The Devil and the Dark Water

35

As the fleet captains returned to their ships, Sara played her harp. There was no peace in anything else. Her fingers found the strings effortlessly, but she wasn’t thinking about the music. It was simply there, all around her, like the sea around the Saardam. After a while, she would entirely forget that she had anything to do with it at all.

Atop the music floated dark and dreadful thoughts.

By his own admission, her husband had summoned Old Tom, a creature which had caused untold suffering across the Provinces and had now built an altar to itself on the Saardam. She wondered what bargain he’d struck, and how many of the horrors he’d perpetrated these last years had been to pay back his debt.

Sara looked through her harp strings at Creesjie and Lia. Her friend had on the damask silk gown she would be wearing at dinner, while Lia knelt at her feet, with tailor’s pins in her mouth and a scrap of material clutched in her hand. An empty scroll case lay next to her.

‘Can you walk across the room again?’ asked Lia.

‘I’ve walked across the room five times,’ pointed out Creesjie testily. ‘It’s fine.’

‘What if the case changes your gait and people notice?’ fretted Lia.

‘My gait is not what the men of this ship have been noticing.’

‘Please,’ wheedled Lia.

‘Lia!’ warned Creesjie, exasperated.

‘Mama,’ pleaded Lia.

‘Creesjie,’ interjected Sara. ‘Just walk across the room one more time, please. Let her see.’

As they continued with their preparations, Sara’s thoughts drifted back to her husband. He was wealthy and powerful and had been for a long time. If that was what he’d asked Old Tom for, how high must the price have been?

Slowly, she sifted over every act of malice he’d perpetrated in their time together. He’d slaughtered the population of the Banda Islands over a contract. Could that have been at Old Tom’s insistence? Was his survival at Breda actually the creature’s doing? What about the three times he’d almost beaten her to death? Where they scraps thrown to the beast to keep it sated?

Her finger missed a string, the music collapsing like a badly made house. She started again.

‘I think I should make the loop bigger,’ murmured Lia, staring at Creesjie’s dress.

‘The loop is quite big enough,’ said Creesjie, yanking the hem out of Lia’s hand.

‘Can you lift it easily? Or is it too heavy?’

‘Stop fretting,’ demanded Creesjie. ‘Sara, will you tell your infernal daughter that everything is perfect and she should stop fretting.’

Sara didn’t hear. She too was fretting.

She knew how her husband thought. If his enemy couldn’t be undermined, then he’d murder them. If he couldn’t murder them, he’d try to buy them. If he couldn’t buy them, he’d bargain. If Old Tom was on this boat, and it really was threatening him, his first impulse would be to offer it something.

And he had a great deal to offer.

He was sailing back to become a member of the Gentlemen 17, the most powerful body of men in the world. Through them he would have control of the Company’s fleets and armies. He would be able to wreak havoc simply by placing a finger on a map. If it was suffering Old Tom yearned for, her husband would make a perfect herald.

The music became discordant. Her hand was shaking.

In the fort, she’d played at being Samuel Pipps, but always in the assurance that whether she failed or succeeded, the questions would still be answered. The mystery would be solved, the righteous would be victorious and no harm would come to anybody she loved.

But that was no longer the case. Old Tom was hiding in one of the passengers and unless she identified him soon, everybody she loved would be slaughtered.

‘Lia?’

‘Yes, Mama?’

‘How well do you understand the principles keeping this ship afloat?’

‘It’s really a matter of ballast and –’

‘Marvellous,’ interrupted Sara, who didn’t have time to plumb the depths of Lia’s knowledge. ‘Would you be able to determine the best place to build secret compartments in the hull?’

‘I’d need to build a model,’ said Lia, eyes agleam.

‘If I find you some wood, how long will it take?’

‘A week or more,’ said Lia joyfully. ‘Why do you need it?’

‘If Bosey built one smuggling compartment, he likely built more. Whatever Larme was hiding, maybe he moved into another compartment.’

‘Oh, good, you’ve got a new project,’ said Creesjie to Lia. ‘Perhaps, now, you’ll finally leave me alone.’