The crew had dispersed to their duties, leaving Arent to stare at the symbol already being washed away in the rain.
The captain had ordered the sail inspected for holes and loose stitching, but nothing had been found and the sheet had been declared wind-worthy. If anybody else was troubled by the symbol, they gave no indication. Most seemed to think it was the result of some strange jest, or an accident in storage.
Arent ran a troubled finger across his scar. He had to stare to see it, as it was hidden beneath a dozen other worse injuries. He’d received it as a boy, not long after the first hairs had sprouted on his chin. He’d gone hunting with his father, the family expecting them back that evening, as normal. Three days later, a merchant caravan had found Arent wandering alone on the road. His wrist was badly gouged and he was sodden, as if he’d fallen in a stream, though there were none nearby and it hadn’t rained. He couldn’t speak, couldn’t remember what had become of him, or of his father.
He still couldn’t.
That scar was the only thing that had returned from the forest with him. For years, it had been his shame. His burden. A reminder of unremembered things, including the father who’d disappeared completely.
How could it be on the sail?
‘Oi, Hayes,’ said Jacobi Drecht.
Arent turned, blinking at the guard captain, who was pressing his hat on to his head as the wind picked up across the water.
‘If you still want to talk to the captain, he’ll be in the great cabin,’ he said, the red feather in his hat twitching like an insect’s antenna. ‘I’m going over now, I’ll introduce you.’
Arent dropped his hand self-consciously behind his back, and followed Drecht across the waist towards the rear of the ship.
He felt as if he were learning to walk again.
Even at this slow pace, the Saardam was unsteady underfoot, sending him lurching from side to side. He tried to mimic Drecht, who was on the balls of his feet, anticipating the movement of the ship and balancing himself accordingly.
That’s how he’ll fight, thought Arent. Light-footed, circling. Never stopping. You’d swing at where he’d been, while he put his sword where you would be.
Arent was lucky the guard captain hadn’t run him through.
Luck. He hated that word. It was an admission, not an explanation. It was what you depended on when good sense and skill deserted you.
He’d been lucky a lot recently.
These last few years he’d started making mistakes, seeing things too late. As he got older, he was getting slower. For the first time in his life, he felt the weight of his body, like a bag of rocks he couldn’t put down. Near misses were getting nearer, close calls closer. One day soon, he wouldn’t see his killer’s feet, wouldn’t hear their shuffling or catch their shadow drawing up the wall.
Death kept flipping a coin and Arent kept taking the odds. Seemed like madness, even to him.
He should have quit a long time ago, but he didn’t trust anybody else to protect Sammy. That pride seemed ridiculous now. Sammy was in a cell aboard an imperilled ship and Arent had nearly got himself killed before they’d even left Batavia.
‘Shouldn’t have reacted the way I did earlier,’ said Arent, catching hold of a rope to steady himself. ‘Put you in a bad position with your men. I’m sorry for that.’
Drecht’s eyebrows reached for each other in thought.
‘You did right by Pipps,’ he said, at last. ‘Did what you were paid to do. But it’s my duty to protect the governor general and his family, and I can’t do that without the loyalty of these musketeers. Put me in that position again and I’ll have to kill you. I can’t seem weak, because they won’t follow me. You understand that?’
‘I do.’
Drecht nodded, the matter settled.
They passed through a large arch into the compartment under the half deck. It was the width of the ship and ran back like a cave. Hammocks were strung wall to ceiling on the starboard side, curtains hanging between them for privacy.
Arent was berthed in the one closest to the helm, a small, gloomy room where the whipstaffs working the rudders finally emerged after their long journey through the ship. Having set their course, the helmsman was now squatting on the floor with his mate, rolling dice for ale rations.
‘How do you know the captain?’ asked Arent.
‘Governor General Haan’s sailed aboard the Saardam a couple of times before,’ he said, puffing on his pipe. ‘Crauwels has a flatterer’s tongue and managed to put himself the right side of him, which aint a feat most manage. That’s why he chose this ship to sail home on.’
Drecht ducked through the door into the great cabin, leaving Arent to stare at it in dismay.
The doorway was half his size.
‘Should I fetch a saw?’ asked Drecht, as Arent contorted his huge frame through the gap.
After the dim helm, it took his eyes a moment to adjust to the dazzling glare of the great cabin. It was aptly named, for it was the largest room on the Saardam outside of the cargo hold. The whitewashed walls were bowed and the ceiling beamed, four lattice windows revealing the other six ships in the fleet spread out behind them, sails billowing.
A huge table took up most of the room, its surface covered in scrolls, ledgers and manifests. A navigational chart had been unrolled over the top, the four corners pinned down by an astrolabe, a compass, a dagger and a quadrant.
Crauwels was using the chart to plot a course. His jacket was folded neatly over the back of a nearby chair, revealing a crisp cotton shirt, clean enough to suggest it was new from the tailor that day. As with the rest of his attire, it was expensive.
Arent couldn’t make sense of it. Sailing was dirty work. Ships were kept afloat by tar and rust and grime. Clothing was sweated through, then stained, then torn. Most officers wore their clothes to rags, replacing them grudgingly. After all, why waste coin on finery, when it wouldn’t survive the voyage? Only nobles were so frivolous, but no noble would ever lower themselves to this profession. Or any profession, come to think of it.
The dwarf Arent had seen on deck, directing the passengers to their berths, was now standing on a chair, his hands pressed flat on the table, either side of a ledger which described the state of the ship’s stores. His downturned mouth and furrowed brow suggested it made for ill reading. He tapped the captain’s arm, drawing his attention to the source of his displeasure.
‘The dwarf is our first mate, Isaack Larme,’ whispered Drecht, following Arent’s stare. ‘It’s his job to manage the crew, which means he’s got a vile temper, so stay away if you can.’
Crauwels glanced up from the ledger as they entered, then immediately turned his attention to the chief merchant, Reynier van Schooten, who was slumped in a chair with his feet on another, drinking from a jug of wine. His jewelled hand lay across his round belly, which resembled a rock that had rolled into a ravine.
‘Tell me how I’m feeding three hundred souls when we left port with provisions for one hundred fifty,’ demanded Crauwels.
‘The Leeuwarden has taken on extra supplies,’ said Van Schooten lazily, his voice already slurred with drink. ‘Once we consume ours, we’ll have space to bring them aboard.’
‘What happens if we lose sight of the Leeuwarden?’ asked the first mate in a thick Germanic accent that immediately put Arent in mind of cold winters and deep forests.
‘We call out very loudly?’ suggested Van Schooten.
‘Now’s not the –’
‘We’ll ration and resupply at the Cape,’ interrupted Van Schooten, scratching his long nose.
‘Half rations?’ asked Crauwels, dragging another ledger in front of him that listed the victuals in their hold.