The Idiot King

by Patty Jansen

  And with that thought, she became very concerned for Shepherd Carolus’ safety.

  She had no idea how she managed to get out of the room without promising anything, but one thing she knew: they needed to get out of here as soon as possible. And find Shepherd Carolus, without help from the Baroness’ men. If the Belaman Church was behind the abduction, then the conflict stepped up a whole new level, and all their lives were in danger, unless they converted.

  Johanna hurried through the streets of the town back to the Lady Sara, but when she arrived there, only Roald was home, seated at the desk, reading.

  She noticed wet footsteps on the stairs. “Your shoes are wet.”

  He didn’t react. Johanna dumped the drawing of the key symbol on the desk and kneeled at his feet. His shoes were indeed wet and covered in duckweed. “Let me take them off, then I’ll put them outside to dry.”

  She wriggled his shoes off his feet. His socks were wet, too—and very smelly—and his toes had gone wrinkled like dried gooseberries. Phew, the smell was strong.

  “Do you know where Nellie is?” She didn’t hold much hope for a reply.

  “There was some . . . thing going on.”

  Her heart jumped. “What sort of thing?”

  “They were making a lot of noise up there. I told them to be quiet.”

  “Who is ‘they’?”

  He shrugged and went back to his book.

  Johanna climbed back to the deck and went into the cabin to look for signs of where Nellie and Loesie were. Just then, Nellie was coming towards the jetty carrying a basket from which carrot greens protruded.

  “Oh, mistress Johanna. You’re back.” The tone in her voice didn’t sound happy.

  “Yes. Roald said that there had been noise on the deck. What happened?”

  “It was not my fault.”

  “What happened, Nellie?”

  “I swear it wasn’t my fault, mistress Johanna. Don’t be angry with me.”

  “Just tell me what happened.”

  Nellie led Johanna back up the gangplank. In the cabin, she took a basket that stood on the bed which contained the dress she had been making. She lifted it out of the basket and the bottom of it was torn to shreds as if a wild animal had taken to it.

  Nellie’s eyes brimmed over with tears, her hands trembled so much that she could barely hold the dress up. “I didn’t do it.”

  “I believe you, Nellie. Do you know who did?” But she already knew the answer before Nellie told her.

  “That witch. She was sitting on the floor and poking a knife through the fabric and then tearing it.”

  “Loesie?”

  Nellie nodded, sniffing. “I really thought she was getting better, mistress Johanna. Learning how to sew and cook. I’m so sorry for trusting her. It’s my fault that you won’t have a pretty dress—”

  “Nellie, stop it.” Johanna prised the dress from Nellie’s hands. “I like a pretty dress, but it’s not so important that I want you to—”

  “But what about the wedding?”

  “If things keep up like this, there won’t be one until we’re back in Saardam, and when we are, I’d be happy to get married in this dress. It is not important. Where is Loesie now?”

  “I don’t know. I told her to get off the ship. I wasn’t very nice about it, mistress Johanna. I’m sorry.” Her chin trembled.

  “It’s all right, Nellie. I probably would have done the same. But we do need to find her, before anything really bad happens.”

  Nellie nodded, her eyes wide. “Someone needs to look after her. I have to apologise.”

  “Whatever for?”

  “I might have used some bad words. I was very upset when I saw her sitting there destroying the dress. But she is obviously not in her right mind. No healthy person would do that.”

  “I have to find her.” With dread, she also realised that Loesie was probably responsible for the destruction of the shrine, and whatever still ailed her was buried deep in her soul.

  Johanna walked through the entire camp a number of times, but didn’t see Loesie anywhere. She asked everyone she met, but none of those people had seen her either. She ran into Master Deim, and together they widened the search to the surrounding fields and reed beds. They didn’t find her on the riverbank to the south of the camp or anywhere near the boatshed. They didn’t find her on the main road into town or in the fields on the other side. The horses that grazed there came to the fence and walked with them to the hay shed where Shepherd Carolus had disappeared. There was no magic to upset them today, and Johanna knew they weren’t going to find Loesie at the shed long before they got there. Indeed they didn’t.

  They returned to the main road and walked north of the camp. This was an area even more marshy than the part of the riverbank between the camp and the boat shed.

  The water had invaded low-lying stands of willow trees, which now stood with their trunks in the water. Most of the trees were saplings and they grew very close together. Branches had fallen haphazardly in between the trees and reeds and vines had grown over the dead wood, turning the area into an impenetrable thicket. The occasional bramble bush didn’t help either.

  Johanna and Master Deim walked along the narrow path that ran halfway up a row of hillocks, peering into the vegetation tangle.

  If Loesie had gone in there, they had no hope of finding her. In the water, she wouldn’t even have left tracks.

  “We’re not going to find her here,” Master Deim said. “Would she have gone into town?”

  “Unlikely. Loesie doesn’t like people. Not unless someone forced her.” And that was a thought she didn’t want to entertain at this point. Although the demon likely belonged to someone and that someone would come for it at some point. This place was stiff with magic and if there was a magician tied to Loesie’s demon, that magician might well live in Florisheim.

  Johanna heard Magda’s voice talking about the betrayer. She might well have been talking about Loesie. Since Loesie had been with the group from the beginning, she might have been like a burning beacon of magic to those who could see it, letting everyone know where they were all the time.

  Johanna’s chest constricted with panic. She didn’t watch where she put her feet and tripped over a branch. She fell on her hands and knees.

  Master Deim rushed to her. “My child! Are you all right?”

  “I think so.” Johanna brushed mud from her hands and dress. It would need to be washed once again.

  “Let’s go back. We’re not going to find her here.”

  “Maybe we should try going to town, unlikely as it sounds.”

  But as she pushed herself up, she caught a glimpse of fabric between the trees ahead. She pointed. “There.”

  Master Deim peered into the thicket. “I do believe you’re right.”

  He pushed a couple of branches aside. “There is a path of sorts here.”

  Path was a big word for the animal track that led over the faintest rise between close growing willow saplings. Following Master Deim’s broad back, Johanna grabbed the braches as she went, and they showed her Loesie running over this path, wildly crashing into willow trunks. Her eyes were wide, but still had their normal colour. She ran bent over, as if she’d hurt herself.

  Master Deim shouted, “By the heavens.”

  He stopped and Johanna peered around him.

  Loesie sat cross-legged in the middle of a patch of grass, her back straight. In one hand, she held a blood-stained knife, and she was using the sharp point to score her skin. She had already made a network of bleeding cuts on her left arm.

  She had discarded all her clothes, and was meticulously cutting the skin of her upper left leg, her face unemotional.

  Tracks of blood trailed over her pale skin and dripped onto the ground.

  She was so absorbed in her task that she didn’t notice Master Deim or Johanna, but just kept cutting, her face scrunched in concentration.

  Then she looked up, turning to Loesie and Master Deim. S
he had also scored her cheeks. Blood dripped down her jaw onto her chest.

  She slowly wiped her hands over her stomach, smearing blood on the pale skin. She massaged her stomach, arching her back, all the while moaning.

  “By the heavens,” Master Deim said again.

  Loesie laughed.

  No, the demon had not gone at all. The demon might have been asleep for a while, but it had been with her all that time. It had probably been awakened when Loesie tried to drive off the magical apparition on the riverbank.

  “Come,” Johanna said, holding out a hand.

  Loesie just stared, resting her hand on her stomach. Trails of blood had run between her fingers over the back of her hand.

  “Put down the knife,” Johanna said.

  Loesie looked at the hand that held the knife, the point still poking at the skin. A flicker of disturbance went over her face as if she saw her bleeding arms for the first time.

  She dropped the knife in the grass. Her face went pale.

  Master Deim rushed in behind her and picked it up.

  Loesie dragged her dress over her naked body, her eyes wide, her mouth open. Her hands trembled and the skin had gone purple. She smeared blood everywhere.

  “I think I’m going to be sick,” she said weakly, and illustrated it by vomiting all over one side of the dress. It was mostly slime and blood, but made even more of a mess of the garment.

  “Oh, look at it now,” she cried and she vomited again. In her effort to miss the dress, it went all over Johanna’s hands, mostly brown foamy slime.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” She let the soaked dress drop to her knees.

  “I don’t mind,” Johanna said, looking at Loesie’s bloodied skin.

  “Come, let’s go home.” She picked up Loesie’s discarded dress and held it up. Apart from the fact that it was wet, the bottom part had been slashed into ribbons. But it would have to do.

  “Try to put this on. We’re going back to the Lady Sara.”

  Although she wasn’t sure if she wanted Loesie sleeping in the same cabin as Nellie with knives in the galley next door.

  The wildness had gone from Loesie’s eyes and Johanna managed to get Loesie back into the dress. Her cloak, muddy as it was, covered most of the gaping rips in her dress where the skin shone through. In a shallow part of the bank, she made Loesie wash herself, shivering and in stiff and jerky movements.

  Very carefully, with Master Deim helping her, they guided Loesie along the path. While she complained of being cold, her skin felt hot and dry. When they came close to the camp, Master Deim ran ahead to get a blanket, but still they got plenty of stares.

  Nellie stood on the deck of the Lady Sara. She watched with wide eyes and covered her mouth with her hands while Johanna and Master Deim shuffled up the gangplank with Loesie between them.

  She retreated once they were on the deck, her face pale.

  In the cabin, Johanna cleaned Loesie’s cuts. Most of them were shallow and would heal by themselves. She put ointment and bandages over some of the deeper ones. Nellie stood by the doorway, her face still pale. No one said anything.

  The uneasy silence lingered until Nellie asked how Loesie got all those cuts and in response to being told exclaimed, “She did it herself? Who cuts their own skin?”

  Loesie snorted and Johanna intervened before it could come to an outburst. “Maybe you would like to bring Loesie some tea.”

  “Yes, mistress Johanna, immediately.”

  Johanna sat on the edge of the bed watching Nellie’s back as she ran from the cabin. Nellie, one day your trusting nature is going to hurt you badly.

  A bit of colour had returned to Loesie’s cheeks.

  “Is there anything we should know about?”

  Loesie shook her head.

  “You’re sure about that? Then why did you do this?”

  Loesie shook her head again.

  Johanna’s heart jumped. This was so much like when she had first met Loesie at the markets, when she had lost her voice. “Can you still speak?”

  “Yes, just not about that. Not his name. I don’t know his name, all right?” Her eyes went wide again.

  “Calm down, calm down.” This was the closest Loesie had come to admitting that someone had bewitched her. She must not lose Loesie’s trust. “When did this happen?”

  “In early spring, before the trees started sprouting leaves.”

  “At the farm?”

  She nodded. Her lip trembled. “Annette is dead because of me. Ma is dead because of me. Granpa and Granma are dead because of me!” He voice rose.

  “Shhh.” Johanna held Loesie’s shoulders. She felt hot and dry. Like a demon’s fire.

  “Please, if you care for me, leave me alone,” Loesie whispered. “Give me the knife and let me kill myself.”

  “Don’t be silly. We’ll find someone to help you.”

  Nellie came with tea and after having made sure that Loesie drank some, Johanna left to go to the hold. She felt so tired. Being here, in this place infused with magic, tired everyone out. They would have to move soon, or risk staying here forever.

  In the hold, Roald sat at the desk by the light of a flickering oil lamp, intently staring at a piece of paper. In typical fashion, he didn’t look up when she came in.

  “What are you doing?”

  “That’s the symbol of the Burovian royal family.”

  “What is?”

  He showed her the sheet of paper. It was her crude drawing of the key on the back of Shepherd Carolus’ abductor’s hood.

  Johanna’s heart thudded. “Is there anyone from the Burovian royal family at the work farm?”

  “Prince Hugo,” Roald said, pulling a face. “I don’t like him at all. He whips the horses and kicks the piglets.”

  “Does he have dark hair that he wears in a ponytail?”

  He frowned at her. “I think so.”

  “Is he still at the farm?”

  “Yes, he is one of the bosses.”

  Johanna couldn’t believe that the answer they had been looking for had been here all the time.

  The Baroness had lied about the symbol. She would have recognised it and known who it belonged to. Likely, the nobles knew it, too. So they had taken the Shepherd to the farm? If they were magicians then what did they want with him? A chill went over her back.

  “Could you . . . help me get there?”

  ‎

  Chapter 17

  * * *

  JOHANNA GOT UP very early the next morning, and went into the misty pre-dawn to ask Master Deim for the loan of a boat, which he said he’d bring along later.

  She rushed back to the camp and in the cabin of the Lady Sara, she got herself and Roald dressed for another adventure. Roald asked if they were going to listen to wood again, and Johanna said they might, but nerves knotted in her gut. She could eat only little of the porridge brought by Nellie. Loesie was still asleep, Nellie said, and it was probably better to leave her like that.

  The problem of Loesie was one Johanna would have to solve later.

  Out on the deck, the mist still hadn’t lifted, muffling sounds and keeping animals silent.

  Two people were walking up the jetty towards the Lady Sara. When they came up the gangplank Johanna recognised the first one as Master Deim, and the second one turned out to be a young man.

  “This is Karl,” Master Deim said.

  The young man nodded a greeting. He had a severe face that looked too old for his age, all planes and angles. He wore local dress.

  “Karl is a cousin of mine by marriage. His family is not in the pay of the duke or the Guentherite order, and his uncle is the Holy Father Lucius of the main church. If anything goes wrong or the Guentherites make threats to you, they won’t want to give his uncle a reason to complain. The Guentherites are not on good footing with people in the town, but they rely on us for many of their supplies. Karl will be your shield.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Karl has also visited th
e Guentherites and worked for them, so he is well-versed in their ways.”

  The young man didn’t look old enough to have had those experiences. “Thank you,” Johanna said again. “You are really a most useful friend. I do hope that when we return to oust Alexandre, you will come with us.”

  Master Deim smiled, but said nothing. What did that mean? Was he coming? Was he staying here? There was no time to talk about it.

  Last night, Johanna had tied up two sea cows in preparation for this expedition and now she reeled in the ropes of both. The animals were strong males, placid if a bit lazy, but they came to the bank for the cabbage leaves she held in the water. Their big snouts with the rough whiskers brushed her hand. She tied both in the small harness which had hung at the back of the cabin for all of the journey, and tied the ropes to the small rowing boat that Master Deim had brought.

  On a whim, she threw the rest of the cabbage in the water and reeled in the ropes of all the animals. She met Master Deim’s eyes while doing so. He nodded in silent understanding. Just in case we’ll need to get out of here quickly.

  Roald climbed into the little boat, taking the reins from her. With a bit of training, he would probably be much better at handling sea cows than she would ever be.

  Karl seemed a little uncertain about the animals and sat on the bench as far as possible from them.

  They set off.

  At first, no one spoke. Water slapped against the sides of the boat. Johanna didn’t dare look too deeply into its murkiness. She didn’t need to study the water to see the ghostly forms swirling underneath. Occasionally one of the animals would break the surface with a flipper or snout, or would come up to take in a deep and noisy breath. She had to steer the boat upstream first so that they could drift back to the jetty on the other side with the current.

  From here, it was clear that the Guentherite farm lay on a slight hill and that its buildings and belltower overlooked the surrounding land.

  The boat came past the run-off of a creek where a lot of cloudy water joined the river. The creek ran between a couple of paddocks into the Guentherite order’s land. Thin veils of mist hung over those paddocks and the banks of the creek.