‘Perhaps one of the sides is false?’ she ventured.
He thumped some. They all seemed firmly attached.
Sara stamped on the floor, water splashing up her legs. She’d always enjoyed the parts of Pipps’s stories where he found a trapdoor, and was hoping to discover one for herself. She was disappointed. If the floorboards had secrets, they were holding them close.
Arent stared at the thick beams of the hull curving down towards them. His fingers roamed across the rough wooden planks.
‘What are you looking for?’ wondered Sara, joining the search.
‘Whatever I’m missing. Whatever Sammy would have –’ He slapped his hands together. ‘Larme’s a dwarf! He wouldn’t have been able to reach the section of wall we’re searching.’
He knelt in the bilge water, soaking his hose. The stink was dreadful.
Sara eyed the dirty water with distaste, but she was already filthy. With a shudder, she joined him in the muck.
Her smaller fingers soon snagged on a peg.
‘Here,’ she cried triumphantly.
In truth, it wasn’t terribly well hidden. Whoever had built it, had trusted to darkness to conceal it, rather than any great craft. She yanked it out, causing a panel to scrape loose, then thud on to the floor.
There was a compartment behind it.
Arent drew his lantern closer, so they could peer inside.
‘Oh!’ said Sara in disappointment. It was empty. Whenever Pipps did this, there was always something inside. Usually jewels, though on one particularly gory occasion, it had been a severed head.
‘Larme must have moved whatever was in here,’ she said. ‘He came down here to hide something.’
33
Arent arrived at the great cabin to find the fleet captains sitting around the table, banging their fists and shouting over one another, scolding Adrian Crauwels for calling battle stations. A solitary light appearing on a solitary night could be anything, they’d argued. There had been no need to panic them from their beds.
The only person not shouting was Crauwels himself. He was smoking a pipe and playing with the metal disc he carried, tracing the lines of the double-headed bird crest with his fingernail.
There was wisdom in his silence, thought Arent. It was much easier to annoy his uncle than impress him. Half of these men would be hauling peat on clapped-out scows in a year’s time, wondering when their fortunes had soured.
‘Gentlemen!’ yelled the governor general, at last. ‘Gentlemen!’ The room quietened. ‘Tonight we will extinguish our running lights and give our mysterious vessel no flame to chase. If it returns, the Saardam will put a yawl in the water and send it to investigate. Return to your ships and start making preparations. Good day!’
Arent waited for the fleet captains to grumble out, then entered the room. His uncle had remained seated and was discussing something with Vos, who was standing at his side, hands clasped behind his back. Guard Captain Drecht had taken a position by the cabin door. He nodded in friendly fashion to Arent.
A master and his two hounds, thought Arent uncharitably.
Hearing Arent’s footfalls, the governor general turned his head, then immediately smiled in delight to see his nephew. ‘Ah, Arent, I –’
‘How did I come by this mark, Uncle?’ demanded Arent, holding up his wrist. ‘What happened to my father?’
His tone sent Drecht’s hand to his sword hilt, while Vos glowered on his master’s behalf. The governor general simply leant back in his chair, steepling his hands.
‘If I knew, I’d tell you,’ he said calmly.
‘I heard you talking to Vos,’ said Arent, hoping to protect Sara from any recrimination ‘I know you summoned Old Tom, and I know my father’s life was the price for it.’
The governor general’s face fell. He glared at the chamberlain, who shied back under his scrutiny. It was like watching a hawk spot a field mouse far below.
‘Is it true?’ insisted Arent. ‘Did you sacrifice my father to bring Old Tom into this world?
The governor general considered his nephew, beset by calculations. His ink-blot eyes were impossible to read.
‘Your grandfather ordered your father’s death,’ he said, at last. ‘Your father was a zealot and a madman, who believed you were the devil’s work from the moment you were born. After he beat you unconscious, your grandfather realised he was going to kill you eventually. Casper could not let that happen. He loved you too much. He asked me to make the arrangements, and I did as he asked.’
Arent’s world was spinning. The mystery of his father’s disappearance had haunted his entire childhood. It had driven him from his mother’s home. His grandfather’s servants had whispered about it when they thought he couldn’t hear. Their children devised games to torment him, whispering through the door that they were his father’s spirit returned to carry him away.
And, always, there had been the question of whether Arent had been the one to fire an arrow into his back. And what that made him, if he had.
That his grandfather and his uncle had known the answer all along was the gravest betrayal he could imagine.
‘Why didn’t he tell me?’ he stammered, still reeling.
‘Because ordering the death of your own son is no small thing, Arent.’ There was sympathy in his response, though whether it was for Casper van den Berg or for him, Arent couldn’t tell. ‘Your grandfather was ashamed of what his son had become. He was ashamed of what he had to do, and he was ashamed that he couldn’t do it himself. Your grandfather abhors weakness of any sort, especially that which he finds in himself.’
The governor general leant forward into a shaft of sunlight, breathing deeply, as if it were something he could taste. ‘The past is poison. He wanted it behind him, and I swore to keep the secret.’
‘Then why do I have this mark?’
‘The assassin did it.’ He pursed his lips. ‘The assassin did a number of troubling things. He was supposed to kill your father within sight of your home, not leave you wandering the forest for three days. Truly, we don’t know what became of you in that time.’
‘What became of the assassin?’
‘Gone.’ He closed his fist, then opened his fingers. ‘Vanished. He delivered your father’s rosary to Casper, then took his coin. We never heard from him again.’
‘The rosary was proof he was dead?’
‘Yes. It was your father’s dearest possession. Casper knew he would never have relinquished it willingly.’
‘But you summoned Old Tom? I heard you admit it.’
Vos coughed in warning. Such was the intensity of the conversation Arent had entirely forgotten the chamberlain was there. The governor general ignored his counsellor, considering Arent shrewdly. ‘Do you believe in demons, Arent?’ he asked.
‘No,’ he responded firmly.
‘If you don’t believe in something, how could I have summoned it? You’re asking me these questions because your life changed in that forest, and you want to know what caused the change. I’ll tell you this, every decision that’s led you here is your own. Not mine, not your grandfather’s. Not God’s, or Old Tom’s. Believe me, we both wished it otherwise, but you always went your own way.’
‘You didn’t answer the question.’
‘I answered a question,’ replied his uncle, rubbing his eye with the knuckle of his thumb. ‘Sometimes that’s the best you can hope for.’
‘That’s a line from one of my reports.’
‘Did you think I lost sight of you these long years?’ He rapped the table, as if drawing a marker he daren’t pass. ‘There’s much I can’t tell you.’