“He must miss you.”
“In his own way.”
“If it were me, I should ache to leave such a beautiful woman as you...to leave my wife for so long.”
The remark brought colour to her cheeks but thankfully she chose not to dwell on it and spared him greater embarrassment. In future, he reminded himself, I must be more careful with my words.
Unwise to be saying such things to a married woman on his own flagship when the Company expected him to take moral responsibility for the Fleet.
Unwise? It was utter madness. But there, he had blurted it out. He saw the trollop of a maid watching them. He wondered if she had overheard.
Cornelia said nothing for a long time, not even a word of reproach. The wind played with her hair under her cap. Finally: “There is a chill in the air today. I should go back to my cabin.”
“Of course.”
“Thank you for your company,” she murmured and put a hand on his. Then she was gone, a shadow in the sunlight, ephemeral, leaving Ambroise Secor to ache for her, while cursing himself for a fool.
***
Michiel Van Texel dozed in his hammock. Godverdomme, a man could go mad; eighty soldiers crammed down here on the orlop deck, the air thick with smoke, every bastard puffing on pipes as they played dommelen or chess, and all either squatting or lying down. They were allowed just half an hour out of every twelve on deck, the rest of the time they were cooped up down here like chickens. Today at least the hatches were open, good weather above; in foul seas it was dark as the devil's ass, and men couldn't keep their breakfasts down.
And such breakfasts, too; porridge and prunes, made to eat it under threat of punishment so that good Dutchmen should not become constipated at sea. The rest of the time it was hard bread and salty meat, served up in wooden bowls, six men to a bowl. Sure, he was accustomed to living hard; he had been a soldier all his life, and as sergeant he had to set example.
But he didn't have to like it.
Lying around down here day after day in this stink, it did things to your mind. If it wasn't for the company regulations - anyone pulling a knife had their hand fixed to the mainmast with their own dagger, and left there to find a way off it best way they could - he reckoned there would have been blood on the deck weeks ago.
Maybe that was why Little Bean did what he did. Michiel had been playing at chequers with the Englander Richard Merrell and ther Frenchie Gilles Clement when it happened. Little Bean was close by, working scrimshaw on a whale tooth as Steenhower went past, all bent over. His real name was Joris Jansen but he was known to the men by the trade he had before he became a soldier; Steenhower, the Stonecutter.
He was a huge man, a head taller than any of them, with a face that frightened children and scared off the toughest whores at the docks. Only Michiel and Groot, the big farm boy, weren’t scared of him. Even Gerrit Westerveld, the other corporal, was wary.
Little Bean made a face, mimicking Steenhower's lopsided features. Merrell, the idiot, started to laugh.
Steenhower looked back. People had been pointing and sniggering behind his back his whole life, and Michiel supposed he might have become accustomed to it by now. Instead Steenhower gave Little Bean a look, knew what he had done. He nodded at him, let him know he wouldn’t forget it. There would be trouble over that, sooner or later.
Little Bean just grinned, thought it was a fine joke.
At last it was Michiel’s turn on deck. He went topside, hoping for a glimpse of the lady, Cornelia Noorstrandt. But she wasn’t there.
It was stupid, looking for her like this all the time. She was a woman far above his station, quite out of his reach. So why think about her all the time? He was torturing himself for no account.
“Enough now,” he said to himself but then gave one last hopeful look towards the poop deck.
Chapter 8
THEY sailed with fair winds, the Beschermer close up, her gun ports a brilliant crimson; beyond her was Zandaam, her green and gold hull glittering in the sun. Sailors threw out lines baited with bacon fat, trawling not for fish but for birds.
Christiaan stood on the poop and watched the women. The pastor’s pretty daughter, Hendrika, was sitting with Alida Post under an awning on the quarter deck, shielded from the sun. The older women were gossiping; Grietje Willemsz blowing smoke between tar-blackened teeth. The pastor’s wife was reading from the Bible while the provost's wife prattled on about her children without drawing breath.
When Joost van der Linde stepped up on the deck Hendrika glanced up from her sewing. Joost gave her a glance and a secret smile. Hendrika would have smiled back but then she saw her mother watching her and put her head down.
Joost shrugged and wandered off.
Interesting, Christiaan thought. We shall have some fun with this later.
***
“You don't have a chance,” Christiaan said.
Joost was staring into the water. He looked up. “What was that, undermerchant?”
“I said, you don't have a chance with that girl.”
“Is that a fact?”
“The pastor won’t let her out of his sight for a moment, and he’s promised her to a provost’s son in Batavia.”
“How do you know all this?”
“I make it my business to find out.”
Joost shrugged. “You could be right,” he said and lit his pipe. “Pastors don't have much use for the Company, I suppose, except when there's fighting to be done in the name of the Lord. For myself I have no use for pastors either. Does that shock you?”
Christiaan shook his head.
“So who are those other girls?”
“That one with the blonde curls, that’s Elisabeth Post. Her father’s a soldier; he’s been fighting the Manuman at Batavia, gone two years now. The skinny one’s her sister, Alida. She is just married. That milksop whose arm she hangs off, that’s her husband. But you don’t care about them, you have your eyes on Hendrika.”
He stared at the sea.
“Big handsome boy like you. Must rankle to lose the best ones to pansy boys and provost’s sons. If only you had a bit of money, hey?”
Joost gave him a venomous look.
Christiaan smiled. “I’m not making fun of you, if that’s what you think. In fact, I’m a lot like you. What I want, I can’t have. We have a lot more in common than you think.”
Joost looked back at the women, at Hendrika. “I can’t stop thinking about her.”
Christiaan slapped him on the shoulder. “Right now you don’t have a chance,” he said and laughed. “But that could change, if you want it bad enough.” He walked away, laughing, and disappeared down the companionway.
Chapter 9
“I HAVE always found this mysterious. Will you explain this magic to me, Commandeur?”
Ambroise looked around. It was Cornelia Noorstrandt, radiant this bright morning with the wind blowing in her hair. She balanced herself against the rail, watching him as he took the reading from the astrolabe. The fixing of their position was the skipper's responsibility, but he liked to keep his own record of latitudes for his journal.
“It is not magic,” he reproved her gently, ‘but science. This instrument tells me how far to the north or the south we have travelled. It can measure in degrees and minutes, which is accurate to around one nautical mile. It is called the latitude.”
“But how does the skipper know how far we have travelled east or west?”
Oh, look at her, with that froth of virgin lace at her bosom. I wonder if this Boudewyn knows what a lucky man he is?
“Vrouwe?”
“I said, I was wondering how the skipper knows how far to the east or the west he has sailed?”
‘...It is called dead reckoning. You have no doubt seen the leadsmen drop a block of wood over the side, a line attached. He keeps the time through an hour glass, and counts how many knots run out of the line, to calculate how fast the ship runs. It is most inexact I am afraid. The currents, a badly tied
line, even moisture in the hour glass can make a difference to the dead reckoning. When we have a better method for calculating distances east and west, navigation will be much easier. For now, we must rely mainly on the experience of a good skipper.”
“And do we have a good skipper?”
He looked up at the poop, saw Schelliinger watching them. “He knows the sea as well as any man,” he said.
“So will you show me how this instrument works?” she asked him.
“Of course, vrouwe.” He held it up, dangling it from his thumb by a ring. “The sun is over my left shoulder. If I hold it this way, the edge of the circumference faces the sun. We move this arm here, which is called the alidade, until the sun shines through both these peepholes.”
“May I see?” she said and stood close by him to see what he was showing her. “What are these?”
He was painfully aware of her closeness. His mouth was dry. “The angles are marked on the wheel rim here. They give us our position either north or south of the centre of the earth, which is called the equator.”
A swell moved under the boat and she fell against him. He put out an arm to keep her from falling and for a moment their bodies pressed against each other. She moved away, her face flushed.
“I’m sorry, vrouwe,” he mumbled.
“Thank you for showing me the astrolabe,” she said. There was a high colour in her cheeks. “The wind is getting stronger. I should go below.”
His hands were shaking. He looked around to see if anyone had noticed what had taken place. He looked up, the skipper was still there.
Their eyes met. A sour smile; he had seen everything.
***
The skipper leaned on the gilded rail, his lips drawn back in a sneer. Look at that pansy boy, holding the astrolabe as if it was a purse, showing off to that fancy doxie who would not know a real man if she was presented with one by Lord God Almighty Himself.
What Heer Commandeur knew about seamanship he could carve on a clay pipe with a sea anchor. What a fool.
I saw the two of you; I know what you're both thinking. There will be a day of reckoning for you, SecorGod damn me if I'm wrong.
He knew what that bastard was after. Well, what every man on the ship was thinking about right now, and fair enough, two months without a woman, he'd fuck an albatross if it flew close enough.
But that pansy, pretending he was so refined, different from the rest of us. You're no better, he thought, standing there in your padded doublet, that thick gold medallion around your neck like you’re the Prince of the World. All you Company bastards with your fine clothes, not a man among you I couldn't drink under the table or kick to death with both my hands tied behind my back and a whore in my lap.
That’s what really stuck in his craw.
That, and what happened in Surat.
Chapter 10
BY day the dinner table in the Council Room did service as a desk for Salomon du Chesne and the rest of the clerks. After the evening meal had been cleared away, David Krueger was back there again, hunched over, carefully copying letters in his painstaking script by the light of the oil lamp. To Christiaan’s eye, his script did not have the flourish or the beauty of the other clerks, he was slow and lacked style. Like Krueger himself, really.
They were alone in the Council Room. The others were already in their bunks, their days’ work done.
Krueger sensed Christiaan watching him and looked up, unnerved. “What is it, Heer Undermerchant?”
“Do you enjoy your work, Krueger?”
He looked scared, as Christiaan intended. “Yes, Heer Undermerchant. Do you find fault in me?”
He raised an eyebrow and continued to stare.
“Heer Undermerchant?”
“What moved you to go to the Indies?”
“I suppose I was looking for...adventure.”
Christiaan laughed, startling him. The pen jerked across the document, spoiling it. He would have to start again, Christiaan thought, and that would mean another hour more before he would be able to climb into his bunk.
“You think you’re going to find adventure in Batavia? You’ll be lucky to see the sunlight. You’ll spend all day, dawn till dusk, hunched over a desk.”
“But I would do the same in Amsterdam.”
“Who got you this job, Krueger?”
“My father wanted me to-”
“I thought so.”
A long silence. Finally: “You are unhappy with my wo-”
“You copy one of the commandeur’s letters; you have to make seven more copies tomorrow. You write down lists of spices and jewels, you never see any of them. You write reports about the Company’s victories against the Mataram or the Spanish or the Specks, you’re never there to see it for yourself. You’re just a clerk. No one respects you, no one is afraid of you. And where does it get you, eh Krueger? How long will you go on pretending to be someone that you’re not? We sail across the known world and what do you see? An inkpot and a piece of paper. Meanwhile here you are, waiting for something to happen, knowing you were meant to be something better. Isn’t that right?”
Krueger stared back, his face pale.
“When will you become your own man, Krueger?” Christiaan said and he got up and went up to the main deck, left him there to stew.
***
As on every Sunday the ship's company gathered before the main mast and the pastor read them a sermon and warned them about the ways of the Devil. Then they sang hymns and prayed for the success of their voyage to India. Hendrika read a passage from the Bible.
After the service the pastor fell into conversation with the handsome young jonker, Joost. He kept glancing in Hendrika’s direction but she kept her eyes lowered, as a maiden should.
The skipper smiled to himself. Clear enough what was happening there.
And now here she comes, Miss High and Mighty herself, with that little doxie of a maid in tow. Sweeping along like she's Queen of France, pretending she’s taking the air when what she’s really doing is looking for Secor. He's too much milk and water to satisfy a woman like that.
“Looking for the commandeur?” he said to her. “He's not well this morning. Lying in his bunk puking his guts up.”
He shouted an order to his understeersman, Messeker, who made correction to the rudder to hold their course.
“Don't look so worried. I'm the one in charge of the ship. The good Commandeur may be President of the Fleet but it's me who will see you to Batavia safe and sound.”
“You have all our confidences, I'm sure," she said. Cold as a fish. Look at her saucy little trollop making eyes at him behind her. Here's more like it, someone who appreciated a real man.”
“I hope Sinjeur Secor is soon returned to health,” she said.
“I dare say he'll be well enough soon. But if it's male company you're missing, I shall be happy to oblige you.”
The look she gave him! Like he was something she had found on her shoe after a visit to the privy. “I think I shall return to my cabin,” she said.
And then her little maid grinned and said: “Perhaps I should stay here, vrouwe. I might assist the good captain.”
Miss High and Mighty showed a flash of temper. “I think you'll be in the way, Sara.”
“I'm sure I could find some easy tasks for her,” he said, enjoying the look on Cornelia's face. “There are some things on a ship I find are best done by a woman.”
Sara stared at him, wide-eyed. “I don't know what you mean.”
The good vrouwe turned pale with rage; that was something to brighten his morning, at least. “Come below,” she snapped at her maid.
The girl grudgingly followed her mistress down the companionway.
The skipper grinned after them. Well, that taught that stuck-up vixen a thing or two. Good to see her cringe.
He looked around and saw the undermerchant; he must have been watching them the whole time.
“That maid,” he said. “What’s her name again?”
/> “Sara.”
“Sara,” the skipper repeated, rolling the name around his tongue. “Saucy little thing. All those stray blonde curls, there’s a girl who could put some tobacco in your pipe.”
“And aren’t we all dying for a smoke?”
The skipper laughed. “You and me both, Herr Undermerchant. You and me both.”
***
Cornelia grabbed Sara by the arm and dragged her inside her cabin, slamming the door. She had had enough of this. Ever since they had left Amsterdam, Sara had been wriggling her plump behind at the sailors, all too free with a saucy smile and lip for her mistress.
“What do you think you're doing?” she snapped.
Sara had the impertinence to raise an eyebrow at her.
“You were flirting with him. Everyone heard you. It will be the scandal of the whole ship. He is a married man!’
“I can do what I like.”
“Not while you are in my employ!’ Barely five or six years between them, and Cornelia felt like her mother. It was intolerable that she would try to disgrace her in front of the whole ship's company. “You will not say another word to him, I forbid you even to look at him. Do you understand me?”
All she got was a sulky look. A trollop; if the girl wasn't careful she would end her days selling herself down by the dockside.
“I said, do you understand me?”
“Yes, my lady.”
She left it at that. What else could she do? She hoped that would be the end of it.
***
The Utrecht sailed south through warm seas, the ship's bell counting cadence of the endless hot days. At night the men tossed in restless sleep below decks, their dreams peopled with whores and brown ladies. The dark coast of Africa brooded below the horizon, drawing them farther from the certainties of the Kirche and the comforts of their good Calvinist homes, to new and uncertain shores and godless kingdoms.
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