Suddenly, Arent had his uncle’s full attention. Going to his desk, Jan Haan plucked a quill from its well, drawing the symbol on to a sheet of parchment and holding it in front of Arent’s face.
‘This one?’ he demanded, the ink dripping down the sheet. ‘You’re sure?’
Arent’s heart hammered. ‘I’m sure. How could it be here?’
‘How much do you remember of that period after your father disappeared? Do you remember why your grandfather came for you?’
Arent nodded. After he’d returned alone from the hunting trip, he’d been shunned. His sisters had treated him with scorn and his mother had kept her distance, leaving his care to the servants. Everybody had hated his father, but nobody seemed glad he was gone. Nor were they happy that Arent had come back. It was never spoken aloud, but their accusation was obvious. They thought he’d put an arrow in his father’s back, then feigned memory loss.
Soon enough, the rumour was the truth, spreading amid his father’s congregation, poisoning them against him.
At first, they accused him quietly, the other children whispering vile insults whenever they saw him on the road. Then one of the villagers had cursed him after Mass, screaming that the devil danced behind him.
Trembling with fear, Arent had clutched his mother for protection, only to find her staring at him with the same loathing.
That night he’d crept out of their home in the dead of night and carved the shape of his scar on to the villager’s door. He couldn’t remember why he’d done it, or what dark impulse had inspired him. Nobody would have recognised the mark, but there was something malevolent about it, he’d thought. It frightened him, so he assumed it would frighten others.
The next morning it was the marked villager who was being shunned, his denials for naught. The devil came to the door of those who invited him, they claimed.
Thrilled by his victory, Arent crept out the next night, and the next, carving the symbol on the door of anybody who’d ever offended him, watching as they became the targets of suspicion and fear. It was such a small thing, the only power he had, the only revenge he could summon.
The symbol was a jest, but the villagers poured their terror into it, giving it life. Before long they burnt any house branded by the mark, driving its occupants out of the village. Terrified of what he’d created, Arent stopped his nocturnal visits, but the mark kept appearing, settling old feuds and inspiring new ones. For months, the village tore itself apart under the weight of its grudges, people accusing and being accused until, finally, they found somebody to blame.
Old Tom.
Arent’s thoughts strained. Was Old Tom a leper? Was that why they all had hated him?
He couldn’t remember.
It didn’t matter. Unlike Arent, Old Tom was a poor man without powerful kin, or walls to hide behind. He certainly wasn’t a demon, though he’d always been strange, sitting in the same spot in the market, come rain, sun or snow, begging for alms. Nothing he said made sense, but most had thought him harmless.
One day a mob circled him. A little boy had disappeared, and his friends claimed Old Tom had led him away. The villagers hurled accusations and demanded a confession. When he didn’t provide it – when he couldn’t – they beat him to death.
Even the children joined in.
The next day, the symbols stopped appearing.
The villagers congratulated themselves on driving the devil from their homes and went back to smiling and laughing with their neighbours, as if nothing had happened.
Arent’s grandfather, Casper van den Berg, had arrived in his carriage a week later. He removed Arent from his mother’s care, taking him back to his estate in Frisia on the other side of the Provinces. Casper claimed it was because his five sons had all disappointed him and he needed an heir. They both knew it was because Arent’s mother had summoned him. She knew the truth about the scar and the marks he’d drawn on the doors.
She was afraid of him.
‘After you were taken to Frisia, we heard tales of that mark spreading across the Provinces.’ The governor general touched the parchment to the candle flame and watched the foul thing burn. ‘Woodcutters noticed it first, etched in the trees they were felling. Then it began appearing in villages and, finally, carved into the bodies of dead rabbits and pigs. Wherever it appeared, some calamity followed. Crops were blighted, calves delivered stillborn. Children disappeared, never to be seen again. It went on for almost a year, until mobs started attacking the houses of the noble families who owned the land, accusing them of conspiring with dark forces.’
As the flame reached his fingertips, the governor general threw the scrap of parchment out of the porthole and into the sea.
‘Why didn’t you tell me any of this?’ demanded Arent, staring at his scar. It was barely visible, but he could feel it underneath, trying to dig its way out.