The Devil and the Dark Water

32

Arent and Sara sloshed back through the labyrinth in a daze. The cargo hold was still pitch black, the air was still fetid and the stink still scratched at their skin, but they both knew the danger had been sapped out of it – at least for the moment.

The leper had completed its errand.

‘What does Old Tom want?’ wondered Arent.

‘Devotion,’ replied Sara. ‘What else do you need an altar for?’

‘A sacrifice?’ They considered that, then Arent spoke again, lost in his own musings. ‘I wonder if the altar is the reason Isabel came down here.’

‘Isabel?’

Arent told her about Isabel’s encounter with the constable last night.

‘“Popped his carrot back in the sack”?’ she repeated, giggling. ‘That’s the phrase he used?’

‘Almost brought my breakfast up when I heard it,’ said Arent, grinning. ‘But we know Isabel’s sneaking around the ship at night. That altar’s as good a reason as any. Could be that Old Tom’s managed to convert the predikant’s ward.’

‘That would make sense,’ said Sara. ‘Sander Kers is hunting Old Tom. He believes the demon is possessing somebody on the ship. He told me this morning.’

‘Who?’

‘You.’

‘Me?’

‘Possibly. Apparently, we’re hunting for somebody with a bloody past.’

‘Should narrow it down,’ replied Arent sarcastically, blowing a little life back into their flame. ‘Does Sander Kers want this demon dead, by any chance? Maybe he’s found a good excuse to commit murder.’

‘He does, but I don’t think he’s lying.’ From high above them, pinpricks of light shone from the grates that had been used to lower the cargo down. Footsteps were passing back and forth across them. It would have been faster to get out by climbing the stacks of crates and pushing one of the grates open.

Then she remembered how heavy her dress was.

‘Sander was lured here as well,’ she continued. ‘He received a letter from Creesjie’s husband asking that he join him in Batavia to fight Old Tom, but Pieter was already dead when the letter was written.’

‘We definitely need to know more about Sander and Isabel,’ said Arent.

‘Leave it to me, I’ll ask –’

From somewhere near, they heard a scrape, then a thud. Somebody cursed.

‘That sounded like Isaack Larme,’ said Sara, raising an eyebrow.

‘Larme, is that you?’ called out Arent.

‘Over here,’ he hollered back.

They followed his voice to find him inspecting a Mark of Old Tom by the light of a candle on a tray. There was a knife in his hand, its edge made jagged by rust. He was puffing slightly, as if he’d just completed some labour. Upon seeing them, he tapped the mark. ‘Did you see these? Same symbols as on the sail.’

Sara noticed a sliver of wood still clinging to the tip of Larme’s blade.

‘It’s the Mark of Old Tom,’ said Arent. ‘Wherever it appears, disaster follows. This is what I was trying to warn you about.’

‘They’re everywhere,’ said Sara. She waved towards the heart of the maze. ‘The leper built an altar. Old Tom’s taking hold of this ship.’

Larme glanced at the marks again, then slipped the knife into his boot. ‘Or it’s the crew playing silly buggers,’ he replied. His gaze travelled Sara up and down, without any apparent concern for her rank. ‘You shouldn’t be down here. No place for a woman, this.’

‘We heard a scraping, then a thump,’ said Arent.

Guilt flashed across Larme’s face. ‘Probably the search,’ he said unconvincingly.

‘Seemed closer than that,’ disagreed Sara.

‘I didn’t hear anything.’

Sara looked around, trying to make sense of it, but the cargo hold was too dark and the candle too bright. It etched out Larme, but blinded them to everything else.

‘Why didn’t you tell me you were friends with Bosey?’ asked Arent.

‘I weren’t.’

‘You’ve half a charm each,’ said Arent. ‘I’ve heard that means you get his pay at the end of this voyage. You must have meant something to each other.’

‘And none of it’s your business,’ said Larme, the flame faltering momentarily as he picked up the tray with the candle on it.

‘Don’t you want to know who killed him?’ tried Sara. ‘Don’t you want to know who stuck him on those crates, then burnt him alive?’ Larme ran a nervous tongue around his lips.

‘Or maybe you already know,’ said Arent slowly. ‘And you just don’t want us to find out.’

‘You don’t know what you’re talking about,’ snarled Larme.

‘Then tell us,’ said Arent.

‘Don’t you think I want to? Do you reckon I’m happy that something wants to put us on the bottom? I can’t talk to you, because you’re a soldier.’

‘I’m not,’ appealed Sara.

‘You’re a woman. Aint much better.’

‘For heaven’s sake,’ she said, annoyed at his stubbornness. ‘There’s just us three, down in the dark. What does it matter?’

He shook his head angrily, jabbing a finger at them. ‘Everybody thinks sailing is about the wind and waves. It aint. Sailing’s about the crew, which means it’s about superstition and hate. The men you’re depending on to get you home are murderers, cutpurses and malcontents, unfit for anything else. They’re only on this ship because they’d be hanged anywhere else. They’ve got short tempers and violent passions, and we’ve locked them all together in a space we’d feel bad keeping cattle in. Captain Crauwels sails this ship, and I keep the crew from mutiny. If either of us makes a mistake, we’re all dead.’ His jutted out his chin pugnaciously, like a man ready to spill somebody’s drink in a tavern. ‘Do you know why the crew hate soldiers so much? It’s because we tell them to. If they didn’t, they’d realise how much they hate each other, and we’d never get home.’ He steadied his light. ‘If I answer your questions, if I help either of you in any way, I put myself on your side, not theirs. So, there’s my choice: Bosey or this ship. Which would you choose?’

Receiving no answer, he snorted and strode off.

Sara and Arent listened to his footsteps fade, then Arent walked to where Larme had been standing. ‘What could have made that scrape and thump we heard? What was Larme doing down here?’

‘Moving crates?’ suggested Sara.

Arent pushed at a couple, finding them pinned solid by the weight of those stacked on top. ‘Any other ideas?’

‘Perhaps one of the sides is false?’ she ventured.

He thumped some. They all seemed firmly attached.

Sara stamped on the floor, water splashing up her legs. She’d always enjoyed the parts of Pipps’s stories where he found a trapdoor, and was hoping to discover one for herself. She was disappointed. If the floorboards had secrets, they were holding them close.

Arent stared at the thick beams of the hull curving down towards them. His fingers roamed across the rough wooden planks.

‘What are you looking for?’ wondered Sara, joining the search.

‘Whatever I’m missing. Whatever Sammy would have –’ He slapped his hands together. ‘Larme’s a dwarf! He wouldn’t have been able to reach the section of wall we’re searching.’

He knelt in the bilge water, soaking his hose. The stink was dreadful.

Sara eyed the dirty water with distaste, but she was already filthy. With a shudder, she joined him in the muck.

Her smaller fingers soon snagged on a peg.

‘Here,’ she cried triumphantly.

In truth, it wasn’t terribly well hidden. Whoever had built it, had trusted to darkness to conceal it, rather than any great craft. She yanked it out, causing a panel to scrape loose, then thud on to the floor.

There was a compartment behind it.

Arent drew his lantern closer, so they could peer inside.

‘Oh!’ said Sara in disappointment. It was empty. Whenever Pipps did this, there was always something inside. Usually jewels, though on one particularly gory occasion, it had been a severed head.

‘Larme must have moved whatever was in here,’ she said. ‘He came down here to hide something.’