The Devil and the Dark Water

25

‘Tell me!’ Jan Haan banged the table, rattling his plate.

‘Uncle –’ protested Arent.

‘Say it,’ demanded Jan, laughing. ‘Say I was wrong.’

Sitting beside her, Sara felt Lia lean forward to stare at her father. Confusion was plain on her face. As usual, they had gathered to eat breakfast, it being the one meal of the day they shared. Most mornings, she and Lia talked while her husband ate silently, rushing through his food as quickly as decorum would allow, so he could be free of them.

This morning was different. They were the ones who were distracted; their thoughts still trying to make sense of what Sander Kers had told them. In contrast, her husband was full of cheer.

Unlike the dining hall in the fort, which smelt of stone and dust, they were eating in the great cabin, with sunlight streaming through the four lattice windows. The ocean was turquoise, the ship’s wake forming a foamy trail all the way back to Batavia – or so Sara liked to imagine.

But the real reason her husband was so cheerful was Arent. He was seated on the opposite side of the table, taking up the space of two ordinary-sized people.

Oblivious to family etiquette, he had immediately started joking with her husband, speaking to him in a way she’d never heard anybody else dare. Her husband was typically a distant, formal presence at breakfast, but he had responded in boisterous fashion, reminiscing about Frisia, where he and Arent had grown up. He’d told stories about fighting the war of independence against the Spanish, then more stories about becoming a merchant and after that the governor general of Batavia.

In Arent’s company, he was transformed.

‘How would you have handled the dispute differently?’ pushed her husband. ‘Come now, Arent. You’re known as an honourable man. And your grandfather thought you more than passingly clever. What would you have done?’

‘I don’t want –’

‘Husband,’ interjected Sara warily.

‘Fear not, Arent,’ he said, flashing her an irritated glance. ‘This is a friendly conversation and I’m asking you plain.’

‘Blood is a poor way to settle a dispute,’ said Arent quietly. ‘Every man has the right to eat what he grows and be paid proper when he barters it. I don’t understand why the Company didn’t honour that.’

The governor general took another sip of wine. As promised, he didn’t seem offended. If anything, he appeared contemplative.

‘But you’ve killed before,’ he said. ‘Obeyed orders to kill?’

‘Aye, men marching under banners,’ responded Arent, clearly uncomfortable. ‘Men who meant to kill me first.’

‘Men you were paid to kill. That’s mercenary work, isn’t it? Coin and contract.’

‘Yes.’

‘The people of the Banda Islands broke the contract,’ said her husband, leaning forward and clasping his hands. ‘We paid them to cultivate and deliver mace. When the boat arrived to collect the cargo, they killed two of our men and drove the boat away.’

Sara’s lips moved in silent argument, her words never touching the air. She knew better than to voice her outrage. Her husband brought up the Banda Islands frequently in conversation. He bullied people into agreeing with what he’d done, horrific as it had been.

For some reason, he seemed to enjoy seeing them buckle.

‘Because the contract wasn’t fair,’ refuted Arent. ‘They were being paid poorly and feared for their future under such terms. Your men tried to take the crop by force.’

The governor general shrugged. ‘They signed the same contract I did. They knew the terms.’

‘You could have paid them fair,’ ventured Sara, appalled by her boldness.

‘The Banda Islands are a wretched hovel,’ said her husband contemptuously. ‘What use is wealth if they waste it buying beads from the English? They have no art, they have no culture, no debate. They exist as we must have first existed when God brought us forth from clay.’ He shook his head sorrowfully, intent upon Arent, as if it were the mercenary who’d made the point. ‘Are we to leave them that way? The Company doesn’t simply bring wealth, it brings civilisation. It’s a light in the darkness.

‘Society is built upon contracts, upon the promises we make to each other and the coin we pay for them. There are bad ones, of course. But they must be honoured and learnt from. That’s what I did; it’s what your grandfather did. The people of the Banda Islands met ink with blood, and I could not allow that to stand. If I did, other tribes would have followed. The contract – the Company’s word – would have meant nothing, and its future would have been imperilled.’

‘You wiped out an entire island,’ stated Arent, clearly unable to comprehend his uncle’s coldness.

‘Every man, woman and child, yes.’ He banged a fist on the table at each word. ‘One slaughter, so there would never be a need for another. And there hasn’t been.’

Arent could only stare at him.

The conversation slipped into a familiar silence and Sara turned her attention to her plate. She’d been given salted fish and cheese, along with bread and a little wine. She hated the taste of the drink, much preferring the jambu juice they served in Batavia.

Jan shook his head, glancing at Sara.

‘My wife, you were correct,’ he said graciously. ‘This was too blighted a topic for such a jolly gathering, but I so rarely get to speak with anybody whose opinion I favour.’ He inclined his head. ‘Nephew, my apologies and my thanks.’

Sara almost choked on her wine. Her husband didn’t apologise. He didn’t praise. He didn’t compliment, or acquiesce.

Under the table, she squeezed Lia’s hand. Upon Lieutenant Hayes was lavished the affection her daughter had spent her life craving.

‘How goes the investigation?’ asked the governor general, tearing a piece of chicken from the bone. ‘Have you learned why a demon stalks this ship?’

‘Not yet,’ admitted Arent, glancing instinctively at Sara. ‘We know the leper’s name was Bosey and that he was part of the Saardam’s crew before his tongue was cut out by the boatswain Johannes Wyck. We know he dealt with Old Tom, who offered a great deal of wealth in return for a dangerous favour. Sammy believes if we make sense of his death, we’ll make sense of everything else.’

‘Do not mistake this monster for your typical foes,’ warned her husband, watching as a loaf of bread was placed on the table and a huge knife laid beside it. ‘When it attacked the Provinces, it used people’s desires against them. Anybody who has ever held a grudge or coveted the possessions of another. Anybody who ever believed themselves wronged or overlooked. These people are its prey, which makes this ship a feast.’ He chewed the chicken as he spoke. ‘Believe me, Arent, it’s a creature far more subtle and far more cunning than any you’ve faced before.’

Sara exchanged a wary glance with Lia. Were these the words of Old Tom? Was the creature playing with them?

‘Then I must plead with you once again to free Sammy from his cell,’ said Arent, as a bowl of Batavian fruit banged down in front of him. ‘I’m not capable of overcoming this threat alone.’

His uncle swallowed his food. ‘I have no desire to repeat yesterday’s argument,’ he warned. ‘You know my feelings.’

Disquiet settled over the rest of the breakfast, which drifted towards its conclusion. Arent reluctantly agreed to attend again tomorrow and the governor general departed to his cabin, obviously annoyed at their manner of parting.

No sooner was he out of the room than Sara strode around the table to speak with Arent, who was staring at his uncle’s chair, as if it were some impossible riddle.

‘He really didn’t care,’ said Arent, as she arrived at his side. ‘He slaughtered all those people, and he thinks it was the right thing to do.’

Sara and Lia exchanged a look. Nobody they knew would have been surprised by the governor general’s callousness. ‘My husband has never been unduly troubled by matters of conscience,’ ventured Sara.

‘He was when I was a boy,’ said Arent, lost in memory. ‘He was the kindest person in my life. How long has he been like this?’

‘From the first day we met fifteen years ago,’ said Sara.

‘Then something’s changed in him,’ replied Arent distantly. ‘That’s not the man I remember from my childhood.’