Birds of Prey Read online

  ‘What is your business here?’

  ‘I come to present myself as an acolyte of the Order of St George and the Holy Grail.’

  ‘Whence come you?’

  ‘From the ocean sea, for that is my beginning and at my ending will be my shroud.’ With this response Hal acknowledged the maritime roots of the Order. The next fifty questions examined the novice’s understanding of the history of the Order.

  ‘Who went before you?’

  ‘The Poor Knights of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon.’ The Knights of the Temple of the Order of St George and the Holy Grail were the successors to the extinct Order of the Knights Templar.

  After that Sir Francis made Hal outline the history of the Order; how in the year 1312 the Knights Templar had been attacked and destroyed by the King of France, Philippe Le Bel, in connivance with his puppet Pope Clement V of Bordeaux. Their vast fortune in bullion and land was confiscated by the Crown, and most of them were tortured and burned at the stake. However, warned by their allies, the Templar mariners slipped their moorings in the French channel harbours and stood out to sea. They steered for England, and sought the protection of King Edward II. Since then, they had opened their lodges in Scotland and England under new names, but with the basic tenets of the Order intact.

  Next Sir Francis made his son repeat the arcane words of recognition, and the grip of hands that identified the Knights to each other.

  ‘In Arcadia habito. I dwell in Arcadia,’ Sir Francis intoned, as he stooped over Hal to take his right hand in the double grip.

  ‘Flumen sacrum bene cognosco! I know well the sacred river!’ Hal replied reverently, interlocking his forefinger with his father’s in the response.

  ‘Explain the meaning of these words,’ his father insisted.

  ‘It is our covenant with God and each other. The Temple is Arcadia, and we are the river.’

  The ship’s bell twice sounded the passage of the hours before the two hundred questions were asked and answered, and Hal was allowed to rise stiffly from his knees.

  When he reached his tiny cabin he was too weary even to light the oil lamp and dropped to his bunk fully clothed to lie there in a stupor of mental exhaustion. The questions and responses of the catechism echoed, an endless refrain, through his tired brain, until meaning and reality seemed to recede.

  Then he heard faint sounds of movement from beyond the bulkhead and, miraculously, his fatigue cleared. He sat up, his senses tuned to the other cabin. He would not light the lamp for the sound of steel striking flint would carry through the panel. He rolled off his bunk and, in the darkness, moved on silent bare feet to the bulkhead.

  He knelt and ran his fingers lightly along the joint in the woodwork until he found the plug he had left there. Quietly he removed it and placed his eye to the spyhole.

  Each day his father allowed Katinka van de Velde and her maid, with Aboli to guard them, to go ashore and walk on the beach for an hour. That afternoon while the women had been away from the ship, Hal had found a moment to steal down to his cabin. He had used the point of his dirk to enlarge the crack in the bulkhead. Then he had whittled a plug of matching wood to close and conceal the opening.

  Now he was filled with guilt, but he could not restrain himself. He placed his eye to the enlarged aperture. His view into the small cabin beyond was unimpeded. A tall Venetian mirror was fixed to the bulkhead opposite him and, in its reflection, he could see clearly even those areas of the cabin that otherwise would have been hidden from him. It was apparent that this smaller cabin was an annexe to the larger and more splendid main cabin. It seemed to serve as a dressing and retiring place where the Governor’s wife could take her bath and attend to her private and intimate toilet. The bath was set up in the centre of the deck, a heavy ceramic hip bath in the Oriental style, the sides decorated with scenes of mountain landscapes and bamboo forests.

  Katinka sat on a low stool across the cabin and her maid was tending her hair with one of the silver-backed brushes. It flowed down to her waist, and each stroke made it shimmer in the lamp-light. She wore a gown of brocade, stiff with gold embroidery, but Hal marvelled that her hair was more brilliant than the precious metal thread.

  He gazed at her, entranced, trying to memorize each gesture of her white hands, and each delicate movement of her lovely head. The sound of her voice and her soft laughter were balm to his exhausted mind and body. The maid finished her task, and moved away. Katinka stood up from her stool and Hal’s spirits plunged, for he expected her to take up the lamp and leave the cabin. But instead she came towards him. Though she passed out of his direct line of sight he could still see her reflection in the mirror. There was only the thickness of the panel between them now, and Hal was afraid she might become aware of his hoarse breathing.

  He gazed at her reflection as she stooped and lifted the lid of the night cabinet that was affixed to the opposite side of the bulkhead against which Hal pressed. Suddenly, before he realized what she intended, she swept the skirts of her gown above her waist and, in the same movement, perched like a bird on the seat of the cabinet.

  She continued to laugh and chat to her maid as her water purred into the chamber-pot beneath her. When she rose again Hal was given one more glimpse of her long pale legs before the skirts dropped over them and she swept gracefully from the cabin.

  Hal lay on his hard bunk in the dark, his hands clasped across his chest, and tried to sleep. But the images of her beauty tormented him. His body burned and he rolled restlessly from side to side. ‘I will be strong!’ he whispered aloud, and clenched his fists until the knuckles cracked. He tried to drive the vision from his mind, but it buzzed in his brain like a swarm of angry bees. Once again he heard, in his imagination, her laughter mingle with the merry tinkle she made in her chamber-pot, and he could resist no longer. With a groan of guilt he capitulated and reached down with both hands to his swollen, throbbing loins.

  Once the cargo of timber had been lifted out of the main hold, the spare mast could be raised to the deck. It was a labour that required half the ship’s company. The massive spar was almost as long as the galleon and had to be carefully manoeuvred from its resting place in the bowels of the hold. It was floated across the channel and then dragged up the beach. There, in a clearing beneath the spreading forest canopy, the carpenters set it on trestles and began to trim and shape it, so that it could be stepped into the hull to replace the gale-shattered mast.

  Only once the hold was emptied could Sir Francis call the entire ship’s company to witness the opening of the treasure compartment that the Dutch authorities had deliberately covered with the heaviest cargo. It was the usual practice of the VOC to secure the most valuable items in this manner. Several hundred tons of heavy timber baulks stacked over the entrance to the strong room would deter even the most determined thief from tampering with its contents.

  While the crew crowded the opening of the hatch above them Sir Francis and the boatswains went down, each carrying a lighted lantern, and knelt in the bottom of the hold to examine the seals that the Dutch Governor of Trincomalee had placed on the entrance.

  ‘The seals are intact!’ Sir Francis shouted, to reassure the watchers, and they cheered raucously.

  ‘Break the hinges!’ he ordered Big Daniel, and the boatswain went to it with a will.

  Wood splintered and brass screws squealed as they were ripped from their seats. The interior of the strong room was lined with sheets of copper, but Big Daniel’s iron bar ripped through the metal and a hum of delight went up from the spectators as the contents of the compartment were revealed.

  The coin was sewn into thick canvas bags of which there were fifteen. Daniel dragged them out and stacked them into a cargo net to be hoisted to the deck. Next, the ingots of gold bullion were raised. They were packed ten at a time into chests of raw, unplaned wood on which the number and weight of the bars had been branded with a red-hot iron.

  When Sir Francis climbed up out of the hold he ordered all bu
t two of the sacks of coin, and all the chests of gold bars, to be carried down to his own cabin.

  ‘We will divide only these two sacks of coin now,’ Sir Francis told them. ‘The rest of your share you will receive when we get home to dear old England.’ He stooped over the two remaining canvas sacks of coin with a dagger in his hand and he slit the stitching. The men howled like a pack of wolves as a stream of glinting silver ten-guilder coins poured onto the planking.

  ‘No need to count it. The cheese-heads have done that job for us.’ Sir Francis pointed out the numbers stencilled on the sacks. ‘Each man will come forward as his name is called,’ he told them. With excited laughter and ribald repartee, the men formed lines. As each was called, he shuffled forward with his cap held out, and his share of silver guilders was doled out to him.

  Hal was the only man aboard who drew no part of the booty. Although he was entitled to a midshipman’s share, one two-hundredth part of the crew’s portion, almost two hundred guilders, his father would take care of it for him. ‘No fool like a boy with silver or gold in his purse,’ he had explained reasonably to Hal. ‘One day you’ll thank me for saving it for you.’ Then he turned with mock fury on his crew. ‘Just because you’re rich now, doesn’t mean I have no more work for you,’ he roared. ‘The rest of the heavy cargo must go ashore before we can beach and careen her and clean her foul bottom and step the new mast and put the culverins into her. There’s enough work in that to keep you busy for a month or two.’

  No man was ever allowed to remain idle for long in one of Sir Francis’s ships. Boredom was the most dangerous enemy he would ever encounter. While one of the watches went ahead with the work of unloading, he kept the off-duty watches busy. They must never be allowed to forget that this was a fighting ship and that they must be ready at any moment to face a desperate enemy.

  With the hatches open and the huge casks of spice being lifted out, there was no space on the deck for weapons practice so Big Daniel took the off-duty men to the beach. Shoulder to shoulder, they formed ranks and worked through the manual of arms. Swinging the cutlass – cut to the left, thrust and recover, cut to the right, thrust and recover – until the sweat streamed from them and they gasped for breath.

  ‘Enough of that!’ Big Daniel told them at last, but they were not to be released yet.

  ‘A bout or two of wrestling now, just to warm your blood,’ he shouted, and strode among them matching man against man, seizing a pair by the scruff of their necks and thrusting them at each other, as though they were fighting-birds in the cockpit.

  Soon the beach was covered with struggling, shouting pairs of men naked to the waist, heaving and spinning each other off their feet and rolling in the white sand.

  Standing back among the first line of forest trees, Katinka and her maid watched with interest. Aboli stood a few paces behind them, leaning against the trunk of one of the giant forest yellow-woods.

  Hal was matched against a seaman twenty years his elder. They were of the same height, but the other man was a stone heavier. Both struggled for a hold on each other’s neck and shoulders as they danced in a circle, trying to force one another off balance or to hook a heel for a trip throw.

  ‘Use your hip. Throw him over your hip!’ Katinka whispered, as she watched Hal. She was so carried along by the spectacle that unconsciously she had clenched her fists and was beating them on her own thighs in excitement as she urged Hal on, her cheeks pinker than either the rouge pot or the heat had coloured them.

  Katinka loved to watch men or animals pitted against each other. At every opportunity, her husband was made to accompany her to the bull-baiting and the cock-fights or the ratting contests with terriers.

  ‘Whenever the red wine is poured, my lovely little darling is happy.’ Van de Velde was proud of her unusual penchant for blood sport. She never missed a tournament of épée, and had even enjoyed the English sport of bare-fisted fighting. However, wrestling was one of her favourite diversions, and she knew all the holds and throws.

  Now she was enchanted by the lad’s graceful movements and impressed by his technique. She could tell that he had been well instructed, for although his opponent was heavier Hal was quicker and stronger. He used his opponent’s weight against him, and the older man had to grunt and thrash around to recover himself as Hal tipped him to the edge of his balance. At his next lunge Hal offered no resistance but gave to his opponent’s rush, and went over backwards, still maintaining his grip. As he struck the ground, he broke his own fall with an arch to his back, at the same time thrusting his heels into his opponent’s belly to catapult him overhead. While the older man lay stunned, Hal whipped round to straddle his back and pin him face down. He grabbed the man’s pigtail and forced his face into the fine white sand, until he slapped the earth with both hands to signal his surrender.

  Hal released him and sprang to his feet with the agility of a cat. The seaman came to his knees gasping and spitting sand. Then, unexpectedly, he launched himself at Hal just as he was beginning to turn away. From the corner of his eye Hal spotted the swing of the bunched fist coming at his head and rolled away from the blow, but not quite quickly enough. It swiped across his face, bringing a flash of blood from one nostril. He seized the man’s wrist as he reached the limit of his swing, twisting his arm and then lifting his wrist up between his shoulder-blades. The seaman squealed as he was forced him up on his toes.

  ‘Mary’s milk, Master John, but you must like the taste of sand.’ Hal placed one bare foot on his backside and sent him sprawling head first on to the beach once more.

  ‘You grow too clever and cocky, Master Hal!’ Big Daniel strode up to him, frowning, and his voice was gruff as he tried to hide his delight at his pupil’s performance. ‘Next time I’ll give you a harder match. And don’t let the captain hear that milky blasphemy of yours or it’s more than good clean beach sand you’ll be tasting yourself.’

  Still laughing, delighting in Daniel’s ill-concealed approbation and in the hoots of encouragement from the other wrestlers, Hal swaggered to the lagoon’s edge and scooped up a double handful of water to wash the blood from his upper lip.

  ‘Joseph and Mary, but he loves to win.’ Daniel grinned behind his back. ‘Try as he will, Captain Franky will not break that one down. The old dog has sired a puppy of his own blood.’

  ‘How old do you think he is?’ Katinka asked her maid, in a reflective tone.

  ‘I’m sure I don’t know,’ said Zelda primly. ‘He’s just a child.’

  Katinka shook her head, smiling, remembering him standing naked in the stern of the pinnace. ‘Ask our blackamoor watch-dog.’

  Obediently Zelda looked back at Aboli, and asked in English, ‘How old is the boy?’

  ‘Old enough for what she wants from him,’ Aboli grunted in his own language, a puzzled frown on his face as he pretended not to understand. These last few days, while he guarded her, he had studied this woman with suncoloured hair. He had recognized the bright, predatory glimmer in the depths of those demure violet eyes. She watched a man the way a mongoose watches a plump chicken, and she carried her head in an affectation of innocence that was belied by the wanton swing of her hips beneath the layers of bright silks and gossamer lace. ‘A whore is still a whore, whatever the colour of her hair and no matter if she lives in a beehive hut or a governor’s palace.’ The deep cadence of his voice was punctuated by the staccato clicks of his tribal speech.

  Zelda turned away from him with a flounce. ‘Stupid animal. He understands nothing.’

  Hal left the water’s edge and came up into the trees. He reached up to the branch on which hung his discarded shirt. His hair was still wet and his naked chest and shoulders were blotched red with the rough contact of the wrestling. A smear of blood was still streaked across his cheek.

  His hand raised towards his shirt, he looked up. His eyes met Katinka’s level violet regard. Until that moment he had been unaware of her presence. Instantly his arrogant swagger evaporated, and he stepp
ed back as though she had slapped him unexpectedly. Now a dark blush spread over his face, obliterating the lighter blotches left by his opponent’s blows.

  Coolly Katinka looked down at his bare chest. He folded his arms across it, as if ashamed.

  ‘You were right, Zelda,’ she said, with a dismissive flick of her hand. ‘Just a grubby child,’ she added in Latin, to make certain that he understood. Hal stared after her miserably as she gathered her skirts and, followed by Aboli and her maid, sailed regally down the beach to the waiting pinnace.

  That night, as he lay on the lumpy straw pallet on his narrow bunk, he heard movement, soft voices and laughter from the cabin next door. He propped himself up on one elbow. Then he recalled the insult she had thrown at him so disdainfully. ‘I will not think of her ever again,’ he promised himself, as he sank back onto the pallet and placed his hands over his ears to block out the lilting cadence of her voice. In an attempt to drive her from his mind, he repeated softly, ‘In Arcadia habito.’ But it was long before weariness allowed him at last to fall into a deep black dreamless sleep.

  At the head of the lagoon, almost two miles from where the Resolution lay at anchor, a stream of clear sweet water tumbled down through a narrow gorge to mingle with the brackish waters below.

  As the two longboats moved slowly against the current into the mouth of the gorge, they startled the flocks of water birds from the shallows into theair. They rose in a cacophony of honks, quacks and cackles, twenty different varieties of ducks and geese unlike any they knew from the north. There were other species, too, with strangely shaped bills or disproportionately long legs trailing, and herons, curlews and egrets that were not quite the same as their English counterparts, bigger or brighter in plumage. The sky was darkened with their numbers, and the men rested for a minute upon their oars to gaze in astonishment at these multitudes.

  ‘It’s a land of marvels,’ Sir Francis murmured, staring up at this wild display. ‘Yet we have explored only a trivial part of it. What other wonders lie beyond this threshold, deep in the hinterland, that no man has ever laid eyes upon?’