Fire Wizard

by Patty Jansen

  The people in the queue again started yelling their pleas at him.

  An old woman fell to her knees. “Please, my son is ill and I have no way to feed him. Please, lord, have mercy.”

  Johanna had to look away. It was embarrassing to see citizens lower themselves to this level.

  Alexandre walked past the row. At the bottom of the stairs, he said something to one of his guard companions. The man went to Octavio. He said something, bowed and Octavio opened the lid. He lifted out a bag that looked like it contained potatoes.

  He gave it to the guard, who put this on the ground in between the chest and the row of waiting people. As soon as he stepped back, a number of the closest people in the queue ran for it. Two men reached the bag at the same time and were pulling both ends. A woman was hitting one of the men on the head. The queue dissolved. Everyone was screaming. People gathered to watch, blocking Johanna’s view. Eventually one of the men came out of the melee carrying the bag on his shoulder.

  Alexandre stood at the top of the stairs, watching the spectacle. He nodded.

  Octavio gave the soldier another bag, which he placed at a different spot. The process repeated, and so it went on a few times before the chest was empty and two soldiers carried it back up the stairs and inside the house.

  Alexandre followed the men inside and the door shut.

  Johanna felt sick. That was the worst, most revolting treatment of unfortunate people she had seen in her life, and Octavio was just doing the man’s bidding. Why?

  The beggars in the queue went back to their places, except the ones who had scored gifts. They gathered in a group to compare their loot.

  Johanna met the eyes of a man in the queue. She had seen him before. His name was Joseph and he used to work in the Nieland warehouse. As she emerged from between the market stalls and crossed to the queue, he looked down, as if ashamed for taking part in this spectacle.

  “Why do you beg him for help?” Johanna asked. “He’s just doing this to make you dependent on him and make you look like a dumbwit.”

  “I’d rather be a dumbwit than dead, lady. Our houses were burnt and we have no food. What else are we supposed to do?”

  “Maintain your pride.”

  “We can’t eat pride. He gives us food every day, or we wouldn’t stand here waiting. We’re not grateful and don’t bow to him. We just prefer to eat and not starve.”

  “So what if I said that you could get work somewhere and you’d be paid an honest wage for what you earned? And that you could use it to buy your own food?”

  He laughed. “You mean a job, miss? There are no more jobs. The shops are gone and the merchants are gone. The warehouses are all empty. You don’t see any of that in your rich house, lady, but that’s the way it is for most of us.”

  Many in the queue had gathered around. Most of them wore many layers of clothes, no doubt a fair few stolen.

  “Do you sit here all night?”

  “Most of us have nowhere else to go.”

  “Many of the warehouses are abandoned. Why don’t you go in there?”

  “And run foul of the bears? No, thank you. We’re weak, and most of us injured.”

  “If there are no jobs, can you make your own jobs?”

  “You’re dreaming, mistress. How can we make our own jobs?”

  “What needs to be done most in this city?”

  The looked at her, puzzled.

  “We need to fix all the houses,” a young woman at his back said.

  “Precisely. So we fix up houses that are abandoned. We don’t want another fire and we don’t have much wood, so we build them from stone.”

  The man laughed. “Someone needs to pay for the stone.”

  “We make bricks from clay. There is a lot of clay around. There are brick pits. Any of you know how to make bricks?”

  A few hands went up, hesitantly.

  He still didn’t seem to be convinced. “But what about food?”

  “I know where to find food. It’s not going to be wonderful, but you can survive through winter. There are many farms upriver that lie abandoned. The farmers were killed and the cows are walking free, the barns are full of hay and the orchards full of apples. None of it is good quality, but it will get you through winter. Instead of begging, you could go out there, work the farms and make the bricks. We will ship them into town.”

  “But winter is coming.”

  “Especially now that winter is coming. You don’t want to rely on this man’s handouts anymore. Because one day, he will ask you to do something for the food, and it’s not going to be anything nice.”

  He gave her a dubious look. Oh, yes, she forgot that some of the townsfolk looked down on farmers. Loesie knew all about that.

  The young woman’s eyes were wide. “I understand what she wants. There’s a lot of folk in the country who won’t be needing their houses anymore. We fix up the houses and they’re ours.”

  “They’re farms, Dora.”

  “But they’re safe and dry.”

  “That’s exactly what I mean,” Johanna said. “You don’t need this foul man’s handouts or his help. If you go upriver, you’ll find two of our ships moored at a jetty. Tell the men who are with those ships what you’re doing. They’ll help you.”

  “Alexandre will come after us and kill us.”

  “If there are enough of you, let him try. I think he’s got enough trouble keeping people in town in line. Also, most of his guards are Estlander mercenaries. They can be bought. Find out what their currency is.”

  There were some alarmed looks at this.

  The man who had scored the potato bag had returned with wood and was now trying to make a fire. A few others helped him. A woman brought a pot and set about setting it up on piles of rubble and cooking. From the way others helped, she deduced that the people shared the spoils of Alexandre’s donations and she didn’t quite understand why the fight had been necessary.

  “Who are you, lady?” the young woman Dora asked.

  “I know who she is,” Joseph said, but the others shushed him.

  He whispered in Dora’s ear. Her eyes widened, and she curtsied.

  Joseph muttered, “Don’t do that. Guards are watching.” Then to Johanna, “You better move, mistress.”

  Johanna did. She was glad to see that when she walked away, a number of people picked up their blankets and left the queue.

  Chapter 15

  * * *

  “LOOK,” ROALD SAID when he sat down at the dinner table a few days later. He produced a sheet of paper with a drawing of some magical creature on it. The thing looked like a snake, but it had wings. He had drawn exquisite scales and featherless, leathery wings. “This is a fire dragon. It is a magical creature of the east.”

  Father took the drawing from him, put in his eyeglass and studied it. “You say this creature was at the site of the Guentherite Abbot’s summer residence?”

  “I didn’t actually see it, but they did.”

  Johanna said, “There was only one man who said he’d seen it, and there were no other witnesses. He could have seen anything.” Seriously, did they have to talk about this now? Were there no more important things to discuss?

  “He said a fire dragon,” Roald said. “I was there, I heard it.”

  “Yes, but how would he know what a fire dragon looked like if he’d never seen one before?”

  Roald frowned at her. “It’s in the book I read.”

  “What if he hasn’t read the book?”

  He frowned in a how-can-he-not-have-read-the-book way.

  Father said, “The fire dragons are said to have been brought by the eastern traders sometimes. I’ve never seen any, but I’ve met eastern traders. I bought the chair that you’ve been using in the kitchen off them. There are many rumours that they want to come here and conduct trade with us. They wouldn’t attack us with fire dragons if they wanted to trade.”

  That was true; and for all the talk there had been about eastern traders, one had
yet to turn up.

  “Do they have books?” Roald asked.

  “I suspect they do, but we probably won’t be able to read them.”

  Johanna heaved a sigh. She didn’t have the patience for this type of discussion right now, so she changed the subject. “Well, we’re going into the palace tonight to retrieve your father’s crown and staff.”

  Father gave her a sharp look. “Are you sure you’re not going to run into any patrols?”

  “No, but I’m the only one who knows where they are.”

  “It’s dangerous, Johanna.”

  “I know, but without the crown we have no king.”

  She looked at Roald, but it was pointless getting angry at him. It was not as if he would be any use if he came anyway. He would be more likely to give them away. Let him play with his dragons.

  He had the book open on the table next to him, running his finger along the line as he read. “It says that fire dragons are not always dangerous.”

  “If any eastern traders had come up the river, we would have seen them,” she said, sounding more frustrated than she should. “Whatever happened at the Guentherite Abbot’s summer residence, it was a not a fire dragon. It could have been something magical, but I think it’s more likely that one of their mysterious machines caught fire. If the black rock burns so well, it might have made quite a show.”

  “But he said it was a fire dragon,” Roald protested.

  “He might have been wrong. He might have heard about fire dragons and might have thought that this was one.”

  Arguing about it was doubly pointless. Roald did not understand the concept of lies or untruths.

  “Anyway, I have to go.” Johanna rose from the table and gave Father a kiss at the top of his forehead. “Don’t look so worried. I’ll be back.”

  Johanna went upstairs. Earlier in the week, she had found some of Father’s old work clothes in the wardrobe in the hallway. The trousers were too big but she tied them with a rope. The jacket was also too big, and heavy, but it was warm. She wound a scarf around her neck and pulled one section over her nose and mouth and another across her forehead before putting on the cloak and pulling the hood up. The mirror showed her a figure of undetermined gender, with just the eyes showing in the shadow of the cloak.

  Like this, she went downstairs where she found her boots. Father and Roald’s voices drifted from the dining room. They were still talking about dragons.

  Johanna went down to the basement and out through the back door. It was just as well that they had chosen the night of the new moon, because it was completely cloudless. The night was still and there would probably be frost tonight.

  Johanna saw no guards, no soldiers and no sign of life except a cat that gave her a fright when it ran off from a dark spot close to her with a protesting mrrreeeooow!

  The party of helpers waited at the boatshed in East Harbour where Johanna had first been to the service. There were nine of them, including Master Willems, who had insisted on coming. They all wore dark clothing and head coverings and in the darkness, they were all just shapes and Johanna couldn’t begin to distinguish who was who. They had three storm lamps, but they met in darkness to save oil for when they were in the palace.

  They decided to split up because that would draw less attention. Master Willems went with Johanna’s group. Apparently, some other men had already taken the ladder to a nearby hiding place and needed to retrieve it. They also had two storm lights which they would light once they were inside the palace garden.

  They left the warehouse, walking quietly through East Harbour so as not to draw the attention of the guard patrols with the bears. They saw a patrol once, but at a distance.

  The palace lay on a little rise directly along the river. The gardens, including the Queen’s rose garden, ran between the hillock and along the riverbank. It had its own jetty for small riverboats. A path led from the western pier of the main harbour along the bottom of the seawall. During storm tides, the water would be lapping at the stone, but normally there was a muddy beach where boys would cast out fishing lines and search for crabs and worms to use as bait. A few floating fishing sheds bobbed on their moorings. Nets hung on drying racks. The mud breathed a salty tang that came with the brackish water.

  Johanna followed the men in her group along the soft and slippery ground until they came to the back of the wall that surrounded the palace garden. The rest of the group were already waiting there. They had retrieved the ladder.

  A man placed it against the wall and climbed on top. He looked around and came back down again.

  “The land on the other side is higher than on this side. There are some bushes, and I think we can just jump into them and won’t need to use the ladder.”

  Johanna nodded. She already knew this. Kylian had done that on the night of the fires.

  The first men climbed over.

  When Johanna’s turn came, they wanted to help her, but months of climbing up and down that ladder into the Lady Sara’s hold had made her an expert in climbing ladders. She was on the wall in no time, and lowered herself into the leafless branches of the hedge that did not look like a hedge anymore.

  The rose garden was a riot of unkempt shrubs. The lawn had not been cut for months and the dead grass lay like a mat on the ground. The fountain was dry, the basin cracked, and the large statue of the Triune was gone. Deep gouges in the grass showed where it had been dragged away. Someone had vandalised the Queen’s benches.

  She remembered sitting here with Kylian while he remarked how ugly the statue was. Back then, she had thought he was saying these things just to get a reaction out of her, but it turned out that his plans were much more sinister than that.

  The men lit the storm lanterns and ran in single file towards the palace, where the smashed windows of the garden room reflected the glow from the storm lamps like jagged shards in the night.

  At the bottom of the garden steps, the grass had been dug up. There were two longitudinal mounds of dirt, and both grew a selection of weeds and daisies.

  Someone had placed a stone tile on each mound and had written something on it.

  Johanna stopped.

  “Come on, keep going,” one of the men whispered.

  “Come over here with the light,” she said.

  He did.

  The inscription on both stones was simple and crudely scratched by someone who clearly wasn’t a stonemason. The closest one said, Queen Cygna Gunhilde Savorsen Carmine and the other one King Nicholaos Carmine de Lacoeur van Leeuwen.

  Johanna knelt, and next to her, Master Willems did the same.

  “By the love of the Triune, we pray for salvation,” he said. “We pray for our king and queen and that they have been delivered from this cruel world and look upon us with smiles. We pray that the only rightful house will return to the throne and that our actions will help.”

  He rose, and Johanna did the same. He took her hand. They stood for a while, looking at the graves of their king and queen.

  Johanna was glad that someone had been here to bury them. In her heart she knew: this would once again be a beautiful, peaceful garden. The statue of the Triune would be found and brought back. The fountain would be fixed. The graves would have proper headstones and flowers. There would be roses all around, and swans in the pond. Lots of swans.

  “Come on,” one of the men said. “We need to go. I don’t want to be caught here.”

  After one last look, Johanna followed the others up the steps to the garden room.

  Chapter 16

  * * *

  THE AIR IN the palace was cold and damp. The cloying scent of stale smoke crept through the layers of Johanna’s shawl.

  Thick layers of dust had accumulated on the floor in the garden room and spiders had covered walls, ceilings and furniture in their silky webs, as if the room had lain abandoned since that night. Glass from the broken windows littered the floor and crunched underfoot. Curtains were stained from being exposed to the weather and rippe
d to shreds from catching on the shards of glass. All the fine vases that had stood along both sides of the room had been smashed. Some of the doors into the hall had deep gouges, as if someone had taken to the wood with an axe. Johanna remembered hiding here while the people in the hall next door were ruthlessly murdered.

  Shards of glass and pottery lay scattered across Celine’s grave. One of the young men stopped to read the inscription in the marble slab.

  “Across there,” Johanna whispered, pointing at the dark entrance to the ballroom. Master Willems went first, carrying the light. But he stopped suddenly a few steps into the room and muttered, “By the Holy Ghost.”

  Johanna looked past him. While someone had buried the king and queen in the garden, many of the nobles in the ballroom had not been so lucky. In between the jumble of ruined tables, rotting tablecloths and shards of glass, she counted at least five skeletons, some still with scraps of silk clothing attached. Here, too, spiders had woven the dreadful scene into an ethereal tableau.

  “By the Triune,” one of the men said. “I didn’t know there were that many spiders in the world.”

  Johanna drew the shawl up over her nose, even though the cold stifled whatever smell still lingered after all this time. She felt sick.

  They walked across the ballroom in single file. Johanna followed Master Willems with the light, picking his way through the rubble. The thick layer of dust on the floor muffled their footsteps.

  In the far corner, the roof to the main hall had caved in and starlight peeped through the gaps between the broken rafters.

  They left the ballroom through the main doors into the foyer. The doors to the palace forecourt were shut, as Johanna had already seen from outside. The foyer to the main hall was the only place where there had been some attempt at cleaning up. All the rubble and mess had been swept into a heap. A wheelbarrow still stood here, half full, with a shovel on the ground next to it, as if the workmen had been called away and never returned.