The Golden Cross (6 page)

“Yes.” Aidan glanced around to be certain Lili was not close enough to overhear. “And not a word to my mother, do you understand? She would say I was wasting my time.”

Orabel nodded, and a faint flush rose on her cheeks. “Can I come with you? I looked; there aren’t any new ships in the harbor this morning. Yesterday’s new arrivals are still asleep, and Bram isn’t likely to miss me if I’m gone.”

Aidan considered a moment, then nodded. “All right, let’s go.”

With a quick glance to be certain no one followed, the two girls slipped away from the tavern and blended into the streaming Monday morning traffic of buggies, donkeys, and wagons. Aidan curled her nose at the sour odor of day-old fish at the fisherman’s market, and the girls quickened their steps until they were upwind of the smelly place.

“Wait, Aidan.” Orabel stopped suddenly in her tracks, her eyes moving to a cross hanging above the silk importer’s door. “Let’s say a prayer. Perhaps you will meet your famous artist today.”

“Do what you like, but I’m not praying.” Aidan gritted her teeth. “I haven’t prayed in years, and I’m not about to start now.”

“Why not?” Orabel’s eyes widened in genuine surprise. “God loves everybody. Don’t you listen when the minister comes around?”

“Why should I listen to a man who does nothing but criticize us?” Despite her resolve, Aidan’s eyes drifted up to the cross that
had caught Orabel’s attention. It was simple and smooth, of plain wood without ornamentation of any kind. The pious merchant had boldly tacked it right above his door, an obvious advertisement that he was a God-fearing man with whom one could safely do business.

“But you wear a cross,” Orabel protested, pointing toward Aidan’s ruffled neckline. “I’ve seen it beneath your shirt. I thought it meant that you—”

“It was a gift,” Aidan interrupted. “It means nothing, not anymore. You can pray if you want to, but God stopped answering my prayers years ago. I have no reason to think he would start answering them now.”

Orabel lowered her head, her lips moving soundlessly as she pressed her hands together, and Aidan glanced down the street to be certain no one paid them any particular attention. She wasn’t about to end up in the workhouse for this—she’d run into the sea before she’d willingly go with the constable again.

An oxcart passed on the street, loaded with heavy stalks of green bananas, and at the sight of the fruit Aidan felt an odd hunger gnawing at her heart. Her father had often spoken of the glories of tropical Batavia, of the fruit and flowers that grew like weeds in the densest part of the jungles. “God never created a prettier paradise,” he had told her, his wide blue eyes sparkling with love and enthusiasm. “He will take us safely there, little one, and you will love the place.”

Aidan turned away from the sight of the oxcart, her heart twisting in pain. Her love for God and her love for her father had been intertwined, and when one left, the other vanished too. All that remained of either love was heaviness and an occasional yearning to return to the simpler, more trusting days of her childhood.

Orabel finally looked up and gave Aidan a wide smile. “I prayed you would meet him today,” she said simply. “Your artist friend. And he will like you and will want to help you.”

The sound of her dream being verbalized in words so simple and forthright made Aidan’s heart fall. This was a waste of time; she had thrown away ten stuivers on a useless pencil and vellum and had probably been cheated in the process. Orabel might as well have prayed that they would all be invited to Amsterdam to study with the great artist Rembrandt, for Aidan was about as likely to impress him as she was to meet this gentleman Van Dyck.

“I feel a little sick,” she muttered. “I think we should go back.”

“No, we won’t.” Orabel linked her arm through Aidan’s, pulling her toward the offices of the Dutch East India Company. “You’ve come this far; I won’t let you turn away.”

“But this is crazy, Orabel. I don’t care how many prayers you chant, this isn’t going to work. No gentleman would even stop to talk to me, much less watch me scratch with a pencil.” She took a shallow breath and heard her pulse roaring in her ears. “Stop, Orabel, I think I’m going to be sick.”

“I won’t let you stop now,” Orabel repeated. “Now come along, you can sit once we reach the place. Once we’re there you can rest and wait. I’ll pray again if I have to, but I won’t let you turn around!”

Too weak to resist, Aidan followed her friend.

W
ill you be coming back, sir?” A tremor of apprehension echoed in the housekeeper’s voice. “I mean … will you be back in time for supper?”

“As always, Gusta,” Schuyler Van Dyck answered, stepping out onto the front porch of his house. “I expect my children, too, so there will be four of us for dinner.” He tempered his voice as he looked down at the woman’s quivering chin. “I’ve not gone yet, so don’t worry yourself. And it’s not as if I’m planning to sail off the end of the world.”

Gusta nodded, her broad face stiffening beneath the tidy cap she wore. She took a deep breath, about to say something else, then apparently thought better of it and clamped her mouth shut.

Smothering a smile, Schuyler turned away. He stood on the veranda for a moment, admiring the spangled green foliage that surrounded the house, and waited until he heard the housekeeper close and bolt the door behind him. Gusta was a good servant. She’d keep a wary eye on things until he returned … no matter how long he stayed away.

As Schuyler descended the stairs, the subject of his recent conversation with the housekeeper flooded his mind. Last night he’d received word that Abel Tasman had been given command of two ships and official permission to sail from Batavia in search of silver, gold, and a sea route to Chile. He was to serve as the expedition’s official cartographer, to sail with Tasman to map any lands they might discover. At long last the journey of a lifetime lay
within his reach, and though Schuyler had told his servants, he had no idea how he would break the news to his children.

A light morning rain had swept away the suffocating haze that had blanketed the settlement for the last few days, and now the cobblestones of the street steamed in the rising heat. Van Dyck vainly smoothed his doublet. The linen fabric would be hopelessly wrinkled within the hour; it was the price a gentleman paid for living near the equator. Heat and humidity were part and parcel of life in Batavia.

Frowning, he stepped onto the scrubbed stone path that led to the road. He had errands to run, letters to deliver, and an appointment with his lawyer. Everything must be in order before he departed Batavia, every eventuality prepared for. Sea travel was a great deal safer than it had been in years past, but the whims of the ocean still could not be predicted. Although Magellan had proved that the earth could be circumnavigated, the Portuguese explorer had left port with five ships and 250 men. His crew, 18 skeletal survivors, later returned in one ship—without their captain. Magellan had given his life in the quest.

No, Mistress Ocean did not take kindly to men traversing her bosom, and Schuyler’s grown children, Henrick and Rozamond, would not hesitate to remind him of the danger.

Van Dyck gripped his walking stick and kept his eyes on the uneven stones of the road. Just ahead of him, Broad Street was intersected by Market Street, the unofficial boundary between the “good” area of Batavia and the “bad.” The east side of Market Street was fronted by a ramshackle row of shops and taverns; behind those rooftops rose the tall masts of ships anchored in the harbor.

The sight of those masts now quickened Schuyler’s steps. He wouldn’t have believed that the prospect of adventure could still thrill him, but with every year that passed he became more desperate to leave his mark on the world before he passed out of it. He was now sixty-two, well past his prime. This voyage might be
his last chance to publish his work, to leave a piece of himself behind.

Hessel Gerritz’s famous map of the Pacific, now twenty years old, had commemorated the voyage in which Willem Schouten and Jacob LeMaire discovered and named Cape Horn. But the center and southern edge of that map was a void, filled in with useless pictures of swelling seas and three-masted ships, disguising an abominable lack of knowledge. Schuyler longed to create a map that would reveal the unknown and illustrate the mysteries of
Mar Pacifico
.

He could do it on this voyage with Tasman. Unlike Gerritz, who had drawn his map from Schouten’s and LeMaire’s journals and charts, Schuyler wanted to work on the actual journey, to create a sea chart that would be at once useful and breathtakingly beautiful, a combination of art and accuracy, truth and revelation. Like the European map-makers who painted gilded sultan’s tents upon the deserts of northern Africa, he would illustrate his map with realistic depictions of flora and fauna never before seen in Europe. His map would illustrate both beauty and science; the original might hang in the Amsterdam offices of the V.O.C. while copies would be distributed throughout the modern world …

A sharp female screech interrupted his musings, and he looked up, pausing on the road with a firm grip on his walking stick. Lost in thought, he had scarcely noticed when he approached the wharf area, a run-down section inhabited by itinerant seamen and women of questionable morals. A group representing both sorts of individuals loitered outside a tavern at the corner of Market and Broad Streets. The scents of whiskey and Jamaican rum floated out to him from inside the darkened building, mingled with the sounds of women’s laughter and men’s raucous voices. The screech had come from a plump brunette who struggled in a sailor’s grasp.

“Excuse me.” Schuyler advanced and used his walking stick to tap the seaman on the shoulder. “But I don’t think the lady wants to go with you.”

“What?” The seaman turned around, his face blank with stupidity.

The woman showed her teeth in an expression that was not a smile, and her eyes glowered at him above a bodice designed to attract unsuitable attention. “Is it any of your business what we’re doing here? He means me no harm.” She glanced back at the staggering sailor. “Do you, love?”

“Not a bit,” the seaman answered, hiccuping. “I just wanted a wee bit o’ fun.”

“Indeed.” Schuyler stiffened. “Judging by the sound of your protest, I surmised that you were in distress.”

“Here’s the kind of distress I’m in, love.” Winking broadly at Schuyler, the woman reached out, clasped her hand behind the swaggering sailor’s neck, then drew his head forward until he sagged against her generous frame. “A girl’s got to earn a living, don’t she, sir? Now if you’ll leave us, I was just going to take this fellow inside.”

The seaman’s eyes closed in a drunken stupor, and the woman took advantage of his lapse to smile at Schuyler. “I could find entertainment for you later, if you like, sir. Just ask for Lady Lili.”

The corner of Schuyler’s mouth twisted with exasperation, and he leaned heavily upon his cane. “That won’t be necessary. I give you good day, madam.”

He exhaled a frustrated sigh and turned toward an alley that would take him around the most awful flophouses and taverns. Batavia was no worse than many other port cities, he supposed. Still, his steadfastly Christian soul recoiled from the open excesses of sin even as his heart broke for the wayward people who seemed to wash up on the island like starfish after a storm.

Down here, at the wharf, clapboard warehouses of two, three, and four stories crowded together, shuttered against the steaming heat of midday. The salty sea air mingled with the rank stench of open sewers, and Schuyler fumbled at his belt for a handkerchief to cover his nose. A sea journey might be a welcome relief to seamen
who spent all their time in this part of Batavia. And any other civilizations they might discover upon the lands of Mar Pacifico could not possibly be as distasteful as the life that existed here along the wharf.

He turned another corner and sighed in relief when he recognized his location. The building that housed the offices of the V.O.C. was just ahead, only a few yards from the docks.

Schuyler halted abruptly at the sight of movement in the shadows of an alley next to the building he sought. His son had warned him that the area was not safe. Even in daylight, Henrick insisted, cutpurses and robbers lingered in every alley and doorway.

He clutched his cane, reassured by the solid feel of the brass handle against his palm, then relaxed when he saw that two young women stood in the shade of the alley. They were simple-looking, both dressed in patched dresses and dingy bodices, but certainly not thieves.

The first girl, a blond, fragile-looking child, leaned against a barrel and held up her hand, her curled index finger serving as a perch for a bright butterfly. The second, a slender young woman, faced the building, her eyes frequently glancing toward the butterfly, her hands almost independently chalking its image upon the wall. Her flaming red hair curled nearly down to the small of her back, its molten coppery shades marked by a brazen white strand that seemed to flow like quicksilver from the girl’s left temple. The mere sight of that tide of hair was unnerving, for all modest women braided their hair and hid it beneath neat little caps.