by Patty Jansen
* * *
It was getting towards the end of the third day on the river when a whistle came from the bow of the boat.
Loesie stood at the bar handling the leather straps of the harnesses. The sloop had stopped and drifted into a bed of reeds, where the sea cows were busily tearing up stems by the roots.
“Why have we stopped here?”
“Ghghghghgh.” Loesie pointed at the horizon. Her eyes were wide.
Johanna looked.
At first she saw nothing unusual. Just an undulating field surrounded by a hedge, then a path and another field and—smoke. Jagged ruins. Her heart jumped.
“Is that Aroden?”
Loesie nodded.
The castle and the surrounding town, where her mother grew up. “Have you seen any people?”
She shook her head.
Nellie had come up behind them. “Why are we stopping here—oh!” She raised her hand to her mouth. “Is this Aroden?”
Johanna nodded. She couldn’t speak. All the hope she’d had to find a safe haven fled with the sight of this destruction.
“Ghghghghghghgh.” Loesie pointed up and down the river and then shrugged.
“Keep going,” Johanna said.
Loesie flicked the reins to make the cows continue. The sloop slowly gathered pace. Johanna, Loesie and Nellie remained at the bow, looking over the landscape.
Around the next bend they came across more burnt-out ruins, some still smouldering. Not a thing moved, not a bird called. A waft of burnt air drifted on the wind. Oh, if only she could read the wind. Was all of Estland in ruins? Were any of her relatives still alive?
A couple of people, a woman and two young men, ran to the riverbank, shouting. They were filthy, covered in soot. The woman had an ugly sore on her forehead.
Nellie raised her hand over her mouth. “Look at those people. What are we going to do?”
“We can’t do much. We must protect Roald.” Her voice wavered. She was so tired. The temptation to jump from the deck into the river was great.
“Should we moor here and check the castle?”
“I don’t see that there is a point, Nellie. I’m pretty sure that burnt tower there is part of the castle. These bandits have laid the world to waste. There is no town unscathed, and if there are any royals still alive, they will be like Roald, in hiding.”
A chill went over her. What if there were none left alive? What kind of chaos would descend upon the western lowlands? Many major royals had been at the ball. What if the Carmine House, the Aroden family and Baron Uti were all dead? Then Roald would be the only royal heir for all of those lands. And he would need to step up soon, so that people could have hope that peace and prosperity would return.
Neither of them said anything for a long time. The sloop moved slowly upriver and the woman and her two teenage sons slid from view. Their voices faded in the distance. Johanna felt horrible about not stopping and helping them, but with Roald on board, they couldn’t afford to get involved in trouble.
It started to rain, a soft drizzle that barely made the ground wet at first, but grew more persistent. They went into the tiny cabin where Roald had spent most of his days and where it smelled uncomfortably of male sweat.
Johanna lit a candle and they shared some of their supplies. Roald chatted about cheese and ham and which kinds he liked, but no one else said much. Eventually, he fell silent as well, heaving a sigh.
“Is there anywhere your uncle could have fled to safety?” Nellie asked Johanna, her voice low.
Johanna shrugged. “The duke has a hunting lodge, but I don’t know where it is.” At any rate, the forests of Estland had never been the safest of places.
“What are we going to do now, Mistress Johanna?” Nellie’s voice was timid.
Johanna didn’t know, and felt irritated that making the decisions was all up to her.
“Maybe . . .” She stared into the flame of the candle. By its feeble light, Loesie looked wide-eyed and crazy. Johanna was no longer sure if they could trust her. Nellie’s face was pale in contrast with her red and raw lips. Her bonnet was in need of a wash, and that made Johanna feel embarrassed. Nellie would normally rather die than wear something dirty.
Roald’s beard had grown unruly. He looked the healthiest of all, but his mind was elsewhere.
Johanna let out a deep breath. “Let’s find a place to stay for the night away from Aroden. Then tomorrow we’ll see if we can turn around and go back. Maybe we can stay at Loesie’s farm until we get news.”
“Ghghghgh!” Loesie shook her head. She curled her fingers like claws and then made swimming movements with her hands.
Johanna frowned at her. “Do you mean that the men who attacked your farm came from across the river?”
Loesie nodded.
Across the river from Loesie’s farm was the marshy no-man’s land. They had passed it on the way here, but had not thought anything of it or seen anything unusual. It was a useless piece of land, inundated when it rained and too wet for forests, grazing animals or farming. Some farmers went there to cut peat, and maybe hunt ducks, but it wasn’t much good for anything else. That, of course, made it good for hiding. Was that where the bandits lived?
“Do they have a leader?”
“Mmmmm.” Loesie nodded. She made some hand gestures.
Johanna guessed what they meant. “He has long hair . . . He rides a horse?”
“Ghghghgh.” Loesie shook her head. She pointed at the river.
“He swims?”
“Mmmm.” She shook her head again and mimicked riding and pointed at the river.
“A water horse,” Roald said.
Johanna frowned at him. “What is a water horse?”
“It’s a creature from the fables,” Nellie said. “It’s a horse that has duck’s feet so that it can swim.”
Oh. She frowned at Loesie and again at Nellie. Did either of them believe in water horses?
“Well, it’s not going to help us much now. We have to decide where to go. We could go to Lurezia for help.” Because Burovia wouldn’t give it, since they never liked Saarland much in the first place, and Lurezia would probably be indifferent, too far away to care.
She sighed. Was there even a place to go?
“We are what’s left of free Saarland,” Nellie said into the depressed silence.
There was nothing anyone could add to that. The free city of Saardam was dead, and Estland had been gutted. Johanna rose. She needed to be out of this smelly cabin.
It had stopped raining.
Johanna walked along the deck to the sloop’s bow and sat down at the driver’s bench. The sea cows were unharnessed. Their ropes dangled in the water, moving occasionally. One of the animals was chomping noisily and wetly in the dark somewhere beyond the edge of her vision.
Foggy air blanketed the riverbanks, rendering the greens of the willows and grass in muted grey. Johanna hugged herself against the cold and humid air.
Someone else came from the cabin. Nellie, judging by the sound of careful footsteps.
“Mistress Johanna? Are you all right?”
“Sit down.”
Nellie settled on the bench next to her. “Oh, it’s all so awful. Those poor people. I can still hear them calling out for us.”
Yes, Johanna could, too. The woman and her two sons begging for help was probably an image that wouldn’t leave her for the rest of her life. “Do you know we hold the freedom of Saardam in our hands? We have the only surviving member of our royal family with us. If he dies without an heir, the holding of Saardam will fall into the hands of the nearest relative, who is . . . I don’t even know. Not someone who cares about us.”
Horror was written on Nellie’s face. Everyone knew the story of how the young Nicholaos had settled feuds that went back centuries by opening the port of Saardam for trade. Simply put, Saardam was too important to landlocked countries, and it suited the rival nations that a small and insignificant royal family had pos
session of it.
“We must find a way to take Saardam back from those bandits.”
“Yes.” Although that wouldn’t happen until they had found other survivors.
“And Roald must have an heir as soon as possible.”
“Yes.” Johanna nodded, grimly. “But everyone who would be a suitable candidate for a wife is dead.” The memory of the destruction of the palace made her shudder. Another image she would probably never forget.
A chill went down her back. She clamped her hands between her knees.
Nellie said, “If King Nicholaos agreed to you dancing with the prince, you are a suitable candidate.”
Johanna sighed and let her shoulders slump.
Nellie began, “I’m sorry, I would have—”
“No, Nellie. I’ve thought about it a lot.” In fact, ever since Father had mentioned the trouble of the royal family during that coach ride on their way to the ball.
“In what way did you think about it?”
Johanna thought that she had been stupid and behaved like a spoilt child that day. She didn’t want to get married because marriage meant looking after a man who expected to be looked after, who expected a lady of the house who held tea parties and things like that.
Roald expected nothing of the sort. Apart from that one thing that would be unpleasant, she wasn’t even sure what he expected. He seemed to be happy for her to tell him what to do. He was happy cooking. He’d been happy chopping wood. Those things he did well and efficiently. It was the talking and relationship stuff he had trouble with.
When Johanna said nothing, Nellie prompted, “Mistress Johanna? In what way?”
Johanna turned to her in the fast-waning light. “I’ll protect the prince from people who only want money he doesn’t have. I want to make sure that our country and our royal family stay as they are. I’ll help Saarland overcome this evil and make it strong again. I will marry Roald.”