The Devil and the Dark Water

19

‘Nerves?’ repeated Sara, batting the word back at Reynier van Schooten with icicles on it.

Van Schooten and Captain Crauwels had come clattering into the cabin after hearing her scream, finding Creesjie and Lia comforting her. Arent had been the first to arrive, but he’d stuck his head out of the porthole, then run up on deck hoping to catch sight of the leper, taking the musketeer guarding the cabins with him.

Sara hadn’t stopped shaking. Before Van Schooten had arrived, it had been fear. Now it was anger.

‘It’s been a gruelling day,’ interjected Crauwels, in a pacifying tone that would make an angel throw its cloud at him. ‘No one would blame you for having weary eyes, my lady.’

‘You think I imagined it?’ she said incredulously. Nobody else had seen the leper. Even Arent had been too slow. It had scrambled away when she screamed, frightening the animals in the pens above them, which were making an unholy din.

‘Of course not, my lady. I simply think you mistook the …’ Crauwels crouched a little, putting his head at the same level as Sara’s, and stared through the porthole. ‘The moon!’ he declared triumphantly, seeing it outside.

‘Does the moon wrap itself in bloody bandages?’ demanded Sara witheringly. ‘How strange I’ve never noticed that before.’

‘My lady –’

‘I know the difference between a face and the moon,’ she yelled, furious at having to defend herself against so ridiculous a charge. If the leper had appeared at her husband’s porthole, the Saardam would already be sailing back to Batavia.

‘The only thing out there is a long drop,’ grunted Van Schooten, his breath thick enough to make her eyes water. ‘There’s no ledge to stand on, and no way to climb down from the poop deck.’

Creesjie laid a gentle arm on Sara’s. ‘Calm now, dear heart,’ she soothed.

Sara took a breath.

It wasn’t the done thing to shout at a man in public, especially not high-ranking Company officers. Deference was something she was supposed to put on every morning, along with her cap and bodice.

‘Please understand, my lady,’ said Crauwels ingratiatingly, ‘Indiamen sail on superstition as much as wind and waves. Won’t be a man onboard who doesn’t have a piece of the hull he kisses for luck, or a token he swears saved him from some catastrophe on his last voyage. If word gets around you saw a leper, whether it exists or not, these men will create it.

‘Every dead bird as hits the mast, every broken arm, every bit of blood spilt on a crooked nail, they’ll collect in a pile and claim it’s the work of something malign. Next thing you know, sailors are getting their throats slit because they babbled in their sleep and it sounded like devilry.’

Dorothea bustled into the cabin with a mug of spiced wine for her mistress. She’d gone down to the galley to fetch it. Sara had tried to dissuade her, but Dorothea believed spiced wine was the best thing for a nasty shock and wouldn’t be dissuaded from her errand.

‘Whatever you think you saw, keep it in this cabin,’ demanded Van Schooten.

Dorothea handed the mug of spiced wine to Sara, then turned her iron glare on van Schooten. ‘Know your place, merchant,’ she warned. ‘This is a high-born lady you’re addressing. My mistress knows what she saw. Why do you think you know better?’

Van Schooten bore down on her. By his expression, it was obvious he thought that indulging the nonsense of a spoiled noble was intolerable enough without being ridiculed by an insolent servant.

‘Listen to me –’ he said, pointing.

‘No! You listen to me, Chief Merchant,’ interrupted Sara, stepping between them and jabbing her finger into his chest. ‘Bosey threatened the Saardam in Batavia. That strange symbol appeared on the sail and now he’s peering in portholes. Something’s happening on this ship and you need to take it seriously.’

‘If the devil wants to sail aboard the Saardam, he buys a ticket like everybody else,’ snapped van Schooten, his jaw clenched. ‘Speak with your husband. If he tells me to investigate, I will. Until then, I’ve got real problems to attend to.’

He stalked out. Crauwels bowed courteously and followed.

Sara tried to chase after them, only to be held back by Lia and Creesjie.

‘It won’t do any good,’ advised Creesjie. ‘Anger makes good men stubborn and stubborn men petty. They won’t hear you.’

Feeling wretched, Sara stared into Lia’s concerned face. Her only duty aboard this ship was to protect her daughter, but nobody wanted to listen. They seemed hell-bent on sailing into whatever dark water awaited them.

‘I’m sorry for this,’ said Creesjie, sitting heavily on the chair and putting her head in her hands.

‘It’s hardly your fault,’ said Sara, confused.

‘The leper was searching for me, Sara. Don’t you see. Old Tom must have sent it.’

Three heavy knocks shuddered the doorframe.

She didn’t need to turn around to know it was Arent. Only his hands could be mistaken for battering rams.

‘Anything?’ asked Sara.

‘No sign,’ he said, still standing in the corridor, shy of entering. ‘I’ve been up and down the weather decks.’

‘Weather decks?’

‘Those the sky can get at. The leper wouldn’t have had time to get by me into the guts of the ship.’ He held out a dagger in its sheath to her. ‘If it appears again, stab it in the face with this.’

Sara took the present gratefully, weighing it in her hand.

‘I swear to you, I saw it,’ she said.

‘That’s why you’re holding my dagger.’

‘It was him: it was Bosey. I know it.’

Arent nodded.

‘We watched him die,’ she said, letting her fear out for the first time. ‘How is that possible?’

Arent shrugged. ‘Sammy once solved a case where a mason’s dead wife asked him to build her a church,’ he said. ‘He investigated a case where two brothers dropped dead of broken hearts at exactly the same time, despite having not spoken to each other for six years. He isn’t called unless the problem is impossible. Luckily for us, he’s on this ship.’

‘He’s a prisoner, Arent. What is he going to do?’

‘He’s going to save us.’

Belief lit those delicate eyes. It was so fierce, it burnt away the arguments brewing within her. Sara had seen the same thing in predikants and mystics, usually before they went marching into harm’s way with only the Lord’s love for a shield.

Arent Hayes was a zealot.

His religion was Samuel Pipps.