The Wizard Priest

by Patty Jansen

  Jantien nodded, but her eyes glittered with tears.

  “I don’t even know if I’ll ever see my husband again. I have no idea where he is.”

  “Didn’t you say he went to Florisheim?”

  “That’s what he said, but if he arrived safely, surely he would have let us know?” The tears again welled in her eyes.

  Nellie wished she could make everything better, but this time she had no king and queen hidden in her group as they did in the hard but glorious time when they defeated the Fire Wizard. They were a bunch of poor women and a dragon who wouldn’t listen to them.

  The wood was chopped, and Jantien and Nellie carried it into the other warehouse where some others were already preparing the midday meal.

  Zelda had brought a bowl of dried beans, and they needed to be soaked and boiled for a long time before they were ready to eat. The leftover ham and potatoes Nellie had brought were not enough to feed all of them, but with the beans, it would make a nice soup. The smell was wonderful.

  Suddenly, Koby came rushing into the warehouse. She had gone out to collect clear snow to melt for water, but her buckets were still empty.

  “Guards are coming into the street!” she shouted, panting.

  “Be calm, child,” Agatha said.

  “There are so many of them, and they’ve gone into Yolande’s shop and are throwing everything into the street. They’ve also gone into the house next door, you know, where the two brothers live, and are taking out things like clocks and other devices made of metal.”

  Zelda started, “That’s what you get when you—”

  But Mina cut her off. “Children, go up into the hayloft, and be very quiet. I’m going to have a look.”

  “No need to panic,” Zelda said. “They’re always looking for stolen things in those shops.”

  Mina rounded on her. “And we have no stolen things? We don’t know what they’re looking for. I’m not going to take any risks.”

  Nellie followed her out of the warehouse.

  Indeed, a couple of men were standing outside the shop on the corner. Like the ones who evicted the people from the church, these did not wear uniforms. They were not men who Nellie recognised, either. At least, they were not regular palace guards being sent out to do this work. Yes, she was still thinking about Henrik. The fact he continued to ask about her made her more uncomfortable. If he would not renounce the deeds of the guards, then she didn’t know if she could trust him and didn’t want his attention.

  Yolande’s shop on the corner sold homemade sweets and spices. It was a quaint little business, no bigger than a few steps wide in each direction, and crammed with many shelves with little boxes, glass containers and jars and other quaint items. It was a relic from the days that the artisan quarter was filled with shops like these and that the well-off citizens would come here for the novelty, the days that people would come to see Mustafa’s exotic animals and the jugglers.

  Now, the shop window was dusty, the paint peeling and the sign that said Yolande and Dirk’s Sweets faded. Dirk had been dead for years.

  Three guards stood outside the shop next to a pile of jars, some broken, some tipped over with their content spilling onto the trampled snow.

  There were a couple of men inside the shop, and a woman’s voice drifted out.

  “I have done nothing wrong. Now get out of my shop, you’re ruining my business.”

  Next thing one man came out of the shop, dragging the old woman with him. She had a bent back and walked with a walking stick.

  “Keep your hands off me. I have done nothing wrong,” she was yelling, and thwacking him with her walking stick, but he paid her no heed.

  The two brothers from next door stood in the open door to their house, watching the goings on. Nellie wondered why didn’t they do anything to help the poor woman, because they were both healthy men. But there were guards inside their house as well.

  Someone came out carrying a box full of metal items, adding it to a collection already in the street. The loot included bronze candleholders, wooden boxes with pearl inlay, ornate frames with pictures, wall clocks such as were owned by rich families.

  The two brothers stood unemotional and hard-faced as the guards raided their home.

  “Are these their belongings?” Nellie asked. She couldn’t imagine people in this part of town owning those pretty objects.

  Mina said, “They sell those things. Sometimes at the markets, but usually they sell them to shops. They’re pawnbrokers. They buy those things, usually for a low price, from well-off people in financial trouble, and resell them.”

  Nellie felt so dumb. It was as if she had entered another world where she was like a child and needed to learn everything.

  Pawnbrokers. Everyone except her probably knew this already.

  The only way she knew pawnbrokers was how her father always spoke disdainfully of them, especially if he was forced to deal with them because the church wanted to buy an item off a pawnbroker.

  Her father always said making a profit off another person’s misfortune was a tacky way to make your living, but her father was quick to judge others, and despite the fact that he dealt with people from all corners of society, he had never understood the plight of others, or had any sympathy for them.

  She said, “So what are these men doing? I thought they were supposed to be looking for magical items.”

  Mina snorted. “I think they’re looking for ways to enrich themselves.”

  A wagon with a horse stood around the corner from Yolande’s shop. A few people sat in the open tray, huddled against the cold. The guards dragged Yolande to the wagon, still shouting, lifted her up and made her sit down.

  “What are they going to do with her and the others?” Nellie asked.

  Mina shrugged.

  “Does she have magic?”

  But Mina didn’t know that either. “If they say you have magic, you have magic. Doesn’t matter if it’s true or not.”

  And that was the horrific truth.

  Nellie and Mina retreated into the alley and ran to warn the others that the raiding party would turn up soon.

  The women stood around the fire, a circle of worried faces. Mina told them to keep talking, but there was nothing to talk about. They all wanted to be quiet so they would hear the approaching footsteps.

  “Keep stirring the pot,” Mina told Koby.

  The children in the hayloft did their job and were very quiet. There was no sign of the dragon either. Hopefully, he would sleep through all of it.

  No one spoke.

  The only sound was the occasional clonking of the spoon against the side of the pot as Koby stirred.

  Nellie was hungry. The soup smelled really good.

  Sounds came from the street, filtered through the alley: a shout of a man, or the whinnying of a horse. Nellie presumed that more people got put onto the cart.

  Then heavy footsteps came down the alley, accompanied by male voices. It sounded like at least three or four men. One of them gave an order. Sounds outside indicated that they tried to open the door to the nearby warehouse, but the state of that building was such that it was dangerous to enter.

  One of the men swore, followed by a crash.

  Nellie guessed the door had fallen off its hinges or part of the roof had fallen in. At any other time, this might have been funny. The women always told the children not to play in there.

  Then someone banged on the door of the warehouse.

  “Open up, in the name of the Regent.”

  The women looked at each other, and slowly, Mina walked to the door. She pushed the plank aside a crack.

  “Are you hiding any items of magic?” the man yelled.

  Nellie couldn’t hear Mina’s reply, because the dragon took this moment to lift his head out of the straw.

  Oh no.

  Mina was saying, “We are just a group of women and children. We are poor and have nothing.”

  The door crashed open, and a man pushed her aside.
/>
  Mina almost fell as the men charged in. They stopped in the middle of the warehouse.

  They looked around.

  The leader’s gaze rested on Koby, still stirring the pot. “Having a party here?”

  Nellie had packed away the bread and the remains of the ham so they could use it later, but the cups and plates were still on the table.

  The man walked to the table and put his hand on the teapot. Yes, it was still warm.

  He kicked one of the bricks that surrounded the makeshift fire pit.

  Koby retreated, giving him a suspicious look.

  “Leave her alone,” Mina said.

  The other men spread out around the warehouse. They picked up and threw aside the bags that the women were using as mattresses, sometimes finding little items of interest; but because the women had hidden all their valuable possessions under the cobbles, they didn’t find too much.

  One of them found Zelda’s collection of herbs.

  “What’s this?” he asked.

  “Chamomile tea,” Zelda replied, her face defiant.

  “And what do you know about chamomile tea?”

  “We use it because we cannot get real tea.”

  Something in her attitude must have irritated him because he pulled her up by her shawl. “You’re a herb woman?”

  “I am a woman who uses herbs sometimes. Because they grow in the field and they’re free.”

  “Indeed. You’re a herb woman. You use magic to deceive and betray people. Where are you from?”

  “From nowhere. I’ve lived in this town for over ten years.”

  “But you are not from here, anyone can tell that. You are a foreigner with magic, trying to subvert the people of this town.”

  “I’ve done nothing that bothers you.”

  “Haven’t you? Then tell me about these things.” He held up his hand. “Stealing. Bothering citizens. Selling stolen goods. Cajoling the bereaved into giving up their possessions. Selling poisonous concoctions to nobles.”

  He counted on his fingers.

  Zelda looked at him, her face hard. “You’re looking for people with magic. I did not hear you accuse me of magic.”

  He snorted. “We’ll be watching you.”

  “You’re welcome. I can do exotic dances for a very good price.”

  “And you’re a filthy whore, too. Tell me why I should want to watch your old and wrinkled arse.”

  One of his mates laughed.

  Another man was questioning the other women. They stood in a group, and Agatha’s voice drifted through the hall.

  “We don’t have anything like that.”

  The man gestured at the mattresses in the space under the hayloft, and his fellows searched through it. One man was walking from one side to the other side of the sleeping area with a metal stick and two handles. With his big and heavy boots, he stomped across the hay-filled mattresses.

  Nellie wondered what he was doing. She had seen people use this device when she was in the forests of Burovia where people would divine for magic.

  “Ah!” His face lit up.

  He pointed down. A colleague dug in the straw at his feet.

  A moment later, he came up with Jantien’s bag.

  She clapped her hand over her mouth.

  “Was there anything magical in there?” Nellie asked.

  Jantien shook her head.

  The man found a tatty singlet with pearl buttons. He waved his metal rod over it, then tossed the box to his colleague.

  Jantien called out, “No, you can’t have that. It belongs to my mother.”

  “This is an item of magic.”

  “It’s just a singlet!”

  “It’s an item of magic. You are arrested in the name of the Regent.”

  “You can’t do that. I have six children to look after. Let me go. Let me go!” She tried to twist herself out of the man’s grip.

  “The Regent says no magic, and he means no magic.” He jerked at another colleague who grabbed Jantien’s free arm. “Take her to the others.”

  As she was being dragged out, one of her children, in the hayloft cried out. “Mama! No! Mama!”

  One of the guards looked up. He nodded to his colleagues.

  “Check up there.”

  Oh no.

  Two men climbed the ladder.

  Nellie held her breath. The first one reached the top of the hayloft and called down, “Hey, there’s a bunch of children up here.”

  And then he gasped. “What’s that? It’s a—”

  A giant roar interrupted him.

  “A dragon!”

  The man clambered onto the hayloft, pulling his sword.

  The children screamed, and the dragon roared again.

  Agatha yelled, “Get down here, kids!”

  But two men were climbing the ladder, so that was impossible.

  And then a fireball burst through the door of the warehouse with such force that the half-rotten wooden plank exploded.

  It slid to a halt on the floor. It unfolded four paws, a snarling head with vicious teeth.

  The women screamed and ran.

  Nellie hid behind the barrel of water, peeping in between the barrel and the wall.

  In the middle of the warehouse stood a fire demon in the shape of a mean guard dog with a strong, square-jawed head and powerful shoulders. Its eyes were red as glowing coals, moving from one side to the other as it took in the women cowering in the corner. The guards gripped their swords, pale-faced, knowing they were about to die.

  A big ball of fire erupted from the top of the ladder.

  Oh no, the dragon. He stood with his mouth open, hissing a spout of fire. No, he would set fire to the entire building.

  The guard halfway up the ladder jumped down and drew his bow, aiming at the hayloft.

  The other men in the warehouse shouted. A couple surrounded the fire dog, swords drawn, as if swords could do anything against a magical creature. It let out a low growl and crouched as if getting ready to attack.

  The dog wasn’t interested in the men at all, but only had eyes for the dragon.

  Nellie didn’t think. She grabbed the bucket that stood next to the water barrel, dunked it into the ice-cold water and threw the water over the fire dog.

  The stream of water hit the burning figure with a hiss of steam. The creature shook itself. Its fire-laced fur issued steam into the cold air. It turned its head to Nellie. The look from its red eyes burned with evil.

  Nellie jumped behind the water barrel with a squeak.

  That was dumb. Now it would attack her.

  Next thing, the dragon sailed from the hayloft, his claws outstretched. He hit the fire dog in the back. It screamed. The two rolled over the floor, scattering burning wood from the fire.

  Nellie yelled, “Stop it, stop it!”

  But she wasn’t sure what she would do if the two creatures stopped fighting. She was just afraid that the dragon would be injured. The dragon had his claws dug into the fire dog’s sides and the dog held the dragon’s throat in its jaws.

  The dragon shook his head, billowing fire. The dog yelped, letting the dragon go. The dragon jumped into the air, ran through the middle of the fire pit, scattering a shower of sparks. The fire dog jumped after him, but missed, because the dragon’s wing hit it in the face. It rolled over the ground, setting fire to the random bits of straw.

  The dragon took no

  notice. He ran across the floor, straight through the fire, and launched himself into the air. The sound of his wingbeats receded in the distance. The fire dog shook itself and vanished in a puff of sparks.

  Within moments, a big group of guards came running into the warehouse, shouting, swords at the ready.

  “Arrest everyone!” the patrol leader shouted.

  There was no time to make a plan. It was everyone for themselves. No time to find the children or take any possessions.

  Nellie ran across the floor. A door in the back of the warehouse led to a path that ran along the
canal. She didn’t think; she ran past the back of warehouse, past people unloading stock from the low barges that could navigate the canals, past the brewery and the city’s food stores, until she could no longer hear the shouting.

  Then she hid in an alcove, catching her breath.

  It was cold. The day was misty and the humidity of the air seeped into her

  clothes. She only had the clothes she wore. She was still hungry.

  The dragon was nowhere in sight.

  Chapter 6

  * * *

  IT WAS COLD in the misty morning along the canal.

  Nellie stared over the surface of the water, disturbed only by two ducks paddling across an area near the opposite side, which was free from ice.

  There was nothing to do, except to return to the warehouse and gather what she could salvage after the raid, find the people who were still there and then . . . start again and struggle to survive.

  The thought of going back to the palace crossed her mind. Now that the dragon had escaped, the proof that she had stolen him had become irrelevant. Hopefully, the dragon was smart and had gone back to wherever dragons came from. Still, she had the box, and she would forever be afraid that the dragon would turn up. And there would be questions, most likely from Madame Sabine. And lacking a dragon would make it more likely that the Regent would blame her, and not the dragon, for Lord Verdonck’s death. That threat would always hang over her head any time she came near the palace.

  When Nellie entered the warehouse, she found Mina, Gertie, Hilde and Lise with Koby and Jantien’s children, all standing around crying and hugging each other.

  They turned to the door as soon as Nellie came in. Faces lit up.

  “Nellie! You’re alive.”

  Koby ran to her and gave her a hug, and Mina followed.

  Zelda sat on an upturned bucket in a corner, giving the group an evil look. Agatha sat with her, with Anneke and Bas at her feet, and so the lines in the sand were drawn.

  “Where are the others?” Nellie asked. A few faces were missing from the group. Gertie and Hilde were there, but Josie was not. Emmie was also missing.

  “They took Jantien,” Koby said.