by Patty Jansen
The guard eyed the horse and the thistles stuck in the fetlocks. “No, that don’t look like a farm horse.”
He walked around the group, stopping to examine Johan Delacoeur. “Stole yesself a nice jacket, huh?”
Johan’s face went red, but to his credit, he said nothing.
The guard eyed Martine, who held her chin up and glared back at him. Calling him a traitor would be unhelpful, but she looked like she very much wanted to.
Then he turned to Johanna. She studied the man’s face, hard and unemotional. It occurred to her that it might not be his choice to work for Alexandre. Johanna wondered if, facing the same situation, she would be strong enough to stand up to the occupying army, especially if they were threatening her family. Ultimately, life was about survival, and there was no point in picking fights you couldn’t hope to win.
The guard snorted and shifted his attention to Roald, who had pulled his hat over his forehead so that people wouldn’t see his face. Fortunately, few Saarlanders knew him by sight, and the guard was not one of those people.
Meanwhile, the other guard looked in the wheelbarrow that Loesie had put down. “Harvest hasn’t been the best, huh?”
“No, sir,” Nellie said. “But we sell what we can spare so’s we can buy blankets for the winter.” She sounded quite convincing. If anything, Nellie had constantly surprised Johanna with her strength. Only one thing upset her badly: unwanted advances from a man.
The guard snorted.
“All right, into town with you. Excuses about the questions. There’s been too many strange characters entering here today.”
They started walking again. Johanna’s heart was thudding. Strange characters? What had the guards done with those strange characters?
Johan Delacoeur was muttering under his breath. “What does he think he is, suggesting that I stole the jacket. This jacket’s mine, sir. I paid for it with my own money, and it was made by a clothes maker many times older and wiser than you—”
“Shh,” his wife said. “We’re inside, that what matters.”
“Well, I’ll be sending a complaint to—”
“We’re inside. Now be quiet.”
It seemed that she was the only person who could shut him up, because he did just that, even though he still didn’t look happy.
The scouts Dirk and Jan had been right about the lack of damage in this part of town. Nothing much seemed to have changed here. There were normal people in the streets doing normal things and the houses in this part of the city were undamaged.
But guards were on every street corner, keeping an eye on every passerby. People walked past them, not looking at the men. Johanna felt like she and her group had a big sign over their head. She kept wanting to pull the hat further over Roald’s face. She hoped the guards had more attention for the horse than for who held the rope, or that they were more interested in Loesie, who didn’t look normal at the best of times.
Johan Delacoeur and his wife walked arm in arm behind the others and didn’t draw quite as much attention from the guards.
“They’re looking at us,” Roald said.
“Yes, I know. Just don’t look back.”
“I don’t want them to look at us.”
“I can’t help that.” As soon as she said this, Johanna knew she had made a mistake.
Roald burst out, “I don’t want them to!”
The horse sidestepped and tossed its head.
“Shhh!”
Roald’s eyes were wide and his breaths were fast. He wasn’t going to have a screaming fit, was he? He’d been really tense all day. Heart thudding, she took his hand and placed it on the horse’s neck. She pressed his fingers into the warm fur, scratching the horse with him. His skin was sweaty.
She spoke to him in a low voice. “Calm down. Don’t look at anyone, don’t listen to anyone, don’t speak.”
He nodded, still looking at the horse.
They continued, slowly at first, but they sped up when Roald calmed. But now Johanna grew nervous. The further into town they went, the more likely it was that someone would recognise her. What would she say?
Next to Johanna, Loesie was looking so much over her shoulder that she bumped the wheelbarrow into a woman carrying a basket.
The woman gave a little squeal and dropped the basket on top of the cabbages in the wheelbarrow. “Oh, watch where you’re going with that thing.” She was a merchant wife or domestic servant, sturdy, broad, with healthy red cheeks.
“Why blame me? You should watch where you’re walking.” Loesie picked up the basket and shoved it in the woman’s hands.
Her face went red. “You rude little—”
Johan Delacoeur joined the group, and Johanna intervened before he could start with his Do you know who I am? tone. “We’re very sorry that my friend bumped into you. It’s our first time coming to the markets. Which way to go?”
The woman jerked her head. “That way. But if you’re going to be this rude, you won’t sell much.”
She gave Loesie a glare and hurried along.
Johanna had been about to say something to Loesie about not creating a fuss, but closed her mouth again. An expression of horror had come over Loesie’s face.
“Anything wrong?” Johanna asked.
“I touched the basket. That’s why I ran into her. I saw the basket. I wanted to see what it could tell me.”
By the Triune, that was a smart thing to do. Johanna should have thought of doing that herself.
“And? What did you see?”
“A lot of scared people. The usurper lives in a house at the markets. People line up in front of his door begging for him to give them food and clothes. He comes out, wearing pretty clothes, and walks straight past them. There is a man with him, with long dark hair. He also dresses pretty. I’ve seen him before.”
“Octavio Nieland?”
“I don’t know who that is.”
Johanna forgot that Loesie had only come here to sell cheese and baskets.
Loesie continued, “The men walk across the markets. They’re laughing. They’re not paying any attention to the poor woman with the bandages on her face. Then Alexandre turns around and sets fire to her. Her clothes catch fire. She screams and rolls around on the ground, but no one helps her. That’s what I’m seeing.”
“No one helps her?”
Loesie shook her head. “People walk past, but no one stops. People are scared.”
Johan Delacoeur said, “Much has changed, even if most of it is invisible.”
“I don’t like it,” his wife said.
No, Johanna didn’t like it either. If people were this scared, would they still support the royal family?
Chapter 5
* * *
GRADUALLY, THE STREETS changed. First they came across sections of paving that had been dug up. Loesie had some trouble pushing the wheelbarrow across and Johanna and Nellie had to help her. Roald took care to guide the horse, and Johan Delacoeur wanted to guide his wife by the arm, but she retorted that she had just spent months navigating a slippery riverbank to get water and do washing, and she was capable of walking herself. At which he muttered something about not having married a fishwife.
Johanna laughed secretly at hearing this exchange. Yes, she liked Martine Delacoeur.
Fences had been removed along both sides of the road. Some houses looked abandoned, and people had removed doors and windows, presumably because they were needed elsewhere.
A bit later, they came past the first houses that showed signs of fire damage, mostly boarded-up windows and peeling paint on doors and window frames.
“Look, there,” Nellie said.
A house across the street had lost part of its roof. Blackened beams stuck into the sky. As the scouts had said, the pattern of damage was strange. It had skipped certain houses while affecting others.
There was a gasp from behind. Johanna looked over her shoulder. Martine Delacoeur stopped in the middle of the street. She covered her mouth with h
er hands, staring into a side street. Johan’s face was unreadable, perhaps a bit paler than usual.
“Your house?” Johanna asked.
She nodded.
“Burnt?”
“No. I don’t think so.” She walked into the street, first slowly and then faster.
Johanna followed, telling Roald, Loesie and Nellie to wait. She sort-of knew where the Delacoeurs lived, but didn’t remember the exact house.
Martine squealed and started running, while Johan followed, muttering. His wife ran up the steps of a house on the right hand side of the street. The house had some broken windows but was mostly still intact.
She tried to open the door, but it was locked. Then she banged on the door. “Lotta, Lotta, we’re back!”
After a little while, the door opened and the woman who stood in the opening was obviously not Lotta, because Johanna knew Lotta, a cousin of Nellie’s, and this woman was much older than that.
“Well . . .” She looked taken aback.
“What are you doing in our house?” Johan blustered.
“Well . . . I . . .” Her cheeks went red. “We got the house fair and square. It was abandoned.”
“Who said you could live here?”
“The house was empty—”
“Because we had to run for our lives. The house was not yours to take.”
“The Town Council said—”
“Which Town Council? The one that includes the man who burnt all this down?”
“Well, I . . .”
A man came into the hallway behind her. “Why are you bothering my wife?”
“Bothering? Bothering?” Johan’s face had gone red. “You’re in my house, that’s what.”
The man gave him a hard stare. “You’re a liar. The real Johan Delacoeur would never go around dressed up in dirty clothing like that. Go away, man, you’re nothing but a simple peasant. In any case, if you really wish to complain, I recommend that you take it up with the regent. He decreed that we need to share available housing.”
“The regent . . .” Johan’s face grew even redder. “Let me tell you what I think of this regent—”
Martine pulled his sleeve. “Shh, darling calm down. We don’t want too much trouble.”
He whirled around at her. “Trouble? He’s in our house and you talk about trouble?”
“Just calm down,” Martine said. “Guards are coming this way.”
“Guards? This is ridiculous. I’ll tell them who we are—”
“Come, Johan.” She pulled him away from the door, which shut.
“I don’t understand you, woman. First we had to come here dressed up like this, then you don’t want me to throw these people out of our house. I’ll—”
“We’ll get them out later. Let’s not create a fuss straight away. Think of keeping the king safe.”
Johan snorted, but returned to the place where Roald, Loesie and Nellie were, even if he was grumbling and red-faced. Johanna thought she could see tears in Martine’s eyes. And so the Delacoeurs were the first people who found themselves homeless. And Martine was right in that they could absolutely not afford a fuss. Probably, too, if many houses had been burnt, there would have been a shortage and of course empty houses would be used if there was no sign of the original owners. Martine suggested that they go to check on her sister’s, so the pair of them went off in another direction.
Johanna watched them go with growing apprehension. If the time came, would Johan help her or would he side with the nobles in power? That was the big question. She thought the common people would support her, but without support of at least some nobles, Roald might as well walk to the jail straight away.
She pushed that thought away. “Let’s go to the markets first.” Get rid of that horse and the wheelbarrow, and then check what was left of her house.
Johanna didn’t like the look on Roald’s face. He was staring at his feet, and his lips were twitching.
She went to walk next to him, but didn’t dare touch him because that would draw attention. She spoke softly. “We’re going to take the horse to the barn and then we’re going to my house.” If there was still a house to go to.
He didn’t reply or react, so she asked, “Are you all right?”
He nodded, stiffly. She didn’t think he was all right. He should really be off the street, and soon.
They were now coming to the more badly affected part of town. Several houses along the street were so badly burnt that they were uninhabitable, but houses next door had remained untouched. It was really strange. The smell of fire hung in the street. One fire was smouldering, with wisps of smoke drifting into the street.
“They’re still burning houses,” Nellie said in a soft voice. Her face had gone white. Her family lived two blocks from here. They should go to check on them, too.
Loesie nodded, still hugging herself.
In the next street, two more houses were burned, also in haphazard fashion. A guard stood in front of one of those houses. Next to him sat a bear on its rump with the forepaws resting on the ground.
The accompanying guard was not a Saarlander. He had dark hair, which he wore loose over his cloak. He stood still, only his eyes moving, following the group down the street.
Whether it was the clopping of the horse’s hooves or a foreign smell on the wind, Johanna didn’t know, but the bear grunted and heaved itself on all its four paws.
The horse shied and pulled at the reins. Parts of the whites were showing in its eyes.
“Shh.” Roald patted the animal’s neck. Johanna grabbed the end of the rope, briefly touching Roald’s hands. They were clammy and sweaty.
The guard gave the group a penetrating look, as if he knew exactly who they were.
Johanna’s heart thudded like crazy. She didn’t dare look over her shoulder, but she suspected that he would use a pigeon or some magical thing to warn Alexandre. Oh, look, the lost prince has been found. He’s coming in your direction. Half a dozen soldiers should take care of him.
She had to force herself to abandon that line of thought.
Closer to the markets, the fire damage became more prominent. Large swathes of houses had been burned, whole streets turned into a wasteland of blackened stone walls and skeleton-like remains of floors and roofs. Nothing was smouldering here.
There were some signs that people were rebuilding, with stacks of bricks and planks of wood, but many ruins lay abandoned, with weeds growing in the formerly neat yards. Where were the people? Wasn’t this the street where Master Willems lived? Used to live, she thought with a chill. There was no way he would have survived if he had been home.
The markets were at the end of the street; and it was quite busy here, with people making their way across the blackened ground carrying produce. None of them took any notice of a man in a grey cloak who kneeled on the ground at one of the ruins.
There used to be a small church in that spot, the precursor of the large church in the market place. The grey-cloaked figure buried his face in his hands. Of course it was the Shepherd Carolus and Johanna guessed that the church had been his.
Johanna wanted to go comfort him, but couldn’t. They were not supposed to know each other.
Another guard with a bear came into the street walking towards the group. The man noticed the Shepherd and before anyone could do anything, belted Shepherd Carolus from behind. He fell face down in the soot. Johanna stood frozen. What could she do? Help him and risk Roald, or let the Shepherd suffer?
She knew Carolus wouldn’t want her to risk herself, but still she couldn’t just leave him there. He might be badly hurt. But then he heaved himself onto his hands and knees, coughing. Johanna followed the others to the markets, staring ahead as if she saw things like this every day. Inside, she was crying.
They rounded the street corner and came to the markets. Johanna almost gasped.
Not only was the church gone, but the houses on one side of the marketplace were gone, too. You could see across the area of soot and ru
bble to the canal that ran at the back of those houses. The grocery store, the inn, the barbershop, the candlemaker’s shop were all gone.
The land where the church had stood had been cleared.
Two workers were digging trenches in the muddy ground marked with pegs and pieces of string. It looked like they were building a new large construction, but their toil in the mud resembled a punishment more than it did a real building site.
The roof to the market and weigh house had sagged inwards and the normally open sides had been boarded up. Someone had constructed a new set of weighing scales for market produce, and a roof to protect it from the weather, all of it made out of rubble, but it was a poor construction, nowhere near as solid and pretty as the old weigh house.
The houses on the far side of the markets had mostly survived. They belonged to rich families, were built mostly from stone and had sustained minor damage at the most.
As the two scouts had said, a long row of common citizens waited in front of the undamaged mayor’s house. The start of the queue was kept at the bottom of the steps by a pair of long-haired guards in bearskin cloaks. Most of the people in the queue wore several layers of coats and blankets, and some had brought fold-up stools as if knowing they’d stand in that queue all day. Johanna didn’t want to stare at them too much, for fear of being recognised.
The curtains were open at the ground floor of the house, and Johanna could see movement inside. Had Alexandre brought a wife and family here?
As for the markets: the meagre number of stalls that occupied the middle of the soot-stained paving was a pale shade of the vibrancy of the marketplace before the fires. Many of the vendors used to come from outside town, and those people would be too scared to come—or dead.
Nellie and Loesie—with the wheelbarrow—led the way between the stalls and Johanna followed with Roald and the horse, eying the miserable produce for sale. Cabbages and worm-ridden apples everywhere. There were also some potatoes, eggs, carrots and parsnips, but the harvest must have been poor, and if this was going to be enough to feed the people of Saardam then by the Triune, there weren’t many people left.