tears were sliding silently down Sukeena's cheeks as Kleinhans went on, 'Once they had fully confessed their guilt, the criminals were burned. The flares were thrown onto the faggots of wood at their feet and the whole lot went up in the flames, which was a merciful release for all of us.'
With a small shudder Katinka withdrew her finger from between the girl's trembling lips. With the tenderness of a satisfied lover she stroked the satiny cheek, her finger still wet with the girl's saliva leaving damp streaks on the amber skin.
'What happened to the woman, the concubine? Was she also sold into slavery with the children?' Katinka asked, not taking her gaze from those grief-wet eyes in front of her.
'No,' Kleinhans said. 'That is the strange part of the story. Ashreth threw herself into the flames and perished on the same pyre as her English lover. There is no understanding the native mind, is there?'
There was a long silence, and when a cloud passed over the sun the day seemed suddenly dark and chill.
'I will take her,' Katinka said, so softly that Kleinhans cupped a hand to his ear.
'Please excuse me, Mevrouw, but I did not catch what you said.'
'I will take her,' Katinka repeated. 'This girl, Sukeena, I will buy her from you.'
'We have not yet agreed a price.' Kleinhans looked startled. he had not expected it to be so easy.
'I am certain your price will be reasonable that is, if you also wish to sell me the other slaves in your span.'
'You are a lady of great compassion.' Kleinhans shook his head in admiration. 'I see that Sukeena's story has touched your heart and that you want to take her into your care. Thank you. I know you will treat her kindly.-' Hal hung on the grating of the cell window and called his sighting to Aboli, who held him on his shoulders.
'They have returned in the Governor's carriage. The three of them, Kleinhans, Schreuder and Governor van de Velde's wife. They are going back up the staircase ' He broke off and exclaimed, 'Wait! There is someone else alighting from the carriage. Someone I do not know. A woman.'
Daniel, who was standing at the grille gate, relayed this message up the staircase to the solitary cells at the top. 'Describe this strange woman,' Sir Francis called.
At that moment the woman turned to say something to Fredricus the driver and, with a start, Hal recognized her as the slave girl who had stood in the crowd while they were being marched across the parade.
'She is small and young, almost a child. Balinese, perhaps, or Malaccan, something about the look of her.' He hesitated. 'She is probably of mixed blood, and almost certainly a servant or a slave. Kleinhans and Schreuder walk ahead of her.'
Daniel passed this on, and suddenly Althuda's voice came back to them down the stairwell. 'Is she very pretty? Long dark hair twisted up on top of her head, with flowers in it. Does she wear a green jade ornament at her throat?'
'All those things,' Hal shouted back. 'Except that she is not pretty, she is lovely beyond the telling of it. Do you know her? Who is she?'
'Her name is Sukeena. She is the one for whom I came back from the mountains. She is my little sister.'
Hal watched Sukeena mount the stairs, moving with the lightness and alacrity of an autumn leaf in a gust of wind. Somehow, while he watched this girl, his thoughts of Katinka were not so all-consuming. When she disappeared from his sight, the light filtering into the dungeon seemed dimmer and the stone walls more damp and cold. first they had all been amazed by the treatment meted out to them in the castle dungeons. They were allowed to slop out the latrine bucket every morning, drawing lots for the privilege. At the end of the first week, a load of' fresh straw was delivered by one of the Company field slaves, driving an ox cart and they were allowed to throw out the verminous old straw that covered the floors. Through a copper pipe the water cistern was fed continuously from one of the streams that rushed down from the mountain, so they suffered no hardship from thirst. Each evening a loaf of coarse-grained bread, the size of a wagon wheel, and a great iron pot were sent down from the kitchens. The pot was filled with the peelings and off cuts of vegetables, boiled up with the meat of seals captured on Robben Island. This stew was more plentiful and tastier than much of the food they had eaten aboard ship.
Althuda laughed when he heard them discussing it. 'They also feed their oxen well. Dumb animals work better when they are strong.'
'We ain't doing much work here and now,' Daniel remarked comfortably, and patted his belly.
Althuda laughed again. 'Look out of the window,' he advised them.
'There is a fort to build. You will not be sitting down here much longer. Believe me when I say it.'
'Ahoy there, Althuda,' Daniel shouted, 'your sister isn't English, so it makes sense that you aren't an Englishman either. How is it that you speak like one?'
'My father was from Plymouth. I have never been there. Do you know the place?'
There was a roar of laughter and comment and clapping, and Hal spoke for them all. 'By God, except for Aboli and these other African knaves, we are all Devon men and true. You are one of us, then, Althuda!'
'You have never seen me. I must warn you that I don't look like you,'Althuda warned them. 'if you look half as good as your little sister, then you'll do well enough,' Hal replied, and the men hooted with laughter.
For the first week of their captivity, they saw the sergeant gaoler, named Manseer, only when the stew pot was brought in or when the bedding straw was changed then, suddenly, on the eighth morning, the iron door at the head of the stairs was thrown open with a crash and Manseer bellowed down the well, 'Two at a time, form up. We are taking you out to wash some of the stink off you, or the judge will suffocate before he has a chance to send you to Stadige Jan. Come on now, shake yourselves.'
With a dozen guards keeping watch over them they were taken out in pairs, made to -strip naked and wash themselves and their clothing under the hand pump behind the stables.
The following morning they were turned out again with the dawn, and this time the castle armourer was waiting with his forge and anvil to shackle them together, not this time in one long ungainly file but into pairs.
When the iron-studded door to Sir Francis's cell was opened, and his father emerged with his hair hanging lankly to his shoulders and a grizzled beard covering his chin, Hal pushed himself forward so that they were shackled together.
'How are you, Father?' Hal asked with concern, for he had never seen his father looking so seedy.
Before Sir Francis could reply a bout of coughing overtook him. When it passed, he answered hoarsely, 'I prefer a good Channel gate to the air down here, but I am well enough for what has to be done.'
'I could not shout it to you, but Aboli and I have been working out a plan to escape,' Hal whispered to him. 'We have managed to lift one of the floor slabs in the back of the cell and we are going to dig a tunnel under the walls.'
'With your bare hands?' Sir Francis smiled at him.
'We need to find a tool,' Hal admitted, 'but when we do...'
He nodded with grim determination, and Sir Francis felt his heart might burst with love and pride. I have taught him to be a fighter, and to keep on fighting even when the battle is lost. Sweet God, I hope the Dutchies spare him the fate that they have in store for me.
In the middle of the morning they were marched from the courtyard up the staircase into the main hall of the castle, which had been converted into a courtroom. Shackled two by two, they were led to the four rows of low wooden benches in the centre of the floor and seated upon them, Sir Francis and Hal in the middle of the front row. Their guards, with drawn swords, lined up along the wall behind them.
A platform had been built against the wall before them and on it, facing the benches of the prisoners, was set a heavy table and a tall chair of dark teak. This was the judge's throne. At one end of the table was a stool, on which the court writer was already seated, scribbling busily in his journal. Below the platform was another pair of tables and chairs. At one of these sat someone Hal had seen many times before through the cell window. According to Althuda, he was a junior clerk in the Company administration. His name was Jacobus Hop and, after one nervous glance at the prisoners, he did not look at them again. He was rustling and scratching through a sheaf of documents, pausing from time to time to wipe his sweating face with a large white neck cloth
At the second table sat Colonel Cornelius Schreuder. He was the romantic poet's image of the gallant and debonair soldier, all a-glitter with his medallions and stars and the wide sash across one shoulder. His wig was freshly washed, the curls hanging down to his shoulders. His legs were thrust out in front of him, his soft thigh-high boots crossed at the ankles. On the table top in front of him books and papers were scattered and laid carelessly upon them were his plumed Hat and the Neptune sword. As he rocked backwards and forwards on his chair he stared relentlessly at Hal, and though Hal tried to match his gaze he was forced at last to drop his eyes.
There was a sudden uproar at the main doors, and when they swung open the crowds from the town burst in and scrambled to find seats on the benches down each side of the hall. As soon as the last seat was taken, the doors were forced closed again in the faces of those unfortunates at the rear.
