Chapter 2: Fragments Reveal the Hidden Truth

The wreck rolled over on the riverbed.

The blacksmith’s hammer paused for a fraction of a second. “That ship has been down there for three years. It’s never turned over before. You must be hearing things.”

Saskia didn’t answer. She stood in the doorway, watching the thin mist hovering above the Maas River. The bubbles that had just broken the surface in the river’s center had been smoothed away by the current, as if nothing had happened at all. Yet she knew the sunken vessel below had moved. It wasn’t the tide, and it wasn’t a frapping cable snapping. The sound had come from the deep belly of the ship, like some enormous creature, sleeping too long, turning over in the dark.

She turned and walked into the alley. In the shadow of a bridge pier, the spy known as “the Otter” lowered his spyglass and whispered, “She didn’t hand the item over to the blacksmith. Notify the Chamber of Commerce immediately. Seal off the riverbank near her home.”

His companion hesitated. “If it’s just a few sheets of damp parchment, why involve William Weisz?”

“Because what the Chamber of Commerce fears most has never been the loss of cargo, but the resurrection of old debts.”

Saskia walked quickly, though she did not run. She crossed the cobblestones, rounded the back wall of the church, and stopped beneath a gas lamp. Inside the glass shade, the flame hissed softly, its dim yellow light stretching her shadow long and thin. She reached into the inner pocket of her coat for the waterproofed satchel, confirming the seal was intact before continuing on her way. The roll of parchment inside had been soaked in river water; its edges were caked with black silt, and to the touch, it felt like a sheet of stiff, lifeless skin.

She lived in a narrow brick house on the east bank of the Maas. The roof leaked wind; the floor below was cluttered with rope, brass buckles, old diving suits, and a disassembled air pump. She shut the door, first extinguishing the lamp by the window, then checking the bolt. There were no footsteps outside, but the vibration of carriage wheels rolling over the stone road traveled through the wall’s cracks. Saskia waited until the sound faded into the distance before lighting the hearth and placing a shallow copper basin on the table.

She swapped the clear water for a brine solution, slowly saturating the parchment roll. Salt could temporarily inhibit decay, but it would also cause the leather to contract. The heat, the humidity, the angle of unfolding—any slight miscalculation would cause the surviving ink to flake away along with the fibers. She had once salvaged a mail boat that had sunk in the North Sea, and through three days and nights of patience, she had deciphered a line indicating a reef from a rotting logbook. What she had saved that time was not just the text, but the lives of seven crew members.

Suddenly, three knocks echoed from outside the door, evenly spaced, like the rhythmic tapping of a telegraph key.

Saskia did not respond; she simply pressed a diving knife against the edge of the table. The knocking came again, twice.

“It’s me, Cornelis Boss. If you want your neighbors to hear it, I can keep going until dawn.”

She cracked the door open a sliver. Cornelis Boss stood on the other side, his shoulders damp with mist, holding a roll of survey maps in his arms. He was twenty-eight, with a gaunt face and eyes that always carried an ill-timed candor. Saskia swept her gaze down the alley before stepping aside to let him in.

“You arrived too quickly.”

“The River Authority received a telegram asking if you would be home tonight.” Cornelis Boss set down the maps once inside. “The sender wasn’t signed, but the line went through the Chamber of Commerce’s office.”

“Does the Chamber know I recovered something?”

“They know you’re looking for something.” He looked at the copper basin. “If that parchment is what they’re after, it won’t just be one set of eyes watching you tonight.”

Saskia closed the door. “What did you bring?”

“An old river chart. A copy of a survey made nineteen years ago; the original is in the museum.” Cornelis Boss unrolled the paper. “I overlaid the old bends of the Maas, the wreck records, and the tidal markers, and I found an anomaly that defies logic.”

“Where?”

“Here.” He tapped a pencil on a curved section of the river. “Three official charts list the water depth as the same number, but the draft of the surveying ships was different, and the dates of the measurements were eight months apart. Identical numbers mean someone copied the records.”

Saskia looked at the marked spot. “What was copied might not have been the depth.”

“It could have been the coordinates.” Cornelis Boss looked up. “What exactly did you find on the riverbed?”

She didn’t answer immediately. The fire in the hearth began to build, and the brine in the copper basin rippled faintly. Saskia lifted the parchment roll from the water and placed it between two layers of linen, pressing down on the edges with wooden boards. She did not wipe it; she simply allowed the cloth to absorb the surface moisture, then turned the roll face-up and moved it closer to the coals.

“Remember one thing first,” she said. “If I don’t tell you, it’s not because I don’t trust you, but because the more you know, the easier it is for them to use you to break you.”

Cornelis Boss did not back down. “Then tell me just enough to protect yourself. Ideals cannot substitute for judgment, nor can judgment substitute for friendship.”

That statement earned him a look. Saskia took out a magnifying glass and began to examine the parchment. The surface had originally only retained a few blurry ink smudges, like accounts washed away by river current. Using a fine feather brush, she swept away the silt and discovered an irregular dark patch in the center of the leather. The darkness was not a stain; it was two layers of ink overlapping, with a faint, nearly invisible arc underneath.

“Move the coals three inches closer,” she said.

“Won’t the temperature be too high?”

“If it’s any closer, the leather will curl; if it’s too far, the hidden gum binder won’t develop. I don’t want to dry it out. I want the ink from different eras to contract at different speeds.”

Cornelis Boss obeyed. “Have you dealt with this before?”

“I’ve handled charts from sunken ships. One map ended up with only half of it remaining, but it told me that the captain had altered his course toward a reef before he died.”

“To evade pursuit?”

"To make his pursuers think he was dead."

The parchment's edges smoothed as they dried. White salt crystals glinted in the firelight, and the first line of script surfaced from beneath the dark stains. Cornelis Boss leaned in to read, his expression shifting from puzzlement to shock.

"This is no cargo manifest. It lists indigo, cinnamon, tin ingots—but every weight is off for a merchant ship."

Saskia handed him the magnifying glass. "Read the second column."

"There's no name in the second column. Only three sets of numbers." Cornelis Boss frowned. "The first looks like longitude, the second latitude, and the third… depth."

"Not depth. A date."

"Why would a date follow cargo weights?"

"Because these goods were never goods at all."

She took a fine copper needle and gently pried at the parchment's outer layer. The hide had loosened in the water, revealing a hairline seam. Hidden inside was a thin, dark-brown flake, no larger than a fingernail, its surface etched with a double-ringed emblem. At its center stood lettering, encircled by sailing ships, a crown, and lines of latitude and longitude.

Cornelis Boss gasped. "The East India Company seal."

Saskia showed no surprise. She had suspected the parchment came from old shipping records, but never imagined the seal would be hidden in the parchment's lining. The Company had long since collapsed, its archives scattered across warehouses, trading posts, and private hands. If this were merely an account book, no one would kill for it. But on the back of the flake was another line of far smaller engraving, as if added later with a needle's point.

She turned the flake toward the fire. "Two sets of marks here. The seal was carved first, the coordinates after. Whoever added them didn't want any copyist to understand."

Cornelis Boss read aloud: "Maastricht, lock number seven, old stone foundation, thirty paces north."

"This isn't the end." Saskia pointed at the final set of numbers. "It points to a position beneath the river."

Cornelis Boss drew the old river chart closer and measured along the pencil line. "Measured against the bank as it was nineteen years ago, the coordinates fall in the middle of the present channel."

"The wreck is there."

"You mean the ship that sank three years ago?"

"The smith said she never turned over. But if her hull was opened deliberately, the tides would have shifted her stress. Her turning tonight was no accident."

Cornelis Boss fell silent for a moment. "The guild isn't looking for the parchment. They're looking for what's in that ship."

"Or they're afraid someone else will find it first."

From outside came the sound of wheels. Both of them doused the fire at once, leaving only shielded embers. A carriage stopped in front of the house. No driver called out, no one stepped down. A moment later, a metal object scraped softly against the door lock, letting out a harsh grating sound.

Cornelis Boss gripped his measuring rod. "Where's the back door?"

"By the kitchen. But you can't go that way."

"Why?"

"The alley leads to the riverbank. It's exactly where they'd want me to run."

Saskia gathered the parchment and overturned the copper basin onto the table. She took down an old diving helmet from the wall, lifted the lining, and revealed a hidden compartment. The parchment disappeared inside; the flake stayed in her palm.

"You're keeping it?"

"True clues have to be split. If someone searches the house, they'll only find half."

The lock rasped again, and a sliver of the door split open. Cornelis Boss lowered his voice. "We need Katarina Jacobs. The museum has equipment for preserving old documents—and East India Company archives."

"Katarina Jacobs won't hide stolen goods for us."

"Then tell her it isn't stolen. It's evidence someone ripped out of history."

Saskia looked at him. "She craves academic victory. If this proves the guild falsified shipping records, she'll take the risk."

"She's honorable. She won't treat human lives as a footnote."

"William Weisz will."

From outside came a cold, hard voice: "Saskia Kuiper, open the door. The guild needs to confirm whether a salvaged item belongs to the wreck's registered property."

Cornelis Boss's face tightened. "William Weisz came himself."

Another voice followed, almost polite in its mildness: "Please don't misunderstand, Saskia. We only want to avoid an unnecessary misunderstanding. Hand over the parchment, and the guild will cover your family's relocation costs."

Saskia gripped the flake. "Henrik Weisz."

The lawyer chuckled beyond the door. "You see, negotiation is always gentler than the river. The men on that ship left no complete records. No one will question the disappearance of one salvage diver."

Cornelis Boss moved to the window. "They mentioned disappearance. That means the wreck holds more than old cargo."

Saskia looked at the hearth ash. The coordinates revealed moments ago were still burned into her mind. Suddenly she held the flake to the candle flame—and on the back of the emblem surfaced a ring of hair-thin recessed lines. What had looked like decorative latitude and longitude marks formed a line of reversed writing.

She quickly grabbed a mirror and threw the flake's reflection onto the wall.

Cornelis Boss held his breath. "That's not coordinates."

Saskia read word by word: "All ships reaching the Meuse have been registered; those unregistered lie sunk beneath the bell."

Outside, William Weisz fell silent.

Saskia kept turning the plate, and another deliberately worn-flat mark surfaced in the mirror. Not the East India Company's crest—a black bird with spread wings, the same date engraved beneath it. Her gaze dropped to the parchment, and she noticed the so-called cargo weights corresponded exactly to the initials of thirty-seven crewmen.

Cornelis Boss's voice tightened. "Thirty-seven men, all logged as cargo."

Saskia flipped the plate over. The final engraving emerged fully in the firelight:

"The true cargo has already reached Maastricht."