A tiny hatch led into the cargo hold behind them, the smell of spices scratching Arent’s throat as he struggled to work the locking peg to Sammy’s cell free. Finally, it creaked open, the acrid smell of vomit and excrement elbowing its way into the open air.
‘Sammy?’ coughed Arent, covering his mouth as he peered into the cell.
Shards of moonlight struck through the hatch above, revealing three empty hooks on the wall, and the lower corner of a pillar, but everything else was ink.
Something thumped and Sammy came scrambling out in a mad panic of arms and legs, desperately sucking in air. Moonlight touched his face and he hissed in pain, shielding his eyes from the glare.
Arent knelt beside him, laying a reassuring hand on his arm. Sammy’s body was quivering, and he was terribly pale, his whiskers coated in vomit.
Arent balled his fists in rage. He couldn’t leave his friend to this torment.
Sammy squinted at him through his fingers, bewildered. ‘Arent?’
‘I’m sorry I couldn’t come sooner,’ he said, handing over the jug of wine.
‘I didn’t expect you to come at all,’ replied Sammy, ripping the cork out of the jug and gulping the wine, the red liquid spilling down his chin. ‘I thought I was trapped in there for ever.’ He stopped, suddenly agitated. ‘You shouldn’t be here, Arent. If the governor general finds out –’
‘He knows,’ interrupted Arent. ‘He’s agreed to allow midnight walks, so long as I accompany you. I’m going to work on getting you daylight.’
‘How did you make him …’ Sammy frowned, confounded. ‘What did he want from you? What did you have to barter for this boon?’ His voice was rising. ‘Tell him you don’t want it. I’ll not have you indebted to a man like Jan Haan. I’d rather rot in the dark.’
‘Nothing was bartered,’ said Arent, trying to calm him. ‘There’s no debt. It was a favour.’
‘Why would he grant you such a thing?’
Arent glanced at Thyman uncomfortably, then lowered his voice. ‘Does it matter?’
Sammy stared at him suspiciously, those keen eyes narrowing as he began to burrow for Arent’s secrets.
Shaking his head, he turned his face away. Out of courtesy, he didn’t use his gifts on Arent.
From above them, the sailmaker stamped on the floor, shaking dust down from the ceiling.
‘Take your sweet nothings outside,’ he barked. ‘I’m trying to sleep.’
Still perturbed, Sammy climbed the ladders, eventually finding his way into the open air. The sailors had scattered to their duties, and Arent joined his friend outside without incident. He was staring at the moonlight running down the rigging and the sails like molten silver.
‘It’s beautiful,’ he said in awe. He lingered on the view a moment, then walked over to the railing. ‘Turn your back, please,’ he said.
‘Why?’
‘I must attend my ablutions.’
‘Just go, it’s nothing I haven’t –’
‘Arent, please,’ he exclaimed. ‘I have very little dignity left, and I’d like to keep hold of what remains.’
Sighing, Arent turned his back.
Sammy yanked down his breeches, sticking his arse over the water.
‘The governor general is a dangerous man,’ he groaned as excrement poured out of him, splashing in the sea. ‘I’ve tried to spare you his scrutiny, so tell me, for my own peace of mind, why would he agree to let me out of that cell?’
‘Because he’s as family to me,’ admitted Arent, taking a step away from the smell. ‘I call him uncle, but father would be nearer to it.’
‘Father?’ replied Sammy, in a strangled voice.
‘He’s my grandfather’s best friend,’ explained Arent. ‘Their lands are next to each other in Frisia, the province where I grew up. I spent weekends at his estate when I was a boy. He taught me how to fence and ride, among other things.’
‘Forgive me, Arent,’ said Sammy, wiping his arse on a piece of rope, before hitching up his breeches. ‘I know your manners aren’t those of a soldier born, but how did your grandfather come to befriend somebody as powerful as Governor General Jan Haan.’
Arent hesitated, struggling to make the words fit. The answer had been buried in him so long, it had grown roots.
‘My grandfather is Casper van den Berg,’ he said, at last.
‘You’re a Berg!?’ Sammy took a half step back, as if the information had been tossed into his arms. ‘The Van den Bergs are the wealthiest family in the Provinces. Casper van den Berg is one of the Gentlemen 17. Your family practically run the Company.’
‘Really? I wish somebody had told me that before I left home,’ said Arent wryly.
Sammy’s mouth opened and closed. Then opened and closed again.
‘Why the hell are you on this ship?’ he exploded. ‘Your family could buy you a ship of your own. They could buy you a fleet!’
‘What would I do with a fleet?’
‘Anything you damn well please.’
Arent couldn’t deny the logic of it, but he didn’t have an answer that wouldn’t embarrass them both. He’d left home at twenty because after seven years of studying under the Gentlemen 17, he’d seen the breadth of the life on offer and realised how small it was. The rich mistakenly believed their wealth was a servant, delivering them whatever they wanted.
They were wrong.
Wealth was their master and it was the only voice they heeded. Friendships were sacrificed at its behest, principles trampled to protect it. No matter how much they had, it was never enough. They went mad chasing more until they sat lonely atop their hoard, despised and afraid.
Arent had wanted more. Having turned his back on power and wealth, he found himself immune to their lure. Instead, he sought a place where honour mattered. Where strength was used to protect the weak, and thrones weren’t automatically handed from one madman to the next.
But every land was the same. Strength was the only currency of merit, and power was the only goal. Kindness, compassion and empathy were trampled, exploited as weakness.
Then he’d met Sammy.
Here was a commoner, born with nothing, who’d upended the natural order by virtue of his cleverness. In pursuit of his goal, he’d accuse a noble as readily as a peasant. Here was somebody for whom the old rules didn’t apply. Through Sammy, Arent saw the world he aspired to, like a distant land spied through a smudged glass. Sammy was what Arent had left home to find, but their friendship would never allow him to admit it. He’d never hear the end of it.
‘This is the life I chose,’ he shrugged, his tone ending the conversation.
Sammy gave in with a sigh and collected a pail from a peg. A long piece of rope was tied to the handle and he cast the pail over the side of the ship into the ocean, before dragging it back up, water sloshing out. The pails were normally used for washing clothes, or cooling wood that was threatening to warp, but he upended it over his head, revealing the pink skin behind the filth.
Twice more he cast the pail over the side, washing his arms and legs, then stripping off his shirt to scrub his scrawny body. It was a week since he’d last eaten more than a fist’s worth of food, a fact screamed by every rib now on display.
When he was bathed, he adjusted his sodden clothing and smoothed his breeches, even drawing his fingers through his oily, tangled hair.
Arent watched him wordlessly. From any other man, this would seem pointless vanity, but Sammy was renowned for his beautiful comportment as much as his cleverness. He dressed, danced and dined exactingly, his manners exquisite in all things. If that pride still burnt within him, then he hadn’t given up hope.
‘How do I look?’ asked Sammy, turning on the spot.
‘Like you spent the night with an ox.’
‘I didn’t want your mother to be the only one.’