by Patty Jansen
He nodded. “It’s his sister Lisbeth whose life they’re trying to ruin. I don’t believe for one moment that she volunteered.”
“But why? Why her? Why don’t you just walk away from his silly proposal and tell them to go somewhere else?”
“It’s not as simple as that. The Lady Davida was lost in the fire and the Lady Sara is missing. The LaFontaine family owns the only shipyard in town that survived the fire. They will build me a new boat, but I have to agree to their conditions, otherwise they won’t take the order.”
“And their conditions are to marry Lisbeth?”
He nodded and looked down. “To make the filthy LaFontaine family the owner of my business, whatever it’s still worth.” He spread his hands, let them sink to his sides and shrugged. “It will be worth less every day that I don’t have a ship.” The light from the fire made the wrinkles in his face show up like canyons. “I can’t operate a river trading company without a boat.”
“But you have the Lady Sara again.”
“That’s why I won’t be signing this.” He scrunched the document up into a ball and threw it in the fire. Flames quickly turned their prey into an inferno. Within moments, there was nothing left of the paper.
“Won’t that get you into trouble?” Johanna asked.
He gave a wry smile. “If it does, it will have been worth it. I’ve wanted to do that for a while. Frankly, I think they were disappointed that I didn’t die in the fire. People have been looking at me as an example of withstanding the tyrants. But I’m old and tired. I don’t know how much longer I could have refused them, and now I don’t know how much longer they will stay polite.”
“Then we must act quickly.”
He held up his hands. “What can we do? There are so few of us and no one wants to risk their family.”
“We’re going to reclaim our town. We have the rightful king, and we’re going to get the people behind us—”
“Reclaim the town? You mean get rid of Alexandre? You can’t. Have you seen what he can do? They call him the Fire Wizard. He sets fire to people’s houses with a wave of his hand. He’s done that to everyone who doesn’t agree with him. He’ll burn down the whole town before he’ll leave.”
“I don’t think so. He could have burned all of Saardam already if that’s what he wants, but I think he wants Saardam reasonably intact—maybe because he needs us as workers, maybe for some other reason. He doesn’t want to destroy the town, he wants to control the town.”
“That’s what tyrants usually want, tormenting poor people to amuse themselves. This man is evil, Johanna, and I don’t want you standing up to him, because he will kill you.”
“Only you can stand up to him?”
He opened his mouth, spread his hands, closed his mouth again and let his hands fall by his sides. “I just want you to be careful. That’s all.”
Chapter 8
* * *
IT WAS TIME for the midday meal, which was being set on the table by Koby and Nellie, while Roald fussed about with tableware and finger bowls.
Koby tried to do it for him, but he wouldn’t let her. She apologised, red-cheeked. “Oh, I’m sorry that the prince is doing this work. I couldn’t help it.”
“Never mind, Koby. Let him help you if he wants to. Thank you.”
Father sat down and Johanna took her usual place at the table. Roald looked a bit lost so she waved for him to sit next to her. Johanna noticed that he had flour on his hands.
Nellie would once again eat downstairs, even though it felt strange. “Where is Loesie?”
Koby gave her a sharp look. “You know that girl is a witch, don’t you?”
“Yes, I do. She has helped us for months.” And brought us into danger, but she left that unsaid.
“Witches are dangerous. If nothing else, they’re spies from the Belaman Church.”
“I assure you, Koby, Loesie is nothing of the sort. She’s my friend and she should be here, because with her magic, she will be important in our plans.” If, in some way, Johanna could figure out how to get Loesie using her magic.
“As you wish, mistress.” Koby left the room.
“Sit down, Roald,” Johanna said when the door had closed behind her.
He did, in his usual, nervous, straight-backed manner. Roald and Father looked at each other. Father nodded, perhaps a bit puzzled. People behaved like that around Roald. They didn’t quite know what to say, because Roald didn’t come across as expecting bows and curtsies and wasn’t interested in conversations about trivialities. She would have to work out a way of getting Roald to accept that people wanted to do this, and to get him to react in a way that didn’t confuse those people.
She wondered what King Nicholaos and Queen Cygna had done for him, except send him away to the Guentherite brotherhood farm for unruly royals. The memory she had of Roald running after his sister’s birthday friends squealing had taken on new meaning. Back then, she’d thought it was fun, but now she understood how distressed he must have been. She put a hand on his knee under the table. The tense muscles in his legs relaxed a little.
“Tell us what has happened here while we were gone,” she said to Father.
Father spread the napkin on his lap and took his spoon. His hand shook. He was about to start eating when he stopped and lowered the spoon again.
“They were bad tidings.” He scooped up a spoonful of soup. “When I lost you in that hall, the best I could do was try to get home, hoping that you had also made your way there. The whole town was in chaos and people were running for their lives. I found the house undamaged, but you weren’t here.”
His expression grew distant. “I was too scared to go out again. Bandits with bears were roaming the streets. I’m but an old man and I thought if I went out there and died, you would have no one to come back to. So I chose to be a coward, and hid inside. I also couldn’t face sending Koby into that chaos.”
He let the soup fall back into the plate. “Many people lost their lives that night. I went out in the morning to look for you. The city was a wasteland. Many houses were still burning. I . . . couldn’t find you anywhere. . . .”
He swallowed hard and wiped at his eyes. “Not Master Willems, either. His family’s house was gone. The office was still there, but it was damaged, and the sea cow barn had been spared. But the only thing I could see of the Lady Davida were the masts sticking out of the water. The bandits and the bears were gone, too, and some people were in the streets trying to help. Octavio Nieland was one of those people. I’ve never considered him to be helpful, especially not towards common people. But he gave them food, cooked by his housekeeper, even though his own parents and his sister were said to be amongst the people who didn’t make it out of the palace.”
“Julianna came back with me.”
His eyes widened.
“We caught up with her in Florisheim. She and Captain Arense took the Prosperity upriver.”
“Well, that’s . . . good news.”
Johanna didn’t like the hesitation. “Julianna is all right. You know I never liked her, but she has changed. She was sick, but she came through and has helped me ever since. She knows how Octavio sold himself to the occupiers. She didn’t leave immediately after the fires but later, and she left because of what Octavio did. Yes, their parents are probably dead.”
He nodded, his face drawn. “If we thought the fire was bad, what happened afterwards was even worse. Alexandre and his band of cronies would walk through town proclaiming that he was the king. Whenever people challenged him, asking him where his crown was, he’d just flick his hand at them, and they’d burst into flames. He said he was looking for betrayers, but he seemed to be targeting members of the Church of the Triune and murdering their entire families. The Shepherd Romulus had survived. . . . You know I was never a great supporter of the church, but . . . this was just awful. He had been badly burnt in trying to stop his church burning down. Say whatever you want, but it was a very nice building. The Shepherd begged A
lexandre to help the people. Here was this badly wounded man, with blood and gore oozing from his hands and arms, and he was asking help on behalf of other people. Then this . . . monster just flicked his hand and set him on fire and he died screaming. To help him out of his misery, he said, and then he laughed. Johanna, we must do something so that we won’t ever have to see anything like that again.” The waning light that came in through the window cast his face in sharp relief. He looked old and tired.
“I’ve heard that Alexandre gave a speech.”
“Yes, he did, a few days after the fire. It was full of hatred for the Church of the Triune and how he was bringing the only true church.”
“The Belaman Church.”
He nodded.
“Their teachings include magic.”
“They do. He was rounding up people in the streets and scouting them out for magic, which, of course, very few of us have. The ones who were found to have some magic, he forced in his service—”
“Master Willems?”
“I don’t know. I hope he fled with the many people who left in disgust. They were not seen again.”
“Many of them came up the river in the Prosperity. Maybe they expected to find an ally in Aroden or Baron Uti, but Aroden is even worse off than Saardam, and all Baron Uti ever did for the refugees was to let them wait for things that he’d promised, but never delivered. He gave them land to camp on, but did nothing else. His son is pure evil.” She shuddered. “There are things I’ve watched him do that I won’t even talk about.”
Father frowned. “Baron Uti’s son who was at the ball? Who danced with you?”
“Yes.” She shuddered.
“What is going on in Florisheim?”
“I wish I knew, but only the Baron knows that, and the Guentherite order of the Belaman Church. They’re doing all kinds of magic. Digging black rock out of the ground, and making iron. Waking up all sorts of ghosts.” That seemed to sum it up. “Florisheim is full of ghosts. They’re coming down the river, and they listen to no one except magicians.”
“You’ll understand that magic isn’t very popular with us survivors. I’m almost beginning to agree with that church of yours wanting to ban it. That’s me speaking, a merchant, one of those who married into a magical family.”
Johanna shook her head. “Banning it is not the answer. People still have magic, even if it’s fairly rare in Saardam. We will need to use magic if we are to get rid of Alexandre.”
He met her eyes, the look in them full of concern. “You really think you can do this, don’t you?”
“Not me alone.” If only she could find someone to help her. The Baroness Viktoriya called Alexandre a little man, but he had obviously struck fear in the heart of the people of Saardam before they could find out that he was little.
“Do you know anything about him?” Father asked. “He did come across the river from Florisheim, didn’t he?”
Johanna nodded. “Alexandre Trebuchet is an ex-resident of the Guentherite brotherhood’s farm in Burovia across the river from Florisheim,” Johanna explained. “A lot of princes spend time on the farm.”
“It’s said that he’s a cousin of King Leopold of Burovia.”
“He is, but I don’t think that the king has anything to do with this.”
“I don’t know. I’ve always heard that Gelre or Burovia didn’t like the influence that the Church of the Triune was holding over Saardam. Apparently, Alexandre came under cover on the Burovian ship that brought the prince back.”
“What about all the soldiers that Alexandre brought?”
“The ones with the bears? They are Estlander. They dress in woodland gear, but I’ve heard them talk, and they’re Estlander, from just across the border, most of them.”
“They’re mercenaries?” That was interesting. Johan Delacoeur said that this wasn’t done, that a good military campaign did not rely on hired troops. It brought the interesting possibility that these men with their bears could be bought, if enough money could be found. And if what Father said was true, and they came from Estland, maybe the name Sara Aroden—Johanna’s mother—would mean something to them.
Roald had been sitting through all this while watching silently. Now he said, “I’m not afraid of that man. He is mean to animals.”
Father gave him a strange look. “Animals?”
“He whips the horses and I’ve seen him kick a dog.”
Father frowned. “Um . . .” He met Johanna’s eyes.
“When Roald was in Burovia, he worked at the farm where Alexandre lived.” Johanna patted Roald’s hand under the table. It felt sweaty.
“Oh,” Father said. “So Your Majesty is familiar with the reasons why this man occupied our city?”
Roald gave him a blank look, but under the table his hand gripped Johanna’s. He didn’t “do” reasons, at least not ones that required understanding people.
“No one knows what Alexandre wants,” Johanna said. Well, the Baron or Kylian would know, but they weren’t going to share.
Koby came into the room and Johanna suggested that Roald go upstairs to get changed and freshen up. Koby showed him upstairs, while Johanna went with Father into the library.
“What is actually wrong with him?” Father asked. “He doesn’t strike me as dumb, but something is not right.”
“He doesn’t like people.”
Father laughed at this.
“No, I mean, for real. He doesn’t know how to talk to people. He’s fine with animals, and he knows everything about them and about history and about the Burovian king’s family tree, and he knows about birds and frogs and dragons.”
“Dragons?” Father laughed. “They’re not real.”
“That doesn’t matter to him. It’s written in a book, so it’s real to him. You name it, he knows about it. But he’s bad at talking to people.”
“So, even his stay at the farm hasn’t cured him?”
Johanna shook her head, feeling a bit uneasy and even annoyed at the word cured. Roald wasn’t sick. He was just a bit strange.
“Could he rule?”
“By himself? No. He would probably just ignore everybody and potter about the rose garden every day.”
“Does he know that this is all about him?”
“I think he does.” But sadly, Roald couldn’t do much to help retake Saardam for his family. If anything, he would need to stay inside a lot and he would get bored. There weren’t even any ponds to collect frogs here. There was Father’s library, of course. Although it mostly held books about strange lands and their spices.
“What are you going to do when your first child is born and is afflicted with the same condition?”
“Roald’s father wasn’t afflicted with the condition. And neither was Celine.”
“King Nicholaos was odd, in the way that he spent all his money on the church. If Alexandre came here to loot the Carmine coffers, he must have been sorely disappointed.”
Johanna felt chilled. “I thought you wanted me to marry Roald.”
“That was when the king assured me that his son was cured.”
Johanna’s cheeks flushed with anger. “Father, I think the only thing that was wrong with King Nicholaos was that he truly didn’t care about his son. Maybe he was ashamed of him. Well, I’m not ashamed to say that I care for him.”
“No, but this does make the situation more difficult.”
“Different, not more difficult. We will do the work for Roald. He just takes up the position, and we help him with what he needs to say.”
“I hope so, Johanna. It’s not a kind of position I would prefer to be in, considering the evil of the man we’re facing. He’s not going to be polite because Roald is not quite normal or you’re a nice girl. I’ve seen him burn people to death, both men and women. He has no morals and no serious rivals. You would need a magician to defeat him.” His eyes met Johanna’s, as if he knew that they were lacking in the magician department.
If only Loesie were a bit more cooperat
ive. Johanna understood why she was hesitant to use her magic, but would she still refuse to help if there was no one else? If it meant Alexandre would win?
After Johanna had said goodnight to Father, she went down into the basement to find Loesie.
But Loesie was not at the table in the kitchen. She was not in any of the servants’ rooms. Johanna asked Nellie, who sat combing her hair on her bed, but she hadn’t seen Loesie since they had shared the meal in the kitchen.
Koby came into the hallway from the laundry, her cheeks red from the cold.
“The witch?” she said when Johanna asked. “She left. She says she knows when she isn’t welcome.”
“Left?” Where to?
“Yes, out the door.”
“Oh, that is nonsense,” Johanna said. “She sat at the table at Duke Lothar’s castle.”
After all this time together, she had to admit that she still didn’t understand why Loesie would go like this. At first she had thought it was because of the spell, but she was beginning to think that this was just Loesie.
Loesie didn’t want to be included, just so that she could go on complaining that she wasn’t included.
Great. Now what?
Then another thought: the sea cow barn. She had told the other people from the Prosperity to meet there if any of them found themselves without family and without a home.
Not only should she check the barn for them, but it was probably where Loesie would be. She often used to sleep there when she came to the markets with her grandma, too.
Chapter 9
* * *
JOHANNA WAS so tired that she felt she could sleep for a week, but she dressed in her outdoor clothes and dragged her weary limbs back into the cold to look for Loesie.
An icy wind had come up that whipped leaves through the street and prised its cold fingers through the gaps in her clothing. Johanna pulled both sides of her cloak together, shivering, wishing she could be inside by the fire.
And yet, despite the destruction and misery that people obviously suffered here, she was glad that she was in Saardam and no longer in a wet field in Florisheim. The combination of rising water and the coming winter would have been utterly miserable. The nosy baroness would have made things worse. Now that she looked back on it, the baroness had been trying to pull Johanna and Roald into her influence. The woman had to know at least some of the things that her son was up to.