by Cory Barclay
He let the words sink in, trying to drive a wedge between the woman and her husband. It must have worked. She shook her head slowly. “He’s always cared more about that ship and that navigator woman than he has us. Whatever you say won’t make me hate the man, though.”
“You’re a better person than I,” Gustav answered. “But haven’t you heard? The woman you speak of is no longer the navigator of the ship. Rowaine Donnelly killed the captain and took the role for her own.”
Darlene said, “It’s not my business. We’re simple folk.”
Adrian took a seat on a bench by the door. Stretching his arms out, he said, “Rowaine Donnelly passed on the captaincy to her second-in-command.”
“That boy Dominic, you mean?” Darlene asked.
Gustav shook his head. “No, woman. Your husband is now captain of the Lion’s Pride. Maybe he wanted to save the surprise. Think of all you could buy with his new station in life.”
“Papa is the leader, mother?” Abigail looked up at her mother with big, watery eyes.
Darlene rubbed her daughter’s head, silencing her.
Gustav noticed something by his foot. He leaned over and picked it up, keeping eye-level with the girl. It was a doll, shaped like a small girl, made from hemp rope and yellow curlings.
The girl ducked away from her mother’s hand. “That’s Franny,” she said, reaching for it.
Gustav flashed a grin, then wiggled the doll in his hand. Abigail giggled. He lumbered up to his full height with the doll still in his hand. Staring down at Darlene, he said, “If you want to reap the benefits of your husband’s new title, you’ll cooperate with me. Do that and you and your daughter will be safe. So will Daxton.”
“What do you want?”
“Information.”
“I know nothing of what he does. He leaves his business in the sea when he comes home.”
Gustav ignored the woman’s comments. “We have a large company of men outside. I’m afraid they will have to stay here until we return. And you will need to remain indoors. But only until we can persuade your husband to help us.” He smiled at the little girl. “And as I’ve promised, all of you will remain safe.”
Darlene put her hands over her daughter’s ears. “What guarantees do I have that you won’t harm Abby?”
Gustav wiggled the doll in his hands again. He said, “You have my word.” He crouched down again. “I’m going to borrow Franny, Abigail. Is that all right?”
The girl’s lower lip trembled, but she nodded.
When Gustav got back outside, he turned to Adrian and said, “We need to gather your pirates.” Next, he faced Mia and said, “You’ll stay here with the men from Jergen’s ship. They should be docile enough. Make sure those two inside stay safe. I won’t have their harm on my conscience. Do you understand?”
Flustered, Mia said, “What do I do if the men get . . . rowdy?”
Gustav leered at her. “Service them yourself, whore. You should be used to it.” He stormed away, walking over to Kevan and Paul, who were standing by the six men he’d chosen to stay. He leaned in close to his two soldiers.
“If I don’t return by sun-up,” he said, “kill both girls inside and burn the house to the ground.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
ROWAINE
Rowaine’s party was closing in on Bedburg. They’d cut into Germany near Venlo, a municipal city and stronghold in the southeastern Netherlands that sat near the Dutch and German border.
Rowaine had purchased horses for all of them in Amsterdam, allowing them to cover ground quicker. It was the reason they’d reached Venlo in just over three days—a hundred miles from their starting point in Amsterdam.
It had not escaped Rowaine what a strange group she led: a pirate, a priest, a farmer’s daughter, a bastard, and a toddler. But she was used to that—being “different”—and not caring. She’d been that way since she was young, when she’d become a bastard herself.
She had no concern whether the people she befriended were considered good or bad. She relied on her gut to discover her acquaintances’ strengths and weaknesses, like she had with her shipmates and the co-conspirators of her mutiny.
Unfortunately I was wrong about one of them . . .
So far her gut told her that Dieter Nicolaus was strong-willed but weak-boned. His greatest strength is his love for family and God. His greatest weakness is his love for family and God. This makes him easily exploitable.
On the other hand, Sybil Nicolaus was stronger than her husband. She’d lost more. Rowaine could relate to that. She was fiery, too, like Rowaine. However, where Rowaine wanted to find her lost family and exact revenge, it seemed Sybil wanted to escape from those things and leave her past behind. But through the walls at Dolly’s I overheard her speaking with her husband, and her agreeing to come along when she could have fled into the night shows courage and resilience.
As for Martin Achterberg, Rowaine hadn’t been able to get a good read on him yet. He was apparently a bastard, had lost his family, and murdered his own father. The latter fact alone gave Rowaine pause. But he’s loyal to Dieter and Sybil, so he can stay with us. For now. It’s also plain that he’s wildly infatuated with me, which may prove useful.
Lastly, there was the baby, Peter Sieghart. Though clearly too young to analyze anything, it was his very existence that was the catalyst for this entire search.
And in Rowaine’s mind, that’s exactly what this journey was. On one hand, a search and rescue mission—to find her father. On the other, a search and destroy mission—to eliminate Heinrich Franz.
Sybil’s voice called out, interrupting her thoughts. “Ulrich. That was his name.”
“Pardon?”
Sybil rode a brown mare and had Peter in a pack attached to her torso. The little boy squirmed, his legs sticking out from the bottom of the pack. “You asked who Heinrich and Georg might have both known. Bedburg’s executioner was a man named Ulrich. He hurt Dieter when we were both jailed, until Georg came and rescued us.”
Defensively, Dieter said, “I was fine . . . he only pulled my fingernails from my hand. It looked worse than it was.”
“I heard your screams, Dieter,” Martin offered, riding up behind them.
Dieter scowled. “I didn’t ask your opinion.”
Martin smirked. “Well, he didn’t lay a hand on me the entire month I was in that stinking cell, so he must have not liked you.”
“Enough, both of you.” Rowaine rolled her eyes. They’re like quarreling children. She turned back to Sybil. “You say my father knew the torturer?”
“Possibly. Georg smashed Ulrich over the head and saved Dieter from further torture. I don’t know if they were acquainted before that. But I do know that Heinrich Franz spent many days in the jailhouse. It seemed to be his headquarters.”
Rowaine rubbed her chin, contemplating. “I’d have guessed the chief investigator of Bedburg would reside in Castle Bedburg. Unless he was trying to avoid that place . . .”
“I suppose it’s possible,” Sybil said.
“He could have been at odds with Werner, the little lord of the town,” Dieter said.
“We can find out.” Rowaine yanked the reins of her black steed, pulling him away from an overturned log. “Until we do, our assumptions are hearsay.” As Venlo’s structures shrank in the distance, she asked, “Who else might Heinrich have known? I’d like to have a plan before we arrive.”
Silence passed, only the cawing of crows disrupting their thoughts.
A few moments later, Dieter said, “He knew Solomon, the former bishop. But they disliked each other.”
Rowaine smiled. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”
Dieter raised his shoulders. “True, but Solomon was excommunicated after his careless inquisition and investigation, though Heinrich did help escort the bishop’s replacement to Bedburg.”
“Wait,” Rowaine said, stopping her horse. “You’re telling me the bishop of Bedburg was shunned and banished, but the investigator was re
warded . . . for the same investigation? ”
Dieter and Sybil both nodded.
“Don’t you two find that odd?”
The husband and wife glanced at each other.
Rowaine sighed. “Who was Solomon’s replacement?”
“A Jesuit by the name of Balthasar Schreib,” Dieter said. “He came from Cologne, and was bishop in Solomon’s wake. He’s well-known and respected, and a formidable foe to Solomon. I hardly knew him, but he seemed a strong force.”
Hiding from the castle and the lord? Conducting business with an outsider? I’m sensing a pattern here. How could Dieter and Sybil be so blind not to see it?
“Was Heinrich Franz born in Bedburg?” Rowaine asked.
“I’m not sure,” Dieter said. “Why?”
“I’d like to find out, first thing we do.”
“Why, Catriona?” Sybil asked, echoing her husband.
“It seems to me that Heinrich Franz may have had motivations coming from outside of Bedburg. If he stayed away from Lord Werner, cozied up with the town’s executioner, for God’s sake, and helped overthrow the town’s bishop, that all leads me to believe he was receiving orders from someone disassociated with the town itself.”
Dieter waved his hands in the air rapidly, wobbling in his saddle. “Hold on. I don’t know if he purposefully did all of that. He could have just been in the right place at the right time. Could be coincidence.”
Rowaine clicked her tongue. “I don’t believe in coincidence, Herr Nicolaus. It sounds more likely to me that some power-hungry man behind a mask is pulling the strings and trying to influence the whole masquerade. Maybe someone wants to keep the Protestants at bay—maybe for strategic or political purposes. And Heinrich Franz is that man’s puppet.”
“Investigator Franz never struck me as a puppet, Cat,” Sybil said.
Rowaine’s ideas were bubbling over now, and she ignored Sybil’s remark. To both of them she asked, “Can you imagine someone who might want to sway popular opinion, but without anyone knowing he was doing so?”
After several long seconds of silence, a voice called out.
“Archbishop Ernst, elector of Cologne.”
Everyone spun toward the voice.
It was Martin.
“My father talked about Archbishop Ernst often. I also heard Bishop Solomon talk about him when I was Solomon’s . . . altar boy. I never met the archbishop, but I know who he was.”
At least someone’s paying attention.
“And who was he, Martin?”
“My father hated him, but the bishop idolized him. If there was anything Solomon could do to win the archbishop’s favor, he’d do it. I imagine that’s why Solomon was so angry when Balthasar Schreib arrived. As far as my father, well . . .” the young man trailed off, looking down at the grass and scratching the back of his neck. “He worked with the Protestants, after all, so he was more inclined to agree with Archbishop Gebhard.”
“Gebhard was the one deposed by Ernst?” Rowaine asked, making sure to get her facts straight.
Martin nodded.
Rowaine patted the neck of her horse. The stallion breathed softly, whipping its head in a circle. “We may need to speak with Archbishop Ernst, then.”
Dieter chuckled. “You’d never get an audience with him. He’s an elector of the Holy Roman Empire, for Christ’s sake.” He squinted up at the sky and said, “Forgive me.”
“No, you’re right,” Rowaine said. “But if he’s employing Heinrich Franz, I want to know. Actually, we may not even need him. We can work around him.”
“How so, Cat?” Sybil asked.
“By being sharp-witted, my dear girl. Clever and sneaky.” She winked at Sybil. “Two things I’m very good at.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
SYBIL
At twilight, the company reached the western gate of Bedburg. A chill swept through the town as the sky darkened, almost making the group’s arrival seem ominous.
As Sybil rode through the gate, memories flooded back. Her last time in Bedburg she’d been fleeing for her life. Now she was returning to uncover mysteries she’d tried to forget for the past two-and-a-half years.
Dieter had killed a man here, forty yards from the very gate she’d just passed. Now Johannes’ older brother was in pursuit, probably still riding on their heels.
Still in the lead, Rowaine glanced back over her shoulder. “This place is foreign to me,” she said. “Where do we go from here?”
“I reckon we find a warm place to bed, get started in the morning,” Dieter said. “If we’re lucky, we’ll be able to hide ourselves away without alerting the town of our presence.”
“What are the chances of that?” Sybil asked off-handedly. “I feel as though we’re already being watched.” She added, “I hate this place,” as she watched the shuttered windows of every house they passed. Even though it was spring, winter still seemed to cling to Bedburg, dripping damp and wet from the windows, roofs, even the ground.
“This place was once your home, Beele,” Martin reminded her.
Sybil shrugged. “That fact doesn’t change how I feel.”
The group dismounted, opting to lead their horses in by foot rather than raise unnecessary awareness of their arrival.
“The town’s tavern will likely be bustling on a cold night like tonight,” Dieter said. “It’s on the eastern side of town, down this road.”
“I could use some whiskey to warm my blood,” Rowaine said. “That’s where we’ll go.”
Sybil put her hands on her hips. “Not an inn?”
“You can go sleep if you’d like. But I’d prefer to make my presence known. The quicker I find news about my father and my family’s killer, the quicker we can leave.”
With a sigh, Sybil followed Rowaine.
They made their way to a stable near the center of town, close to the inn. They put up their horses, and Rowaine paid the man to make sure nothing ill befell the steeds. Then she marched toward a building with an orange glow coming from the windows.
Two guards holding spears passed them by. Sybil looked down, avoiding the men’s gaze.
Suddenly she felt a presence and looked up quickly. Someone from the other side of the road bumped into her. Startled, she exclaimed, “Pardon me,” but the hooded figure kept walking.
Rowaine spun around and grabbed the fleeing person by the hood, pulling back hard.
The hood came off and the person turned. It was a young woman, hardly more than a girl by the look of her pale cheeks and big eyes. Her eyes weren’t naturally big, but were made so from Rowaine’s sudden grab.
“Hey!” Rowaine snarled, keeping hold of the girl’s hood.
“E-excuse me,” the girl said, trying to squirm away.
“Ava!” a male voice called out from behind.
Everyone but Rowaine turned toward the voice. If it were meant as a diversion, it fooled everyone but her. Rowaine’s eyes remained fixed on the girl.
“Give the lady back her purse,” Rowaine demanded through gritted teeth.
Sybil felt around her waist, where she usually kept a small pouch of coins. Indeed, it was missing.
A large young man—the mystery voice they’d heard—popped into view from beside a building. “Let her go, you bitch!”
Rowaine was in no mood. She reached into her waistband and pulled her pistol, pointing it squarely at the approaching boy. He raised his hands and took a step back.
“I said give my friend back her purse, girl.” Rowaine clicked back the matchlock. Sybil gasped.
The two guards they’d recently passed, hearing the disturbance, had returned. At seeing the drawn pistol, one of them pointed his spear at Rowaine. “What’s going on here?” he demanded.
Rowaine kept her eyes trained on the de-hooded girl. “I’ll tell you, once this—”
“This man tried to rob us,” another voice called out.
All eyes faced Martin Achterberg, baby Peter wiggling in his arms.
Martin was
pointing to the bulky young man, whose arms remained raised due to Rowaine’s pistol still aimed at his face.
“W-what?” the boy said.
Martin kept pointing at the boy. “This man did it. He tried to pawn the goods off to the girl.” Though he pointed at the boy and spoke to the guards, his eyes remained fixed on the girl.
Sybil noticed the girl was staring back at Martin, too.
“Not the girl?” one of the guards asked.
Martin shook his head.
he guards stepped toward the boy, their spearheads aimed at him. The boy, hands still raised, looked from side to side—two spears pointing from his right, a pistol from his left.
One of the guards said, “Let’s go, boy. You need a talk with Old Ulrich.”
Sybil winced at the mention of that name.
“You liar!” the boy shouted, but the two guards grabbed his arms and started dragging him off. Rowaine lowered her weapon but kept hold of the girl’s hood.
“Ava, tell them!” the boy shouted.
The girl stuttered as the boy was dragged off. She muttered, “Karstan . . .” under her breath. When she took a step forward, she was tugged back by her hood.
“The purse,” Rowaine said.
The girl handed it back.
“Consider yourself lucky, girl, and get out of our sight.” Rowaine waved her gun at the girl, who took off running the opposite way.
When she was gone, all eyes circled back to Martin.
“You want to tell us what that was about?” Dieter asked.
Martin watched the ground and stayed quiet for the rest of the walk to the tavern.
Sybil, Dieter, and Rowaine sat at a roundtable near the bar. The tavern stank of the usual smells, so Martin sat away from the stench of smoke and booze, and held Peter.
After guzzling her mug, Rowaine wiped her mouth with the side of her sleeve and asked, “What’s wrong with the boy?”
“Never mind him,” Dieter said, waving off Martin’s odd behavior. He drummed the table with his fingers, then said, “I’ve been thinking about tomorrow. I think we should avoid contact with Bishop Balthasar. At worst, he could arrest us and have us tried for our original crimes—and I don’t mean being branded Protestants, I mean being indicted for murder.”
