Love's Odyssey Page 7

  Adrien turned and smiled at Margitte, a vision in rose and cream. "No doubt we'll meet again," he said casually to Romell as he moved off with Margitte's hand on his arm.

  Just before noon the white sails unfurled, the cables were slipped, and Romell felt the ship leap beneath her. The wind blew strong from the east and, as men scampered along the lines, the Zuiderwind pulled away from her island moorage into the heaving swell of the North Sea, following the man-of-war.

  Romell looked astern and saw the Goudland behind them with all her sails set, the white canvas gleaming in the sun. A splendid sight, she thought.

  The four ships threaded the English Channel without incident, though the VOC Junior Merchant, a young man named Willem Van Buren, had told Romell this was a dangerous passage, since one never knew "the temper of the weather or the English."

  She and Margitte both dined at the commandeur's table, ample meals served with beer and brandy. Adrien, too, ate there, as did the ship's officers, company officials, and some of the other passengers: a minister traveling with his wife and daughter and a young man who had been hired as a children's tutor by a Dutch family living in Batavia. The rest of the passengers were apparently judged not worthy of the honor.

  Romell knew the soldiers were quartered on the lower deck in a compartment next to the ship's crew. Occasionally, she saw a soldier on the quarterdeck, but by the time the Zuiderwind swung into the Atlantic to catch the trade wind, Romell had come close to forgetting that Pieter was aboard and so was taken aback when he hailed her one morning.

  "Romell!" he exclaimed, clasping her hand in both of his. "I'd heard you were on the ship and just couldn't believe it possible. What fantastic luck!"

  "How are you, Pieter?" she said, trying, without success, to withdraw her hand.

  "I thought I'd never see you again."

  She looked up into his face, now clean-shaven as befitted a junior officer, and thought he was really one of the handsomest men she'd ever seen. Why, then, had he never stirred her the way Adrien did?

  "My passage was paid by a widower in Batavia who needs a wife," she told him bluntly. No good would come of Pieter thinking she was aboard because of him.

  "I understand," he said softly, smiling at her possessively. "There was no other way."

  Romell jerked her hand free. "There's nothing between you and me, Pieter. Don't speak as though there is."

  He scowled. "Why be coy? We were meant for one another. Tell me, do you have a cabin to yourself?"

  She stared at him. "You can't come to my cabin!"

  "Then we'll meet on deck tonight. There are plenty of spots to—"

  "Pieter! Listen to me. I shan't meet you tonight or any other night. If you persist in behaving this way, I shan't speak to you by day, either." She turned to walk away, was halted when he gripped her arm.

  "Very well. I'll wait. I can wait. Stay a bit and we'll talk of other matters. Come, we'll walk," he urged, letting go of her.

  Romell had opened her mouth to refuse when she caught sight of Margitte and Adrien coming toward them. Adrien's head was bent toward Margitte's as he listened to her. He'd not spoken to Romell alone since their first meeting, and it seemed every time she'd seen him since, he was with Margitte.

  Romell put her hand on Pieter's arm and smiled up at him sweetly. "Tell me all about being a soldier aboard ship," she said. She kept her head turned toward Pieter, so they'd seem to be engrossed in conversation as they passed by Adrien and Margitte. Actually, Romell heard not a word of what Pieter said until they were past the other couple.

  ". . . the pirates," Pieter was saying. "So we have twenty-eight cannon aboard, seven of them bronze. And, of course, our entire company is armed. The other retour ships are as well provided for, and the man-of-war is even—"

  "Pirates?" Romell said, interrupting. "When I sailed from Virginia the captain spoke of pirates, but we saw none. Is there actually much danger of pirates attacking us?"

  "There would be if we weren't prepared," Pieter said. "What I'd do if I were pirating is capture a Company Indiaman and keep the VOC flag flying as cover. I'd wait until a ship was separated from the others, then pick her off like a plump duck. I'd be a rich man in no time, damned if I wouldn't."

  Romell raised her eyebrows. "If they caught you, you'd hang!"

  He grinned at her. "No man will hang me. And I'm not a pirate. But if I were, my pretty Romellje, you'd be the first prize I'd take off the good ship Zuiderwind." He reached for her with one arm, pulling her against him. "I will have you, you know, sooner or later," he said softly, then let her go before she had a chance to struggle or call out.

  Romell whirled away from him and stalked off, almost colliding with Margitte and Adrien, who were heading back along the deck. She swept past them without a word, but couldn't help hearing Margitte's comment to Adrien:

  "Ah, young lovers will have their tiffs. Isn't it amusing, Adrienje?"

  Adrienje! Romell fumed as she headed for her cabin. Hollanders had a habit of attaching the diminutive "je" to the names of those whom they were fond of. Little Adrien indeed! And Margitte a married woman.

  She sat on the bunk in her tiny cell of a cabin, trying to calm herself. Once she had a chance, she'd throw out every black dress she owned and wear nothing but colors—golds, greens, yellows. No grays, nothing mousy. Adrien would notice her, would bend his head to her. As for Margitte. . . .

  A sharp rap on the door startled her. She froze, listening. Had Pieter dared to follow her? Well, she wouldn't answer.

  "Open the door!" a man's voice ordered. Adrien!

  After an instant's hesitation, Romell did as he asked.

  "You'd best keep clear of that young officer," Adrien told her abruptly, closing the door behind him and standing against it to avoid touching her in the inadequate space. "He's a wrong one, I've heard. He could be dangerous."

  "I'll do as I please," she flared. "Pieter's not dangerous—that's ridiculous."

  Adrien grasped her shoulders. "At least have the decency to discourage his attentions above deck. If you’re to marry that Dutchman and live in Java, you can’t afford gossip about your behavior aboard the ship bringing you there."

  "Which are you more concerned about?" she demanded. "My safety or my reputation? I can assure you, I'm perfectly safe with Pieter. And as to my reputation, that’s certainly no worse than it was after I met you."

  Rage flared in his eyes and his fingers bit into her flesh.

  "Let me go," she cried, pushing at him. "You have no right to—" Her words died away as she saw the look in his eyes change. She caught her breath and stared up at him, his face only inches from hers. She felt herself relax, sway toward him.

  An instant later he thrust her away. He turned, opened the door and left her without another word. Romell stood in the doorway watching him, her hand to her mouth.

  A flicker of motion down the opposite side of the passageway caught her attention, but she turned too late to see who had disappeared around the turn. All she was certain of was that it had been a soldier.

  Chapter 7

  The days passed, the fine weather held, and the Zuiderwind with her two sister ships and the man-of-war treaded boldly down the blue sea past the coast of Spain. Romell remembered her father telling her how the second Spanish Armada had been destroyed off the English coast in 1597, and how Spain no longer was mistress of the seas as she once had been.

  Nevertheless, the crew was on the alert for possible attack, since Spain and Holland were still considered to be at war, though no notable battles had been fought in the past few years.

  Romell walked the poop, watched the crew at work aloft and also noticed that Margitte Van Slyke was with Commandeur Zwaan again. She was with him as often as she was with Adrien. To Romell, Margitte seemed very bold for a married woman. It was obvious she was out to capture the attention of both men.

  And has, too, Romell admitted bitterly, unable to pretend she didn't notice everything Adrien did. Sometimes Willem
Van Buren, the Junior Merchant, walked with Romell, but he was very circumspect, as befitted a married man. Indeed, he spoke to her of his wife and the child they were expecting as often as he talked of anything.

  Pieter hadn't approached her again, and Romell thankfully concluded his duties kept him from seeking her out. She really preferred never to talk to him again, but knew she would, if only to keep Adrien from believing he'd cowed her with his order to stay away from Pieter.

  The tutor—a quiet young man, slight of build, named Martinus Kwast—nodded to her each time they met, but he was shy and she had no impulse to encourage him. Adrien, when he wasn't with Margitte, was nowhere to be seen.

  Loulie, Margitte's sulky maid, spent a good deal more time than she should have with Skipper Hardens. Maid and mistress quarrelled almost constantly. Just this morning, when she'd passed their cabin, Romell had heard Loulie shouting at Margitte in a shocking fashion:

  "You're naught but a tart yourself for all your fine airs. Ain't I seen you acting slick as shit with two different men, nozzling and cozying up to them? If you ask me, you're the one—"

  "Shut up, you bitch! You're my servant—you'll do as I say or I'll have you whipped. Won't that be a sight for those grinning louts of sailors?"

  "You don't scare me! Skipper won't let me be whipped and you know it!"

  Romell didn't know how Margitte could tolerate having a maid like Loulie. Surely it would be better to do for one's self than to put up with a foul-mouthed wench. As for Margitte's company, Romell had little taste for that.

  The weeks passed. The ships skirted the West Coast of Africa, pulling southwest with the prevailing wind as the days grew warmer and warmer until, one stifling day, the winds failed and they were becalmed on a mirror-like sea.

  By the next day, still becalmed in the oppressive heat, tempers grew short. Commandeur Zwaan sent the women to their cabins as he and the skipper prepared to punish three men for fighting with knives. From her almost unbearably hot cabin, Romell heard the thwack of the lash and the screams and groans of the luckless wretches until, unable to bear it, she covered her ears with her hands. Fifty lashes, she knew, was the usual punishment. Had a man died in the knife fight, his killer would have been sent overboard alive, tied to his victim's dead body.

  The following morning the ship rose on a series of long greasy swells as clouds built up in the west. Everyone watched and hoped as the clouds piled higher and grew darker. Sailors hung in the lines, awaiting the order to reef sails. The wind picked up, the ship danced and rolled, slipping at last out of the doldrums on a rain squall.

  Romell had listened to Commandeur Zwaan explain their course and knew they must drop farther south to pick up what the commandeur called the "Roaring Forties," at about forty degrees latitude.

  These were the strong westerly winds that would send them around the tip of Africa--they needed them to get enough southing against the southeast trade winds, so the ship could weather the Cape of Good Hope and enter the Indian Ocean.

  All four ships put in at the Cape for provisions, but the stop was brief and the passengers were not encouraged to disembark. Romell watched as the decks were stripped of the remaining livestock and all loose gear, and the Zuiderwind prepared to raise sail again.

  "Passengers will stay below," Skipper Hardens ordered. "The sailors have enough to do in these gale winds without landlubbers in the way."

  In the storms that followed as the ship dipped south to forty degrees latitude, Romell became sick for the first time at sea, staying in her bunk and considering herself fortunate when anything stayed in her stomach. She could feel the ship roll and leap in the gales, and heard timbers creak and shrouds rattle as the Zuiderwind flew along before the "Roaring Forties."

  When she was allowed on deck again, Romell came up to an overcast sky and a breeze so cool she put up the hood of her cloak and drew it closely about her. The Indiaman scudded along on a choppy sea, and when Romell looked to see the other ships, she was startled to find them nowhere in sight. Seeing the commandeur and the skipper on the poop near the steersman, Romell made her way up to them.

  "We lost the others in a storm," Skipper Hardens told her when she asked about the ships. "Don't worry, we'll pick them up again in the higher latitudes."

  "If we're lucky," Commandeur Zwaan said tartly.

  "In any case, we're all armed and we have the soldiers." Skipper Hardens clapped the commandeur on the shoulder as he spoke, and Romell saw a slight grimace of distaste flick across the other man's face.

  "Where are we now?" she asked.

  "Running our easting down," the skipper told her, reaching for her arm. She couldn't avoid letting him take it. He drew her away from the commandeur and toward the port rail where he pointed out over the gray water. "Madagascar's to the north, but we'll not see land these next weeks."

  She didn't like the way his hand pressed against the side of her breast, and disengaged herself. She found Skipper Hardens distasteful, too.

  "The old ships used to go up the east coast of Africa," he said, "then across the Arabian Sea. A waste of time. The days we save with the westerlies are days of gold."

  "I trust we'll live to put these golden days to good purpose." Commandeur Zwaan's tone was dry. Romell turned toward him, grateful that he'd followed them.

  "Why shouldn't we?" the skipper asked, scowling up at Zwaan.

  The commandeur opened his mouth to reply, then glanced at Romell and shook his head.

  Skipper Hardens stepped closer to Zwaan and thrust his finger at him belligerently. "You can't let it rest, losing the other ships. I tell you, we're on course. Would the Company keep me if they thought I was so poor a navigator that I'd sail my ship head-on into Southland? You manage the goods and leave me the ship."

  Romell moved away, uneasy at the enmity between the men, uneasier still because she'd smelled the telltale breath of the skipper and knew he'd been drinking genever. She couldn't help hearing the commandeur's low, intense response:

  "I don't trust you, Hardens. I wouldn't be surprised to fetch up on Southland—black cannibals, hopping beasts and all."

  Romell retreated toward her cabin, pondering the conversation. As she recalled, the ship should turn short of this mysterious Southland and, carried by the gentle southeast trade winds, sail north to Batavia. Since Skipper Hardens was a veteran of several Java voyages, certainly he would know the route. Why was the commandeur so upset? Was it because of the captain's drinking?

  Romell heard a door open and her name called. She stopped. Margitte stood in the doorway of her cabin only partly dressed. "Be a dear girl and fasten me up," she begged, stepping back inside.

  Romell entered the cabin and found Margitte half into an apricot gown of brocaded satin. Clothes and toilet articles were scattered about carelessly.

  "Where's Loulie?" Romell asked as she began fastening the tiny buttons on the back of Margitte's gown.

  "Don't mention that slut's name to me! Do you know what she had the nerve to do?"

  "I've been in my cabin these past few days."

  "As have I. Alone, mind you, since that ungrateful bitch has joined the skipper in his cabin. Would you believe it?"

  "Surely that's unwise of Skipper Hardens."

  "And that's not all. When I insisted that Commandeur Zwaan reprimand the skipper and punish Loulie, do you know that fat goat Hardens defied the commandeur? Believe me, Jan Hardens is headed for trouble in Batavia."

  Romell found it impossible to get away from Margitte, and before she knew it, she was pressed into service to dress Margitte's hair and tidy up the cabin.

  "I'm grateful, of course," Margitte said carelessly when Romell had finished. "It's just that I've never been any good at such things."

  "I was glad to help," Romell said stiffly.

  Margitte grinned at her. "No you weren't," she said.

  "You don't like me." She shrugged. "It troubles me very little—few women like me. That's because men do. Can I help how I was fashio
ned by the good Lord? Still, you have small cause for envy, with your looks. That young Brouwer pants after you. I see him watching you when he thinks you're not aware. And our upstanding Junior Merchant, he fights against temptation. If you crooked your finger, he'd forget all about his pregnant wife back in Amsterdam."

  Romell flushed. "I'm sure Mijnheer Van Buren has no—"

  Margitte laughed. "Oh, come now, Romell. You're not a child. We're the only two women on the Zuiderwind who don't resemble cows. Every man aboard this ship is dying to lie with one or the other of us and you know it."

  Romell said nothing. What Margitte said was upsetting, but it had the ring of at least partial truth. They'd been on the ship months with the same men, men without women except for the few married couples aboard. She had never stopped to think about it, and she was sorry she would have to now. Did even the sailors above her in the rigging lust after her as she walked the poop? Romell grimaced.

  "Make all the faces you want, it's a fact. Don't think I'm not aware that Skipper Hardens took Loulie because he couldn't have me. Oh yes, that's the way of it."

  Something Margitte had said nagged at Romell. Did Pieter actually spy on her? She hadn't seen him in weeks.

  "As if I'd be interested in a lout like the skipper," Margitte went on. "Aboard the entire ship there are only two men worth talking to or making love with. Our commandeur and—" She smiled mockingly. "your old friend, Adrien Montgomery. Adrien has no money and the commandeur has a wife, but they amuse me for the time being."

  "But you . . . you're married yourself," Romell said.

  Margitte opened her eyes wide. "And what does that matter? My husband Dirk is safely in Batavia no doubt having a very pleasant time with the Javanese maidens. I hear they're quite pretty—for natives."

  All week the Zuiderwind swept along under full sail, but the lookouts failed to sight the other ships and there was speculation that one or more of them might have been damaged in the storm or blown far off course. Romell kept a sharp eye out for Pieter, not wanting to believe that he was watching her without her knowledge. Why would he do such a thing?