“Perhaps God may forgive your sacrilege but I won’t,” Father Sebastio had said, very quietly. “I will never rest until you and your evil are obliterated.”
The sweat was dribbling down his cheeks and chin. He wiped it away absently, ears tuned to the cellar as they would be when he was aboard and sleeping, or off watch and drifting; just enough to try to hear the danger before it happened.
We’ll have to break out and take the ship. I wonder what Felicity’s doing. And the children. Let’s see, Tudor’s seven years old now and Lisbeth is.?.?.?. We’re one year and eleven months and six days from Amsterdam, add thirty-seven days provisioning and coming from Chatham to there, add lastly, the eleven days that she was alive before the embarkation at Chatham. That’s her age exactly—if all’s well. All should be well. Felicity will be cooking and guarding and cleaning and chattering as the kids grow up, as strong and fearless as their mother. It will be fine to be home again, to walk together along the shore and in the forests and glades and beauty that is England.
Over the years he had trained himself to think about them as characters in a play, people that you loved and bled for, the play never ending. Otherwise the hurt of being away would be too much. He could almost count his days at home in the eleven years of marriage. They’re few, he thought, too few. “It’s a hard life for a woman, Felicity,” he had said before. And she had said, “Any life is hard for a woman.” She was seventeen then and tall and her hair was long and sensu—
His ears told him to beware.
The men were sitting or leaning or trying to sleep. Vinck and Pieterzoon, good friends, were talking quietly. Van Nekk was staring into space with the others. Spillbergen was half awake, and Blackthorne thought the man was stronger than he let everyone believe.
There was a sudden silence as they heard the footsteps overhead. The footsteps stopped. Muted voices in the harsh, strange-sounding language. Blackthorne thought he recognized the samurai’s voice—Omi-san? Yes, that was his name—but he could not be certain. In a moment the voices stopped and the footsteps went away.
“You think they’ll feed us, Pilot?” Sonk said.
“Yes.”
“I could use a drink. Cold beer, by God,” Pieterzoon said.
“Shut up,” Vinck said. “You’re enough to make a man sweat.”
Blackthorne was conscious of his soaking shirt. And the stench. By the Lord God I could use a bath, he thought and abruptly he smiled, remembering.
Mura and the others had carried him into the warm room that day and laid him on a stone bench, his limbs still numb and slow moving. The three women, led by the old crone, had begun to undress him and he had tried to stop them but every time he moved, one of the men would stab a nerve and hold him powerless, and however much he raved and cursed they continued to undress him until he was naked. It was not that he was ashamed of being naked in front of a woman, it was just that undressing was always done in private and that was the custom. And he did not like being undressed by anyone, let alone these uncivilized natives. But to be undressed publicly like a helpless baby and to be washed everywhere like a baby with warm, soapy, scented water while they chattered and smiled as he lay on his back was too much. Then he had become erect and as much as he tried to stop it from happening, the worse it became—at least he thought so, but the women did not. Their eyes became bigger and he began to blush. Jesus Lord God the One and Only, I can’t be blushing, but he was and this seemed to increase his size and the old woman clapped her hands in wonder and said something to which they all nodded and she shook her head awed and said something else to which they nodded even more.
Mura had said with enormous gravity, “Captain-san, Mother-san thank you, the best her life, now die happy!” and he and they had all bowed as one and then he, Blackthorne, had seen how funny it was and he had begun to laugh. They were startled, then they were laughing too, and his laughter took his strength away and the crone was a little sad and said so and this made him laugh more and them also. Then they had laid him gently into the vast heat of the deep water and soon he could bear it no longer, and they laid him gasping on the bench once more. The women had dried him and then an old blind man had come. Blackthorne had never known massage. At first he had tried to resist the probing fingers but then their magic seduced him and soon he was almost purring like a cat as the fingers found the knots and unlocked the blood or elixir that lurked beneath skin and muscle and sinew.
Then he had been helped to bed, strangely weak, half in dream, and the girl was there. She was patient with him, and after sleeping, when he had strength, he took her with care even though it had been so long.
He had not asked her name, and in the morning when Mura, tense and very frightened, had pulled him out of sleep, she was gone.
Blackthorne sighed. Life is marvelous, he thought.
In the cellar, Spillbergen was querulous again, Maetsukker was nursing his head and moaning, not from pain but from fear, the boy Croocq near breaking, and Jan Roper said, “What’s there to smile about, Pilot?”
“Go to hell.”
“With respect, Pilot,” van Nekk said carefully, bringing into the open what was foremost in their minds, “you were most unwise to attack the priest in front of the rotten yellow bastard.”
There was general though carefully expressed agreement.
“If you hadn’t, I don’t think we’d be in this filthy mess.”
Van Nekk did not go near Blackthorne. “All you’ve got to do is put your head in the dust when the Lord Bastard’s around and they’re as meek as lambs.”
He waited for a reply but Blackthorne made none, just turned back to the trapdoor. It was as though nothing had been said. Their unease increased.
Paulus Spillbergen lifted himself on one elbow with difficulty. “What are you talking about, Baccus?”
Van Nekk went over to him and explained about the priest and the cross and what had happened and why they were here, his eyes hurting today worse than ever.
“Yes, that was dangerous, Pilot-Major,” Spillbergen said. “Yes, I’d say quite wrong—pass me some water. Now the Jesuits’ll give us no peace at all.”
“You should have broken his neck, Pilot. Jesuits’ll give us no peace anyway,” Jan Roper said. “They’re filthy lice and we’re here in this stink hole as God’s punishment.”
“That’s nonsense, Roper,” Spillbergen said. “We’re here becau—”
“It is God’s punishment! We should have burned all the churches in Santa Magdellana—not just two. We should have. Cesspits of Satan!”
Spillbergen slapped weakly at a fly. “The Spanish troops were regrouping and we were outnumbered fifteen to one. Give me some water! We’d sacked the town and got the plunder and rubbed their noses in the dust. If we’d stayed we would have been killed. For God’s sake, give me some water; someone. We’d’ve all been killed if we hadn’t retrea—”
“What does it matter if you’re doing the work of God? We failed Him.”
“Perhaps we’re here to do God’s work,” van Nekk said, placatingly, for Roper was a good though zealous man, a clever merchant and his partner’s son. “Perhaps we can show the natives here the error of their Papist ways. Perhaps we could convert them to the True Faith.”
“Quite right,” Spillbergen said. He still felt weak, but his strength was returning. “I think you should have consulted Baccus, Pilot-Major. After all, he’s chief merchant. He’s very good at parleying with savages. Pass the water, I said!”
“There isn’t any, Paulus.” Van Nekk’s gloom increased. “They’ve given us no food or water. We haven’t even got a pot to piss in.”
“Well, ask for one! And some water! God in heaven, I’m thirsty. Ask for water! You!”
“Me?” Vinck asked.
“Yes. You!”
Vinck looked at Blackthorne but Blackthorne just watched the trapdoor obliviously, so Vinck stood under the opening and shouted, “Hey! You up there! Give us God-cursed water! We want food and water!”
There was no answer. He shouted again. No answer. The others gradually took up the shouts. All except Blackthorne. Soon their panic and the nausea of their close confinement crept into their voices and they were howling like wolves.
The trapdoor opened. Omi looked down at them. Beside him was Mura. And the priest.
“Water! And food, by God! Let us out of here!” Soon they were all screaming again.
Omi motioned to Mura, who nodded and left. A moment later Mura returned with another fisherman, carrying
