The Idiot King

by Patty Jansen

  She looked up the river, still swollen from the recent rain. From here to Saardam was all downstream. They didn’t need animals, although they would take them regardless, and getting to Saardam from here would probably take less than a day on the strong current.

  “We can have the Prosperity,” Julianna said. “Captain Arense supports us and the ship can carry many people.”

  “We’re going back as soon as we can,” Johanna said. “Don’t tell anyone, just try to gauge who would come if we gave them the word.” If she had sorted the magician problem.

  “When?”

  “As soon as possible after the wedding.” Maybe even before. Maybe she needed to keep up the illusion that there was to be a wedding and that nothing would happen before that time, in order not to raise suspicion from the nobles or the Baron, or anyone else. Because the more she thought about it, the more she was convinced that she didn’t want to hold her wedding in that gloomy castle, attended by the Baron’s guests and family: Baroness Viktoriya the fat spider in her web, and Kylian the Necromancer.

  The next morning, she woke up to find her nightshirt drenched with blood.

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  Chapter 10

  * * *

  THE BLEEDING came with strong cramps, and Johanna stayed in the cabin for a day. Master Deim and Julianna came to see her because they were worried. At their subtle hints that she was with child, she could only laugh. If only. She didn’t understand why this happened. She thought they did everything right.

  Loesie was not helpful when she said, “Didn’t happen for Annette’s ma until she’d been married three years. Never happened to her since. They got Annette, which must have been a mistake, because she was much too pretty for the farm.”

  Annette was Loesie’s neighbour. Loesie’s mother, of course, had been with child after a dalliance with a foreign visitor.

  There were women who never had children, but Johanna was determined not to have that happen to her.

  “I’m going into town,” she said to Nellie the next morning.

  “Do you want me to come, mistress Johanna?” She and Loesie were peeling and cutting apples for the applesauce that Roald liked so much.

  “It might be a good idea, but I’m visiting a herb woman who is said to have magic, so it might be better if Loesie came.”

  Loesie gave her a sharp look. “Don’t want to have anything to do with magic. Nothing good ever came from it.”

  “We’re just going to visit this woman. You don’t need to say anything. I want you there because you are the only one who could tell if she’s using magic. And I also want you to see what the wood says about who visited the house and what was said in any of the rooms, wherever we get the chance.”

  Loesie grumbled. “There is never anything ‘just’ about magic.”

  “I’m going to ask her for herbs.”

  Loesie gave her a suspicious look. Seen from this angle, her father’s foreign blood became obvious. People in eastern Estland, Gelre and Burovia tended to be darker and taller than the Saarlanders. Loesie was not soft, friendly and feminine. She was lanky and all angles with deep-set, intense eyes. “We can just as well ask for herbs at the markets.”

  “This woman is supposed to be very good.”

  “This is not still about the bleeding, right?”

  Nellie cut in, about to start peeling another apple. “Loesie, it is really important that the mistress has a child soon.”

  “Bah, children are annoying and too much trouble.” Loesie threw a hand full of apple pieces in the pan and took off her apron. “But I’ll come, because if I don’t, she will get us into even more trouble.” She went into the cabin.

  Nellie’s gaze followed her, and her mouth twitched. Not happy, clearly. Maybe she considered it her duty to come with Johanna.

  Johanna said, “Do keep an eye on Roald so that he doesn’t go wandering off too far.”

  “Yes, mistress. Certainly.” Still not happy by the tone of her voice.

  Come to think of it, Nellie had been pretty unhappy the last few days, and Johanna couldn’t quite work out why. Compared to when they were with the bandits, the ship was comfortable, and Nellie even had her own bed. There was enough to eat and Nellie’s status had vastly improved.

  She would worry about her family, but then again, everyone did.

  Not too much later, Johanna and Loesie walked down the rickety jetty to the riverbank. The water level had fallen a bit, but the water was still only an arm’s length under the walkway.

  The guards who stood there gave friendly nods, but didn’t ask if they should come. Roald was still on board, and they didn’t care about her.

  Johanna and Loesie walked quickly along the path. Because it was so wet, people had made tracks through the tall grass higher on the riverbank to avoid muddy areas. Those tracks were narrow and they had to walk behind each other. The weather was muggy, and building clouds on the horizon heralded more thunderstorms. Would the rains ever stop?

  The track joined the main road in the curve of the river, and when she could finally walk next to Loesie, Johanna wasn’t sure what to say. Loesie had been distant since the demon had been driven out of her, saying about the incident only that she “didn’t remember much”, but never quite meeting Johanna’s eyes when she said this.

  Her attempts to deny magic and turn into an obedient domestic maid would be funny if Johanna didn’t expect that there was a more sinister reason behind them, and she had no idea how to find out what that reason was.

  “I’m going to need your help, Loesie,” she said after a long and uncomfortable silence.

  “I’m already helping.”

  “Yes, and thank you for that. I love your lace. It’s really pretty.” They walked another distance before she added, “But it’s help of a different kind I’ll need.”

  Loesie raised her eyebrows.

  “Alexandre Trebuchet who rules Saardam is a fire magician. People from the camp want to go back there and drive him out. Some of them are offering to fight, but we can’t get rid of Alexandre with an army. We need magicians. My magic is weak and insignificant. You are the only other person in the camp with any magic. I would like you to go to the Magician’s Guild here in Florisheim to receive training so that you can be our court magician.”

  “Didn’t I tell you that nothing good ever comes from magic?”

  “You did, but in this case the bad things have already happened. We need to fix them.”

  “You don’t understand at all.”

  “Then explain it to me so that I can help you.”

  “I do not want to be helped. We should not be using magic.”

  “But Alexandre is using magic! We have no hope of defeating him with an army, no matter how many men we get and how good they are.” Johanna tried to push down her frustration. Getting angry wouldn’t achieve anything. “At least tell me why.”

  Loesie pressed her mouth into a thin line. Her gaze shifted to somewhere over Johanna’s shoulder on the opposite riverbank. Johanna turned to look, but saw nothing that caught her attention.

  “Please, Loesie. I don’t want to hire a foreign magician and I will have to if you don’t do it. We don’t know who we can trust.”

  “You don’t want to go hiring magicians at all.”

  “No, I don’t.” At least they could agree on that.

  “Not me, and no one else.” Loesie met Johanna’s eyes with that intense look. She let a long silence lapse. Johanna thought she wasn’t going to say anything, but then she added, “Someone or something has messed with the magic lines. I can feel it in my bones, and everyone who’s got more magic than me would feel it even more.”

  “Duke Lothar was talking about magic lines, right?” She thought of the tunnels made from tortured trees and then remembered that Loesie would not have seen them because she’d still been possessed. Johanna had felt no desire to visit that place after the exorcism was done, and Loesie would not have had the strength to do so had she wished to see it
.

  “Magic lines are everywhere. There is a strong one under most of the Saar River. Sometimes the willows grow so stunted that you can’t even find branches to cut for making baskets. The horses that try to swim across the river grow webbed feet and they turn into water horses. And the grazing cows get so mad from eating the grass that they dance through the meadow.”

  Johanna nodded, a shiver running over her back. She had seen cows do that, especially in spring when they first came outside. Horses, too, although she wasn’t too sure about the webbed feet.

  “All those magic lines join up and split again, like a giant . . . fishing net under the ground. Sometimes they come to the surface. That’s where you get trouble. Like across the river from my granpa’s farm . . .” For a moment her eyes misted over. “Like the ghosts, and the funny trees and water horses, and all the evil magics, like bear magic.”

  “Necromancers?”

  Loesie nodded, clamping her arms around herself. “That’s what the rumour says anyway. I think ghosts happen because people die while having unfinished business, I don’t think magicians have anything to do with it. But by us using the magic, more of the lines come up, like a tailor unravelling a thread. Once a thread is up, you can’t put it back into the ground. We shouldn’t be using magic.”

  “That’s all very well for you to say, but should we just sit like ducks and let magicians rule us and kill all of us? Shouldn’t we learn about magic so that we can defend ourselves, or just save ourselves?”

  That earned her another suspicious look.

  “Loesie, please. I have no one else that I can trust.”

  “I won’t do it, and you shouldn’t be trusting me anyway. You’re a nice, pretty, innocent girl, like Annette. She’s dead now, and it’s my fault. I’ll do your washing and your sewing until you have better people to do it. But do not ask me to do magic for you, because you have no idea what you’re asking.”

  “I’m not innocent.”

  “Yes, you are.”

  “Then why won’t you tell me what is going on? Why did you even wait so long to tell me this?” She spread her hands in frustration.

  Loesie whirled around. “Because I don’t want you to die as well!” Her eyes were wild and there was more colour in her cheeks than Johanna had ever seen. “And you deserve better than that. Annette deserved better. It all happened because of me, and because of evil magic. I don’t know how many times I have to say this: if you want herbs, buy herbs. Don’t meddle with magic. Don’t even think about that Magician’s Guild or whatever. Don’t write to the duke for magic help. Don’t ask his son to help us. Don’t ask the Baron, or his son or anyone else. You don’t need magic to have a child. You need to go back and wait until it’s your turn. I’m not going to come to this magic woman’s place and you shouldn’t be going either.” She stopped walking and crossed her arms over her chest.

  Johanna glared at her and she glared back.

  “So that’s it? You don’t care about our safety?”

  “Have you listened to anything I said? About magic, about my fault?”

  “I’m going to see this woman,” she said, slowly, while looking into Loesie’s eyes. “I understand that it could be dangerous. I understand that she is not ‘just’ a herb woman. But magic is happening whether we like it or not, and I can’t see how not using it is going help us. In fact, I think it’s going to be dangerous for us, because there is no place where we can hide where there is no magic. So you can show me that you care and help me deal with this magic, or you can go back to your sewing.”

  Loesie said nothing.

  Johanna took a few steps in the direction of the town and looked over her shoulder. Loesie hadn’t moved. Another few steps. She still hadn’t moved.

  Oh well, it was not to be helped.

  Johanna continued towards the town without looking back.

  * * *

  The herb woman’s house was on the other side of the markets, an old house that was so narrow that its façade had room only for a single door and one window. The walls had once been painted black, but much of the paint had flaked off, showing the stone underneath. This was a pretty common state of affairs for the houses in the town, and it was a very unremarkable house. So unremarkable, in fact, that it would be easy not to notice it at all. That was until you got close and saw the line of animal skulls and teeth on the windowsill. There were bird skulls with the beaks still attached, rabbit skulls, deer skulls with antlers, and skulls of larger animals. There was also, on a little shelf halfway across the window, a line of blackened triangular teeth. Some were smooth, some had serrated edges. Some of them were as long as her thumb. She wondered what kind of animal those teeth belonged to. Even the teeth on the bear skull were smaller.

  The room on the other side of the window was too dark to see more than a few shapes inside. A couch and a formal sitting room chair, she thought.

  The place felt a bit creepy, she had to admit. Maybe that was only because of all the warnings from Master Deim and Loesie. After all, anyone who studied the ways of nature would have skulls and bones from animals, and a herb woman studied nature, right?

  Johanna put her hand on the wooden door. It showed her a woman going into the house carrying a child with a snotty nose. Another image showed an old man entering, leaning heavily on a walking stick.

  See? Nothing to worry about. Just people going to see Magda with illnesses.

  Johanna lifted the knocker in the shape of a deer skull and let the heavy metal thing fall on the wood. It made a heavy thunk that echoed in the hollow space beyond.

  For a long time, nothing happened. Johanna was about to turn away. Perhaps the herb woman had gone out, but then there was a sound of shuffling footsteps behind the door.

  A bolt was drawn back and the door opened, revealing a bent figure in the doorway, dressed in a grey cloak with a woollen scarf around her neck.

  To Johanna’s surprise, the face of the woman inside the shadow of the hood wasn’t old at all. It was just badly stained with dark wine-red blotches, which were slightly raised, making the skin look like a giant lumpy strawberry. Johanna had seen people with these patches before, but never in such a prominent way. Her lumpy red skin surrounded one eye, covered her cheek down to the corner of her mouth, and it was also on the wrist and part of the hand that stuck out from underneath her cloak.

  “Are you Magda?”

  The woman replied in the local dialect, the tone not particularly friendly. Hilda had warned her about that.

  “I’m sorry, I’m from Saarland. I don’t speak your language. I was told to come here by Master Deim’s sister-in-law Hilda.”

  “Ah. Hilda. Come,” she said in a heavy accent.

  Johanna went into the corridor, and Magda shut the door behind them, pushing the bolt back. It got very dark in the corridor, with just a faint glow of light coming in from a door that stood ajar at the end. Johanna presumed that this was the sitting room.

  Magda grabbed her arm when she walked past and pulled her close. Her long nails dug into the soft skin on the underside of Johanna’s upper arm. “Ow. There is no need to—”

  “I know who you are. I can smell scent of betrayer on you.”

  Betrayer? “Sorry, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Her heart thudded like crazy. “I haven’t spoken to anyone in town.” Did she mean Duke Lothar, or the Baroness or Sylvan or Kylian?

  “You ignorant girl. Don’t think I don’t know that you spy on me.”

  “Please, I’m not here for anyone except myself,” Johanna said. “I . . .” She was going to say need your help, but after that exchange wasn’t sure that what she’d be getting would qualify as “help” and even less whether she’d need it. “Hilda said that you were good with herbs.”

  Magda let go of her arm with a snort, muttering something in her dialect. The look in her eyes was pure venom.

  “Hmph.” She stepped back and regarded Johanna with her red-blotched face. “Herbs, huh?”

&nbs
p; “Yes. For making tea. Raspberry leaves, and stinging nettles.”

  “Herbs,” she repeated, her face still suspicious. “Well then, let’s talk about herbs.”

  Johanna followed her down a dark corridor where their footsteps were muffled by a series of bearskins on the floor, the fur all matted and dirty. Dusty tapestries on the walls depicted a family tree, a hunting scene and a castle in the forest which could have been Duke Lothar’s, but it was too dark to see. They came out in a dark room with a single window at the back of the house. It looked out over the house in the next street, across a narrow alley.

  The light was so dim in the room that even in daylight it was hard to see. The ceiling and the floorboards and threadbare carpet were all dark. Around the walls were shelves to the ceiling filled with jars and pots. Each contained some powder, leaves or various dried items or items preserved in fluid. The air in the room smelled stale and dirty, with a tang of dried leaves and a waft of something dead.

  The shelves left just enough room for a round table and a couple of chairs, all very well-worn and dusty.

  At Magda’s invitation, she squeezed between the shelves and the chairs.

  Magda sat opposite Johanna with her back to the window. She slowly lowered the hood of her cloak. Her red-rimmed eye was blue, but her other eye was all white, like Loesie’s had been when she was struck by magic. The wine red stain extended across her face, her neck and chest. Likely it covered all of her shoulder and left arm as well.

  Johanna didn’t know where to look. Staring would be impolite, but purposely looking away would be impolite, too.

  When sitting down, Johanna made the mistake of touching the table. A stream of images went through her. The people who had sat at this table were mostly men, and they weren’t sick. They came to talk. They were monks and priests and men in plain clothes. Men in dark clothes with long beards. Johanna withdrew her hand from the table, her heart thudding.

  Magda was smiling at her. “Ah. I see. There is a pitiful amount of magic in you. Well, let’s talk, then. About herbs.”