The Map of Bones, page 14
‘Enough!’
Odendaal banged on the bars again, but Suzanne had heard enough. ‘It is him,’ she whispered to Adriaan.
‘Certain?’
Suzanne nodded. ‘I am.’
Eltorp pointed at the landdrost. ‘You have no right to hold me all this time. No right at all.’
Odendaal laughed. ‘I have every right. You’ve been bartering illegally, no point denying it.’
‘No worse than any half a dozen other men around here. Why not give me a flogging, and be done with it? Waste of VOC hospitality keeping me in victuals these past days.’
‘It will go better for you if you cooperate, Eltorp,’ Odendaal warned, his colour rising.
Eltorp came closer. Instinctively, Suzanne took another step back. She knew the bars were secure, but she did not want to be within spitting distance.
The prisoner looked at the magistrate, leered at Suzanne – sizing her up as if she was a doxy for sale – then addressed himself to Van Dijk.
‘I cannot see why my paltry dealings would be of interest to such a fine gentleman like yourself, but to please my dear friend . . .’
‘Get on with it!’
Adriaan put his hand on Odendaal’s arm. ‘I’m listening, Eltorp.’
Eltorp cleared his throat. ‘The landdrost here, has persuaded himself that I have been a naughty boy. That is to say, that I have been bartering pelts directly from the Khoi in return for . . . well, he hasn’t seen fit to furnish me with that information.’
‘Four quagga pelts, Eltorp. You had them on you when you were arrested.’
Suzanne saw Eltorp’s eyes flicker between the two men, assessing how his performance was going down.
‘I am a plain man,’ he wheedled. ‘I may not have all the book learning you gentlemen do, but I know my rights as a free citizen of the Colony.’ He jerked his head towards Odendaal. ‘I’ve told him until I’m blue in the face that all my transactions, shall we call them, were with a white man, not a heathen. He came from further up-country, from Olifantshoek, he said.’ He fixed the magistrate with an insolent look and tapped the side of his head. ‘Sawdust between the ears.’
‘I am warning you . . .’ Odendaal snapped. ‘I will come in there and flog you myself.’
Eltorp crossed his heart. ‘It’s God’s own truth.’
Adriaan cut in. ‘There are no farms that far east.’
‘I do not know if the trader was speaking the truth,’ Eltorp retorted, ‘but that’s what he told me. And he was here in Stellenbosch, as certain as I stand before you now. I happened to have a pistol I no longer had the need of – I have a perfectly good musket, bought fair and square, before you ask – and he had four fine quagga skins that I thought would suit me just fine. So, we came to terms. A perfectly honest trade between two white gentlemen, nothing prohibited by the venerable VOC.’
‘What was his name?’ Odendaal asked, ‘this illusory trader who appeared from nowhere?’
‘In matters of business, a man’s word is his bond.’ Eltorp laughed, a cruel bark that sent a shiver down Suzanne’s spine. ‘A handshake was all I needed, not a name. I’m not going to be paying house calls.’
‘I don’t believe he ever existed,’ Odendaal said, turning to Adriaan. But Suzanne could see he was taking the story seriously.
‘Describe the man,’ Adriaan said.
‘Well, he was about your height, mijnheer, and about your girth. Twice the age of my friend the magistrate here. Sixty years or so.’
‘Are you sure?’ Suzanne asked, unable to help herself.
For the first time, Eltorp appeared to stop and think. ‘Yes, though he did not carry himself like a man in his autumn years. It was only the lines on his face that spoke to his age.’
Odendaal threw up his hands in frustration. ‘You could be describing anyone. Half the men in the Colony.’
A sly look came over Eltorp’s face. ‘Ah, but there was something special. Something worth a sip of clean water, perhaps?’
Adriaan looked around and saw a barrel on the wall with a wooden cup beside it. He half filled it and passed it through the bars to Eltorp, who savoured it as if it was vintage wine.
‘Get on with it, Eltorp,’ Odendaal growled.
Eltorp wiped his lips on the back of his filthy sleeve. ‘His hair was grey, but with a white stripe down the middle.’ He folded his arms in triumph. ‘Never seen such a thing before and I wager neither have you.’
‘Phillipe Vidal,’ Suzanne murmured under her breath, suddenly understanding the other reason Adriaan had brought her here. Except how could it be? Phillipe would be much older.
‘Is there anything else you can tell us?’ Adriaan asked calmly. ‘More precisely where this man had come from? The tenor of his voice?’
‘He spoke Dutch, but perhaps there was an accent?’
‘What else?’
‘Isn’t that enough?’ Eltorp snapped, then his face darkened. ‘Time to end this pantomime. You have nothing against me.’
For a moment, no one spoke. Then Adriaan stepped forward.
‘Lars Eltorp, you are accused of the murder of Driek Holsteen on the night of the fourth of August in the year of our Lord 1688.’
Now Suzanne saw fear ignite Eltorp’s eyes. ‘You can’t pin that on me.’
‘Furthermore,’ Adriaan continued in the same steadfast voice, ‘you are accused of the attempted violation of a young lady that same night, and an assault upon that same innocent person on the dockside on the afternoon of the nineteenth day of August.’
Eltorp’s temper erupted. He kicked the bars, cursing and ranting. ‘There are no witnesses,’ he ranted. ‘How could the girl speak when I—’
Van Dijk pointed at him. ‘You condemn yourself from your own mouth, Eltorp. Know this. Your knife did not take her life.’
Now Eltorp started to bluster. It was pitiful. Pleading, cajoling, betraying himself by talking about the crush at the harbour, about how he had not been there, how he had never been near the girl in the grey dress.
‘I do not recall mentioning how she was attired,’ Adriaan said, with devastating calm.
‘She was nobody!’ Eltorp screamed.
Suzanne saw a look of contempt cross Adriaan’s face. ‘All of God’s children matter, especially in this instance. The woman you attempted to rape, then murder, is my wife.’
Suzanne flinched at the word as if she had been struck. Rape. For a moment, she saw another man’s cruel face looking down at her.
Eltorp laughed in disbelief, until he saw the steel in Adriaan’s eyes. Then he staggered back, his hands out in supplication. ‘Mijnheer, I had no—’
Adriaan cut him off. ‘Therefore, with the authority vested in me by Commander Van der Stel, I sentence you to be hanged by the neck until you are dead. Your carcass will be left upon the gibbet as a warning for any who would violate the rules of the Colony, to be picked bare by the crows and the vultures.’
‘No!’ Eltorp howled and started to hammer on the bars of his cell. ‘No, no, no.’
Suzanne was frozen to the spot, sickened both by the terror in Eltorp’s voice, and Adriaan’s cold determination.
‘I will stay to see the sentence carried out tomorrow, then leave the matter in your hands, landdrost.’
Suzanne felt Adriaan’s hand on her arm. For comfort, or for support, she did not know. Her legs felt hollow and her nerves wrung out. She closed her eyes to try to blot out her revulsion at the stinking cell, the horror of it all.
Without another word, Adriaan turned and steered her away, with Odendaal following in their wake. Suzanne threw a last glance at the condemned man, then left with Eltorp’s desperate shrieks of rage and terror ringing in her ears.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
When they returned to the drostdij, it appeared they were to dine with four valued members of the community who, with Odendaal, comprised the Heemrade, the town’s council.
‘I am sorry I had to subject you to that,’ Adriaan said, ‘but we had to be sure. I hope you understand.’
Suzanne felt sick to her stomach. She had no appetite, how could she? She wanted nothing more than to be alone with her thoughts.
‘Shall we go in?’
‘Adriaan, I cannot,’ she protested.
‘Odendaal’s sister will be there. I would not have brought you to a house with no female chaperone. I would not sully your reputation.’
‘It is not that. I have nothing to wear, my head is aching and that . . .’ She gestured in the direction of the cells.
‘You do not believe the sentence is just?’
‘No, I do. But I would be poor company, Adriaan. Eltorp was so pitiful. It was like watching an animal caught in a trap. The terrible sound . . .’ Her words tailed away. ‘The man he described sounds like the person you found referenced in the archives twenty years ago. Liar though Eltorp might be, villain he undoubtedly is, but I cannot think he could have fabricated the description of his hair.’
Adriaan nodded. ‘I agree. That’s why I wanted you to hear it for yourself.’
She paused, then took a deep breath. ‘Must Eltorp hang?’
Adriaan fixed her with a look. ‘That is the penalty for murder.’
‘But what if he knows more?’
‘He would have told us everything. He was bargaining for his life.’ Adriaan glanced towards the door where the sound of voices suggested the dinner had already started. ‘I must join the others. I will give your apologies and ask if a tray might be sent up.’
Suzanne nodded her thanks. ‘The last thing I would want would be to compromise you in any way, Adriaan, but when we return to the Colony, could you please, please find a way for me to visit the archives for myself? Now we have this additional piece of information, perhaps it will unlock something you missed. I know I presume a great deal of our friendship—’
He looked at her, then smiled. ‘Given it was your courage and love for your friend that brought my dear Judith into my life, I will do my best.’
‘Thank you. And after that—’
He put up his hands. ‘I know, “one last thing”! It always is.’
‘Am I so predictable?’
Adriaan laughed. ‘That I cannot answer for fear of causing offence.’
Finally, Suzanne smiled too. ‘Given what Eltorp said about this man having come from Olifantshoek, and given we know from what you found in the archives – that Louise and her companions had gone into the interior soon after they arrived – might it be possible to talk to the local people?’
‘Khoi, do you mean?’
‘Well, yes. You tell me that many speak Dutch – and I dare say some of your men speak their language. It stands to reason that if there is a lone white settler living in the valleys beyond Stellenbosch, the Khoi would know. And,’ she added, remembering her first conversation with Madame Lombard, ‘if Louise did settle in the interior in 1622, she must have done so with their blessing. Otherwise, how could she – how could they – have survived?’
He thought for a moment. ‘The challenge will be to find someone prepared to talk to us.’
‘But will you try?’ she pressed. ‘Perhaps even find someone prepared to take me there? Several times, Olifantshoek has been mentioned. If I could only see for myself—’
At that moment, a maid appeared in the hallway, bringing the conversation to a close. She was wearing a blue dress with a bib apron and cap, dazzling white against her Black skin.
‘The master has bid me tell you dinner is served,’ she said in perfectly executed, though strongly accented, Dutch.
‘Juffrouw Joubert will not be joining us. Please show her to her chamber and take her some light supper.’
‘Very good, mijnheer.’ The maid bobbed a curtsey. ‘Will you come with me, miss?’
Suzanne turned to Adriaan. ‘Will you?’
‘I will think on it. Good night, sister. Sleep well.’
In her chamber, Suzanne took a sip of wine and felt her sore arms and shoulders relax a little more. A new plan started to take shape. Perhaps she should base herself in Stellenbosch for a while? It would make sense for her investigations and make it all the easier to make an expedition to Olifantshoek. Although she doubted if her grandmother would want to come with her, she had no concerns about leaving her in the Colony for a week or two. Florence’s friendship with Madame Lombard sustained her, and gave her a social anchor among the growing Huguenot community.
Perhaps Adriaan could arrange for her to stay in the drostdij for a week or two? Odendaal’s sister was here, so she could serve as chaperone if she would be amenable. One thing was for sure, Suzanne couldn’t let this lead go cold.
Louise was suddenly within her reach. She could almost see her, feel her presence at her side. Guiding her on.
Suzanne exhaled, taking pleasure from the stars in the upside-down sky and the gentle cries of night-time birds. A nightjar, she thought, and an owl calling to her mate. Today, she had learnt something that pertained to the present not to the half-distant past. It was only two weeks ago that Eltorp claimed to have seen the man with a white stripe in his hair.
The more her thoughts danced in her mind, the more the identity of this man troubled her. Louise, Gilles, Phillipe – one woman and two men had disembarked the Old Moon. But Phillipe Vidal would be more than fourscore years and ten, an exceptional age. Surely even Eltorp would not mistake a man of such advanced years for one thirty years younger?
There was another explanation – that Phillipe had fathered a child and the man Eltorp had traded with was Vidal’s son. But if that was the case, then who was the mother? He was a white man, Eltorp had been certain about that. She pushed the idea away. But somewhere deep inside, the thought took hold, like a splinter, under her skin.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Suzanne woke refreshed. Outside, she could hear singing in the fields. Enslaved people, she knew, but somehow the melodies sounded sweeter here than in the crowded streets of the Colony.
Then, with a clenching feeling in her stomach, she remembered the reason they were in Stellenbosch. This morning, Lars Eltorp was to hang. Overnight she had made peace with the idea that he had nothing more to tell. She had no pity for him, he was a violent and treacherous man, but she would that it were over and done with.
There was a knock at the door.
Suzanne sat up and straightened her bedcap. ‘Come in.’
The maid from last night stood in the doorway. ‘The master and other gentleman would like to know if you will be accompanying them to the hanging.’
Having no stomach to witness Eltorp’s reckoning, Suzanne shook her head. ‘No, I will remain here.’
The girl was looking at her with steady brown eyes that gave nothing away.
Suzanne smiled. ‘What is your name?’
‘Tia, miss.’
‘Is that your given name?’
She thought she saw a spark of interest in the maid’s eyes, but it was quickly extinguished. ‘Yes.’
Suzanne was reluctant to let her go. At home in La Rochelle, they’d had a small but loyal household staff. In Amsterdam, the same. Here, she disliked not understanding how things worked. And surely Tia could not be her birth name? She had learnt that Khoi women and men who worked for the VOC were given Dutch names.
Was she a slave or a servant? Then, she remembered that Khoi were not allowed to be enslaved. The women and men with Black skin she saw in the Colony had been seized from other countries in Africa and brought to the Cape in ships. With the men on the building sites, in the fields, the distinction was clear: from their clothing, from their demeanour. Suzanne hated to see the lines of enslaved workers, bare to the waist, toiling in the vicious heat of the day. Inside a prosperous house, it was harder to discern the difference.
‘Will you be wanting breakfast, miss?’
‘That would be nice.’
She watched as the girl took her night pot from under her bed, covered it with a cloth, took the jug to refill with water, then withdrew without speaking another word. She pondered how old Tia might be – perhaps eighteen or nineteen – and how long she had worked for the landdrost.
Suzanne had dressed and was sitting at the occasional table by the time the girl returned with a tray of pancakes and a pot of tea with milk. A very Dutch meal. She wanted to ask more questions, to try to establish some kind of friendship as she would have done with servants back home, but there was something in the girl’s bearing that did not encourage confidences.
‘Will there be anything else, miss?’
‘No, thank you,’ she said, then repeated it in Khoi. It was a word she had heard Adriaan use. ‘Gangans.’
Again, she saw a reaction in Tia’s eyes, but she said nothing. She simply bowed her head and left the room, quietly closing the door behind her.
Despite everything, Suzanne found she had an appetite.
Having eaten everything on her plate, she walked to the long window facing east. Only then did she realise that it overlooked the courtyard between the drostdij and the cells.
Pieter Odendaal and Adriaan were standing in silence in a slant of sunlight, only about thirty paces away. Beside them was a man in the black clothes and white stock of a pastor. The door to the gaol opened and two soldiers came out, pulling Eltorp between them. Now Suzanne saw that a heavy rope was hanging over the highest branch of a tree in the corner of the courtyard. The noose swayed slightly in the hot morning air on its twist of rope, sending an elongated shadow against the whitewashed walls.
She opened the window a crack and heard Adriaan’s voice repeating the charge laid against Eltorp. It was already hot and the air seemed to hang heavy, even this early in the morning. It suddenly crossed her mind how it was odd that Eltorp was being executed here. Adriaan’s judgement yesterday had made it clear that the culprit’s body was to be left on the gibbet as a lesson to others. That being so, why was the execution not taking place somewhere more public where there were people to see it?
Suzanne put her hand on the window sill, unable to turn away, as Eltorp was dragged forward and thrown onto a cart. As the hangman stepped forward with the hood, the prisoner suddenly began cursing, damning their souls, struggling wildly. But the soldiers held him fast and, with his hands tied behind his back, Eltorp could not prevent the hood being pulled over his face, and the noose set and tightened around his neck.
Odendaal banged on the bars again, but Suzanne had heard enough. ‘It is him,’ she whispered to Adriaan.
‘Certain?’
Suzanne nodded. ‘I am.’
Eltorp pointed at the landdrost. ‘You have no right to hold me all this time. No right at all.’
Odendaal laughed. ‘I have every right. You’ve been bartering illegally, no point denying it.’
‘No worse than any half a dozen other men around here. Why not give me a flogging, and be done with it? Waste of VOC hospitality keeping me in victuals these past days.’
‘It will go better for you if you cooperate, Eltorp,’ Odendaal warned, his colour rising.
Eltorp came closer. Instinctively, Suzanne took another step back. She knew the bars were secure, but she did not want to be within spitting distance.
The prisoner looked at the magistrate, leered at Suzanne – sizing her up as if she was a doxy for sale – then addressed himself to Van Dijk.
‘I cannot see why my paltry dealings would be of interest to such a fine gentleman like yourself, but to please my dear friend . . .’
‘Get on with it!’
Adriaan put his hand on Odendaal’s arm. ‘I’m listening, Eltorp.’
Eltorp cleared his throat. ‘The landdrost here, has persuaded himself that I have been a naughty boy. That is to say, that I have been bartering pelts directly from the Khoi in return for . . . well, he hasn’t seen fit to furnish me with that information.’
‘Four quagga pelts, Eltorp. You had them on you when you were arrested.’
Suzanne saw Eltorp’s eyes flicker between the two men, assessing how his performance was going down.
‘I am a plain man,’ he wheedled. ‘I may not have all the book learning you gentlemen do, but I know my rights as a free citizen of the Colony.’ He jerked his head towards Odendaal. ‘I’ve told him until I’m blue in the face that all my transactions, shall we call them, were with a white man, not a heathen. He came from further up-country, from Olifantshoek, he said.’ He fixed the magistrate with an insolent look and tapped the side of his head. ‘Sawdust between the ears.’
‘I am warning you . . .’ Odendaal snapped. ‘I will come in there and flog you myself.’
Eltorp crossed his heart. ‘It’s God’s own truth.’
Adriaan cut in. ‘There are no farms that far east.’
‘I do not know if the trader was speaking the truth,’ Eltorp retorted, ‘but that’s what he told me. And he was here in Stellenbosch, as certain as I stand before you now. I happened to have a pistol I no longer had the need of – I have a perfectly good musket, bought fair and square, before you ask – and he had four fine quagga skins that I thought would suit me just fine. So, we came to terms. A perfectly honest trade between two white gentlemen, nothing prohibited by the venerable VOC.’
‘What was his name?’ Odendaal asked, ‘this illusory trader who appeared from nowhere?’
‘In matters of business, a man’s word is his bond.’ Eltorp laughed, a cruel bark that sent a shiver down Suzanne’s spine. ‘A handshake was all I needed, not a name. I’m not going to be paying house calls.’
‘I don’t believe he ever existed,’ Odendaal said, turning to Adriaan. But Suzanne could see he was taking the story seriously.
‘Describe the man,’ Adriaan said.
‘Well, he was about your height, mijnheer, and about your girth. Twice the age of my friend the magistrate here. Sixty years or so.’
‘Are you sure?’ Suzanne asked, unable to help herself.
For the first time, Eltorp appeared to stop and think. ‘Yes, though he did not carry himself like a man in his autumn years. It was only the lines on his face that spoke to his age.’
Odendaal threw up his hands in frustration. ‘You could be describing anyone. Half the men in the Colony.’
A sly look came over Eltorp’s face. ‘Ah, but there was something special. Something worth a sip of clean water, perhaps?’
Adriaan looked around and saw a barrel on the wall with a wooden cup beside it. He half filled it and passed it through the bars to Eltorp, who savoured it as if it was vintage wine.
‘Get on with it, Eltorp,’ Odendaal growled.
Eltorp wiped his lips on the back of his filthy sleeve. ‘His hair was grey, but with a white stripe down the middle.’ He folded his arms in triumph. ‘Never seen such a thing before and I wager neither have you.’
‘Phillipe Vidal,’ Suzanne murmured under her breath, suddenly understanding the other reason Adriaan had brought her here. Except how could it be? Phillipe would be much older.
‘Is there anything else you can tell us?’ Adriaan asked calmly. ‘More precisely where this man had come from? The tenor of his voice?’
‘He spoke Dutch, but perhaps there was an accent?’
‘What else?’
‘Isn’t that enough?’ Eltorp snapped, then his face darkened. ‘Time to end this pantomime. You have nothing against me.’
For a moment, no one spoke. Then Adriaan stepped forward.
‘Lars Eltorp, you are accused of the murder of Driek Holsteen on the night of the fourth of August in the year of our Lord 1688.’
Now Suzanne saw fear ignite Eltorp’s eyes. ‘You can’t pin that on me.’
‘Furthermore,’ Adriaan continued in the same steadfast voice, ‘you are accused of the attempted violation of a young lady that same night, and an assault upon that same innocent person on the dockside on the afternoon of the nineteenth day of August.’
Eltorp’s temper erupted. He kicked the bars, cursing and ranting. ‘There are no witnesses,’ he ranted. ‘How could the girl speak when I—’
Van Dijk pointed at him. ‘You condemn yourself from your own mouth, Eltorp. Know this. Your knife did not take her life.’
Now Eltorp started to bluster. It was pitiful. Pleading, cajoling, betraying himself by talking about the crush at the harbour, about how he had not been there, how he had never been near the girl in the grey dress.
‘I do not recall mentioning how she was attired,’ Adriaan said, with devastating calm.
‘She was nobody!’ Eltorp screamed.
Suzanne saw a look of contempt cross Adriaan’s face. ‘All of God’s children matter, especially in this instance. The woman you attempted to rape, then murder, is my wife.’
Suzanne flinched at the word as if she had been struck. Rape. For a moment, she saw another man’s cruel face looking down at her.
Eltorp laughed in disbelief, until he saw the steel in Adriaan’s eyes. Then he staggered back, his hands out in supplication. ‘Mijnheer, I had no—’
Adriaan cut him off. ‘Therefore, with the authority vested in me by Commander Van der Stel, I sentence you to be hanged by the neck until you are dead. Your carcass will be left upon the gibbet as a warning for any who would violate the rules of the Colony, to be picked bare by the crows and the vultures.’
‘No!’ Eltorp howled and started to hammer on the bars of his cell. ‘No, no, no.’
Suzanne was frozen to the spot, sickened both by the terror in Eltorp’s voice, and Adriaan’s cold determination.
‘I will stay to see the sentence carried out tomorrow, then leave the matter in your hands, landdrost.’
Suzanne felt Adriaan’s hand on her arm. For comfort, or for support, she did not know. Her legs felt hollow and her nerves wrung out. She closed her eyes to try to blot out her revulsion at the stinking cell, the horror of it all.
Without another word, Adriaan turned and steered her away, with Odendaal following in their wake. Suzanne threw a last glance at the condemned man, then left with Eltorp’s desperate shrieks of rage and terror ringing in her ears.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
When they returned to the drostdij, it appeared they were to dine with four valued members of the community who, with Odendaal, comprised the Heemrade, the town’s council.
‘I am sorry I had to subject you to that,’ Adriaan said, ‘but we had to be sure. I hope you understand.’
Suzanne felt sick to her stomach. She had no appetite, how could she? She wanted nothing more than to be alone with her thoughts.
‘Shall we go in?’
‘Adriaan, I cannot,’ she protested.
‘Odendaal’s sister will be there. I would not have brought you to a house with no female chaperone. I would not sully your reputation.’
‘It is not that. I have nothing to wear, my head is aching and that . . .’ She gestured in the direction of the cells.
‘You do not believe the sentence is just?’
‘No, I do. But I would be poor company, Adriaan. Eltorp was so pitiful. It was like watching an animal caught in a trap. The terrible sound . . .’ Her words tailed away. ‘The man he described sounds like the person you found referenced in the archives twenty years ago. Liar though Eltorp might be, villain he undoubtedly is, but I cannot think he could have fabricated the description of his hair.’
Adriaan nodded. ‘I agree. That’s why I wanted you to hear it for yourself.’
She paused, then took a deep breath. ‘Must Eltorp hang?’
Adriaan fixed her with a look. ‘That is the penalty for murder.’
‘But what if he knows more?’
‘He would have told us everything. He was bargaining for his life.’ Adriaan glanced towards the door where the sound of voices suggested the dinner had already started. ‘I must join the others. I will give your apologies and ask if a tray might be sent up.’
Suzanne nodded her thanks. ‘The last thing I would want would be to compromise you in any way, Adriaan, but when we return to the Colony, could you please, please find a way for me to visit the archives for myself? Now we have this additional piece of information, perhaps it will unlock something you missed. I know I presume a great deal of our friendship—’
He looked at her, then smiled. ‘Given it was your courage and love for your friend that brought my dear Judith into my life, I will do my best.’
‘Thank you. And after that—’
He put up his hands. ‘I know, “one last thing”! It always is.’
‘Am I so predictable?’
Adriaan laughed. ‘That I cannot answer for fear of causing offence.’
Finally, Suzanne smiled too. ‘Given what Eltorp said about this man having come from Olifantshoek, and given we know from what you found in the archives – that Louise and her companions had gone into the interior soon after they arrived – might it be possible to talk to the local people?’
‘Khoi, do you mean?’
‘Well, yes. You tell me that many speak Dutch – and I dare say some of your men speak their language. It stands to reason that if there is a lone white settler living in the valleys beyond Stellenbosch, the Khoi would know. And,’ she added, remembering her first conversation with Madame Lombard, ‘if Louise did settle in the interior in 1622, she must have done so with their blessing. Otherwise, how could she – how could they – have survived?’
He thought for a moment. ‘The challenge will be to find someone prepared to talk to us.’
‘But will you try?’ she pressed. ‘Perhaps even find someone prepared to take me there? Several times, Olifantshoek has been mentioned. If I could only see for myself—’
At that moment, a maid appeared in the hallway, bringing the conversation to a close. She was wearing a blue dress with a bib apron and cap, dazzling white against her Black skin.
‘The master has bid me tell you dinner is served,’ she said in perfectly executed, though strongly accented, Dutch.
‘Juffrouw Joubert will not be joining us. Please show her to her chamber and take her some light supper.’
‘Very good, mijnheer.’ The maid bobbed a curtsey. ‘Will you come with me, miss?’
Suzanne turned to Adriaan. ‘Will you?’
‘I will think on it. Good night, sister. Sleep well.’
In her chamber, Suzanne took a sip of wine and felt her sore arms and shoulders relax a little more. A new plan started to take shape. Perhaps she should base herself in Stellenbosch for a while? It would make sense for her investigations and make it all the easier to make an expedition to Olifantshoek. Although she doubted if her grandmother would want to come with her, she had no concerns about leaving her in the Colony for a week or two. Florence’s friendship with Madame Lombard sustained her, and gave her a social anchor among the growing Huguenot community.
Perhaps Adriaan could arrange for her to stay in the drostdij for a week or two? Odendaal’s sister was here, so she could serve as chaperone if she would be amenable. One thing was for sure, Suzanne couldn’t let this lead go cold.
Louise was suddenly within her reach. She could almost see her, feel her presence at her side. Guiding her on.
Suzanne exhaled, taking pleasure from the stars in the upside-down sky and the gentle cries of night-time birds. A nightjar, she thought, and an owl calling to her mate. Today, she had learnt something that pertained to the present not to the half-distant past. It was only two weeks ago that Eltorp claimed to have seen the man with a white stripe in his hair.
The more her thoughts danced in her mind, the more the identity of this man troubled her. Louise, Gilles, Phillipe – one woman and two men had disembarked the Old Moon. But Phillipe Vidal would be more than fourscore years and ten, an exceptional age. Surely even Eltorp would not mistake a man of such advanced years for one thirty years younger?
There was another explanation – that Phillipe had fathered a child and the man Eltorp had traded with was Vidal’s son. But if that was the case, then who was the mother? He was a white man, Eltorp had been certain about that. She pushed the idea away. But somewhere deep inside, the thought took hold, like a splinter, under her skin.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Suzanne woke refreshed. Outside, she could hear singing in the fields. Enslaved people, she knew, but somehow the melodies sounded sweeter here than in the crowded streets of the Colony.
Then, with a clenching feeling in her stomach, she remembered the reason they were in Stellenbosch. This morning, Lars Eltorp was to hang. Overnight she had made peace with the idea that he had nothing more to tell. She had no pity for him, he was a violent and treacherous man, but she would that it were over and done with.
There was a knock at the door.
Suzanne sat up and straightened her bedcap. ‘Come in.’
The maid from last night stood in the doorway. ‘The master and other gentleman would like to know if you will be accompanying them to the hanging.’
Having no stomach to witness Eltorp’s reckoning, Suzanne shook her head. ‘No, I will remain here.’
The girl was looking at her with steady brown eyes that gave nothing away.
Suzanne smiled. ‘What is your name?’
‘Tia, miss.’
‘Is that your given name?’
She thought she saw a spark of interest in the maid’s eyes, but it was quickly extinguished. ‘Yes.’
Suzanne was reluctant to let her go. At home in La Rochelle, they’d had a small but loyal household staff. In Amsterdam, the same. Here, she disliked not understanding how things worked. And surely Tia could not be her birth name? She had learnt that Khoi women and men who worked for the VOC were given Dutch names.
Was she a slave or a servant? Then, she remembered that Khoi were not allowed to be enslaved. The women and men with Black skin she saw in the Colony had been seized from other countries in Africa and brought to the Cape in ships. With the men on the building sites, in the fields, the distinction was clear: from their clothing, from their demeanour. Suzanne hated to see the lines of enslaved workers, bare to the waist, toiling in the vicious heat of the day. Inside a prosperous house, it was harder to discern the difference.
‘Will you be wanting breakfast, miss?’
‘That would be nice.’
She watched as the girl took her night pot from under her bed, covered it with a cloth, took the jug to refill with water, then withdrew without speaking another word. She pondered how old Tia might be – perhaps eighteen or nineteen – and how long she had worked for the landdrost.
Suzanne had dressed and was sitting at the occasional table by the time the girl returned with a tray of pancakes and a pot of tea with milk. A very Dutch meal. She wanted to ask more questions, to try to establish some kind of friendship as she would have done with servants back home, but there was something in the girl’s bearing that did not encourage confidences.
‘Will there be anything else, miss?’
‘No, thank you,’ she said, then repeated it in Khoi. It was a word she had heard Adriaan use. ‘Gangans.’
Again, she saw a reaction in Tia’s eyes, but she said nothing. She simply bowed her head and left the room, quietly closing the door behind her.
Despite everything, Suzanne found she had an appetite.
Having eaten everything on her plate, she walked to the long window facing east. Only then did she realise that it overlooked the courtyard between the drostdij and the cells.
Pieter Odendaal and Adriaan were standing in silence in a slant of sunlight, only about thirty paces away. Beside them was a man in the black clothes and white stock of a pastor. The door to the gaol opened and two soldiers came out, pulling Eltorp between them. Now Suzanne saw that a heavy rope was hanging over the highest branch of a tree in the corner of the courtyard. The noose swayed slightly in the hot morning air on its twist of rope, sending an elongated shadow against the whitewashed walls.
She opened the window a crack and heard Adriaan’s voice repeating the charge laid against Eltorp. It was already hot and the air seemed to hang heavy, even this early in the morning. It suddenly crossed her mind how it was odd that Eltorp was being executed here. Adriaan’s judgement yesterday had made it clear that the culprit’s body was to be left on the gibbet as a lesson to others. That being so, why was the execution not taking place somewhere more public where there were people to see it?
Suzanne put her hand on the window sill, unable to turn away, as Eltorp was dragged forward and thrown onto a cart. As the hangman stepped forward with the hood, the prisoner suddenly began cursing, damning their souls, struggling wildly. But the soldiers held him fast and, with his hands tied behind his back, Eltorp could not prevent the hood being pulled over his face, and the noose set and tightened around his neck.
