The Folly of the World (22 page)

And now he was…

But then he had…

Why, she wondered, the hurt of it worse than anything she felt with her flesh. Or so she told herself. Why? Then she hardened at once, the twisting, soft clay in her belly cooking to brick as her damp misery blazed into wrathful fury—because she was a stupid little bitch, that was why. Because she had let herself be used like a grub on a hook, cast in to catch something nice, and discarded when she landed it… assuming a big fucking fish didn’t bite her in half first. Better ask why she wasn’t dead herself, why Jan was lying there all hacked up.

Sander, of course. The madman. She got into a crouch, suddenly aware that no matter which way she faced, her back was always vulnerable, open to his sword. He wasn’t in the boat, and wasn’t on the crypt, and wasn’t—

—She screamed, which she never really did, but there was a face watching her from the marshy island beside the crypt. Some slick toad-man or something, an eel-monster coming out of his burrow now that the sun was setting, his reptilian eyes staring at her the whole time, his lumpy brown hide blending into the marsh, and—

Sander, of course. The madman. As she watched, he began to drag himself out of the mud, which was almost up to his chest. It
would have been comical a day before, the stupid creeper cursing and grunting and becoming even filthier as he wallowed in the muck, but at present it was positively chilling. Jolanda weighed her options. Looking down into the boat and the impossibly long oars that stretched along its bottom, she realized she had precious little choice if she didn’t want to swim back to land.

“What did you do?” she heard him mutter, and though his face was cast down into the clinging mud, he pulled himself up and across its boggy surface. Toward her. “What did you do?”

Precious little choice is better than none at all, and though it meant dropping down onto the flat before him, Jolanda made a break for the boat. If she could get it free of the muck, she could row, she could, she could use the quant to push herself along the stones and then she could row. Lowering herself, she instantly sank to her knees in the marsh, but before she had reached the nose of the boat, he was upright and lurching over to her, free of the mud and horrible as any catfish, long barbels of filth dangling from his beard.

She stared at him, wondering if all would come to naught, if the lunatic was about to push her down into the mud to finish what Jan had started. He extended his fingers toward her face, the digits just beside her mouth, and she considered biting them, taking the moment of surprise it would grant her to dive for the shallows, to try to swim for it.

No. She was too tired for all that, too goddamn tired, and his cold, damp fingers brushed her neck, making her wince. She did not look away from his intense stare.

“Let’s get him in,” said Sander, his voice quiet and hollow as he turned to the crypt. “We’re not planting him here for that fish to dig up. Let’s take him home.”

The tears came again as they loaded Jan’s ruined body into the boat, though she wasn’t sure if they were for him or for her. Sander washed the caked grime from his hands before slipping the bloody ring off Jan’s finger and putting it on his own. Jolanda
still hadn’t gotten a proper look at the thing for which she had nearly died several times over, but now found that she didn’t want to. It was a stupid ring, was all, and looking at the stricken, terrified rictus of Jan gazing up to heaven from the belly of the boat, she felt the splinters in her throat twist and grind as a sob heaved its way up from her depths.

Sander took his place on the rowing board and they were off, twilight blurring the lines between sky and water, mist and cloud. They heard a mewling cry as they passed between two crooked stones jutting out of the meer, and before Jolanda’s heart could land after jumping up her tight craw, the Muscovite’s cat had pounced into the vessel from her perch on a tombstone. She landed on Jan and limped across him to Jolanda, but other than keeping her right foreleg off the corpse, she seemed well enough, purring and nuzzling Jolanda as Sander mutely rowed on.

They reached the island of the manor a moment later, the gulf between house and graveyard she had swum in desperate, endless flight now seeming such a narrow passage. Sander nearly tipped the boat getting himself onto the marshy roof. He dragged Jan out after him, but Jolanda stayed in the prow, keeping her eyes on the gray tabby and continuing to pet her even when a splash came from the center of the island. Then Sander was hurrying back over the mire, muttering about hauntings and proper burials and ill fucking omens and all.

Then they were away from Oudeland, back the way they had come. Something large-winged and ink-plumed landed atop the church spire behind them, but both she and Sander pretended they didn’t notice, and the scrapings against the bottom of the boat as they passed through the flooded willow wood were just old branches, that was all, nothing more. The gloaming slowly turned to night proper, but only when the mist thickened and the darkness deepened did Sander pull the oars back into the boat. Neither had said a word since leaving the manor house, but now his voice came to her from the blackness at the back of the boat.

“This is a good spot for the night,” he said, and the utter stupidity of this statement caught her so off-guard that she burst out laughing. This did not sit well, apparently. “What’s so goddamn funny?”

“Saw a better place… back there,” she said, the strain that simply talking placed on her raw throat making her eyes flood. “By the… water.”

Then he was laughing, too, and if his cackling also turned to sobbing, she could not tell in the darkness. Eventually it passed, and the moon came out from beneath the clouds. The meer was louder than she had imagined it could be after the solemn quiet of the day, and dark things flitted above them, cutting slashes of black across the jaundiced moon brooding overhead. The weight of an entire flooded house settled on Jolanda’s arms and legs and ragged neck, but she had finally recognized the pinching, knotting, gurgling pain in her stomach as hunger, and in the gloom she easily found one of the satchels they had brought. Her fingers felt like wooden dowels jutting out of her hands, but when she numbly raised the first object she found in the bag, it was a loaf of bread, and she attacked it with something like love.

Sander slid off the bench, his full darkness hanging over her, and then he silently began picking through the bag as well. He removed a gibbous wheel of cheese, its wax glinting in the moonlight, and a jug of beer. Then they feasted, eating and eating and eating despite the tears it brought to Jolanda’s eyes, eating as though they had just discovered what their teeth were for, and washing it all down with flat, malty beer that first heightened but eventually dislodged the spurs of pain from Jolanda’s throat. A few of them, at least—it still hurt, but not so badly as it had, and at last she lay back in the clammy curve of the boat and let her exhaustion drown her, the cat lodging itself in her armpit as she drifted off. Sander was still sitting up, watching her as she went, but she had given up on doing anything about the shitbird—the worst he could do was kill her, after all.

P
oorter didn’t recognize the knocking at his door, which wouldn’t have been so strange if it wasn’t clearly intended to be some sort of recognizable code—three quick raps, a pause, two slow raps, and then four more in quick succession. He straightened up slowly and carefully, as slowly and carefully as he had been shaving down the channel in the crossbow before him, but even still, staccato twinges fired off up and down his spine, a ragged line of archers shooting at will as the enemy bore down upon them. The knocking was coming a third time as he went to answer it, a vague disquiet filling him as he stared at the inside of his door—he found that he rarely liked his visitors these days.

Ah, well, perhaps it would be someone pleasant this time.

It wasn’t.

The madman continued glancing up and down the street even when Poorter cleared his throat in the open doorway. Sander looked about as suspicious as one is able to without actively skulking in an alley with a bandit’s mask in one hand and a bloody knife in the other. Next to the madman stood the moppet, who seemed every bit as silently wretched as she had proven in their early acquaintance, an ugly statue put out at having been brought to life. She held a squirmy gray cat. Having a workshop perpetually cluttered with half-constructed devices that did not respond well to being knocked onto the stone floor, Poorter was less than fond of cats, but given the circumstances he had to admit that the tabby was the most welcome of the guests on his stoop.

“Yes?” said Poorter, hoping that if he filled the doorway at just the right angle, the degenerates would get the hint that they weren’t welcome. If such a pose existed, Poorter evidently had yet to master it—Sander pushed his way into the house without a word, leaving a cold, damp impression on Poorter’s shirt as he
did. The girl followed the madman inside, and shutting the door after them, Poorter trailed them into the kitchen. “Have a fine time of it, then?”

“No,” said Sander, pulling out a chair at the table. “Let the puss go already, she’s sick of your stink.”

The girl tossed the cat onto Sander’s lap, and the beast immediately bounced up onto the table. Presumably it had hooked Sander as it went, for he began to shout furiously, first at the cat and then at the girl, who was wearing the sort of smile dogs adopt just before they bite. The feline left muddy footprints on the freshly scoured table, and when Poorter moved to push it off, it hissed at him, sprang onto the floor, and disappeared into his workroom.

“—wretched ball-battering slut!” Sander finished.

“Well, then,” said Poorter. “The cat can’t stay, I’m afraid, so I’ll just go put it out and—”

“I’ll cut your fat face if you touch her,” the girl snarled at Poorter, her glee at enraging Sander instantly turning to something similar to what the madman evidently felt at having his belly scratched by a rank cat. They were the first words she had ever spoken to Poorter. He believed them.

“Well, if it’s just for the night…” said Poorter hopefully as he fetched two mugs. He admired his own craftsmanship as he filled them, the shelf he had built for the small keg just the right height for tapping without bending over. Turning back with the beers, he saw Sander rummaging around in his cheese barrel as the door of the privy closed behind the girl. “It will have to be, I mean. Family’s visiting tomorrow, and much as I would prefer to have sufficient accommodations for all parties, I simply do not. If Jan—”

“Jan’s dead,” said Sander, turning back from the cheese barrel with a cloth-draped wheel Poorter recognized as a Gouda he had been aging for a special occasion. Dark stains were already spreading out across the white cloth from where the man’s filthy
fingertips gripped the cheese. It was a sad sight, this dirty-handed madman sullying a perfectly innocent Gouda, and Poorter set down the beers. He supposed it said something about his character that even with such dire news hanging in the air he couldn’t help but imagine the intelligent supper guests who might have appreciated the cheese for what it was, as opposed to these grimy villains.

“Dear God, how awful,” Poorter said with genuine emotion. He was still looking at the cheese. “My condolences, Sander, truly, I know you and he were very close.”

“Yeah,” said Sander, planting the wheel down before him and taking one of the mugs. “ ‘If there’s anything I can do,’ right?”

“What?” Poorter blinked, as if the man’s lack of clarity was something that could be brushed away with a diligent eyelid.

“ ‘If there’s anything I can do to help in your time of loss, Sander, I’ll do it. For you and Jo.’ ” Sander raised his mug and eyed Poorter over the top of it. “Right?”

“What?” Poorter repeated, then caught on. Jo must be the girl’s name. “Of course, yes, anything I can do. Within reason. I’ll put you up for the night, and in the morning…”

Sander tilted the beer back and drained it in a series of gulps. The girl came out of the latrine, went directly to the table, and picked up Poorter’s mug. He opened his mouth but thought better of it and rose to get another beer for himself. Giving her provocation to speak seemed like a losing proposition.

“In the morning?” Sander said to Poorter’s back, and the man flinched as if snapped at the baths with a rolled-up towel.

“Yes, well, as I said, much as I would like to put you up longer…” Glancing over his shoulder at their twin scowls, he lamely finished, “I have family visiting.”

“That’s fine,” said Sander. This relieved Poorter. “So long as you manage to do what I tell you ’tween now and then, that’s fine as silk.” This did not.

Poorter returned to the table, where Sander was using a
blackened, dangerous-looking dagger to slice the cheese. The madman waggled the blade at Poorter, a whitish chunk balanced on its end. Poorter took the cheese and popped it into his mouth, unhappy to find it slightly oily, and with a grit that it surely hadn’t acquired in his barrel. This did not bode well, it did not bode well at all.