The Gilded Fan (Choc Lit) (13 page)

‘Sure an’ we can.’ He indicated the rope ladder. ‘After you.’

Midori didn’t hesitate. She swung her legs over the side, climbed down as quickly as her clothing would allow and was soon seated in the boat. Harding followed, nimble despite his size. It didn’t take long to reach the shore, where Harding tied the boat up securely, then they set off towards what seemed to be the centre of town.

‘Stay close to me, mistress, or the cap’n will have my head.’

‘I’m very sorry to hear about de Leuw. He was a good man. I’ve known him for years.’ Antonio van Diemen, the Governor-General of Batavia, clapped Nico on the shoulder and squeezed it in silent sympathy. ‘But you did well to take over and I’m sure the directors will be very happy if you return safely with such a valuable cargo.’

‘Thank you, sir. I certainly hope so. But Captain de Leuw arranged it all before his untimely demise, so the credit should go to him really.’

‘Perhaps, but you’ll be the one to bring it back. That’ll count in your favour.’

Nico was offered a glass of wine and then the governor-general changed the subject. ‘Have you had a chance to look around here yet? There’s plenty of merchandise on offer.’ Van Diemen winked at him. ‘Trinkets for the ladies, they always go down well.’

Nico had never had anyone to buy gifts for during his travels, but nodded agreement in order to be polite. ‘Yes, I’m sure they do.’

‘Is there a special lady waiting for you? A wife or fiancée perhaps? If so, you’d best not be stingy.’ Van Diemen laughed. ‘Your homecoming will be much sweeter if you arrive with a gift in hand, in my experience.’

Nico forced a smile. ‘I’ll bear that in mind, but no, I’m not married or betrothed yet.’

‘Well, if you’re hoping to win someone’s fair hand, here’s your chance. You’re in the very best place when it comes to purchasing gifts, I’d say.’

Nico hadn’t intended to buy anything, but he didn’t want to offend the governor-general when he was being so affable. He improvised quickly. ‘Actually, I was planning to take a walk this very afternoon to see what I could find. Would a length or two of silk be suitable, do you think, or perhaps some jewellery?’

‘Knowing the ladies, my friend, a bit of both would be welcome.’ Van Diemen smiled. ‘Their appetite for such things seems to be insatiable. Not to mention any accessories you can find. Fans are very popular, as are shawls; both always go down well with my female relatives.’

‘Oh, yes, in fact, I remember my aunt once saying …
Godverdamme!’
Nico, who was standing near the window, had happened to glance out into the square, where a familiar figure was wandering around, taking in the sights with interest.

‘I beg your pardon? Your aunt said what?’
Mijnheer
van Diemen was goggling at him and Nico held up his hands in defence.

‘No, sir, I wasn’t quoting my aunt, of course not, she never swears. It’s just that I’ve caught sight of M … er, one of my
crewmembers
out there.’ He pointed out of the window. ‘This young … varmint has specifically been told to stay on the ship and I don’t like my orders disobeyed.’

The governor-general’s facial expression relaxed. ‘No, of course not. I quite see your point.’ He nodded towards the square. ‘You’d better go after the culprit then, eh? Before he goes too far. Could get himself into a lot of trouble here.’

‘Yes, my thoughts exactly. Thank you, I’ll do just that.’ Nico bowed. ‘Thank you for granting me so much of your time. It was a pleasure to meet you, sir.’

‘Not at all, the pleasure was all mine.’ Van Diemen inclined his head in return. ‘I wish you a safe journey back to Amsterdam.’

Batavia was a delight and Midori wandered around aimlessly at first, simply taking it all in. Harding followed in her wake, keeping her firmly in his sights, but Midori didn’t pay him much attention. She was so intent on everything around her that for a while she forgot all about her purpose in coming.

Because the original town had been more or less razed to the ground when the Dutch took it over, she’d been told they had rebuilt it almost entirely in their style. Now she could see what that meant: namely, rows of sturdy, brick houses unlike any she had ever seen before. Most of them faced a grid of tree-lined canals, which apparently provided the main means of transporting goods. The houses had tiny windows and were fairly small and unostentatious. Nevertheless, they were a pleasing sight.

She reached a cobbled square where a much larger building stood. Someone had mentioned a town hall, and she assumed this must be it. A white building, two storeys high with a large entrance and painted shutters, it was impressive. A small bell tower on top of the entrance porch drew her eye and she stopped to admire it for a while, before continuing on her way.

‘That’s lovely, don’t you think?’ she said to Harding, who nodded but replied without much conviction.

‘Mmm, to be sure it is. Would you like to go find the shops now, mistress?’

‘Oh, yes, we mustn’t stay too long. Thank you for reminding me.’

Midori soon found the back streets of the town were not as nice as those close to the canals, but she hardly noticed because they had reached the merchant’s shops and stalls. First she sought out the herbs she needed for Jochem, and stored them in a small pouch she’d brought for that purpose. That done, she couldn’t resist a quick look at all the other merchandise on offer. After all, she might not have another opportunity to come here, so she had to seize her chance. There was every conceivable shade of silk, as well as leather goods, wooden artefacts, jewellery and much more.

The silver she had brought proved acceptable as payment, though a few of the merchants looked suspicious at first.

‘Can you speak their language?’ she asked Harding. Although it was possible to haggle without talking, she knew it would be faster if they could communicate.

‘Only a few words, but I’ll do my best,’ Harding replied. ‘Most of the people here speak Malay or Portuguese, which are the two more commonly used languages in this part of the world. I know a little of each. Some of ’em might speak Dutch, if we’re lucky.’

So engrossed did she become in trying to choose what she wanted to buy, that when she had finally completed her purchases, quite a long time had passed. Panic and guilt welled up inside her.
Jochem – how could I have forgotten about him?
She was supposed to be bringing back a cure for him, not dawdling here among the shops.

‘Thank you for being so patient, Harding,’ she said to the big man. ‘But now we really must be getting back. Let’s try and find the quickest route.’

‘Er, yes.’ He scratched his head. ‘That way p’rhaps?’ He pointed to the right. Midori wasn’t quite sure where they were either, so she was happy to follow his lead. But it soon became clear they should have paid more attention to where they were going.

‘I don’t think this is right, Harding,’ she said and stopped. Just as he was about to answer her, however, another crew member from the
Zwarte Zwaan
came walking towards them. ‘Oh, look, there’s one of your fellow Englishmen. Jessop, isn’t it? Let’s ask him the way.’

‘I don’t know, mistress, he’s one of Barker’s cohorts.’ Harding frowned, but Midori was desperate to get back to the ship now and took no notice.

‘Yes, but he’s alone, so we needn’t worry about that.’

When asked, Jessop – Midori didn’t remember whether he was Abe or Peter – seemed only too pleased to show them which direction to go and they followed him quickly. It wasn’t long before they found themselves in an even more insalubrious area than before, however. Midori started to feel uneasy and Harding muttered under his breath. Drunken sailors were wending their way along the narrow street, singing loudly and shouting to each other. Some were brawling and others simply slumped in a heap, dead to the world.

‘How much fer yer services?’ one of them yelled at her in English, but Midori ignored him and scurried on.

‘Are you sure this is the right way, Mr Jessop?’ she asked anxiously.

‘Yes, this is the best short cut. Don’t pay no attention to them, they’re all three sheets to the wind.’

Midori kept a firm grip on the knife inside her sleeve. She tried to look neither left nor right, preferring to keep her head down.

They turned a corner, and Jessop came to a sudden halt.

‘What’s the matter? Why have we stopped?’ Midori looked around her and noticed that Harding wasn’t behind her any longer. ‘Harding?’

They were in a tiny alley which appeared to be a dead end. Jessop opened his mouth to reply, a sullen look on his face, but without warning, a hand shot out of a doorway and grabbed Midori by the hand, yanking her inside. It happened so fast she didn’t have a chance to react and her knife never even made it out of her sleeve. An arm was firmly clamped around her from behind, pinning her arms to her sides. Although she tried every way she knew of breaking such a grip, it was no use.

‘Let me go, you scum!’ She kicked and wriggled for all she was worth. All she received in return was a blow to the side of her head, which made her senses swim, and a stream of what might have been abuse in an unintelligible language. Before she could do anything else, another blow to the head made everything go black.

‘Where the hell are you? Damned stubborn woman,’ Nico muttered to himself as he walked the streets, endlessly scanning the crowds for a sign of Midori. He wanted to throttle her for disobeying his orders, but he couldn’t find her anywhere.

As he hadn’t seen in which direction she was headed, he walked around in a huge circle, coming back to the town square several times. Whenever possible, he stopped to question the merchants selling goods he thought she might be interested in, but most of them only shrugged.

‘We have a lot of customers, sir, cannot remember each one. Would you like some silk, sir? Very good quality, the lady will like it, I guarantee.’

Nico swore under his breath and ground his teeth in frustration. ‘Why can’t she ever do as she’s told?’ he asked of no one in particular, although he knew this was unfair. Midori had done her best to remain inconspicuous on board his ship and had never intentionally caused any trouble.
So why does she have to start now?

As if to emphasise the misery engulfing him, the heavens opened and torrential rain started to pour down. It doused the streets in seconds and bounced off the nearby roofs. Most of the town’s inhabitants scattered like cockroaches in a beam of light, and Nico hunched deeper into the collar of his shirt. It made no difference; the entire shirt was drenched in an instant. Nevertheless, he continued with his search.

When at last a merchant did appear to remember Midori, he was told she had passed that way at least an hour ago, after leaving instructions for her purchases to be delivered to the
Zwarte Zwaan
. The sun was going down and Nico’s hopes of finding her unharmed were growing increasingly dim.

Damnation! There has to be a way …

‘A few puffs of this, and she might be a bit more amenable.’

The disembodied voice dragged Midori back to awareness through a haze of pain, and a strong smell invaded her nostrils, teasing her senses. She recognised it, but didn’t immediately understand its significance. Lightning bolts shot through her head when she opened her eyes, but thankfully the place she found herself in was very dim, giving her eyes more of a chance to adjust.

‘She’s stirrin’.’

‘Yeah, hands off! You can have your turn when I’m done, but I want her good and ready first.’

Midori frowned as a group of faces swam into view, fuzzy at first, then becoming clearer. She blinked. ‘Jessop?’ she whispered, almost to herself. ‘And … Barker?’
Oh, no
 … They grinned at her in a leering, malicious way. Midori shuddered.

‘So you recognise me, do you?’ Barker rubbed his hands together in glee, before turning to issue an order to someone behind him. ‘Bring it, then.’

Midori sat up gingerly and opened her mouth to protest. Before she had time to utter a single word, someone grabbed her from behind again and twisted her arms up. Barker suddenly advanced on her with something in his hand. ‘Hold her, Abe,’ he ordered Jessop, who was standing next to him, looking nervous now.

‘Do we really have to?’ the man asked.

‘Just do as you’re bloody well told,’ Barker snarled. ‘You owe me, remember?’

‘Not any more, I don’t,’ Jessop muttered mutinously, but Barker wasn’t listening.

‘Do it,’ he ordered and Jessop reluctantly bent to perform his task.

‘What? I … umph, mphh …’ A pipe of some sort was stuffed into Midori’s mouth, while Jessop’s cousin Peter pinched her nose shut. Barker ordered her to breathe in deeply.

She shook her head and tried to wriggle out of Jessop’s grip, but a fourth man came to their aid, grabbing her chin. Barker did his best to push her mouth together and his filthy hands on her face made her skin crawl. Despite holding out for as long as possible, Midori was eventually forced to take a deep breath, and as she did so her lungs filled with smoke. She was overtaken by a coughing fit, and the men relaxed their hold sufficiently to slap her on the back.

‘What … is that?’ Midori choked out, but she already knew the answer. The smell which pervaded the room was unmistakeable and when she looked around her she could see a pall of smoke hanging in the air, confirming her thoughts.
I’m in an opium den!
She’d heard of such places, but never in her wildest dreams had she ever thought she’d actually find herself inside one.

The decor of the room, such as it was, appeared to be Chinese. Faded red silk lanterns cast a muted glow over piles of cushions, and there were girls lolling about dressed in silk outfits in the Chinese style. Midori thought they must be ladies of the night. Chinamen with long pigtails hanging down their backs scurried about handing customers pipes and other implements. Fear rose inside her. There was an ambiance of evil in this place and it made her want to scream.

Her mother had been given opium in the final stages of her illness to spare her from pain. The strange odour of it had filled the entire sickroom, and it wasn’t one Midori would ever forget. She clenched her teeth as the agonising memories of that time briefly returned.

The men around her decided she’d had long enough to recover, and advanced on her again. This time she was a bit faster, however, and managed to whip out the knife from inside her sleeve. She slashed wildly in every direction and had the satisfaction of hearing grunts of pain and a hissed oath from behind her. She was pleased to find that Barker’s fighting techniques hadn’t improved markedly since their first encounter. Midori managed to cut his arm in roughly the same place she had gashed him with her sword. He screamed and shouted out a string of profanities.