East India Read online

  East India

  Colin Falconer

  Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven

  - John Milton

  Chapter 1

  The Houtman Abrolhos

  Forty-three miles west of Geraldton

  Western Australia.

  the present day

  THE skull lay uncovered in a shallow grave, grinning at them through the soft white sand. Whoever it was, they had been smiling like that for over three hundred and fifty years.

  A man in a frayed white T-shirt, the faded logo of the Fremantle Maritime Museum screen-printed on the back, squatted next to Annemieke at the gravesite, cleaning the sand from the bones with a soft brush. The pit was a metre deep, had been painstakingly excavated with bucket and trowel, each layer of sand removed centimetre by centimetre.

  The site was marked out with a string grid. The grave itself was riddled with tree roots and mutton bird nests, making the dig even more difficult.

  Two forensic scientists had accompanied the expedition. One of them, wearing latex gloves, bent to examine a skull that had already been removed from the pit, blowing sand from the cavities with a drinking straw. Annamieke crouched down beside him.

  “Female,” he said, ‘judging by the teeth, young, no more than six or seven years old when she died.” He frowned. “See, the tooth here has been pushed right back into the socket, perhaps by a blow. It would have caused her excruciating pain but it would not have killed her.” He glanced at the rest of the partial skeleton. “There are no defence wounds on the arms, so perhaps her hands were tied before she was killed. The skull is intact, no obvious fractures to the parts of the skeleton you have here. Wounds to soft tissue leave no trace. Hard to tell, but you'd hope it was quick.”

  Silence then, except for the drone of flies and the distant boom of the reef. The small treeless island with its fisherman's huts and bird nests had turned out to be a graveyard. They had already found eight skeletons in this shallow grave: three adults and five children. One of them appeared to have died by a musket shot. Another skull was missing a large piece of bone, dislodged, perhaps, by the blow from an axe. The faces of the archaeologists, a team of five men and three women, were grim.

  It was late in the afternoon when Annamieke heard a shout from the far side of the island. She ran over.

  It was a new grave, but this one did not look as if it had been quickly buried, like the others. The skeleton had been placed supine before burial, and as the team worked they uncovered a rusted sword, still in its scabbard, placed in what appeared to be a ceremonial position at its side.

  It was long and painstaking work. Annamieke joined in to help, sipping from her water bottle in the furnace heat, tormented by the tiny black flies. The young man working beside her stopped and gasped.

  “Here it is!’ he said.

  He held something in his outstretched palm; it was half a silver guilder, crusted with age. Annamieke fumbled inside her shirt, brought out a tiny velvet pouch from her breast pocket. She tipped out a coin, bright with polishing, and held the ancient relic against it. It was a perfect fit.

  “We found him,” she said.

  They all stopped working. Only part of the skull and the right femur had been uncovered but already they knew who he was and how he had died.

  “Michiel Van Texel,” she murmured.

  Chapter 2

  Amsterdam

  27th October, 1628

  THEY had told her that the Utrecht was the most magnificent of the retour craft ever to sail from Holland for the Indies. Her green and gold hull, carved and scrolled by the finest craftsmen in the Amsterdam shipyards, gleamed in the autumn sunshine. The coat of arms that decorated the mirror at the stern was embellished by oak sculptures; there were mermaids, tritons and gargoyles to keep away bad spirits, as well as the more stately likeness of former Batavian warriors.

  She was fifty paces from her stern to her beak, her hull and timberworks crafted from seasoned Baltic oak. More carvings covered the scrollboards on the cutwater, rising to the fierce red and gold lion of Holland on the prow. Her furled sails were still to be darkened by sea salt.

  The red, white and blue VOC pennant fluttered in the stiff North Sea breeze. She was the pride of the Dutch East India Company.

  Cornelia Noorstrandt was to join three hundred and thirty other souls on board, half that number sailors, recruited from the dockside taverns in Houttuinnen and the Haarlemmerstraat. They called them the ‘seven week gentlemen’.. She had seen them about the city; when they got back from a voyage to the Indies they had enough money to live the grand life for about that long. Then their guilders would run out, spent on drink and women, and they would sign up with the Company again, in debt even before they even left port.

  Look at them stare, undressing her with their eyes. Thank God she would never be at the mercy of such men.

  In his letters Johannes said the seas would be blue and the air warm and heavy with spice at the journey’s end. But the prospect of the long adventure did not inspire her. Instead she imagined eight months of hungry looks from the sailors, coldness from the other women. None of them would be of her station, and she expected they would treat her with chill deference. But she was a wife and it was her duty to her husband to follow him to his distant post. That was the way of it.

  ***

  Little Bean saw her too, the Noorstrandt woman. He stopped in the companionway to stare and got a boot in the backside from Steenhower for his pains. Michiel Van Texel saw it, grabbed the big man by his hair and jerked his head back. “Leave the little fellow alone,” he said.

  “What’s it to you?”

  “I just hate bullies,” Michiel said. “I’ve always hated bullies.”

  He let him go. Steenhower muttered an oath. Any other man, he would have taken him apart. He was a head taller than Michiel, but he was their sergeant and anyway, he was afraid of him. All the soldiers were.

  ***

  So this was Cornelia Noorstrandt, the commandeur thought.

  She was, curse his luck, a beauty; Spanish blood in her somewhere, he wouldn’t doubt. The sailors looked angry, dealt the devastating blow of a woman instantly desired and absolutely unattainable. Like all beautiful women she somehow appeared underdressed, despite the unslashed bodice and full skirt. Olive skin, hair as black and glossy as the back of a raven; she came on board with the forthright air of a woman accustomed to having doors opened for her everywhere she went.

  Her very walk was an invitation to break the law, in his opinion. The old salts said that beautiful women on a boat were bad luck; they stirred up the devil in a man. When you had three hundred men all thinking about sex with the one woman, things were bound to go wrong.

  And then look: the pastor’s daughter, another stirring the imagination of his crew, a rough and godless lot anyway. The men hanging from the ratlines whistled and laughed. .

  The pastor ushered his family below decks, scowling.

  It was going to be a long voyage.

  ***

  They left Holland on a lowering autumn day, the North Sea grey and bitter. The Utrecht sailed at the van of the fleet, under towering sail, and Commandeur Ambroise Secor felt a thrill of excitement as the virgin sails dropped from the yards and the wind thundered into the canvas. He glanced back over the stern, at the two other retours, the Verguldige Dolphijn and the Gerechtigheid, followed by the yachts Zandaam and Groningen. There was a warship, too, the Beschermer. It was a reassuring sight. He hoped they wouldn’t need her but where they were going, and with a crew like this one, you could never be too sure.

  The spray broke over the scarlet prow, where the lion of Holland snarled at the sea. They were set for the Indies and the very heart of darkness.

  Chapter 3

/>   AMBROISE sat at the head of the dinner table in the Council Room. Cornelia had been given the seat beside him, on his left; the undermerchant Christiaan van Sant, sat on his right. The clerks were at the far end with the jonkers. One of them, Joost van der Linde, had a braying laugh that set her teeth on edge.

  The commandeur himself was a handsome man. He had long black hair falling round his high white collar, a neatly trimmed beard, a face as intelligent as it was fine. She had been told he had risen from the VOC ranks to his present exalted position in just ten short years.

  He had quick grey eyes and elegant manners; and still not yet thirty-five years of age. His brother-in-law was Heindrich Brouwer, a former Admiral, and on the Board of the High and Mighty Seventeen. Perhaps that had something to do with it.

  But he was amusing company.

  If only the skipper, Schellinger, would stop staring at her like that. A beast of a man; he grinned at her like a fool whenever he could catch her eye. Did he think that any respectable woman, even if she was unmarried, might be charmed by a man who ate like a pig and whose only conversation was of currents and the direction of the wind?

  “And what takes my lady to the Indies?” he said, finally asking her a direct question.

  “I am there to meet my husband,” she answered, hoping to discourage him.

  “And what does he do there?”

  “He works jewels, by trade.”

  A look came across his face that was something like a sneer. “A man of action, then?”

  “I think you should watch your manners with a lady present,” Ambroise snapped, and that brought the colour to the skipper’s cheeks. His hands bunched into fists.

  Around the table the other men stared at their plates, embarrassed.

  “It is all right,” she said quickly, hoping to avert trouble. “I take no offence at him.”

  The two men stared at each other from opposite ends of the table. This does not bode well for a happy voyage, she thought.

  It was Christiaan, the undermerchant, who came to the rescue. He laughed as if someone had made a joke. He had the most wonderful smile; it illuminated the room. “Heer Commandeur, please, you must tell us about your adventures at the court of the great Mogul.” He turned to Cornelia and a private look passed between them: The skipper's an idiot. Leave this to me.

  “I'm sure I have bored everyone enough with tales of India,” Ambroise said.

  The skipper grunted, in silent agreement.

  “Well I should like to know more,” Christiaan said, and there was general agreement around the table. She realised the young men were not just fawning; for many it was their first time out of Holland, or even out of their home towns, and they were hungry for romantic tales of flaming volcanoes and waving coconut palms.

  So was she.

  “You leave Holland, you find savages,” the skipper said, tearing off a piece of salt beef with his teeth.

  “On the contrary,” Ambroise said. “In the court of the great Jahan it was my experience that the lords there far surpass ours in magnificence. They have gardens in their palaces such as I have never seen. The walls of the prince's fort at Jumna are cut from a red stone that turns at sunset to the colour of blood and at dawn is as pink as a rose. The stone is cut into latticework and the windows gilded with gold leaf.”

  The young men’s eyes shone. They were all enthralled, all except the skipper, noisily chewing his dinner.

  “The Prince Jahan has toys such as you cannot imagine. There are beasts called elephants, creatures the like of which you have never seen in your life, each of them the size of a farmer’s cottage, and he watches these creatures fight for his sport. He also has a courtyard with rows of black and white marble tiles, and he makes his servants stand on them, even in the heat of the day, and play the part of living chess pieces. He orders them to move about as he pleases while he sits in some shady spot.”

  “The Devil’s works,” the pastor muttered.

  “Even so,” Joost said, “I should like to see it for myself.”

  “Like the preacher says, they are godless,” the skipper said.

  Ambroise shrugged. “I don’t like to say it, but the skipper is right. For all their magnificence, their government is unholy and dominated by avarice. While the prince fills his mahals with expensive toys and beautiful women and behaves as if public affairs are no concern of his, the governors are bribed by murderers and thieves to do exactly as they wish. The prince reclines on velvet couches and drinks sweetened sherbets, while his subjects squat in fly-ridden hovels without beds or meats to flavour their rice. Wondrous though these lands are, they lack our moral certainties. Their government cannot be considered as ours until they share their wealth with the poor and banish injustice from their doors.”

  Cornelia looked up and saw the skipper grinning slyly at her again. “You cannot blame a prince for wanting beautiful women,” he said, keeping his eyes on her.

  “Princes have a responsibility to govern,” Ambroise said. “Without proper government we become animals again.”

  “It is God that has raised us from the animals,” the pastor said. “All government must be based on God’s law to be effective.”

  The skipper finished his wine. Some of it glistened in his beard before he wiped it away with the back of his hand. “I must return to my watch,” he said. “I feel an indigestion coming on.”

  And he went out banging the door behind him.

  ***

  The wind whipped at the skipper’s cloak as another black swell rolled under the beam. Christiaan struggled up the companionway and fought the pitching deck as he made his way to the stern.

  “A filthy night,” he said.

  The skipper grunted. “This time of year you have to brave the storms this side of the equator to run with the fair weather to the south.”

  Christiaan leaned on the rail beside him. “This Secor. It occurs to me that the two of you are not friends.”

  “What do you want, undermerchant?”

  “I saw the way he treated you at table. He does not care for you, I think.”

  “What’s that to me?”

  “Our commandeur is highly thought of by the High and Mighty Seventeen.”

  “He'd rather lick arse than eat cheese. I knew him in India.”

  “I thought so. I heard there was bad blood between you.”

  “Someone been talking? Who was it, Decker? Barents?”

  “I heard he had you reprimanded on your last trip, and that he docked you two months’ pay. Bad luck having to sail with him again so soon.”

  “I'll sail the ship, and he can order around the jonkers if he wants. But God help him if he gets in my way again. And you can tell him I said so.”

  “Anything you say to me goes no further than here, skipper.”

  “What are you up to, clerk boy?”

  He means to intimidate me, Christiaan thought. But he just smiled and put a hand on the skipper’s shoulder. “Man like you, bowing and scraping to these Company men, ferrying around tailors and Jew boys. What a waste. That’s all.”

  The skipper shoved his hand away, but Christiaan knew he had made his point. He went back down the companionway and left the skipper to his dark thoughts and the fast running swell.

  ***

  After dinner Cornelia returned to her private cabin in the poop. The officers and passengers of distinction had their accommodations here, though some were smaller than others and were separated from the passageway by just a curtain. As befitting her position and her sex, she had been given a large cabin below the gold plated stern light.

  It gave her a measure of privacy; or so she thought.

  When her cabin door creaked open a little while later, she thought to see Sara, her maid; instead she was shocked to see the skipper standing there in his sea boots, leering at her as if she was a doxy in an Amsterdam tavern. He had his fingers tucked in his belt and she could smell the gin on his breath.

  “Do you find your quart
ers to your liking?” he said.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I have to make sure my most celebrated passenger is comfortable,” he said. “Come on, don't look at me like that.”

  “You should not be here. I am about to dress for bed.”

  “Pretty cramped in here, by God.” He took a step inside, had to duck his head--he couldn't even stand upright. He lowered his voice. “I saw the way you looked at me at dinner.”

  She wondered whether to call for assistance. Where was her maid?

  “You'd be a lot more comfortable where I sleep.”

  “I am a married woman,” she said, her voice tight.

  He put out a hand to touch her and she twisted away. “Get out of here or I shall scream. The whole boat will hear me.”

  His tongue rolled around the inside of his cheek, thinking this over.

  “I can have any woman I want,” he said.

  “Not this one.”

  He wanted to hit her; she could see it in his face. Ugly brute. He turned and stamped out.

  Moments later Sara appeared, grinning like a fool. Something had pleased her. Perhaps it was seeing her mistress sitting on the bed, trembling, all the blood gone from her face.

  “Where have you been?” Cornelia snapped, but she already knew the answer. The little minx had known what was going on, she had no doubt been right outside the door giggling over the skipper's clumsy attempts at seduction.

  “Help me undress,” she snapped.

  Cornelia thought she could smell gin on Sara’s breath as well. What am I going to do? she thought. She was saddled with this useless girl until they got to Batavia. And to think she had come with such impeccable references.

  And this was just the first night; she did not think she could stand eight more months of this.

  Chapter 4