The Devil and the Dark Water

20

‘Nerves,’ grumbled a footsore Arent as he crossed the waist, carrying a sack over his shoulder. Van Schooten had given Sara’s tale short shrift, but he hadn’t seen her kneeling by Bosey’s burnt body on the docks. He hadn’t heard her voice when she’d asked Arent to give the leper mercy.

Sara Wessel had seen a man’s flesh melted and it hadn’t made her hysterical. It hadn’t clouded her reason. She’d remained calm and clear-eyed, full of sorrow and compassion.

No, Sara wasn’t one for nerves.

Arent stared at his scar, wondering why he hadn’t told her about his connection to Old Tom. Much as he’d wanted to, the words had refused to pass his lips. Sammy always said to hold on to what you knew until you understood what it meant. It was a fig leaf for Arent’s pride, but he accepted it gratefully.

The bell was ringing for midnight watch, hatches clattering open as sailors came grumbling on to the deck, bleary-eyed and bad-tempered from their bunks. Finding Arent abroad after dark, they glared and cursed under their breath, but they weren’t any more inclined to interrupt him than they had been this afternoon.

Finally he arrived at the compartment under the forecastle, where the crew took their recreation. From inside, he heard a young voice whimpering for mercy.

‘I never, I swear I didn’t, it wasn’t –’

‘Go spilling ship business to strangers, will you?’ responded an angry voice. ‘How much did she pay you?’

There was a thud and a howl of pain.

Squeezing himself inside, Arent entered a room that was low-ceilinged and cheerless, lit by a swaying lantern belching out more smoke than light. Sailors were sitting against the walls, smoking their pipes and watching a young boy being beaten senseless by the slab of gut and shoulders that was Johannes Wyck.

The boy was on the floor, Wyck looming over him, his fists clenched, blood running off his knuckles.

‘No, Mister Wyck, I didn’t, I never –’

‘You’re a damned liar, Henri,’ said Wyck, kicking the boy in the stomach. ‘Where’ve you hid the coin? Where is it?’

This must have been the boy Sara spoke to this morning, Arent realised. She’d paid him three guilders for information on the leper’s true identity.

‘That’s enough of that,’ said Arent in a threatening rumble.

Johannes Wyck glanced over his shoulder, squinting at Arent’s presence.

‘This is ship business,’ he sneered, revealing the rotten teeth in his mouth. ‘Get yourself back where you belong.’

‘And what happens to him when I do?’ said Arent, nodding at the boy.

Wyck reached into his boot, withdrawing a small, rusty dagger. ‘Whatever I damn well please.’

Arent showed no reaction. ‘Is that the same dagger you used to cut out Bosey’s tongue?’

That gave Wyck pause, but only briefly. ‘It is at that,’ he said, pressing his fingertip against the blade. ‘Not the sharpest thing, so I had to saw rather than slice. Took a bit of sweat, but it was a nice enough job in the end.’

‘Was that ship business, as well?’

Wyck spread his arms wide, indicating the breadth of his kingdom. ‘Everything I do is ship business, isn’t it, lads?’ The crew murmured their agreement. Some grudgingly. Others with more enthusiasm. Evidently, ship’s business wasn’t always popular.

Wyck leered at him. ‘And I’ll tell you what else is ship’s business. The disappearance of a passenger who wanders past the mainmast and is cut to ribbons by the crew.’

Steps approached from behind, half a dozen sailors slinking out of the dark, faces full of murder. ‘Nothing but misfortune on a ship like this,’ said Wyck.

Arent stared at him, meeting his one good eye. It seemed to glitter with the remembrance of every dreadful thing it had witnessed.

‘What does Laxagarr mean?’ asked Arent. ‘I heard it was Nornish. They say you speak the language.’

‘Run along now, soldier,’ said Wyck.

‘Not without the boy.’

Wyck squatted next to the stricken lad, driving his dagger into the floorboards beside his head. ‘Did you hear that, young Henri? This nice soldier’s fretting over you; fears for you in nasty Mr Wyck’s company. What do you say to that?’

Wyck’s eye lingered on Arent, as Henri lifted his beaten head from the floor.

‘Cark off, soldier,’ gasped Henri, through bloody teeth. ‘Better dead than …’ He swallowed painfully, ‘… be helped … by you.’

Exhausted, his head thudded back on to the floorboards.

Wyck tapped boy’s cheek. ‘You’re not welcome here, soldier,’ he said in a low, dangerous voice. ‘And this is the only warning you’ll get.’

‘No,’ said Arent in a flat voice. ‘This is the only warning you’ll get. I’ve business at this end of the ship, which means I’ll be passing through this time every night. If any of you bastards makes me lose a single step, I’ll slit your throat and throw you overboard.’

Something savage showed itself in his eyes, and the sailors took a half step back. But, as quickly as it had come, it was gone. Arent lifted the hatch and started down the ladder into the sailmaker’s cabin.

The sailmaker himself was snoring in his hammock, and he didn’t stir as Arent lifted the second hatch, descending into the compartment housing Sammy’s cell. The ladder was as awkward to navigate as it had been that morning, but eventually he managed to wriggle himself down.

As promised, Drecht had stationed a musketeer in the room. To Arent’s surprise, it was Thyman, the one Sammy had accused of cheating his friend that morning. Eggert was guarding the passengers and Thyman was guarding Sammy. Evidently, Drecht wanted the bickering pair as far apart as possible.

Thyman leapt up as Arent entered, but quickly settled back down when he saw who it was.

A tiny hatch led into the cargo hold behind them, the smell of spices scratching Arent’s throat as he struggled to work the locking peg to Sammy’s cell free. Finally, it creaked open, the acrid smell of vomit and excrement elbowing its way into the open air.

‘Sammy?’ coughed Arent, covering his mouth as he peered into the cell.

Shards of moonlight struck through the hatch above, revealing three empty hooks on the wall, and the lower corner of a pillar, but everything else was ink.

Something thumped and Sammy came scrambling out in a mad panic of arms and legs, desperately sucking in air. Moonlight touched his face and he hissed in pain, shielding his eyes from the glare.

Arent knelt beside him, laying a reassuring hand on his arm. Sammy’s body was quivering, and he was terribly pale, his whiskers coated in vomit.

Arent balled his fists in rage. He couldn’t leave his friend to this torment.

Sammy squinted at him through his fingers, bewildered. ‘Arent?’

‘I’m sorry I couldn’t come sooner,’ he said, handing over the jug of wine.

‘I didn’t expect you to come at all,’ replied Sammy, ripping the cork out of the jug and gulping the wine, the red liquid spilling down his chin. ‘I thought I was trapped in there for ever.’ He stopped, suddenly agitated. ‘You shouldn’t be here, Arent. If the governor general finds out –’

‘He knows,’ interrupted Arent. ‘He’s agreed to allow midnight walks, so long as I accompany you. I’m going to work on getting you daylight.’

‘How did you make him …’ Sammy frowned, confounded. ‘What did he want from you? What did you have to barter for this boon?’ His voice was rising. ‘Tell him you don’t want it. I’ll not have you indebted to a man like Jan Haan. I’d rather rot in the dark.’

‘Nothing was bartered,’ said Arent, trying to calm him. ‘There’s no debt. It was a favour.’

‘Why would he grant you such a thing?’

Arent glanced at Thyman uncomfortably, then lowered his voice. ‘Does it matter?’

Sammy stared at him suspiciously, those keen eyes narrowing as he began to burrow for Arent’s secrets.

Shaking his head, he turned his face away. Out of courtesy, he didn’t use his gifts on Arent.

From above them, the sailmaker stamped on the floor, shaking dust down from the ceiling.

‘Take your sweet nothings outside,’ he barked. ‘I’m trying to sleep.’

Still perturbed, Sammy climbed the ladders, eventually finding his way into the open air. The sailors had scattered to their duties, and Arent joined his friend outside without incident. He was staring at the moonlight running down the rigging and the sails like molten silver.

‘It’s beautiful,’ he said in awe. He lingered on the view a moment, then walked over to the railing. ‘Turn your back, please,’ he said.

‘Why?’

‘I must attend my ablutions.’

‘Just go, it’s nothing I haven’t –’

‘Arent, please,’ he exclaimed. ‘I have very little dignity left, and I’d like to keep hold of what remains.’

Sighing, Arent turned his back.

Sammy yanked down his breeches, sticking his arse over the water.

‘The governor general is a dangerous man,’ he groaned as excrement poured out of him, splashing in the sea. ‘I’ve tried to spare you his scrutiny, so tell me, for my own peace of mind, why would he agree to let me out of that cell?’

‘Because he’s as family to me,’ admitted Arent, taking a step away from the smell. ‘I call him uncle, but father would be nearer to it.’

‘Father?’ replied Sammy, in a strangled voice.

‘He’s my grandfather’s best friend,’ explained Arent. ‘Their lands are next to each other in Frisia, the province where I grew up. I spent weekends at his estate when I was a boy. He taught me how to fence and ride, among other things.’

‘Forgive me, Arent,’ said Sammy, wiping his arse on a piece of rope, before hitching up his breeches. ‘I know your manners aren’t those of a soldier born, but how did your grandfather come to befriend somebody as powerful as Governor General Jan Haan.’

Arent hesitated, struggling to make the words fit. The answer had been buried in him so long, it had grown roots.

‘My grandfather is Casper van den Berg,’ he said, at last.

‘You’re a Berg!?’ Sammy took a half step back, as if the information had been tossed into his arms. ‘The Van den Bergs are the wealthiest family in the Provinces. Casper van den Berg is one of the Gentlemen 17. Your family practically run the Company.’

‘Really? I wish somebody had told me that before I left home,’ said Arent wryly.

Sammy’s mouth opened and closed. Then opened and closed again.

‘Why the hell are you on this ship?’ he exploded. ‘Your family could buy you a ship of your own. They could buy you a fleet!’

‘What would I do with a fleet?’

‘Anything you damn well please.’

Arent couldn’t deny the logic of it, but he didn’t have an answer that wouldn’t embarrass them both. He’d left home at twenty because after seven years of studying under the Gentlemen 17, he’d seen the breadth of the life on offer and realised how small it was. The rich mistakenly believed their wealth was a servant, delivering them whatever they wanted.

They were wrong.

Wealth was their master and it was the only voice they heeded. Friendships were sacrificed at its behest, principles trampled to protect it. No matter how much they had, it was never enough. They went mad chasing more until they sat lonely atop their hoard, despised and afraid.

Arent had wanted more. Having turned his back on power and wealth, he found himself immune to their lure. Instead, he sought a place where honour mattered. Where strength was used to protect the weak, and thrones weren’t automatically handed from one madman to the next.

But every land was the same. Strength was the only currency of merit, and power was the only goal. Kindness, compassion and empathy were trampled, exploited as weakness.

Then he’d met Sammy.

Here was a commoner, born with nothing, who’d upended the natural order by virtue of his cleverness. In pursuit of his goal, he’d accuse a noble as readily as a peasant. Here was somebody for whom the old rules didn’t apply. Through Sammy, Arent saw the world he aspired to, like a distant land spied through a smudged glass. Sammy was what Arent had left home to find, but their friendship would never allow him to admit it. He’d never hear the end of it.

‘This is the life I chose,’ he shrugged, his tone ending the conversation.

Sammy gave in with a sigh and collected a pail from a peg. A long piece of rope was tied to the handle and he cast the pail over the side of the ship into the ocean, before dragging it back up, water sloshing out. The pails were normally used for washing clothes, or cooling wood that was threatening to warp, but he upended it over his head, revealing the pink skin behind the filth.

Twice more he cast the pail over the side, washing his arms and legs, then stripping off his shirt to scrub his scrawny body. It was a week since he’d last eaten more than a fist’s worth of food, a fact screamed by every rib now on display.

When he was bathed, he adjusted his sodden clothing and smoothed his breeches, even drawing his fingers through his oily, tangled hair.

Arent watched him wordlessly. From any other man, this would seem pointless vanity, but Sammy was renowned for his beautiful comportment as much as his cleverness. He dressed, danced and dined exactingly, his manners exquisite in all things. If that pride still burnt within him, then he hadn’t given up hope.

‘How do I look?’ asked Sammy, turning on the spot.

‘Like you spent the night with an ox.’

‘I didn’t want your mother to be the only one.’

Arent laughed and gave Sammy the sleeping draught from the pouch at his hip. ‘This is from Sara Wessel,’ he said. ‘It will help you sleep. Hopefully, it will make you more comfortable while I work out a way to free you.’

‘This is a wonderful gift,’ said Sammy, tearing out the cork to sniff the tincture. ‘Please, pass along my thanks. I saw her quality on the docks, but this is … I’ve never met a woman to match her.’

Arent agreed but said nothing, for fear of giving himself away. Instead, he handed Sammy a hunk of bread he’d stolen from the galley.

‘Know who’s trying to sink us yet?’ he asked.

‘That’s your job, Arent. I’ve been imprisoned in a dark room all day.’ He bit into the loaf, savouring the taste. Arent had tried some at dinner. It was hard as a moneylender’s heart, but Sammy looked as though he’d never had anything better.

‘Only difference between today and most other days is that you don’t have good wine and a pipe,’ countered Arent.

Finishing the bread, Sammy linked his arm into his friend’s. ‘I’ll concede the compliment in the insult,’ he said. ‘Shall we walk? My legs are stiff.’

As they had a hundred nights before, the bear and sparrow strolled together in amiable silence. They walked across the waist, past the two yawls strapped to the deck, and up the stairs to the quarterdeck. Shadows shifted around them, piles of rope revealing themselves to be sailors curled up on deck, while lurking bodies were exposed as buckets hanging from poles.

Step by step, Arent wasn’t sure whether he should be laughing at his own jitteriness, or swinging punches into the air, just to be safe. He didn’t relax until they arrived on the quarterdeck, where the first mate was tending the sniffling young carpenter beaten by Wyck. He was speaking to him in a comforting voice. Whatever Larme’s words, they seemed to be pouring some iron into the boy’s bones.

Another staircase brought them to the poop deck, where the animal pens were kept. Hearing their footsteps on the boards, the sows began grunting and sniffling at the wooden bars, believing they were about to be let out, while the chickens scratched at the wood.

Arent peered over the railing. The passenger cabins were directly below, candlelight spilling out of their portholes. Only Sara and Creesjie’s were dim, their deadlights closed in case the leper should return in the night.

‘What troubles you?’ asked Sammy, noticing his inspection.

‘Sara Wessel saw the leper at her porthole this evening,’ replied Arent.

‘The leper from the docks? The one you put your sword through?’

‘His real name was Bosey,’ explained Arent, delivering the information that Sara had uncovered about this man’s mysterious bargain with Old Tom, and how his tongue had been cut out by Johannes Wyck.

‘Tormented and returning to torment, eh?’ said Sammy, who was kneeling on the ground, running his fingertips across the rough planks, searching for any sign of the leper’s passing. ‘Do you think she imagined it?’

‘No,’ replied Arent.

‘Then she didn’t, which raises a rather particular question.’ Sammy paused his search. ‘Well, two actually.’ He considered it. ‘Three,’ he corrected himself.

‘Who’s pretending to be the dead man at her porthole?’ ventured Arent.

‘That’s one.’ Sammy leapt to his feet and peered intently at the dark water below. ‘It’s a sheer drop with no handholds, so how did he arrive there? And how did he get away once seen?’

‘Well, he didn’t come this way,’ said Arent. ‘I was up here in less than a minute after she screamed. He would have had to run by me to get away.’

‘Could he have hidden in the animal pens?’

‘I’d have seen him through the bars.’

Sammy ran his hand along the railing. ‘He would have needed ropes to lower himself down and he wouldn’t have had time to climb back up, then untie them.’

‘And if he’d dropped into the water, Sara would have heard a splash.’

Sammy walked towards the mizzenmast, which rose up between the poop and quarterdecks, then tugged on the rigging that disappeared over the side of the ship. The ropes were attached to a thick beam that jutted out of the Saardam’s hull.

‘That beam down there is the only place he could have stood, and it’s much too far away from the porthole.’ Abruptly Sammy licked the wood, but the disappointment on his face suggested it yielded no answers. ‘Tell me about this Old Tom.’

‘It’s some sort of devil, apparently.’

There was nobody quite like Sammy for a diminishing glare, and the one he threw at Arent could have stripped the bark off a tree.

‘I didn’t say I believed it,’ protested Arent, who’d known his entire life what was waiting for him in the dark. As a boy his father had caught him yawning during one of his sermons, beating him so severely it was feared he might never wake again. His mother had wept for three days, until his father gathered the servants, dragged her down the staircase and slapped her back and forth across the Great Hall, bellowing in righteous fury.

Her grief represented a lack of faith, he’d said. Arent had been delivered before God to apologise for his heresy in person. If his regret was sincere, he’d be returned. Should he die, then it must surely reveal his lack of devotion. Prayer, not tears, he’d argued, was the only tonic now.

Arent had been returned two days later. Devotion had nothing to do with it.

Most people woke up from something like that with a hole in their memory. They felt like they’d been asleep, they said.

Arent remembered everything.

He’d travelled into the afterlife, hollering for help and hearing nothing back. He knew there was no God waiting. No devil. No saints or sinners. There were only people and the stories they told themselves. He’d seen it himself. People gave the heavens a voice, so they had something to ask for: a better harvest, a healthy child or a milder winter. God was hope, and mankind needed hope the way it needed warmth, food and ale.

But with hope came disappointment.

The downtrodden yearned for stories to explain their misfortunes, though what they really wanted was somebody to blame for their misery. It was impossible to set fire to the blight that had ruined your crops, but a blight was easily summoned by a witch, at which point any poor woman would do.

Old Tom wasn’t a devil, thought Arent. He was an old man within kicking distance.

‘My uncle told me Old Tom devastated the Provinces thirty years ago, destroying villages and noble families,’ explained Arent. ‘Apparently, it offers people their heart’s desire in return for terrible favours. It left a strange sign wherever it went – an eye with a tail. That same mark was on the sail when we set off from Batavia, and it’s also on my wrist,’ he said candidly.

‘Your wrist?’ Sammy was taken aback. ‘Why would it be on your wrist?’

‘When I was a boy, I went hunting with my father,’ replied Arent. ‘Three days later I returned with this scar and he didn’t return at all, and I don’t know what happened.’

Sammy blinked at Arent in surprise. ‘So you got the scar around the same time this Old Tom was splashing its mark across the Provinces?’

‘I think I was the first person to carry it. Or one of them, my uncle wasn’t sure.’

‘Show me,’ demanded Sammy, pulling Arent over to a lantern on the mizzenmast. ‘And tell me everything you know about it.’

‘I don’t know anything, except that I drew this mark on a few doors in a nearby village out of spite,’ explained Arent, as Sammy inspected it. ‘I didn’t realise the harm it would do. An old beggar called Old Tom ended up being beaten to death by some scared villagers.’

‘Old Tom?’ repeated Sammy. ‘So this mark got free of you, then spread like a plague wearing your dead beggar’s name. Heaven’s sake, this isn’t just a demon. It’s your demon.’

‘It was an accident.’

‘The worst things often are.’

Sammy’s small fingers probed Arent’s huge hand, but even with the extra light, there was nothing new to be learned about the scar. It was barely even visible, any more. The problematary didn’t bother to hide his disappointment.

‘You make for a very poor clue,’ he chided, releasing Arent’s hand. ‘Who knows about the scar and the use you put it to?’

‘My grandfather and my uncle. My mother did, but she died not long after I was taken away.’

‘Broken heart?’

‘Pox.’

‘What about Sara Wessel?’

‘My uncle may have told her, but I don’t think so. She hasn’t mentioned it. Otherwise, nobody. My grandfather ordered me to keep it under my tongue. He said the past was poisoned ground and those who lingered there died. I thought he was trying to keep me from thinking about it, but my uncle told me an English witchfinder had been hunting for anybody afflicted by the mark, so they hid me away. I didn’t know that at the time, though.’

Sammy murmured appreciatively. ‘Your grandfather sounds like a wise man. What do you remember about the day your father disappeared?’

‘Very little. We were a few hours into the woods, tracking some boar. We didn’t speak. I was only there to carry my father’s pack. A man called to us for help.’

‘Somebody you knew?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘And then?’

‘We called back, then went to find him. After that …’ Arent shrugged. That was his last memory of that day. For years, he’d tried to break through it, but it was like scrambling up a cliff face. ‘I woke up on the road, shivering wet with this scar on my wrist.’

Sammy became watchful, his next question tentative. ‘Was your father’s body ever found?’

Arent shook his head.

‘Then he could be alive?’

‘Only if the devil has a sense of humour,’ grunted Arent. ‘My father was a predikant and his congregation was the only thing he loved. If he’d survived, he would have come back for them. You can’t believe my father’s involved in this! You said to rule out ghosts.’

‘Ghosts are God’s problem. The living must deal with me,’ declared Sammy, ideas hammering themselves together behind his eyes ‘But to call him a ghost, there’d have to be a body. It’s not like we haven’t seen this before, Arent. Remember The Case of the Empty Spire, where the –’

‘Long dead sister was living in the walls,’ shuddered Arent. He’d been the one tasked with dragging her into the daylight. He’d spent a week washing the stink off his body.

‘What else do you know about this Old Tom?’ asked Sammy, his thoughts still clearly on Arent’s father.

‘It was driven out of the Provinces by an English witchfinder named Pieter Fletcher, who was the second husband of Creesjie Jens.’

‘Your uncle’s mistress?’

Arent nodded. ‘Four years ago, Old Tom found him in Amsterdam. Fletcher packed his family into a carriage and fled to Lille, but it followed and murdered him. It left its mark above his body. Creesjie Jens believes it’s raised Bosey from the dead to kill the rest of his family on the Saardam.’

Sammy ran a hand across his face, trying to disguise the worry washing across it. ‘Arent, you were in Lille four years ago.’

Arent didn’t need reminding. The shame blotted him like a wax stamp.

It had been the first case he’d been trusted to untangle alone. Sammy had sent him to recover a jewel stolen from the Gentlemen 17. After four days of investigation, he accused a clerk named Edward Coil of the crime. They were putting the noose around his neck when Sammy arrived on the back of an exhausted horse, holding a handful of splinters that proved Arent had got it wrong. He’d been in such a hurry to accuse Coil that he’d missed them.

Sammy had been kind, kinder than Arent had any right to expect. Time and again, he’d offered Arent another case, another chance to prove himself capable, but the mercenary knew his limitations. He’d seen them up close. That was Sammy’s gift to everybody who met him. An instant understanding of what they could never be.

‘You can’t believe I slaughtered Creesjie Jens’s husband,’ protested Arent. ‘I didn’t even know him.’

‘I know you didn’t, you damn fool, but either somebody’s keen to make us think otherwise, or it’s a coincidence. Did Creesjie give any reason the demon might have waited so long to enact is revenge?’

‘She fled. She’s been moving from country to country ever since.’

‘She was moved, or she was ushered?’

‘Ushered?’

‘There are three people on this boat connected to Old Tom. Fate rarely reveals itself so nakedly.’

‘Three?’

‘You, Creesjie and your uncle,’ explained Sammy impatiently. ‘How did you all come to be here?’

‘I’m here because you’re here,’ pointed out Arent.

‘And I’m here, because the governor general ordered it so.’

‘As is Creesjie Jens. My uncle forced her to depart Batavia earlier than she was intending.’

‘Why?’

‘She’s beautiful and he enjoys her company?’

Sammy seemed sceptical. ‘So am I, and I’m in a cell,’ he grumbled. ‘What about your uncle? Why is he here?’

‘He’s sailing back to join the Gentlemen 17 and deliver The Folly.’

‘Yes, but why is he on this ship? Surely your uncle could have chosen any ship in the fleet. Why did he pick the Saardam?’

‘Captain Crauwels is the best sailor in the Company. They’ve sailed together in the past and he trusts him.’

Sammy blew out a long, troubled breath. ‘It all comes back to your uncle, doesn’t it? He’s like a damn whirlpool and we’re all caught in the churning water.’ He considered Arent. ‘If your uncle had ordered you to board this ship, would you have done it?’

‘Not without you.’

‘And if he’d tried to order me to board the Saardam, I’d have asked him why he was so keen for me to be here.’

‘What are you thinking?’

‘That imprisoning me was the only way to ensure you’d be on the Saardam.’

Arent bristled. ‘My uncle can be brusque, and even cruel, but he loves me, Sammy. He’d never do anything to put me in danger.’

Sammy looked out at the bright lanterns of the fleet. ‘We’re losing sight of the dead,’ he chided himself. ‘For all the strangeness aboard this ship, we only have one actual crime to investigate. Bosey didn’t ignite his own robes and it wasn’t his voice that threatened the ship. Until we understand more, I’m treating his death as murder. Have you talked to his friends?’

‘I’ve tried, but it’s like trying to pry open traps.’

‘Then try harder. He must have told somebody about this bargain he struck. Somehow you two are connected, so let’s see if he knew you. Or your family. Find out where Bosey’s from. Perhaps he suffered in the village where Old Tom died.’

Arent nodded, but Sammy wasn’t finished with his labours. ‘And it would be worth understanding what Laxagarr means.’

‘Sara’s already tried,’ responded Arent. ‘We think it’s Nornish, and the only person who speaks the language is the man who cut Bosey’s tongue out.’

‘That’s useful, because we need an explanation for that, as well.’

‘Okay,’ agreed Arent doubtfully, remembering his earlier encounter with Wyck. ‘What else?’

‘Rags and bandages aren’t hard to find. Convince Captain Crauwels to search the ship, if you can. Otherwise appeal to your uncle. If we’re lucky, the leper’s costume will reveal itself in the company of the man who’s been wearing it.’

Sammy stared at the lanterns on the water again, frowning. ‘Our second avenue of investigation is simpler. If this leper is the threat, how does he mean to assail a ship this size? Did you talk to the constable in the gunpowder store?’

‘He reckons blowing the gunpowder wouldn’t do it,’ said Arent. ‘The constable believed the quickest way to sink the Saardam was to kill the captain. By his thinking, Crauwels is the only thing keeping this crew from mutiny.’

‘He’s got a fine head on his shoulders has our constable,’ said Sammy with admiration. ‘What else did he say?’

‘That the threat could come from the fleet.’

Sammy mulled it over. ‘Another ship turning its cannons on us, perhaps?’

‘It’s an idea,’ replied Arent.

‘A bold one,’ agreed Sammy. ‘And a troubling one.’

‘Why’s that?’

Sammy gestured to the lanterns on the water. ‘Do you remember how many ships left Batavia?’ he asked.

Arent shrugged. He hadn’t troubled himself to count.

‘Seven,’ supplied Sammy.

‘Okay, seven,’ said Arent, confused. ‘So what?’

‘So why are there eight lights on the water?’

Four men stood at the railing, water lapping beneath them. Three of them were staring at the Eighth Lantern in the distance, while Sammy stared down at the first mate. Feeling the itch of scrutiny, Isaack Larme peered up at him, that familiar scowl twisting his face.

‘What you looking at, prisoner?’

‘A dwarf,’ replied Sammy bluntly. ‘I’ve never seen a dwarf in the Company before. Mostly, your kind are –’

‘Fools,’ finished Larme. ‘It’s our job to call nobles like you cun—’

‘Isaack,’ growled Crauwels.

Arent had alerted the first mate to the mysterious light, and he’d fetched the captain in turn. Crauwels was more than halfway drunk still, irritable and missing his bed, but the last thing he wanted was Sammy’s blood on Isaack Larme’s dagger, which was usually the way arguments with his first mate finished.

‘I’m the first mate of the ship,’ spat Isaack Larme. ‘I’ll not be looked down on by a prisoner.’

‘That wasn’t my intent,’ said Sammy, as if surprised he’d given offence.

‘Isaack’s the best first mate I’ve ever had,’ said the captain, still staring at the lanterns. ‘And the only other person I know who can keep our bastard of a boatswain in line,’ he added darkly.

‘What do you think of the lights, Captain?’ asked Arent, hoping to change the topic before Sammy vexed Isaack Larme any further.

‘Well, it aint pirates,’ he said, scratching at his ginger whiskers. ‘Whoever it is wants us to know they’re there. Pirates come quiet and they don’t attack convoys. They pick off solitary ships.’

‘Could be a straggler out of Batavia,’ suggested Larme, fingering the half-face charm around his neck.

‘Could be,’ said Crauwels, running a hand through his hair, flexing the muscles in his arm.

Crauwels was clearly a man who admired himself a great deal and wanted others to do likewise, thought Arent.

‘Keep a watch on the fleet,’ continued Crauwels. ‘Just you, Isaack. I don’t want word of this getting around and spooking the crew. Might be nothing, but if anything changes tonight, I want to know.’

‘Aye, Captain.’

‘And first thing tomorrow, have a lookout lay eyes on her,’ he said. ‘Let’s see whose colours she’s flying.’

‘Captain,’ agreed Larme.

The four men dispersed, Arent accompanying Sammy back across the waist towards the bow of the ship.

Once they were out of earshot, Sammy nudged Arent. ‘Did you notice the charm Larme wore around his neck?’

‘I saw it this afternoon,’ said Arent. ‘Bit of cracked wood on a piece of string, isn’t it?’

‘It’s half a face, Arent. The matching half of the piece Bosey clung to for comfort on the docks. The edges married up.’

Sammy couldn’t have caught more than a glimpse of Bosey’s charm, but Arent didn’t doubt his recollection. Never forgetting was another of Sammy’s gifts. Maybe the most unfortunate of them. He could recall every conversation he’d ever had, every mystery he’d solved, every lunch and when he’d eaten it.

Arent would have envied him, except Sammy wasn’t somebody who wanted envying.

The past was filled with sharp things, he’d said.

The pain he’d felt when a thorn scratched him as a child was the same pain he felt remembering it. He couldn’t reach for a memory without drawing blood doing it. No wonder he was the way he was. Never looking back, always running forward.

A shriek came from behind them and turning around, they saw Isaack Larme trying to drag a young woman out of the shadows. She was broad and strong and taller than the dwarf, who was struggling to hold on to her.

Growling, he punched her in the stomach ending her resistance, then hurled her gasping on to the ground in front of Crauwels.

Arent moved to help her, but Sammy caught his arm and shook his head in warning.

‘You’re the predikant’s ward, aren’t you?’ said Crauwels, taken aback. ‘What are you doing out here after curfew? It’s dangerous.’

‘My name’s Isabel,’ she snapped, glowering at the dwarf as she tried to draw breath.

‘And it’s a fine name, but not an explanation,’ said Crauwels, crouching in front of her. ‘What are you doing lurking in the shadows, Isabel?’

‘Was just out walking and got startled,’ she gasped, rubbing her stomach. ‘That was all.’

‘Eavesdropping more like,’ snarled Larme, earning a filthy glare from Isabel.

Crauwels let out a long breath through his nose. ‘Ship’s rules are for your safety, and ours.’ He smiled a bright, dangerous smile. ‘Mainly your safety, though. This conversation was private and it needs to be kept that way. If word gets out, I’ll know exactly who needs talking to, understand?’

She nodded, somehow marrying simple acceptance with a burning fury.

‘Get away then,’ he said. ‘And don’t let me catch you skulking around the deck any more.’

Shooting a glance of misgiving at the forecastle, Isabel got to her feet and headed back towards the compartment under the half deck.

In the darkness, a figure slipped away unseen.