The Devil and the Dark Water

18

Dinner that night was a torment for Sara, who was much too full of worry to settle to small talk with the other passengers.

Guard Captain Drecht had stationed a musketeer outside the passenger cabins, easing her mind a little, but that had been her last success. Dorothea hadn’t been able to find a passenger who knew what Laxagarr meant, which left only Johannes Wyck to translate. Much as she wished to summon the boatswain to her cabin and interrogate him, she couldn’t risk her husband finding out. Calling for the carpenter had been risky enough, and she’d had a good excuse for doing that.

It was infuriating.

She was the highest-ranking noblewoman onboard, and yet she had less freedom than the lowliest cabin boy.

At least this interminable dinner was almost over, she thought.

The food had been eaten and the cutlery cleared, aside from a great silver candelabrum, its dripping candles casting every face in a sinister light. The leaves of the table had been dropped, making room for the diners to scatter around the great cabin and engage in trivial, mostly tedious, conversations.

Sara had taken herself to a chair in the corner, begging a few minutes’ rest to overcome a headache. It was a ploy she’d used before at social engagements and it usually yielded at least twenty minutes of solitude after the initial barrage of concern had waned.

Sitting silently in the shadows, she tried to make sense of the strange gathering before her. Mostly it was senior officers Sara didn’t recognise, aside from Captain Crauwels, who was resplendent in a red doublet and crisp white hose, his silk ribbons immaculately tied and buttons polished, each one catching the candlelight. It was a different outfit from the one he’d worn during the day, but equally well tailored.

He was talking to Lia, who was peppering him with seafaring questions. Initially, Sara had worried that her daughter was letting her cleverness slip. She often did when she was excited, but Lia was wearing her best disguise – the vacuous expression of a dim noblewoman trying to impress a suitor.

Crauwels seemed to be enjoying it. In fact, it was the most comfortable he’d appeared all evening.

He was a peculiar man, she thought. Caught at the crossroads of his own contradictions. For all his fine clothes, he was a ruffian at heart. Honeyed words greeted the nobles, but he was coarse and short-tempered with everybody else. His feast was lavish, and yet he ate very little of it. He drank from his own bottle of ale rather than the wine served, and urged on the conversations around him, even while speaking little, and becoming impatient when anybody else spoke to him. There was no doubt he wanted to impress, and equally no doubt that he was uncomfortable with the people he was trying to impress.

Her eyes drifted to Sander Kers, who was lurking near the windows with Isabel, scrutinising their fellow diners.

He’d been avoiding her all evening.

At first she’d thought him merely awkward – happier to observe conversation than participate in it – but as the hours had gone by, she’d begun to discern a pattern. He wasn’t interested in people; he was interested in their arguments. At every raised voice, he would lean forward eagerly, his lips parting, only to sag in disappointment when the argument dissolved into good-natured laughter. He would then mutter something to Isabel, who’d nod her agreement.

As far as Sara could tell, his ward had said nothing all night, but she wore her silence comfortably. For some, such as Creesjie, being quiet was the loudest thing they could do. It demanded investigation.

Isabel was the opposite. Those watchful eyes were filled with candour. They did the work her mouth would not, admitting every moment of doubt and fear and surprise.

There was a noise from the doorway and Sara’s heart leapt, hoping to see Arent finally arriving. But it was only the steward bringing more wine.

She shook her head, annoyed at her own eagerness. She wanted to know what he’d discovered, but his chair had remained empty, as had that of Viscountess Dalvhain, who hadn’t been able to attend because of ill health.

This, at least, had given the diners something to gossip about.

After trading theories on the imprisonment of Samuel Pipps for a full hour, they’d moved on to discussing Dalvhain’s wealth and lineage, but it was all speculation. Nobody in the room had ever met her, aside from Captain Crauwels, who spoke gruffly of a sickly woman with a cough that could knock the leaves off a tree.

‘Dalvhain,’ murmured Sara, worrying at it.

As a girl, she’d been forced to memorise reams of heraldry, ensuring she’d never shame her father by not immediately knowing who a wealthy stranger was at a party, but she didn’t recognise the name Dalvhain.

Creesjie’s laughter rose above the chatter. She wasn’t capable of sitting in her cabin and moping. She thrived on good cheer, which was handy because it was Creesjie’s great gift to be able to convince people that her day had been a wretched grey thing before their arrival.

Currently, she was talking with Chief Merchant Reynier van Schooten, her fingertips resting lightly on his forearm. By the rapt look on his face, the chief merchant’s heart was already twisting itself in knots.

Sara couldn’t understand why Creesjie was bothering. Van Schooten was a vexatious creature, permanently drunk and apparently incapable of conversing without spite. It was a measure of this evening that everybody else kept the table between themselves and him.

As ever, Cornelius Vos was standing a little way away, hands behind his back, watching Creesjie with the expression of pained longing he always wore in her company.

Pity mixed with frustration in Sara’s breast.

Vos was a decent sort, with a great deal of power and, presumably, wealth. There would be plenty of suitors happy to share his life, but he pursued the one impossible choice.

Creesjie Jens was the most desirable woman in the Company.

Aside from her beauty, she was a fine musician, a witty conversationalist and, by her own admission, talented in the bedchamber. Such women came around rarely, and their value was considerable.

Her first husband had been a staggeringly wealthy merchant and her second the world’s foremost witchfinder. Jan had summoned Creesjie to Batavia to be his mistress after he’d heard of the witchfinder’s unsolved murder, and now she sailed back to wed a duke in the French court.

Poor, dull Vos, writhing in his adoration, might as well have fallen in love with the moon itself. It would have been easier to talk into his bed.

Spotting Sara in the chair, Creesjie begged a moment from her companion and flounced over.

‘What a wonderful company,’ she said gaily, her eyes watering with wine. ‘Why are you skulking in the shadows?’

‘I’m not skulking.’

‘Brooding?’

‘Creesjie –’

‘Go find him.’

‘Who?’

‘Arent Hayes,’ she said in exasperation. ‘He’s the one you want to talk to, so go find him. You can lock eyes and talk chastely of lepers and demons and other dreadful things. It would do my heart glad to think of you two battling this evil together.’

Sara reddened, earning a sly laugh from Creesjie, who took her hands and hoisted her out of the chair. ‘It’s my understanding that he’s staying in the compartment under the half deck,’ her friend said. ‘That’s two walls away, on the other side of the helm.’

‘I can’t go,’ protested Sara half-heartedly. ‘I’m the highest-ranking noble here.’

‘Of course you can.’ Creesjie adopted a pompous tone. ‘As the highest-ranking noble here, you can do what you wish. Besides Jan is in bed, so it really doesn’t matter. I’ll tell everybody you felt faint.’

Sara touched her friend’s cheek in gratitude. ‘You are marvellous.’

‘I know.’

‘Keep Lia away from the chief merchant,’ she said, taking a step towards the door. ‘He makes me queasy.’

‘Oh, leave Reynier be. He deserves pity, not scorn.’

‘Pity?’

‘Can’t you see the pain that beats where his heart should be? He’s hurt, so he’s hurting others.’ She mulled it a second. ‘Besides, he’s drunker than a king on his wedding night. He couldn’t carry himself back to his bed, let alone Lia, but I’ll do as you wish.’ Anticipating Sara’s next question, she added, ‘And I’ll ensure somebody of merit escorts us both back safely. Now, go find your brute.’

From the candlelit brightness of the great cabin, Sara entered the darkness of the helm, where she heard a distant fiddle being played, accompanied by somebody singing in a low, rough voice. At first, she mistook it as coming from the bow of the ship, but she realised it was drifting down from the quarterdeck.

The captain had warned the women not to move around by themselves at night, but curiosity was ever her vice.

Hitching her gown, she climbed the staircase and walked straight into the song.

Arent was playing the fiddle by the light of a candle melted to a cask. His eyes were closed, those large fingers moving deftly across the strings. Guard Captain Jacobi Drecht sat opposite, singing a maudlin song. He was slouched forward, his clasped hands dangling between his knees, his magnificent sabre laid at his feet. Two empty jugs of wine lay on the floor and there was a third on the cask, suggesting they’d been here for some time.

Seeing Sara, Drecht leapt up, knocking his stool backwards.

The music stopped immediately. Arent peered at Drecht, then over his shoulder at Sara. He smiled with genuine pleasure. She mirrored it, surprised by how pleased she was to see him.

‘My lady,’ stumbled Drecht, who was obviously drunk and obviously trying not to be. ‘Did you need assistance?’

‘I never knew you could sing, Guard Captain,’ she said, clapping her hands delightedly. ‘All these years you’ve protected my family, how did I not know?’

‘The fort’s a large place, my lady,’ he said. ‘And I sing very quietly.’

She laughed at his jest, before turning her attention to Arent.

‘And you, Lieutenant Hayes.’

‘It’s still Arent,’ he corrected gently.

‘You play beautifully.’

‘Only useful thing I brought back from war,’ he said, stroking the neck of his fiddle. ‘Well, this, and an excellent recipe for mushroom stew.’

‘Are you returning to your bedchamber, my lady?’ wondered Drecht. ‘May I escort you?’

‘I actually came to speak with Arent,’ she said.

‘Then you should sit,’ said Arent, pushing a stool towards her with his foot.

‘I’ll help you, my lady,’ said Drecht solicitously.

‘Very kind, Guard Captain, but sitting down is one of the few things I’m still allowed to do for myself, so I’m reasonably skilled at it.’

Eyeing the low stool, Sara cursed her pride. Her petticoat was made of red brocade and inlaid with pearls, and her bodice was covered in a waterfall of lace. The entire outfit was only slightly lighter than a suit of armour. Very awkwardly, she lowered herself on to the stool, the candle’s golden light washing over her. Amid the waves and twinkling stars, the formal chatter of the great cabin felt like a very distant life.

‘Drink?’ asked Arent, passing her a jug.

‘I’ll find you a mug,’ said Drecht.

‘The jug will be fine,’ she said soothingly. ‘Just don’t tell my husband.’

Tipping it to her lips, she braced herself for the dreadful taste of whatever swamp water soldiers drank, but it was wonderful.

‘It’s from Sammy’s stash,’ explained Arent, who was plucking the strings of his fiddle experimentally. ‘If you want to try real soldier swill, you’ll have to wait until next week when we’ve run out of this.’

There was that smile again. It started in his eyes, she realised. They were green with golden centres, strangely delicate considering the brutal face surrounding them.

‘Have you told the guard captain about Old Tom?’ asked Sara, handing the jug back.

‘Didn’t need to,’ said Drecht. ‘The governor general’s already had a word. Told me about the symbol on the sail and how it ravaged the Provinces thirty years back. Can’t say I believe any of it, but he’s afraid. He’s demanding I personally escort him whenever he leaves his cabin.’

‘Lucky you,’ said Sara sarcastically.

‘You don’t believe in devils, Drecht?’ asked Arent, holding his fiddle to his ear as he tightened one of the strings.

‘Don’t see the use of them,’ he said, picking a trapped moth out of his beard and crushing it in his fingers. ‘I’ve never seen one standing over a dead child. I aint ever seen one ravage a woman or set fire to a hut with a family still inside. You’ve been on the battlefield, Hayes. You know what men are when there’s nobody ordering them to be better. They don’t need Old Tom whispering suggestions in their ear. Evil comes from in here’ – he hammered his chest – ‘it’s born in us; it’s what we are when you take away the uniforms and the ranks and the order.’

Sara hadn’t needed a battlefield to teach her that lesson. Her entire life had been spent in study of men. Not from love or admiration, as was the proper way for a woman, but from fear. Men were dangerous. They were fickle of mood, liable to lash out when disappointed, and they were frequently disappointed – most often by their own shortcomings, though only a fool would tell them as much.

‘If you don’t think a devil’s prowling this boat, what’s responsible for that mark on the sail?’ prodded Arent.

‘I reckon one of the crew’s got hold of the story and is playing tricks on his betters.’ Drecht flung his hand towards the waist of the ship. By the reaching flame of the running light, Sara could just about see the crew singing and dancing to flutes and drums. The shrieks, laughter and sudden eruptions of violence made Sara’s skin crawl. ‘Nothing but spite and boredom at work on this boat, you mark me.’

‘I’m not saying it aint, but your theory still leaves plenty of questions Sammy won’t be happy without answers to,’ replied Arent, taking a swig of wine. ‘Not least how the ship’s lame-footed carpenter became a leper, then ended up climbing a stack of crates to doom the Saardam without a tongue.’

‘He wasn’t a leper,’ said Sara. ‘At least not in the traditional sense. Leprosy is a dreadful thing that worsens over years. If he’d had it on Saardam, the crew would have known. If he developed it in Batavia, it wouldn’t have been advanced enough to require those rags.’

‘Do you think it was a disguise?’ asked Arent.

‘Or a uniform,’ suggested Drecht. ‘Every army has one.’

‘Johannes Wyck probably knows,’ said Sara, picking at a loose pearl on her dress. ‘He must have cut out Bosey’s tongue to stop him saying something, and he likely knows what favours were asked in return for the riches Bosey was promised. And he definitely knows what Laxagarr means.’

‘Laxagarr?’ queried Drecht. ‘Is that a name?’

‘Could be. Or a place,’ Sara shrugged, her dress rustling. ‘Apparently, it’s Nornish.’

‘I’ll ask my musketeers. Somebody might recognise it. Everybody’s from everywhere down there.’ He finished off his wine. ‘What about you, Arent? Do you believe we’ve a devil onboard?’

‘I’ve seen Sammy pick apart too many ghost stories to believe there’s one happening here,’ said Arent, the flame reflected in his eyes.

Drecht yawned and stood up stiffly. ‘I best relieve the musketeer on the governor general’s door.’ He offered an arm to Sara. ‘May I escort you to your cabin, my lady?’

‘I’d like to stay in the fresh air a little while longer, Guard Captain,’ she demurred. ‘I’m certain Arent will escort me when I’m ready to leave.’

Drecht flashed him an enquiring glance, earning a nod.

‘Very well,’ he said a little uncertainly. ‘Goodnight, my lady. Goodnight, Arent.’

Arent nodded and Sara waved, both of them watching in amusement as he stopped halfway down the stairs and glanced over his shoulder.

‘Is it me he doesn’t trust, or you?’ wondered Sara.

‘Oh, you, certainly,’ said Arent. ‘Me and Jacobi Drecht are the best of friends now.’

‘I can see that,’ she said. ‘Didn’t he have a sword to your chest this morning?’

‘And he will again if I cross him,’ replied Arent cheerfully. ‘Most cold-blooded man I ever met.’

‘Strange sort of friendship.’

‘Strange sort of day.’ He plucked at his fiddle, clearly itching to play. ‘Would you like a song?’

‘Do you know “O’er the Gentle Water”?’

‘I do,’ he said, finding those first notes.

Some songs weren’t mere songs. They were memories curled tight and set alight. They made you heartsick. ‘Gentle Water’ did that for Sara. It carried her back to childhood, to her parents’ grand house and her sisters, the five of them coming home bone weary and shivering cold after a day’s riding, creeping into the kitchen to eat stew under the table with the dogs.

Her own daughter had never had that innocence, she thought sadly. Nor that happiness. Her father had jailed her behind the fort’s stone walls for fear she’d be accused of witchcraft if she were allowed into the world. Once they were free of him, Sara intended on giving Lia every childhood experience she’d been denied.

Arent played his fiddle softly.

‘Why didn’t you come to dinner tonight?’ she asked him, surprising herself with her candour.

Arent flicked her a glance, then returned his attention to his playing.

‘Did you want me there?’

She bit her lip, only able to nod.

‘Then I’ll come tomorrow,’ he said softly.

Sara’s heart was beating furiously. For something to do, she started tugging the jewelled pins out of her hair, allowing her red curls to come tumbling free, easing the pressure on her scalp.

‘Is that one of the pins you offered me on the docks?’ asked Arent.

‘I had thirteen of them,’ said Sara, moving one of them around to catch the firelight. ‘They were a wedding gift from Jan.’ She smiled slightly. ‘After fifteen years I finally found a use for them.’

‘Those pins must be worth a fortune,’ he said. ‘But you traded one for a funeral that would have cost three guilders.’

‘I didn’t have three guilders on me.’

‘But –’

‘I haven’t worn these pins since my wedding day,’ she interrupted, still staring at the one in her palm. ‘My husband asked me to wear them today, so I fetched them from the treasury this morning, blew the dust off and put them in my hair. Tonight, they’ll go back into their case and I won’t wear them again for another fifteen years.’ Sara shrugged, placing the pins near the candle on the cask. ‘Perhaps you see some value in that, but I don’t. I saw value in putting them to a Christian purpose and treating an unfortunate soul with dignity and respect, however late it may have come.’

Arent stared at her admiringly. ‘You’re the wrong kind of noble, Sara.’

‘I certainly hope so. Oh, that reminds me.’ From her sleeve, she withdrew a vial of the sleeping draught she’d given the leper on the docks. The viscous brown liquid glittered in the candlelight. ‘Here,’ she said, handing it to him. ‘I meant to give you this at dinner, but here will do well enough. It’s for Pipps.’

He stared at it uncomprehendingly, the vial tiny in his scarred palm.

‘It will help him sleep,’ she explained. ‘My cabin is a coffin, so I can’t imagine how dreadful his cell must seem. A drop of that and he’ll sleep all day or night. Two drops and he’ll sleep half of the next.’

‘What happens if he takes three drops?’

‘He’ll make a grand mess of his breeches.’

‘Three drops it is.’

Her rich laughter became a yawn, which she swiftly covered with her hand. She wanted to stay there all night, talking and listening to him play, and that alone was reason enough to leave. ‘I should sleep,’ she said, annoyed by how formal she sounded.

Arent carefully leant his fiddle against the keg. ‘I’ll escort you.’

‘There’s no need.’

‘I promised Drecht,’ he said. ‘And it would put me at my ease. Besides, I don’t think you can get up without help. That dress looks heavy.’

‘It is!’ she exclaimed. ‘Why don’t tailors ever think of these things? And you know, amidst all this brocade, it doesn’t even have pockets. Not one.’

She tugged at the material where the pockets should have been.

‘It’s a scandal,’ said Arent, taking her hands and helping her stand. His skin was coarse. She reddened at his touch, then marched ahead to hide it.

Arent scooped up the discarded hairpins from the cask and went after her.

It was a beautiful night full of stars, all of them reflected on the still water. Among them were the seven fleet lanterns, their golden flames strangely comforting in the black.

They slowed on the staircase to admire the view.

‘You didn’t answer Drecht’s question about whether you believed in demons,’ said Arent, glancing at her.

‘If you’d listened carefully, you would have noticed he didn’t actually ask me,’ she said, smiling slightly.

‘Well, I’m asking,’ he said. ‘Do you believe there’s a demon on this boat?’

Her hands curled around the railing. ‘Yes,’ she said.

Growing up, she’d been taught that demons walked the earth to torment sinners. Off forked tongues came alluring promises, but they were tricks with only hell waiting at the end. Those who trusted in God’s love would see through their deceits and be sheltered from harm. She believed that, as she believed that those who fell prey to the wickedness of demons were somehow deserving of it, but that hadn’t saved Creesjie’s husband. And if Old Tom was willing to sink the Saardam to hurt Creesjie, it wouldn’t save anybody else.

‘My mother was a healer, and that often brought her into conflict with devils,’ continued Sara. ‘She told me stories about children dragging their own parents into the woods to be slaughtered. She told me about possessed adults whose skin would tear, because the demon could barely fit inside them. We’re mice to them, to be played with and ripped apart. That mark on the sail is how is starts. It’s meant to scare us because scared people will do anything to stop being scared, and they’ll do it to almost anybody.’

Arent murmured his agreement and became thoughtful. Sara looked at him shyly from the corner of her eye. It was rare she spoke so freely to anybody aside from Creesjie and Lia, and she was surprised – and pleased – to see how deeply he was considering what she’d said. Side by side, they admired the night’s beauty in silence for a few moments, then continued on.

Eggert – the musketeer whose throat Arent had nearly slit this afternoon – was guarding the entrance to the passenger cabins and he glared at the mercenary, touching his neck self-consciously.

‘I shouldn’t have taken hold of you the way I did,’ said Arent, stopping in front of him. ‘It weren’t right, and I’m sorry about it.’

Sara cocked her head, impressed. She hadn’t heard a lot of apologies in her life, certainly not from those who had no compelling reason to offer them.

Eggert’s expression very clearly suggested that he believed this was a trick.

‘Is all right,’ he said nervously, shaking Arent’s proffered hand.

Fearing some assault, he turned his face slightly away and braced himself. The mercenary smiled at him good-naturedly, then followed Sara through the red door, leaving Eggert blinking after them in bewilderment.

Arent escorted Sara a little way down the corridor, though not to her door.

She was glad of that. Those final few steps would indicate an intimacy she was keen to avoid. A solitary evening in his company and she already felt a strange tangle of emotions twisting in her breast.

She promised herself she would take shears to this tangle over the next few days. She had a purpose aboard the Saardam and she wouldn’t compromise it for a childish infatuation. No matter how much she had enjoyed his company tonight.

‘Goodnight,’ said Arent, returning her hairpins.

‘Goodnight,’ responded Sara.

He obviously wanted to say something more, but, in the end, he inclined his head and walked back up the corridor, his hulking figure blocking the view outside.

Sara watched him depart, then opened her cabin door. She screamed.

Staring at her from the porthole, covered in the same bloody bandages she remembered from the docks, was the leper.