by Andre Norton
“I am afraid” — Lorens was thinking aloud — “that he is waiting for me.”
The woman regarded him in silence which she did not break for a long moment.
“He knows you are coming back here?”
“He may not know it — I hope he does not. He merely hopes that I will. We are both hunting one thing which is safely hidden in Norreypoder.”
“You know where it is?”
“I am the only one in the world who can find it.”
“It is necessary to our cause — ?”
“So much so that the British brought me from America to get it!”
“Mevrouw” — Kaatje moved against the door— “if he is expected by them, can he not be helped by us?”
“Perhaps. If he was to come by the marsh road we would have been informed in time. Well, we shall do what we can to help you. But not” — she arose — “in prejudice to our own concerns. You will remember that.”
“Naturally, Mevrouw. If you can get me out of this house and beyond the wall, I can fend for myself.”
Kaatje tittered. “It is plain to see, Mijnheer, that you are not old at this work. Why, before you had crossed the field you would be taken by them —”
The Mevrouw agreed. “Yes, courage is not enough here, Mijnheer, you will need cunning. Give us time, perhaps just until tonight, and we shall put you on your way in a manner which will have at least a partial promise of success. Come, Kaatje, there is the soup pot to put on.”
But Kaatje shook her head. “Wait!” The single word was more order than request.
She had opened the door and now stood listening. Lorens saw the Mevrouw freeze, and he tried to copy her utter quiet.
“There is someone below,” Kaatje continued. “Not one of them, at least of those we know.”
“How can you be sure?” demanded Lorens.
The Mevrouw’s shadow smile was derisive. “Kaatje’s ears are her stock in trade. She can identify every member of this household by his footfall. How many and where?” She turned to the girl.
“Only one, and he is now in the drawing room. He is unfamiliar with the house.”
Lorens started toward the door. The dull inaction of the hours he had spent in this attic room had fostered a longing for excitement, for a chance to move unhampered by another’s will. But the Mevrouw caught his sleeve as he moved past her.
“You fool!” she half spat. “Do you want to ruin all of us? Let Kaatje and me deal with this — ”
“And if you can’t?”
“Then come to our rescue, knight errant!” The harsh mockery of that was very plain.
But she hurried out into the hall. Kaatje was not so quick to follow. Instead she turned her marred face to Lorens.
“I do not like it,” she whispered before she hurried off to join her mistress, leaving the door wide open behind her.
Rightly or not, Lorens accepted that as a wordless appeal. So while the Mevrouw and Kaatje went boldly down the stairs to confront the invader, Lorens skulked behind. He thought that he was successful in deceiving the mistress, but he was equally sure that the maid knew where he was.
The sun was still up, but along the halls of this house there clung a curious duskiness. Just as sunlight pulls to it those dancing golden motes of dust, so did the gloom seem to gather grayish shadows which lurked along the ceilings and made their lairs in the far corners. It was not a comfortable house, nor a happy one.
Kaatje had heard the strange footfall, but Lorens could distinguish nothing but the click of the women’s wooden-soled shoes. They were on the last flight of stairs now, the ones which led to the ground floor of the house.
Prudently Lorens slowed his pace, for the Mevrouw had halted at the foot of the flight. She looked at Kaatje, who pointed to a door directly before them. With her arms folded under her apron, she drew her shoulders back into their usual straight dignity and entered the room.
“And who might you be, Mijnheer?” Her voice carried to Lorens as he ventured down the last few steps.
“I am addressing Mevrouw Staats?” It was a man who replied.
“Yes,” the word was uncompromisingly curt.
“There is an orange sun rising, Mevrouw.”
“And who might you be?” She repeated her question, but now it was as if an officer addressed his equal in rank.
“I am Hendrik, from Leyden Chapter. We had urgent need of contacting you here in the south — ”
“Very well, Mijnheer. But I must warn you to be brief. This is not the best place to hold a conference.”
“I think we shall be safe for a time, Mevrouw. That has been carefully arranged for — ”
“We might have suspected something of the sort, eh, Kaatje?” Mevrouw Staats had become almost jocular.
Lorens could no longer restrain his curiosity. He crept to the door and peered in. Shutters still sealed all but one of the windows, and the light of that showed Hendrik only in profile. For a moment Lorens fancied he saw an odd and rather troubling resemblance to someone he had seen before. But then the man turned upon him the full face of a stranger.
As he caught sight of Lorens, his eyes widened and his right hand flashed up with a nervous gesture toward the breast of his respectable black coat.
“And who is this, Mevrouw?” he demanded in an unnecessarily loud voice.
15
KAATJE’S OLD ONE
“A visitor from over the water,” the Mevrouw returned, her serenity unruffled. “He wishes to be helped on to Norreypoder.”
“Norreypoder! Impossible! They have been sniffing about there until they have dug up most of the ground with their noses. I do not know what Leenders told them, but it must have been — ”
“Hugo Leenders?” Lorens broke in. “What makes you think that he has told the Nazis anything?”
Hendrik shrugged as if the answer should be self-evident. “Why? Because it was not until after he was taken as hostage that the moffens showed any interest in the town. He was a good friend to the old Jonkheer van Norreys and might have known something about what became of the treasures of that House; they were never discovered by the invaders, you know. At any rate, they have made it impossible to go near there.”
“One man does,” Kaatje said quietly.
Hendrik started, then turned a measuring glance on her twisted form. She met it challengingly with lifted chin and sharp eyes.
“And who is this?” he asked again of the Mevrouw.
“My assistant.” There was a spark of annoyance in her answer. She had not cared for that question, or perhaps for the tone in which it had been asked.
“Since when has it been necessary to raid the schoolhouse — ”
“Be quiet!” Her steel was naked now. “As you should know — the schoolhouse has provided some of the best of us!”
“Children should not meddle,” he continued doggedly. A crooked vein across his high forehead showed blue and heavy, and his fingers tightened on the arm of the chair. Lorens was puzzled by such signs of anger, out of all proportion to the affair. It was almost as if the man from Leyden had been personally affronted by Kaatje’s presence in the room.
“Kaatje has good reason for meddling — as you name it.” The Mevrouw had regained her poise. “And I do not think that you, Mijnheer Hendrik, came here to criticize my present arrangements.”
“True, Mevrouw, you will pardon my outbreak, please. It is just that I dislike seeing the young ones drawn into these dark ways of danger — ”
False, false, a warning ticked in Lorens’ mind. It wasn’t concern for Kaatje which had aroused the man, it was something else — almost as if he feared her.
“But what is this that was said about one man being able to enter Norreypoder,” the underground agent was asking smoothly enough.
“The old one goes and comes as he pleases,” Kaatje now replied as if she had not heard a word of that storm which had raged about her head.
“And this old one?”
“He is
crazy, broken in the head,” explained Nevrouw Staats. “Before the war they say he was a servant in a house thereabouts. Now he wanders from place to place. But always every month or so he comes back to Norrey-poder. The poor thing seems to want to keep in touch with the place he once thought of as home.”
“He is one of us?” persisted Hendrik.
“One of us?” Mevrouw Staats laughed. “Did I not say that he was a crackbrain? He cannot put two words together without forgetting one of them. No, he is nothing, of use to no one.”
“Well, that leaves our young friend’s problem yet undecided.” Hendrik directed attention again to Lorens. “We just see what can be done for him. But for the present, Mijnheer, I must ask you to go. What we discuss is not for all ears. You understand?”
“Naturally.” Lorens nodded briefly and stepped back into the hall. He had made up his mind. Mevrouw Staats might consider Hendrik a good risk. But he did not. He had no liking for the man. And his road to Norreypoder would be of his own choosing, not one pointed out by the smooth-spoken Hendrik.
Lorens was hardly on the stairs when Kaatje too came out, closing the drawing-room door behind her. That done, she stepped out of her shoes, picked them up, and motioned Lorens to follow her toward the back of the house.
He thought that he could move noiselessly in his stocking feet, but Kaatje flitted before him as soundlessly as a specter. Their way led down the corridor where he had been trapped by the Mevrouw into the huge kitchen.
Once there Kaatje sat down on the fireside settle and put on her shoes.
“These wooden soles,” she remarked, “announce one’s coming!”
“What are we going to do?” asked Lorens abruptly.
Kaatje considered him for a long moment. “You say you want to get to Norreypoder. What if I could show you the way?”
“Hers?” Lorens jerked his thumb toward the front of the house.
“No. Nor his either!” She was vehement.
“So you do not care for him — ”
“Why should I?” She was reasonable enough. “Even the Mevrouw does not know everything. He comes highly recommended by those she trusts. But I don’t like him. And I think that it would be better for you to go on alone.”
“So do I!” Lorens sat on the settle opposite hers and drew on his boots, lacing up the thongs. “If you can get me out of the garden — ”
He glanced up to find Kaatje studying him intently. Her eyes, those strikingly beautiful eyes so much in contrast to her ravaged face, locking his. She tugged smooth her apron with a quick flick of her fingers, and he noticed her hands, too, not the hands of a servant girl in spite of their scars and calluses, but the long-fingered hands designed to serve a creative imagination.
“Who are you, Kaatje?”
“We do not ask that question of anyone — now,” she returned. “I am Kaatje, the serving maid; more than that does not matter. The past is buried, as you must have discovered, too. Do you swear to me, Mijnheer, on what you still believe in, that your task in Norreypoder is for the benefit of our cause?”
“I do, Kaatje.”
“Well enough.”
She got up and went to a cupboard from which she took a hunk of the gritty bread. Catching his eye upon it, she laughed.
“Rich fare, good enough for dumb Dutchers. But at least we can eat it and whatever else they allow us. One learns quickly how little one can live on and still nurse hate and — hope. And here there are opportunities. They live well, and there are the scraps. In the cities they make the little children beg for chocolate, taking pictures of the scene with their cameras. And then, when the picture-taking is done, they snatch their bounty back again.
“Do you know what it is like to be always hungry? To have your wits grow sluggish, never to be warm or free of the ache in your middle? We of the Netherlands know that now. They have gone over this land a devouring horde. Cattle, food, grain, all swept away. A farmer starves in the midst of his own fields. Their ‘New Order’ is nothing but one vast German belly into which all the food in the world must be shoveled!”
She dropped the bread into a small covered basket and added a thin paring of the dry cheese. Then she jerked her head toward a barred door.
“That way.”
Lorens slid back the bar and opened the door. They stepped out into a small courtyard around which were several tumble-down outhouses. Kaatje clumped toward one of these and knocked softly with the palm of her hand on its closed door.
“It is Kaatje.”
“Enter, little one!”
Lorens almost brushed the girl out of his way.
“Klaas!” He had just enough prudence left to keep his voice low.
But the man crouched on the stinking pile of rotted hay was not Klaas. Lorens refused to believe that the slack mouth, drooling spittle at one corner, the dull eyes lacking sense, the hunched and ungainly body, belonged to the Klaas he had known all his life.
And this lackwit did not know him, showed no interest in his presence. Instead the creature grabbed eagerly for the basket Kaatje had put down. He gobbled the bread and tasteless cheese as might a starving man, making animal noises of pleasure.
“Listen, old one.” Kaatje leaned over him. “There is something you must do.”
For the first time the old man showed a gleam of intelligence. He looked up at the girl, taking her hand in his and mumbling it against his lips. He was saying something over and over in sing-song. And Lorens was forced to believe the truth. This was Klaas squatting in the dirt and addressing Kaatje in Malay as ‘Great Lady’ and ‘Queen of the Inner Palace’.
“Klaas” — he dropped on his knees beside the pitiful wreck— “don’t you remember me? I am Lorens, Lorens to whom you used to tell stories, Lorens whom you taught to use the kris. Klaas, it is Lorens van Norreys come home. Can’t you remember me?”
But Klaas did not even turn to look at him. Instead he was staring up at Kaatje, a sort of bewildered searching wrinkling up his eyes and drawing lines across the parchment skin of his skull face.
“Do you hear, little one?” he asked. “It is the Tuan Bezaar calling me. But he was an old man, and now his voice is young again — ”
Kaatje’s wits were quick enough to seize the opening. “It is your Tuan Bezaar, old one. He wishes to go to Norreypoder, and you must show him the way. But he has enemies so that he must not go openly. Do you know a secret way? Think, old one!”
“Who dares to threaten the Tuan Bezaar! Is it that mixed breed Skur or Black Henry? Is it the yellow pearl they are after again, Tuan Bezaar?”
When Lorens would have replied, Kaatje shook her head warningly. She caught Klaas’ hand in hers and spoke slowly, as one does to a little child when one wishes to impress something upon his memory.
“It is those with black and gray coats whom your Tuan Bezaar fears. They must not see him. But he must reach Norreypoder, so he comes to you for help, Klaas — to you!”
That appeal struck home. Klaas’ head went up with some of its old arrogant carriage, the slack lines of his face seemed to draw taut in the proper mask Lorens had known for years. Even his shoulders straightened.
“There shall be no trouble.” And they believed that promise. Klaas’ tumbled wits had made a proper pattern again. Lorens asked a wordless question of Kaatje, and she answered aloud, Klaas seeming to take no notice of her words.
“Yes, he can be trusted. He has served me before. Almost do I sometimes wonder if his wits are as addled as we believe. He has never been detected, and I would trust him before others.” She gave a sharp nod in the direction of the house where Hendrik was presumably still about his very important business.
“How can we get out of here? Is the gate guard gone?”
“Not he. But since he let Hendrik in, he must have been bribed or be one of us. We have friends, you know, even in the inner ranks of the Gestapo. But it will not be necessary to bother with him. This is another of my own secrets which only the old one knows.”
She kicked aside the pile of musty hay, Klaas making clumsy attempts to help her. In the rotting boards of the ancient floor was the square outline of a trapdoor. Klaas crooked his fingers in the iron ring on its surface and heaved it up; his mind may have gone, but his strength had not.
They dropped down into a roughly hollowed pit, and Kaatje, without a word of farewell, before Lorens could question or protest, slammed down the door, leaving them in total darkness. He could hear the sound of her wooden soles as she moved about, apparently sweeping back the hay. Then there was silence.
“So, Mijnheer Lorens, you have come back to us?”
“Klaas! But — ”
The answer was a throaty chuckle through the dark. But that sound did not come from the lips and throat of the near-idiot he had seen in the old shed above.
“The old one is still worth his salt, eh? But this is no time or place for gossip. Come along, Mijnheer Lorens.”
Klaas’ firm hand reached out to guide him, and they bumped along a narow passage where his head brushed its roof.
“Here we crawl. Down on your knees!”
With now and again a painful scrape of Klaas’ heavy sabot across his knuckles, crawl he did, his hands sinking into a slimy mold which also oozed through the cloth covering his knees and shins.
“Turn here and be careful!”
Just in time he raised a hand to have it strike against old brickwork. Then he felt his way by inches around a sharp elbow to see ahead a gray disk, which was the signature of daylight. Klaas’ head and shoulders sometimes blotted that out as they moved along, but in a short time they were both sitting on some broken tiles at the water’s edge.
“This is part of the old drainage ways,” Klaas explained.
He pulled on a rope, the other end of which trailed off into the water, and brought up an old half-waterlogged boat.