Northwest of Mechelen lay a floodplain. The locals called it Den Battelaer Forest. It stood at the junction of the Zenne River and the Leuven-Dyle Canal.
This canal had been navigable since the fourteenth century. However, as trade increased, it gradually became inadequate. Plans to widen it began in the seventeenth century, but they were not approved until 1749.
The excavation was carried out by five hundred farmers from the Ardennes, who were assigned to requisitioned houses near the canal. When the canal was completed in 1752, it quickly filled with water. But the volume exceeded everyone's expectations, and it became a flood.
The canal's designers had considered this possibility. They installed two single locks and one double lock, but the double lock proved completely useless. Three more single locks were built, and from then on, the amount of water flowing into the canal became relatively stable.
However, the houses once occupied by the canal workers stood vacant. No one could say when the floods might return, or when the locks might fail again. Gradually, the houses were occupied by the homeless.
Had they not obtained intelligence from the assassin Brooke's mind, it would have been difficult to notice that anyone lived there, even while flying overhead. It looked almost entirely like a natural forest, covered in dense vegetation and inhabited by marsh birds such as reed warblers.
Louis of the Beaufort family led the wizards into the village first. The Mamluks cavalry followed close behind and began searching the houses that appeared to have been abandoned for a long time.
This was what she least wanted to see. She handed command over to Chabert and Fiegel, then waited quietly at the edge of the marsh.
She stood by the lake, watching waterfowl skim across its mirror-like surface. It was