On the quarterdeck, Captain Crauwels hurled curses into the wind, his anger growing in proportion to his fear. No matter how reckless the seafaring, no matter how brave the course taken, their pursuer was always at the same distance.
It was as if the storm had their scent, he raged.
The old sailors recognised it as something called down upon them. A curse that wouldn’t be satisfied until the whisper had its pound of flesh. No wonder Sander Kers had been taken, they claimed. They had no love of holy men, but it couldn’t be a coincidence that he’d vanished moments before the storm hit. Arent Hayes had searched for him for three days, even as the unsteady ship knocked him over and hurled him into walls.
He could find no sign. Kers had disappeared as surely as if he’d never boarded.
The sailors thought the whisper had offered somebody a fortune to hack the predikant into pieces and give him to the ocean. Almost everybody had heard its jagged voice by now, offering its bargains in the night. Their heart’s desire for a favour, it had promised. They were simple things for some. More dangerous for others. There seemed no pattern to what was asked, and what was offered.
When they spoke of their offers in the morning, a few gripped tight their charms, warding off evil, but others went thoughtful, their eyes full of dreams. Why not? they wondered under their breath. What cost could be greater than what this life already asked of them? From their duty stations, they stared at the aft of the ship, to the cabins where the nobles slept. What had they done to earn such plenty? They didn’t know how to stitch a sail or tack the ship. They were rich because their families were rich. Their children would be rich because they were rich. On and on in an endless loop.
By contrast, they were poor because they’d always been poor. They had nothing to look forward to and nothing to pass along. Wealth was a key and poverty was a prison, and they’d been born shackled through no fault of their own.
It was senseless and unfair, and mankind could withstand almost anything except unfairness.
Back and forth, they complained, stoking each other’s ire.
If this was God’s plan, then maybe Old Tom was worth listening to, because it couldn’t ask a greater sum for less reward than this. Besides, they might not have a choice.
It had called the Eighth Lantern to torment them, and now this storm was roaring at their backs. Even if they could outrun it, a leper roamed the cargo hold endlessly, scratching his mark into the crates. They’d caught glimpses of it. Tattered robes and bloody bandages. A solitary candle that would lead sailors through the labyrinth to an altar at the heart of the ship. No matter how many times the captain ordered it destroyed, the leper would rebuild it.
It was Bosey, they said. Others spat at that. Bosey was dead. They’d seen him on the docks. Watched him catch flame and be run through by Arent Hayes. But didn’t he drag his leg and smell of the privy? Didn’t he have business with this ship after what they’d done to him? After what Johannes Wyck had done to him?
Bosey or not, everybody was agreed that bad fortune followed in its wake. A cabin boy, an apprentice sailmaker and a hornblower had already died in the dark. The cabin boy tumbled off a ladder and snapped his neck. The sailmaker and hornblower died bloody. Slashed to pieces by each other’s daggers. Their hate had simmered for a while but it was all coming out now.
Sailors who spent too long in the cargo hold came back different, they claimed. Distant, somehow. Odd.
Course, some had boarded like that. Not that it mattered. Rumour twisted tight around them, all the same. It said they’d knelt at the altar and spoke their devotions.
Nobody would go near them.
Something was stirring in the dark water, the old sailors claimed. Something that called itself Old Tom.
47
‘Two weeks like a damn fish on a hook and now we’re being reeled in,’ hollered Crauwels, as the storm finally fell upon them.
His crew were exhausted. The fight was over. They’d tried everything, strained every muscle and sinew, but the storm had been unrelenting. He was proud of them, could ask no more. He wanted to say as much, but he couldn’t raise his voice above the wind.
Emerging on to the quarterdeck, Crauwels tipped his head to the sky. You’d be hard pressed to tell whether it was day or night. Gusts swirled and the rain battered down, bouncing ankle-high off the decking.
‘Can’t see a damn thing,’ he complained to Larme, squinting through the sheets of rain at the blurred sails of the other ships in the fleet. Only three had managed to stay close to them during their manoeuvres. Now he wished they hadn’t.
‘Get down to the helm and point us wherever they aint,’ he hollered. ‘If we hug each other in this storm, the wind’s going to smash us together.’
Larme took off like a fox, but as Crauwels tried to follow, the ship bucked beneath him, snatching the ground away. Flinging himself at a nearby railing, he managed to wrap his arms around it, watching as two sailors were tossed into the air, then slammed into the deck.
From amidships the bell rang desperately.
Stumbling forward, Crauwels hauled a scared cabin boy from the nook he’d wedged himself into.
‘Get that bell muffled,’ he screamed at him, over the crashing waves. It was bad luck to let a bell ring by itself, everybody knew that. Should have been the first thing tended to when the sea got wild.
‘Boatswain!’ Crauwels yelled over the howling wind.
Johannes Wyck staggered on to the waist, clinging tight to a rope. ‘Captain?’
Crauwels put his mouth to his ear. ‘Any sailors not on duty are restricted to the orlop deck,’ he ordered, wiping away the rain lashing his face.
Nodding, Wyck grabbed the two nearest sailors by the neck, shouting commands at them, then pushing them towards the hatches.
As white-tipped waves pummelled the deck with foamy water, Crauwels staggered into the great cabin where Arent was securing a deadlight that had come loose, revealing the churning water pressed flat against the glass outside. Every other passenger had been confined to their quarters these last two weeks, but that was no use with Hayes. He came and went regardless of what was said. Crauwels knew for a fact he’d been between Sammy’s cell and Sara Wessel’s cabin with fair regularity, though he didn’t have much to say on either matter.
The ship tilted precipitously, crockery smashing.
‘Hayes, I’ve a use for you,’ said Crauwels, bracing himself against the wall. ‘I need strong arms on the bilge pumps. We’re taking on water quicker than we can rid ourselves of it.’
‘I have to fetch Sammy first,’ he hollered.
‘The governor general said –’
‘If he stays in that cell during the storm, he’ll be pulverised and you know it.’
Crauwels tried to stare him down, but there was no use in that.
‘He can wait on the orlop deck,’ conceded Crauwels grudgingly. ‘Keep him out of the governor general’s sight. After that, the bilges.’
They departed the great cabin together. They’d only made it into the compartment under the half deck when the ship nearly toppled them. Using a workbench to get back on his feet, Crauwels saw Sara Wessel stagger through the archway that led outside, with Lia close behind.
He blinked, words deserting him. Sara had changed into peasant’s garb, her usual finery hacked away, replaced with a simple brown skirt, an apron, linen shirt and waistcoat. A cotton bonnet covered her head, and there was a dagger hanging at her waist. Lia was dressed in similar clothes.
She was soaked through.
For the beautifully attired Crauwels, there could be no greater act of self-harm than dressing like a peasant.