The Devil and the Dark Water

by Stuart Turton

  35

  “The secret compartment in the cargo hold was empty?” asked Drecht, who was perched on a stool, buffing the nicks from his saber with a stone. The guard captain was shirtless, thick whorls of blond hair covering his chest. His tangled beard was dirty, his blue eyes fixed on his sword. As always, he was wearing that wide-­brimmed hat with the red feather in it.

  He had entered the compartment under the half deck an hour ago, finding Arent sitting alone staring into space. Drecht hadn’t mentioned what he’d heard in the great cabin. Instead, he’d thumped a jug of wine onto the keg they used as a table and asked, seemingly without irony, how Arent’s day had gone. The mercenary had told him about the leper’s altar—­which Crauwels had ordered destroyed—and the compartment he’d found with Sara.

  “Completely empty,” confirmed Arent, tearing the cork from a second jug.

  The afternoon heat was beating at the deck, and most of the sailors were indoors or else hiding in whatever pitiful scrap of shade they could find. As a result, the Saardam—­usually so alive with sound—­was eerily quiet, aside from the splashing of waves.

  “How big was the compartment?” asked Drecht.

  “Could probably fit a sack of grain inside.”

  “Smuggler’s compartment,” confirmed Drecht knowledgeably, scraping the stone down his blade. “The Saardam will be riddled with them. Every Indiaman is. The senior officers use them so they don’t have to pay the company for shipping space.”

  Arent took a swig of the wine, then spluttered. It was boiling hot after sitting in his trunk. “What do they transport?” he asked, wiping his lips.

  “Whatever can turn a profit.”

  “Bosey and Larme were friends,” said Arent thoughtfully. “And Bosey was a carpenter. If Bosey built the smuggler’s compartment, maybe Larme used it to transport cargo illegally, splitting the profits with his mate. But what did Larme take out of it this morning?”

  Drecht grunted, having lost interest.

  “Do you know why my uncle threw Sammy Pipps into a cell?” asked Arent abruptly.

  “Was a favor to somebody, way I understand it. Though for who, I couldn’t tell you. The governor general doesn’t tell me things like that,” muttered Drecht, frowning at a problematic chip in the blade. “Vos keeps his secrets for him. I just kill them who carry them away.”

  A favor, thought Arent. Who on earth would his uncle do that kind of favor for? Whoever it was, they clearly had some nefarious purpose in mind.

  “I’ll trade you a question for a question, though,” continued Drecht. “Do you know what this secret cargo is that he brought aboard?”

  “The Folly?”

  “No, something else. Something much bigger.”

  “Never heard of it,” said Arent.

  Drecht paused in his work, annoyed. “Whatever it is, it took three days of moving. He had it snuck out of the fort in the dead of night, and now it’s taking up half the cargo hold.”

  “Why are you concerned about it?”

  “I can’t protect him if I don’t know why people are trying to kill him. Whatever that cargo is, it’s important.” He shook his head irritably. “There are too many damn secrets on this ship, and I swear all of them are marching toward him with swords in their hands.”

  “How long have you watched over him?”

  “Lost track,” Drecht replied, somewhat sourly. “When did we capture Bahia?”

  “About seventeen years ago.”

  “That was it, then.” He scowled at the memory. “Your uncle needed somebody to escort him out of Spain, and I still had all my limbs, unlike most of them that survived the battle. Told my wife I’d be back in six months, but I’ve been with him ever since. How long have you been with Pipps?”

  “Five years,” said Arent, taking another gulp of the terrible wine. “He heard the songs about me and decided he needed somebody like that standing in front of him when he accused people of murder.”

  Drecht laughed. “You never put that in your stories.”

  “Good sense sometimes sounds like cowardice when you write it down.” He shrugged his massive shoulders.

  “What’s he really like?” asked Drecht, dragging the stone along his blade again.

  “Depends on the day,” replied Arent. “He was born with nothing, and he’s terrified of going back to it. I only write about the interesting cases, but he’ll take any puzzle that pays well. Most of them he solves after a few minutes, then he sulks because he’s bored, so he spends the money he earned indulging any vice that’s near at hand.”

  Drecht appeared a little crestfallen. “The tales make him sound so noble,” he said.

  “He can be, when the sun’s right and the wind’s at his back.” Arent blew out a long breath. Truth was, Sammy was kind infrequently and nearly always unthinkingly, but such were his talents that the effect was life changing. Once, Sammy had overheard an old woman wailing for her dead husband, who’d been struck down in a street and had his purse stolen. Within the hour, Sammy had solved the murder, found the coins, and returned them with a hundred more from his own pocket. He’d claimed the mystery had been so diverting, it was worth paying for, but Arent had seen the look on the old woman’s face. Sammy had reached out his hand and tipped over the world.

  And that was the tricky part. Drecht wanted to know what Sammy was like, but it was too small a question. Arent could say that Sammy was clever or unique or special, or he could say that he was vain, greedy, lazy, and sometimes cruel. Every word would be true, but none would be adequate.

  The sky wasn’t merely blue. The ocean wasn’t merely wet. Sammy wasn’t like anybody else. Wealth, power, and privilege didn’t matter to him. If he thought somebody was guilty of the crime he was investigating, he’d accuse them.

  Sammy was what Arent hoped the entire world could be. If an old woman was wronged, she should have her recompense, whether she was rich or poor, strong or weak. The weak shouldn’t have to fear the powerful, and the powerful shouldn’t simply be allowed to take what they wanted without consequence. Power should be a burden, not a shield. It should be used to everybody’s betterment, not merely for the person who wielded it.

  Arent shook his head. He hated it when his thoughts fell down this hole. It made him maudlin. He’d lived too long and traveled too far to believe in hearth tales, but while Sammy was alive, kings and nobles had somebody to fear. That was a comforting idea.

  Arent passed Drecht the jug of wine, then asked, “How did you end up in Batavia?”

  “Because the alternative was another damn battlefield.” Drecht laughed, taking the jug. “And I’ve seen too many of them to relish going back to another. Besides, if I get him to Amsterdam in one piece, he’s promised to make me rich. I can have servants of my own. My wife could come out of the fields. My children could look forward to something more than their father had. Aye, it’d be a fine thing.”

  He lifted his sword so he could peer along the edge. Sunlight danced on the blade.

  “Did my uncle give you that?” asked Arent.

  “Reward for my loyalty these past years.” Drecht’s eyes narrowed, coming at last to the real point of his visit. “Your uncle is powerful, and powerful men have more enemies than friends. One in particular, I think.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know, but whoever it is, he’s been afraid of them for a long time. Got so he stopped leaving the fort. That’s the reason every member of his household guard is traveling on this boat instead of the handful who would actually fit. He’s terrified of something. The kind of terror even high walls and a company of soldiers doesn’t fix. Now, you tell me what could do that.”

  “Old Tom?” guessed Arent.

  Drecht grunted, then went back to buffing his sword.

  36

  As the fleet captains returned to their ships, Sara played her harp.
There was no peace in anything else. Her fingers found the strings effortlessly, but she wasn’t thinking about the music. It was simply there, all around her, like the sea around the Saardam. After a while, she would entirely forget that she had anything to do with it at all.

  Atop the music floated dark and dreadful thoughts.

  By his own admission, her husband had summoned Old Tom, a creature that had caused untold suffering across the Provinces and had now built an altar to itself on the Saardam. She wondered what bargain he’d struck and how many of the horrors he’d perpetrated these last years had been to pay back his debt.

  Sara looked through her harp strings at Creesjie and Lia. Her friend had on the damask gown she would be wearing at dinner, while Lia knelt at her feet with tailor’s pins in her mouth and a scrap of material clutched in her hand. An empty scroll case lay next to her.

  “Can you walk across the room again?” asked Lia.

  “I’ve walked across the room five times,” pointed out Creesjie, testily. “It’s fine.”

  “What if the case changes your gait and people notice?” fretted Lia.

  “My gait is not what the men of this ship have been noticing.”

  “Please,” wheedled Lia.

  “Lia!” warned Creesjie, exasperated.

  “Mama,” pleaded Lia.

  “Creesjie,” interjected Sara. “Just walk across the room one more time, please. Let her see.”

  As they continued with their preparations, Sara’s thoughts drifted back to her husband. He was wealthy and powerful and had been for a long time. If that was what he’d asked Old Tom for, how high must the price have been?

  Slowly, she sifted over every act of malice he’d perpetrated in their time together. He’d slaughtered the population of the Banda Islands over a contract. Could that have been at Old Tom’s insistence? Was his survival at Breda actually the creature’s doing? What about the three times he’d almost beaten her to death? Were they scraps thrown to the beast to keep it sated?

  Her finger missed a string, the music collapsing like a badly made house. She started again.

  “I think I should make the loop bigger,” murmured Lia, staring at Creesjie’s dress.

  “The loop is quite big enough, ” said Creesjie, yanking the hem out of Lia’s hand.

  “Can you lift it easily? Or is it too heavy?”

  “Stop fretting,” demanded Creesjie. “Sara, will you tell your infernal daughter that everything is perfect and she should stop fretting.”

  Sara didn’t hear. She, too, was fretting.

  She knew how her husband thought. If his enemy couldn’t be undermined, then he’d murder them. If he couldn’t murder them, he’d try to buy them. If he couldn’t buy them, he’d bargain. If Old Tom was on this boat and it really was threatening him, his first impulse would be to offer it something.

  And he had a great deal to offer.

  He was sailing back to become a member of the Gentlemen 17, the most powerful body of men in the world. Through them, he would have control of the Company’s fleets and armies. He would be able to wreak havoc simply by placing a finger on a map. If it was suffering Old Tom yearned for, her husband would make a perfect herald.

  The music became discordant. Her hand was shaking.

  In the fort, she’d played at being Samuel Pipps, but always in the assurance that whether she failed or succeeded, the questions would still be answered. The mystery would be solved, the righteous would be victorious, and no harm would come to anybody she loved.

  But that was no longer the case. Old Tom was hiding in one of the passengers and unless she identified him soon, everybody she loved on this ship would be slaughtered.

  “Lia?”

  “Yes, Mama?”

  “How well do you understand the principles keeping this ship afloat?”

  “It’s really a matter of ballast and—­”

  “Marvelous,” interrupted Sara, who didn’t have time to plumb the depths of Lia’s knowledge. “Would you be able to determine the best place to build secret compartments in the hull?”

  “I’d need to build a model,” said Lia, eyes agleam.

  “If I find you some wood, how long will it take?”

  “A week or more,” said Lia joyfully. “Why do you need it?”

  “If Bosey built one smuggling compartment, he likely built more. Whatever Larme was hiding, maybe he moved it into another compartment.”

  “Oh good, you’ve got a new project,” said Creesjie to Lia. “Perhaps now you’ll finally leave me alone.”

  37

  The rest of the day passed idly, the heat weighing heavy on the ship.

  The search had concluded without any sign of the leper’s rags, leaving the crew restless and irritable without anything to show for it.

  As the sun grew red and dipped behind the horizon, Crauwels gave the order to drop anchor and furl the sails. Two of the other ships in the fleet continued into the dusk. They had lost time, and the seas were placid. Evidently, they had decided to carry on through the night.

  Crauwels watched them disappear into the red sun.

  “Damn fools,” he muttered. “Those reckless damn fools.”

  38

  The steward was laying the cutlery for dinner when Sara entered the great cabin and knocked on her husband’s door with the same trepidation she always felt around this time.

  No answer came.

  She tried again. No answer.

  “Is he in there?” she asked Drecht, who was smoking his pipe while standing watch. Few men could stand watch like Guard Captain Drecht. It was like the air itself had been given a sword and a hat. He barely seemed to breathe.

  “If I’m out here, he’s in there,” he said simply.

  Knocking a third time, she opened the door a crack, peeking inside to find her husband sitting stiff backed by a guttering candle, staring at a passenger manifest.

  “Husband,” she ventured.

  She’d always been afraid of him, but it was different now. He’d bargained with devils. For all she knew, he’d given himself over to Old Tom. She would have given almost any price not to enter this room.

  “Hmm.” He roused himself. Blinking away his concerns, he focused on her, then the purple sky beyond the porthole, surprise showing on his face. “The hours have run away from me,” he said distantly. “I didn’t realize our obligations were upon us.”

  Standing, he began to unlace his breeches.

  “A moment, pray,” she begged, going to his wine rack and taking down one of the Portuguese bottles he favored. “Shall we share a drink first?” she inquired, showing the bottle to him.

  He scowled. “Do you truly find me so repulsive that you need to be numbed by wine to tend your responsibilities?”

  Yes. She put the thought aside.

  “I’m parched, is all,” she lied. “The ship’s humid.”

  Keeping her back to him, she plucked the vial of sleeping draught from the small pouch concealed in her sleeve, uncorking it and upturning it over his mug. It was the same substance she’d used to ease Bosey’s suffering back on the docks, and with the same agonizing slowness, a solitary drop of the liquid gathered along the rim.

  Upon the desk, she saw a piece of parchment poking out from behind a passenger manifest. Three names were visible, though it was clear there were others beneath.

  Bastiaan Bos—1604

  Tukihiri—­1605

  Gillis van de Ceulen—­1607

  She frowned. The first two names meant nothing to her, but the van de Ceulens had been a great family until disgrace toppled them.

  She tried to remember what the disgrace had been, but she wasn’t sure she’d ever known. She’d been a girl when it happened, her questions about the incident met with vague answers that were more rumor than fact. The nobility was like that. T
hey gorged on scandal but quickly forgot what they’d eaten. After all, there was always more coming.

  “Is the cork stuck?” asked her husband, the wood creaking as he shifted his feet to stand up.

  “No,” she said quickly. “There’s a spider in my mug, that’s all. I’m trying to get it out.”

  “Crush it and be done.”

  “There’s no need to hurt it.”

  He laughed at her timidity. “A woman’s heart is so easily bruised,” he said. “No wonder most of your species prefers hearth and home.”

  Most. The word was a window into his soul. Through it, she could see the blighted landscape of their life together.

  She eyed the vial. Arent had asked what one drop would do, then two, and three. He’d never asked about five.

  Five would kill.

  It would be the simplest thing. She need only shake slightly harder, and the liquid would pour out. He’d be dead within hours.

  She wrestled with the insidious tug of it.

  If Old Tom did lurk inside her husband, Kers could perform the banishing ritual, and the threat would be at an end. Even if Old Tom wasn’t possessing him, he had unleashed it on the world.

  Death was the least he deserved.

  Her hand trembled, wanting to do it so badly. It was one tainted life in exchange for Lia’s, she told herself. Or one life to put an end to the fear that had plagued her these last fifteen years.

  But she didn’t have the courage. What if he noticed and called for Drecht? What if it didn’t work? What if it did? Old Tom would be banished, but who’d believe she’d killed her husband to rid them of a devil? Under Company law, van Schooten would have the authority to throw her to the crew for the rest of the voyage, then execute her in Amsterdam—­assuming they made it that far.

  Lia would be alone.

  Ashamed of herself, she put the plan aside.

  “What were you thinking about when I walked in?” she asked, trying to buy some time while the drop of sleeping draught grew heavy on the rim.