the haunted kingdom by Charles E.J. Moulton (snow like ashes txt) 📕

chaos.”
Ulfaas handed the parchment over to his redheaded inspector and rushed up the gangway, followed by the limping captain and Tom. The Inspectors tried to rush up faster but couldn’t.
The ship was a medium sized two-masted vessel that carried a lateen sail. It was made of birch and pear wood and had been newly been cleaned. Ulfaas pointed angrily at the first mate. He was an ugly man one couldn’t say anything less. His nose seemed to have been pushed in with a hammer and his eyes were small and slanted.
The traditional Britannic uniform he wore was undoubtedly freshly sown together and so perfectly made that Ulfaas had to suspect foul play. The man had probably sailed through very stormy weather. There had been a storm and there was no question that one would have seen this on his appearance. Furthermore a man with that ugly a face would have rotting teeth.
When he opened his mouth, he saw them. The Britannic crown would never let a man that fierce become a first mate on a royal vessel.
“What is the matter?” The first mate spoke slowly and in very dull fashion. “Something up?”
“I need to see your captain right now.”
The man took a step back and dropped the apple he was eating.
He indicated to the cabin down the stairs.
The team walked down the stairs and found a very long winding corridor. At the end of it there was a brown mahogany door. There was a golden sign with black writing on it.

CAPTAIN’S CABIN
Private Authority Only

He knocked. “Captain!” No answer. “We need to speak to you, Sire!” There was a thud in there and the men looked at each other. Ulfaas turned to the first mate
The first mate was standing a few feet away. He was waiting for them to leave.
“We have to break down the door.” Ulfaas cried.
The first mate shook his head and responded: “That is not allowed.”
Ulfaas took up a knife that he had in his pocket, threw it up and caught it by the handle. It was something he had learned in the navy.
“Sire,” he spat. “We have proof that the vessel Londonium crashed off the Olandian coast.” He turned to Lyghort.
“How many weeks ago was it?”
Lyghort took off his dirty headscarf and scratched his head with it.
“I believe it was three weeks ago, Governor.”
The first mate smiled a toothless smile. “That’s impossible.”
Ulfaas didn’t take his bluff. He took his knife again and threw it in such a way that it landed with a stirring sound right next to the first mate’s feet. Ulfaas gave the man a very dirty grin.
“We have proof.” He looked at Lyghort, who nodded. “Furthermore, we have two witnesses.”
The man took a long look at the men and then ran down the hall. The assistants of the inspector ran after the man, but Ulfaas and Tom and the inspector stayed in order to crash down the door.
“Ready?”
Tom looked at the two other men and they both rubbed their hands together.
“Then let us do this!” he spat.
With three loud bangs the door was off its’ hooks and shoulders were aching.
From the hook of the lit candle chandelier hung the man who had pretended to be Captain Zebulon. He had tied a hangman’s knot and hung himself rather than give up.
He was swinging to and fro with a knocked down chair under his feet
There was the sound of water splashing against the hull outside.
“Good sweet Jesus, help us!” The inspector cried and the men looked away.
There was an odd silence in the ship. Every one seemed to have left.
“Help that man down.” Ulfaas said, being the only one with all his mental faculties. One of the inspectors, a young man with a ponytail and a scar over his left cheek, came back from chasing the first mate. He took the chair and lifted it, stood upon it and brought out his knife, a big Bowie with a very sharp edge.
“Help me with this man!” The four inspectors came back through the door, obviously having lost the sailor to bad luck. One of them grew pale. The ponytail shouted at them: “God damn you, men. Help me get this man down.”
The ponytail began cutting and the man slumped together and fell upon one of them. The shorter of the inspectors, a balding man with jumpy eyes, felt on his throat, listened to his breath, trying to detect a heartbeat. Worried, he looked at Ulfaas, who was the authority here. “Dead, Sire!” He looked down at the man again. “Dead.”
They laid him down on the ground away from the inspectors and checked his neck and his heartbeat. Tom looked up at Ulfaas.
“Darn it,” Ulfaas spat. “Now we know nothing.”
“We do.” Tom chuckled nervously, folding back the captain’s uniform. “Zebulon had a scar on his neck. I know because I was there when it happened. A drunken night in Dublin gave it to him. He always used wear high collars because he was ashamed of it. There’s nothing there, Ulfaas.”
That was the moment when Tom discovered a small brown note sticking out of the leather bag around the man’s neck. It was a small thing, no bigger than a tiny mug. Carefully he took it out, feeling how hard the man had tied the bag together. He rolled out the note and read it aloud.
The note consisted of a drawing and two words: Sub Rosa.
He handed the note to Ulfaas, who looked at it. “What do you make of it?”
Ulfaas sneered. “Under the rose. The Romans used to draw a picture of a rose above a door if the meeting inside the room was confidential. Obviously, this man was hiding a secret.”
“What secret?”
”Maybe he felt guilty for impersonating Zebulon” Ulfaas answered. “Maybe he was sent by the Nocturanian king to spy on whatever goes on here. Maybe they are planning a war.”
Tom rubbed his chin, shook his head and wandered down the corridor. “Hello!” He yelled. “Can someone come and help us?” No one answered. He walked down to storage. “Hello? Your Captain is dead.”
No one was there, just a rat chewing on a bag marked spices. The rat scuttled off. “Charming.” He looked back toward the inner part of the ship. “Hello? Anyone there?” He ran up to the cabin deck again. “Is anyone here? We need to speak to someone in charge.”
He ran back the same way and met Ulfaas.
“Any luck?”
Tom shook his head.
“Strange.” Ulfaas wandered up to the main deck. “We have a dead captain here. Where is the first mate?” Ulfaas wandered around the deck, laughing. “I thought that joke was funny.”
Tom came up. “Everyone is gone.” Ulfaas’s eyes were gazing, his long face dropping by the second. “Where are they all?” He rushed to the gangway. A man with long black hair stood there, scratching his belly. He looked up. “Did you see anyone leave here?”
The man thought for a second. “Some ran away. Some I saw jumping into the water.”
Ulfaas rushed to the other side of the boat, taking the small note and sticking it into his vest pocket. Tom rushed after Ulfaas, bubbles, nothing but bubbles. The inspectors rushed up, the limping Captain behind them. “We have a ghost ship on our hands, Sire! The crew jumped ship.”
The redhead chief inspector cried: “What?”
The man with the ponytail grabbed his knife again and rushed off the gangway. He exchanged a few words with the first mate scratching his belly and ran away followed by the balding man. They were rushing toward a black haired man who was fleeing into the woods. Five guards rushed after them. They caught him, wrestled him down, but the man kicked the balding man in the face and got up again. “Get those inspectors some help!”
Five more guards ran after them. “Guard this ship with your life!” Ulfaas told one of the guards standing on parade and he said that he always did what he was told.
The large man with the black hair and protruding belly suddenly seemed to remember something and rushed down the gangway toward the pier. He screamed: “Sire, sire. I have to tell you something.” Ulfaas turned around and faced him. The man was running toward Ulfaas with such potency that it made the security chiefs on the edge. “For the love of the Lord, Sire. I know what this is!” In the spur of the moment, one guard pulled his gun and shot the black haired man.
He grunted, fell down, convulsed and then stopped moving.
Tom cried: “No! He was our only witness!”
Ulfaas and the rest rushed to the crew standing over the dead body. They grabbed the man holding the gun by his tailcoat. The General Inspector took his medal and threw it away. He took his gun, threw it to the side, where it hit a stone and fell into the water.
“Pack your bags and leave. You are no longer a member of the Prosperanian Navy.”
“Sire!” the man said. “He was running toward Sire Nordhjiil with a knife.”
“He said that he knew what this was,” the inspector screamed. “Couldn’t you have shot him after he told us what this was?” The man protested and the inspector didn’t let him finish: “Leave.”
The crowd looked at the man. Ulfaas glanced at the man and then at the empty ship.
“He was probably our only witness,” Ulfaas said.
Tom said: “We should arrest the killer of the witness.”
The inspector ran after the man and grabbed him by the neck.
“What on Earth are we going to tell the Prince General?”
“Tell him I was guarding this ship with my life.”

Private Study of Prince Steven, Iuventus Sacrum
Tuesday, October 16th, 1424 A.D.

“You did what?” Steven cried
Tom sighed. Ulfaas put up his hands and smiled. They stuttered.
“Do you know what kind of scandal this is going to cause?” Alexander jibed in.
Belinda rushed out onto the corridor, calling out and then there was the sound of running footsteps. “Marie-Louise.”
“Alfred?” she asked.
“Take him for a moment, won’t you?”
“Yes, miss!”
Belinda closed the door and came to sit down as Marie-Louise left to go the playroom. She looked at the two men and the smelly captain. She shook her head.
“Let me get this clear.” Steven was amazed. “You mean to say that the ship that entered the harbour last month not only was a false ship, but also contained a crew who abandoned it. The false captain hung himself. Have I gotten this right so far?”
Ulfaas nodded. Steven waited. “Is that all?”
Suddenly Alexander’s deep voice penetrated the silence. “Your men killed the only witness?”
Tom sighed. He nodded. Belinda shook her head.
Belinda stuttered: “I hope you arrested the killer.”
Tom swallowed hard. “I made sure that this happened, yes.”
“What happened to the crew? He was not the only one there, was he?”
”The first mate of The Hurtia, Peter Thor, saw them running out, some jumping into the water. We had men follow them, but they all disappeared. No matter how fast we followed them, they vanished!” Tom screamed.
“They couldn’t have disappeared, Tom!” Belinda cried. “No one just disappears.”
“These men did.” John Lyghort spoke for the first time.
“What about the Captain?”
“Here it gets even stranger” Tom added.
Ulfaas continued. “When we returned to the captain’s cabin, his body was gone.”
“Without a trace. No one could say where it had gone. No one had entered or left the