Sara could see the trepidation in her eyes. Batavia was the only home her daughter had ever known. Even then, she’d rarely been allowed to venture beyond the walls of the fort. As a child, she’d pretended it was Daedalus’s labyrinth, spending hours fleeing the minotaur in the maze. Her father had filled the monster’s role nicely.
Now, after thirteen years surrounded by stone walls and guards, she was being shipped off to start an entirely new life in a grand house with gardens.
The poor girl hadn’t slept soundly for weeks.
‘I don’t know it well,’ admitted Sara. ‘I visited last when I was very young, but I remember the food being exquisite, and the music delightful.’
A hopeful smile crept on to Lia’s face. She loved both of those things, as Sara well knew. ‘They’re talented inventors, scholars and healers,’ carried on Sara wistfully. ‘And they build miracles – cathedrals that touch the heavens.’
Lia rested her head on her mother’s shoulder, her dark hair falling down her arm like black water.
The running lantern creaked on its long pole above them, the ensign flag snapping in the wind. In the animal pens, chickens clucked and sows grunted, trying to communicate their displeasure at the deck heaving beneath them.
‘Will they like me there?’ asked Lia plaintively.
‘Oh, they’ll love you!’ exclaimed Sara. ‘That’s why we’re doing this. I don’t want you to be afraid of who you are any more. I don’t want you to have to hide your gifts.’
Lia clutched her tightly, but before she could ask the next question on her list, Creesjie came hurrying up the stairs, her blonde hair flying. She’d changed out of her nightgown, and was now wearing a high-necked chemise, with ribbon-tied red sleeves and a broad-brimmed hat with plumes. She was holding her shoes in her hand, sweat standing up on her brow.
‘There you are,’ she said breathlessly. ‘I’ve been searching everywhere.’
‘What’s wrong?’ asked Sara, concerned.
Creesjie had arrived in Batavia two years ago at the governor general’s request, falling on their drab lives like sunshine. Creesjie was a natural flirt with a gift for tall tales, and the skill to tell them well, something she practised daily. Sara couldn’t ever remember her being in a bad temper, or anxious. Her natural state was delight, and there was always some suitor around to provoke it.
‘I know what’s threatening this boat,’ said Creesjie, panting. ‘I know what Bosey’s master is.’
‘What? How?’ exclaimed Sara, her questions all elbowing out at once.
Creesjie rested herself on the railing, catching her breath. Directly beneath them were the square portholes of the passenger cabins and inside they could hear Crauwels continuing to bicker with Van Schooten about his cabin.
‘Did I ever tell you about Pieter Fletcher, my second husband?’ asked Creesjie.
‘Only that he was the father of Marcus and Osbert,’ replied Sara eagerly. ‘And he knew my husband at one time.’
‘Pieter was a witchfinder,’ said Creesjie, speaking his name painfully. ‘Thirty years ago, long before we were married, he arrived in the United Provinces from England investigating a strange symbol that was spreading across the lands of the noble families like a plague.’
‘Was it the symbol that appeared on the sail this morning?’ asked Lia.
‘Exactly the same,’ said Creesjie, glancing anxiously at the billowing white sheet. ‘When he was investigating the mark, my husband freed the souls of hundreds of lepers and witches, and they all told the same story. In their worst hour, when their hope was exhausted, something calling itself Old Tom had whispered to them in the darkness, offering to fulfil their heart’s desire in return for a favour.’
‘What kind of favour?’ asked Sara, unable to conceal her excitement.
She felt the way she did whenever a new Pipps case arrived in Batavia. She would play-act them with Lia, refusing to read the ending until they had devised their own theory. She was right more often than not, though she usually got the motive wrong. Jealousy and spurned passion weren’t concepts Sara could understand, let alone comprehend somebody murdering for.
‘My husband wouldn’t speak in detail of his work. He believed it wasn’t for a lady to hear.’
‘Wise counsel,’ said Vos, climbing the staircase. ‘My master requires your presence immediately, Mistress Jens.’
Creesjie acknowledged him with distaste.
Arent loomed up behind him, bowing his head to Sara. Something had changed since she’d seen him on the docks, she thought. He carried his body heavily, as if some fresh weight had fallen upon it.
‘Abide, Creesjie,’ said Sara, as the men joined them. ‘Have you met Lieutenant Hayes? He assisted me with the leper on the docks.’
‘Arent,’ he corrected in a low rumble, smiling at her. She found herself returning it.
Creesjie’s eyes shimmered as she took him in. ‘I hadn’t, but I’d hoped to,’ she said, curtsying. ‘The stories of your size aren’t overstated, are they, Lieutenant Hayes? It’s like God forgot to stop making you.’