The guard captain was stationed outside his door, as usual at this time. He was smoking a pipe, his face obscured by the miasma.
On the deck below, Arent Hayes tossed and turned in his hammock. Sara Wessel had spent every hour at his bedside, leaving only to complete her obligations to her husband. She was treating Arent with strange things she burnt in trays.
Viscountess Dalvhain remained secreted in her cabin. Captain Crauwels had checked on her after the storm, earning the same barked dismissal as Sara and Arent.
That only left Crauwels, Reynier van Schooten, Lia, Creesjie and Isabel to push around the meagre fare on their plates. They’d left Batavia with barely enough supplies to reach the Cape, and that had been assuming they could resupply from the fleet. But they’d been alone since the storm.
Van Schooten had ordered quarter rations for everybody, leaving them with a few hard bits of tack, a sliver of meat, and a gulp of wine or whiskey.
Unsurprisingly, given everything that had happened, conversation was muted, petering out quickly as it was sucked into the whirlpools of their thoughts. Even Creesjie was quiet, that twinkle of mischievous humour entirely absent from her tired face. The silence was so thick that a few people started in surprise when Isabel coughed her way into a question.
By rights, she shouldn’t have been at the table at all, but she’d taken up some of Sander’s duties, even offering sermons at the mainmast. Fewer and fewer people came, but it wasn’t for a lack of zeal. God burnt in this child brighter than He’d ever burnt in Sander Kers.
‘Captain, can you help me with something?’ she asked.
Crauwels was midway through chewing a hunk of bread and made no attempt to hide his irritation at suddenly having all eyes upon him. He dabbed crumbs from his lips and reached for his wine.
‘I’m at your service,’ he said.
‘What’s the dark water?’ she asked. ‘I heard the men talking about it on deck.’
The captain grunted, putting his wine down again. ‘What were they saying?’
‘That Old Tom was swimming in the dark water.’
Crauwels picked up his metal disc from the table, and rolled it around under his hand. ‘Did he mention if Old Tom had been whispering to him in the night?’
As one, the passengers gasped, exchanging frightened glances. Everybody had kept the whispers to themselves, treating them as their own secret. Whether invited or not, Old Tom was a devil. Its presence alone suggested some prior taint, some inclination towards depravity. The whisper exposed the sin they each felt within themselves.
Crauwels looked from face to face, nodding in satisfaction. ‘Thought so,’ he said. ‘That’s all of us then. Maybe everybody on this ship.’
‘What do you yearn for?’ repeated Drecht from the governor general’s doorway.
‘That was it,’ agreed Reynier van Schooten, sounding sick to his stomach. Since the rationing had been put in place, he’d managed to keep himself almost sober, though everybody agreed he remained a haunted man. His eyes were empty, red raw from a lack of sleep.
‘Captain,’ persisted Isabel. ‘What’s the dark water?’
‘It’s what old sailors call the soul,’ answered Van Schooten, from the opposite end of the table. ‘They reckon our sins lie beneath it like wrecks on the ocean bed. Dark water is our soul, and Old Tom is swimming within it.’
As if summoned, out to sea the Eighth Lantern sprang into life, its light splashing through the windows on to their horrified faces.
It was so much closer than it had ever been before.
And it burnt red.
65
Johannes Wyck was sitting on one of the slabs in the sickberth, being tended by the barber-surgeon, who was plucking maggots out of a dead rat in a bowl and placing them on the man’s wound, where they wriggled and burrowed.
Wyck’s stomach was doing something similar, threatening to send his food back up his throat, but he turned his head away and sucked in air, catching the voices of a few sailors discussing his fight with Hayes.
They were laughing at him. He’d promised he was going to humiliate Hayes, then kill him slow. Instead, the mercenary had beaten him so badly it hurt to speak. Even a second knife in the crowd hadn’t been enough to help him.
Normally, Wyck’s glare would have scattered them, but they were emboldened by his injury. It wouldn’t be long before somebody came to slit his throat. That’s how you got this job. It was how he’d got it, and it was why he was trying to leave it.
Wyck shook his head. He wanted to settle down, to have a life of toil and quiet, but part of him suspected it would always be like this for him, wherever he went. For as long as he’d been alive, he’d always had enemies. He was a man with a short temper, which meant he found himself endlessly wronged, stewing in perceived slights, and counting his grudges. But within that, he’d always courted a certain nobility. Being surrounded by enemies made him protective of those he loved.
He’d gone to the poop deck every morning to watch the sermon, and while the rest of them sang their prayers, he’d made his promises to the only person he’d ever keep them for.
That’s when he’d recognised that liar on deck.
Wyck hadn’t been a bit surprised when Old Tom came calling, just as he had in that grand house where he’d worked in the Provinces. Back then, he’d refused to cooperate and lost an eye to that damn witchfinder’s torture. And so, when Old Tom had whispered to him the other night, Wyck had agreed, though he’d made his terms clear. He knew who Old Tom was protecting. He knew its purpose on this boat. In return for that secret, he wanted a new life for his family. A home. A decent job. And all his limbs still attached to his body.
Old Tom went one better, whispering of wealth beyond his dreams if he’d kill Arent Hayes when they fought. The devil hadn’t mentioned that Hayes could wield a blade better than anybody Wyck had ever seen. It hadn’t mentioned that he was faster than any man that size had a right to be, and could predict what you were going to do.
Never bargain with a damn devil. When would he learn?
Screams erupted from the deck beyond the curtain.
Leaping up, and knocking the barber-surgeon aside, Wyck scattered the maggots on to the floor, and strode out of the sickberth. Beyond was pandemonium. Panicked officers were rushing this way and that, screaming orders nobody was heeding. Deadlights were being slotted over the portholes and the wooden screen dividing the deck had been taken down, allowing the kegs rolled out of the gunpowder store to reach the cannons.
It was battle stations. The Eighth Lantern was back, burning that blood-red flame. Last time it’d done that it’d slaughtered their animals without firing a shot.
Striding into the morass, he searched the faces of the passengers, just in case she was among them. She often was.
‘Fire!’ somebody screamed.
Following the sound of the voice, Wyck saw white smoke rising from the floor. People stampeded towards the staircase, crushing one another as they tried to climb into the open air.
‘Stand, damn you!’ he hollered. ‘Stand and raise water!’
They didn’t listen. That voice, which had once struck fear into the heart of every bastard down here, was now lost among the cries for help.
The smoke rose quickly, but it wasn’t fire. Any bugger could see that. It didn’t move right. Didn’t feel oily on the skin. This was more like a fog.
And through it came the leper.
The fog twisted and curled, swallowing it.
Wyck staggered back into the sickbay, grabbing a hacksaw off the walls. He’d intended on running, but that seemed senseless when he couldn’t see two paces in front of him. Instead, he waved the hacksaw, yelling for the creature to come no closer.