Chapter 6
IN THE SUMMER the nights were long, and after that disastrous evening meal, Johanna slipped down the stairs into the servants’ quarters. The house staff, Koby, Nellie, the gardener, all sat around the kitchen table. The sounds of spoons clinking against plates drifted from the room, as well as talk and laughter. Johanna always felt a bit jealous hearing them chat and laugh. She wished she could join them and laugh with them instead of having to suffer Father’s long silences.
She slipped into the pantry and grabbed a half-cut loaf of bread and a piece of soft cheese, which she put in a basket.
Then she went out the back door into the garden with its pebbles and neatly-clipped bushes. The roses were very prolific this year and the scent of the flowers hung heavy in the summer air.
Johanna walked past the garden house—where her grandparents from Aroden used to stay when they visited, but that was now full of old furniture—and out the back gate into the street.
Passers-by greeted her, but she was too absorbed in her angry thoughts to take much notice of them.
Prince Roald!
What was her father thinking? As if anyone would take her seriously when she came to dance with the prince. All the noble girls would laugh, and the prince would know her for what she was the moment she opened her mouth.
Even if the prince was the most dashing, romantic young man, it would not work. Princes did not marry merchant daughters.
She was more concerned about what Father had said about Octavio Nieland. Octavio was the biggest piece of arrogance in the Saardam gentry. When he set his sights on something, he usually got it, in his unforgiving and blunt way. She did not want to marry Octavio Nieland.
The harbour was quiet at this time of day, with the boats dark and locked up. All the ships’ boys had gone home, the wind had calmed and the only sound that disturbed the silence was the slap of waves against ship hulls and the creaking of planks or boards.
The Brouwer Company’s sea cow barn was at the end of the quay, behind a couple of warehouses and behind where the boys had moored the Lady Sara now that the hold was empty.
Johanna walked past the large warehouse doors where her footsteps sounded loud. A cat stalked along the wharf, waving the tip of its tail. A couple of deck hands were still talking somewhere. She could hear their voices although she couldn’t see them, the sound echoing weirdly here.
The dark Burovian sloop that had brought Prince Roald from wherever he had been still lay moored at the quay, giving up none of its secrets. Prince Roald? Really?
Johanna didn’t remember him very well, because even before he left, he rarely came outside. Part of her hoped that he’d come back healthy, as a handsome young man who would fall in love the moment he saw her. Yeah, like that was going to happen. Like she even wanted it to happen.
She opened the door to Father’s barn and stepped into its inky darkness. Something rustled in the corner.
“Loesie?”
“Hmmmm.”
Johanna turned up the wick on the oil lamp that always burned in the corner. By its measly light, a sea cow rose to the surface of the water and cast a baleful look at her. Its eye, brown and mournful, looked surprisingly human. The surface of the water looked oily, with a mess of cabbage leaves floating around. Ripples disturbed the surface where the other cows were. Also, occasionally there would be a trail of bubbles escaping from the animals’ pelts or other places.
On the right-hand wall the harnesses hung on hooks, with thick oiled leather straps that held the pack to the front of the boat on the upriver runs. Underneath the harnesses was a workbench and tools for repair.
Johanna put the basket on the bench.
“I’ve got bread and cheese for you.”
Loesie came out of the darkness. In that horrible black dress and her translucent pale skin and eyes so wide that the whites showed on all sides, she looked like a wraith.
She snatched the bread and held it to her chest like a treasure needing protection. She shuffled aside, like a mangy dog afraid to be hit.
“Loesie?” A chill went over Johanna’s back. She was no longer sure that it had been a good idea to come here alone.
“Ghghghghghg!” Loesie darted forwards and grabbed the basket. She snatched the cheese and bit into it.
While she chewed, she put her hands on the handle of the basket. She closed her eyes and let the magic of the wood flow through her. She opened her mouth and uttered a soft cry. A pale white dribble of half-chewed cheese ran down her chin.
“Loesie, what’s wrong?” The chill that Johanna had felt earlier grew into a blizzard.
What sort of dark craft did it take to put a spell this strong on a person? What else had been affected other than Loesie’s ability to speak? How could she know that Loesie wasn’t leading her into a horrible trap? She’d heard the stories of people turning other people into diseased ghosts. The stories about madmen who devoured blood or human flesh were stories, weren’t they?
Loesie’s eyes opened as slits of pure white. She tilted her head to the ceiling of the barn and swayed from one foot to the other while uttering a low moan.
Johanna backed away.
No, definitely not a good idea to come here.
Loesie came towards her, holding out the basket. “Ghghghghghghgh!”
She tried to push the basket into Johanna’s hands, but Johanna wanted nothing to do with it anymore.
“Keep away from me!” Johanna’s back bumped into the barn door. She lifted the bar, pushed the door open and ran.
Johanna ran down the wharf, past the dark shadows of boats. Her footsteps sounded loud on the cobbled ground. The cat she’d seen earlier gave a surprised meow and skittered out of her way, into the open door of a warehouse.
There was a light within and a few deck hands were inside, moving barrels. The warehouse belonged to an Estlander merchant but long-time citizen of Saardam, Master Deim. Those Estlanders had odd customs, still working after dark. They must have received an important shipment.
Johanna didn’t want the men to see her, because they’d ask what she was doing here. They’d see that she was upset. They would discover Loesie and the state she was in. They might even tell the mayor, or the king’s guard, and instead of going to the ball, Johanna would be spending tomorrow night locked up in a cell. No one still did witch burnings anymore, did they?
She ran past the entrance when the men’s backs were turned. She ran past the other warehouses and the forbidding walls of the King’s guard armoury, where the single guard on duty followed her with his eyes.
She stopped in front of her father’s office, catching her breath. The windows were dark. Of course Master Willems had gone home long ago. He was the only one she could talk to about magic, and even he avoided the subject. She couldn’t go and see him at home, because his father would be there, and he was with the Church. Visiting him at home would be inappropriate.
Then what?
Panting, she looked back over the wharf, past the warehouses, the ammunition depot and the barn and the Lady Sara. There was no movement on the wharf.
Johanna wiped her face, seeing Loesie’s wild expression when she closed her eyes, that dribble of half-chewed cheese down her chin.
Had she been wrong to shelter someone who was clearly possessed by evil? And was Loesie now trying to make her a victim as well? Was Master Willems right in saying that nothing had happened upriver? Could Loesie possibly have imbued the wood with the images for the evil purpose of seducing Johanna into the influence of evil?
She shivered.
Loesie, as Johanna remembered her, was a kind young woman. Yes, she was a bit odd, and loved scaring people with her strange tales of creatures that came out of the river next to her grandpa’s farm, most of which were stories she made up.
Loesie loved playing pranks. She’d tell an outrageous story and see how far in she could get before her audience understood that she was telling them fibs.
But this . . .
Looks like reality caught up with the prankster.
White eyes, a dribble of milk-like fluid from her mouth—that was how scholars identified people who were possessed by demons.
Her little voice of sanity said, It was only half-eaten cheese.
But what about Loesie’s eyes? They had definitely turned all-white, without irises.
Johanna wanted to run home and forget that all this had happened. She wanted to burn the basket that Loesie had given her and that sat on the chair by the window in her room.
Then again, Loesie was always a bit strange, but kind-hearted. Loesie would never harm anyone.
A little voice inside her said, If Loesie had turned into a demon, then the evil would have taken complete possession of her and would not have taken only her voice, right?
Coming from a farm, Loesie wouldn’t read or write. Her voice was the only way in which she could warn people.
The question remained: how much of the real Loesie was still in there?
What to do, what to do?
Whatever happened, she couldn’t abandon a friend, because no one else would help her, but she couldn’t handle this alone either.
Johanna had started walking again. She came past the harbour-side bars where the sound of yelling male voices spilled out. Through the windows, she could see patrons sitting around tables served by the young man who was the son of the owner. A single dark-haired woman sat on one of the tables. Johanna knew her, too.
Helena had come to Saardam as First Mate’s pet aboard one of the southern sea’s vessels. After two months at sea, her belly started swelling. She drank a concoction that was supposed to rid her of the child, but it had made her so ill that the First Mate ditched her as soon as they came into port. Helena managed the rooms upstairs, where a never-ending line of sailors were keen to part with their hard-earned money to spend some time with any of the young women Helena had plucked off the streets in towns along the Saar River. She also knew which men were out of work and was a good contact for hiring deck hands.
Johanna crossed the markets where the trestle tables had been packed away until the next market day. On the far side, the belltower of the church reached for the heavens, like a dark shadow against the sky. A light was on in the porch, flickering with the breeze. Hadn’t the Shepherd Romulus said that the church doors were always open?
Johanna hesitated, looking around. Apart from the church, the other main building at the markets was the market house. During the day, its front and side doors were open, and merchants would bring in their wares to be officially weighed by market officials. At night, the doors were closed. Few private houses surrounded the markets, and in those that did, the curtains were closed over the windows. Something rustled in the shadows that might be a mouse or a rat, or one of the cats employed to catch those pests. There were no people in sight.
Quietly, Johanna walked up the church steps into the darkness of the porch, into the glow of the flapping flame of the storm light that hung on the back wall of the porch, and pushed the door open. It creaked.
It was not completely dark in the church either. Oil lamps set in sconces on pillars that supported the roof spread an orange glow just strong enough for her to see the aisle. Candles burned at the altar.
Her footsteps sounded hollow in the large space and for once she was glad that she wasn’t wearing her clogs.
The church was a reflective space, with simple glass windows, plain pillars and plain wooden pews. The only thing that had any prominence inside the building was a large statue at the front. The three-headed demon stood on its hind legs, with its front legs slightly in the air. It had the body of a strong dog, with muscular legs and shoulders. The three heads were those of an emaciated ghost, a dog and a man. Father was right: it was a hideous thing, but it was meant to be: it symbolised the ugliness of human emotions the Church sought to change.
There were footsteps at the back of the church and a man in a simple robe dissolved from the shadows. Shepherd Romulus.
“Can I help you, child?”
“I . . . um . . .” There was no going back now.
He came towards her in the aisle. From close up, under the candlelight, he looked older than he did in the service. He wore his customary brown robe, a simple garment without any embellishments except the white knotted cord around his waist. He had grey hair cropped short and a short beard, also grey. His green eyes were kind, but surrounded by a spider’s web of wrinkles.
“You look disturbed, child.”
You would, too, if you’d seen a person possessed by evil. But she said only, “I came here to pray.”
He smiled. “You’re in the right place for that. Do you want to pray together?”
That seemed like a good starting point. Better than the question she would have to ask later: What can I do to exorcise a demon from my friend? Because that question would mean acknowledging that magic existed, or maybe even that she had magic.
Johanna sat next to the Shepherd in the front pew, directly opposite the giant statue of the three-headed Triune. The light cast deep shadows over the dog face that jutted out above her. An angry and snarling thing it was, depicting the evil Spirit in the Triune. The head of the Ghost was on the far side of the statue, a long-haired man with hollow eyes, and the middle head embodied the Holy God, a man with a kind face and a short beard. He looked a bit like King Nicholaos, although she’d seen children clipped on the ear for saying that.
The Reverend folded his hands in his lap and neither of them said anything for a while. The calm beauty of the place soothed Johanna’s rattled mind. The wood under her hands showed images of people filing into the church and taking place in the pews. See? There was nothing to panic about. There might be demons and bandits on horseback in the border regions. They might even be on their way to Saardam. But the city was strong and the king’s guards would deal with them. She ordered her thoughts into a couple of perfectly rational questions.
“I seek advice about a friend,” she said when the Shepherd raised his head.
“Is this a friend who has strayed off the right path?”
“A friend who is possessed.” Did she see him do a little double take? “She has lost her voice and her sanity, and speaks gibberish. Maybe she’s trying to tell me something, but I can’t understand her.”
He gave her a thoughtful and calculating look. “Does she roll her eyes and secrete fluids?”
Johanna nodded, and the chill of seeing the white slits of Loesie’s eyes returned.
His expression went hard. “She is possessed by evil. Any such should be banished from the city.”
“She’s my friend. She frightens me, but I have to look after her or no one else will. I don’t think she has anyone left in the world. I know her as a kind person, and this is not her fault. Please tell me how to help her.”
He turned around and fixed her with his green eyes. “Your heart is kind, sister, but playing with evil will beget more evil. You can pray for her, but the evil of magic is strong. You should not get further involved with her.”
“Should I let her die then? She can’t look after herself like this.” It was a wonder that Loesie had even made it to the markets.
“Your friend is already dead. All that’s inside her is the spirit of evil.” He folded his hands before his chest as if in prayer.
“She tries to talk to me. She recognises me.”
The Shepherd put a hand on her shoulder. “Sister, I see that this upsets you. But demons take on the memories of human bodies. They seek to seduce us with something we want, maybe the voice of someone long ago deceased. Take it from me: most likely, this demon has killed your friend already.”
Johanna again heard the penetrating woman’s scream that Loesie’s basket had played back to her. She didn’t think it was Loesie’s voice, but from that sound, it was hard to tell.
“If, however, your friend’s soul is still alive, the demon will leave after it has completed its task. For that reason al
one, it is better not to stay close to her.”
“You’re sure?” How could he know all this? “Have you seen this happen?”
“It’s written in the Book.” He reached in the pocket of his robe and drew out a well-thumbed copy of the Book of the Triune. With a pale-fingered hand he leafed through the pages. His fingers trembled.
“Ah, here it is.” He pressed the book open and read. “Two days after the encounter on the road, Coran woke up one morning, speaking in tongues. No one in his household, not even his dear wife, could understand what he said. They were afraid and went into the church for guidance, but the Shepherd was not there, since he had gotten up at dawn to spread wards around the edges of the village. When they returned home, Coran was gone as well, and the villagers reported seeing him wander around the fields that surrounded the village for days. Although he had no weapon, his hands were covered in blood. He would not reply if they spoke to him, and would not look them in the eye. His eyes were rolling in his head and when he tried to speak, milk-like fluid would leak from his mouth. After four days, the madness vanished from his eyes, and he came back home, clean and washed. When his family asked him about his absence, he said that he had seen much evil and would never speak to a demon ever again. The next day, the neighbour who had been cheating found his prize cow dead in the paddock, ripped to shreds.”
Johanna knew that passage. It was a metaphor for a man learning his lesson after trying to make financial gains at the expense of his neighbour. It held no authority on the subject of demons.
She clenched her hands in her lap, biting her tongue in frustration. There was so much she wanted to say about magic, that it wasn’t always evil, that it belonged to objects and not people, that some people couldn’t help being able to see it. That you were born with it and it was not something you could choose to engage in, or, for that matter, disengage from. But this was probably not the right time.
“Who is this friend of yours, pray?”
“Someone I know from the markets.” She also couldn’t say why she knew Loesie—because they both had willow magic, because she had felt the magic in Loesie that first day she’d met her at the markets as a little girl. “She comes in from the eastern border. She’s seen evil things that are coming this way. She may be possessed, but her mind is still fighting the demon. I don’t believe that she’s evil. And I don’t believe that the demon has taken her over completely. I want to know how we can get rid of the demon and restore her speech.”
The Shepherd’s face became a closed mask. “You’re asking for someone who can perform an exorcism. The Church does not provide these people. Exorcisms are quackery that most likely make matters worse than they are. Demons are manifestations of the Triune. They are repelled by prayer, not by fake magicians with horseshoes, goat’s blood and other items that wouldn’t look out of place in the Lord of Fire’s dungeons.”
Johanna had never seen an exorcism and had no idea how it was done or if it was effective, but she didn’t believe him anymore. He didn’t care about Loesie.
What was more, she suddenly had an irrational desire to get out of there. This church was not a place where she could get answers. This Triune was not her friend.