The Folly of the World

by Jesse Bullington

Sander’s balls shot up into his guts, was how he’d describe the awful, icy sensation that came with his remembering that there wasn’t no damn statue in Grote Markt. Some cunt was standing stock-still in the snow, and Sander got the shivers something bad that the figure was staring right at him. Right, time to sort out Simon or whatever goon the Gruyeres had hired to—

  But before Sander could step from the mouth of the avenue and confront his pursuer, the man suddenly raised an arm over his head and hopped in place, violently cocking his head to the side as he did. Then he began to shudder, and through the flurries billowing down, Sander could make out teeth flashing wet and white and shiny as the snow between them.

  The man was pantomiming being hanged.

  That was goddamn sinister, was what that was. Sander found himself backing away along the alley wall until he could no longer make out the edge of the square, and then he turned and fled down De Waag, toward the sanctuary of his manse.

  A spooky cackle echoing behind Sander might have somehow made it better, would have let him know someone was fucking with him, but the silence that enveloped him as he at last stood panting on his doorstep was like the quiet of being underground. Of being underwater. Giving the street a final glance, he thought he might have seen a silhouette walking down the lane toward him, but he didn’t give it a second look, instead banging on the door for the two or three beats it took for Lansloet to flip the peephole open, and then the door. Staggering in and nearly bowling the old servant over, Glory’s End still gripped in his trembling hand, Sander kicked the door shut and threw the bolt. He put his frosty brow to the hard wood and closed his eyes, trying to still the painful throbbing in his chest, behind his eyes. Home.

  Wait, Lansloet? Where the fuck was Jo? Sander spun around, ready to hew the traitorous servant to the spine, when he saw two figures backlit in the doorway to the parlor. He dropped the sword with a cry. The weapon clattered on the ground, and Lansloet hurried wordlessly back down the hall to the kitchen, from whence the aroma of cooking goose wafted like a pungent belch.

  Lizzy was standing beside Jo in the mouth of the parlor, close enough that he could reach out and touch the maid. Both women looked scared, but sure, that might have had something to do with Sander’s appearance, for the first words out of Jo’s mouth were, “Good God, what’s happened?”

  Sander just stared at Lizzy, at Jo. This was… good. Very good. Sander laughed, a somewhat maniacal laugh, admittedly, but a laugh nonetheless. When he could speak again, he said, “Nothing. Misunderstanding, was all.”

  “My lord, I have terrible news,” said Lizzy breathlessly, as though she’d been the one harried from pillar to post across a snowy city. This only brought on another laughing fit. Jo was looking frightened for him, Lizzy was looking frightened of him. He got himself back under control—what in all the angels’ blessings was wrong with him, laughing at a time like this?

  “Good to see you, Lizzy,” Sander said, trying hard not to look down at his boots to see if he’d tracked Braem’s blood inside. No, it would have come off in the snow. It would have, it would, it would, it would.

  “It’s Simon,” said Lizzy. “He was arrested the day you left. They say he’s killed two kids. They’re going to put him to death.”

  “Oh,” said Sander. “Shit.”

  III.

  The day after Jolanda and Sander returned to Dordrecht, things worsened considerably. Disobeying Sander’s orders to remain around the house in case he needed her for “something urgent-like, which, sure, will probably happen soon, so yeah—stay in today,” was never a question for Jolanda. Simon might be flaky, but he was a friend, and the Tieselens didn’t have a great many of those. Sander should be beside her, marching up the street in ostentatious attire to demand his employee’s release, but instead he was lying in yesterday’s clothes on the floor of his parlor, too drunk to stand. It was barely noon. Jolanda sighed as the hem of her gown was run over by the wheel of a cart running perilously close to her and the other pedestrians edged over to the side of Voorstraat. Another day she would have had words for the driver, but she was trying like the devil tries to enter a wager to maintain her ladylike equipoise as she approached the old harbor gatehouse where Simon was being held.

  God’s wounds, was she tired, though. Lijsbet had kept her up chattering in bed, and even after the servant dozed off, Jolanda’s mind wouldn’t stop turning over what she’d learned. Lijsbet had been distraught to distraction over the state of the cloak Jolanda had given her—the maid apparently came home to find a cat had gotten into the courtyard and mangled a cock, and putting the bird out of his misery resulted in a bloody mess.

  Much more troubling than a stained cloak, however, was Lijsbet’s guilty admission that she had spent the last several nights with an aunt across town rather than sleeping alone in the Tieselen manse. Jolanda didn’t fault her maid for leaving the house unattended, but the question of who had broken in the house persisted. The only possible clue Lijsbet provided was that once or twice she’d seen a handsome, brown-haired man lurking in the alley when she’d come by to check on the house, as she swore she’d done every day. Whoever the intruder might be, he must have trashed the parlor and left his boots the night before Lansloet and Drimmelin returned, for the place had been in normal order when Lijsbet departed for her aunt’s apartment that final afternoon.

  The thought of someone Jolanda didn’t know lurking in her house, eating her food, maybe even sleeping in her bed, was about the eeriest thing she could think of, and didn’t exactly help her fall into a restful slumber her first night home. Much as Jolanda tried to push it away, the memory of that figure in the snow staring up at her window kept worrying at her, and several times before dawn she wriggled out of her snoring maid’s arms and crept to the cracked window to check the street below.

  At least she had a decent theory come morning: Wurfbain had set Simon up to hurt Sander and get them back under his thumb, and the man who had broken into their house was likely Simon’s brother, Braem, who was beaver-haired and, if you didn’t know what an arsehole he was, handsome enough in the face. Creeper that Braem was, he’d probably been spying on their house for ages, to God knew what end—he must’ve been the cunt that Jolanda caught staring at the house that night. When Sander, Jolanda, and the servants had left town, he’d seized the opportunity to sneak in and live it up like old times. If Lijsbet only came by once a day, it would’ve been easy for him to figure out her routine and clear out when she came by… or, even more unsettling, hide somewhere in the house while the maid checked in. And all the while his own, decent brother was locked up in a cell, awaiting the gallows. Despicable.

  Jolanda intended to go straight to see Simon after getting dressed, but Sander had rebuffed her at once. That was unexpected. She told him as much, and he started in with his noises about how she needed to stay inside and steer clear of associating with Simon, especially with Wurfbain looking to get back at them for Sander’s disobedience. When she’d pointed out that Simon’s incarceration and impending execution were certainly the result of Wurfbain’s framing the innocent man in order to strike at Sander, the dirty git had just belted back another glass of wine and slurred that nonsense about urgent business needing attending around the house.

  So Jolanda had a busy day ahead of her. Visiting Simon and hearing his side of things came first, obviously—Lijsbet knew he’d been arrested, and why, and what would become of him, but nothing beyond the obvious gossip. After that, Jolanda would go to Lady Zoete’s house and see if her gentleman caller was in—assuming Wurfbain hadn’t run off back to Leyden and was willing to talk, she’d see what sort of bribe or other arrangement it would require to call him off, get him to clear Simon. Sander would be furious if he found out, but then she had no intention of telling him—Jolanda had held private conferences with the count in the past when the matter was important and Sander had proven either incompetent or unwilling.

  If that didn’t work, Jolanda would have to go to Lady Mey
l and tell her everything. Well, not quite everything, but enough to solicit her help. Simon Gruyere was down on his luck now, to say the least, but a few years ago he’d been a respected Cod noble… Hell, now that she thought of it, Jolanda was pretty sure Simon had stayed in the manse of Lady Meyl’s son Willem until he and Simon had suffered some falling out, so maybe Jolanda could mend old wounds and solicit Hertog Von Wasser’s help, even if his mother wouldn’t.

  Jolanda almost hoped that Wurfbain wouldn’t compromise, now, so that she could put him in his place. She flirted with approaching Lady Meyl and Hertog Von Wasser first, but quickly decided against it. Edifying as it would be to call Wurfbain out, if for some reason the local Cods were reluctant to throw down against the Hook count, then she’d have good and well fucked any chance of then approaching Wurfbain…

  All these machinations gave her a headache. She turned down the old harbor channel that exited the city beside the gatehouse, and comforted herself with the one small certainty the day offered: If nothing else, Simon would know where to find his creeper brother. She could hardly wait to lay hands on Braem, though it bore returning home to change out of her noble-lady dress before going to stomp him into gruel, the dirty—

  There was a thought. Jolanda stopped walking. Lijsbet had said the bodies of two children were recovered, and Jolanda had assumed that Wurfbain had arranged for it to look like Simon was responsible. That someone had originally murdered two children was not terribly surprising to Jolanda, but what if Wurfbain wasn’t even involved? What if Braem, creeper that he surely was, had killed the kids for some twisted reason of his own, only to have his brother be blamed instead of him? Or even worse, what if Simon really was involved, what if the two brothers were murderers?

  No, she was certain that regardless of whether Braem or Wurfbain were to blame for the killings, Simon was innocent… but then she had been every bit as sure of Jan’s pure intentions, right up until he’d tried to murder her, hadn’t she? What was wrong with men? With her, that she kept getting mixed up with people who’d do in a kid the way she’d do in a shellfish? Once Simon was free, or hanged, she’d be better off quitting Dordrecht, quitting her ruse, just taking what coin she could and starting over somewhere, letting her arms fade once and for all, never seeing Sander or Simon or Wurfbain or anybody from here ever again. Better to run away than to look at something awful. If only she hadn’t burned the shack in Monster, she could have gone back there, seen if the snails would return to the bay…

  It was overcast and cold enough that the morning frost still lingered on the lip of the old harbor canal. They kept the ice in the channel well broken up, though, otherwise the whole city would be trapped—Jolanda looked down to where the gatehouse abutted both town wall and canal, looked past the stubby dock protruding from the building to where the raised iron gate afforded her a clear view of the gray plain of the Maas beyond. Oh, to just follow the canal back to the harbor, hop in the Tieselen boat, and row back down and away, out of the city, out of the flood…

  She shook her head. Mooning in the street could wait until she’d cleared up the sundry messes they’d returned to—of all the idiotic developments, to have Simon pinched for killing kids…

  Other than the placard bearing the begriffined city crest that hung from the second story and the bars in the windows, the gatehouse could have been any bleak building in Dordrecht. There not being any sort of bell, Jolanda knocked on the dark wood door. It opened on the oldest man she had ever seen; he might have been Lansloet’s grandfather.

  “Yes, my lady?” he rasped. She had thought his eyes were closed, but apparently not, or maybe the skin had worn thin enough over the years that he could see without cracking them.

  “I am here to visit Simon Gruyere,” she said, hoping that would suffice. Miraculously, it did.

  “This way, m’lady,” said the living prune, ushering her in. It was dim, the window barely letting any light at all into the wide room. There were two doors leading off and a ladder dropping from a hole in the ceiling; other than a table, some crates, and shelving cluttered with jars and jugs, the room was barren and dusty as this old guard’s pate. If she had known how ill attended the gatehouse was, she might have stormed the place instead—somehow she didn’t think this sterling member of the sheephead militia would put up much of a fight.

  The old man led her to the second door—the first must open directly onto the dock in the channel, she figured—and swung it open. It wasn’t even locked. The hallway beyond was short enough to seem totally pointless, until she nearly kicked over a chamber pot, and then they came to a second door, this one with a heavy bolt on the outside but no actual lock. This was just absurd. “Ho, lad, your lady friend’s arrived.”

  Curious, that, but Jolanda knew better than to pipe up until Simon called through the small barred window set at the top of the door, “My dear, dear lady, when I received word of your impending visit, my heart was buoyed, yes, buoyed upon a—I say, Jolanda?”

  “Hey there, Simon,” Jolanda said as Simon’s mug appeared in the small window. “I’m so sorry we didn’t come sooner.”

  “Dearest Cousin Jo, rest assured that I am innocent! But fear not, for I shall be delivered from this barren cell, this stinking hell!”

  “Jolanda. Cousin Jo.” The militiaman smacked on the words, as if they were crumbs of stale cheese he was trying to mash up with his gums. “No, there’s been a mistake. He’s not to see anyone, is the prisoner. Come with me, lady.”

  “There has been a mistake,” said Jolanda, fumbling in her kidskin bag for her purse. “But one we can fix with a groot, I should think. I only need speak with him for a—”

  “I won’t be bribed,” the old man said haughtily. “I’m not some blackguard, some brigand. I’ll drag you out, missy, you don’t leave now.”

  “Tell Jan!” Simon called as Jolanda let herself be led back up the hall by the dotard. “They won’t let me write to him, and Braem never showed—God forgive him, my own brother must be in league with them! Jan must come here! I must speak with him! I did everything right, but they won’t listen! Send Jan!”

  “Who was the other lady?” Jolanda called back over the old man’s protests that she be away at once. “Who’s coming to visit you?”

  “If you can believe it, it’s—” but the old man shoved Jolanda out of the hallway and slammed the door behind him, muffling the rest.

  “Enough of that,” the guard snarled. He probably thought he looked menacing instead of comedic, the shriveled-up shrew. “Get on out, you, get—don’t come back.”

  There was a moment where the old man’s life was a groot spinning through the air, equal odds of cross or crown. In the end it was his age that saved him—if he hadn’t been so damned old, she would have at least popped his chin for taking such a tone with her, but the last thing she needed was to accidentally kill a militiaman, and she wasn’t going to gamble on the number of punches he could take without collapsing into a heap of dust.

  Walking back up the canal toward the harbor, Jolanda chewed her lip. That had been odd, to say the least—what had Simon meant when he said he’d done everything right? And the thing about Braem not showing up, or his being in league with a mysterious them? And who was Simon’s impending visitor, the lady the old guard had initially mistaken Jolanda for?

  Lijsbet had known Simon was arrested, but said she hadn’t been to see him. That left all the women in Dordt, and to hear him boast, Simon was popular enough with noble ladies and common girls alike. Some clue, that was… what woman might fit into Jolanda’s theory that Wurfbain had framed Simon?

  Lady Zoete. That made sense—Wurfbain wouldn’t want to visit Simon himself, he’d send someone else, like his mistress. But to what end? To make Simon an offer, to get him to point the finger at Sander—we’ll let you out if you say it was Graaf Tieselen who did it, not you. That made some kind of sense… made even more sense, come to it, than just framing Simon to annoy Sander. Except Simon wasn’t going along wit
h it, Simon was loyal to the end, Simon—

  “Excuse me!” The man she’d bumped into raised his palms as he danced around her. “Mind your step, girl. Carefully.”

  “Sorry,” said Jolanda as the man hurried along his way, but she hadn’t taken three steps when her knees turned to aspic. She was suddenly shaking so badly she couldn’t walk, and dropped to a crouch in the middle of the street. Too scared to breathe, she looked back over her shoulder, but the man was already gone. If he had even been there at all, she told herself, which of course he hadn’t. He couldn’t. He wasn’t, simple as that.

  Jolanda forced a laugh, but knew better than to try to stand immediately. Just for a moment, she’d thought the man she’d run into was, well, Jan. And not Sander, whom she called Jan, obviously, but the real Jan, the one she’d… the one who… Jan. Dead Jan, back from the swamp, smiling even as he scolded her for bumping into him.

  Ridiculous. She wasn’t Sander, to be acting the loon like this. Jolanda stood up, wiped sweat from her face with an equally damp sleeve. Jan was dead, and not a little dead, but butchered, chopped to pieces, food for eels for going on three years…

  All thought of paying Wurfbain or Lady Meyl and Von Wasser a call forgotten, Jolanda hurried back toward Voorstraat, doing all she could to keep certain thoughts, certain memories, way down in the deep where they belonged. Dreaming while she was awake, was all, like Sander had said. She kept glancing over her shoulder, making sure she wasn’t being followed, making sure he wasn’t there, but aye, of course he wasn’t, he was back in Oudeland, another skeleton at his father’s table, another—

  “Shut it,” she muttered to herself. “Shut it, shut it. Shut. It.”

  But of course she couldn’t. Memories of Oudeland assailed her, memories of how she had come to find the ring that had been the source of so much trouble, of what she had seen when she had taken that final dive into the flooded manse, when she had swam through the kitchen door and saw what lay beyond. She had told herself often enough that was all it had been, a dream, even with the ring she had taken away from it, and Sander’s telling her about how you could dream when awake had made it even softer to sleep on, that thought… but that was before she bumped into a ghost in broad daylight—it was happening again, obviously, this dreaming-when-awake business.