The Folly of the World

by Jesse Bullington

  “Marry me, Jo, and never think of it again,” said Jan, and this time, bizarre though it was, he seemed to really and truly mean it. “Marry me and be safe. Your only other option is to go where I’ve gone, and, between you and me, I don’t think you’d like that.”

  “You can still let us go,” she whispered, hating her cowardice. “You can. We both loved you, Jan, we both trusted you—and you can trust us.”

  “I wish that I could,” said Jan, sounding as though he was trying to convince himself as much as her. She knew from experience what that sounded like. “Hobbe won’t hear of it, even if I thought it was wise. But I’ll tell you what, Jo—I think I will take you where I’ve been, and that way you can decide for yourself what it all means. Just like me, just like Sander.”

  “Sander?” Jolanda wanted to bludgeon him into silence, wanted to do something, anything, that would shut him up.

  “As I said, he doesn’t even remember,” said Jan. “I do, however, and so does Hobbe and our confederates. Or rather, Sander doesn’t remember much—he’s never mentioned Belgians to you? Nothing about eels?”

  Belgians were, of course, Sander’s personal bugbear that he occasionally invoked, but it was the comparatively mundane mention of eels that set her teeth to aching. Sander never mentioned eels, never even had them served at his table, but that had always sat fine by Jolanda, after what she’d seen in the sunken house. The house where they had deposited Jan’s corpse…

  “No? I asked you a question, Jo, don’t tell me you picked up Sander’s bad manners from association with the mad bastard?”

  Jolanda decided, emphatically, that she didn’t want to know what Jan was implying, didn’t want to hear anymore. One thing she had acquired from spending so much time around Sander was his chronic nasal drippage, and producing something solid, she spit it in Jan’s face. He went quiet, but only, she suspected, to prevent it from getting in his mouth. “Shut it, you godless poot, just shut it.”

  Using his sleeve to get the mess off his upper lip, Jan said, “You asked, I answered.”

  “Let me ask you this, cunt—why are you doing this to us?” Jolanda was losing her temper again, knuckles itching for some sport. “We loved you! We loved you, and you made us do what we did, and now you’re back and you said you were sorry, that you’re changed, but I don’t believe you! I don’t, ’cause you’re the same as old, gloating over your secrets, hinting at your wisdom! You ever love anyone in your life, you cruel bastard, or are people just a means for you?”

  “No, I…” Jan shook his head and took a sip of his neglected wine. “I never meant to betray Sander. We would be living here together, he and I, if not for you.”

  “And who got the ring, eh?” Jolanda saw it shining on his uninjured hand, wondered if he’d stolen it or simply asked Sander for its return. She couldn’t stand how smug he looked, refusing to even rise at being spit on. “Who near-killed herself diving for a piece of jewelry?”

  “It was never even necessary,” said Jan, holding his splayed fingers up to admire the band, and that more than anything sealed it for her. Before he could say another word, she was on him, riding man and chair backward, but to her frustration he made no effort to defend himself, even when she broke his nose. Such a cunt. He damn sure came alive when she went for the ring, but by then it was too late for rebellion—she was atop him, her knee grinding into his throat, and only when he went limp and unclenched his fist did Jolanda remove her leg so he could breathe. Aye, killing him here and now would be sweet, but for all she knew, it would just get her hanged by the militia and then he’d come back again, yet another in an endless row of Jans, numerous as angels in a church window.

  “You won’t mind I take it back, then,” Jolanda said as she removed the ring and got off him, wiping her split knuckles on his bloody, wine-stained shirt. A pendant had slid out from under his collar, the dull necklace hanging down behind his head like a cut noose. He just lay there, staring up at her crook-nosed and curiously sheepeyed, serene as a swimmer drying out on some warm shore. She righted the chair, then went to the kitchen just as the new servant rushed in to check on his master.

  At least Jan hadn’t moved the beer and mugs, and she stood in the kitchen drinking two pints in quick succession before going back down the hall to the foyer. She paused by the coat pegs, considered what she saw there, and then removed two hanging cloaks—the sky blue cape Jan had given her and the short fur mantle Sander had made for Simon. She jammed them into her satchel, spit on the floor, and opened the door.

  Out on the sun-sparkling cobbles of Voorstraat, Jolanda stood and considered the fate that had brought her here. Flexing her bloodied hand and admiring the gold ring resting in its palm, she smiled to herself and set off toward the harbor. No time for more questions meant no time for more answers, thank all the saints who love us.

  Time to go mad.

  Shrovetide 1426

  “Every Herring Hangs by Its Own Gills”

  I.

  Sander was noble enough to have luxuries like a frypan for the smoky little fireplace and a barrel of wine in his cell, but obviously not so much of one as to be allowed to stay in his house until they hanged him. Or chopped off his head or something, if he was really unlucky. Which obviously he was.

  Who was that buddy of Hertog Von Wasser’s the guard had told him about? Brilling? Belding? Beiling. Some knight or noble on the wrong side of things in the Hook and Cod squabbles, he’d been given a month or year or something to live at his home and get his affairs in order before they buried him alive, but then, he hadn’t murdered any servants. No, none of the real richboys would do anything that strong, but Jesus, being buried alive seemed about as bad an end as you could find, even if you went looking for such a thing.

  Thing was, Sander couldn’t die. Ever since the militiamen dragged him out of the river and worked him over, he was having a right bastard of a time keeping things straight in the old brain-tankard, but that was a point he was sure of—he couldn’t die yet. He knew what was awaiting him, down there in the dark, and he wanted fuck-all to do with it—Belgium was hell, right, and he’d be damned before he went there.

  Rather, before he went there again, permanent-like. Avoiding that end wasn’t as simple as they made it sound, neither, getting talked at by a priest; confession might not cut it, bad a life as Sander had led, and with nary an honest telling of his sins in all that time—no, what needed doing was to lead a good long life yet, before he went back down there. No guarantee he could avoid it altogether, but that was all the more reason to put if off as long as possible.

  Hence the Hand of Glory. The door was a thick oaken thing with bolts on the other side keeping him in, so without a lock for them to worry ’bout him picking, he’d been able to set everything up. Tin cup for a mold was no problem, and he was allowed to cook his own chow, even in prison—weren’t that something sick? All those honest souls slaving away just to lick rancid oats off their dirty fingers come mealtime, and here in lockup he still had his Shrovetide pancakes served up with his private cutlery. Fooling the guards into thinking he was trying to hide a knife, he’d finally given up the blade and kept the spoon instead. Amateurs. The wall of the gatehouse had given the latten ladle quite the edge, and he had his wee hearth in the cell, which was an old sleeping chamber, like as not, so yeah: Hand of Glory.

  Or whatever that Frenchman Gilles, had called it—Glory something, and it was made from a hand, so yeah, Hand of Glory. Gilles had been too sweet-looking for witchery, you’d have thought, the sort of handsomeness you didn’t usually put with badness, but Sander had run with Jan long enough to recognize when good looks were being put to misdirection for some inner scheming. Funny how the world tells you all you need, even if you don’t ken the import at the time, and—

  “Are you listening to me?” Hobbe snapped his fingers in Sander’s face.

  “Nay,” said Sander, blinking away his plan. “Said they were letting me out?”

  “Of course not,�
�� said Hobbe.

  “Then what I care to hear it?” Sander would have throttled his double-crossing visitor to death, but the guards might respond by simply braining Sander and saving the city the trouble.

  “It’s about those papers I brought you yesterday,” said Hobbe, shifting in his chair. Sander would allow the two seats in his cell weren’t as comfortable as he’d like. His ass was still so swollen from where the quarrel had struck him that sitting was a torture to rank up with the ordeals the martyrs suffered. The real bad ones. “I know you were too busy then, but have you had a chance to sign them?”

  “Nay, and I won’t until you tell me what they say,” said Sander. “We both know you’re lying ’bout them being for Jo’s benefit.”

  “I swear, Sander, I’m not,” said Hobbe. “I know you and I have had our differences, but I’d still rather see Jo inherit the business and deal with her than with whatever inevitable relation of the Gruyere brothers comes slithering from the fens. If you had married her off, as I suggested, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

  “I told you, Jan’s back,” Sander whispered, glancing nervously around the windowless cell. “He was the one who did Lansloet and Drimmelin, he was the one who did the kids, who made Simon hang himself. He’s back, and he’s pretending to be me, and he’ll try to get at Jo, if he hasn’t already. You have to watch out for him!”

  “All the more reason to sign the papers,” said Hobbe. “Jo’s been staying with Zoete and me ever since your arrest, but if this impostor you keep talking—”

  “He’s not an impostor, he’s bloody Jan! Back from the grave! Back from Belgium!”

  “Indeed,” said Hobbe firmly. “You’ll be executed before the week is out, Sander, and if you haven’t signed these—”

  “What?” said Sander, paying more attention now. How long had he been locked up? Of late Sander had been having a devil of a time keeping track of little things like time and space. He hadn’t even started on the Hand of Glory yet… “You said you could delay it. You said you could work something out, that—”

  “—That was before Simon’s confession, the one that implicates you, was made public.” Hobbe rubbed his temples. “Bribes won’t delay the execution now, nothing will—Dordrecht won’t be appeased until you die, and publicly. They’d have come for you in the night already if I hadn’t exercised my influence, had honest militiamen stationed here instead of Cod stooges.”

  “I can’t die,” said Sander, his hands shaking. Hands of Glory. “I can’t. Oi, give me that dagger of yours and I’ll sign, you swear it’ll do Jo good.”

  “You have my word,” said Hobbe, eyebrows reassuringly flat.

  Sander nodded, sharply, and the count drew his ornamental knife, offering it pommel first. Sander staggered over to his cot, his ass afire, and stashed it in the hay. Then he took the quill from the pot and scratched his X on the bottom of the greasy vellum document Hobbe had brought the day before. Sander must’ve already sealed the thing at some point, because there was the Tieselen crest in a blob of wax right next to his mark. When had he done that? He’d lost the ring, of all the foolish…

  “Sander,” Hobbe said kindly, and Sander realized he’d been drifting off again. Looking up from the document, he repeated that simple truth in a mad world:

  “I don’t want to die.”

  “Come now,” said Hobbe, blowing on the wet ink. “You’re a versatile fellow, I’m sure you’ll find a way to manage it when the time comes. Always easier the second time around, Your Worship.”

  Sander stared at Hobbe. What the shit did that mean? Before he could find his voice, which he seemed to have misplaced, or calm his heart and stomach, which seemed to be trying to trade places, Hobbe stood to leave, the vellum held open in his hands to keep it from smearing.

  “Farewell, Graaf Tieselen,” Hobbe said, a bit more cheerfully than Sander thought the bleak situation warranted. “You had me rather worried at the onset, you know—I wondered if your being shat from a ewe in a ditch had infected you with some idiotic sense of duty toward your fellow peasants. I actually had a nightmare on one occasion that you ruined the whole business by shifting your fortune into draining the polders outside Dordrecht, to create honest work for all those poor souls made destitute by the flood. It was quite the relief to wake up and find you every bit as selfish as a born prince.”

  “What?” Sander still hadn’t wrapped his stiff mind around what Hobbe had said about his dying twice, and now it rather sounded like he was being insulted. Maybe? “I mean, I hired Simon, helped him in a tight spot. Yeah?”

  “How charitable that you found a place in your heart for a fellow noble while ignoring a whole city’s worth of desperate paupers, people who no doubt grew up in conditions every bit as miserable as your own. In fact, you might have even known some of them personally—didn’t Jan say you hailed from somewhere out in the Groote Waard? I wonder why ever you left the cheerful farms and fragrant fields!”

  “Never you mind that,” Sander muttered, the circumstances regarding his flight from his childhood home being a topic even less desirable than his imminent execution, his apparently un-Christian administration of his estate, or that unsettling crack about managing to die better the second time ’round.

  “A happy chance that you did, whatever the motivation,” said Hobbe, and seeing the ink had dried enough to get a move on, get a move on he fucking did, the ponce. “I’m ever so pleased to have known you, and especially pleased that we could come to this ultimate understanding. And if I might offer a parting suggestion, from one friend to another, use your bedsheet to effect what Simon did—it shall spare Jolanda the pain of witnessing your execution, and prove less excruciating for you than a quartering. Guard! I’m ready! Good day, Sander, you won’t be seeing me again.”

  Then he was gone, leaving Sander to stare down at his grimy, ink-damp hands. Except for the yellowish band on his left ring finger where the Tieselen seal had rested for those too-brief years, they weren’t very calloused or scarred, the way you’d expect those of a peasant’s son to be. For all the dirt and grease and dried blood adhered to them, they were the smooth hands of a gentleman.

  It wasn’t until the door was again bolted that Sander remembered what the count had said about Jo staying with him and Zoete. What was that idiot doing, running straight to Hobbe after all Sander had done to keep her safe? There wasn’t any time to lose, he needed to bust himself out, and fast. Sander turned to his wine—hidden somewhere in that barrel was the nerve to cut off one’s own hand, and he was just the cunt to dive in and find it. At least the count’s dagger would make better work of the job than a sharpened spoon.

  II.

  When the knock came, Poorter Primm jumped in his chair. He always did—would that he lived in happier times, when patrons bought expensive crossbows by the bushel, so that an honest businessman could react with joy, or maybe even ennui, at a knock upon his door. Granted, over a year of steady commissions in preparation for the resumed war with Jacoba and her Hooks, Poorter had grown almost comfortable with callers, but given that the last two times he’d opened up he’d received horrendous beatings and the ruination of several exquisite pieces, Poorter knew he could be forgiven for falling into old, anxious habits. Poorter never had a problem forgiving himself.

  He rose from his seat in front of the hearth and toddled across his workshop, scratching Beatrix on the head as he passed the table where she snoozed. That Jolanda girl had called her something else, something dreadfully foreign, so Poorter had given her a much better name. As a rule he detested cats, but Beatrix was the exception—her limp kept her from running around knocking valuable parts over, and she was skittish enough that whenever visitors called she would vanish, like a conjurer’s trick, and not reappear for days. Ah, and there she went as the knock came again, the cat not even waiting for him to open the door before shooting up into the loft and out the window he left cracked for her. Farewell, Beatrix, he thought, as he stared at the ominous door
.

  There was no real need to be wary, he told himself—the mad graaf was incarcerated and awaiting execution, his faux daughter missing ever since the arrest and thus presumably taken care of, and after the rather intense pummeling he’d given Poorter when last they’d met, the returned Jan had promised that they were now square, so long as Poorter kept his mouth shut. Those three were the whole reason Poorter had come to fear guests, after all, and now he was free of them. At worst it was some besotted Shrovetide revelers banging on every door they passed, and at best it could be a noble or three coming by to compliment him on how true his bows had fired at Brouwershaven. Nobles, he told himself, loaded patrons, and with a prayer he opened the door.

  A noble lady and three attendants. Poorter blinked at them, and tried not to grin. Unless he was very much mistaken, he’d sold this grande dame’s son half a dozen of the most lavish bows he’d ever set to lathe. She’d better not be here to try to get some of the money back, there was no way that was flying with Poorter. He bowed, and said, “My lady, to what do I owe the honor of this visit?”

  “Do you always conduct business on your stoop like a pimp, or shall we move inside?” said the commanding crone, advancing on him before he’d even stammered an,

  “Of course, my lady, of—”

  “Lady Meyl,” said she, striding into his shop and making straight for the fire. “I am not your lady, Primm, I am the Lady Meyl, and I trust you know what that means?”