The Folly of the World

by Jesse Bullington

  “Yes,” Jo said with more passion than he’d heard from her all trip.

  “Me too,” said Sander, slapping her back, and that finally knocked a smile loose from the grump. She swung back on him, and then they were capering in the street, no longer caring if slush got into their boots, for they would be shed soon enough, bare feet propped in front of a warm fire. Sander let her land a good smack to his cheek, and his pratfall turned genuine as the icy cobble rebuffed his heel. She laughed like old to see him go ass-first into a filthy brown snowbank between their stoop and their neighbor’s, but stopped cawing soon enough as he fumbled together a snowball. By the time he had it packed, though, she was up the stairs and through the front door.

  Sander sat there for a while, closing his eyes and letting the dirty snow soak through his surcoat and hose—weren’t so long ago he would’ve been sitting here because he was a drunk idiot without anywhere better to go. Yet now he could stand whenever he wanted and go inside a graaf’s house and wring out his clothes and warm himself before a ball-sweatingly hot hearth. How about that?

  Eventually picking himself up and tossing the snowball aside, he’d stepped onto the stoop when something caught in his eye, like a fleck of sand. Turning to look down the lane, he saw a figure standing in the middle of the road half a dozen houses down. That put the shudders on a fellow, no doubt. Sander squinted, but could make out nothing beyond the obvious—it was somebody tall wearing a hood. Huh. Sander licked his lips, and quick as it had come, the chill inspired by this peeper warmed off, and he resolved to give the nutsack a wee lesson in the propriety of staring at one’s betters.

  “Jan!” Sander nearly jumped out of his skin as Jo shouted in his ear. He hadn’t heard the front door open; lazy broad probably hadn’t closed it after her. He scowled at the girl, too surprised to immediately scold her for creeping up on him. “Look!”

  Jo was still in her brigandine, which must stink like a pig’s crooked dick by now, but she had her cloak off and was holding it out to him for inspection. Fuck that, he had bigger fish to fillet, and—shit. He’d only looked away for the moment, but the peeper down the lane had vanished. Hell no. Sander took off after the cunt, ignoring Jo’s shouting, but when he reached where the dastard must have been, he couldn’t find any tracks—the center of the lane was a shiny, cobbled creek instead of snow pack. Sander kept running, hoping to spot a fleeing shadow in one of the alleys or at the intersection with Visstraat, but nobody was about, despite the hour—it was mostly dark, yeah, but this time of year that was still early enough. There should have been people out; it was like the whole shitty town was working together to help the plaguebitch get away.

  “Shit,” he said, spinning around in the intersection. He thought of the night Jo had seen someone watching her window from the street, thought of what he and Simon had found out in the meer, thought of how nobody had been minding the dark warehouse when he’d had the Rotter boatman swing by there on their way back into the city not an hour ago. He thought of Hobbe, like as not eager to make a move on him and Jo, if he hadn’t already. “Shit!”

  “What is it?” said Jo, catching up to him. “Where are you going?”

  “Nowhere,” he said, not wanting to scare her. “Thought I… forgot something, is all, but the boatman’ll have pissed off back to the Rott by now.”

  “The harbor’s the other way,” said Jo, glancing back toward their house.

  “All the more reason to forget it,” said Sander, and seeing she still held her cape in both hands, he hoped to distract her by asking, “What’ve you got there?”

  “My cloak,” said Jo, falling for Sander’s ploy like the dullard she was. “It’s… look, what do you think that is?”

  “Eh?” Sander squinted at the blue cloth, reached out and brushed a dark stain with the back of his fingers. A bit came off on his skin—cold, wet, brown. He sniffed it, licked it. “It’s blood, yeah?”

  “Aye,” said Jo. “That’s what I thought.”

  “How’d you—” Sander began, worried this was going to be some kind of talk about her monthlies or busting her maidenhead on a horse or something, the stain being right there on the back of the garment and all.

  “It’s Lijsbet,” said Jo, which was hardly an improvement to talking about cuntblood. “I gave her the cloak before we left.”

  “Oh,” said Sander, because, yeah: oh. “Well, where’s she, then?”

  “I don’t know,” Jo snapped, like it was his doing. “She… I don’t know, I ran inside, and was in the kitchen before I saw you weren’t after me. Drimmelin’s in there, and she asked what happened to the cloak, and I said what, and she said it was hung up all muddy and when did we get back, and so I went and found this on the peg and took it out to you and then you ran off.”

  “So they’re back, then,” Sander nodded. “Wondered if it was just Lizzy, when I seen someone was home.”

  “I gave it to her,” Jo said, plaintive.

  “Well, let’s go find her, then,” said Sander, and figuring a lie couldn’t hurt, added, “And yeah, might not be blood at all, just some mud, like Drimmelin said.”

  “You said—”

  “Everything tastes like blood, chapped as my lips are,” said Sander, because sure, a few more lies on the stack wouldn’t topple it. “You haven’t looked upstairs for her, nor the attic, nor asked Lansloet or Drimmelin where she might be, yeah?”

  Jo didn’t answer, spinning on her heel and dashing back up the street. Sander wondered if she was as sure as he that Lizzy wouldn’t be found asleep in Jo’s bed, nor straightening up the attic nor sweeping the snow in the courtyard nor anywhere else in the house. He hoped she was, of course, hoped he’d walk in the door and they’d be laughing it up. Oh, how he hoped…

  After giving the crossroads a final scowl, Sander took his time walking back—not so eager to be back inside after all. When he reached his own stoop, he could hear raised voices from within. Nobody was watching him this time, but he still paused in the doorway, wondering what he’d find in the kitchen, where it was Jo doing the shouting. Was it too much to ask to come home to a quiet house? Apparently.

  Sander kicked the door shut with his heel as he strode in, and making out Lansloet’s quiet protests during a lull in Jo’s storm, he sighed and took off his damp, freezing leather cloak and unbuckled his scabbard, hanging them both up on their pegs. The surcoat was shed next, but he was out of hooks and so he just dropped it on the floor. Looking through the open parlor doors to the crackling fire in the hearth, he sighed again—if he had to re-don his wet boots he’d just become depressed, and so he left them on, pausing only long enough to bolt the front door before heading down the hall.

  “—was here!” Jo said, looking back and forth between Lansloet and Drimmelin, who stood on opposite sides of the table where the cook had laid out a goose stuffed with jellied pike and almonds.

  “Lansloet, Drimmelin,” said Sander, leaning in the kitchen doorway. “A welcome sight, a fire in the parlor and a bird ready for the roasting. How, I wonder, did you know we’d be back to enjoy such finery?”

  There was a pause while Lansloet and Drimmelin pushed at each other with their eyes, and Jo scowled at Sander for interrupting her interrogation. Lansloet eventually piped up when it became evident the cook wouldn’t. “We knew Your Worship would crave something of substance upon his return, and we thought it better to err on the side of having a hot meal prepared and our master absent than risk a late-arrived lord with nothing suitable in the pot.”

  “And if we didn’t make it, you’d find a way to see the food wasn’t wasted, yeah?” said Sander. He was going to take great delight in sacking these two, as soon as he got to the bottom of more pressing matters. “Where’s Lizzy?”

  “Like we told the young miss, we don’t know,” said Drimmelin hastily. She looked sallow and shaky—concerned for the maid’s safety or guilty for her part in whatever had befallen the girl?

  “Why not?” said Sander—whatever their answe
r to the next, he’d see that they were well searched before they quit his house, lest one have an extra key secreted somewhere. “She let you in, didn’t she?”

  “As we told the Lady Jolanda,” said Lansloet, not trembling in the slightest, “we arrived to find the door unlocked, a fire in the hearth, and several candles burning around the house. A most irresponsible situation, you will agree, and one that ought to be addressed when next you lay hands on the girl.”

  “She’s not stupid,” Jo said. “Somebody was here, as I put to these two, but it can’t have been her—she wouldn’t leave the fire going, or use our candles.”

  “Or perhaps she did, and eloped with her beau upon hearing our approach,” said Lansloet. “Girls, you know, are like that. The kitchen shutters were open, were they not, Drimmelin?”

  “They were,” said Drimmelin, but Sander thought it might have been, “they were?”

  “Why would—” Jo began, but Lansloet talked over her, the steely-eyed steward meeting Sander’s gaze.

  “Girls, sir, are like that. I presume you gave her a key and instructions to mind the house in our absence?” Sander nodded once, and Lansloet continued. Jo looked as though she might leap upon the servant at any moment. “An honest mistake, then, on your part. The girl has a lover, and as soon as we are gone, she pokes a broom through the window to signal him inside. Thereupon he enters your home, and the two of them take full advantage of your larder and cellar. We did find several empty wine bottles and cheese rinds, did we not Drimmelin?”

  “We did,” said the cook, but again, that doubt: was it a question or an answer?

  “You’re lying!” Jo said, striding to Lansloet and seizing his tunic front. She stood a head and a half shorter than the servant, but he somehow seemed dwarfed by the furious young woman. “You tell another lie and I’ll bludgeon you, you scheming cunt! They did it, these greedy arseholes, they ate and drank and lived it up on our fortune, and now they’re trying to pin it on Lijsbet!”

  Lansloet said nothing, looking plaintively over Jo’s head at Sander. Drimmelin intervened, and Sander thought her too flustered to be lying. Maybe. “But it is true, m’lady, m’lord—the house was in a proper state when we came home this morning. We spent last night in Rotterdam with Lady Meyl and Hertog Von Wasser’s people. Ask the lady or the hertog you don’t believe us, Graaf Tieselen, I beg you! Mud and dirty dishes everywhere, what Lansloet and me spent the day cleaning. Begging all your pardons, we thought… we thought…”

  The cook had gone the color of the diced garlic peppering the raw bird—perhaps recognizing her own goose was destined for the same fate, now that she’d run her mouth. Sander crossed his arms and said, “You thought what?”

  “We thought Your Worship and my lady Jolanda had returned before us and made the small mess,” Drimmelin said, not meeting Sander’s eyes. “But that you were out upon the town when we come in. We spent the day restoring the house, thinking you’d be home again any moment, but then my lady burst into the kitchen, giving me a fright, and ran out again, and—”

  “Shut it,” said Sander, although not cruelly. “That’s not what you said when I asked about the goose, is it, Lansloet? You said you’d err on the side of us coming back, but weren’t sure if we’d be home or not. Said you thought we might still be on the road, didn’t you?”

  “If I may be so bold as to request you release me, dear lady,” Lansloet said to Jo, who unhanded him in disgust and stamped around the table to a jug of wine on the far side of the bird. She hoisted the clay vessel in both hands and took a chug on it while Lansloet addressed Sander. “With all due respect, Your Worship, what I said was that I preferred to have a hot meal for you in the event that you returned rather than risk a cold oven upon your return. I was referring to whether or not you might be dining on trenchers at the White Horse, or at another gentleperson’s home, or some entirely other location, but, and I feel this is important to clarify, another location here in town. As Drimmelin said, we had every reason to think you’d returned.”

  “The house is wrecked so we did it, eh?” said Jo, thumping the jug down on the table and wiping her mouth on her sleeve. “That your every reason, Lansloet?”

  “In addition to my lady’s cloak hanging by the door, there are a gentleman’s boots with fresh mud upon them beneath it. These boots bear a striking resemblance to those Our Worship wears upon his feet at this very moment, as you will surely agree once you inspect them for yourself,” said Lansloet. Tone was everything with the old stoat, and Sander marveled at Jo’s restraint in not giving him the jug full in the face. “Your unexpectedly late return to the city leads me to conclude that the girl, Lijsbet, had a male friend installed in the house while we four were away, and upon Drimmelin and my entering the house this morning they fled through the kitchen window. I would be very surprised if we see her again.”

  “Out the window into the canal?” said Jo. “That makes a lot of sense, Lansloet. Nice offer, but we’re not buying.”

  “I assure you, my lady, a desperate criminal has very few compunctions against getting her feet wet, once caught in the act.” Was Lansloet giving Sander a knowing look there? Memories of Sneek welled up, welcome as a gut-ache at the start of a feast. “Perhaps they kept a boat moored beneath the window, and if not, there is enough of a ledge for an enterprising thief to creep along the rear wall of the houses until a suitable alley or pier presented itself for a drier escape.”

  “Bullshit!” Jo cried. “She wouldn’t!”

  “Quite the mystery,” said Sander, hoping that his face wasn’t betraying how intensely anxious all this was making him. The last person in the house he would have expected to betray or take advantage of them was Lizzy, but that certainly seemed to be a possibility now. She might even have been working with Hobbe all along—hadn’t Jo said the maid was adamant she not be made to go to war against Countess Jacoba?

  “My lord,” said Lansloet, and now the servant actually looked nervous or excited, his eyes darting back and forth from Jo to Sander. “I wonder if I might venture to provide a final piece of information, one that might, perhaps, shed some small light upon the maid’s accomplice?”

  Even Jo seemed curious as to this, and Sander nodded, trying like Satan tries to tempt the righteous to unravel the knot before him.

  “This afternoon, not an hour before your arrival, there was a knock upon the door.” Lansloet seemed to be trying to smother a smile or else hold in a fart. “When I answered, it was the freeman Braem Gruyere.”

  “Braem?” That was queer—that cunt knew better than to call on Sander without invitation, which, yeah, hadn’t been given yet, nor would it ever be, so long as Sander was graaf and Braem was a bitch. Forever, in other words. “By himself?”

  “Yes, my lord,” said Lansloet with relish that was nigh obscene. “He seemed surprised to see me, I must say, although I cannot imagine who else he might be expecting to answer the door at your house. Sir.”

  “So Braem and Lizzy… No.” Sander nodded, putting it together. Whether or not it was true would be proven in time, but this was certainly what Lansloet was implying: “Simon. Braem was calling ’cause he thought Simon was inside with Lizzy.”

  “Upon being greeted by me, he became flustered, and when I inquired as to his purpose in calling, he stammered something about how Your Worship should do well to meet him at the White Horse upon your return, an urgent matter, but I’m sure I don’t—ugh!” Lansloet fell back as Jo caught him in the jaw with the goose, the leg she’d seized it by tearing free from the momentum of the greased-up poultry and sending the rest of the bird ricocheting away. The servant hit the wall and Jo hit him again, this time rapping his nose with the drumstick.

  “Liar!” Jo struck again with the goose leg. “Shameless, dastardly liar!”

  Recalling the incident after the fact, Sander would chuckle to himself at the memory of Lansloet being battered by a dismembered bird, but in the moment, he was thinking too hard on all the possibilities at work an
d was simply annoyed by Jo’s interruption. Hauling her off the servant, he caught the drumstick across the cheek as Jo turned her weapon on him. He snapped at it, catching the raw leg between his teeth and clamping down. Once disarmed, Jo calmed substantially—perhaps the sight of Sander with goose blood and fat running down his chin was fierce enough to put the fear of a beating into her, or perhaps she was simply as tired as he was after weeks on horseback and boats.

  “He’s lying,” Jo protested as Sander spit out the drumstick and carried her from the kitchen. “She wouldn’t!”

  “Let’s hope not,” muttered Sander, though in regard to Lansloet being a liar—given the scenarios an ominous cloak, a trashed house, and an open window left them, he’d prefer Lizzy be just another lousy cheat in a city full of them rather than a victim herself. Sander had always liked the lippy maid, but even if he hadn’t, Jo was fond of her, and that would’ve been enough for him. Glancing back down the hall, he saw Drimmelin kneeling over the fallen Lansloet, but then she straightened back up—she’d been retrieving the bird. Sander called behind him, “See that’s cooking before it gets any later!”

  “It’s bullshit,” she said. “Lijsbet wouldn’t, not with Simon. She… do you think she’s all right?”

  “I’m sure of it,” said Sander, though a particularly gruesome thought had entered his imagination—what if the girl had been wearing Jo’s cloak, and an assailant mistook the maid for her mistress? If Hobbe had hired an assassin and the poor servant had suffered for it, he would see Count Wurfbain chained out at Trash Island, a fancy target for graaf and daughter to hone their shooting.

  Having carried Jo all the way down the hall, he deposited her at the foot of the stairs and knelt to inspect the foreign pair of boots that indeed muddied the floor beside his discarded surcoat. A man’s, sure enough, and a cut similar to his own. “I’ll just be out to check the Horse and see if Braem’s about, and if so, I’ll have the truth out of him before that goose loses its blush.”