The Devil and the Dark Water

12

Captain Crauwels bellowed instructions down to the helmsman, who was sighting their course through a small window in the helm, setting the rudders by adjusting the whipstaffs. Slowly, like an ox dragging a plough across a field, the Saardam picked up speed, bouncing over the waves, sea spray splashing on to the deck.

The crew had dispersed to their duties, leaving Arent to stare at the symbol already being washed away in the rain.

The captain had ordered the sail inspected for holes and loose stitching, but nothing had been found and the sheet had been declared wind-worthy. If anybody else was troubled by the symbol, they gave no indication. Most seemed to think it was the result of some strange jest, or an accident in storage.

Arent ran a troubled finger across his scar. He had to stare to see it, as it was hidden beneath a dozen other worse injuries. He’d received it as a boy, not long after the first hairs had sprouted on his chin. He’d gone hunting with his father, the family expecting them back that evening, as normal. Three days later, a merchant caravan had found Arent wandering alone on the road. His wrist was badly gouged and he was sodden, as if he’d fallen in a stream, though there were none nearby and it hadn’t rained. He couldn’t speak, couldn’t remember what had become of him, or of his father.

He still couldn’t.

That scar was the only thing that had returned from the forest with him. For years, it had been his shame. His burden. A reminder of unremembered things, including the father who’d disappeared completely.

How could it be on the sail?

‘Oi, Hayes,’ said Jacobi Drecht.

Arent turned, blinking at the guard captain, who was pressing his hat on to his head as the wind picked up across the water.

‘If you still want to talk to the captain, he’ll be in the great cabin,’ he said, the red feather in his hat twitching like an insect’s antenna. ‘I’m going over now, I’ll introduce you.’

Arent dropped his hand self-consciously behind his back, and followed Drecht across the waist towards the rear of the ship.

He felt as if he were learning to walk again.

Even at this slow pace, the Saardam was unsteady underfoot, sending him lurching from side to side. He tried to mimic Drecht, who was on the balls of his feet, anticipating the movement of the ship and balancing himself accordingly.

That’s how he’ll fight, thought Arent. Light-footed, circling. Never stopping. You’d swing at where he’d been, while he put his sword where you would be.

Arent was lucky the guard captain hadn’t run him through.

Luck. He hated that word. It was an admission, not an explanation. It was what you depended on when good sense and skill deserted you.

He’d been lucky a lot recently.

These last few years he’d started making mistakes, seeing things too late. As he got older, he was getting slower. For the first time in his life, he felt the weight of his body, like a bag of rocks he couldn’t put down. Near misses were getting nearer, close calls closer. One day soon, he wouldn’t see his killer’s feet, wouldn’t hear their shuffling or catch their shadow drawing up the wall.

Death kept flipping a coin and Arent kept taking the odds. Seemed like madness, even to him.

He should have quit a long time ago, but he didn’t trust anybody else to protect Sammy. That pride seemed ridiculous now. Sammy was in a cell aboard an imperilled ship and Arent had nearly got himself killed before they’d even left Batavia.

‘Shouldn’t have reacted the way I did earlier,’ said Arent, catching hold of a rope to steady himself. ‘Put you in a bad position with your men. I’m sorry for that.’

Drecht’s eyebrows reached for each other in thought.

‘You did right by Pipps,’ he said, at last. ‘Did what you were paid to do. But it’s my duty to protect the governor general and his family, and I can’t do that without the loyalty of these musketeers. Put me in that position again and I’ll have to kill you. I can’t seem weak, because they won’t follow me. You understand that?’

‘I do.’

Drecht nodded, the matter settled.

They passed through a large arch into the compartment under the half deck. It was the width of the ship and ran back like a cave. Hammocks were strung wall to ceiling on the starboard side, curtains hanging between them for privacy.

Arent was berthed in the one closest to the helm, a small, gloomy room where the whipstaffs working the rudders finally emerged after their long journey through the ship. Having set their course, the helmsman was now squatting on the floor with his mate, rolling dice for ale rations.

‘How do you know the captain?’ asked Arent.

‘Governor General Haan’s sailed aboard the Saardam a couple of times before,’ he said, puffing on his pipe. ‘Crauwels has a flatterer’s tongue and managed to put himself the right side of him, which aint a feat most manage. That’s why he chose this ship to sail home on.’

Drecht ducked through the door into the great cabin, leaving Arent to stare at it in dismay.

The doorway was half his size.

‘Should I fetch a saw?’ asked Drecht, as Arent contorted his huge frame through the gap.

After the dim helm, it took his eyes a moment to adjust to the dazzling glare of the great cabin. It was aptly named, for it was the largest room on the Saardam outside of the cargo hold. The whitewashed walls were bowed and the ceiling beamed, four lattice windows revealing the other six ships in the fleet spread out behind them, sails billowing.

A huge table took up most of the room, its surface covered in scrolls, ledgers and manifests. A navigational chart had been unrolled over the top, the four corners pinned down by an astrolabe, a compass, a dagger and a quadrant.

Crauwels was using the chart to plot a course. His jacket was folded neatly over the back of a nearby chair, revealing a crisp cotton shirt, clean enough to suggest it was new from the tailor that day. As with the rest of his attire, it was expensive.

Arent couldn’t make sense of it. Sailing was dirty work. Ships were kept afloat by tar and rust and grime. Clothing was sweated through, then stained, then torn. Most officers wore their clothes to rags, replacing them grudgingly. After all, why waste coin on finery, when it wouldn’t survive the voyage? Only nobles were so frivolous, but no noble would ever lower themselves to this profession. Or any profession, come to think of it.

The dwarf Arent had seen on deck, directing the passengers to their berths, was now standing on a chair, his hands pressed flat on the table, either side of a ledger which described the state of the ship’s stores. His downturned mouth and furrowed brow suggested it made for ill reading. He tapped the captain’s arm, drawing his attention to the source of his displeasure.

‘The dwarf is our first mate, Isaack Larme,’ whispered Drecht, following Arent’s stare. ‘It’s his job to manage the crew, which means he’s got a vile temper, so stay away if you can.’

Crauwels glanced up from the ledger as they entered, then immediately turned his attention to the chief merchant, Reynier van Schooten, who was slumped in a chair with his feet on another, drinking from a jug of wine. His jewelled hand lay across his round belly, which resembled a rock that had rolled into a ravine.

‘Tell me how I’m feeding three hundred souls when we left port with provisions for one hundred fifty,’ demanded Crauwels.

‘The Leeuwarden has taken on extra supplies,’ said Van Schooten lazily, his voice already slurred with drink. ‘Once we consume ours, we’ll have space to bring them aboard.’

‘What happens if we lose sight of the Leeuwarden?’ asked the first mate in a thick Germanic accent that immediately put Arent in mind of cold winters and deep forests.

‘We call out very loudly?’ suggested Van Schooten.

‘Now’s not the –’

‘We’ll ration and resupply at the Cape,’ interrupted Van Schooten, scratching his long nose.

‘Half rations?’ asked Crauwels, dragging another ledger in front of him that listed the victuals in their hold.

‘Quarter,’ said Van Schooten, earning a dark look from the captain.

‘Why did we put to sea without sufficient rations for the voyage?’ asked the first mate angrily.

‘Because we needed space for the governor general’s cargo,’ responded Van Schooten.

‘That box the musketeers carried aboard?’ replied Larme, confused. ‘Vos ordered us to make room in the gunpowder store.’

‘That box wasn’t his only cargo,’ replied Crauwels irritably. ‘There was something much bigger, as well. Van Schooten organised for it to be brought aboard in the dead of night and he won’t tell me what it is.’

Van Schooten took a long, fortifying gulp of his wine. ‘Ask the governor general if you’re curious, see where it gets you.’

The two men glared at each other, their dislike warming the air.

Jacobi Drecht coughed uncomfortably, gesturing to Arent when the captain raised his eyes.

‘Captain Crauwels, I’d like to introduce –’

‘I know him well enough, I’ve heard the stories,’ interrupted Crauwels, immediately returning his attention to Isaack Larme. ‘Tell me about the cabins? Where am I sleeping now the governor general’s in my quarters?’

‘Port quarter,’ said the first mate. ‘Cabin two.’

‘I hate that cabin, it’s beneath the animal pens on the poop deck. Every time anybody goes near it, the sows squeal for an hour to be let out. Put me starboard bow.’

‘I’ve already claimed it,’ said the chief merchant, shaking his empty jug of wine disappointedly, then peering inside.

‘Aye, because it’s a favourite of mine and you know it,’ growled Crauwels, the cords in his thick neck flaring. ‘You’re a petty bastard, Reynier.’

‘A petty bastard who won’t be kept awake by squealing sows all night long,’ agreed the chief merchant pleasantly, waving his empty jug in the air. ‘Somebody summon the steward, I’m out of wine.’

‘Who else has a cabin?’ asked the captain, ignoring him.

The first mate searched for the passenger manifest on the table, then turned to the page listing the nobility. He read the names with difficulty, running a grubby finger underneath each one. ‘Cornelius Vos. Creesjie Jens. Her sons Marcus and Osbert. Sara Wessel. Lia Jan. Viscountess Dalvhain.’

‘Anybody we can move?’ asked the captain.

‘Nobles all,’ responded the first mate.

‘Like vipers in their damn baskets,’ sighed Crauwels, rapping the table with his knuckle. ‘Sows it is.’

For the first time, he looked directly at Arent, but his attention was immediately diverted by the clack of a cane hitting wood, followed by hobbling footsteps. Glancing over his shoulder, Arent saw an elderly man in the doorway, surveying them like they were something foul slipping off a wagon wheel. He had gaunt cheeks, grey hair and yellow bloodshot eyes. Ragged purple robes hung from his thin body and a huge cross was dangling around his neck. A splintered wooden cane seemed to be the only thing keeping him upright.

Arent would have put his age at seventy, but appearances were deceptive this far from Amsterdam. A difficult journey to the East Indies could easily put ten years on a body, which was then assaulted by Batavia’s never-ending cycle of disease and recovery, each time regaining a little less of what had been lost.

Before any of them could speak, a young, broad-shouldered native woman rustled in after him. She was a mardijker, if Arent had to guess. A slave freed by the Company because she was a Christian. She was dressed for the fields in a loose cotton shirt, her curly brown hair tucked into a white cap, a long hemp skirt trailing along the floor. She wore a sodden apron and a large satchel hung across her back, but she seemed untroubled by its weight.

Her face was round, with heavy cheeks and large, watchful eyes. She offered the assembled company neither deference nor greeting, simply turning her gaze to her companion and waiting for him to begin.

‘May I speak with you, Captain Crauwels?’ asked the elderly man.

‘Every other bugger has today,’ grunted Crauwels sourly, glancing at the splintered cross. ‘Who are you?’

‘Sander Kers,’ said the stooped man, his firm voice betraying none of the weakness evident in his trembling body. ‘And this is my ward Isabel.’

The sun momentarily dipped behind the clouds, darkening the room.

From his chair, Van Schooten twisted his body towards them, leering suggestively. ‘Oh, aye, your ward, is she? How much does a ward cost these days?’

Evidently Isabel didn’t understand the comment because she wrinkled her brow and looked to Sander for an explanation. He contemplated Van Schooten through narrowed eyes, his gaze as fierce as holy light. ‘You are so far from God’s sight,’ he said, at last. ‘What drove you into the dark, my son?’

Van Schooten blanched, then became angry, waving him away. ‘Off with you, old man, there’s no passengers allowed up here.’

‘God brought me here; it isn’t for you to send me away.’

Such was his conviction, even Arent believed him.

‘You’re a predikant?’ interrupted Isaack Larme, nodding to the cross.

‘That’s right, dwarf.’

The first mate stared at him with misgiving, while the captain plucked a small metal disc from the table, flicked it into the air and caught in his palm.

Arent shifted uncomfortably, conflicting urges demanding he hide or flee. His father had also been a predikant, making it a profession he instinctively associated with malevolence.

‘You’ll find precious little welcome here, Sander Kers,’ said Captain Crauwels.

‘Because Jonah was cursed by God for sailing against his divine will, and now sailors believe all holy men bring ill fortune,’ said Sander, his tone suggesting he’d heard the warning more than once. ‘I have little patience for superstition, Captain. God’s plan for each of us is writ in the heavens long before we’re born. If this ship flounders, it’s because He has chosen to close His fist around it. I will welcome His will and go before Him with humility.’

Isabel murmured in agreement; the rapt expression on her face suggested they’d all be lucky to drown so devoutly.

Crauwels sent the metal disc spinning into the air and caught it again. ‘Aye, well, if you’ve come to complain about your quarters, then –’

‘I’ve no quarrel with my accommodations, my needs are few,’ said the predikant, who’d obviously taken umbrage at the presumption. ‘I wish to discuss your rule prohibiting me from travelling past the mainmast.’

Crauwels regarded him warily. ‘Everything afore the mainmast is the domain of the sailors, everything aft is kept for the senior officers and passengers unless the crew have duties there,’ he explained. ‘Any sailor crosses the mast without permission gets flogged. Any passenger goes the other way is at the mercy of the crew. It’s that way on every ship in the fleet. Even I don’t often venture down that end of the ship.’

The predikant raised an eyebrow. ‘You fear these men?’

‘Isn’t one of them who wouldn’t slit your throat for a free drink, then rape your ward while your blood was still warm,’ interrupted Reynier van Schooten.

His tone was meant to shock, but the predikant gazed at him levelly, while Isabel’s hand tightened around the strap of her satchel. Whatever she thought of the declaration, it didn’t show on her face.

‘Fear is the curse of the faithless,’ said Sander. ‘Upon my brow, a sacred duty has been placed. I mean to fulfil it and I will trust God to protect me while I do so.’

‘You mean to go amongst the crew?’ asked Isaack Larme.

‘Yes, dwarf, and deliver God’s word.’

Larme bridled. ‘They’ll kill you.’

‘If that is God’s plan for me, then I welcome it.’

He did, thought Arent. He really did. He’d come across a few pious men in his time and learned to spot the fakers. Piety, true piety, came at a savage cost. God was the only flame that gave them light, the only source of warmth and direction. They saw the rest of the world as a dull grey thing they’d ecstatically set alight to spread their flame. Sander Kers spoke every word as if he were striking the flint.

A silent conversation passed between Crauwels and Larme, a question asked through twitches and small movements of the head, the answer delivered with pursed lips and a slight shrug. It was the language of those who worked at dangerous occupations in close quarters. Arent communicated with Sammy the same way.

The predikant’s gaze bore into Captain Crauwels. ‘Now, do I have your blessing to go about my ministrations?’

Crauwels threw the metal disc into the air again, only to immediately snatch it back down in frustration. ‘My permission, aye. Not my blessing. And it extends only to you, not your ward. I’ll not risk a mutiny over lust.’

‘Captain –’ protested the young woman.

‘Isabel!’ Sander interrupted sternly. ‘We have what we came for.’

She glared from one face to the other, her expression indicating quite clearly that while they had what they had come for, she did not. Sucking her lips in irritation, she stamped out of the cabin.

Sander Kers hobbled after her on his cane.

‘Well, there’s a spot of trouble I had no use for,’ said Crauwels, scratching his eyebrow. ‘Now, you, thief-taker, what do you need from me today?’

Arent bristled at the title. Sammy had always hated being called a thief-taker. He said it was the profession of brawlers and gutter dwellers, fit only for small mysteries easily solved by fists. He preferred to be called a problematary; a title entirely made up and entirely his own, yet one kings had emptied treasuries to employ.

‘Did you have a maimed carpenter aboard?’

‘Bosey, aye. Knew the name for every nail and plank holding this ship together. Didn’t turn up for roster, though. Why?’

‘Sammy Pipps thinks he was the leper who threatened us on the docks.’

Isaack Larme flinched, then tried to cover it by rolling up his chart and hopping down from his stool. ‘I need to check our speed, Captain.’

‘Take the jug of ale out of the helmsman’s hand while you’re out there,’ he said gruffly.

Arent watched Larme leave, resolving to talk to him later, once he had everything he needed from the captain.

‘Can you think of any reason this Bosey would be threatening the Saardam?’ asked Arent.

‘I know he fell afoul of the crew somehow, though I couldn’t tell you how. A captain has to keep his distance from the men much as he can, else there’s no way to govern them. Larme would know more.’

‘On the docks, he mentioned having a master? Know anything about that?’

‘There’s one hundred and eighty sailors on my crew, Hayes. You’re lucky I know his name. Honestly, it’s Larme you need. He’s closer to the rabble than I am.’ He was growing impatient. ‘Is there anything else? I’ve still got a dozen other nuisances to attend.’

‘I need permission to speak with the constable guarding your gunpowder store,’ said Arent.

‘Why?’

‘Sammy Pipps is worried somebody’s planning to blow it up.’

‘Good enough,’ grunted the captain, throwing the metal disc towards Arent, who caught it in his palm. It was heavy and engraved with a double-headed bird. Arent might have mistaken it for a wax stamp, except for the hole in the middle.

‘Show the constable that token and he’ll know you go with my good word,’ he said.

‘A moment,’ said Reynier van Schooten, making a grand show of rising from his chair and going to the table.

He pulled a quill from an ink pot and began scrawling a series of numbers on a piece of vellum. ‘I’m the master of this voyage, and all doors will remain closed to you until I say otherwise. Unfortunately, I can’t give you what you ask until you settle a debt,’ he said, tossing a handful of pounce on the ink to dry it, before handing it to Arent.

‘What this?’ asked Arent, staring at it.

‘It’s a bill,’ responded Van Schooten, his eyes shining.

‘A bill?’

‘For the cask.’

‘What cask?’

‘The cask of ale you broke open on the dock,’ he said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. ‘It was Company property.’

‘You’re charging me for sparing a man’s suffering?’ demanded Arent incredulously.

‘The man wasn’t Company property.’

‘He was on fire.’

‘Be glad the Company didn’t own the flames,’ said Van Schooten, with that same infuriating reasonableness. ‘I’m sorry, Lieutenant Hayes. As per Company policy, we may not render you any service until prior debts have been settled.’

Crauwels growled, snatching the vellum from Arent’s hand and shaking it in the chief merchant’s face. ‘Hayes is trying to help, you dark-hearted wretch. What’s become of you these last two weeks? It’s like you’re a different man.’

Doubt flashed on Van Schooten’s face, but it was no match for his arrogance.

‘Perhaps if he’d come to me first, we could have been spared this unpleasantness, but’ – he shrugged – ‘here we are. My authority must –’

‘Your authority is worth salt!’

The voice had come from an adjoining doorway, where Governor General Jan Haan was red-faced and shimmering with rage. ‘How dare you treat Lieutenant Hayes with such disrespect,’ he hissed, disgust pouring out of him. ‘From this point forwards, you will address him as “sir” and you will show him the same deference you show me, or I’ll have Guard Captain Drecht cut out your tongue. Do you understand?’

‘My lord –’ Van Schooten stammered, glancing between Arent and the governor general, desperately trying to draw some line between them. ‘I … I … no offence was –’

‘Your intentions couldn’t be less important to me,’ snapped the governor general, dismissing Van Schooten with a wave of his hand.

His gaze found Arent, a sudden smile brightening his face.

‘Come, Nephew,’ he said, inviting him inside. ‘It’s time we talked.’