The Idiot King Read online

  So it was done, and finally she stood on Roald’s shoulders and she could reach the wooden beams in the ceiling. As soon as she touched the wood, the images rushed to her.

  She heard a familiar voice, that of Ignatius Hemeldinck.

  “I’ll go and see him.” He sat at the table in the shed with the two other nobles from the council. They were wearing the same clothes as in the meeting this morning and this discussion had probably taken place after Johanna, Master Deim, Captain Arense, Joris DeCamp and Shepherd Carolus had left the shed.

  “Let me come with you,” said Johan Delacoeur.

  Ignatius snorted. “What? Don’t trust me?”

  “Well,” Johan said, “You don’t seem yourself lately. I’ve not known you to give in to a woman.”

  Ignatius’ face twitched. “It just seemed best not to escalate it further.”

  “Since when have you ever said that? What is wrong with you, man?”

  Ignatius glared across the table.

  “I think we should all go.” Fleuris LaFontaine said. “Remind him of the promises he made us.”

  “Just the three of us, right?” Ignatius said.

  “Yes, that goes without saying. I don’t trust the captain or the mayor. That merchant, too, is much too friendly to her. I was waiting for him to reveal all we’ve been talking about.”

  “Rest assured, the only reason he didn’t do that in the meeting is that he has already told her everything.”

  “He knows nothing.” This was Ignatius again. Then he snorted. “I have to admit that we don’t know much more either. It’s like that meeting with the Red Baron at the castle never happened. ‘We’ll keep you informed,’ he said. I’m tired of waiting.”

  “I agree I’m sick of it. And now we have this woman who is far too probing, but she’s right about this. I’ve been unhappy that the Baron seems to have forgotten about us. It’s all very fine for us to make excuses, like ‘He’s too busy,’ but they’re excuses, nothing more. We don’t even know if he really is too busy, because we haven’t seen him. And I don’t like this business any more than she does.”

  There were headshakes around the table.

  Ignatius pushed himself up from the table. “No need to panic. Let’s just say that it’s time to go into town and employ my contacts.”

  “And what are you going to do? Magically make the Baron appear and parade him through the camp?”

  Ignatius smirked.

  “You’re kidding, right?” Johan said.

  “Nope. I think the time is right.”

  “You’re crazy.”

  “Don’t let anyone see you, especially the captain or that priest. Those two are everywhere,” Fleuris said. “If she finds out, you’ll never hear the end of it. She’ll think she has made us nervous.”

  Johan said, “She already has. She’s a lot smarter than most women.”

  Ignatius snorted. “Bah, a woman. Nattering, gossiping, seductive creature.”

  “Don’t underestimate her.”

  “No woman can match me. No woman will rule me.”

  They rose from the table and left. Johanna slowly withdrew her hand from the ceiling beam. The vision faded for the semi-darkness of the shed.

  Well, that was certainly interesting. Master Deim had been right. They had made secret arrangements with the Baron. Maybe she should try the other beam to see what it had to tell her. She reached out—

  A huge thunderclap shook the ground and made the walls of the shed rattle. Roald squealed and ducked. Standing with her hand outstretched, Johanna lost her balance. Her foot slipped off Roald’s shoulder. She tried to steady herself against the wall, but Roald stood too far away from it and she hadn’t the strength to keep herself up. She fell. Roald toppled over under her weight and they ended up in a tangle of limbs on the dusty floor.

  Oof.

  She had landed with her head on Roald’s chest. “Are you all right?”

  “We fell.” Roald started laughing. “We fell.”

  Johanna scrambled up, brushing dust from her underdress, but as wet as it was, she ended up smearing dirt across it.

  She started laughing as well. They were both so wet and dirty and looked so much like a couple of children who had been playing in the mud. And it was raining so hard outside that getting back to the ship involved yet another dunking.

  “I haven’t told you that I love you yet today,” Roald said. He put his hands on her shoulders and met her eyes. His beard had been trimmed that morning. It seemed to have grown fuller recently, and despite his condition and the childish innocence of his mind, he looked not unattractive. “I love you.”

  He slid his hands up over her shoulders until he cradled her head in both hands. Johanna stroked his hair and the sides of his face. His beard scratched her palms. She pulled him closer until she could kiss his lips. He remained unresponsive, but when she pulled back, the expression in his eyes showed his interest.

  “Maybe I could look at you now?”

  “What? Here?” She eyed the shed’s empty interior, the table and benches, the bare ground with gouges from where people had dragged boats that would now be on the water. And would probably be filling up with water from the rain outside.

  He pulled at her underdress and peeped inside through the gap between her neckline and her chest. “Ooh, I can see something.”

  Johanna laughed. Well, why not? People did sillier things than that. She slowly undid the buttons at the front. He tried to poke his hand in, but she slapped him away, teasing

  As the thunder rolled over the banks of the Rede River, and the rain pelted on the roof of the shed—and found its way inside by the sound of the drip-drip-drip on the floor—they came together. Johanna clung onto Roald’s sweaty body while the edge of the table bit into her backside. The thrum of the rain masked any noises, and she wasn’t ashamed that there were some noises.

  She wouldn’t really be a queen in the eyes of those men unless she had a child.

  When it was done, after Roald had done his hunhh! thing and they clung to each other breathing fast while letting the glow ebb, they got dressed and ran through the rain back to the Lady Sara. Nellie had started wondering where they were. She fussed over the wet clothes and having nowhere to dry them.

  Johanna said, “That’s why we wore the peasant clothes.” She wondered if Nellie would recognise the smell of seed that had ended up all over the back of the underdress.

  “Still, mistress Johanna, did you have to go out in this weather?”

  Yes, she did have to go out, and the wood had told her useful things. The nobles were concerned about her influence. They had made some sort of deal with the Baron, and now the Baron was ignoring them. Why? Because the Baron had what he wanted and didn’t need the nobles anymore? Worse: what was Ignatius Hemeldinck planning to do?

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  Chapter 5

  * * *

  WHEN CRACKS of daylight leaked between the hinges of the covers, Johanna could no longer stay in bed.

  Roald was still asleep. He lay on his side, with his face to her, his eyes closed, little slivers of blond eyelashes. He was so peaceful that she didn’t want to disturb him.

  She got dressed as quietly as she could, took her basket with the leather cover and climbed up the creaky stairs. Roald groaned and turned over, but didn’t wake up. A peek from underneath the heavy hold cover gave her a glimpse of wet boards and little circles where raindrops fell in a puddle.

  Dang it. Still raining.

  She crept down the creaky ladder again to get her woollen cloak.

  Out on the deck of the Lady Sara, it was still very quiet. Not even Nellie and Loesie appeared to have risen. In the camp on the river bank, a few trails of smoke rose from people cooking breakfast, but not even the boys were out to play yet.

  It must have rained a lot in the foothills of the mountains because the river was high with muddy churning water. Sticks and bits of grass drifted downstream at a good pace. The drop from the deck to the jetty
had increased quite a bit and the Lady Sara’s gangplank had become quite steep. She had to shuffle down carefully, holding the rope to make sure that she didn’t slip.

  At the riverbank, the guards stood hidden in the depth of their woollen cloaks, their hands in their pockets.

  “What a miserable day,” she said.

  One of the men turned around sharply, as if she had startled him. “Good morning, mistress. It’s a lousy day to be out.”

  “I have a need to visit the library to get some new books for Roald.” She patted her basket, looking as innocent as she could. “He’s getting bored.”

  She wasn’t sure how convincing the excuse was on a rainy day like this; after all, the precious books might get wet. But on rainy days there was lots of time to read, as well, and he made no protest.

  “Do you want someone to accompany you?”

  “Thank you, but I’m fine with going alone. I know where the library is. And it would be a very boring place for you, I’d wager.” Why were they asking this all of a sudden? They had never shown any concern for her safety. In fact, they’d mostly ignored her. Was it because of things she had said yesterday?

  The man nodded. “As you wish, mistress.”

  Johanna drew the hood of the cloak over her head, debating if she should tell them to address her as Your Majesty, as was appropriate. But she didn’t like this renewed attention from the men at all, and would do best not to push them.

  She walked quickly over the path between the tents, looking down so she didn’t step in the puddles. Some of them were very deep, and already parts of the field were becoming sodden with the high water in the river.

  The field of the camp lay in an outer curve of the Rede River. The path that led to the boat shed continued upstream through a swampy thicket with willow trees. Someone had put two rows on logs on the ground and filled up the space between them with sand to make a path, but today, even that was half-flooded, so Johanna had to walk past the back of the swamp, where the little path went up the levee where it joined the main road into town.

  The town of Florisheim lay stretched out along the eastern bank of the Rede River, snug between the water and the forested hills. Those hills were too steep to build on, she’d been told, so the town took up only the somewhat less steep riverbanks and the lower part of the slopes.

  Because of its strategic position along the river, Florisheim was foremost a fortress town, with thick city walls as the first line of defence. The quay, in the bend of the river, was a plain, barren place, with another forbidding wall at its back and a single gate that provided entrance to the city. There were also a couple of entrances at water level, closed off by heavy iron gates, now half covered in muddy, churning water.

  Baron Uti’s castle stood on the highest point within the walls, an ancient, menacing building, having thick walls with slits for the guards to shoot their arrows. If you came in from a certain angle, you could see the top of a catapult poking in between the parapets. The castle had one fat and stumpy tower on the corner overlooking the town. The main gate was in the western wall, next to the tower, and the castle was separated from the rest of the town by a drawbridge over a little creek that ran from the hills into the Rede River.

  Johanna entered the town through western city gate, where a bored sentry looked miserable under his wet cloak.

  The town’s houses were mostly made of clay-daubed wood, painted white or red, while the wooden framework was painted black. The patchwork walls made neat patterns that, today, were darkened with rain that was again increasing. The streets were almost entirely a single, muddy puddle. Water dripped off the straw roofs. Smoke curled from chimneys and hung low over the town, spreading tendrils of fog and the scent of burnt wood and cooking. Most people stayed indoors by the fire and she met only a goose-herder boy driving a flock of ten or so birds, which waddled ahead of him, with their orange feet going splash, splash, splash in the puddles.

  Johanna picked her way through the narrow and winding streets. Since arriving at the camp, she had come into town a number of times, usually to visit the markets or the bakery, but occasionally the barber or tailor, and she knew the way. Today, it was so early that a lot of the shops hadn’t opened, and the market vendors hadn’t set up all their wares. In fact, it looked like many weren’t going to be here today.

  One side of the market square was dominated by an elaborate stone building with a belltower. It had pillars with carved gnomes and trolls and gargoyles on the corners. There were little winged devils and ugly faces. It was, of course, the main building of the Belaman Church, and she had walked past, gazing at the stained glass window many times, wondering what it would be like from the inside. People had told her about its splendour.

  Today, the elaborate doors stood open and the sound of singing drifted to the street. A choir of young voices, singing in beautiful harmony. Johanna climbed the few steps to the porch and entered a dark foyer that gave access to the main church hall. A broad aisle with mosaic tiles went to the front, where there was a stone altar, also with elaborate carvings on the side that faced the many rows of pews. The Belaman Church did not depict their god. It believed that each person held the god in their hearts and pictures of a bearded man, like the one in the Church if the Triune, were unnecessary. The wall behind the altar held a huge mural of a hand that appeared out of the clouds, and this hand was the only part of the god that made it into paintings. It pointed an index finger at the sun, which cast brilliant rays of light in response. The sun and its rays were painted in gold and the sky in radiant blue. All along the edges of the mural, there were flowers and vines with fruit, and ears of grain heavy with seed.

  Wow, she’d never seen a church this big, or this beautiful.

  A bunch of choirboys stood on tiered stands and the choirmaster was talking to them, his voice echoing in the emptiness.

  Immediately inside the hall stood tiered tables with hundreds of candles. Tall ones, stubby ones, white ones, carved ones and coloured ones, all of them with flickering, flapping, smoking flames. The faint scent of soot and wax laced the air.

  High in the walls at both sides were windows of brightly coloured glass. One depicted a trio of men lifting their hands to a bright light in the sky. The colours were beautiful, bright and clean. Amazing reds, oranges, yellows and greens. The brightest of blues. Purple even. Didn’t they make that dye from some sort of shell?

  The church was so big that, besides the central aisle, there were two more aisles between the rows of pews and the outer walls. Johanna walked to the one on her right, past the many rows of candles, which flapped more vigorously in her wake.

  Each candle came with a little sign made from parchment or cheaper paper. She bent over to read the curly script. Names, mostly. Of people who had passed away, she guessed. One card had flowers drawn on. Another a young woman’s face. A lot of cards had been written in the same hand, probably written by a church attendant on behalf of mourners.

  While she stood there, the choir started to sing again, and the voices of young boys filled that giant hall with a hymn in chilling harmony. Johanna’s skin puckered into goose bumps.

  She walked past huge paintings of giant men with wings, and statues on pedestals. At the base of some, people had put bunches of flowers. The Belaman Church might not depict their god, but they sure loved their many saints. Some statues were old and plain, others elaborately painted. But even the old ones—and one of the statues was very old and worn, as well as greasy from the touch of many hands—had elaborate pedestals and velvet-covered benches for worshipers to kneel and pray.

  If King Nicholaos had spent a lot of money on the Church of the Triune, it was a mere drop compared to the flood of money this church must have at its disposal.

  The final statue in the row was a white marble life-sized figure of a woman. She wore a long cloak, held her hand, palm up as if begging, and had her face turned to the sky. The hood of her cloak half-covered her hair. She looked quite young and was also vis
ibly pregnant.

  This statue was surrounded by a stepped pedestal, and every step was covered in flowers, little toys, some baby socks even. Each one told a little story of itself. Of lost children, of children hoped-for or mothers lost in childbirth. Johanna looked for, but didn’t see, a sign with the saint’s name.

  She sat on one of the benches surrounding the shrine, jamming her hands between her knees.

  The voices of the choir rose into a crescendo, a multitude of harmonies.

  In her imagination, the marble woman saint looked at the sky and pleaded please, grant me a child. Only one will do and I care not if it is a boy or a girl.

  In her imagination, she knelt on the steps and prayed.

  Certainly, it was not proper to pray in a church that wasn’t yours?

  A male voice said, “I would not have expected to see you here, child.”

  Johanna gasped. She hadn’t heard the brother come up from behind. He was very tall, with a short stubble of hair on his head.

  Johanna rose. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to trespass—”

  “No one trespasses when they come into the house of the Lord. All are welcome.” He spoke with faint eastern accent. “I’m Brother Velespius, and it honours me to have you as a guest in our church.”

  “But I’m not a member.”

  “I know who and what you are. All are welcome in the church, day or night. It’s never too late to pray to the true God and convert.”

  “I think I already believe in the true God.”

  “Do you?” He fixed her with an intense look. His brown eyes held an intense expression that made her feel uneasy.

  “I think we all believe in the same God, because we are all people of the same land. We all know what is good and what is bad.”

  “You have a very generous spirit.”

  The choir had stopped and the choirmaster was yelling something at the boys about going to the midday meal.