‘He was always talking?’ Sara frowned. ‘When I met Bosey, he was missing his tongue.’
For the first time, the carpenter appeared ashamed. ‘Wyck did that,’ he said quietly. ‘Cut it out about a month back. Said he was sick of listening to him squawk. He did it on the waist of the ship. Made us hold him down.’
Sara felt a great swell of pity. ‘Did the captain punish him?’
‘Captain didn’t see, nobody saw. And nobody will say anything against Wyck. Even Bosey wouldn’t.’
Sara was beginning to get an understanding of how life worked on an Indiaman.
‘If you held him down, I’m assuming he didn’t have leprosy,’ she said.
‘Leprosy?’ The boy shivered with disgust. ‘Aint no lepers allowed on an Indiaman. Could have got it after we docked. Once we’re in port, Captain lets us come and go as we like. Most of us took our leave in Batavia, but Bosey hid away on the ship after we took his tongue, kept to himself.’
‘Before his lost his tongue, did Bosey say anything else about this bargain he’d struck, or who it was with?’ asked Sara.
The carpenter shook his head, obviously desperate to have the questions over with. ‘Only that it was the easiest coin he ever made,’ he said. ‘Few favours here and there. When we’d ask what they were, he’d smile this horrible little smile and say “Laxagarr”.’
‘Laxagarr,’ repeated Sara, confounded. She could speak Latin, French and Flemish fluently, but she’d never heard a word like that one.
‘What does it mean?’
The carpenter shrugged, clearly disturbed by the memory. ‘I don’t know, none of us did. Bosey was Nornish, so it was probably something from his own tongue, but the way he said it … it scared us.’
‘Does anybody on the ship speak Nornish?’ she asked.
The carpenter laughed grimly. ‘Only the boatswain. Only Johannes Wyck, and it’ll take a lot more than three guilders to make him talk to you.’
10
Arent had barely stepped out of the sailmaker’s cabin when a bell rang amidships, the dwarf standing on a stool to work the clapper.
‘Up, you dogs!’ he hollered, spittle flying from his lips. ‘Up on deck, all of you.’
Hatches burst open, sailors swarming up from below decks like rats fleeing a fire. Clogging the waist, they clambered over and atop one another, scurrying up the rigging and sitting on the railings, throwing themselves on to any available lap, bringing laughter and shoving.
Arent was pushed back towards the bow of the ship, until he was jammed against the very door he’d just walked out of, the air growing thick with the smell of sweat and ale and sawdust.
Guard Captain Jacobi Drecht flicked the brim of his hat, welcoming him back.
He hadn’t moved, except to lean against the wall, one sole flat against it, foul smoke rising from a carved wooden pipe gripped between his teeth. The sabre, which only moments ago had been pressed to Arent’s chest, was propped up beside him, like a friend keeping him company.
‘What’s happening?’ asked Arent.
Drecht removed his pipe, scratching the corner of his lip with his thumb. Between that large hat and the bird’s nest of his blond beard, his squinting eyes were surprisingly blue in the sunlight.
‘This is a ritual of Captain Crauwels,’ said Drecht, thrusting his chin towards the quarter deck, where a squat man with square shoulders and thick legs stood with his hands folded behind his back. A turned-down mouth suggested a grim disposition.
‘That’s the captain?’ said Arent, surprised. He was better dressed than many generals Arent had met. ‘Pretty as a predikant’s wife, isn’t he? What’s he doing sailing an Indiaman? He could sell his wardrobe and retire comfortably.’
‘You always this full of questions?’ asked Drecht, looking at him askew.
Arent grunted, annoyed at being revealed so easily. This constant curiosity was Sammy’s doing. It happened to everybody who spent time with him.
He changed them.
He changed the way they thought.
Arent had been a mercenary for eighteen years before becoming Sammy’s bodyguard. Back then, his only concern had been with sabre and shot and whatever was trying to imminently kill him. He wasn’t one to fret idly; he couldn’t afford it. The mercenary who saw the spear, then thought about it too long, ended up with half of it buried in his chest. Nowadays, he’d see the spear, wonder who made it, how it had come to be in the soldier’s hands, who the soldier was, why he was there … on and on and on. It was a wretched gift, that had left him neither one thing nor the other.
Crauwels swept his gaze across the assembled crew, taking in every detail of every man under his scrutiny.
Rain pattered around them.
One by one, conversations were snuffed out, until there was only the slap of waves and the screech of birds circling above.
He left it a second more, letting the silence congeal.
‘Every man aboard this ship has cause to see land again,’ he said, his voice rich and deep. ‘Mayhap it’s a waiting family, mayhap it’s a favourite brothel or just an empty purse as needs filling.’
Subdued laughter met the declaration.
‘To see our homes, to fill our purses, to draw one more breath, we must keep this ship afloat,’ he continued, placing both hands flat on the railing before him. ‘There’s plenty as would see it otherwise. Pirates will stalk us, storms will lash us and this damn restless sea will try to deliver us into the rocks.’
The crew murmured fervently, standing a little straighter.
‘Trust in this, if you trust in nothing else.’ Crauwels raised his voice. ‘Behind every bastard there’ll always be another bastard, and to get ourselves home, to wrap our hands around whatever’s waiting there, we’ll need to be bigger bastards than they are.’ The crew cheered, his words spreading like flame. ‘If pirates attack us, they’ll live long enough to see their comrades slaughtered and their ship brought under our flag. A storm’s naught but wind in our sails, and we’ll ride whatever waves bear down on us all the way back to Amsterdam.’
Cheers rang out as the sandglass was tipped and a solitary bell rang, scattering the sailors to their labours. Four burly men began turning the capstan wheel, the mechanism screeching as they hoisted the Saardam’s three anchors off the ocean floor. A course and speed were ordered, the instruction handed down from the captain, to the first mate, to the helm.
Finally, the mainsail was unfurled, good cheer turning to shock.
Rippling in the wind, on the great white expanse, an eye with a tail had been drawn in ash.
11
All eyes were on the symbol on the sail, so nobody saw Creesjie Jens grip the railing of the quarterdeck, the colour draining out of her cheeks.
Nobody saw Sander Kers close the huge book held in Isabel’s hands, hiding the picture of the eye drawn there.
Nobody saw the boatswain, Johannes Wyck, touch his eyepatch in memory.
And nobody saw Arent stare incredulously at the scar on his wrist, which was exactly the same shape as the mark on the sail.
12
Captain Crauwels bellowed instructions down to the helmsman, who was sighting their course through a small window in the helm, setting the rudders by adjusting the whipstaffs. Slowly, like an ox dragging a plough across a field, the Saardam picked up speed, bouncing over the waves, sea spray splashing on to the deck.