The Devil and the Dark Water

49

The sea had settled and the sky had broken into two ragged halves; black behind them, blue in front. Rain swirled, but it was soft and warm, no longer filled with thorns. Snapped rigging dangled like vines, slapping the shredded sails. Cracks riddled the decking, but nobody was repairing them. Everybody was slumped on the floor exhausted, their faces blank with shock.

There wasn’t a word being spoken.

Crauwels was leaning over the side of the ship, inspecting the damage. His expensive shirt was torn, revealing the dark chest hair beneath. He was shivering and bleeding from a gash on his arm, barely able to stand.

‘What’s the damage?’ asked the governor general, striding towards him. Somehow, he’d come through the experience with barely a scratch. Chamberlain Vos followed at his master’s heel once again.

‘We might as well be a raft,’ said Crauwels, gesturing towards the useless sails. ‘Sailmaker reckons he’ll have them patched in two days. About the same for buckled decking. Hull appears to be intact, mercifully.’

‘We survived, though.’

‘Aye, but the storm blew us beyond the wagon lines.’ He winced as he touched the wound on his arm. ‘I have no damn idea where we are and there isn’t a single ship out there. We’re alone now.’

‘Last I saw, the Leeuwarden was still afloat,’ said the governor general, staring at the empty sea. ‘If we can find her, she may be able to render assistance.’

‘The lookout hasn’t spied her,’ argued Crauwels, irritated by such unfounded hope. ‘Some of the men say they saw her capsize. Even if she survived, she’ll be as badly damaged as us and equally lost. We won’t find her, not with our luck.’

The governor general considered him. ‘I sense you have a favour to ask of me.’

‘We need The Folly.’

‘That’s more than a favour, Captain.’

‘I know its power, I tested it for you,’ he replied. ‘Without it I’ve got the stars and nothing else. We’ll end up sailing in loops searching for land, so we can take a bearing. And between you and me, we don’t have the supplies for this delay, especially now the rest of the fleet is out of sight.’

A trickle of blood ran from the governor general’s nose. Vos immediately handed him a handkerchief to wipe it with.

‘I’ll take you myself,’ said the governor general.

The three of them headed for the gunpowder store, meeting Guard Captain Drecht coming up the staircase.

‘How goes it, Guard Captain?’ asked the governor general.

‘We lost four musketeers in the storm,’ he said.

The governor general considered this as they emerged into the orlop deck, the severity of the damage bringing them to a shocked halt. Water dripped from the ceiling into puddles of blood and vomit. Cannons lay on their sides, possessions scattered across the deck, including a small boot dangling from a peg on the ceiling – like the storm had come across it during its rampage, then put it out of harm’s way.

Bedraggled sailors and passengers hacked and coughed, bringing up seawater. They were sprawled on the floor, cradling broken arms and legs as they waited to be tended by the barber-surgeon, Sara, Lia or Sammy. Arent was talking to his friends.

Crauwels had spotted the two ladies and the prisoner dart out of sight behind the sickbay’s curtain when they descended. No doubt they feared the governor general’s reaction should he discover them down here. Thankfully, he was fixated on a bone-weary cabin boy, who was laying sheets of hemp across the dead. Crauwels wondered if he’d been ordered to do so, or simply taken it upon himself. Either way, he was going to get an extra ration of ale tonight.

There was a body at the bottom of the staircase. Guard Captain Drecht stepped over it and rapped smartly on the gunpowder store.

‘You alive in there, Constable?’ he demanded.

The panel slid open, revealing the wild white eyebrows. ‘The bits I can feel, which isn’t all,’ he complained. ‘Who are you?’

The governor general stepped in front of Drecht. ‘He’s with me. Open up. We’re here to collect The Folly.’

Fear flashed across the constable’s face, but he did as he was asked, slowly withdrawing the bolt and standing aside.

‘I don’t understand,’ said Drecht. ‘How does a bloody big box help us?’

‘The Folly lets us accurately fix our position while at sea,’ explained Crauwels. ‘That thing will tell me where Batavia is and what bearing I need to go directly there.’

‘I thought it was a weapon,’ sniffed Drecht, unimpressed.

‘With The Folly, Company ships will be able to sail beyond the wagon lines without fear, exploring the unmapped ocean,’ explained Vos.

If anything the unimpressed silence only deepened.

‘Don’t you see, Guard Captain,’ continued Vos. ‘With The Folly, our fleets will be able to outmanoeuvre their enemies with ease. They’ll be able to accurately chart unmapped oceans and discover people and places nobody’s ever set eyes on. The Folly is how the Gentlemen 17 will put their hands around the world.’

The governor general gestured for his men to get on with it. ‘Vos, take one end. Drecht, take the other. We’ll need to carry it up on deck.’

Grunting, they lifted it, but they’d barely taken a step, before the governor general cried out. ‘Put it down!’

They followed his horrified gaze. Burnt on to the planks where The Folly had previously sat was the Mark of Old Tom. Drecht immediately crossed himself, while Vos cursed, taking a hurried step away.

It was a vulgar thing. The eye bulged and the tail twisted away. Under the swaying lantern, it appeared to have a life of its own. Drecht half expected it to dart out of the door.

‘Open the box,’ demanded the governor general, retrieving a large iron key from around his neck and thrusting it towards the guard captain. ‘Open it now!’

The lock was rusted by the humidity, and took a few tries before it opened, and dropped on the ground with a thud.

Drecht lifted the lid, then blew a breath through his lips.

‘There’s nothing in here,’ he said, pushing the empty box round to face the governor general. There were only three empty sections where The Folly’s three pieces would have sat.

The governor general grabbed the constable by the chin, levering his face upwards so their eyes met.

‘Where is The Folly?’ he demanded.

‘I don’t know,’ whimpered the constable.

‘Did you think we wouldn’t notice?’ he was almost shrieking. ‘What have you done with it?’

‘I don’t know, sir. Truly I don’t. I didn’t know what was inside, sir. It was just a box to me. A box.’

The governor general snarled and pushed him away, sending him sprawling on the floor. ‘Twenty lashes will jog your memory, I think.’

‘No, please, sir, mercy,’ wailed the constable, raising an imploring hand, but Drecht was already hauling him out of the gunpowder store.

Arent had been having a jolly time with Sammy, Sara and Lia before his uncle arrived.

Sara had been telling Sammy everything she’d learned about Old Tom, including Sander Kers’s belief that it could be Arent. Sammy had reacted incredulously, listing several of his friend’s most boring, and therefore most un-devilish tendencies, with relish. This had set them all to laughing.

By the time, the governor general emerged from the gunpowder store, however, they were cowering in silence, afraid of being caught. Behind him came Drecht, his hand clamped around the constable’s solitary arm.

‘Uncle, what’s happening?’ called out Arent, stepping out of the sickbay.

‘This man stole The Folly,’ the governor general replied without stopping.

‘It wasn’t me, sir; it was the demon everybody’s talking about,’ cried the constable, who was still being dragged by Drecht. ‘I saw the mark myself, it was the demon.’ He looked at Arent with desperate eyes. ‘Please help me, Lieutenant Hayes. Please.’

‘Uncle, I know this man, he’s –’

The governor general gave him a pitying stare. ‘I gave you a chance to stop Old Tom, Arent. You told me you weren’t up to the task, and I should have listened. It’s not your fault, it’s mine. Fret not, I’ll put an end to this my way.’

Arent tried to protest, but Drecht put a friendly hand on his chest, and shook his head in warning, before pushing the constable up the stairs.

As soon as they were out of sight, Arent grabbed Sammy. ‘Come on, that’s an innocent man they’re dragging away. You need to work out what happened before they put the lash to his back.’

‘I’ve already found the damn thing once,’ grumbled Sammy, as Arent pulled him towards the gunpowder store. Despite his words, his eyes already betrayed that dreadful eagerness that always overcame him before a new case. ‘How long do I have?’

‘Depends on how long it takes them to find a lash amongst all this mess.’

Arent pushed him into the gunpowder store, as if he was a prisoner in a dungeon, then crossed his arms and waited by the door. Sara and Lia peered around him.

‘It stinks of ale, farts and sour piss in here,’ complained Sammy, sniffing the air. ‘Do you have a pomander handy?’

Sara offered him the one dangling from her waist, which he accepted gratefully, before turning to his work.

‘What should I do?’ asked Sara, rejoining Arent and Lia.

‘Just watch,’ replied Arent excitedly. Seeing Sammy let loose upon an impossible problem was one of the great pleasures of his life. It was no different now.

Lying on his stomach, Sammy inspected the store’s floorboards, then the box, running his hand up and down every piece of wood. Dissatisfied, he darted across the room, examining each of the gunpowder kegs on the racks in turn, rocking them one by one – nodding in satisfaction, as some internal idea presented itself.

Leaping on to the box, he tapped the beam connecting the whipstaffs in the helm to the rudders, then put a beady eye on the ceiling, which was covered in tin.

He murmured something to himself, then jumped down.

‘Who had keys to this room and the box, Arent?’

Arent racked his memory for the answer. He’d asked the question when he’d been investigating threats to the ship, but a lot had happened in the last two weeks, and he hadn’t slept for most of it.

‘Quickly, Arent, quickly, your constable is running out of time,’ said Sammy, clicking his fingers impatiently.

‘My uncle and Vos had keys to The Folly’s box,’ said Arent. ‘Only Captain Crauwels, Isaack Larme and the constable had keys to this room. There was no overlap.’

‘No, but one of the keys to this room would have been much easier to acquire than the keys to The Folly’s box.’

For the first time, Sammy noticed the crowd gathered at Arent’s back, watching this demonstration. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, while I’m, of course, honoured by your interest in my work, the matters under discussion must be tended with the strictest discretion. Lia, would you shut the door, please.’

A disappointed groan met the proclamation, but this was almost immediately drowned out by the sound of a drum beating across the weather decks. The rhythm was slow and steady, as if the Saardam’s heartbeat could suddenly be heard.

‘They’ll bring the constable out soon,’ said Arent. ‘What do you know?’

‘I have two theories, neither satisfactory.’ Sammy rubbed his hands together.

Arent noticed Lia flash an excited glance at her mother, who couldn’t help but return it. He knew they enjoyed his reports, and he could only imagine how much they were enjoying seeing them come to life.

‘The first is that The Folly was stolen in Fort Batavia and only the box was brought onboard,’ continued Sammy. ‘After we recovered The Folly, it was taken to the treasury in the fort. That treasury guarded the family’s most valuable possessions and was accessible only to the governor general, Vos and …’

Sara, thought Arent, flashing her a glance.

She had told him that she kept her jewelled pins in the treasury and had gone to collect them the morning of their departure. She might easily have taken her husband’s key beforehand, used it to remove the pieces of The Folly from its box, then locked it again, while she was doing it.

The theory didn’t explain what she’d done with the pieces once she’d stolen them, though. She’d still need to have taken them from the treasury. Could she have had help?

‘I was in the treasury the morning we set sail,’ said Sara, as if aware of his thoughts. ‘The box was opened by …’ The name died on her lips. ‘By an expert to ensure The Folly wasn’t damaged. It was definitely brought aboard.’

‘My second theory is equally flawed, though ingenious given the time you gave me,’ said Sammy, unaware that Arent was lost in his own thoughts. ‘The room itself is solid, without trapdoors of any kind. So how about this? Vos stole either the captain’s key, or Isaack Larme’s, then used it to enter the gunpowder store.’

‘Vos?’ exclaimed Sara. ‘Why Vos of all men? I wouldn’t have believed he had the imagination, and he knows the damage it will do to my husband. His ascension to the Gentlemen 17 depends on him delivering The Folly.’

‘When I was working on recovering the device in Batavia, I noticed that the governor general and Vos never let the keys to the box out of their sight. They kept them on strings around their necks. As the governor general left just then, I noticed he still did. I doubt those keys could be easily obtained. However, the keys to the gunpowder store do not seem to be treated with such care. When we boarded, Isaack Larme certainly didn’t have his upon him. His slops have no pockets and he was shirtless.’

Sammy threw himself down on to the constable’s stool. ‘If we assume – as we must, given the time we have – that it was the key to the gunpowder store that was stolen, our suspects become the governor general and Vos, but the governor general has nothing to gain. The Folly is already in his custody, and would benefit the Company he sails to take command of.’

‘But what motive would Vos have for such a crime? He’s loyal as a hound,’ asked Arent.

From above them, the drumbeat drew faster.

‘The Folly is priceless,’ remarked Sammy. ‘I heard Vos talking. Any nation that owns it can remake the world. They can explore unmapped waters, start new trade routes, strike at their enemies from the fog of a blank map. A king would empty his treasury for such power.’

Sara murmured her assent. ‘Vos told Creesjie he was coming into a large sum when he proposed to her. If he’d already stolen The Folly that could explain why he felt bold enough to ask for her hand after so many years.’

‘And my uncle ruined his company,’ said Arent. ‘Vos denies feeling anything about it, but he could have harboured a grudge these last years.’

‘Then let’s place the theft upon Vos’s head for the moment,’ concluded Sammy. ‘Our second question is, how did he get The Folly out of a locked and guarded room, without being seen by the passengers on the other side?’

‘The constable told me he goes for a piss and a walk at the same time every night. If he were watched, that pattern would be easy to spot.’

Sammy sprang from the stool and opened the door to the crowd on the other side. ‘Did any of you see a solitary man dragging anything large out of here at’ – he glanced at Arent – ‘what time does he go for a piss?

‘Two bells,’ supplied Arent.

‘Two bells!’ Sammy told them. ‘Could have happened any time since we set sail.’

Glances were exchanged, but there wasn’t any knowledge in them. Sammy slammed the door on them once again.

‘Then we have Vos’s window of time, but not his method. Is Vos friendly with anybody on this ship?’

‘Not that I can see,’ said Sara.

Sammy paced and thought. ‘Three of the kegs were empty when I rocked them,’ he muttered.

‘The constable told me those kegs were empty because sailors had packed their cannons without orders,’ said Arent.

‘Three kegs and The Folly comes in three separate pieces.’ Going to the racks, he tried to take one of the empty kegs down, failed, then gestured for Arent to do it instead. Tearing the lid free, they inspected the insides.

‘Here,’ said Sammy, before going to another one. ‘And here. You can see the teeth marks where the cogs gouged the wood when they were wedged inside.’

He straightened up, satisfied with his work. ‘Vos stole a key to the gunpowder store, then used it to enter while the constable was relieving himself. Using his own key, he stole the three pieces of The Folly from the box, then hid them in three kegs, which he must have emptied of gunpowder ahead of time.’ His eyes clouded, then became bright. He snapped his fingers in delight. ‘Oh, what a meticulous man he is,’ he said admiringly.

‘Sammy?’

‘Battle stations!’ said Sammy, whirling on him. ‘An Indiaman on an eight-month voyage will call battle stations at least half a dozen times. Vos knew that, so he planned accordingly. It didn’t matter when he retrieved The Folly, as long as it was before we arrived in Amsterdam, so he hid the pieces in the kegs, then waited. The first time battle stations were called, he dressed in a sailor’s garb, then followed two accomplices into the gunpowder store. In the confusion, nobody would have noticed him under a hat.’

‘Why two accomplices?’ wondered Sara. ‘Why wouldn’t he take all three himself?’

‘He couldn’t risk somebody taking one of the kegs he wanted before he got it.’

Arent marched towards the door.

‘Where are you going?’ demanded Sammy.

‘To tell my uncle.’

‘He won’t listen.’ Sammy rushed after him. ‘Arent, stop! Your uncle won’t heed you. Vos is his most trusted servant. He wouldn’t believe this of him any more than he’d believe the Saardam could grow wings and fly. We need proof.’

‘They’re about to flog an innocent man,’ growled Arent, staring up the staircase. ‘A good man.’

‘He won’t be the last,’ said Sammy sorrowfully. ‘Besides, our theory doesn’t exonerate your friend. If anything, it puts him deeper in the conspiracy. Vos’s scheme would have been better served by paying the constable to put aside the kegs he wanted. If you try to tell the governor general what you suspect, it will alert Vos. If you stay quiet and watch, he’ll do something foolish. He’ll give you what you want.’

‘How do you know that?’ asked Sara.

‘Because murderers can’t help but murder. Blackmailers can’t help but blackmail and thieves can’t help but thieve,’ said Sammy. ‘It’s the itch. The itch is what kills them all.’

Arent sagged.

Sammy was right, as usual.

Guilt was like dirt. It got under the skin and didn’t come clean. It made people second guess everything that was done, find fault where there was none and imagine mistakes that weren’t made. Soon enough, worries were worming out of them, growing fat on their doubt. Before long they were on their hands and knees at the crime scene, searching for clues they hadn’t left.

Sammy had caught a lot of guilty bodies because of the itch.

‘So what the hell do I do now?’ asked Arent.

‘The one thing you’re very bad at doing,’ said Sammy. ‘Nothing. Keep an eye on Vos. If he has accomplices as we suspect, the knowledge of the missing Folly will almost certainly send him scurrying to them, or them to him. Once that happens, you’ll have everything you need.’

‘Including Old Tom,’ added Sara. Seeing their curious faces, she added, ‘Sander said there would be three unholy miracles, each identified by the Mark of Old Tom. When the Eighth Lantern slaughtered the cattle, it left the Mark of Old Tom on the ground. That mark’s here again. If Vos did it, then maybe we’ve found our possessed passenger.’

‘Or he heard one of the whispers in the dark,’ disagreed Arent. ‘This could have been the price demanded for –’

From above them, the drums stopped.