It, thought Arent. Larme had called the ship it. Not ‘her’, as was usually the case with ships, or even ‘their’, in reference to the crew. That was the power the Eighth Lantern already held over them.
Vos emerged from the compartment under the half deck. In the moonlight, he appeared ghastly, like he had too much skin on too little skull.
‘Where’s the governor general?’ demanded Crauwels.
‘I couldn’t wake him,’ said Vos.
Sammy prodded Arent’s arm, jerking his chin to the quarterdeck where Lia and Sara were watching with Creesjie. Evidently, the ladies weren’t interested in staying inside for the post-dinner drinks.
Below them, the yawl hit the water with a soft splash.
‘Captain,’ cried Isaack Larme. ‘Look!’
He was pointing in the direction of the Eighth Lantern. The orange glow had turned blood red.
A second later an agonising scream carved through the air, only to be abruptly cut off.
Everybody covered their ears, but Arent knew better.
A scream was a warning.
You either needed to be running towards it, or away from it. Pretending it wasn’t happening wouldn’t help anybody.
‘Arent!’ hollered Sara from the quarterdeck. ‘It came from behind us!’
He was up the stairs in a few strides, Sammy running after him. Hindered by her dress, Sara followed them to the poop deck. Lia and Creesjie came clattering behind.
Something squelched under Arent’s feet. He reached down to touch it, but Sammy’s voice stilled him. ‘It’s blood,’ he said, sounding sick. ‘I can smell it.’
He’d always been squeamish.
Pulling open the door to the pens, Arent found every animal dead, their guts spilled across the straw. The poor sow had it the worst, he thought. That must have been what they heard scream.
Creesjie ran to the railing and vomited, while Sara took a step back in horror.
‘Arent,’ she said.
He turned, expecting her to need comfort, but she was pointing at their feet. Drawn in blood, was an eye with a tail.
‘The Mark of Old Tom,’ whispered Lia, aghast.
‘We were standing twenty paces away,’ said Sara, glancing back at where they’d been. ‘How could something have slaughtered the animals and drawn this mark without us hearing?’
She stared at Arent, as if hoping he might have the answers she lacked.
He didn’t. He was as unnerved as she was. For all the years he’d worked with Sammy – all the impossible things he’d witnessed – he’d never seen anything on this scale, or anything so strange that didn’t immediately explain its purpose. A dead body meant somebody wanted that person dead. A theft meant somebody wanted the thing that was stolen. How it was done may have been bewildering, but at least he’d always understood why it was happening.
This was different.
This was chaotic, and spiteful. Strange marks and slaughtered animals weren’t clues, they were messages. Whatever was behind this – whether it was a devil or not – wanted them to know how powerless they were. How trapped. It wanted them to know how easily it could strike at them. It was trying to frighten them.
And it was succeeding. Arent’s skin was crawling. He wanted to leap off the boat and swim back to Batavia. He just wasn’t sure how many people he could carry on his back.
‘This is it, isn’t it?’ said Lia, clinging to her mother. ‘This is the first of the unholy miracles. It’s happening exactly as the predikant said it would.’
‘What’s an unholy miracle?’ asked Arent.
‘Sander warned there would be three of them,’ said Sara. ‘They’re meant to convince us of Old Tom’s power, so more people accept his bargains. Each one bears his mark.’
‘Why only three?’ asked Sammy.
‘Because after that, anybody who didn’t bargain is slaughtered by those who did.’
Finally shaking off his shock, Captain Crauwels called down to the yawl. ‘Get over to that lantern double quick, I want –’
‘It’s too late, Captain,’ said Vos. ‘It’s already gone.’
Crauwels looked past him.
Where the red glow had been, there was now only darkness.
40
After collecting a lantern from the waist, Sammy returned to the animal pens and gestured impatiently for Arent’s flint pouch. As Sammy searched for a spark, Captain Crauwels gripped Isaack Larme by the shoulder.
‘Get a couple of cabin boys up here with mops,’ he said. ‘Have them clean all this up.’
His calmness seemed vulgar considering what lay before them.
‘Hold that order,’ demanded Van Schooten, sobered by the shock. ‘We can’t risk anybody seeing this. The ship will tear itself apart in panic.’
‘Aint no secrets on an Indiaman,’ argued Crauwels, casting his gaze towards the rigging. ‘You mark me, there’s eyes up there. This news will be halfway across the ship already.’
‘Maybe they saw what happened,’ suggested Sammy, finally putting a spark to the lantern’s wick, its light leaping out across the deck.
‘We know what happened!’ said the chief merchant, on the verge of hysteria. ‘We can see what happened! That damn ship killed them. It glowed red and it butchered them. And it’ll be after us next.’
‘Larme, get up that rigging,’ said Crauwels. ‘Drag whoever you find down here. We’ve got questions for them.’ He nudged the sow’s body with his foot. ‘And fetch me the predikant and the cook when you’re done. I want this meat blessed, then properly butchered and salted.’
Catching the chief merchant’s incredulous stare, he shrugged. ‘Dark forces be damned, I’ll not waste good meat. We’re short of supplies as it is.’
Arent felt a hand on his arm and turned around to see Sara cradling Lia against her breast. The girl was wracked by deep sobs. Of Creesjie and Vos there was no sign. They must have left in the commotion, he realised.
‘I’m taking Lia back to her cabin,’ said Sara. ‘Can we talk afterwards?’
Arent nodded, then returned his attention to Sammy, who had crawled so far into the pens only his arse remained outside.
‘Okay, thief-taker,’ said Crauwels, addressing Sammy. ‘What do you make of all this?’
‘I find it curious that the porthole the leper appeared at that first night is directly below us,’ said Sammy from inside the pens. ‘Did you ever find its rags?’
‘Had the ship upside down, but we didn’t find a thing.’
‘You can’t still believe this is a knave playing games?’ interrupted the chief merchant. ‘The lantern turned red the moment the yawl hit the water. The animals were slaughtered seconds after that.’ He pointed to the sow. ‘We heard this poor creature scream. Unless somebody jumped over the edge, there’s no way anybody could have done that and fled without us seeing. And if they had, we’d have heard the splash.’
Sammy wriggled back into the night, holding two objects on the end of a stick.
‘What did you find?’ asked Crauwels, squinting.
The problematary held them up to the light, revealing a scrap of bloodied bandage and a rosary.
‘So it was the leper,’ proclaimed Van Schooten. ‘That is one of its bandages. It must have dropped the rosary when it attacked the animals.’
‘Mmmm,’ said Sammy doubtfully, as he inspected the rosary. ‘This was the property of a rich man who fell into poverty. He was well travelled and devout. A predikant, perhaps?’
Van Schooten started, alarmed. ‘How did –’
‘The holes in the wooden beads are much too large for the string that threads them, and if you look inside you’ll see the scratches caused by metal links. These beads once hung on a chain. Most metal rosaries are owned by the rich and have metal beads, often with jewels, so this began life as something far grander. Those beads were more than likely sold and replaced by cheaper alternatives as the owner fell into hardship, then finally the metal chain went, replaced by string. A poor person would have sold the metal rosary immediately or bought a cheap one with the proceeds. Poverty came upon this person slowly. But see how smooth the wooden beads are. They’ve been worn by repeated rubbing as the prayers were spoken, indicating devoutness. And the beads are made from different woods. At a glance, I can see hard and soft woods from a variety of trees across the Provinces, Germany and France. As I said, they were well travelled.’ Coming out of his reverie, he examined their astonished faces. ‘Our entire civilisation is built from wood, stone and a few types of metal,’ he explained. ‘If you can identify them, you’d be surprised at how evident many things become. Who normally tends the animals, Captain Crauwels?’