The Devil and the Dark Water

by Stuart Turton

  A reflected Saardam skimmed along the surface of the ocean, occupied by phantom sailors and even a phantom Sara. From this angle, she was a beautiful ship, the green and red paint looking as fresh as the day it was applied. If anything, the illusion made the real Saardam—­with its warped planks and flaking paint—­seem like the ghost ship.

  “I’ll vouch for his daemonologica,” said Creesjie, who leaned gently against Sara. “My husband had one just like it. And if Kers was lying, why present us with the letter that lured him here? Surely, he’d know I’d see through it.”

  “He’s not lying,” said Dorothea firmly. “Lies only come two ways. Too sharp or too soft. He spoke firm. He was being honest. Besides, he’s a predikant.” For her at least, that seemed all the proof anybody should need.

  “Or so he says,” murmured Sara.

  “Now you really do sound like Pipps,” laughed Lia. “He’s always saying things like that in his stories.”

  Creesjie touched Sara’s shoulder. “What do you want us to do?”

  Sara turned to find the eager faces of her friends intent upon her. They were like candles, she realized, ready for a flame. Heaven help her, but it was a thrill. Here was the life she’d always dreamed about, the life denied her because she was a woman.

  A tingle of fear ran along her spine. Old Tom wouldn’t work hard to add her to his ledger, she thought. If he could promise her this, she’d pay almost anything.

  “It could be dangerous,” she warned.

  “We’re on a boat populated by wicked men,” sniffed Creesjie, glancing at the other women for confirmation of her feeling. “It would be dangerous even if there wasn’t a devil stalking it. If we do nothing, we’re doomed. Now, Sara, where do we start?”

  28

  Sara and Lia made their way toward their cabins, the solitary candle at the end of the corridor guttering miserably. Sara hated the gloom on the Saardam. It was filthy and thick, as if the thousands of dirty bodies who’d walked through it every day had somehow left it stained.

  She was about to tell this to Lia when the rattling cough of the mysterious Viscountess Dalvhain drifted through her door.

  “Do you think Dalvhain could be Old Tom?” speculated Lia.

  Sara stared at the cabin speculatively. Dorothea claimed to have heard a strange noise in there this morning, and after two days, nobody had laid eyes on the viscountess. Apparently, she was suffering some debilitating malady, but there wasn’t a soul on board who knew what it was. Afire with curiosity, Creesjie had tried to interrogate Captain Crauwels at dinner, but even mentioning Dalvhain’s name had cast a pall across the conversation. Hearing her cabin number, the other officers had clung to their charms and grimaced, claiming it was cursed. Two people had already died in there, went the tale. Footsteps paced the floorboards, even when it was empty. Every ship had a room like this, they said. It was where somebody fell badly or burned worse, where a servant had gone mad and cut his master’s throat.

  The only thing to do was board it up and leave it be, let evil lie where it may, like a hound in its favorite chair.

  Sara impulsively rapped on her door. “Viscountess Dalvhain? My name’s Sara Wessel. I’m a healer. I was wondering if there was anything—­”

  “No!” The voice was old and brittle. “And I’d ask you not to bother me again.”

  Sara shared a surprised look with Lia, then retreated from the door. “Any ideas?” she asked her daughter.

  “Sander Kers gives her confession every night. Maybe he can help.”

  “I’ll talk to him about it,” said Sara.

  After saying their goodbyes, Lia entered her cabin, leaving Sara alone at her door. Her hand hovered uncertainly over the latch. The terrible memory of the leper peering in was still fresh.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she said to herself, lifting it and stepping inside.

  Sun poured through the porthole, illuminating the dust motes in the air. Walking over, she tried to peer outside, but the writing desk was in the way. Pulling the heavy folds of her dress up to her thighs, she clambered clumsily onto its surface, then put her head through the porthole, searching for anything to prove what she’d seen.

  Green-­painted planks curved down toward her husband’s cabin directly below, which bulged out of the hull like a moth’s cocoon. From above, she heard three women talking on deck. They called after their children and wondered what it must be like in the cabins or if anybody had seen the governor general and Sara Wessel since boarding.

  She was a wild one, one of them said. A torment to her poor husband.

  Poor husband, scoffed another. She’d heard from one of the maids in the fort that his temper was ferocious, and when he was in the mood, he’d kick Sara up and down the corridors like a dog. He’d almost killed her more than once.

  That’s what husbands did, replied the next. What sympathy could you have for the wife of a rich man? Most people endured worse to live under leaky roofs and eat rotten food.

  Sara’s temper was about to get the better of her when she spotted a dirty handprint just beneath her porthole.

  Leaning out farther, she saw a second one underneath it, and then a third and fourth.

  On closer inspection, she realized it wasn’t dirt staining the wood; it was ash. The hull was charred, as if the leper’s hand had been aflame. Holes punctured the planks where he’d dug his fingers in as he’d climbed.

  Her eyes followed them all the way down to the roof of her husband’s cabin, where they disappeared over the side.

  If her guess hit the mark, the leper had climbed out of the ocean and straight up the hull to her porthole.

  29

  Arent was still preoccupied by breakfast when he descended the staircase into the humid gloom of the orlop deck. For years, his uncle had raised him with as much tenderness as he could manage. He’d taught him to hunt, to ride, and even how to bargain. He was quick to temper, it was true, but he calmed quickly and rarely raised his hand.

  The man he’d known could never have murdered an island full of people and then boasted of the good that would come of it. Arent had seen slaughter like that at war. He knew those who did it, what overcame them, and what they became. It was a poison in the soul that ate them hollow.

  That couldn’t be his uncle. His wise, kind uncle. The man who’d taught him of Charlemagne, and who he’d run to when his grandfather was too demanding or too cruel.

  Empty hammocks swung gently with the motion of the boat, while shoes, needles and thread, ripped clothes, jugs, and wooden toys lay discarded on the floor. Most of the passengers were on deck for their morning exercise. In their absence, two toy dancers the size of an adult’s finger whirled back and forth across the floor, their wooden skirts spinning. They were impressive creations, perfectly balanced and still moving, despite being abandoned by Marcus and Osbert.

  Marcus had a splinter in his finger, which his brother was now clumsily trying to remove.

  The younger boy was whimpering and close to tears, his brother shushing him lest Vos should discover where they’d slunk off to.

  Seeing the boys by the boxes, Arent called them over. Osbert came brightly, while Marcus trudged over, holding his injured finger. Their likeness was remarkable, thought Arent. Sandy hair fell across large, round ears, their eyes blue as the ocean outside.

  “Let me see your hand,” said Arent, kneeling down to inspect the splinter in Marcus’s finger. He felt around gently, wincing in sympathy at his discomfort. “I think we can save it,” he said earnestly. “You’ll need to be strong for a minute. Can you do that?”

  The boy nodded, his brother leaning closer to better see the gruesome work.

  Very carefully, Arent squeezed the splinter between his thick fingers, forcing it up through the skin. The hardest part was tempering his strength so as not to hurt him. The splinter came loose in a few seconds, and Are
nt handed it to Marcus as a trophy.

  “I thought there’d be blood,” complained Osbert grumpily.

  “If I remove a splinter from your hand, I’ll make sure there is,” warned Arent, standing with a groan. There was a lot of him to lift, and most of it ached. “Are those yours?” he said, nodding to the toy dancers, still whirling back and forth across the floor. “They’re clever little things.”

  “Yes, Lia made—­” Marcus was cut off by his brother nudging him in the ribs. “We’re not allowed to say,” he finished.

  “Why?”

  “It’s a secret.”

  “Then keep it under your tongue,” responded Arent, who had enough questions to answer without adding unnecessary ones to the pile. “Reckon you boys best be off now. I’m about to do something foolish, and it might get sharp quicker than I can control it.”

  The boy’s faces immediately lit up with the thought of a grand adventure, but one look at the grim, scarred expression of Arent Hayes was enough to change their minds.

  Hunching under the low roof, Arent went to the folding wooden screen dividing the deck in two and pushed it aside, entering the crew’s side of the ship. It had been partitioned down the middle by a piece of sailcloth strung on rope, with musketeers on one side and sailors on the other. Mats had been slid beneath hammocks to give everybody a berth, their possessions kept in sacks that hung from the ceiling like spider nests.

  The half of the deck belonging to the musketeers was empty. They were training on the waist with Drecht, slashing at the air and firing rounds at the horizon. There weren’t many more sailors to be seen. They were scattered between the weather decks and workshops. What few men remained were playing dice or talking with their mates. Others snored on mats, the air thick with the stench of their unwashed bodies. Somebody was trying to wring a tune from a fiddle with only three strings.

  They stopped everything as Arent approached, narrowing their eyes.

  Arent raised his coin purse and his voice. “Anybody know Bosey?” he asked. “There’s a chance he, or somebody he knew, is running around this ship dressed like a leper. Apparently, he struck a bargain with somebody called Old Tom in Batavia to do a few favors.” Arent jangled his coin purse. “Anybody hear him say anything about that? Anybody mates with him?”

  The sailors stared, their lips clamped shut.

  The galley fire crackled and popped; steps thudded back and forth across the deck above them, dust falling from the ceiling.

  Somewhere distant, a drum beat kept time.

  “Does anybody know where’s he from or what brought him aboard the Saardam?” pressed Arent, looking from stony face to stony face. “I’ll pay well for gossip.”

  One of the sailors stood up. “We’ll have no words with a pig-­groping soldier like you,” he spat.

  The others muttered their agreement.

  From the port side, somebody hurled a jug, forcing Arent to duck. A second narrowly missed him, shattering against the wall.

  Strong fingers clamped themselves around his arm. Arent spun to hit whoever had grabbed him, but it was the one-­armed constable from the gunpowder store. As yesterday, he was bent almost double, his legs bowed, like God had brought a cannon to life.

  He raised his stump in supplication.

  “Come away now, before there’s blood on the floor,” he said, trying to tug Arent out of the compartment.

  Sailors advanced on him with their fists clenched.

  Seeing the futility of staying, he allowed himself to be led back behind the wooden divide, which shook as the sailors beat their hands against it, hurling insults after him.

  “You’re a silly bastard and no mistake,” said the constable, somehow making it sound like a compliment. Without another word, he crossed the deck to the gunpowder store, which he unlocked with a key kept around his neck.

  Dozens of kegs of gunpowder were stacked on the floor, leaving almost no room to walk. The old constable snorted at them in disgust. “Hundred men carried them out of here when the captain called battle stations last night, and now they expect me to put them back by myself.” He gestured to the empty racks on the walls with the stump of his arm. “Isn’t a damn sensible thought anywhere on this boat.”

  He waited, then sighed meaningfully when Arent didn’t catch the hint. “Lot of work for an old man with one arm,” he said slyly.

  Arent picked up two of the kegs effortlessly, slinging them into their racks. “Is this why you dragged me out of there?”

  “Partly,” said the constable, dropping heavily onto his stool. “But I saw something last night I thought you’d want to hear about, being as how the ship’s in danger. Not a leper or nothing, so don’t go thinking—­”

  “Just tell me,” said Arent, heaving another two kegs into their racks.

  “Well, it was after the two bells, before Captain sounded battle stations. I went down to the cargo hold for my piss. Always do it down there, near the bottom of the staircase, you know, where there’s still some light. Don’t like going—­”

  “Constable!” said Arent. “What did you see?”

  “All right, all right, I was just trying to offer a little color,” he protested. “A woman came creeping down. Broad shouldered and curly haired. Mistook me for somebody else in the shadows, because she dashed down, saying she’d almost got them caught.” The constable chewed the inside of his lip thoughtfully. “Gave me a bit of a fright, so I popped my carrot back in the sack and stepped into the light. That was that. She took off like a rabbit seen a fox.”

  Broad shouldered and curly haired sounded like the predikant’s ward, Isabel. She must have come down to the cargo hold after Larme spied her eavesdropping on their conversation last night. Evidently, she had a knack for showing up where she wasn’t supposed to.

  “I’ll ask around,” said Arent as he pushed a few of the kegs across the rack to make space. “Thank you, Constable.”

  The constable nodded, clearly happy to have made this somebody else’s problem.

  Feeling a twinge in his back, Arent wrapped his arms around another keg. It came off the ground effortlessly.

  “This is empty,” he said.

  “Toss it over there,” said the constable, waving toward the corner where three others had been discarded. “Likely, one of the boys panicked and packed his cannon before the order came to make ready.” He chortled. “Would have been up at first light, trying to tip the gunpowder into the sea before anybody realized. Worth a flogging if he’s caught.”

  Arent threw the keg away as the constable swung his bare feet onto the box containing the Folly, causing two dice to jump into the air.

  “Know what it is?” asked the constable. “Didn’t feel as I could ask yesterday with that Vos in the room. Makes me think of something dead and dug up, he does.”

  Arent eyed it, then nodded knowledgeably.

  “It’s a box,” he concluded.

  “A box that Chamberlain Vos has made excuses to visit twice,” said the constable shrewdly. “Reckon whatever’s inside must be important.” His eyes twinkled. “And valuable.”

  “You telling me you haven’t tried to open it?” said Arent, the ship tilting ever so slightly as they changed course.

  “It’s locked, and my lockpicking days are long behind me,” said the constable, scratching his stump.

  Arent shrugged. “You’re asking the wrong man. Nobody ever told me what it was, and I never asked. I’ll tell you this though. The governor general thought it important enough to call Sammy Pipps all the way from Amsterdam when it was stolen.”

  “Aren’t you curious what’s inside?”

  “Curiosity’s Sammy’s job,” replied Arent. “Up until yesterday, I just punched the things he was curious about. Speaking of which, have you ever heard the word ‘Laxagarr’?”

  “Nope.”

  “In that
case, do you know what it means when two sailors carry two halves of the same charm?” he asked, recalling how Sammy had noticed that Isaack Larme’s half-­face charm fitted perfectly into Bosey’s.

  “Oh aye,” he said. “Means they’re married.”

  “Married?” exclaimed Arent, his eyebrows shooting up.

  “Not land married, sailor married,” he said. “If one dies on the voyage, the other gets his pay, any booty he’s earned, and his death pouch. Doesn’t mean they share a hammock or anything, though I dare say it’s happened.”

  “Then they’d be close.”

  “Have to be,” he agreed. “You don’t make that sort of pledge without being certain. Get it wrong, and you’re liable to end up with your blood on their hands and your coin in their pocket.”

  Arent paused in his work to wipe the sweat from his forehead. “Why are you so loose lipped? The rest of the crew would rather spit in my face than talk to me.”

  “Good question, that.” He grinned toothlessly. “Seems like you’re getting the hang of being on an Indiaman. Soldiers and sailors are fire and fuses. Been that way since the first boat, and it ain’t going to change on this voyage. These boys hate you, Hayes.” He touched the twist of hair he kept on a string around his neck. “Now me, I’m old. Too old to be told who to hate. I just want to get home to my daughter, play with my grandchildren, and live with the dirt under my feet a little while. If some bastard’s trying to sink this boat, then I’m with the man who’s trying to stop them, whether he’s a sailor or a damn soldier.”

  “Then tell me how I get Wyck to talk. He knows what ‘Laxagarr’ means, and he cut out Bosey’s tongue for some reason.”

  “Wyck.” He clicked his tongue in thought. “Funnily enough, Wyck I might be able to help you with. Open that door for me.”

  Arent pulled it open, and the constable leaned his head forward.

  “Is there a cabin boy out there?” he hollered, tipping his ear, listening for a response. None came. “I know there is. There’s always one of you shirking your duty in the gloom. Get in here now.”