The Wizard Priest

by Patty Jansen

  “Which liar told you that?”

  “You would like to know that, huh? So that you can use your magic on them.”

  “I have no magic. You are not searching any of these people. Go back; leave this room now. Come on, out with you.” She flapped her hand at the two men who had started going around the table, asking attendants to the meeting to take everything out of their pockets. Nellie was glad she hadn’t brought the book or the box.

  The men glanced at their superior, but he told them to keep searching.

  “I order you to leave us alone,” Madame Sabine said.

  “We take orders from your husband. You’re obstructing our task. Stand to the side, please. My men won’t be long.”

  “I tell you to get out! I’ll talk to my husband about this.”

  “He’ll be most amused.” His voice sounded belittling, and sent a chill through Nellie. Because no matter how well a woman married, if a problem occurred, she was still worth less than her husband’s male guards.

  “How dare you talk to me like that.”

  “Get out of our way. Search everyone. Leave no one undisturbed.”

  At a gesture from the patrol leader, two guards came from either side and grabbed Madame Sabine by the arms. They pulled off her pretty fur coat.

  Madame Sabine screamed, “Keep your hands off me!”

  A guard drew his sword and swung it around. It caught the light of the fire.

  Someone screamed.

  Nellie held her breath and brought her hands to her mouth.

  She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Was he really going to mow down a defenceless woman in front of these people? No less than the wife of the Regent. Had the Regent ordered this?

  Nellie couldn’t watch this. She closed her eyes.

  But instead of—what sort of sounds even came with someone being cut with a sword? Nellie didn’t want to know—there came a great ripping sound.

  Madame Sabine—obviously still unharmed—yelled, “What do you think you’re doing? You boor. How dare you do this?”

  Nellie opened her eyes.

  The guard had cut right through the back of Madame Sabine’s overdress. Parts of the rich brocade fabric lay on the ground.

  Madame Sabine wrestled to get free, but the guards were much too strong.

  They peeled off the dress and then the soldier cut through the laces of the corset without bothering to undo them.

  Master Beck said, “Hey, I don’t know what your orders were, but you don’t do that to a lady. Have some decency, man.”

  The guard then grabbed Madame Sabine’s thin underdress in both hands and ripped the back open.

  “Ha!” He forced her to turn around, so that her pale, soft back was exposed to the light. The red scars showed up clearly.

  The patrol leader laughed. “What did you say about magic? What creature do you think did this?”

  People in the room gasped.

  “This woman is a witch.” The man threw Madame Sabine her tattered dress. She pulled it over her shoulders. She didn’t protest, and didn’t say anything. She kept her chin in the air, regarding the guards with disdain.

  Nellie wondered: how they’d known about those scars? The only person who might have known was the Regent, but Madame Sabine had told Nellie he didn’t care about her anymore. They slept in separate rooms.

  And if she’d acquired the scars long ago, they obviously had never been a problem in their relationship before.

  Why now?

  The only other person who could have known was the healer witch Graziela, but she had left town long ago. Or was she somehow still passing information to the Regent in return for her freedom?

  But then she had another thought: Zelda. Madame Sabine had been looking for a healer in order to look after the scars. Zelda was well-known amongst the nobles as someone who sold remedies. She had betrayed Madame Sabine as she had betrayed Nellie and the other women.

  A number of other guards had lined up on the stairs and tromped into the room.

  One by one, they went to all the people who had attended the meeting. They asked them to take off their coats and jackets and shirts. They searched the trouser pockets, they searched their socks and their shoes, they searched the pockets of their jackets and coats and their bags. A small pile of items grew in the middle of the table.

  Nellie didn’t recognise many of the strange devices, except to know that some of them had been used in the talk about stars and the sky—little looking glasses on stands and models of balls on arms revolving around each other.

  Some of them looked like they might have been made by the same people as the ones who made all the magical artefacts in the cabinet in the church, but they were objects with clear functions like measuring how far the stars were from each other and measuring distance at sea. Because, as the man had explained in his talk earlier that night, this was a constant problem that people faced when they went out onto the ocean where there was no land in sight.

  The speaker of that presentation protested when one of the guards shoved all these items in a bag.

  “No, you can’t have my instruments. They’re not magic but they’re rare and I paid a lot of money for them. I have no problem with you having a look at them, but I absolutely have to have them back, because this will be the future of sailing.”

  The guards ignored his protest. They told him to stand next to Madame Sabine and wait while the other people in the room were searched.

  Nellie was glad that she hadn’t brought any of her magical items. The only thing the guards found in her pockets when it was her turn was a dirty handkerchief.

  Then the guards were done.

  The patrol leader faced the merchant and Madame Sabine.

  The merchant’s face was contorted with naked anger, but it was Madame Sabine’s cold eyes that made Nellie shiver.

  The man said, “We arrest both of you in the name of the Regent. You are hereby charged with witchcraft.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Madame Sabine said.

  “The Regent has ordered us specifically to investigate you. You are further charged with conspiring to overthrow him, with the murder of his close advisor, and conspiracy against the church.”

  At this time, the severity of the situation began to dawn on madame Sabine’s face. “He wouldn’t dare.”

  But obviously the Regent did dare, and Madame Sabine had no one who would stand up for her.

  “I will give the Regent a piece of my mind as soon as I can see his ugly face.”

  But the threat sounded hollow.

  Chapter 20

  * * *

  THE GUARDS FORCED Madame Sabine and the merchant up the stairs and disappeared from sight. After their footsteps had faded into the distance, and the clatter of the wheels of the wagon had gone, they left behind a deep silence.

  “What sort of man would do that to his own wife?” Master Beck said.

  “A man whose hand is forced by others,” a merchant said. “Evil can be a necessity for those who are struggling to survive. Especially when the struggles are financial. People will understand if someone needs to defend themselves or their families with a sword, but they don’t understand the power of financial ruin and the fear it strikes in the hearts of those who have money. Money is an evil thing.”

  “That’s easy for you to say. You inherited a successful business. All your customers were handed to you by your father.”

  “I could be made to disagree with you on that, but that’s not the discussion at hand. We need to free her.”

  “I am not terribly inclined to argue with those guards.”

  The rich merchant said, “No, that wouldn’t be the way to do it, anyway. I am happy to ask for an audience with the Regent about this. He depends on my business. I know he is financially in a difficult spot, and I can threaten to withhold my services from him.”

  Master Beck nodded. “Someone understands the power of money. There is no need for weapons or any of that ugly, primit
ive business when you have money to work with. I’ll come with you. I know things about Sabine that Bernard would be wise to heed.”

  So the agreement was made that Master Beck would ask for an audience with the Regent and demand that Madame Sabine and the supplier of lenses was freed. He would explain the science and what they could do with it, and maybe the Regent would be interested, because he was always interested in schemes that made money. What he knew about Madame Sabine, however, remained private knowledge.

  It was time to leave. It was getting late, and it was dark and cold outside.

  Other people were also leaving the house, and Nellie followed closely behind them. She walked with a group of men going in the direction of the marketplace but kept looking over her shoulder. Not that she could do anything to save herself if the fire dog returned, but in her memory she kept seeing the terrible creatures that the Fire Wizard unleashed over the city.

  In the dark, all kinds of terrible thoughts took hold of her. They had cut down the tree that the wizard had been imprisoned in. Had that freed him?

  If nothing else, this evening had made one thing clear to her: Mistress Johanna used to say people with magic had to be taught what to do with it. She had even started classes—which were quickly abandoned after she and the king had been killed by their own daughter. But stopping the classes had been wrong. They needed more classes. To defeat a magic threat, only one thing was useful: the understanding of magic.

  Nellie had no understanding of it. She didn’t think the science group had much understanding either, but they, at least, understood the power of knowledge and wanted to gain it.

  These were dark days for Saardam.

  Nellie had to walk by herself the last part of the distance. The streets were dark and lit only by the occasional street lamp.

  The platform at the quayside where the punishment would be carried out was barely visible against the blackness of the water. It was lit by a single street lamp that cast a golden glow over the macabre installation. It lay ready. The carpenters had removed the spare wood and their tools.

  Nellie hugged herself at the sight of the dreadful thing. A couple of sea cows followed her in the water as she turned towards the disused wharf and walked along the empty warehouses. Their soft splashes were the only sounds in the still night.

  In the barn, the women sat around a fire, and the smell of soup hung in the air.

  To Nellie’s surprise, there was also a horse in the barn. It stood against the far wall, its beautiful headpiece tied to the workbench with a piece of rope. Madame Sabine’s grey and white horse.

  “It just turned up at the barn door,” Mina said. “It was spooked and nervous, but we let it in and gave it some carrots, since we have plenty.”

  “I think it’s Madame Sabine’s horse,” Gertie said. “Someone will be along to pick it up, and maybe they’ll give us some money.”

  As with all animals, the horse had probably been drawn here by the dragon’s presence.

  Nellie now noticed a couple of bags of vegetables that stood underneath the workbenches.

  “How did you get all those?”

  “I don’t know. We were away, picking up fish, and we traded some eggs, and when we came back, all this was here. I thought it had something to do with you.”

  There were bags of carrots and beets and parsnips, and a bag of beans.

  “That’s strange. I talked with a couple of merchants who wanted to speak to the dragon. They were prepared to give us supplies in return.”

  Mina laughed. “Good luck to them.”

  “I don’t think they’re coming. We never reached an agreement. The negotiation was interrupted.” Yet the supplies were here anyway. It was very strange indeed.

  “Where is the dragon?” she asked.

  Mina jerked her head in the direction of the storeroom.

  Nellie looked inside. The dragon lay in the hay, and all the children were sleeping against his flanks. Madame Sabine must have done something bad to cause it to attack her.

  Nellie went back to the fire, pulling along a tin to sit on.

  She accepted a warm bowl of soup from Mina. They still didn’t have any salt, but the children had caught some fish and traded one fish for two eggs and all of that had gone into the soup. It was the best meal Nellie had eaten in days.

  She told the others all about the meeting. Several women gasped when she told them Madame Sabine had been arrested.

  “But why would the Regent arrest his own wife?” Mina asked.

  “She never wanted to come here in the first place. They distrust each other. I heard them have an argument. Not a healthy family life by anyone’s definition.” Nellie told them how she had first gone to visit Madame Sabine, seen the scars, and found the dragon box in Lord Verdonck’s travel chest.

  “Might the Regent be outlawing magic just because he is trying to make her life difficult?” Agatha said. “Because he hates her so much? I wouldn’t give a husband any favours if he cheated on me.”

  Hilde nodded sagely. Her husband had cheated on her. Agatha had been none too fond of her own husband.

  Nellie was going to say the Regent wouldn’t let the whole city of Saardam suffer for his poor marriage but, being a noble, he probably would. This might well be part of the Regent’s reason to chase magic: because he knew his wife had stolen the dragon and dabbled with magic.

  And because Adalbert Verdonck was breathing down his neck, demanding that someone be punished for the death of his father.

  Neither Wim the taster nor Nellie appeared to be high profile enough to make a satisfactory culprit, so why not blame your unfaithful wife? That solved two problems at once.

  Madame Sabine could either confess her affair or accept the blame. Either would destroy her.

  Because of the mysterious appearance of bags of carrots and parsnips in the barn, Nellie did not need to go to the palace for leftovers the next morning, and for that she was glad.

  Mina cooked soup straight after breakfast, filling the warehouse with a smell so delicious that the puppy brought a friend and the number of cats swelled to over twenty. None of them were afraid to enter the storeroom where the dragon lay in the straw.

  Despite being much bigger, the dragon let the cats climb on his back.

  Nellie was busy.

  Tomorrow was the big day, and the group’s supplies needed to be brought to Floris’ boat, since he had agreed to help take their things to the Guentherite ship and hide them below the deck.

  Nellie needed to go to Gisele’s gin distillery to pick up a monk’s habit that she would wear on their adventure into the church crypt tonight.

  When she left the barn, there were a lot of guards on the streets, and she hated to think how alert the guards at the palace gate would be. If she went to the palace, she might even run into Henrik, and she wasn’t sure any more that he would not betray her. She had a fleeting thought that he might have told the Regent’s guards about Madame Sabine’s scars, except she was sure she never told him about them.

  More guards than usual stood lined up in front of the door of the council building to the side of the marketplace. A big group of people were standing in front of the building, held back by the line of uniformed men, where they were waiting for something.

  Nellie stopped at the edge of the group so she could listen. A woman behind her was giving a younger woman—a cousin or neighbour—instructions on how to use rabbit bones for making soup. A man on the other side said, “Don’t let anyone hear that your son is trapping rabbits illegally.”

  And many people shushed him up because illegal trapping was the only way they could survive.

  “I think the Regent has finally heard our plight,” a woman said.

  Another snorted. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

  Nellie couldn’t restrain her curiosity. “What are you all waiting for?”

  A man next to her replied, “The Regent’s giving out food from the stores. He says he understands life is hard for u
s. He says that it’s better than to have people steal the food, which is happening anyway.”

  The woman in front of him turned over her shoulder. “Those people need to be hanged.”

  A lot of people agreed, and many had their own opinion on it.

  A man said, “I heard they come at night.”

  “Cowards.”

  “My neighbour says the guards get distracted and then, when they come back, the door is smashed in and some bags are gone.”

  “Are those men calling themselves guards? In my day, we were taught: one person stays with the door you’re guarding, no matter what happens.”

  “There is no defending a door against evil magic.”

  “They’re dark magicians.”

  Another woman butted in. “Foreigners. They don’t know manners. They take what they see and think it’s all theirs.”

  “Yeah. Long live the Regent.”

  The line shuffled forward.

  Nellie didn’t really want any food, nor did she want to wait for that long, but she had a strong suspicion that she knew who the thief was. And it was not a human. She had wondered for a long time what dragons ate and remembered the stolen carrots from the kitchen. Dora had complained about it. The dragon had already been in her room, and clearly he had helped himself to some contents of the kitchen pantry. And those bags of supplies that mysteriously appeared in the barn? She had a strong suspicion that she knew where they came from. Dragon poop was orange, after all.

  She could see the dragon frightening the guards at the stores and helping himself to whatever he wanted.

  But giving out the supplies seemed too radical a solution.

  They were only at the start of winter. If the Regent gave out all the supplies now, there would be nothing to give later.

  There had to be another motive.

  She walked past the long line of waiting people until she got to the entrance of the building. People were going in, and others were coming out with bags and buckets full of parsnips and cabbages and carrots. Some people also got beans and flour, and they carried all this back to their homes, chatting happily.