by Patty Jansen
“I understand. But we’re fine for the time being. I may need to ask you later, when things quiet down. I’m looking after six children whose mother has been taken prisoner and whose father has fled town.”
“How old are they?”
“The oldest is ten, and the youngest is just three. There is one set of twins. They were never poor. They used to live in a normal house and their father had a tailor shop when he was forced to leave town.”
“Poor mites. Come with me.”
Dora preceded Nellie into the hallway, and to the linen room.
This corridor was so familiar to Nellie. Just the thought that she could go to the end of the corridor and find her comfortable room still there disturbed her. Someone else might have taken it, but she didn’t think so. She had wanted to collect her few remaining positions, but she knew better than to burden herself with unnecessary furniture when she had nowhere to put it.
It was dark in the linen room, and the smell of soap was achingly familiar.
“It’s probably just as well you missed the big to-do here in the last few days,” Dora said, after she shut the door. It was cold in here, and her breath steamed in the air.
“It is about the Lord Verdonck’s son, isn’t it?”
“Yes. The son demands an explanation for his father’s death. He is invoking the unspoken rules that hosts of castles and palaces are responsible for the safety of those under their roof.”
“So the Regent has been scrambling for someone to blame for the poisoning?”
“That’s about the gist of it. First, they came and arrested poor Wim.”
“But he did nothing wrong.”
“No, and the Lord’s son said as much. Then they came here to look for you because, apparently, you gave Lord Verdonck some herb concoction.”
“I brought tea, which he was in no state to drink.”
“And then, in another desperate move, the Regent said that Lord Verdonck had been killed by a dragon, and the son grew extremely angry. The Regent then said he would punish Wim, just to have someone to blame, and because he was the only person he could find who could remotely be responsible for the poisoning.”
“Wim didn’t do it.”
“We know that. They know that. I think they wanted you, but they didn’t know where to find you.”
They were silent for a while.
“If they find me, would they release Wim?”
Dora’s expression was horrified. “Oh, I don’t know. Probably not. I wouldn’t try that if I were you.”
“I don’t intend to.”
“Good.”
Few sounds reached this room, except someone must have come into the back yard, judging by the oinking of the pigs.
Nellie said, “The Regent wants to blame someone so he can get Adalbert Verdonck off his back.”
“He wants to blame everyone.”
“Adalbert Verdonck is not happy with the story about the dragon. I don’t think he should be. The dragon didn’t kill his father.”
“They said he had scratches on his leg.”
“The dragon didn’t kill him, believe me.”
“Have you seen the dragon lately?”
“No. He flew off. He’s probably gone home.”
Dora sighed. “It’s not an easy situation. The guards have been in here many times. They also talked to some other kitchen workers.”
“Not Els and Maartje?” Nellie’s heart jumped. She had rescued the two sisters from a certain fate of becoming whores, and she did not want anything bad to happen to them.
“No, those two were smart enough to stay away. Haven’t seen them for days either.”
Els was smart. In fact, if she did not work at the palace, Nellie probably knew where to find her. And she also was not entirely convinced that Els had nothing to do with the poisoning. Especially not with her strange monk friend. But drawing attention to it helped no one.
So she was now under suspicion. She’d prefer that to pointing suspicion at Els and her young sister.
Dora had opened one of the linen cupboards and took out several sheets and some blankets.
“Here, put those in your bag. I will ask around for people to bring spare clothing for children, and if you let us know where you are, I can send someone to bring it to you.”
“Thank you very much. I’ll let you know once we’re safe. I don’t think I would still be alive without you.”
“Don’t be silly. Now, look after yourself.”
But Dora’s eyes glittered, before she took Nellie into a strong, soup-scented hug.
Then Nellie walked along the hallway to the side entrance of the palace, knowing she might not come back here for a long time, if ever.
While she had been inside the palace, there had been a change of guard, and one of the replacements at the gate included Henrik, who stood in the guard box, and could not be fooled about her identity, no matter how much she pulled the shawl over her head.
He pulled her aside, into the darkness of the box.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, his voice little more than a whisper.
“I only found out that apparently I’m supposed to have poisoned Lord Verdonck.”
“You are risking your life by coming here. If I were you, I would run as far away from the palace as possible.”
She didn’t like his tone at all.
“You don’t believe that I poisoned the Lord, do you?”
He glared at her. “I consider whatever proof we are given.”
Nellie couldn’t believe her ears. “So you believe these lies the Regent tells?”
“I look at evidence. We know who came to Lord Verdonck’s room. We know who was at the banquet. We know where the food came from—”
“But do you know which item was poisoned?”
He glared at her.
“That would be a start, if you knew that. Or you knew the type of poison and who has it—”
“Don’t tell me how to do my job.”
“Then do your job. Look at the most obvious possibility. Who supplied most of the food and wine? Who was there to help serve it?”
“You want to blame the church? What happened to you? Is that what your father told you? Your father left the church because he was disgraced. He attempted to overstep his boundaries as accountant, so he could dictate what the church bought, which should be the shepherd’s decision. And it should be the Regent’s decision. No one else can see their plan for this city. I don’t need to remind you that the church keeps us safe from magic, and the Regent keeps us safe from the bandits that roam the countryside. He has made the city a safe haven. I don’t need to remind you of how scarce imports from other lands have become. Produce can’t come through. The traders see no more reason to stay in our town. The Regent has a plan to fix all that. The Regent is my superior. I don’t always agree with what he says, but I have to listen to him, because he has the best interests of the people at heart.”
“You genuinely believe that?”
“And you do not? You think he came here out of his own free will, just because somebody needed this job to be done? He had to be asked, and he agreed, and he did not want to come here, and especially his wife did not want to come here.”
Well, he was right on that latter statement.
“He came here because—” and then she stopped.
There was no point in arguing with him.
He did not understand, he did not want to see the depth of deceit that these men were playing on the people of the city. There was nothing she, an old woman, could say about the situation that would make him believe it. She would have to show it to him another way, or not at all. Whatever their relationship might have been, whatever course it had been on, it was not to be. There was no point in pursuing any of this.
She yanked her arm loose.
“I’m leaving. You won’t see me again, so don’t even try find me.”
And she walked out of the palace gates, but her eyes pricked.
&
nbsp; She would show him.
Her father did not leave the church out of disgrace. And Henrik was wrong about the Regent. And he was wrong about who poisoned Lord Verdonck. She would show him and then he would have to apologise to her.
Walking across the market place, however, she realised that by fleeing, she as much as admitted her own guilt. If they suspected her of poisoning Lord Verdonck, the guards would hunt her forever. She could never come back to the city, and would live her twilight years in fear.
The only way of clearing her name was to find out who had poisoned him, right?
She was probably halfway to finding that answer.
It was time to find some gin.
Chapter 13
* * *
ON HER WAY BACK to the barn, Nellie came past the quay where the carpenters were taking a small break from erecting the platform where the sentence would be carried out.
The wooden platform sat half over the water, held in place by a couple of weights in the corners. Nellie assumed that when all the people stood on the top, these would be removed, causing the platform to tip. The men had coated the top planks with wax so there would be nothing to hold onto.
Apart from this simple mechanism, the carpenters had also built a second, lower, platform where she assumed chairs for the Regent and other important witnesses would be placed on the day. She wondered who would be present to watch this horrible spectacle.
Shepherd Wilfridus usually attended hangings of criminals to bless their spirits as they left the body.
Sometimes people would cheer when a man who had murdered his wife or a child was hanged, and would protest any suggestion of forgiveness by the Triune. The shepherd usually preached forgiveness.
But who was there to forgive if the very act of carrying out an unjust sentence was wrong?
A couple of men were standing near the work in progress, watching, with their hands in their pockets. The carpenters were giving them sideways looks. Oh, they knew many citizens in town disagreed with this verdict. This was not the hanging of a criminal.
Nellie delivered her booty to the sea cow barn where the women were sitting around the fire tying together the lengths of wood that would function as shields against the inevitable arrows.
The work was starting to look quite good, and they stopped for a brief bite to eat.
“Rumour has it that it will be the day after tomorrow,” Mina said.
It wasn’t necessary to name the event.
Agatha said, “I’m saying it will be the day after that. Certainly, the Regent will want to stick to the old king’s rule that citizens have to be given at least two days to register their protest against any sentence being carried out.”
“I don’t see anyone traipsing up the steps to the palace to register a complaint,” Hilde said.
“That’s because they’re too scared,” Agatha said. “But he knows if he ignores that rule, it will be to his peril. Mess with food and punish people unfairly, and you have a rebellion.”
All in all, the plan for their own rebellion seemed to be proceeding quite well. The fisherman was going to bring the flat-bottomed boat into the barn in the evening under the cover of darkness, so they could attach the harness and attract sea cows with the mysterious supply of carrots.
Nellie needed to be present for that because apart from the fisherman she was the only one who knew how to handle sea cows.
The carpenter had already brought the beam. Nellie was surprised about that.
“When did he come to deliver the beam?” she asked.
No one knew. The women had been out when the beam had appeared in the barn.
“That was quick.”
Nellie hadn’t even paid him yet. She had the ham, but she had better arrange the second half of her payment to him.
But first, they needed to get started on training the cows to the harness. She instructed the others to tie the ropes that would be attached to the boat to the beam. Her hands still knew how to do the knots and how to tie the straps.
Then she told the children to drop some carrots into the water.
Attracted by the food, a group of sea cows came into the shallow area where the women then lowered the harness. This was a delicate operation, heavy and cumbersome as the thing was, and unused as the women were to handling it. But the beams floated so fortunately no one fell in the water.
“Put the carrots close to the harness so the cows know it means food,” Nellie said. “Then hold out the harness until an animal comes, like so.” She held the leather straps on the hook at the end of a long pole. A couple of the children also had these poles.
One boy managed to loop a leather strap around the body of a large female, and the creature let him scratch her fur.
“It’s very spiky,” the boy said.
A whoosh of sparks went over the water. The animals snorted and took off. The mature female was still in the harness and she pulled the rope with her, tipping the boy into the water.
With yells and shouts, all the women rushed to the water’s edge.
While the mothers fished the boy out of the water, Nellie grabbed the dragon box and chased the sparks around the barn, all along the edge of the water and into the storeroom and back again.
She yelled at the dragon, “Come here, get into the box. You’re not helping.”
The dragon tipped over the bag of carrots and several rolled into the water before Nellie could pull it back up.
“Hey! That’s our food for the trip.”
She glared at the swirling sparks, breathing heavily. What did this dragon think he was doing?
Down in the water, the sea cows chewed on carrots with much slobbering and blowing bubbles.
Nellie set the box aside and went to help the women to keep hold of the harness while the animals darted over and under it.
Several times, she was tripped up by one of the cats.
Eventually, they were all wet and exhausted from chasing, and they still only had one animal in the harness.
“We have to try again later, tomorrow maybe,” Nellie said.
She unlooped and unreeled the rope so that the animal could graze with the others.
“I hope that magic thing stays away,” Mina said.
“Yes, it spooks the sea cows,” Agatha said.
They were both looking at Nellie, but she had grown sick of arguing over the dragon and the suggestion that she could do anything to control his behaviour.
She also hoped the dragon could be enticed to go back into his box, but so far, he was ignoring her and she could do nothing about it.
No doubt the dragon would reappear at a most inconvenient time, but they would just have to deal with him. Hopefully, he remained interested in kittens and other animals and wouldn’t turn on any of his human companions.
After a quick midday meal from the bread and cheese provided by Dora, Nellie left again. She had the ham, and now she needed to get the gin.
The commercial quarter where she had first gone to see Els and her monk friend produce illegal gin was in between the artisan quarter and the main part of town. It was quite a walk from the harbour.
Today, the streets in the artisan quarter were almost deserted, as both sellers and buyers were in short supply. Winter did not help matters. A lot of businesses were closed. Many displayed signs that they had run out of stock because of the troubles up the river. Many others were closed because the owners were gone.
Nellie spotted a sign in a window of a shop that was still open that said, Because the shop owner has been taken prisoner, we ask that you support his family by buying our produce.
Nellie had never felt quite at ease in this part of town, and her short time of living here had not changed that feeling at all.
With every step she took, she expected Zelda or some other wayfarer to come out and harass her. She expected that people were watching her from behind the curtains and that someone would call the guards on her. One of the alleys looked out onto the tents and wagons of a
wayfarer camp on the edge of town.
Nellie found the side street and park where Mustafa the animal keeper used to have his exotic menagerie. That had been such a happy time, and she had not even realised how good life was.
On the other side of the empty lot were the two warehouses, one that built coaches for rich people, and one whose building had not even been finished, where Els and her friend plied their illegal gin trade.
Because it was getting cold and misty, the smell of boiling grain hung close to the ground. Once you’d smelled it, you’d recognise that scent anywhere.
Nellie went up to the front door and knocked.
For a long time nothing happened.
She wasn’t sure if anyone was even in the warehouse, so she went to the alley, climbed onto a bin, and looked into the little window on the side.
She didn’t see anyone, but the vats were cooking, issuing steam into the air. The inside of the window was fogged up.
She went back to the main door and tried to open it.
It was unlocked.
Well, that was easy.
Inside the warehouse, the smell was much stronger.
The place where she entered was a little hall, made up of wooden boards to act as the reception area to hang up one’s coat or to shelter the activity in the warehouse from those who came to the door.
“Is anyone here?” she asked.
There was no reply, so she went into the main hall.
The floor was clean, and a couple of sturdy tables stood in the middle of the room. Rows of bottles were lined up on the tables, all cleaned, without labels. A box of corks stood nearby.
The labels were in a little box on a different table. They said Sailor’s Pride, with a picture of juniper berries on the tree underneath.
Still, no one had come.
“It’s me, Nellie. If Els is here, I would like to speak to her.”
Her voice faded in the large room. She didn’t believe there was no one there.
And then she heard a small scuffling noise. It could have been a cat, but a moment later a young woman came out from behind one of the cooking vats.
“Nellie?”