The morning broke cold and thin over the harbour, mist coiling low between the ships' masts. The troupe had found shelter in a warehouse near the docks — draughty, half-empty, smelling of salt and wet rope. They had been there long enough for tempers to fray.
Rik was already loading the cart, his movements clipped. Joos muttered as he folded their patched costumes into a trunk. Isabelle stood by the doorway, arms crossed, watching the gulls dive between the ships. Her face was pale from sleeplessness.
'So that's it then?' Joseph said quietly. 'We run again?'
'We leave,' Isabelle answered. 'There's a difference. Antwerp's done with us. Willem's name is ruined, and Bram—' She stopped, shaking her head. 'He's vanished. Took what little coin was left.'
Rik snorted. 'Coward. He's likely halfway to Brussels by now, spending what he stole.'
'Let him,' Joseph muttered. He sat on a barrel near the door, Pietje perched on his shoulder, the parrot's feathers dull in the grey light. The last few days felt like smoke — the quarrel, the expulsion, Katelijne's silence. Every hour without word from her pressed heavier.
Isabelle crossed to him, her boots echoing softly on the boards. 'You've been staring at the same wall for an hour,' she said. 'You'll wear through it.'
'Better that than sit waiting for ghosts.'
'She's no ghost,' Isabelle said, too quickly. 'But she's gone, Joseph. I heard it in the marketplace this morning.'
He looked up sharply. 'What did you hear?'
She hesitated, then said, 'The masquerade. Carnival's end. Floris van den Berg proposed before half the city — and she accepted.'
For a moment there was only the creak of the timbers and Pietje's soft squawk. Joseph stared at her, searching her face for doubt, but found none.
'You lie,' he said quietly.
'I wish I did.' Isabelle's voice gentled. 'It's over, Joseph. You gave her a memory — nothing more. Don't let it break you.'
He rose, fists tightening at his sides. 'If she's to be trapped in his house, then I'll not leave her to it.'
'You can't fix this,' Isabelle said.
But Joseph was already reaching for his cloak. 'Watch me.'
He stepped out into the fog, the gulls crying overhead, Antwerp already fading behind him.
⸻
The harbour was waking as Joseph reached the quays. Grey water slapped against the hulls, ropes creaked, and the air reeked of tar, fish, and cold iron. Men shouted to one another across the fog, their words lost to the crash of waves and the groan of shifting cargo.
Joseph kept to the edges, his cloak drawn tight, watching as the city's lifeblood moved without him — barrels rolled, cranes swung, ledgers were signed and sealed. Antwerp's pulse had always been trade: coin and credit, gain and loss. To the merchants, the world turned only for profit. For him, it turned on love — and that, he thought bitterly, was the poorer bargain.
He passed a group of stevedores warming their hands over a brazier, their laughter rough and bright. They had the look of men who would drink their pay by sundown and sleep without regret. For a moment he envied them.
'Cold morning for a fool,' one called as he passed.
Joseph almost smiled. 'Every morning's cold for a fool,' he said, and they roared approval.
He moved on, toward the taverns that lined the quay. The Silver Pike stood out — a low-beamed inn where dock clerks and warehouse men gathered before their shifts. Its windows were steamed, its sign swinging faintly in the wind. He hesitated, then ducked inside.
The warmth hit like a blow. The air was thick with ale and sweat, the floor sticky underfoot. At a table near the fire sat two merchants in heavy cloaks, a clerk between them, ink-stained fingers clutching a ledger. Their voices rose and fell beneath the hum of the room.
Joseph found a corner seat and ordered a small beer. He didn't mean to listen — but the words De Wael and contracts cut through the noise like a knife.
He turned slightly, keeping his head bowed.
'He's nearly done it,' one merchant was saying. 'By the time the spring shipments sail, De Wael's line will be broken. Floris has the notary, the guild backing — even the port records are altered.'
'Risky work,' the other murmured. 'If it comes out—'
'It won't. The girl's to marry him. Once that's sealed, her father's firm will be under the Van den Berg name. No one will question the books then.'
Joseph's stomach turned to ice.
Outside, a ship's bell tolled in the mist. He stared into his untouched beer, the voices still rolling behind him.
He had wanted truth — and here it was, fouler than he'd feared.
⸻
Joseph stayed where he was, nursing the same beer until the two merchants rose to leave. The clerk gathered his papers in haste, leaving behind a slip of parchment that caught on the edge of the table. When they turned toward the door, Joseph was already moving.
He stooped, feigning to wipe spilled ale, and slipped the page into his sleeve. The script was hurried, the ink blotched — but the words were clear enough: De Wael shipment accounts – revised tariffs – to be re-registered under Van den Berg charter, March.
Re-registered. Not partnership, not alliance. Takeover.
He stared at the page until the letters swam. Every instinct screamed to find Katelijne, to put this into her hands before Floris could bury it. But the thought of her face — pale beneath the mask, turning away from him — stopped him short. What right had he to go to her now?
Still, she deserved to know. Her father too.
He shoved back his chair and went to the counter, where the tavern keeper was polishing mugs with a rag that looked older than the walls. 'Those men,' Joseph said. 'The ones with the clerk. They meet here often?'
The man squinted at him, wary. 'Maybe. What's it to you?'
'One of them works with Van den Berg?'
The keeper shrugged. 'Half the quay does. You looking for work or trouble?'
'Depends which pays better,' Joseph said lightly.
The man grunted, unimpressed. 'They come twice a week. Quiet sorts. Not the drinking kind.'
'Do they leave papers with you?'
'What am I, a steward? No. They talk, they go. I mind my own counter.' He leaned closer, lowering his voice. 'If you're wise, you'll do the same. Men like that don't take kindly to eavesdroppers.'
Joseph slid a coin across the counter. 'Then you didn't see me.'
He stepped out into the fog again, the parchment burning against his wrist.
By the quay, a gull shrieked and wheeled away over the water. He watched it vanish into the mist, his thoughts already racing — how to reach Katelijne, how to get this proof into her hands before the city sealed her future with a lie.
He drew his cloak tighter. There would be no waiting this time.
⸻
The fog was thickening by the time Joseph reached the outer quay. Lanterns hung from posts like dim moons, their halos trembling on the mist. Ships creaked against the tide, ropes groaning, and somewhere a watchman's bell tolled the hour.
He ducked under the eaves of a warehouse, shivering as Pietje shuffled on his shoulder. The parrot muttered softly, the words half-remembered from the stage. Joseph managed a smile. Even the bird seemed to sense the heaviness in him.
He took the parchment from his sleeve — the page he'd stolen from the merchant's table. The ink glistened faintly in the lamplight: Re-registered under Van den Berg charter. Proof enough. And poison, if handled wrong.
He needed Katelijne to see it — but how? He couldn't approach the De Wael house himself; no servant would admit him, not after her betrothal to Floris. The thought twisted in him like a blade.
He pulled a scrap of paper from his coat — the back of an old playbill — and began to write, the pencil scratching rough and hurried.
Mistress Katelijne,
I heard your father's name spoken at the Silver Pike. The Van den Bergs mean to take his trade entire — ledgers altered, ships falsely claimed. I have proof.
Trust no bargain they offer.
— Joseph
He hesitated, then added a final line:
I did not forget you.
Folding the note, he looked down the row of taverns. At the corner, a fishmonger's cart was loading barrels for morning trade. Beside it stood a thin lad he recognised from Willem's deliveries — one of the runners who fetched ale and firewood along the docks.
Joseph crossed to him. 'Boy — a job, if you've the legs for it. Deliver this to the De Wael house in the merchant quarter. Ask for Mistress Katelijne. Say it's from a friend of her brother's.'
The lad eyed the coin Joseph held out, then snatched both it and the note. 'Tonight?'
'Tonight,' Joseph said. 'And no one else's eyes on it.'
The boy nodded and vanished into the mist.
Joseph stood a long moment, listening to the retreating footsteps fade into the fog. Then he drew his cloak tight and turned toward the river, the weight in his chest a little lighter — though he knew, deep down, that nothing about what came next would be easy.
⸻
The fog swallowed the boy's footsteps, and silence crept back in their place. Joseph stood for a while longer by the quay, the damp gnawing through his boots, the smell of fish and tar thick in the air. Pietje shifted uneasily on his shoulder, feathers ruffling.
'Easy,' he murmured. But his voice came out hoarse, thin against the hush.
He turned toward the river, letting his gaze follow the faint shimmer of lanterns on the water. Barges swayed gently against their moorings, the black surface rippling like oiled silk. Somewhere in the distance, a church bell marked the hour — late now, near midnight. Katelijne would be in her chamber. Perhaps she would be reading his words before dawn. Perhaps she would burn them unread.
He rubbed his face hard with both hands, trying to chase off the ache in his chest. He had done what he could. Whatever happened next was no longer his to mend.
He started back toward the old warehouse, taking the narrower lanes along the dockside. The fog thinned a little as he walked, and he became aware of footsteps behind him — steady, unhurried. He paused, listening. They stopped, too.
When he turned, he saw only mist and the dim orange glow of a lamp swinging far down the street. Still, the prickle between his shoulder blades didn't ease.
'Come on then,' he muttered, forcing his stride to remain even. He passed two shuttered taverns, a row of sleeping barges, and the smithy with its door half ajar. When he glanced back again, there was no one. Only the faint scrape of a gull somewhere overhead.
At last he reached the edge of the dockyard. A derelict boat lay overturned near the fence; he ducked behind it and sank down, breath shuddering out of him.
No one followed. Only the hiss of the tide, the creak of ropes, and Pietje's soft murmur: 'Fool, fool.'
Joseph let out a ragged laugh. 'Aye. A fool.' He glanced toward the city, where the upper streets glimmered faintly through the mist. 'But not a blind one.'
He drew his cloak tighter, settling in the shelter of the hull. The night pressed close, cold and salt-bitten, but for the first time in days, he felt something close to calm.
He had sent the truth into the world. Now all that remained was to see who would dare to look at it.