by Patty Jansen
From her position, she could see over the wall into the coachbuilder’s yard. Business must be going well because underneath a shed with open sides stood two coaches in progress. Coach wheels of various sizes leaned against the far wall. Large vats of water contained timber planks weighed with stones to bend them.
A couple of men were busy polishing the side and door panels of an almost completed coach.
By the Triune, if those carpenters saw her standing on top of this wobbly bin, they would laugh and wonder what she was doing.
She peered into the warehouse window.
The first thing she noticed, when her eyes got used to the semidarkness inside, was an installation made from metal vats with pipes. The installation stood against the wall. From her position, she could only see the top of the thing.
There must be a fire somewhere because the wall felt warm under her hands. Steam blew from a little hole in the top of one of the metal pipes.
On the warehouse floor at the other side of the installation stood a row of bottles on a bench.
Nellie recognised the shape. A glass blower in town made these bottles. They were for gin.
That was another use for juniper berries: making gin.
The city of Saardam had laws about making and selling gin.
Nellie was sure that this factory in an unmarked building that hadn’t even been completed yet didn’t fall under those laws.
People were sent to jail for making and selling illegal gin. The city levied taxes on liquor because it liked to control how much of it was sold. Also, given half a chance, some people would use it as payment, neglecting their families and, in all, too much gin led to more thievery and more beggars on the streets.
And Els was inside that building where this illegal activity took place, with some ingredients. Nellie could see her, too. She was talking to another young woman, hidden behind Els. What she said must have been funny, because Els bent over laughing, covering her mouth with her hand.
But this gave Nellie a view of the other person.
It was not a girl. Except she was.
A girl with a familiar face, fairly coarse for a woman but, without the monk’s habit, unmistakably female. It was Gerard the monk.
Well, by the Triune.
Not only that, Nellie remembered seeing a bottle of gin in Lord Verdonck’s room. Empty.
She felt sick.
Els clapped the monk on the shoulder, they hugged each other, and then she turned around to the door.
Nellie scrambled off the rubbish bin and ran through the alley.
Els had left the building and was just walking across the empty plot of land that had held the animal park. Nellie strode after her and caught up with her in the street by grabbing her by the shoulder.
“What are you doing?”
Els gasped. “Nellie! What are you doing here?”
“I could ask the same about you. Buying juniper berries all over town, dealing with girls dressed up as monks. You know making liquor without a permit is illegal. You could end up in jail.”
Els’ cheeks coloured. “Who says that’s what I’m doing?”
“Then what are you doing in the warehouse back there?”
Her eyes widened. “You were spying on me?”
“With good reason. You lied to me. You took advantage of me. You didn’t need the berries for your mother at all. You should be ashamed of yourself. I trusted you.”
Els glared at her, her arms crossed over her chest.
“You’re only fourteen. I’m trying to help you. You don’t want to get involved with anything illegal.”
“I don’t need help. I’m doing fine by myself.”
“No, you’re not. You’ll be headed for jail by the time you’re sixteen. What is this kind of girl-monk you’ve got yourself involved with? Why were you schmoozing with her at the palace?”
“Do you see everything?”
“Yes, I do. I haven’t made it to my age by being stupid. Anyway, if you think you’ve been hiding your activities well enough, think again. I won’t have been the only one noticing your strange behaviour.”
Els glared at her and let her shoulders droop. “Will you promise not to say anything to anyone?”
“I don’t know about that. I’ll decide once I hear the story.”
Els breathed out a sigh.
“Gisele is like me: the daughter of a whore. Yes, I know you don’t like that word, but that’s what I am: whore spawn. My father didn’t care. My mother doesn’t care.” Her eyes burned. “Gisele’s mother lives in Lurezia and doesn’t care about her. She’s lived with the street rats all her life. Stealing food and doing other things you disapprove of.”
“I don’t disapprove—”
“Oh yes you do, you know nothing, but you’re full of judgement. You call it ‘help’ but it’s just telling people how bad they are.”
“Fine, if you don’t need the work at the palace, you can hand in your aprons, if that’s what you want. Then you can be a whore like your mother. You’ll do well, until the first babe comes along. I thought you didn’t want to live like her so that’s why I helped you. But I’m sorry. I must have been mistaken.”
She glared at Els and Els glared back. Somewhere deep inside her, Nellie believed Els didn’t want to follow in her mother’s footsteps at all, and that perhaps this illegal venture was part of it.
“I never said I wanted that and you can’t tell me to leave anyway. Only Dora can.”
Also true. Nellie bit down on her anger. “Keep telling me about the girl monk.”
“She has a name: Gisele.”
“I’ll decide if I want to use the name once I hear the story.”
Els gave her another fine look. “The only way for her to survive in Lurezia was to steal stuff. One day, she stole a bag with a monk’s habit inside. She was cold, and the habit was made of thick fabric, so she put it on. And when she did that, people in the street treated her differently. The guards left her alone. The pimps stopped bothering her. So she cut off her hair to make herself look more like a boy and worked for the church, because they gave her food.”
“While pretending to be a monk?” That was disgraceful and misusing people’s trust in the church. “What if the order finds out?”
Els shrugged. “They don’t care. As long as she works. For a girl alone, pretending to be a monk is safe. She’s strong, so she worked on riverboats. Then, when she came here, she started making gin, because a lot of people want to buy it in the harbour. I met her there. She’s funny and she’s smart. She lets no disgusting man come near her. She sells a lot of gin in town. Gisele makes the gin and I find people to buy it. I know many people in the docks through mam, and all the taverns always want cheaper gin. We split the money. That’s all. There’s no evil plots involved, just us trying to survive.”
“Did you sell anything to the palace?”
“To the palace directly? What do you think I am? I’m not stupid. They’ll want to know where it comes from. I don’t want to get caught. I have no argument with the palace. It’s just dangerous to be involved with them. We sell to sailors. They don’t talk because if they do, they don’t get gin.”
But obviously someone was well connected enough to lend them the use of this building. As with everything connected to Els, there was probably more to it.
But it was not Nellie’s business for now. “That’s all very nice, but I am left with no juniper berries and nowhere to buy them. The Regent’s advisor Lord Verdonck has fallen ill, Graziela has left, and it’s up to me to get the remedies. Because of your buying up all the berries in town, I can’t get them anywhere.”
Els grinned. “Then I’ll tell you a secret—and don’t tell Gisele that I’ve told you this. If you want anything that’s a remedy or a poison, mistress Julianna always has some.”
“The witch?”
“If you want to call her that, but don’t say it to her face or she’ll go crazy on you and charge you three times the price for the berr
ies. She’ll have them. She may have better remedies for the noble’s sore heads, too.”
Chapter 18
* * *
NELLIE DIDN’T WANT to see Julianna. Neither did she want to go into the artisan quarter, where many houses were strange, reflecting their occupants, the artists, the musicians, the modistes.
But she had promised Madame Sabine to bring her something for stomach cramps, although Madame would be better off finding someone who knew about remedies.
The artisan quarter of the city lay on the western side of town, in between Saardam’s centre and the marshy ground between the city and the strip of sand dunes that protected the land from the sea.
In the past, this used to be grazing land, and during the summer months caravans of travelling artistes used to camp here. When the people of the city dug canals to get rid of water, the land became useful for building, even if floods still happened.
When she was a little girl and still allowed to roam the streets, the kids would dare each other to go to the artisan quarter, knock on the doors of witches and other strange people, and run off. They would hide around the corner, watching as the inhabitant of the house came to the door, opened it, and found no one there. Some people came into the street, ranting at the kids, others tried to catch one of the rascals and make an example of them, and others shouted that they would complain to the kids’ parents.
The one thing the kids wanted was for some magician to come out and blast them with magic, and the boys even had a plan for what they would do if this happened. One boy brought a silver spoon, because, “My pa says silver stops magic, like, dead.” But when they knocked on Julianna’s door, Julianna—who had always seemed as ancient as she was now—had not given them the satisfaction of blasting them with magic. The only result of the exercise was that the boy received a hiding for misappropriating the family’s precious tableware.
Nellie did not come here often anymore, because the only reason she left the palace was to go to church, and sometimes the markets, and both were in a different direction.
She found that the artisan quarter of today differed greatly from the fearful place of her memories. The buildings didn’t look so tall and overbearing now. Neither did they lean forward as if they were about to collapse on her.
In fact, many of the houses were freestanding, and some even retained their yards. In others, the yards had been completely built in. These plots, with jumbles of several buildings on them, often housed at least a handful of families.
The houses didn’t look so scary anymore. Peeling paint no longer made a house look like a skull with its dark eyes following whoever came past; now it was just peeling paint on a wall. A gate that creaked in the wind was just that. A dog barking behind a wall was just an animal, not a demon in the shape of a dog. Cats scooting behind rubbish containers were in colours other than black, and the seagulls on the roof were just resting, not plotting an attack on people.
And the spider webs . . . there were not that many, let alone ones containing giant man-eating spiders.
She smiled with those silly memories. Kids were so good at scaring each other with stories that were all made up. Witches, wizards, demons, enormous spiders, goodness.
The place was just a little quirky and old.
What surprised her was how many of the houses appeared to be uninhabited.
She wasn’t sure which was the house of the sorceress Julianna, because everything looked so different, but Nellie walked along the main street until she found a sign hanging outside the front door that said “Healing and Charms.”
Faded red velvet curtains covered two windows on either side of the door. On the inside windowsill on one side stood a glass jar half full of white powder, the outside and stopper covered in dust. Next to it lay a sheep’s skull with the horns still attached. The other was empty, but a round mark in the dust showed that a vase or jar had stood there until recently.
Nellie pulled the hood of her coat further over her head, stepped up to the front door and picked up the knocker, in the shape of a goblin, poking out its tongue at her. The thing was big and heavy, and she wondered if it was made of silver, because silver had magical properties.
The knocker made a heavy sound—bang—on the wood. It echoed in a hollow space on the other side of the door.
Not too much later, footsteps sounded from inside the house.
A heavy bolt was drawn back, and the door opened a crack.
“Who are you?” said an old woman’s voice.
“A friend sent me here to get juniper berries,” Nellie said. She felt rather ridiculous.
“A friend?”
“Just someone I asked because everyone in town seems to have run out. I have money, and if you have other remedies against inflictions, I may buy more.”
This was finally enough to convince the woman to open the door.
Nellie hadn’t seen the sorceress Julianna for many years. She used to have a stall selling herbs and knickknacks at the markets, but she had stopped coming long before the current troubles. It wasn’t hard to see why.
She looked unhealthy, frail and very old. She was quite tall, a mere skeleton of a woman. Her clothes, all black, hung off her shoulders like poorly arranged drapes. She wore her hair in a severe bun. Her face was wrinkled, and her eyes watery and bloodshot. The hand that hung onto the doorknob was long fingered, like a giant spider, with the skin blotchy and flaking.
Now Nellie remembered another reason all the kids feared her. She had several red blotches on her face, and the boys used to say she had killed someone and the blood splattered over her face and would come not off when she washed. Because that was apparently what happened if you were a witch.
Nellie took a step back.
The woman laughed. “Yes, the years have not made me any prettier, but I’m still the same witch. But now you. Prim lady, knows what’s right and wrong, at least acts like she knows, and lets no one forget about it. The church says this, the church says that. Let’s do what the shepherd says and never think about why they say this. Because the church is always right. You haven’t changed a bit either. How are things up there in the palace?”
Nellie gritted her teeth. She might be a prim lady, but she was not about to let an old witch insult her. “I wanted to buy something from you. Now you’ve insulted me, why don’t I turn around and take my money back home.”
“You might do that, but then you still won’t have your juniper berries.”
Fair enough.
“Come on inside, because it’s cold out here.”
Nellie had to steel herself to step into the house that had been the subject of her childhood fears.
Life had been so simple back then. Magic was always bad, as the church was always good and the king was always good. Wouldn’t it be easy if things worked that way?
The carpet on the floor dampened the sound of her footfalls and released a musty smell.
Once Julianna had closed the door behind them, it grew very dark inside the hall.
Nellie went first down the hallway.
Julianna walked slowly, taking small steps and sliding her hand along the wall as if steadying herself. Her breath wheezed.
“Just this room here,” she said between gasps of air, indicating a door immediately to the right.
It was the one where the dusty jar and sheep skull sat on the windowsill behind those long and thick curtains that blocked almost all light from outside.
In the middle stood a table with a single candle whose flame flapped as the door opened. Three chairs stood around the table. The rest of the room contained shelves and cupboards containing many strange objects. A display cabinet was filled to the brim with skulls of various types of animals. Some, like seagull, horse and cow, she could name, but others looked so unfamiliar that they had to come from exotic lands. What bird, for example, had a head the size of a sheep’s? Could it still fly? Why did it have such a broad, flat beak?
Another glass-fronted cabinet displ
ayed devices made from metal: weighing scales, a sextant, a spyglass and many other things that Nellie didn’t recognise—things with sharp points and spoon-shaped implements. A ceiling-high cabinet contained many wooden drawers, which each had a little round knob and a label announcing the drawer’s content: wolfsbane, arrowroot, passionflower. The top three shelves brimmed with bottles and jars of different sizes, most of them very dusty.
So many cabinets crowded the walls that there was scarcely enough space to walk around the table.
“Sit down,” Julianna said.
Nellie sat on the edge of one of the chairs.
The strange smell in the room made her uncomfortable. It was not just the scent of dried herbs and spices. It was faint tang of meat gone bad that she couldn’t place. A fluid had stained yellow patches in the ceiling—maybe from a dead rat? Or it could be the carpet, which looked none too clean.
The palace’s rugs were taken outside twice a year and hung up over the walls and beaten with a stick to dislodge the dust. She could not imagine Julianna doing that.
Because the silence was so oppressing, she asked, “Is this where sick people come to see you? I was expecting a shop or something.”
“Sometimes they do.” Julianna lowered herself with painful slowness onto the opposite chair. “I don’t have a shop. The only people who bother to come to see me are ones who know what they’re talking about. Do you know your herbs?”
The candle that stood between them lit her face from underneath, turning it into a ghostly mask.
“A bit.”
Julianna snorted. “A bit gets you into danger. It makes you think you know everything, but you know nothing. Many of these herbs and extracts here are deadly.”
She stopped as if to let that sink in.
Nellie was beginning to think the whole city could have poisoned Lord Verdonck.
Julianna continued, “Many of these bottles on the shelves behind me contain concentrate of herb extractions, poisons more powerful than you will find anywhere. Give someone the wrong dose, and they will die.”