The Golden Cross (33 page)

Aidan lifted her eyes to her mentor’s face. Heer Van Dyck was already as tanned as one of the sailors, and when he slept, Aidan could see weblike white markings at the corners of his eyes, the creases of laugh lines the sun never reached. Van Dyck was having the time of his life. Aidan, who as a ketelbinkie had been ordered about, slapped on the back, and “accidentally” tripped twice, was enjoying herself far less than her master.

“There is a funny bird on Mauritius—they call it the dodo.” Heer Van Dyck smiled at her. “It doesn’t fly, and more’s the pity, because the islanders are rapidly killing the beasts off. They say the bird tastes like turkey and is prized on many a dinner table. I hope you shall have an opportunity to sketch one of the birds before we leave. A dodo would be a nice addition to our map.”

“I heard Visscher tell one of the men that Captain Tasman plans to completely reoutfit the ships while we are there,” Aidan offered. “So we may have time enough to traverse the entire island.”

“Goed
, very good.” Van Dyck smiled. “Though I wish Mauritius had more natives. I’m afraid the only people we’ll find there are the same sort of folk we knew in Batavia.”

Aidan looked away to the southwestern horizon, where Mauritius should appear. She didn’t want to meet people like those she had known in Batavia. There were but two classes there, upper and lower, and she didn’t feel she belonged to either one.

“Have you completed the oil painting you began the other day?” Van Dyck asked, a hint of rebuke in his voice.

“Almost.” Aidan pulled herself away from the railing. “It is nearly done.”

“Since the captain has been gracious enough to relieve you of many duties, perhaps you should present the finished canvas to him,” Van Dyck suggested as he led the way back to their cabin. “Or perhaps you’d rather give it to the doctor. He has been quite solicitous about your health. The other day he specifically asked whether or not you had experienced any bouts of seasickness.”

“He asked about me?” Aidan slowed, her irritation wrestling with anxiety. Did he suspect the truth? Why else would he ask about her?

“He is a concerned physician; he asked about me as well,” Van Dyck answered. They reached the cabin, and he swung the door open for her, then caught himself and gave Aidan a knowing grin before preceding her through the low doorway. “Must do something about that old habit,” he muttered.

Aidan gave a noncommittal grunt as she followed him in, but her eyes flitted nervously toward the doctor’s cabin next door. Perhaps it would be a good idea to tell the physician the truth. But she could say nothing until after they had sailed from Mauritius. If Captain Tasman found out now that he had a woman aboard, he could leave her behind in that Dutch colony with a relatively clear conscience. And while dodo birds might prove to be a tasty treat, she doubted that a book filled with dodo etchings would do anything to enhance her reputation as an artist.

Perhaps she would confide in the doctor. But not until the ships had reached the point of no return.

Two days later, Mauritius rose like an emerald from the sea. Surrounded by coral reefs, the island itself consisted of a central plateau ringed by volcanic mountains that rose nearly three thousand feet into the sky. Aidan thought the dark sand of the beach looked like a velvet carpet, and her heart thumped in her chest as she beheld the beauty of the mountains. Batavia was beautiful, too, but she had grown so accustomed to the squalor of the wharf that she neglected to savor the natural splendors around her.

The island’s beauty waned, however, as the ship moved southward toward the port. Aidan felt her heart sink as the city appeared before her, patched and faded, its clay walls and thatched roofs rising behind the docks and warehouses. Just like Batavia.

Aidan crossed her arms and gripped them tightly. Even without looking, she knew what she’d find in the heart of Mauritius’s port district—the same motley collection of taverns, flophouses, and shops she’d left behind. And there would be procuresses—not Lili, of course, but other women of thirty or thirty-five, unfortunate laundresses and knitters who had fallen on hard times and survived by providing men with the favor of women who had not yet been marked by disease, time, and hopelessness.

Eager to spend the night ashore, the crewmen of the
Heemskerk
hastened to lower and reef the sails. Aidan walked woodenly to her own cabin. She wanted to be off the ship just for a change of scenery, but she dreaded venturing into places she already knew far too well.
At least this time
, she thought, closing the door so she might have a private moment in which to change her paint-stained shirt for one slightly cleaner and more presentable,
I will be visiting the taverns and flophouses as a man, not as a lowly woman
.

Aidan turned toward the wall and lifted her shirt over her head. Suddenly the door burst open.

“Heavens above!” Aidan jerked the shirt close to her chest and cast a dangerous look over her shoulder. A boy’s tousled head appeared in the opening.

“Aidan!” Tiy cried, his eyes snapping with joy. “I’ve come to go with you!”

“Can’t a body find a minute’s peace?” Aidan felt her cheeks begin to burn. Quickly she thrust her head back into the stained shirt and cast about for an excuse to be rid of the younger ketelbinkie. “Since you are here, Tiy, make yourself useful. Go find my master and ask if I’m free to go.”

“Sakerloot
, you are a grumpy one,” Tiy muttered, grumbling as he backed out of the room. “Hurry up, will you? The captain is already loading the barges. If you linger, you’ll be stuck here until the next watch is released.”

“Just go!” Aidan yelled crossly. When the door closed behind him, she untied her rope belt, tucked in her shirt, then sank onto her bunk and ran her hand over her frizzing hair. Great heaven, what if he had come in a moment later? He would have screeched and run to the captain, sealing her fate with his loose lips and bulging eyes.

But Tiy hadn’t seen anything. And that, at least, was a relief and a mercy. She cracked a wry smile. Heer Van Dyck would say that God had looked out for her. Aidan wasn’t so sure the Almighty had intervened, but she was grateful nevertheless.

Outside her cabin, the deck fairly rumbled with the thunder of a hundred stomping feet, punctuated by shouts and shrieks. In the midst of such mindless enthusiasm, anyone was liable to come barging through her door.

“Aidan!” She heard the strong voice outside, but this visitor didn’t come in. She stepped forward, cautiously, and pulled the door open. The doctor stood outside her cabin, his faded hat on his head, a fresh white shirt tucked into clean black breeches. His golden hair provided a stark contrast to his deeply tanned face and neck, and the way his shoulders strained against the fabric of his shirt made her gulp. Standing there, long, lean, and attractively male, he was quite the most handsome man she had ever seen. She certainly couldn’t let
that
thought be noised abroad.

“Are you going ashore?” His gaze rested upon her, remote as the ocean depths, and she wondered why he asked.

“I am.” She tightened the rope belt that held her breeches and felt for her dagger, assuring herself that it rested at her back. “Tiy has gone to ask my master for leave to depart.”

“Heer Van Dyck left in the first barge and asked me to keep an eye on you,” the doctor answered. “I know you young ones
probably have ideas about what you’d like to do ashore, but I thought we could find a quiet place to rest, perhaps to share some conversation.”

“I promised to go with Tiy.” Aidan ducked through the low cabin doorway, then straightened, fighting to keep her face expressionless when the door closed and hit with a solid whack on her rump.

The doctor’s eyes remained serious, but one corner of his mouth curled upward. “I see,” he drawled. “Well then, you’d best get aboard. The second barge is about to pull away, and I don’t know if the captain will send another boat ashore tonight.”

Aidan nodded and dashed for the deck. She spied Tiy near the mizzenmast and waved. “Come! We must hurry!”

Caught up in the euphoria of liberty, they spidered over the netting that served as a ladder, then dropped into the wide barge. The bosun was about to give the order to pull away, but another figure swung out onto the netting and crawled down, landing with a solid thump at the rear of the boat.

“Thank you for waiting, sir,” Sterling Thorne called up to the bosun before settling onto a bench.

The bosun gave the order, the oarsmen cast off, and the barge headed out across the wind-whipped waters of the bay.

T
wo hours later, Aidan sat on a low stool at the gaming tables, her chin in her hand and her eyes heavy with fatigue. The bosun had given her and Tiy five stuivers each for their work aboard ship, and when Aidan protested that she didn’t care to drink the tavern’s watered-down ale, Tiy had persuaded her to sacrifice one of her coins at the gaming tables. Now she watched the slick-fingered dealer flash cards to several players while the pile of coins in the center of the table grew taller.

Aidan smiled against her palm. The dealer, a rail-thin Dutchman with a narrow moustache, was cheating his players, but they were too focused upon their own cards to notice. He wore a band of fabric inside the long sleeve of his shirt, and while the players were distracted by exchanging cards and adding to the growing pile of coins, he deftly loaded his hand with high-ranking cards from his sleeve. It was so obvious a trick that Aidan yawned, eager to find a bed and sleep on any surface that did not alternately send the blood rushing to her head and then to her feet.

“Aidan, can I have another coin?” Tiy’s bright face dropped into her range of vision. “I’ve lost all mine, but I can feel my luck about to change. One of the girls over there smiled at me, and if I can just win enough to buy her a drink—” He paused and gave Aidan a knowing wink. “Well, maybe I won’t have to spend for the flophouse, you know?”

“You will,” Aidan answered. Her gaze roved over the girls who loitered at discreet intervals throughout the room. “If you go up
to any of these ladies, you’ll lose your stuivers and your hopes too. They will rob you blind, mark my words.”

“No!” Tiy looked at her with an incredulous expression. “That sweet thing wouldn’t—couldn’t—hurt me. I think she really likes me.” His narrow chest puffed with pride. “She knows a good lad when she sees one.”

“You can have one more stuiver, but no more,” Aidan said, fishing another coin from the leather purse at her belt. “A decent bed will cost us two stuivers each, and another stuiver for a wash basin. So with that coin you must win.”

“I can win.” Tiy flipped the coin against his palm, blew on it for luck, then paused to smile at the harlot leaning against the wall.

“Wait.” Aidan grabbed his shirt and pulled him forward to whisper in his ear: “Ask the dealer to deal the next hand with his sleeves rolled up past his elbow. Then at least you’ll have a fair chance.”

Tiy appeared puzzled for a moment, then the light of comprehension dawned in his eyes. As the dealer called out for new bets, Tiy laid his coin on the table, but stood erect and crossed his arms. “Before you take that,” he said, his youthful voice echoing in the room, “I’d like you to deal the next hand with your sleeves rolled up.” He gave his fellow players a cocky grin, then winked at the little hussy who smiled at him. “After all, ’tis hot in here, right? And we wouldn’t want this fellow to grow too uncomfortable playing the game.”

The dealer scowled, then slapped the cards down. “Who do you think you are, lad?” he roared, standing. He spread his hands on the table and leaned forward, bringing his sweaty face within inches of Tiy’s. “Are you accusing me of cheating? Why else would you care how I deal?”

“I just want to see your arms, that’s all.” As unyielding as a rock, Tiy stood his ground. “No one has won a round here in the last hour, and I’ll bet these other fellows would like to see your arms too.”

The players who were still sober enough to respond lifted their heads like stunned cattle.
“Sakerloot!”
one man bellowed, his face darkening to a particularly violent color of red. “Show us your arms, man!”