The Wizard Priest

by Patty Jansen

  Chapter 24

  * * *

  A LOUD WHINNY came from across the harbour.

  Madame Sabine’s white horse ran along the wharf, mane flying. Several people had to duck out of its way.

  Nellie spotted Gertie, Lise and Hilde in the crowd.

  “The others are here!” she called into the cabin where Mina had settled the children in the benches.

  Mina and Nellie helped them up. Nellie sent Lise to Koby at the bow.

  Gertie frowned at the monk who lay tied up on the deck. He was wriggling and trying to shout, but there was no time to pay any attention to him.

  The peat boat with Floris, Agatha and Gisele had reached the group of people in the water.

  Floris and Agatha were pulling people into the boat while Gisele stood at the bow with the reins. The animals had spread out amongst the prisoners. They gave the people something to hold on to.

  The shields were up, held by the first prisoners to come out of the water, but the guards were occupied with the chaos on the quay caused by the panicked horse and trying to keep people away from the Regent and shepherd.

  Nellie had lost sight of Henrik.

  The peat barge came in the direction of the ship. The little boat was so full of people that there was barely room for them to sit. The water reached to a mere hand’s width from the boat’s rim.

  Floris called out for the passengers to sit still and hang onto the shield over their heads if they sat on that side of the boat.

  The peat boat came alongside.

  Koby caught the rope Floris tossed her.

  Then Gisele jumped onto the ladder. “Koby! Get the mooring ropes.”

  “Already done,” Koby called back.

  Floris was undoing the sea cow harness to transfer the team to the big ship. The first prisoners were coming up the ladder and Mina and Gertie stood at the top to pull people up. Nellie was relieved to see Jantien’s face.

  “Mama!” Lise called to her mother.

  Emmie smiled at her, tears welling in her eyes. She was wet and dirty and still had the rope around her wrists.

  The prisoners were coughing, crying and shivering. They needed blankets and dry clothes.

  “Nellie!” Jantien stumbled across the deck and hugged her. She was crying. “Oh, thank you. I thought we were all going to die. I thought I’d never see my children again.”

  “Go inside and join them. We’re not out of trouble yet.”

  Jantien opened the door and was met with shouts of Mammy! when she entered the cabin.

  The next prisoner to climb up the ladder was Madame Sabine. The expression on her face was cold, and she didn’t show any signs of hardship. But the lash marks on her arms must hurt.

  She met Nellie’s eyes and nodded, once, as if publicly thanking her rescuer caused her physical pain. Then, chin held high, she walked across the deck into the cabin.

  There was work to be done. Nellie went to the other side of the ship and the scene of chaos on the quay. Guards were trying to keep the people away from the platform with the Regent and the shepherd, and the people on the quay were shouting and cheering at the empty peat boat , which Floris had pushed off with the shields still up so that people couldn’t see that it was empty.

  Several guards aimed arrows, but they fell short. Nellie couldn’t see Henrik in the crowd. A few other guards surrounded Madame Sabine’s horse which kicked at everyone who tried to grab hold of the rope attached to the headgear.

  The mooring ropes were indeed loose.

  Nellie pulled up the gangplank with all her weight. Oof, that thing was heavy.

  The riverboat moved. People on the quay noticed it.

  “The monks are getting too hot!” a man shouted.

  A couple of people jeered.

  Another man yelled, “Those are not monks!”

  “Get inside, everyone!” Mina shouted. She and a few others were ready with buckets, in case there were any burning arrows.

  Nellie looked over the quay. She was curious what had happened to Henrik. She wanted to see the look on his face when he realised that she had outsmarted his exulted Regent.

  People around the order’s ship were cheering. Guards couldn’t reach the ship in time. They were protecting the Regent on his platform and the rest were dealing with the wayward horse.

  In the middle of the chaos, Shepherd Wilfridus still stood in front of his chair holding the ruby skull. His mouth moved and his eyes were closed. Nellie didn’t doubt that he had seen her and understood what had happened.

  His face was red from shouting incantations even if there was so much noise on the quay that she couldn’t hear his words from this distance.

  He pointed the skull’s eyes at the boat.

  “Quick,” Nellie yelled to the last remaining people on the deck. In a moment the fire dog would come out.

  Someone called, “Nellie!”

  And then she saw Henrik. He was pushing through the crowd in the direction of the boat. He called out, “Nellie! Wait!”

  No, they weren’t coming back.

  He reached the edge of the quay, pushing people aside. “Let me come with you!”

  Come? Him? So that he could be the Regent’s puppet and betray them?

  The sea cows were pulling the boat, but the ship was so big that it took a while to get going.

  Henrik ran along the quay, shouting, “I’m sorry. I had to pretend that I didn’t believe you.”

  What?

  “Please, I’ll tell you all about it. Throw me a rope.”

  The boat pulled further away. The strip of churning water between the hull and the quay grew.

  Nellie didn’t have a rope. She dropped to her knees, holding on to the railing with one hand and reaching out as far as she could with the other.

  But the boat had already moved a good distance away from the quay. Henrik was not going to get there in time. He was not . . .

  He jumped.

  His warm hand latched onto Nellie’s, almost pulling her over the side. He grabbed the railing with his other hand and swung himself over onto the deck.

  “Henrik! I thought you—”

  But in a few jumps, he climbed on top of the cabin, pulled two arrows out of his quiver, set the first to the bow, aimed and released it, while holding the second arrow with his little finger.

  The arrow flew across the water and before it had even reached its destination, he shot the second arrow.

  The first arrow hit the Regent straight in the chest and plunged deep into the flesh. The Regent’s eyes widened. He looked down at the arrow protruding from his pretty shirt, surprised, and collapsed to the side of his chair.

  The second arrow hit a bright glow of magic mere steps away from Shepherd Wilfridus’ head. It burned in a ball of flames.

  A man yelled, “Magic!”

  People on the quay screamed. Everyone was pushing in all directions. People sheltered under the Regent’s coach to avoid the crush of bodies. One man was pushed into the water in the scuffles.

  “Holy heavens!” Henrik jumped off the cabin. “He’s a magician.”

  “Quick, hide yourself,” Nellie said.

  But Henrik took a bucket out of Mina’s hands. “You go inside with her and look after the poor prisoners.”

  Complete mayhem had broken out on the quay.

  The guards still loyal to the Regent were shooting flaming arrows at the riverboat, but any that reached the ship glanced off or stuck uselessly in the hull after Henrik extinguished them with the bucket. The strong teams of twenty-four sea cows had already pulled the ship almost out of range.

  Nellie held her breath. This risky adventure was over. They had made it.

  But then an orange glow erupted from the quayside. Nellie knew what it was before she could see the fire dog running over the water.

  She sprinted to the cabin entrance and yelled into the opening. “Everyone! Come up here! The fire dog is coming!”

  The ship would be burned with everything inside.
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  Mina and Agatha came to the deck first. Someone else was with them. A skinny boy on the edge of manhood, dressed in rags with the chafe wounds from the shackles still marking his ankles.

  Prince Bruno.

  As he had done for the past day, he clutched the dragon box to his chest.

  “Open the box!” Nellie called.

  He just looked at her, so she ran to him, pulled it out of his hands and opened the lid.

  Bruno protested. “No! Mine!”

  But it was already too late. The dragon erupted in a shower of sparks and immediately assumed its solid form.

  Mina and Agatha ducked back into the cabin.

  “Go!” Nellie yelled. “Whatever power you hold, defend us, or we’ll all be dead, including your master. Go! Go!”

  Whether it understood what she said or she frightened it, the dragon jumped into the air and flew off, so close that the whoosh from its wings ruffled Nellie’s hair.

  It soared low over the water.

  The screams from the panicked crowd on the quay reached fever point. More people had fallen into the harbour, and others were throwing ropes and pieces of wood to help them out. Guards gathered around the Regent, easing him onto the ground. The front of his white shirt was covered in blood. He wasn’t moving.

  Shepherd Wilfridus had climbed on his chair and waved his arms.

  The dog and the dragon clashed in the middle of the harbour in a giant burst of magic that exploded with a bang. The water was whipped up into waves. Boats bobbed violently on their moorings. In some places, the waves were so high that water washed over the quay, dragging more people into the harbour.

  The dragon and the dog fought each other in a glowing ball of bright magic. Sparks rained over the surrounding water and the boats that lay moored there. It made the water bubble and boil. Clouds of steam rose in the air. Sparks exploded in all directions. From the deck of the Guentherite riverboat, part of the harbour was obscured by the rising clouds.

  The dragon that flew back to the riverboat was only the size of a cat, and he obediently went inside the box when Nellie held it up. There was no sign of the fire dog.

  She closed the box and gave it back to Prince Bruno.

  He gave her a wide-eyed look.

  Meanwhile, the sea cows pulled the ship through the mouth of the harbour.

  The last thing Nellie saw disappear behind the headlands was Shepherd Wilfridus on his chair, screaming that the Lord of Fire was going to curse them.

  Chapter 25

  * * *

  ONCE THE BOAT was out of the harbour on the open water of the delta, the peaceful silence that surrounded them was unbelievable. The only sound was the rippling of water against the side of the boat.

  Nellie and Henrik leaned against the outer wall of the Captain’s cabin. Nellie was half expecting a call for help from Gisele, Koby or Floris at the bow of the ship, but it didn’t come.

  She expected smaller boats to follow them, but it took time to get a boat organised and collect a team of sea cows who were unused to a harness.

  “We’re free,” Nellie said to herself as if she still couldn’t believe it.

  “That was amazing,” Henrik said.

  “No, you were amazing. I’ve never seen anyone shoot two arrows in such quick succession.”

  “It’s a skill learned with age.”

  Nellie chuckled. “I guess you won’t be going back to the palace now.”

  He laughed, the sound sad and hollow. “I’d longed to do that for years. Every time that gluttonous bastard would order us to run his foul errands, I’d wanted to tell him what he could do it himself.”

  Nellie couldn’t imagine Henrik doing that.

  “But you know, being a guard is about respect. I respected King Nicholaos and King Roald and their wives. I never respected Regent Bernard very much, although I respected the position of regent, because the shepherd and the Regent were looking for a more permanent solution. But I finally lost the last shred of respect for the Regent when he was going to kill the mother of his sons before the boys’ eyes. As a father with children and grandchildren, how anyone could do that is beyond me.”

  “What about the shepherd?”

  “That man is evil and I knew it the moment he stepped into the palace for the first time. The Regent was his puppet. I’ve been forced to listen to conversations where the shepherd forced Regent Bernard to do his will, and meetings where the Regent argued that he should be made king and the shepherd telling the man repeatedly that he was stupid, that everyone in town hated him and that he would never amount to anything unless he listened to the church. A truly evil man.”

  “The shepherd had a hand in the killing of Lord Verdonck.”

  “Of course he did. He saw Lord Verdonck as a thorn in his side because he was trying to talk sense into the Regent about letting himself be controlled by the church. Whatever happened with the poisoning, it was all of Shepherd Wilfridus’ design, which was another reason the Regent was so keen to blame someone from the kitchens as quickly as possible.”

  “I saw him infusing his magic into food. And I know the magical poison was in the gin.”

  Henrik frowned. He said in a low voice, “And he was blessing the food at all the Regent’s banquets.”

  “By the Triune.” Nellie raised her hand to her mouth. “You’re right.”

  Did that mean Shepherd Wilfridus could have poisoned all the people who came to these banquets?

  Her mind raced.

  Were there magical poisons that changed people in other ways, such as making them agree to be quiet and support a ruler they wouldn’t normally support?

  Had he poisoned Lord Verdonck because the gentler kind of magic hadn’t worked very well on him? By the Triune, she had noticed that Adalbert Verdonck never ate the food provided by the palace.

  Had Lord Verdonck known this and taken a remedy and made a mistake in assuming that the gin was safe? Or was the poison in the gin extraordinarily strong?

  If there was some kind of magic that made people agree with the Regent, the common citizens wouldn’t be affected because they never came to the banquets, and they had never been influential enough to worry about. But now the Regent was going to distribute food from the city’s stores to them, no doubt under orders of the shepherd.

  And who ordered it didn’t matter anyway, because the Regent was dead, and the shepherd could appoint another puppet noble as temporary leader and make this person behave so badly that the people begged for the good shepherd to save them.

  That was the true reason the shepherd wanted a regent.

  While they watched the shore go past, Nellie explained these thoughts to Henrik, who nodded at every sentence and didn’t contradict her once.

  When she finished, he said, “That’s a pretty good summary of what’s probably going on. For us, in the guards, it has been hard, because to mention magic means to acknowledge its existence, and the shepherd has made good work of preventing that from ever happening.”

  “What now?” Nellie said. She couldn’t see how they as a small group of people would make any difference on a population that was likely to be controlled through magic they couldn’t see.

  “I’ll go where you are going.”

  “We’re going up the river, looking for a safe place to stay the winter and decide what to do next.”

  “And what to do next might include going back to Saardam and start a rebellion?”

  “There won’t be a point unless we can stop people being influenced by magic they can’t see. No one in Saardam is ever going to agree with us, or see what is happening to the city, unless we can unmask what is happening.”

  Then another chilling thought. The kitchens were providers of food in the palace. By working there, had Nellie unknowingly contributed to the spread of the magic?

  She had eaten the food herself—and only in the last few days when no longer relying on kitchen handouts had her plan come to fruition. Not only that, it had taken that long fo
r the women to be prepared to support her.

  Nellie’s cheeks grew hot. It was likely no one in the kitchens had realised this.

  Henrik was still talking. “Well then, if you are going to start a rebellion, you seem to be short of a few people who know how to handle a bow and arrow.”

  “But we have a dragon.”

  “True. I can’t compete with that.”

  Nellie laughed, and he laughed, too, and then they both fell into an uneasy silence.

  And then he said, “I’m sorry for the things I said to you. I could explain why I said them, but it would just sound like excuses to you. So I just offer my apologies.”

  “I accept them. I don’t need to hear the entire story. I will have things to explain as well. I can imagine. I understand.”

  “Thank you.”

  And then neither of them said anything for a while.

  Koby and Gisele were laughing, having a great time at the bow.

  They should go inside because there was so much work to be done and people to be looked after. Jantien and her children, prisoners who were injured, and prisoners who were demanding—good grief, Madame Sabine was on the ship. Whatever were they going to do with her?

  Nellie sighed and made to get up.

  “Wait,” Henrik said.

  He put a hand over hers.

  Nellie met his eyes. Grey, unwavering, honest. Her heart was thudding like crazy. She had just done all kinds of crazy stuff, but this little exchange made her feel like she was standing at the edge of a cliff ready to jump. It was ages since any man had shown any kind of interest in her.

  “I’d like to make it up to you,” he said, his voice soft. “I’d like to prove that I’m not a puppet who blindly obeys what my superior tells me.”

  “I know.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “Well then.” She pulled her hand out from under his. “Let’s prove it.”

  And she preceded him along the deck and into the cabin, swaying her hips. She hadn’t done that for a long time either.