‘Only in the bedroom,’ replied Creesjie, draining her wine and starting on Sara’s. ‘It’s the curse of powerful men to heed only their own voices.’
‘Please! At least try!’
‘No, Sara,’ she said softly, dousing Sara’s passion with calm. ‘And not because of Jan. If there’s danger on this ship, do you truly think I’d abandon you to it?’
‘Creesjie –’
‘Don’t argue with me, two husbands and a court full of lovers has taught me stubbornness. Besides, if there’s a threat to the
‘Arent is doing it.’
‘Arent,’ she cooed lasciviously. Sara suspected that somewhere on the ship Arent suddenly started sweating. ‘When did you get on first-name terms with the brutish Lieutenant Hayes?’
‘On the docks,’ said Sara, ignoring her suggestive tone. ‘How am I supposed to save the
‘I don’t know, I’m not the clever one.’
Sara scoffed at that, snatching her wine back and taking a big gulp. ‘You see a great deal more than most.’
‘That’s a polite way of calling me a gossip,’ responded Creesjie. ‘Come now, stop being a worried friend and play at being Samuel Pipps. I’ve seen you play-act his cases with Lia and try to solve them.’
‘They’re games.’
‘And you are very good at them.’ She paused, peering intently at her. ‘Think, Sara. What do we do?’
Sara sighed, rubbing her temple with her palm. ‘Pipps believed the leper was a carpenter,’ she said slowly. ‘Possibly on this ship. Somebody must have known him. If so, they might have more information on this threat we’re facing.’
‘Two ladies won’t be safe tromping into the depths of the
‘What’s that?’
‘The tallest mast, halfway along the ship.’
‘Oh, we don’t need to go that far,’ replied Sara. ‘We’re nobility. We can make the information come to us.’
Flinging open the door, she gathered her voice and hollered imperiously, ‘Somebody fetch me a carpenter, I’m afraid this cabin simply won’t do!
6
Sammy Pipps dangled in the air, hands and feet poking through the cargo net hoisting him on to the
‘If you try to leap out, the weight of those manacles will drown you,’ warned Guard Captain Jacobi Drecht, squinting up at him from the boat below.
Sammy smiled tightly. ‘It’s been a long time since anybody mistook me for stupid, Guard Captain,’ he responded.
‘Desperation makes us all stupid from time to time,’ grunted Drecht, removing his hat and leaping on to the rope ladder.
Arent followed him up, though much more slowly. Years at war had taken more than they’d given and each rung caused his knees to crack and his ankles to pop. He felt like a sack of broken parts clattering together.
Eventually he dragged himself over the gunwale and on to the waist of the ship, the largest and lowest of its four weather decks. His eyes swept left and right, searching for his friend, but there was far too much commotion. Clusters of passengers waited to be told where to go, while sailors poured buckets of water into the yawls and stuffed the cannons with hemp to keep the weather out. Hundreds of parrots were screeching on the yard, cabin boys waving their arms, trying to chase them off.
Cargo was being lowered into the hold through hatches in the deck, as insults were traded, blame assigned for tasks gone awry. The loudest voice belonged to a dwarf dressed in slops and a waistcoat, who was spitting names from the passenger manifest held in the crook of his arm. He put Arent in mind of a lightning-blasted tree stump, such was his stature and width, the roughness of his weathered skin and the strange sense of disaster he carried about him.
As each passenger identified themselves, he blotted their name in his manifest and barked them to their berth in a heavily accented voice, flinging a hand generally in the direction they were supposed to go. Most he ordered down to the orlop deck, a stinking hotbox where they’d be crammed in shoulder to shoulder, feet to scalp, making them easy fodder for malady, sickness and palsy.
Arent watched them go pityingly.
On his voyage to Batavia almost a third of everybody berthed down there had died, and it made him heartsick to see children trotting gaily down the stairs, excited for the trip ahead.
Wealthier passengers who still couldn’t afford the cost of a cabin were being shown through an arch on his right into the compartment under the half deck, where hammocks were strung alongside supplies and carpentry tools. They’d have space enough to stand and lie down – so long as they didn’t stretch out – but, more importantly, they’d have a curtain for privacy.
After a month at sea, such a simple thing would feel like a luxury.
Arent had been berthed in this compartment on the voyage out and would be travelling the same way back. He could already feel his back grumbling. He fitted a hammock the way an ox fitted a fishing net.