Trembling with fear, Arent had clutched his mother for protection, only to find her staring at him with the same loathing.
That night he’d crept out of their home in the dead of night and carved the shape of his scar on to the villager’s door. He couldn’t remember why he’d done it, or what dark impulse had inspired him. Nobody would have recognised the mark, but there was something malevolent about it, he’d thought. It frightened him, so he assumed it would frighten others.
The next morning it was the marked villager who was being shunned, his denials for naught. The devil came to the door of those who invited him, they claimed.
Thrilled by his victory, Arent crept out the next night, and the next, carving the symbol on the door of anybody who’d ever offended him, watching as they became the targets of suspicion and fear. It was such a small thing, the only power he had, the only revenge he could summon.
The symbol was a jest, but the villagers poured their terror into it, giving it life. Before long they burnt any house branded by the mark, driving its occupants out of the village. Terrified of what he’d created, Arent stopped his nocturnal visits, but the mark kept appearing, settling old feuds and inspiring new ones. For months, the village tore itself apart under the weight of its grudges, people accusing and being accused until, finally, they found somebody to blame.
Old Tom.
Arent’s thoughts strained. Was Old Tom a leper? Was that why they all had hated him?
He couldn’t remember.
It didn’t matter. Unlike Arent, Old Tom was a poor man without powerful kin, or walls to hide behind. He certainly wasn’t a demon, though he’d always been strange, sitting in the same spot in the market, come rain, sun or snow, begging for alms. Nothing he said made sense, but most had thought him harmless.
One day a mob circled him. A little boy had disappeared, and his friends claimed Old Tom had led him away. The villagers hurled accusations and demanded a confession. When he didn’t provide it – when he couldn’t – they beat him to death.
Even the children joined in.
The next day, the symbols stopped appearing.
The villagers congratulated themselves on driving the devil from their homes and went back to smiling and laughing with their neighbours, as if nothing had happened.
Arent’s grandfather, Casper van den Berg, had arrived in his carriage a week later. He removed Arent from his mother’s care, taking him back to his estate in Frisia on the other side of the Provinces. Casper claimed it was because his five sons had all disappointed him and he needed an heir. They both knew it was because Arent’s mother had summoned him. She knew the truth about the scar and the marks he’d drawn on the doors.
She was afraid of him.
‘After you were taken to Frisia, we heard tales of that mark spreading across the Provinces.’ The governor general touched the parchment to the candle flame and watched the foul thing burn. ‘Woodcutters noticed it first, etched in the trees they were felling. Then it began appearing in villages and, finally, carved into the bodies of dead rabbits and pigs. Wherever it appeared, some calamity followed. Crops were blighted, calves delivered stillborn. Children disappeared, never to be seen again. It went on for almost a year, until mobs started attacking the houses of the noble families who owned the land, accusing them of conspiring with dark forces.’
As the flame reached his fingertips, the governor general threw the scrap of parchment out of the porthole and into the sea.
‘Why didn’t you tell me any of this?’ demanded Arent, staring at his scar. It was barely visible, but he could feel it underneath, trying to dig its way out.
‘You were young.’ There was a shine to his face, an old fear taking hold again. ‘It wasn’t your burden to carry. We assumed one of the mark’s foul servants had come upon you in the woods, killed your father and branded you in some perverse ritual, but you showed no ill effects. Then we heard a witchfinder had chased the mark over from England, where his order had been battling it for years. He claimed it was a devil’s work and set to scouring the land of its followers, slaughtering the lepers and burning the witches who’d appeared in its wake.’
Lepers, thought Arent. Like Bosey.
‘The pyres burnt across Frisia for months, until it was finally banished,’ continued his uncle. ‘Your grandfather was worried the witchfinder would mistake you for one of its servants, so he hid you away.’ A dark shadow passed across his face, the wine trembling in his hand. ‘That was a terrible time. The devil twisted itself tight around the great and powerful, leading them into perversity. A few of the old families couldn’t be saved. They were already too enthralled by its evil.’
Lost in thought, the governor general’s fingernails rapped the side of his mug. They were buffed to points, a style long out of fashion and somehow unsettling. They looked like talons, thought Arent. As if his uncle were slowly transforming into the bird of prey he’d always resembled.
‘Arent, there’s something else you should know. According to the witchfinder, the devil called itself Old Tom.’
Arent’s legs felt weak beneath him, and he had to steady himself against the desk.
‘Old Tom was a beggar,’ he protested. ‘The villagers murdered him.’
‘Or maybe they found the right creature by accident. If you throw enough stones, occasionally you hit somebody deserving.’ The governor general shook his head. ‘Whatever the truth, those events were almost thirty years ago, why would the mark appear again now? Half a world away?’ He turned his dark eyes upon Arent. ‘Do you know my mistress, Creesjie Jens?’
Arent shook his head, confused at this new line of questioning.
‘Her last husband was the witchfinder who saved the Provinces. The man we hid you from. It’s through him I came to know Creesjie. If he confided in her about his work, she may know more about Old Tom, why it threatens this ship and what that mark on your wrist represents.’
‘If you believe there’s some threat, wouldn’t it be wisest to return to Batavia?’
‘Retreat, you mean?’ The governor general snorted his contempt for the idea. ‘There are almost three thousand souls in Batavia and fewer than three hundred aboard this ship. If Old Tom is here, it will be trapped. Do this for me, Arent. Any resource’ – he spotted Arent’s objection – ‘aside from Pipps shall be yours.’
‘I can’t do what he does.’
‘You stormed a stronghold to save me from the Spanish army,’ balked the governor general.
‘I didn’t go there expecting to succeed; I went there knowing I would die.’
‘Then why go at all?’
‘Because I couldn’t have lived with the guilt of not having tried.’
Overcome by the weight of love he bore his nephew, the governor general turned away to disguise it. ‘I never should have taught you about Charlemagne when you were a boy,’ he said. ‘It’s rotted your mind.’
Uncomfortable around any feeling that didn’t end in profit, he went to his table and sifted through some papers. ‘You’ve served Pipps for five years,’ he said, once his documents were thoroughly reordered. ‘Surely, you’ve observed his method.’
‘Aye, and I’ve observed squirrels running up trees, but I can’t do that either. If you want to save this ship, you need to free Sammy.’
‘I know I’m not your uncle by blood, but I feel our kinship keenly. I’ve watched you grow up, and I know your capabilities. You were your grandfather’s heir, chosen above his own five sons and seven grandsons. He did not offer you that honour because you were stupid.’
‘Sammy Pipps isn’t simply clever,’ argued Arent. ‘He can lift up the edges of the world and peek beneath. He has a gift I’ll never understand. Believe me, I’ve tried.’