The Devil and the Dark Water

8

Holding his dagger to Eggert’s neck, a sword pressed to his chest, Arent had to admit that boarding hadn’t gone as well as he’d hoped.

‘Easy,’ he said, gripping the squirming musketeer a little tighter.

He eyed Jacobi Drecht, perfectly steady on the other side of his sabre.

‘I’ve no quarrel with you,’ said Arent. ‘But Sammy Pipps is a great man and I’ll not have him treated ill by piss-stains like this.’ He nodded to Thyman, who was staggering to his feet in a daze. ‘I want the word to go out that Sammy isn’t sport for bored soldiers. From this point on, anybody who lays hands on him won’t live long enough to regret it.’

Arent’s words betrayed none of his uncertainty.

There wasn’t a fouler individual alive than a musketeer in the United East India Company. The job paid poorly and so attracted only the blackest hearts, those content to pursue a reckless course far from home because home was where the hangman was. Once away, their only concerns were amusement and survival, and woe betide anybody who came between them.

The only way to command such men was through fear. Drecht would have to know which offences to turn a blind eye to and which insults required blood. If Drecht didn’t kill him, if he didn’t defend the honour these men didn’t have, they’d call it weakness. For the next eight months, he’d be fighting to get back even a pinch of the authority he’d boarded with.

Arent tightened his grip around the dagger, a drop of Eggert’s blood rolling down the edge. ‘Put the sword down, Drecht,’ he demanded.

‘Release my man first.’

They stared at each other, the howling wind whipping rain at their faces.

‘Your mate cheated you at dice,’ declared Sammy, breaking the tension.

Everybody looked at him, having entirely forgotten he was there. He was talking to Eggert, the musketeer being held by Arent.

‘What?’ demanded Eggert, the movement of his jaw forcing Arent to lower the dagger lest he accidentally put a spare hole in his mouth.

‘Earlier, while you were freeing me from the net, you were scowling at him,’ said Sammy, grimacing with effort as he got to his feet. ‘He annoyed you recently. You kept casting glances towards his coin purse and frowning. I heard it rattling under his jacket as we walked. Yours didn’t, because yours is empty. You’ve been wondering if he cheated you. He did.’

‘He can’t have,’ sniffed Eggert. ‘They were my dice.’

‘He suggested you use them?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Then you took a few rolls, but your luck soured after he won his first pot. Isn’t that so?’

The musketeer picked at the scabs on his bald head in agitation. He was so taken with Sammy’s accusations he hadn’t noticed Arent had released him.

‘How can you know?’ he demanded suspiciously. ‘Did he say something?’

‘He had another set of dice in his hand,’ explained Sammy. ‘He switched them when he scooped up your dice with his winnings. At the end of the game, he handed yours back.’

The crowd watching them murmured their surprise at this insight. More than one hushed voice accused him of devilry. It was always the same way.

Sammy ignored them and nodded at Thyman, who was leaning weak-kneed against a wall. ‘Open his coin purse, they’ll be in there,’ he said. ‘Roll them five times and you’ll win five times. They’re weighted in his favour.’

Seeing Eggert’s anger growing, Drecht sheathed his sword and put himself between the two musketeers.

‘Thyman, that way,’ he ordered, gesturing towards the mainmast. ‘Eggert, down there.’ He pointed at the stairs on to the orlop deck. ‘Keep away from each other today, or you’ll have me to answer to.’ His gaze suggested very clearly they wouldn’t enjoy that. ‘And you lot can see yourselves away, as well. I’m sure you’ve something else to be doing.’

Grumbling, the crowd broke apart and wandered off.

Drecht made sure Eggert and Thyman were truly done with each other, then turned his attention to Sammy.

‘How did you do that?’ He was filled with that curious mixture of awe and alarm that Sammy’s gifts often provoked.

‘I judged the character of the men and the relative heft of their coin purses,’ said Sammy, as Arent dusted him off. ‘I knew one was angry at the other, and money seemed a simple motive, so I led his anger where it wanted to go.’

The implications of the statement moved across Jacobi Drecht’s face with impressive speed.

‘You guessed?’ he exclaimed disbelievingly.

‘I know the game,’ said Sammy, spreading his hands as far as the chains would allow. ‘I used it myself in my youth. It requires quick fingers, lots of practice and somebody stupid enough not to realise they’re being cheated. I saw all of those qualities before me.’

Drecht barked with laughter and shook his head, marvelling at the audacity of it.

‘You cheated people at dice?’ he said. ‘Where does a noble learn to cheat people at dice?’

‘You mistake me, Guard Captain,’ said Sammy, becoming uncomfortable. Sammy didn’t speak much of his past, but Arent knew it was something he’d worked hard to escape. ‘I wasn’t born to nobility. My father died when I was a boy, and my mother was the poorest widow you ever saw. I grew up with the dirt for a pillow and the wind for a blanket. I had to take any coin that came my way, even if I had to put my hand in somebody else’s pocket to get it.’

‘You were a thief?’

‘And a dancer, and an acrobat, and an alchemist. For the most part, I was a survivor, and I still am, which is why I hired Arent to keep the murderers I investigate from adding me to their tally. He’s good at this labour, Guard Captain, and he won’t stand by if somebody threatens me.’ Sammy raised an eyebrow. ‘You see our dilemma, of course.’

‘Aye,’ said Drecht thoughtfully. ‘That’s why I’m going to guarantee your safety. I’ll put somebody I trust on your door. Anybody who bothers you will answer to me, and everybody onboard will know it.’ He thrust his arm towards Arent. ‘On my honour, Lieutenant Hayes. Will you accept it?’

‘I will,’ said Arent, shaking his hand.

‘Then it’s past time I showed Pipps into his cell.’

They exchanged the open air of the ship’s waist for a large, gloomy compartment in the bow, where the thick trunk of the foremast speared through the roof and into the floor. A solitary lantern swayed on the ceiling, momentarily revealing the scattered faces of the sailors sitting in the sawdust, before taking its light elsewhere. They were playing dice and complaining.

‘This is where the crew take their recreation when the weather’s bad,’ explained Drecht. ‘Reckon it’s the most dangerous part of the ship, but that’s just me.’

‘Dangerous?’ queried Arent. Sammy kicked at the sawdust, revealing the bloodstains beneath.

‘Once we’re out to sea the front half of the ship is given over to the crew, while the rear half is reserved for the passengers and senior officers,’ explained Drecht. ‘Neither will be allowed to cross into the other half unless they have duties there, which means the front half of the ship is basically lawless.’ He lifted a hatch to reveal the ladder beneath. ‘We’re down here.’

Descending, they arrived in a small room housing great rolls of sailcloth suspended in hooks on the walls. A workbench had been nailed to the floor, behind which a sailmaker was stitching together two pieces of hemp with an iron needle the size of Arent’s hand. He glanced at them without interest, then returned to his work.

Sammy examined the compartment. ‘I’ll admit, I expected much worse.’

A door opened behind them, a tremendous mass of gut and shoulders ducking through. He was bald, with mangled ears and pitted skin that resembled sand crossed by a small animal. A leather patch covered his right eye, but there was nothing to be done about the spiderweb of scars surrounding it.

He sneered at Pipps’s manacles.

‘You the prisoner?’ His tongue roamed his cracked lips. ‘I heard you were coming aboard. Been looking forward to some company.’

The sailmaker snickered over his stitching.

‘He’s under my protection, Wyck,’ warned Drecht, touching his sword. ‘There’ll be a musketeer keeping watch. Any harm befalls either of them, I’ll have you flogged. Doesn’t matter if there’s a dozen sailors who’ll vouch you were elsewhere.’

Wyck stepped forward, his face darkening. ‘What’s a soldier’ – he almost spat the word – ‘doing telling me anything? You don’t have any authority over the crew.’

‘But I have the governor general’s ear, and he’s got the ear of anybody he damn well pleases.’

Wyck scowled and stomped to the ladder. ‘Keep him quiet then. I’ll not have him wailing in the night, keeping me awake.’

With a nimbleness that belied his size, he leapt up the ladder and disappeared through the hatch.

‘What was that?’ asked Sammy.

‘The boatswain.’ Drecht’s tone was grim. ‘He keeps the crew in line.’

‘You’re not putting Sammy in with him,’ warned Arent.

‘No, that’s Wyck’s cabin in there,’ replied Drecht, pointing to the door he’d emerged from. ‘The cell is beneath us.’

He heaved open another hatch. This ladder was so narrow Arent’s shoulders got jammed halfway down, forcing him to wriggle to dislodge himself.

At the bottom was the sailmaker’s storeroom, offcuts of material piled on the ground, where they’d been dropped from above. It sat at the waterline, the gentle slaps of waves becoming the blows of a battering ram down here. A solitary finger of grubby light poked through the hatch, leaving all else in darkness. It took Arent a moment to realise Drecht was drawing the bolt on a small door at the rear.

‘This is the cell,’ he said.

Arent held Sammy back, then stuck his head inside. It was pitch black, windowless and fetid, and cut in half by the trunk of the bow mast. The ceiling was barely high enough for Sammy to sit upright.

‘What is this place?’ Arent demanded, barely able to hold his temper. Officers captured on the battlefield were entitled to treatment equal to their rank, which meant respectable quarters for the duration of their imprisonment. He’d expected the same for Sammy.

‘I’m sorry, Hayes, those are the governor general’s orders.’

Sammy’s face fell, panic showing for the first time. He backed away from the door, shaking his head.

‘Guard Captain, please, I can’t …’

‘Those are my orders, sir.’

Sammy turned his wild eyes on Arent. ‘It’s too small, I’ll …’ He eyed the ladder, clearly considering fleeing.

Drecht tensed and gripped the hilt of his sword. ‘Calm him down, Lieutenant Hayes,’ he warned.

Arent took his friend by the shoulders, staring him full in the face.

‘I’m going to talk to the governor general,’ he said soothingly. ‘I’ll see you’re moved, but I can’t do that if you’re dead.’

‘Please …’ pleaded Sammy, clutching his friend desperately. ‘Don’t let them leave me here.’

‘I won’t,’ said Arent, surprised to discover Sammy’s aversion to small spaces. ‘I’ll go to the governor general now.’

Quivering, Sammy nodded, only to shake his head a moment later. ‘No,’ he croaked, then more firmly, ‘No. You have to save the ship first. Talk to the captain, then the constable. Find out why somebody would threaten us.’

‘That’s your job,’ argued Arent. ‘I save you; you save everybody else. That’s the way it’s always been. I’ll talk to the governor general. He’ll see sense, I’m certain of it.’

‘We don’t have time,’ said Sammy, as Drecht took hold of his shoulder, walking him towards the cell.

‘I can’t do what you do,’ said Arent, almost as panicked as Sammy had been.

‘Then you better find somebody who can,’ responded Sammy. ‘Because I can’t help you any more.’

‘In you go,’ said Drecht firmly.

‘Strike his manacles for pity’s sake,’ demanded Arent. ‘He’ll not know a moment’s peace with those on.’

Drecht considered it, staring at the rusted links. ‘The governor general didn’t give any specific orders regarding the manacles,’ he admitted. ‘I’ll send somebody down first chance I get.’

‘It’s up to you now,’ said Sammy to Arent, getting down on his hands and knees and crawling into the cell.

A moment later, Drecht closed and bolted the door, casting him into absolute darkness.