruction of the palace made her shudder. Another image she would probably never forget.

  A chill went down her back. She clamped her hands between her knees.

  Nellie said, “If King Nicholaos agreed to you dancing with the prince, you are a suitable candidate.”

  Johanna sighed and let her shoulders slump.

  Nellie began, “I’m sorry, I would have—”

  “No, Nellie. I’ve thought about it a lot.” In fact, ever since Father had mentioned the trouble of the royal family during that coach ride on their way to the ball.

  “In what way did you think about it?”