Birds of Prey

by Wilbur Smith

  Hop hurried across to Sir Francis and leaned close. He asked a question, and listened to the reply with an expression of dawning horror on his pale face. He nodded and kept nodding as Sir Francis whispered in his ear, then went back to his table.

  He stared down at his papers, breathing like a pearl diver about to plunge out of his canoe into twenty fathoms of water. Finally he looked up and shouted at Cumbrae, ‘The first you knew of the end of the war was when you tried to cut out the Swallow from under the fortress here in Table Bay and were told about it by Colonel Schreuder.’

  It came out in a single rush, without check or pause, but it was a long speech and Hop reeled back, gasping from the exertion.

  ‘Have you lost your wits, Hop?’ van de Velde bellowed. ‘Are you accusing a nobleman of lying, you little turd?’

  Hop drew another full breath, took his fragile courage in both hands, and shouted again, ‘You held Captain Courtney’s Letter of Marque in your own two hands, then brandished it in his face while you burned it to ashes.’ Again it came out fluently, but Hop was spent. He stood there gulping for air.

  Van de Velde was on his feet now. ‘If you are looking for advancement in the Company, Hop, you are going about it in a very strange way. You stand there hurling crazy accusations at a man of high rank. Don’t you know your place, you worthless guttersnipe? How dare you behave like this? Sit down before I have you taken out and flogged.’ Hop dropped into his seat as though he had received a musket ball in the head. Breathing heavily, van de Velde bowed towards the Buzzard. ‘I must apologize, my lord. Every person here knows that you were instrumental in rescuing the hostages and saving the Standvastigheid from the clutches of these villains. Please ignore those insulting statements and return to your seat. We are grateful for your help in this matter.’

  As Cumbrae crossed the floor, van de Velde suddenly became aware of the writer scribbling away busily beside him. ‘Don’t write that down, you fool. It was not part of the court proceedings. Here, let me see your journal.’ He snatched it from the clerk, and as he read his face darkened. He leaned across and took the quill from the writer’s hand. With a series of broad strokes he expurgated those parts of the text that offended him. Then he pushed the book back towards the writer. ‘Use your intelligence. Paper is an expensive commodity. Don’t waste it by writing down unimportant rubbish.’ Then he transferred his attention to the two advocates. ‘Gentlemen, I should like this matter settled today. I do not want to put the Company to unnecessary expense by wasting any more time. Colonel Schreuder, I think you have made a thoroughly convincing presentation of the case against the pirates. I hope that you do not intend to gild the lily by calling any more witnesses, do you?’

  ‘As your excellency pleases. I had intended calling ten more—’

  ‘Sweet heavens!’ Van de Velde looked appalled. ‘That will not be necessary at all.’

  Schreuder bowed deeply and sat down. Van de Velde lowered his head like a bull about to charge and looked at the defence advocate. ‘Hop!’ he growled. ‘You have just seen how reasonable Colonel Schreuder has been, and what an excellent example in the economy of words and time he has set for this court. What are your intentions?’

  ‘May I call Sir Francis Courtney to give evidence?’ Hop stuttered.

  ‘I strongly advise against it,’ van de Velde told him ominously. ‘Certainly it will do your case little good.’

  ‘I want to show that he did not know the war had ended and that he was sailing under a commission from the English King,’ Hop ploughed on obstinately, and van de Velde flushed crimson.

  ‘Damn you, Hop. Haven’t you listened to a word I said? We know all about that line of defence, and I will take it into consideration when I ponder my verdict. You don’t have to regurgitate those lies again.’

  ‘I would like to have the prisoner say it, just for the court records.’ Hop was close to tears, and his words limped painfully over his crippled tongue.

  ‘You are trying my patience, Hop. Continue in this fashion, and you will be on the next ship back to Amsterdam. I cannot have a disloyal Company servant spreading dissension and sedition throughout the colony.’

  Hop looked alarmed to hear himself described in such terms, and he capitulated with alacrity. ‘I apologize for delaying the business of this honourable court. I rest the case for the defence.’

  ‘Good man! You have done a fine job of work, Hop. I will make a notation to that effect in my next despatch to the Seventeen.’ Van de Velde’s face resumed its natural colour and he beamed jovially about the hall. ‘We will adjourn for the midday meal and for the court to consider its verdict. We will reconvene at four o’clock this afternoon. Take the prisoners back to the dungeons.’

  To avoid having to remove their shackles Manseer, the gaoler, bundled Hal who was still chained to his father into the solitary cell near the top of the spiral staircase, while the rest went below.

  Hal and Sir Francis sat side by side on the stone shelf that served as a bed. As soon as they were alone Hal blurted out, ‘Father, I want to explain to you about Katinka – I mean about the Governor’s wife.’

  Sir Francis embraced him awkwardly, hampered by the chains. ‘Unlikely as it now seems, I was young once. You do not have to speak about that harlot again. She is not worthy of your consideration.’

  ‘I will never love another woman, not as long as I live,’ Hal said bitterly.

  ‘What you felt for that woman was not love, my son.’ Sir Francis shook his head. ‘Your love is a precious currency. Spend it only in the market where you will not be cheated again.’

  At that there was a tapping on the iron bars of the next cell, and Althuda called, ‘How goes the trial, Captain Courtney? Have they given you a good taste of Company justice?’

  Sir Francis raised his voice to answer. ‘It goes as you said it would, Althuda. It is obvious that you also have experienced it.’

  ‘The Governor is the only god in this little heaven called Good Hope. Here, justice is that which pays a profit to the Dutch East India Company or a bribe to its servants. Has the judge pronounced your guilt yet?’

  ‘Not yet. Van de Velde has gone to guzzle at his trough.’

  ‘You must pray that he values labour for his walls more than revenge. That way you might still slip through Slow John’s fingers. Is there anything you are hiding from them? Anything they want from you – to betray a comrade, perhaps?’ Althuda asked. ‘If there is not, then you might still escape the little room under the armoury where Slow John does his work.’

  ‘We are hiding nothing,’ Sir Francis said. ‘Are we, Hal?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Hal agreed loyally.

  ‘But,’ Sir Francis went on, ‘van de Velde believes that we are.’

  ‘Then all I can say, my friend, is may Almighty Allah have pity on you.’

  Those last hours together went too swiftly for Hal. He and his father spent the time talking softly together. Every so often Sir Francis broke off in a fit of coughing. His eyes glittered feverishly in the dim light, and when Hal touched his skin it was hot and clammy. Sir Francis spoke of High Weald like a man who knows he will never see his home again. When he described the river and the hill, Hal dimly remembered them and the salmon coming upstream in the spring and the stags roaring in the rut. When he spoke of his wife, Hal tried to recall his mother’s face, but saw only the woman in the miniature painting he had left buried at Elephant Lagoon, and not the real live person.

  ‘These last years she has faded in my own memory,’ Sir Francis admitted. ‘But now her face comes back to me vividly, as young and fresh and sweet as she ever was. I wonder, is it because soon we will be together again? Is she waiting for me?’

  ‘I know she is, Father.’ Hal gave him the reassurance he needed. ‘But I need you most and I know that we will be together many more years before you go to my mother.’

  Sir Francis smiled regretfully, and looked up at the tiny window set high in the stone wall. ‘Last night I climbed up an
d looked through the bars, and the red comet was still in the sign of Virgo. It seemed closer and fiercer, for its fiery tail had altogether obliterated my star.’

  They heard the tramp of the guards approaching and the clash of keys in the iron door. Sir Francis turned to Hal. ‘For the last time let me kiss you, my son.’

  His father’s lips were dry and hot with the fever in his blood. The contact was brief, then the door to the cell was thrown open.

  ‘Don’t keep the Governor and Slow John waiting now,’ said Sergeant Manseer jovially. ‘Out with the pair of you.’

  The atmosphere among the spectators in the court room was like that at the cockpit just before the spurred birds are released to tear into each other in a cloud of flying feathers.

  Sir Francis and Hal led in the long file of prisoners and, before he could prevent himself, Hal looked quickly towards the railed-off area at the far end of the hall. Katinka sat in her place in the centre of the front row with Zelda directly behind her. The maid leered viciously at Hal, but there was a soft contented smile on Katinka’s face, and her eyes sparkled with violet lights that seemed to light the dim recesses of the room.

  Hal looked away quickly, startled by the sudden hot hatred that had replaced the adoration he had so recently felt for her. How could it have happened so quickly, he wondered, and knew that if he had a sword in his hand he would not hesitate to drive the point between the peaks of her soft white breasts.

  As he sank into his seat he felt compelled to look up again into the pack of spectators. This time he went cold as he saw another pair of eyes, pale and watchful as those of a leopard, fastened on his father’s face.

  Slow John sat in the front row of the gallery. He looked like a preacher in his puritanical black suit, the wide-brimmed hat set squarely upon his head.

  ‘Do not look at him,’ Sir Francis said softly, and Hal realized that his father, too, was intensely aware of the scrutiny of those strange, faded eyes.

  As soon as the hall had settled into an expectant silence, van de Velde appeared through the door of the audience chamber beyond. When he lowered himself into his seat his smile was expansive and his wig was just the slightest bit awry. He belched softly, for clearly he had eaten well. Then he looked down on the prisoners with such a benign expression that Hal felt an unwarranted surge of hope for the outcome.

  ‘I have considered the evidence that has been laid before this court,’ the Governor began, without preamble, ‘and I want to say right at the outset that I was impressed with the manner in which both the advocates presented their cases. Colonel Schreuder was a paradigm of succinctness—’ He stumbled over both of the longer words, then belched again. Hal fancied that he detected a whiff of cumin and garlic on the warm air that reached him a few seconds later.

  Next van de Velde turned a paternal eye on Jacobus Hop. ‘The advocate for the defence behaved admirably and made a good job of a hopeless case, and I shall make a note to that effect in his Company file.’ Hop bobbed his head and coloured with gratification.

  ‘However!’ He now looked squarely at the benches of the prisoners. ‘While considering the evidence, I have given much thought to the defence raised by Mijnheer Hop, namely that the pirates were operating under a Letter of Marque issued by the King of England, and that when they attacked the Company galleon, the Standvastigheid, they were unaware of the cessation of hostilities between the belligerents in the recent war. I have been forced by irrefutable evidence to the contrary to reject this line of defence in its entirety. Accordingly, I find all twenty-four of the accused persons guilty of piracy on the high seas, of robbery and abduction and murder.’

  The seamen on the benches stared at him in pale silence.

  ‘Is there anything you wish to say before I pass sentence upon you?’ van de Velde asked, and opened his silver snuff box.

  Sir Francis spoke out, in a voice that rang the length and breadth of the hall. ‘We are prisoners of war. You do not have the right to chain us like slaves. Neither do you have the right to try us nor to pass sentence upon us.’

  Van de Velde took a pinch of snuff up each nostril and then sneezed deliciously, spraying the court writer who sat beside him. The clerk closed the one eye nearest to the Governor but kept his quill flying across the page in an effort to keep up with the proceedings.

  ‘I believe that you and I have discussed this opinion before.’ Van de Velde nodded mockingly towards Sir Francis. ‘I will now proceed to sentence these pirates. I will deal firstly with the four Negroes. Let the following persons stand forth. Aboli! Matesi! Jiri! Kimatti!’

  The four were shackled in pairs, and now the guards prodded them to their feet. They shuffled forward and stood below the dais. Van de Velde regarded them sternly. ‘I have taken into account that you are ignorant savages, and therefore cannot be expected to behave like decent Christians. Although your crimes reek to heaven and cry for retribution, I am inclined to mercy. I condemn you to lifelong slavery. You will be sold by the auctioneer of the Dutch East India Company to the highest bidder at auction, and the monies received from this sale will be paid into the Company treasury. Take them away, Sergeant!’

  As they were led from the hall Aboli looked across at Sir Francis and Hal. His dark face was impassive behind the mask of tattoos, but his eyes sent them the message of his heart.

  ‘Next I will deal with the white pirates,’ van de Velde announced. ‘Let the following prisoners stand forth.’ He read from the list in his hand. ‘Henry Courtney, officer and mate. Ned Tyler, boatswain. Daniel Fisher, boatswain. William Rogers, seaman …’ He read out every name except that of Sir Francis Courtney. When Sir Francis rose beside his son, van de Velde stopped him. ‘Not you! You are the captain and the instigator of this gang of rogues. I have other plans for you. Have the armourer separate him from the other prisoner.’ The man hurried forward from the back of the court with the leather satchel containing his tools, and worked swiftly to knock the shackle out of the links that bound Hal to his father.

  Sir Francis sat alone on the long bench as Hal left him and went forward to take his place at the head of the row of prisoners below the dais. Van de Velde studied their faces, beginning at one end of the line and moving his brooding gaze slowly along until he arrived at Hal. ‘A more murderous bunch of cutthroats I have never laid eyes upon. No honest man or woman is safe when creatures like you are at large. You are fit only for the gibbet.’

  As he stared at Hal, a sudden thought occurred to him, and he glanced away towards the Buzzard, who sat beside the lovely Katinka at the side of the hall. ‘My lord!’ he called. ‘May I trouble you for a word in private?’ Leaving the prisoners standing, van de Velde heaved his bulk onto his feet and waddled back through the doors in the audience chamber behind him. The Buzzard made an elaborate bow to Katinka and followed the Governor.

  As he entered the chamber he found van de Velde selecting a morsel from the silver tray on the polished yellow-wood table. He turned to the Buzzard, his mouth already filled. ‘A sudden thought occurred to me. If I am to send Francis Courtney to the executioner for questioning as to the whereabouts of the missing cargo, should not his son go also? Surely Courtney would have told his son or had him with him when he secreted the treasure. What do you think, my Lord?’

  The Buzzard looked grave and tugged at his beard as he pretended to consider the question. He had wondered how long it would take this great hog to come round to this way of thinking, and he had long ago prepared his answer. He knew he could rely on the fact that Sir Francis Courtney would never reveal the whereabouts of his wealth, not even to the most cunning and persistent tormentor. He was just too stubborn and pigheaded unless – and here was the one possible case in which he might capitulate – if it were to save his only son. ‘Your excellency, I think you need have no fear that any living person knows where the treasure is, apart from the pirate himself. He is much too avaricious and suspicious to trust another human being.’

  Van de Velde looked dubious an
d helped himself to another curried samosa from the tray. While he munched, the Buzzard mulled over his best line of argument, should van de Velde choose to debate it further. There was no question in the Buzzard’s mind but that Hal Courtney knew where the treasure from the Standvastigheid lay. What was more, he almost certainly knew where the other hoard from the Heerlycke Nacht was hidden. Unlike his father, the youngster would be unable to withstand the questioning by Slow John and, even if he proved tougher than the Buzzard believed, his father would certainly break down when he saw his son on the rack. One way or the other the two would lead the Dutch to the hoard, and that was the last thing on this earth that the Buzzard wanted to happen.

  His grave expression almost cracked into a grin as he realized the irony of his being forced to save Henry Courtney from the attentions of Slow John. But if he wanted the treasure for himself, he must make sure that neither father nor son led the cheese-heads to it first. The best place for Sir Francis was the gallows, and the best place for his brat was the dungeon under the castle walls.

  This time he could not prevent the grin reaching his lips as he thought that while Slow John was still cooling his branding irons in Sir Francis’s blood, the Gull would be flying back to Elephant Lagoon to winkle out those sacks of guilders and those bars of gold from whatever nook or cranny Sir Francis had tucked them into.

  He turned the grin now on van de Velde. ‘No, your excellency, I give you my assurance that Francis Courtney is the only man alive who knows where it is. He may look hard and talk bravely, but Franky will roll over and spread his thighs like a whore offered a gold guinea just as soon as Slow John gets to work on him. My advice is that you send Henry Courtney to work on the castle, and rely on his father to lead you to the booty.’

  ‘Ja!’ Van de Velde nodded. ‘That’s what I thought myself. I just wanted you to confirm what I already knew.’ He popped one last samosa into his mouth and spoke around it. ‘Let’s go back and get the business finished, then.’