‘Fine work deserves reward,’ said Sara. ‘A guilder for your trouble, if I like what you’ve done.’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ said Henri, perking up slightly.
‘Yes, my lady,’ rebuked Dorothea, neatly folding one of Sara’s light dresses.
Sara considered sitting on her bunk, but hated the implication of intimacy, and pulled the chair out from the desk instead, placing herself primly on its edge.
‘You seem young for this work,’ she said, watching as he measured the length of the existing rack with his forearm and hand.
‘I’m a carpenter’s mate,’ he said distractedly.
‘Are you young for a carpenter’s mate?’
‘No.’
‘No, my lady!’ corrected Dorothea angrily, causing the boy to blanch.
‘No, my lady,’ he muttered.
‘What does a carpenter’s mate do?’ asked Sara pleasantly.
‘All the jobs the master carpenter doesn’t want to.’ A hundred grudges peeked out from beneath his words.
‘I think I’ve met the master carpenter,’ said Sara, trying to keep her tone bored and distant. ‘Lame foot, yes? Missing a tongue?’
Henri shook his head. ‘That’s Bosey you’re thinking of,’ he said, marking a piece of wood with a stick of charcoal.
‘He isn’t the master carpenter?’
‘Can’t get up the masts with a maimed foot,’ he scoffed, as if the responsibilities of a master carpenter were common knowledge.
‘I suppose not,’ agreed Sara. ‘Did this Bosey serve aboard this ship, or am I thinking of somebody entirely different?’
He shifted his weight uncomfortably, and flashed her a nervous glance.
‘What’s wrong, young man?’ she asked, becoming flint-eyed.
‘Boatswain said we shouldn’t talk about him,’ he muttered.
‘What’s a boatswain?’
‘He’s in charge of the crew on deck,’ he said. ‘He doesn’t like us talking about ship business with strangers.’
‘And what’s the name of this boatswain?’
‘Johannes Wyck.’
He spoke it reluctantly, as if the words themselves could summon him.
Henri picked up one of the planks and went into the corridor, where he began sawing it down to size, offcuts clattering on to the ground.
‘Dorothea,’ said Sara, her gaze on the carpenter. ‘Fetch two guilders from my coin purse, will you?’
Greed dragged Henri’s eyes upward, though he kept on sawing. Sara doubted he earned much more than this a week.
‘Two guilders, plus the one already promised, if you tell me what Wyck doesn’t want me to know about Bosey,’ said Sara.
He fidgeted, his will faltering.
‘Your shipmates will never know,’ said Sara. ‘I’m the governor general’s wife. I likely won’t speak to another sailor for the rest of the voyage.’ She gave that a minute to sink in, then held out the coins. ‘Now, did Bosey serve aboard this ship?’
He snatched them from her palm and jerked his head towards the cabin, indicating they should speak privately. She followed him in, closing the door as much as propriety would allow.
‘Aye, he served aboard the
‘An innocent story,’ said Sara. ‘Why doesn’t Wyck want me to know it?’
‘Bosey never shut up,’ said the carpenter, looking nervously at the slightly open door. ‘He’d brag about anything. If he beat you at dice, you’d have him in your ear for a week. If there was a whore he’d been’ – he blanched in the face of Dorothea’s glare – ‘well, he was always talking. Latest thing was some bargain he’d struck in Batavia that was going to make him rich.’
‘He was always talking?’ Sara frowned. ‘When I met Bosey, he was missing his tongue.’
For the first time, the carpenter appeared ashamed. ‘Wyck did that,’ he said quietly. ‘Cut it out about a month back. Said he was sick of listening to him squawk. He did it on the waist of the ship. Made us hold him down.’
Sara felt a great swell of pity. ‘Did the captain punish him?’
‘Captain didn’t see, nobody saw. And nobody will say anything against Wyck. Even Bosey wouldn’t.’
Sara was beginning to get an understanding of how life worked on an Indiaman.
‘If you held him down, I’m assuming he didn’t have leprosy,’ she said.
‘Leprosy?’ The boy shivered with disgust. ‘Aint no lepers allowed on an Indiaman. Could have got it after we docked. Once we’re in port, Captain lets us come and go as we like. Most of us took our leave in Batavia, but Bosey hid away on the ship after we took his tongue, kept to himself.’
‘Before his lost his tongue, did Bosey say anything else about this bargain he’d struck, or who it was with?’ asked Sara.
The carpenter shook his head, obviously desperate to have the questions over with. ‘Only that it was the easiest coin he ever made,’ he said. ‘Few favours here and there. When we’d ask what they were, he’d smile this horrible little smile and say “Laxagarr”.’
‘Laxagarr,’ repeated Sara, confounded. She could speak Latin, French and Flemish fluently, but she’d never heard a word like that one.
‘What does it mean?’
The carpenter shrugged, clearly disturbed by the memory. ‘I don’t know, none of us did. Bosey was Nornish, so it was probably something from his own tongue, but the way he said it … it scared us.’