by Patty Jansen
Chapter 13
SURPRISINGLY, Johanna’s head remained clear enough to think.
First, the crown and staff were symbols of the Carmine House, and no bandits should get their hands on them. She dropped to her knees to fish the crown out from under the table. The staff, though, was under the king’s body. Carefully, she rolled the king over. She had to do her best not to focus on the gaping wound in his stomach or she would surely faint, or throw up, or both. His face was undamaged, with his eyes half open. Carefully, she unfolded his fingers, still warm, and removed the staff. She took it and the crown into the corridor. A few doors down was a broom cupboard. Johanna stumbled in, upsetting a bucket with the bottom of her dress, and placed the precious items on the top shelf. She pushed the door shut. There. At least the bandits would have to look for the symbols of Carmine power.
Next, she had to get out and save herself and Father and the house. Then they would take the Lady Sara upriver and go to Mother’s family.
It felt improper to walk away from the King and Queen, who could have been her parents-in-law, but she could do nothing except whisper a few lines of prayer. King Nicholaos would have liked that.
The hallway was still empty. As fast as she dared without making too much noise, Johanna ran out the door. The steps were awkward because she couldn’t see her feet in that stupid dress. Then through to the forecourt, now a mess of ruined coaches, dead horses, bodies and fine clothes covered in blood. Already, flames licked the top of the palace roof.
She stopped briefly at each body, but saw none that looked like Father.
A man with a bear stood at the gate. It gave a low grunt, probably because it smelled Johanna. The man said something and the animal settled.
Johanna slipped out of a side gate.
First she had to go home to get changed out of this ridiculous dress.
She ran through the streets of the merchant district. Many people ran through the streets, some carrying packs and children. A coach driver was trying to control his panicked horse while a noble family got into the cab. Where would they be going? These bandits were destroying everything in sight. The sky was orange with the glow of the fire that would lay all of the inner city to ashes. This was worse than the big fires of the past.
Johanna ran. The hoops of the dress flopped awkwardly around her legs. Her shoes hurt. She wished she had her clogs.
Once she spotted a group of men with two hairy and flat-footed bears.
One pushed in a shop door with ease, before a man threw a burning torch inside the shop. Within moments, flames burst out the windows and the glass broke. The men laughed in their guttural, foreign voices.
Johanna ran.
Her house. Father, Nellie.
The houses at the far end of her street were already on fire. Against the glow, a group of people were fighting in the street. Women screamed. A dark shape lay motionless on the cobbles.
Fire reflected in the upstairs windows of Johanna’s house, still untouched but probably not for long. She ran up the front steps, pushed the front door open. Her heart jumped. Would Father have made it back here?
“Nellie, Father?”
There was no reply, except the sound of breaking glass from further down the street.
“Nellie, where are you?”
Johanna walked into the kitchen—empty—the living room—empty, too. Koby would have gone home. Nellie’s sewing work lay on the table in the living room, but obviously, she wasn’t here either.
It was useless. There was no one here, and too little time to look for them. Johanna ran upstairs, pulling at the laces that held her bodice together. The bodice loosened, but she couldn’t reach all the buttons. She pulled the bodice down, and then tried to lift it over her head, but it was no use. She pulled at the skirt with the hoops. The dress was stuck. “Nellie!”
There was no reply. She pulled again, but the fabric was too tough. She stumbled down the stairs into the kitchen. Now where did Koby keep the knives? She rummaged through the drawers, eventually finding a pair of scissors. They were old and blunt, and cutting through the fabric was hard, but she freed herself from the skirt with the hoops and then managed to wrench the buttons loose. Sorry, Mistress Daphne.
Then she went back up the stairs in her underclothes.
People were shouting in the street. The smell of smoke drifted under the door. She took her comfortable everyday dress from the cupboard and slipped it on. Then her vest over the top. Then she collected a handful of other clothes in a soft travel bag that she had used to go to Lurezia.
Then back to the kitchen, grabbed a tea towel, and yanked the handle of the pump until water came out, wet the towel and tied it over her nose and mouth. Then she grabbed Father’s long coat from the stand, wet it as well, and put it on. It was freezing. Then her clogs. And her second-best shoes just to be certain. She buttoned up the bag.
She opened the front door. A cloud of acrid smoke billowed through the street. Several people ran past at high speed.
She pulled the front door shut behind her and ran down the steps, down the street the way she’d come. Fire was already eating at the neighbour’s house.
Down the street, into the marketplace, past burning shops. A woman called her name. “Johanna, stop, Johanna!”
She stopped, seeing a thin figure run towards her.
“Nellie!” She swept Nellie up in her arms. She smelled clean and warm
“Oh, thank the holy spirit, Mistress Johanna, you’re alive.”
“Where is Father?”
“Didn’t he come back with you?”
“No, I ran from the palace. I couldn’t find him anywhere.” A deep sense of guilt took hold of her. She should have looked better. Father would be around there somewhere looking for her. What if he was injured and needed her help?
“I was looking for you and Koby,” Nellie said. Firelight reflected in her eyes. “And then I saw the fires and saw those creatures. I didn’t know what to do. Those are the demons, right?”
“They’re bears. They came into the palace,” Johanna said. “The king is dead. The queen is dead.”
Nellie clamped her hands over her mouth. “What about Prince Roald?”
“I don’t know, Nellie.” How many people had been killed there?
“Let’s go home and wait for the master.”
“We can’t. There’s fighting in the street. The house will burn soon. No one is even trying to put out the fire.” All the houses were built mostly of wood. There would be nothing left of the city.
“No. Then where can we go?” Nellie’s voice sounded small.
“I was going to the Lady Sara.” But a sense of dread took hold of her. She had wanted to take the sloop upriver and wait out the trouble, but without anyone to handle the cows, could she even get it out of the harbour?
They ran through the streets. Every time Johanna saw the silhouette of a man, she hoped it was Father. Maybe he would have gone to the harbour as well. Several times, they had to hide away from bands of men with bears.
There was fighting at the quayside as well, and men were breaking windows of merchant offices. A fire burned in a warehouse, and its reflection of the flames in the water was gold.
Father’s office was still safe, but a fight blocked Johanna and Nellie’s way to it.
The fire in the Deim warehouse had spread to neighbouring warehouses.
“Look at that, Nellie. It’s getting so close to the armoury.” If that caught fire, there would be disaster.
The ships’ boys had moved the Lady Sara to the dock at Father’s barn, which was still free of fire, but she and Nellie couldn’t get there because the warehouses along the wharf were on fire.
Nellie froze. The firelight reflected in her eyes. She raised her hands to her mouth. “It’s terrible. What can we do? Where can we go?”
“Come with me.”
Johanna ran to the quay. The low tide had uncovered a set of barnacle-covered slippery steps that ran down to the water.
Between the larger boats lay a dingy with a pair of oars. Johanna jumped in, starting to untie the knot.
“Come, quickly. Be careful, though, it’s—”
Nellie gave a little yell and slipped, falling in a heap on the steps.
Johanna jumped out, almost slipped herself on the algae on the steps.
“Are you all right?”
Several men yelled on the quay above them. There was the sound of running footsteps. Johanna threw Father’s dark cloak over herself and Nellie and crouched on the steps. The men ran past.
The roof of the armoury was now on fire. “Quick, Nellie.” She more or less dragged Nellie into the boat.
Then she untied the rope and grabbed the oars. Her first stroke missed the water and the right oar clanged into the hull of the large boat.
She pushed the oars deeper. They now found resistance and slowly, the dinghy moved into open water. Oof, it was a long time since she’d done this.
As they pulled away from the quay, the glow of fire became stronger. The entire row of offices on the quay were on fire. A couple of men ran across with buckets. Johanna wasn’t sure where they were going or what they hoped to do.
Nellie was crying. “Oh, what can we do, what can we do?”
“Be quiet, that’s what. We don’t want to draw attention to ourselves.”
They reached the sea cow barn and went in under the ship doors. The animals were restless, sloshing in the water, blowing and snorting. They weren’t crazy—they could feel that something was up.
Several bumped the dinghy, increasing Nellie’s panic even further.
There was a rustle in the corner of the barn, amongst the stack of crates.
Johanna called, “Loesie? Loesie, are you there?”
A couple of crates moved aside, and Loesie rose, her eyes wide in the glow of the fires. “Ghghghgh!” Her eyes were wide. She pointed to the door, where fire was reflected in the water.
“Yes, the whole city is on fire. They were demons, as you said. The royal family has meddled with evil magic and now the demons are angry.” Oh, why had Master Willems said nothing about it earlier? Most of the merchants knew of his hidden talent. They would have believed him, even if they’d never say so in public. They would have started rumours and people would have been warned.
And now . . . the entire sky glowed orange with fire in the direction of the palace. There was shouting and screaming. Glass shattered. Things exploded in the warehouses.
“We have to get out, before they discover us,” Johanna said. Before the armoury goes up.
“But how?” Nellie sounded close to tears.
“We’ll take the Lady Sara.”
“But you don’t know anything about sloops.”
“I know a bit.” Not much, and she’d only seen the deckhands do things. She had no doubt that getting the cows harnessed and going in the same direction seemed easier than it was.
“Ghghghghgh,” Loesie said, pointing at her chest.
“Loesie knows about sloops,” Johanna said. “She’s come here by herself.” Although the barge owned by Loesie’s family was much smaller than the Lady Sara.
Nellie edged further away from Loesie.
Loesie was already wriggling the harness rigging off the hooks, and filling the feed pouches with carrots, like Johanna had seen her father’s boatsmen do many times. The cows splashed and snorted in the water, raising their rounded and whiskered snouts; they wanted the carrots. More than anything else, they wanted to get out of here. But even over the noise they made, there was the sound of shouting at the quay.
Johanna opened the barn door a fraction.
Down the wharf, a group of bandits attacked a group of men. There was shouting, swords were drawn. Several of the men looked like palace guards. The others were rogues with long hair and leather jerkins. They had dogs, and a shaggy bear that ran across the quay. It disturbed her how well those large creatures obeyed people. She’d heard about bear magic, but what was the power of bear magic? Why couldn’t she feel it?
One, then two people fell onto the cobbles and didn’t get up.
Johanna felt chilled watching. These bandits just mowed innocent people down as if they were animals. Whatever the royal family had done, this didn’t justify it.
Loesie had walked down the platform to the water and had hooked the rigging onto the sea cows’ harnesses. Six animals were already chomping on carrots; a couple of big hairy bodies were jostling for the remaining two spots.
“Come, Nellie, help me.” Johanna grabbed the corner of a bag of carrots. It was much too heavy for her alone to lift. Nellie grabbed the other corner. Together, they heaved it out of the barn, onto the jetty and the gangplank, onto the flatly sloping cargo hatch of the Lady Sara.
They carried a number of other sacks to the deck. There were potatoes, firewood, oiled cloth, and crates of which Johanna had no idea what they contained, but it would be something useful, because things needed for the boats were stored in here. Freight went into the warehouse.
“Take as much as you can,” she said to Nellie when passing her on the way out.
Nellie was crying; the front of her apron was filthy. “Oh, Mistress Johanna, I don’t think I can lift any more. My arms are so sore. What are we going to do?”
“We’ll stay alive, that’s what we’ll do. We have to get out of here before they discover us. We can come back later, when the fires are out and the demons have had enough of setting fire to things.” Or until there is nothing left to burn. Johanna’s arms were sore, too, but she wasn’t going to say anything about that.
“But where can we go?” Nellie’s eyes were wide.
Fire lit up the sky in a terrible display of orange. The palace guards were still fighting on the quay in front of Father’s office. The building itself was on fire. More and more bandits ran onto the quay, and the poor guards were heavily outnumbered. Any moment and the bandits would start setting fire to the boats.
Loesie walked along the side of the Lady Sara, holding the reins. A tricky operation. If the cows panicked and bolted, she would go over the edge or let go of the reins. Many an inexperienced boatsman had spent hours waiting for escaped clutches of cows to return after such a mishap.
Johanna heaved a couple more bags on board. She helped Nellie with a stack of oiled cloth.
The roof of the armoury was on fire and it would be a matter of time before something exploded. The cows would panic. This was their only chance to get out.
Then there was a heavy splash: someone had fallen into the water.
Johanna gasped and turned around, but Loesie still stood on the deck.
“Look, there!” Nellie sat on the cover to the cargo hold, pointing.
On the other side of the harbour, a bandit peered into the darkness of the water, bow drawn. He didn’t fire. Possibly he couldn’t see the head of the man swimming. But backlit against the fires at the quay, Johanna could.
“Who is it?” Nellie asked.
“I don’t know. One of the ships’ boys or fishermen, probably. Let’s go.”
“But he’ll drown.”
“Looks like he swims very well.” Surprisingly well, actually. “He’ll save himself. Is everyone ready?”
Loesie had the rigging tied up securely. The sea cows were pulling at their harness. Johanna jumped onto the jetty and loosened the ropes. The Lady Sara slowly receded from the quay.
“Ghghghgh!” Loesie stood at the stern. She had tied up the reins to the bar across the deck for that purpose. She pointed at the water.
The swimmer was coming in their direction. A weak man’s voice sounded over the water. “Stop . . . stop . . . don’t leave without me.”
What to do? What if he was one of the rogues? No, that couldn’t be.
“Loesie, wait. We’ll pick him up. Nellie, come on. Stop crying. Help me with this rope.” The trailing end of the rope had fallen into the water. Johanna pulled it to the harbour-side of the boat, and tried to throw it at the man. But the ro
pe was heavy with salty water. The rough fibre scratched her hands. When she threw it, she almost toppled into the water after it.
The rope made a splash in the water. It fell far short of the swimmer.
In her mind, she heard Adrian’s laughter. It will be a long time before you make a decent deckhand, mistress. He’d said that so many times after she’d fumbled trying to “help” him. Then again, she had never considered that one day she would have to be a real deckhand.
To her surprise, the end of the rope hadn’t disappeared under water: there was a wooden float on the end.
The swimmer had come closer. She whispered as loudly as she dared, “Here, hang onto the end of the rope!”
Moments later he grabbed the float. Johanna hauled at the rope, but couldn’t lift him out of the water.
“Use the handholds!” she yelled down, but either he didn’t hear it or he couldn’t see them. “Nellie, Loesie, help me!”
It took all three of them, or mostly Loesie and Johanna, to pull the man up on the deck. He fell to his hands and knees, coughing. He wore a dark jacket of velvet that would have been very heavy in the water judging by the size of the puddle that formed around him. His trousers had ripped and were covered in mud.
“C . . . cold.” His teeth chattered.
Despite the state of his clothes, he didn’t look like a common citizen. In fact, he looked like he had been a guest at the ball.
There were shouts from the quay. A group of huge men with long hair and leather jerkins ran across, pursuing a couple of palace guards who ran onto the wharf where the Lady Sara had been moored.
“Let’s go!” Johanna yelled at Loesie. “Go, go, go! Come on, help me get him into the cabin.” This to Nellie.
Nellie came and grabbed the man’s other arm. He went into another coughing spasm.
“Killed, they’re all killed,” he whispered. He was shivering.
Johanna pulled him to his feet and together with Nellie, moved across the narrow walkway between the sloping lids on the cargo hold and the railing. Meanwhile Loesie yanked at the reins. The sea cows threshed in the harness; they wanted to be out of here. Slowly, the boat started moving again.
A group of men with two bears ran onto the quay. One threw a burning torch which trailed sparks as it flew through the air. It landed on the deck, but Johanna could kick it off the other side before it had ignited anything. The flames hissed out into the water and probably spooked the sea cows, but fortunately, that made them move more quickly.
Soon, the Lady Sara was too far away from the wharf to be within their reach. Shouts drifted over the water and echoed in the stillness. They sounded like curses, but in what language she didn’t know.
Then—a brief moment of eerie calm, followed by a huge roar of fire. The very air was alive with vibration. Next, the roof of the armoury blew sky high. The sound wave followed moments later, and a blast of hot air. Burning debris rained over the surrounding quay. A ball of fire billowed out, devouring everything in its path. Every boat within reach of the fireball was set alight, right down to the steps where Johanna and Nellie had taken the dinghy.
Nellie and Johanna finally reached the cabin with their charge. The door was narrow and it took some manoeuvring to get the man inside, unsteady on his feet as he was.
Once inside, Johanna sat him on the chair at Father’s writing desk while she searched for blankets or any spare men’s clothes that Father or the deckhands might have stored here.
The cabin’s main windows faced away from the glow of the inferno. While moonlight shone into the side window, it was pitch dark in the far corners of the cabin. There was a storm light against the back wall, but while there was probably a candle in it, she had no way to light it. Tomorrow, she would have to get out the flint and steel and get the galley fire going, but for now, they would have to survive in the dark. She hoped there would be wood or peat on board. Stupid that she hadn’t checked. It would be miserable on board without a fire.
Their refugee’s teeth chattered.
Johanna found a blanket on a shelf and handed it to him. “Here, take off your wet clothes and use this blanket.”
He rose from the chair and held his arms wide. “Can you . . . can you help me?” He shivered so much that he could barely speak.
For one moment Johanna considered that undressing a man would be seen as highly inappropriate, but then she decided to hell with it. He was wet, cold, exhausted. They were all tired and should help each other.
With hands numb through fatigue and cold, she tackled his sodden jacket—oh boy, that thing was heavy. She gave it to Nellie to find a place to hang it to dry. Nellie disappeared into the door at the back that led to the galley.
Then the shirt. She peeled it off his thin arms.
Through the window at the front of the cabin, she could see Loesie in the moonlight, standing at the stern watching the cows.
The Lady Sara made a slight turn. Moonlight came into the window and showed her the man’s face.
It was Prince Roald.