He pulled a quill from an ink pot and began scrawling a series of numbers on a piece of vellum. ‘I’m the master of this voyage, and all doors will remain closed to you until I say otherwise. Unfortunately, I can’t give you what you ask until you settle a debt,’ he said, tossing a handful of pounce on the ink to dry it, before handing it to Arent.
‘What this?’ asked Arent, staring at it.
‘It’s a bill,’ responded Van Schooten, his eyes shining.
‘A bill?’
‘For the cask.’
‘What cask?’
‘The cask of ale you broke open on the dock,’ he said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. ‘It was Company property.’
‘You’re charging me for sparing a man’s suffering?’ demanded Arent incredulously.
‘The man wasn’t Company property.’
‘He was
‘Be glad the Company didn’t own the flames,’ said Van Schooten, with that same infuriating reasonableness. ‘I’m sorry, Lieutenant Hayes. As per Company policy, we may not render you any service until prior debts have been settled.’
Crauwels growled, snatching the vellum from Arent’s hand and shaking it in the chief merchant’s face. ‘Hayes is trying to help, you dark-hearted wretch. What’s become of you these last two weeks? It’s like you’re a different man.’
Doubt flashed on Van Schooten’s face, but it was no match for his arrogance.
‘Perhaps if he’d come to me first, we could have been spared this unpleasantness, but’ – he shrugged – ‘here we are. My authority must –’
‘Your authority is worth salt!’
The voice had come from an adjoining doorway, where Governor General Jan Haan was red-faced and shimmering with rage. ‘How dare you treat Lieutenant Hayes with such disrespect,’ he hissed, disgust pouring out of him. ‘From this point forwards, you will address him as “sir” and you will show him the same deference you show me, or I’ll have Guard Captain Drecht cut out your tongue. Do you understand?’
‘My lord –’ Van Schooten stammered, glancing between Arent and the governor general, desperately trying to draw some line between them. ‘I … I … no offence was –’
‘Your intentions couldn’t be less important to me,’ snapped the governor general, dismissing Van Schooten with a wave of his hand.
His gaze found Arent, a sudden smile brightening his face.
‘Come, Nephew,’ he said, inviting him inside. ‘It’s time we talked.’
13
The governor general had taken the captain’s cabin. It was twice as large as the others, with its own privy. Furs were piled on the bunk and a rug laid on the floor. Hanging on the walls were oil paintings of famous scenes from the governor general’s personal history, including the siege at Breda.
Arent was in that one. He was the giant covered in blood, carrying his injured uncle over his shoulder, while single-handedly fighting hordes of Spanish soldiers. It hadn’t happened that way, but it was close enough to make him feel sick with the memory. Truth was, they’d hidden under bodies and clambered through middens, holding their breath all the way through the enemy line. He could understand why his uncle hadn’t commissioned that for his wall, though. It was a difficult thing to capture magnificently in oil.
A harried clerk was transferring clothes from a sea chest into drawers, while Cornelius Vos, the governor general’s chamberlain, was arranging scroll cases very precisely on a shelf. It took Arent a couple of glances to really notice him. With his muddy hair and brown clothes, it was difficult to distinguish him from the pillars supporting the roof.
‘I appreciate your intervention, but I can fight my own battles, Uncle,’ said Arent, closing the door behind him.
‘This battle was beneath you,’ responded Jan Haan, waving an agitated hand in the direction of the great cabin. ‘Reynier van Schooten is weak and venal and grasping. That there’s any place for him in this Company I love makes me love this Company a little less.’
Arent examined his uncle. They’d last seen each other a month ago, when he and Sammy had first arrived in Batavia. They’d eaten a large dinner and drunk a great quantity of wine, then reminisced, for it had been eleven years since they’d met last.
He hadn’t changed a great deal. Over the years, that hawk-like face had become more hawkish, perhaps, and there was now an island of sunburnt baldness on top of his head. About the only significant change was his weight. He’d lost the coating of fat that was the privilege of wealth, growing thin as any beggar on the street.
Eerily thin, thought Arent. The way a sword was thin. Sharp, rather than frail, as if age were a whetstone. Could it be worry that had remoulded him? A breastplate sat snugly atop his clothes, the metal gleaming. Despite its obvious quality, it must have been uncomfortable. Even generals at war took their armour off once they returned to their tents, but his uncle showed no such inclination.
The governor general peered around his nephew’s body, finding Guard Captain Drecht waiting patiently behind him, his hat pressed respectfully to his chest.