Why would her husband have this? He’d admitted to summoning Old Tom – could this have been why? To rob them?
Not rob, she realised with a flash of insight. That wasn’t her husband’s way. What if he’d done to these families what he’d done to her father, Cornelius Vos and countless others over the course of his life. Ruin them, belittle them, then leave them alive to suffer their fall.
According to the daemonologica, these families had all been traders, merchants and shipbuilders. People her husband would have needed or been in competition with while he was building his business thirty years ago. What if he’d summoned Old Tom and set it loose on them?
Pieter Fletcher had thwarted the scheme, then her husband had Old Tom kill him in revenge.
Except …
A memory grew nails and began scratching at her. The first time she’d seen the picture of Pieter Fletcher in Creesjie’s cabin, she’d been bothered by it. He’d been resplendent in his beautiful clothes, standing in front of their manor house. He’d even been able to afford Creesjie, the natural consort of kings.
In contrast, Sander Kers had been dressed in rags and, by his own admission, he’d had to beg his congregation for alms to board the Saardam.
Witchfinding wasn’t a profession you grew rich doing. Yet, somehow, Pieter Fletcher had.
Creesjie was helping Isabel gather firewood when Sara caught up with her. Sara was breathless, and had to take a minute before asking her question.
‘Did Pieter …’ she panted. ‘… Was he … nobility? Did he come from money?’
Creesjie laughed grimly. ‘Witchfinders don’t come from money,’ she said. ‘It was a reward for his good works from the families he saved.’
No, it wasn’t, Sara thought. Rewards were given willingly. The governor general had set Old Tom loose on these families, destroying the reputations of his competition, and blackmailing those who could be useful to him. Then, when they’d agreed to his terms, he’d dispatched Pieter Fletcher to ‘banish’ Old Tom and convince everybody the demon was really gone.
But her husband left his enemies alive. He always did. He enjoyed watching them suffer.
And one of them had found him.
When Sara had found the book in Viscountess Dalvhain’s cabin, she’d believed it was a mockery of the daemonologica, but what if it had actually been a true account of what had happened all those years ago. Old Tom had destroyed the de Havilands, leaving only Emily alive. She’d grown up seeking revenge. She would have witnessed Pieter Fletcher’s actions first-hand and dedicated herself to tracking him down. She had found him in Amsterdam, married to Creesjie and father to two boys. Somehow, he’d recognised her and fled, but she’d followed him to Lille. She’d tortured him, uncovering his conspirators. That would have led her to Sander Kers and the governor general.
No wonder her husband never took off that damn breastplate. No wonder he’d hidden himself away in Batavia, surrounded by high walls and guards.
How did you kill a man that well protected? By luring him out, she thought.
The predikant had received the fake letter from Pieter Fletcher two years ago, instructing him to sail for the city. Her husband had received the fake ascension order from Arent’s grandfather a month before they boarded the Saardam.
‘Laxagarr is Nornish for trap,’ she muttered, eyeing the wreck again.
Emily had marked the sail so Sara’s husband would know his past had found him. She had left the anagram and the book so he’d know exactly who was to blame. Old Tom brought suffering, and Emily had ensured Jan Haan suffered for what he’d done.
Sara darted on to the shoal, searching desperately for Arent. The ideas were so big her head felt like it would collapse under the weight.
She had to tell him what she suspected.
He was walking down the beach, casting frantic glances around. Upon seeing her, relief showed on his face.
They charged towards each other, Sara taking hold of Arent’s arms.
‘I know why this is happening,’ she said frantically.
His eyes went wide. ‘Good, because I know who’s doing it.’
79
‘This is a very bad plan,’ said Arent as they approached the Saardam in a yawl. The wreck loomed above them, the exposed hull covered in barnacles and seaweed. Fingers of sunlight poked through the cracks in the cargo hold, revealing the seabirds already nesting in her ribs. She was monstrous from this vantage, like some terrible beast laid down to die.
‘Well, you didn’t have time to come up with a merely bad plan,’ responded Sara, who was perched at the bow of the boat, keeping watch for the shallows. ‘Besides, we have to make sure we’re right. And this is the only place to do it.’
The sea was choppy and Arent was having to work hard at the oars to keep from crashing into the jagged rocks. They’d told Drecht they were recovering Sara’s harp, something they couldn’t trust anybody else to do. Having listened to her play the instrument for hours every day in the fort, he’d accepted the excuse unquestioningly.
Arent held the boat steady while Sara leapt out. Tugging the oars inside, he scrambled on to the rocks, then dragged the yawl out of the water. The passengers had disembarked here this morning and the rope ladder still hung down from the waist.
Waves crashed against the rocks, throwing sea spray into the air, soaking them both. Struggling to keep his feet, Arent walked towards the aft, looking up at the spot where his uncle’s cabin bulged out of the hull.
The leper’s handprints were so small, they could easily have been mistaken for dirt, until he was up close. They ran from the waterline to his uncle’s cabin and then past Sara’s cabin to the poop deck.
‘We assumed the leper punched those holes in the hull when it climbed up, but what if they were already there when we boarded?’ said Arent. ‘Everybody embarked on the other side of the ship, so nobody would have noticed them in the harbour.’
‘A ladder, you mean? Do you think Bosey built it?’
‘I do,’ said Arent. ‘He told Sander back in Batavia that he was making the boat ready for his master. I think this is part of what he meant.’
They walked into the cargo hold through a crack in the hull, the sickly sweet smell of rot immediately engulfing them. The spear of rock that had ended the mutiny in Drecht’s favour sheared straight up through the hull. It was stained with spices.
A few jewels sparkled here and there in the bilge water, having been missed by Drecht’s musketeers.
‘Why did my uncle bring the treasure to Batavia?’ wondered Arent, picking up an amethyst and shaking the drops from it.
‘Where could he have left it without risking it being stolen, or questions being asked?’ replied Sara. ‘Aside from the jewels, nearly every piece bore the crest of a great family fallen to ruin.’
‘He could have sold the gems and melted down the rest.’
‘You really didn’t know my husband at the end, did you?’ There was pity in her voice. ‘He probably dipped into his hoard when he needed money for some endeavour, but he wouldn’t have seen any of this as treasure. They were trophies. Mementos of his victories, no different to Vos and I. He liked to collect his victims and put us on display.’
As if it were suddenly hot, Arent tipped his palm, letting the amethyst splash back into the dirty water.
Without another word, they took the staircase up to the orlop deck, which was slippery with blood. Seabirds feasted on the remains of the dead.
Sara had expected them to go straight to the passenger cabins, but Arent pushed open the door to the gunpowder store. Kegs had spilled gunpowder across the floor, but it was damp and harmless. The constable’s charm lay among some wooden fragments, having evidently been torn from his neck in the panic of the mutiny.