by Patty Jansen
Now if only she could understand why Loesie kept running away.
The markets lay deserted in the gathering darkness, the produce sold or brought inside, the stallholders gone home. The only house where there was light behind the windows was the mayor’s, but the queues had gone, even if people in those queues had left little markers—a piece of wood or stone with a name scrawled across it—to remind others of their position.
She walked across the open wasteland of the markets, where the cloth covering the few meagre stalls flapped in the squally breeze.
During the day, she hadn’t noticed that in one of the side streets so many houses had been destroyed that it offered a view of the palace gates. Curious, Johanna turned into the street.
On the night of the ball, she had gone through the main gate with Father in the coach to line up in the forecourt at the bottom of the palace steps. She remembered all the noble women in pretty dresses tut-tutting about her presence. This was also where, after the ball, she had last seen Octavio Nieland looking for his parents and palace guards corralling people into coaches. Panicked horses. Creatures made out of fire gambolling over the city’s roofs. In the dying daylight, there was no sign of the many bodies that had littered the ground. No sign of the broken coaches and the dead horses.
The gates were closed and held shut with a chain. Johanna pushed, but there was a sturdy lock on the chain.
She peered through the bars. Most of the building was made of stone, and stood far enough away from the rest of town to have remained untouched by the inferno that had flattened the houses around it.
To the right, Queen Cygna’s rose garden had been desecrated, the wall broken, the statue of the Triune taken away. There were still drag marks over the ground.
At the palace itself, there were signs that repairs were underway. Johanna didn’t remember that the doors were blue—in fact, she was sure they used to be carmine red.
Some stacks of new stones stood to the side of the steps, but piles of leaves had collected between them, so clearly Alexandre had put his efforts into other projects.
It’s ours.
No matter the state of the palace, Roald should live in it. This building belonged to Roald and this filthy man did not have the right to touch it, not even to paint the doors blue. She and Roald would live in the palace again, and the children would hold parties in the rose garden, with the statue of the Triune.
She clutched the bars of the gate until the metal became too cold for her hands. Then she continued through the ruined streets to the harbour.
The Brouwer Company office on the southern end of the quay had sustained limited damage in the fire, but Father had money and people who would work for him and the roof had since been repaired.
All the buildings on the western side of the harbour had not been so lucky. Most were no more than soot-stained ruins, barely recognisable shells of their former selves. Stacks of bricks stood on the quay, and the foundations for a couple of walls had been built. By the way the walls surrounded an entire block where there used to be two or three buildings, Johanna judged that this was more than a simple rebuilding of the warehouses that used to stand here. The builders had also taken blocks out of the quay and dug out a mooring area set back from the quay wall. Stacks of stone blocks stood on either side. They had pulled up much of the quay’s paving as well. What was going on here?
A pocket of the buildings on the eastern side of the harbour still stood, including, by stroke of luck, the king’s armoury. The fact that it hadn’t exploded was probably responsible for the relatively high survival rate of buildings in this area.
The Brouwer Company’s sea-cow barn, two warehouses down from the armoury, had also been spared most of the destruction. Some of the roof tiles had come off and lay haphazardly on the lower roof. One of the doors had blown off its hinges and the other had a big burnt patch in one corner. The roof would leak and the weather would have played havoc with the harnesses and tools stored inside, but the main building was still intact. Without either the Lady Sara or Lady Davida moored in front, it looked empty.
Johanna walked quickly along the quay and remembered the warehouse next to the barn where she had seen the mysterious men on the evening before the fire.
It was completely empty. Untouched by fire, and empty.
She wasn’t sure what to make of that. Who would have had time and ships to empty an entire warehouse after a disaster? What had been in it that needed to be taken away?
A couple of people stood in front of the sea cow barn, huddling in their cloaks.
These were the people from the Prosperity who had returned to their houses and found them destroyed and had no other place to go.
She half-expected the Delacoeurs to be there, but they must have found room at Martine’s sister’s house.
The refugees were a few young men, and Julianna Nieland, who called out, “There she is!” when Johanna came closer.
“Oh, Julianna!”
Johanna took her hands. They were icy cold.
“I can’t go back to my brother,” Julianna cried. “I can’t stay with any of my family because they will tell him. They’re all afraid of him, and I know he makes them do awful things. I don’t know what to do. I truly don’t.”
“I think you should all go back to the Lady Sara,” Johanna said.
One of the men spoke up. “We most certainly will not, lady. We will stay here with you and fight.”
“But we’re not fighting anything yet. What use are you going to be when you’re cold, hungry and ill? It’s almost winter and houses are scarce. You can’t sleep here.” They could, possibly, sleep in her house. There were several rooms in the attic as well as downstairs in the servants’ quarters that were not in use. Julianna could, at the very least, sleep in the spare room on the top floor.
But the LaFontaine family might drop in and find out about these houseguests, and that would be terrible for all concerned. “For now, it would be best if you went back to the Prosperity, at least for tonight.”
“In the dark?” one of the men said. His name was Jakob, Johanna remembered, and he was the son of a baker.
“The most important thing is that no one discovers that we’re back.” But she felt horrible about her own safe house and nice bed. “You can sleep in the barn.” But the roof leaked.
“I know a better place where we can stay for the night,” another young man said. “It will smell of horses, but it will be dry.”
That was likely to be in the east harbour, where the newer warehouses stood. There was a horse stable in that area. She nodded agreement. “I’ll send someone if we have something better for you.”
They said that they would wait, but as the group walked down the quay, Julianna looked so forlorn that Johanna resolved to find a place for her as soon as she could.
She went inside the barn. It took a while for her eyes to get used to the intense darkness, but a crawling sensation crept over her skin. There was magic in the air. She had felt it when coming into town, too. Since when could she feel the presence of magic?
When her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, she found Loesie, as expected, huddled in her usual spot under the tool bench. She had found a disgusting blanket and had lit a small fire in a fire pot that definitely didn’t belong to Johanna’s father.
Loesie said nothing and Johanna sat down in the straw next to her. The ground was slightly damp, courtesy of the hole in the roof. The air smelled of stale smoke. It was strange to see the water so still, without the occasional snort or flipper from the sea cows breaking the surface. She hoped that the animals belonging in the Lady Davida’s team had been able to get away and had returned to their wild lives in the ocean.
Loesie came to sit next to her, silent and ghostlike. She was not as thin as she had been when they arrived at Duke Lothar’s castle, but still didn’t look healthy.
“What are you doing here? Why did you disappear?”
“You know I’ve always said that I don
’t belong with all the finery and the pretty houses and pretty dresses.”
“But you’re my friend. You were with us in the duke’s castle. You sat at his table.”
“Yes, but I had no choice. I don’t like all the pretty things. I’m not pretty and all that stuff makes me nervous.”
Yes, Loesie was right. She had always been like this. She loved to point out that she was different. She enjoyed being called a witch and scaring boys. That was why Johanna liked her. Maybe she should just accept it. “At least stay here and come to the house for decent meals.”
“That cook doesn’t like me.”
No, Koby didn’t, and Johanna understood why, but still didn’t like it. “We’ll get the roof fixed for you.” It was a lame promise because there was so much that needed doing first, and Loesie continued to say nothing.
Johanna wished she could bring back Loesie’s family. She used to talk about “my ma” and laughed at her mother who was silly and didn’t know anything about magic. Similarly with Annette, the girl who lived next door and who, according to Loesie, was easily impressed, very girly and gullible. Loesie poked fun at them. The neighbours weren’t family, but up there in the little pocket of land where the Rede River branched off from the Saar River, they might as well be, because there were no other farms for miles.
And Loesie was sad and lonely. She could no longer use her magic for fun because magic had suddenly become dangerous, and she wasn’t suited to playing games of influence and power.
Johanna didn’t know how to help her.
She was about to get up when Loesie said, “It was really kind of you to take me all the way up the river. I got to see a castle and wear fancy dresses and see real magic.” Never mind that it hadn’t been a leisurely trip and it was not as if they’d had any choice. “You’re one of the few people who are decent to me and you’ve done for me what I don’t deserve.”
“I think you do. I think you’re lonely and you want people around you more than you let out.” And it must be terrible for her to have lost her entire family.
“No, I don’t.”
The intensity in her expression chilled Johanna. She shivered and clamped her arms around herself.
“When I came to the markets that day, I knew that this was about to happen. Well, not exactly this, but I knew that something was going to happen. I knew that the baron’s son was behind it. I saw him crossing the river on a water horse. He came to the farm and bought dinner from my grandpa. The neighbour’s daughter Annette fancied him. I was jealous and tried to scare her. But he . . . did bad things to her.”
“Did you see that?”
“The wood told me. Annette was a beautiful untouched young woman. He threw her in the grass and defiled her. You remember that woman’s scream you heard in the basket I gave you? That was her voice. When he finished with her, and she lay broken and crying in the mud, he changed her into a tree, and then he tried to do the same with me. He only kissed me, he didn’t do any of the other stuff he did to Annette. But the kiss took my voice right away. And he changed my family into trees, too. He said I had to stay on the farm, but I got some magic on me, so I got away. The spell he put on me was with me the whole way.”
“The only thing he did was kiss you?” Johanna felt sick.
“Yes. Proper kissing, on the mouth.”
“Did you feel anything after he did that?”
Loesie gave her a wide-eyed look. “Well, yeah. I was jealous of Annette, because he fancied her. He was the biggest spunk that had ever set foot on our farm, so when he came up and kissed me, I felt all sorts of things that city folk say is inappropriate for a woman to feel. But he could have ripped the clothes off me and I wouldn’t have said a peep.”
The blood rose to Johanna’s cheeks. She didn’t quite ask for that frank an admission. “I meant did you feel the spell when he kissed you?”
By the Triune, could she have been betraying Roald from the moment she left the palace? Was that how Sylvan had known where she was? Hadn’t he said something about feeling magic in the air? She’d thought he was talking about Loesie.
“Only that I couldn’t speak. All the other stuff, like that I had fits, only came later.”
Johanna’s stomach roiled.
She tried to remember the night that she’d had dinner with Kylian in the Guentherite farmhouse. She had seen him try to perform necromancy. Why hadn’t she refused his hospitality? What actually happened after dinner? And why didn’t she remember? Had he kissed her again? Had he done “other things”?
Loesie continued, but Johanna only heard her through the roaring of blood in her ears. “While we were travelling, the spell he had put on me was getting worse and worse. Then we got to the duke’s castle and he and you broke the spell but I still couldn’t tell you. Every time I wanted to, I thought of something else. Because part of him was still inside me. Still is. That’s why I can’t sleep in your pretty house with your nice family. That’s why I don’t want to have anything to do with magic, and why I can’t be your court magician. Why I tried to kill myself. I’m afraid I’ll betray you. Maybe I already have.”
“You said part of him is inside me. What do you mean? Did he . . . did he make you with child?”
“No. I said, far as I know, he didn’t touch me in that way.”
As far as you know? Johanna nodded, trying to look merely interested, trying her best to swallow down sickness. “Why can you tell me only now?”
“I don’t know. Maybe we’re far enough away from him that he doesn’t have influence over me anymore. Maybe something else has changed. Maybe now that you’re here close to his friend the Fire Wizard, he doesn’t need me anymore.”
All of a sudden Johanna could no longer listen or sit still. She ran out of the barn. Stood on the quay not knowing where to go or what to do. Her stomach roiled. She was dizzy. Her mouth flooded with saliva. She was going to be sick, or faint, or both.
Be sick first. She dropped to her knees and vomited, with great gasps. Again and again until there was nothing left inside her, but she dry-retched and couldn’t breathe. She saw black spots in her vision. She was going to die.
“That’s how it started with me, too,” Loesie commented behind her.
Well, that’s very helpful, thanks.
Johanna felt better after that. Come to think of it, she’d felt a bit off the last few days. She had probably caught something.
Chapter 10
* * *
JOHANNA WALKED home in the dark. She didn’t see any guards, but there were some people in the street in front of the house so she felt her way through the back yard and came into the entrance to the back of the house. Koby sat in the kitchen, talking to a young man who had to be the new groundsman.
Koby’s eyes widened. “Oh my goodness, Mistress Johanna, what have you done to yourself?”
Johanna looked down. Her dress had acquired black smudges and her hands were black, too. With the heat of the fire and the smell of cooking, it was stuffy in the kitchen and her dizziness returned.
“I . . . didn’t feel so well,” Johanna managed to say before collapsing in a chair. Black spots danced in her vision.
“Oh no, certainly, I can see that. Let us take those dirty things off and get you tucked into bed.”
“Where is Roald?” Johanna asked weakly. She let Koby take off her cloak.
“He was in the library the last time I saw him.”
Of course, where else?
The young man said, “I’ll let him know that you’re back. Your father was a little bit worried, and the prince got worried, too. Your father said you should not have gone out alone, and I agree. It’s not safe on the streets at night.”
“Nothing about what we will be doing is going to be safe.”
“Maybe not, but make it as safe as possible, mistress.”
He left the kitchen.
“What is his name again?” Johanna asked.
“Sebastian. I thought you’d been introduced.”
“Where did you go at this time of the day, mistress?”
“I went to the barn. We had agreed to meet people whose houses had been burned and had nowhere to stay there. I talked to Loesie.” The full horror of what Loesie had said came back to her.
“You didn’t see Nellie?”
“No. Was I supposed to?”
“She went to see her family.”
“Are they all right?”
“Alive, yes, but not all right. Their house was burned and her father was injured and he’s very sick. Probably won’t make it through the winter.”
Poor Nellie. “But she will come back here, won’t she?”
“I assume she will be back tomorrow. But come on now. Do you want some bread before going to bed? I made it fresh.”
Johanna shook her head. Normally she loved the warm bread, but right now, she thought she was going to be sick again.
“You do look very pale, mistress. You’re not going to catch an illness, are you?”
“I don’t know. I think I caught something.”
“Let’s take you to bed, then. Come on, let me take your arm.”
Koby helped Johanna up. Now that she was used to the stuffy air, she felt fine, if very tired. They walked through the basement hallway, up the stairs to the ground floor. The sound of male voices drifted from the library.
“. . . and Rinius has written a few more works, which are extremely rare,” Father was saying.
Roald said, “I have read his Theories of The Skies in the monastery’s library. It was a poor copy, but it’s the only place I have ever seen one.”
“Is it really as controversial as they say?”