by Patty Jansen
That was true, and Maartje had also said that.
Gisele continued, “But once we sell the gin, there is no guarantee what other people will do with it. It is well known that in other countries, like Burovia, some monasteries poison wine to get rid of people they don’t like, and therefore wine is always suspicious. Wine is dark and holds poison well. Gin, being clear, is trickier, because many poisons have a colour. Magic has no colour or smell and cannot be measured. People put magic in bread and in fabric. Nobody has yet tried it with gin.”
“So is this why the Regent is so keen to get rid of magicians?”
“It’s hard to say for sure. I don’t think he knows much about it and I don’t think he’s received good advice. If he wants to solve this crime, it’s likely he needs a magician. I have no great skill with magic, but I can point to some places where people from the palace have bought things that are suspicious.”
“And those people would be?”
“For one, you would want to have a look at your beloved church.”
“But the church is very much against magic.”
“What they say and what they do is not always the same thing.”
The artefacts in the glass cabinet, the ruby skull, the books filled with dark magic. Nellie nodded, slowly. There was also that occasion where she had felt betrayed when Shepherd Adrianus listened to his superior and had not stood up when the poor people were thrown out of the church. “I guess you know about what goes on in the church.”
“Not in that way. Only the important monks do. Other than that, those churchmen are all the same. Once they know you’re a girl, they are only interested in feeling you out, if you get what I mean. I have to protect myself, meaning I don’t meddle in their business and don’t cross their path.”
“One day I saw you in the church.”
“Well, I am a monk. I have to pretend, don’t I?”
“But do you provide certain services to monks?”
“I try to avoid that, if I can at all, but one has to eat sometimes, doesn’t one?”
“Does being a monk not feed you well enough?”
“I detest begging, but I have no rich family who sends me parcels of goods.”
And begging was what monks often did. Despite the obvious riches of the monasteries, many of the monks were themselves dirt poor, and Nellie had heard stories that monasteries liked to get sons from rich families who would then contribute to the upkeep of the building, while the men themselves would live in poverty, for the sake of living a simple life.
“What do you know about the books and other things they keep in the church crypt?” Nellie asked.
Gisele raised her eyebrows.
“My father was an account keeper for the church. He knew about all the stuff they buy. He didn’t agree with much of it.”
Gisele shook her head. “Oh, there is some disturbing stuff there. The church says it wants to keep this material so it doesn’t fall into the hands of citizens who are supposedly unable to deal with horrific material.”
She was sassy and probably also very smart, which was not a good thing for a young girl. She reminded Nellie of Mistress Johanna.
“Tell me what you have seen.”
“Why are you so curious? My friend here tells me you’re a church person, that your parents grew up in the church, and that you take the letter of the Book of Verses literally.”
“I have not lived to the age of fifty by believing everything people tell me. I believe there is an essential good in the teachings of the church, but that its interpretations are not always well-intentioned.”
“Well, you can say that again.”
This girl knew a lot more than Nellie had bargained for.
“Did you know the church had a dragon?”
“There were rumours, although I live at the monastery, and I’ve never seen it. It was gone from the spot in the cabinet when I first came there. I asked what the octagonal spot in the dust was and they said it belonged to an important artefact that they were studying—that was the dragon that took you out of the kitchen, right?”
“I think so.”
“The one that lives in a box?”
Nellie nodded. “Do you know why the box was no longer in the cabinet when you saw it?”
“No one ever mentioned it to me. Mind you, it was not as if I could ask these kinds of questions. But there were rumours that Shepherd Wilfridus himself was looking at it.”
“Was it stolen from his study?” Nellie asked.
“From the library, apparently, a few months ago.”
“Then wouldn’t it be easy for the shepherd to track who came to the library?”
“Not every visitor signs the book. Not every monk is free of suspicion.”
Also true. “And you believe it was a monk?”
“Not a monk, I don’t think. But someone from the church.”
“A bad apple,” Nellie said, filling with hope. She didn’t want to believe the church was evil.
Gisele said, “It is more than just one person. I want to take down these tyrants who call themselves the saviours of our souls and show the citizens what evil they sow. It’s all a load of nonsense.”
Nellie protested, “The church isn’t evil.”
“I mean not this church, I mean all churches.”
“But then, are you a heathen?”
“I believe in the good of people. I believe they can be good regardless of their belief. If they feel they need a church to motivate them, that is good, as long as they do good things. But the moment this institution becomes a law onto itself, and frightens people for the sake of its own profit, that is wrong.”
And Nellie could not disagree with that. It also seemed to have been something her father had realised and tried to express in words in his book.
While they drank tea, Gisele told Nellie about some things she had seen while serving as a monk. “In the monastery just across the border in Burovia, every farmer in all the surrounding land is brought in once a year, to deliver one tenth of their produce to the church. They do not get anything in return, except a promise that their souls will be saved. The church doesn’t always even own the land. Sometimes the farmers come in purely out of fear because someone in the service has said the Lord of Fire will descend upon them if they don’t obey. Woe the poor girls who become with child when a monk forgets that he’s supposed to have sworn off the pleasures of female flesh. They are treated like they are the worst sinners, their families have to increase their contributions to the monastery and the girl herself can never marry well. In the crypt of the main church in your city here, the church keeps a collection of truly dreadful things. It is not the black skull with the ruby eyes that is disturbing, although people often talk about it, but it is all the books filled with the most terrible things that people can do to each other. And some of them are books of magic, but most of them are books of insane cruelty. It is also the place where if a monk or some other person in the church falls foul of the leadership, they will lock this poor person up, sometimes for years, sometimes until the end of their lives.”
“You mean the church keeps these prisoners at present?” Nellie had seen no places where prisoners could be locked up. Although there was that large room with all the bottles she had not investigated very much. She only had so much time because it was dark and very dusty in the crypt and that large room looked to be a storage area for wine.
“Yes, that’s right.”
“And they lock people up for years?” Nellie couldn’t imagine the horror of living in the dark for that long.
“There is a rumour of a boy,” Gisele said. “I don’t know how much is true, but they say a young boy lives in one of the cells and has been there for years. I’ve never seen him, but I’ve definitely seen people carrying food into that area.”
Nellie’s heart jumped. “Do you think the boy could be Prince Bruno?”
“Who is that?”
Nellie related the story of the misfortunes of the
royal family, of the fact that the king could not have any children, that neither of his two children had been his, and that the younger one, who was the son of an eastern trader, was called Bruno.
“He’s the owner of the dragon box. I used to work for the royal family. The box was given to him by his father, and he kept it on the shelf in his room.”
Gisele frowned. “Did you ever see the dragon? Is that why it hasn’t attacked you, but it has attacked everyone else who tried to open the box?”
“I don’t think so. The dragon wouldn’t know who I am. I never saw him back then. I only saw his father’s dragon. Do you think they kept him in the dungeons because he’s the only one who can use the dragon?”
Gisele looked disturbed for a moment. Then she shrugged. “Could be. I don’t know if it’s the prince. But someone definitely lives down there.”
Nellie said, “Would you be prepared to check?”
“I have no idea how to get in there. The only way I got in was with someone else who opened the door for me.”
Yes, but Nellie had the key.
Chapter 15
* * *
NELLIE DEBATED whether she should let Gisele know she had the key, but decided against it for the time being. She thought she could trust Gisele, as least somewhat, but if Gisele got desperate, who was to say she wouldn’t trade the information that someone had the key for something she wanted?
She might want Gisele’s help later, but she would only tell her that she had the key at that time.
So she asked Gisele and Els for information about how to poison gin. Had they ever seen or heard of gin that could be poisoned with magic?
“A lot of sailors talk about this,” Els said. “When they go out to sea, they have no way of getting back at whoever it was who sold them the foul gin, so they prefer to buy only from people they know are safe suppliers.”
“And I’m guessing you are a safe supplier?”
She smiled mischievously. “Reputation is everything. You have told me many times yourself.”
“Who are they, then, these magicians who poison gin with magic?”
“If people knew, then they wouldn’t live for long,” Gisele said. “It’s considered the lowest form of crime to kill someone in this way.”
“But they would have to be a magician, wouldn’t they?”
“Either that, or they would have to employ a magician to do it.”
Nellie said, “What sort of magic would be involved? I know that people who have wood magic see things in wood, but they can’t do anything with the wood, other than listen to it. I know that works the same with wind and water magic. People touch the water, or let the wind touch the face, and then listen to all the things it tells them. I think that is called passive magic. Artisan magic. If someone were to put magic in gin that would be an active use of magic.” Nellie struggled to find the right words. She had heard some language used to describe magic when she was travelling with Mistress Johanna, but she was not well versed in the terminology that magicians used to talk about their skills. That, she realised, was the way Saardam had seen its downfall. It was because someone who had a dangerous amount of magic—the young princess—had been left untrained. And here was the church, who wanted to forbid the training of all such people, instead banishing them from the city.
It made sense, in an evil kind of way.
Gisele said, “Yep, that is active magic, and it’s rare and dangerous.”
“That means that there is such a magician in the city.”
“Or somewhere outside, and the gin is imported.”
“But gin is only made locally. Even a little distance up the river the monks prefer wine, and further still, they have all kinds of different liquors.”
“That’s true.”
So, Nellie asked again. “Who else in the city sells gin? I know you don’t like talking about your competitors, but we need to know, or several people will be put to death unnecessarily. Specifically, I’d like to know who sells to the palace.”
“We don’t sell to the palace,” Els said.
“I know. You have already told me that.”
Gisele said, “The Regent is from the south, and I don’t think he likes gin.”
“Would he not provide any for his guests?”
“Gin is considered a drink for uncivilised sailors,” Gisele said. “I don’t know that anyone sells it to the Palace. When I was serving there, I didn’t see any.”
Nellie didn’t remember seeing any while serving, either. In fact, thinking back to her time working with the Regent, she didn’t think she had ever seen gin in the dining room. “Yet there was a bottle of gin in the Lord Verdonck’s room. I know because I saw it there. It was empty. I remember what it looked like because it was one of the square ones like those in your warehouse. The label was different, with a goat on it. I’ve never seen that before, but I’m sure he would have bought it somewhere in town.”
“The gin that gets sold in the shops is made at the Oliver distillery,” Gisele said.
“Do they use a label with a goat on it?”
“Their usual label doesn’t have a picture, but they may do special batches for people. I don’t know. I have to say I would be very surprised if someone who has a lot of magic would work there, so probably someone bought it there and then infused it with magic before giving it to Lord Verdonck as a present. They might even have changed the label.”
That was another option, and Nellie’s head was spinning with all the different possibilities. She wasn’t sure she would ever find out who sold that bottle of gin, and she became less sure that the poisoning had been caused by the gin.
The distillery was one of the businesses that still operated in the street behind the harbour, and Nellie decided to go and have a look after she had said goodbye to Gisele and Els.
It was operated by the Oliver family, a well-respected merchant family in town. There were two brothers in the business. One had the distillery, the other ran the confectionery and special foods business that supplied the palace. It was a respectable business in a good part of town, and it had been there for a long time. When someone mentioned the name, she could smell the smoked ham, and the salty aged cheese that was so dry it crumbled when you tried to cut it. She could see the racks of bottles with exotic spices. There was a set of shelves containing bottles of gin, too, which came from the family business.
When she came to the distillery building, the doors into the factory hall were open. The familiar smell of boiling grain wafted out in clouds of steam. The setup was much bigger and better than Gisele and Els’ operation in the abandoned warehouse. This hall had permanent tables, wash basins for bottles, drying racks and a giant pot hanging over a raging fire, where a man was stirring the contents. Another man was writing out labels and affixing them to bottles and then packing the bottles in crates.
A young man whom she knew as the son of the business owner came to meet Nellie. He wore a simple thin coat and his cheeks were red from the steamy heat inside the hall. “Can I help you?”
“I’ve got a strange question,” Nellie said. “I was wondering if you could tell me whether someone from the nobility or the palace bought a small bottle of gin as a present for a visitor.”
The man laughed. “We sell hundreds of bottles every week. Do you think I would remember?”
Seeing the size of the operation behind him that did not surprise her at all. “But you do sell to the palace?”
“Not very much, we don’t. That foreigner insists on having his own foreign drink brought in as if we’re not good enough for him.”
Clearly not a supporter of the Regent. “Where do you sell to, then?”
“Many people. All the nobles, merchants, the church.”
“The church?”
“Yes, they love a good glass of gin. Especially Shepherd Wilfridus.”
With all the will in the world, Nellie could not imagine Shepherd Wilfridus approving of drinking anything like gin.
But maybe he gave it to his monks to loosen their tongues.
“So you don’t remember anyone who bought a small bottle as a present? It could have been someone from out of town.” She looked around him, but the labels the man at the table was sticking on bottles contained only writing, no pictures of goats.
“I’m sorry, but we don’t have memories as good as that.”
“Do you make small batches with special labels?”
“We sometimes sell bottles without labels, if clients want to use their own.”
Well, this didn’t help Nellie very much. What had she expected? To see crates with goat-labelled gin? What would that mean anyway? Probably that the poison hadn’t been in the gin. She considered asking about the goat labels, but decided against it because it would only draw attention to herself.
She was about to go, but then thought of another question. “Can you tell me, is there such a thing as gin magic?”
“The making of gin is a craft. In our case, it has been passed down from generation to generation. If you want to call that magic, you are wrong. In this factory hall, we do not meddle in magic or other dark craft. What you see here is all honest work.”
“I’m sorry to upset you. It was not my intention. But I know that when a baker makes bread, the best bakers have a kind of magic that makes their bread better than everyone else’s. Someone told me you are the best gin maker in town.”
“The only one.” His face was prim.
“So I wondered if there might be a special gift involved in the magic of gin.”
“It’s craft, no more.”
Whoa, he was defensive all of a sudden.
She thanked him for his replies and left again, with more questions than when she had come.
So it was possible that the gin in Lord Verdonck’s room had been purchased at that distillery, and that someone else had put the goat label on it and infused it with magic. But it was a long shot, and who that person would have been was a mystery.
Then she had another thought. She already knew an accomplished magician was in town because the fire dog would not exist without a master. That person would have enough magic to do such a thing. But Nellie had no idea who that person could be.