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  “I am sorry. I have spoken too freely,” he said and turned away from her.

  “I am not offended,” she murmured.

  “I should not have said what I did.”

  “They were lovely words. I shall treasure them.”

  “Oh, Cornelia. I am so lonely, so desperately lonely.”

  “But Ambroise...” It was the first time she had called him by name. ‘ ...there must be many women who would wish to be the wife of a Councillor of India.”

  “A grasping spinster is no antidote for loneliness. Wives are to be had, for little effort, but I wish for love, and neither my wealth nor my position can find me that.”

  She stared at the moon.

  “Do you love your husband?”he asked her.

  “I cannot answer that.”

  “Imagine if you should arrive in Batavia and find him dead of a fever. What would you do?”

  “I should weep for him, of course,” she said, and then realized that what he had done was give her hope that one day, if fate were kind, she might become the wife of a man of intelligence and passion and perhaps a future Councillor of India. “But we must not think that way.”

  “I cannot help but think it.”

  “We must stop this. I should go back to my cabin.”

  “Of course, I am sorry.”

  “Goodnight, Commandeur.”

  As she hurried down the companionway she looked back once. He was leaning on the carved poop rail, his head down. She imagined what she might do if Boudewyn did indeed succumb to the rigours of the Indies, as everyone had described them. Life seemed suddenly so precarious, and she hated to think that she might waste it.

  ***

  “It’s late to be up and around,” Sara said. She startled her, standing right there at the foot of the companionway. How much had she heard?

  “What are you doing here? Are you spying on me?”

  “I had to visit the privy,” Sara said. She looked up the companionway. “Is the commandeur awake, too?”

  “We fell into a conversation about art.”

  A smirk.

  “Did I say something amusing, Sara?”

  “Must be cold up top, mistress. Look at your cheeks all rosy like that. Here, let me get you back to bed.”

  “No thank you. I can manage by myself tonight.”

  Cornelia went into her cabin and shut the door behind her. She lay on the bed and put her hands over her face. A few days to the Cape and then just two more months with fair winds, or so they said. She hoped so, she didn’t think she could stand much more of this.

  Chapter 13

  16th April, 1629

  Table Bay

  Cabo de Bono Esperanza

  THEY were anchored in Table Bay, the red and black flag of the Chamber of Amsterdam hanging limp at the foremast peak, scarcely a breeze as the day fell to dusk. A musky foreign odour drifted from the shore, the great hump of the Table Mountain blushed with pink.

  The commandeur had already gone ashore, to find victuals for the second leg of their journey, bargain with the Hottentots for fresh meat, fruit, water. Christiaan watched the boats ply back and forth between the ships of the anchored fleet, lamps glowing in the quickening dusk.

  A yawl was lowered off the starboard side, and the skipper had put on his cloak and was striding about the deck, giving orders. The Noorstrandt maid was up there on the poop with him. He had an arm around her.

  Well here was some excitement in the offing.

  “Are you leaving the ship?” Christiaan said.

  “Five months I’ve been drinking this putrid water and sissy wine; I want something a little sweeter in my throat. Here we are a month ahead of schedule and never a word of thanks from that pansy bastard. He’s gone ashore to drink his fill and left me here.”

  “Who’s in charge of the boat then?”

  “The upper steersman, Arie Barents. He can take care of her. We’re safely anchored, they don’t need me here.” He turned to the Noorstrandt maid. “Are you ready?”

  “The mistress says I may not leave the ship.”

  “Miss High and Mighty says that, does she? Well, I say you can.” He turned and made his way down the main deck in his big knee length boots. “Are you coming or not?”

  He was testing her, Christiaan supposed, see if she had the stomach for it. He saw her hesitate. The she gathered up her skirts and followed.

  Christiaan smiled.

  This was going to be an interesting night.

  ***

  They rowed over to the Zandaam, a smaller yacht that had left Amsterdam with them back in October and was now anchored just a few cable lengths away in the harbour. The crew all knew him; some of them had sailed with him before.

  For the next few hours they sat in the steerage, drinking and gambling. Sara was the only woman on board, and the skipper kept his arm around her, plumping her right breast in his palm, and grinning at the rest. He liked what it did to them, how it tormented them.

  The way she wriggled, he guessed she liked it, too.

  He was good and drunk when they left the Zandaam. His bo’sun, Jan Decker, wanted to go back to the Utrecht but he was having none of it.

  "We're going over to the Beschermer," he said. "I've got some old debts to settle."

  The bosun rolled his eyes. He set to with the oars while the skipper leaned back in the prow, Sara cradled under one arm, a Beardman jug of raw genever under the other. He was drinking hard-- pouring gin down his throat like it was water on a hot day.

  Drunk as he was he managed to make his way up the cleats. Sara in her long skirts, needed help. He noticed that the bosun managed a good feel as he was helping her up from the yawl. She just giggled and let him.

  The skipper of the Beschermer didn't look too pleased to see them, but Jacob Schellinger was past caring what anyone thought. He knew most of the crew on the Beschermer as well, and joined a game of dice there on the main deck, with the ship's constable and high boatswain. He grabbed a jug of wine from one of the sailors and helped himself. Sara hung on his arm, while he made lewd jokes about her to the men and called her soetecut - sweetie cunt.

  “How are things going with Sinjeur Secor?” one of the men asked him. It seemed everyone knew about the bad blood between him and the commandeur.

  “That pansy bastard,” the skipper boomed.

  The bosun shook his head. “Keep your voice down, skipper.”

  “He orders me around like I'm a cabin boy. Here's him, couldn't row a boat across a canal.”

  “Better watch what you're saying. He could make a lot of trouble for you.”

  “He better watch out I don't make trouble for him.”

  “You're all talk,” someone said. It was the high boatswain of the Beschermer, a man they called Barrel, because of his shape and size. The skipper started to rise, ready to fight him, but the bosun put a hand on his shoulder and pushed him down again. He took another pull at the gin bottle.

  “Does he know about the girl you've got there,” Barrel said.

  “It's none of his business,” Sara said.

  Barrel smirked.

  “He better not say anything about it,” the skipper said, ‘considering we all know what he's been doing, how he's passed the long days at sea, eh, Jan?”

  “Let's leave it now, skipper.”

  “The pansy bastard's fucking her mistress,” he said, pointing to Sara. “Isn't he, soetecut? And she's a married woman, too. Miss High and Mighty, got money and a house on the Leleistraat. Don't tell me that bastard doesn't know what he's about.” He nudged her. “Tell them. That's right, isn't it?”

  Everyone was staring at her, waiting to see what she would say. “I've seen them doing it,” she said, and he gave her a squeeze and a little kiss as reward.

  The Beschermer's captain, van Schenk, stood up. “You better get off my ship,” he said. “You talking like this, it's not going to do any of us any good.”

  “Go fuck yourself,” the skipper said.

&n
bsp; Everyone fell quiet, thinking there would be a fight. But instead van Schenk turned and stalked off towards his cabin.

  The skipper took another swill of genever and some of it leaked down the side of his face into his beard. “Where's the dice?” he said.

  ***

  The moon was low over the land and there was a month's pay for a skipper there in the pot, almost forty guilders, and all of it gambled on one roll between the skipper and Barrel. The skipper threw a ten and threw back his head and guffawed, delighted.

  Barrel threw two sixes.

  As soon as the die fell there was a moment's quiet and the men got ready for trouble. As the Barrel reached for the coins in the pot, he reached out and grabbed his wrist.

  “You cheated,” he said.

  “Your turn to go fuck yourself,” Barrel said.

  He picked him up like he was a child and threw him against the mast, thought he heard his skull crack. As he slid to the deck he jumped on him, holding him upright with his left hand and pummeled him with his right. Sprays of blood splattered on the decking.

  Two of Barrel's shipmates jumped on his back but he shrugged them off like they were dogs and started laying about him with his fists. In no time there were three bodies on the deck and van Schenk was calling for the provost.

  He pulled out his knife. “Bring on your provost, I'll have his liver for fish bait!’

  He felt the bosun’s arms go around him; he started dragging him towards the cleats. “That’s enough now, skipper. We’ve had our fun. Let’s get off this tub.”

  When they were back in the yawl he put a hand down Sara’s dress and scooped out one of her breasts. She laughed as he landed one wet kiss on her throat. She liked that, probably liked everyone watching, too. Nothing like a little blood to make a girl damp between her legs.

  “There's going to be trouble over this,” the bosun said.

  “That was the best night I have had in my whole life,” Sara said.

  Chapter 14

  GOD’S breath, he looks awful, Christiaan thought, and he smells like pork rotting in the sun. Don't heave your guts all over the commandeur's fine Persian rug, or it will be the worse for you.

  The ship's council was gathered in the Great Cabin; the pastor, glowering in his black coat; the provost, Bastiaan Rees; and himself. The high boatswain, Jan Decker, was there too, staring at the decking like a guilty schoolboy, though he had not as yet been called to account.

  Secor’s hands rested on the smooth arms of the great chair, his fingers beating a tattoo, trapped, he supposed, between the thorny ways of his conscience and a niggardly desire for revenge. He must know what the skipper had been saying about him and the good Vrouwe Noorstrandt. I wonder how this will come out?

  “Well,” Secor said. “What have you to say for yourself?”

  The skipper looked as if he had been basted in cold grease. “It shall not happen again,” he muttered, his eyes fixed on the window above the commandeur's head. Gin poisoning and public humiliation. A fine breakfast!

  A long silence.

  “Is that it?” the commandeur said. He shuffled some papers on his desk. “This morning, at first light, I have the commandeur of the Zandaam, Heer van Dommelen, knocking at my cabin, saying that you were on board his vessel last night, and that you were roaring drunk and fornicating below decks with...” Secor decided to leave Sara de Ruyter’s name out of this for the present, out of respect to her mistress. ‘...with a certain lady. Shortly after, I have the skipper of the Beschermer here, claiming that you later boarded his ship in a company of several of your sailors and ... this same lady ... and that you beat one of his crew so soundly he cannot rise from his bunk this morning to do his duties. It was only his personal intervention that prevented murder, he said. He furthermore complains of your blasphemies and that you made various calumnies against me before the whole ship.”

  “I was drunk,” the skipper said, his face a mask. “What a man says when he is drinking, none take seriously.”

  “You are the captain of the Utrecht, not some whoring sailor at leave in an Amsterdam bawdy house. What you say is always taken seriously.”

  The skipper continued to stare over the commandeur's head. He can scarce contain himself, Christiaan thought. His pride will not endure this lecture. In a moment he will pull out his knife and we shall see some real sport here.

  “This could be a matter for the Broad Council,” Secor said.

  The muscles in the skipper's jaw worked; he knew what that meant. The Broad Council was made up of every high personage in the entire fleet, and was convened only for the most serious infractions of discipline. They had far more power than Secor alone. If the good commandeur brought the matter to them, the skipper could find himself held in chains in the guts of his own ship all the way to the Indies. The humiliation would drive him mad.

  For a moment Christiaan saw fear in the skipper's eyes. “We have had long months at sea,” he managed, and at last some conciliation in his voice. “It was just a bit of fun. I shall see it is not repeated.”

  So, here the sinner, repentant, looking for absolution. A wise man would let this pass, Christiaan thought. But there was too much bad blood here, the commandeur was in a mood to grind his heel in the other man's neck.

  “I shall bring your behaviour before your betters in Batavia,” he said. “You are a drunkard and a fornicator, and it is my opinion that you should never again be placed in command of any vessel of the Honourable Company. Perhaps we would be better served to have the upper steersman find our way to Java.”

  The skipper swayed on his feet. Secor had the power to do it too, whether he had the stomach for it was something else. It wouldn't look good for him, either.

  “By your leave,” the skipper mumbled, “I...humbly...ask your pardon if I gave offence. It was not my intention.” The bastard looked as if he was going to choke.

  Secor dismissed him with a flick of his hand. “Worthless fool that you are, you can't conduct yourself with the dignity your rank merits! You've behaved like the lowest of ordinary seamen! Get out of my sight! Go to your cabin and sleep it off! You're confined on board until we sail!’

  The skipper stumbled out of the door. There was a long silence. Well, Christiaan thought, the skipper's pansy boy had teeth after all.

  Christiaan looked out of the great window, thrown open to the morning. The clouds were piling up over the Table Mountain.

  You've done it now, Heer Commandeur. You've put him in his place, made him grovel, which is what you wanted all along, and not one of us believes he doesn't deserve it.

  But if he will still be of a mind to crawl when we are over that indigo horizon is another matter.

  ***

  I handled that badly, Ambroise thought. The man is a fool and a braggart but now I have given him even more cause to hate me. The only way to put an end to this is to replace him as skipper, but if I bring the matter before the Broad Council, they will think I am weak for not dealing with him myself. The matter will reach the ears of Governor Coen before I am even landed in Java. A fine introduction that will be.

  The unease would not leave him. He had a cold prickling of the skin on this fine and bright morning. Over the horizon lay dark nights and tall seas.

  ***

  The skipper leaned over the carved rail of the poop deck, quietly retching into the sea. He heard footsteps on the deck and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. When he saw Christiaan, his expression twisted in contempt. “What do you want, undermerchant?”

  “They went hard on you. I didn't think anything would make a big tough fellow like yourself turn pale.”

  “It's the gin that has done this, not that pansy bastard.”

  Christiaan smiled.

  “I've eaten shit from that pigeon-toed bastard for the last time. God's death, if the Beschermer were not lying off there, I should treat that miserly dog so that he would not come out of his cabin for a long time. And if I were younger, perhaps I should do something e
lse.”

  O, tell the whole ship! Christiaan looked around to make sure no one had heard. Fortunately his words were carried away on the breeze.

  What was he doing, unburdening himself to me, the ship's second in command, before he really knows my mind? The drink must have addled his brain.

  “I should like to hear more of your thoughts, skipper,” Christiaan said, ‘but it might be best if no one else hears them.”

  The skipper spat into the foam and turned away. Give it time, Christiaan thought. Only good comes from God.

  Chapter 15

  22nd April, 1629

  A WEEK’S revictualing and the Utrecht sailed from Table Bay on the last leg of her journey. After she rounded the Cabo de Bona Esperanza, she would beat eastwards with the trades across five thousand miles of ocean, turning north when she reached the Great Southland with its dangerous reefs and rocks.

  Just before they sailed from Amsterdam, the Governor of Batavia in Java had warned that existing calculations of the distance between the cape and the Southland might be incorrect by up to nine hundred nautical miles. But the crew and passengers were confident in their skipper's knowledge and seamanship. For all his faults, Jacob Schellinger was recognised as the finest master in the VOC fleet. No one else might have behaved as he did in Table Bay and come away with little else but a sore head and a reprimand from the commandeur.

  They were all happy to be on the last leg of the voyage, bracing themselves for two more months at sea, the poor food, the stinking water and idle gossip born of boredom and envious spite. But at least the end was in sight.

  They thought.

  ***

  It was night, the men were sleeping, their hammocks strung between the guns. Steenhower was snoring like someone sawing through the main mast, the noise he made all but drowning out the creaking of the timbers as the great ship pitched on the swell.