Fire Wizard

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

WINTER WAS COMING. It was in the crispness of the air, in the whiteness of the dew on the grass, almost but not quite frozen as rime. It was in the steam rising from the river and blowing out of the nostrils of the cows that stood on the riverbank and that raised their heads curiously as the two river boats drifted downstream.

Johanna could feel the winter in her bones. Still, she counted herself lucky that she had a bed to sleep in, and that she didn’t have to lie on the floor, or even sit on the deck, covered only by a horse blanket. But even down in the ship’s hold in the little cosy room she shared with Roald, it was damp and cold. She’d given the warm blanket to a mother with two young girls—they were asleep in the corner of the room under the stairs, the mother leaning against the wall and the girls with their heads in her lap.

Their cheeks were red, and Johanna hoped that the girls were warmer than she felt. She had mistakenly thought that Roald would keep her warm, but all he did at night was toss and snore and keep her awake, and now she was stiff and cold as well as tired.

When she came up on the deck, the temperature dropped even further. Shivering, she pulled the cloak closer around her. Her breath steamed in the air.

Loesie sat at the bow on the driver’s bench, her legs pulled up under her. The rope that held the harnesses of the sea cows hung slack, because the ship had moored at a rickety jetty and the animals were grazing nearer the shore.

“How far do we still have to go?” Her voice sounded loud in that silence.

Loesie let out a gasp. Had she been asleep? She let her feet down from inside the blanket and stuffed them in her old boots.

“There,” she said and pointed over the riverbank, between a couple of willow trees.

Squinting through the mist, Johanna tried to make out what Loesie was looking at. A concentration of trees. A few windmills. And on the horizon, the faint outline of a tower.

Saardam. “Is that it?”

“It is. I don’t think we should go any further with the boats.”

They had discussed this when mooring here last night, that they were not going to take the ships all the way into Saardam because no one knew what they’d find there.

The Nieland vessel lay in the next bay upriver, tied to a couple of trees. The Prosperity was both larger and had a larger deck, and it carried most of the refugees. Normally used for storing transport crates, they had planned to use the deck as seating area for Roald and Johanna’s official wedding. How trivial that planning now seemed, and why had they been so addled by magic to even consider having the ceremony in Florisheim?

Magic.

She shuddered.

Everything in Florisheim had been steeped with magic. It had affected everyone’s decisions.

Some people on the Prosperity were early risers, courtesy of the cooks and the former soldiers who had made it on board. Captain Arense, too, already stood on the deck. He was wearing his grey cape. Some children had taken the dinghy ashore and were coming back with a bucket of milk. They chattered with shrill and far too cheerful voices that made Johanna’s head hurt. Maybe they’d slept better on board that ship. Maybe they were used to discomfort. Maybe it was because they were children and didn’t feel the cold. Everyone had been exhausted. No doubt the coming days would be even more exhausting.

Johanna went down the Lady Sara’s gangplank and picked her way across the rotting planks of the jetty. It would be a place where farmers loaded their milk and cheese to take to the markets in Saardam. But judging by the weeds that grew in the cracks of the wood and the grass that pushed through the gaps from underneath, it had been a long time since anyone had used the jetty.

Johanna waded through the grass of the riverbank. It was cold and damp closer to the ground, and remnants of mist trailed over the grass. A couple of willow trees guarded the bank like silent sentinels. In passing, Johanna ran her hand over the weathered trunks, and saw peaceful grazing cows in a brilliant green paddock. At least nothing bad had happened here in recent months.

The rope holding the ship in place had been tied around one of the tree trunks, and the wood did show her a man going out in the dinghy to tie it. He pulled the dinghy up onto a little beach a few steps across, climbed up the bank, dragging the rope through the reeds, and looped it around the trunk.

When Johanna came to the little beach, Captain Arense himself came down the ladder. He pulled the dinghy close and rowed a few strokes to the shore.

“It is getting cold these days, Your Majesty,” he said while helping her in.

“It certainly is.” She longed to be in a warm room with a roaring fire. Her heart ached when she thought of her father, and that she would soon know whether he was still alive. In a way she feared to find out, because if the news was bad, she would be better off not knowing.

The oars splashed in the calm water.

The dinghy glided across and a moment later clonked into the side of the Prosperity’s hull. Captain Arense grabbed the rope ladder and held it down. Johanna clambered up, her hands stiff from the cold.

On the deck, a number of women stood huddled around a camp stove on which stood a huge pot. The little boys that Johanna had seen carrying the milk sat on the railing, eying the spoon going around and around in the porridge.

It smelled really good.

The door of the cabin opened and Johan Delacoeur stepped onto the deck. He was a tall man and he had to bend to avoid hitting his head against the top of the doorframe. He, too, looked a little the worse for wear, with a giant mud stain on his shirt that he must have acquired in the scramble to get on board.

He nodded when he saw Johanna, but his expression remained guarded. Did he remember how wrong he’d been about the Red Baron and the Baron’s son’s evil magic? Both his noble mates, Fleuris LaFontaine and Ignatius Hemeldinck had not made it onto either the Prosperity or the Lady Sara. There was no way of knowing whether they had survived, but Johanna guessed that they were probably with the Baron or staying with their cronies in Florisheim. Maybe they had seen the Baron’s evil ways, but she didn’t hold out too much hope. She didn’t even think that Johan Delacoeur saw the truth. He was just here because of his family and because he happened to be in the camp when the panic broke out and his mates happened to be . . . elsewhere.

Johanna sat on the railing, waiting for the porridge to cook. Johan Delacoeur put his hands in his pockets and remained outside the door to the captain’s cabin, looking ruffled and tired.

He yawned. “Pray, why have we stopped in this field?”

“Saardam is just over there.” Johanna glanced at the western horizon, where pale sunlight touched the mist-covered meadows.

“Isn’t that a reason to keep going?”

Johanna resisted the temptation to roll her eyes.

A woman handed Johanna porridge in a chipped bowl. “Be careful. It’s very hot.”

Johanna ate as quickly as she could, letting the hot goo make its way to her stomach.

The Shepherd Carolus had also come onto the deck, looking rumpled, unshaven and rubbing his face.

“So, when are we going to continue?” Johan Delacoeur asked the Shepherd. He held his bowl, untouched, as if eating porridge was beneath him.

“I thought you’d heard at the meeting last night that we’re leaving the ships here.” The Shepherd had been attending a sick child and had not heard all of the discussion last night.

“Ridiculous.” Johan muttered under his breath.

The Shepherd gave him a startled and too-innocent look. “Why ridiculous? When the scouts return, they’ll tell us how safe it is to go in. We’ll be splitting up and going into town dressed as farmers and peddlers so that we don’t attract attention.”

Johan scoffed. “I’m not going to dress up in rags—”

“Oh, yes, dear, you are.” This was his wife, Martine.

One of the younger girls said, “You can always be a pauper for real, like the rest of us.”

Johan went red in the face. “I’m going to stay with the ship.”

Martine said, “The boys are already doing that. They’re much handier with sea cows than you are. We’ll do whatever is necessary to go home. Aren’t you keen to find out what has become of your sisters?”

He snorted, took a spoon full of porridge, burned his mouth, but ate it anyway, glaring at his wife.

Johanna was beginning to like Martine Delacoeur, who might be of noble birth, but didn’t put up with any nonsense. She nodded at Johanna as if she wanted to say Never mind him, we’ll do whatever we want.

It was a pity they didn’t have children.