The Map of Bones, page 19
‘Florence, comment ça va?’
Even from this distance, she could feel the heat emanating from her friend. Suzanne’s grandmother had thrown off her bedclothes and her nightwear was rumpled. Worse was the sight of her right arm lying on top of the sheet, swollen beyond recognition. As Catrina had said, there was not a patch left unaffected. A mass of fierce, pustulating marks, scoured with scratches where Florence had tried to quieten her burning skin. There was another smell too, of nausea and bloody flux. Madame Lombard remembered it from her own journey through France to safety: too many people in one space, the foul stench from latrines dug too close to the refugee camps where people were sleeping. The despair that comes before the end, when a person no longer has the strength to fight.
She was not a praying woman, but she found the Christian words of her childhood coming into her head. Prayers of supplication and deliverance. Then, steeling herself, she approached the bed and put her hand to her friend’s cheek. It was so hot that she all but snatched her fingers away.
‘Florence?’ she repeated. ‘C’est moi.’
Florence moaned, but did not open her eyes. ‘Suzanne?’
‘It is me, Marie.’
‘Where is Suzanne? Where is my beautiful girl?’
Madame Lombard swallowed hard. ‘She has ridden to Stellenbosch, you remember? She will be back presently.’
‘Ah . . . Yes. I remember.’ Her voice was faint, as if it cost her too much to speak. Her lips were chapped, the skin cracked and bleeding.
Needing to do something, Madame Lombard summoned the girls from the doorway. ‘Petronella, fetch a pail with water and cloth. Then, find the French pastor. He should be at the chapel. Ask him to come urgently.’
‘What should I tell him?’
‘That Madame Joubert is very unwell.’
Petronella looked up at her. ‘Is she going to die?’
‘Water, then deliver the message,’ she said firmly. She took another deep breath to steady her nerves, then turned to Catrina. ‘What is there to drink in the house?’
‘The milk has curdled, madame.’
‘Then fetch brandy and a sponge.’
‘We don’t have a—’
‘Then a cloth,’ she snapped, fear making her sharp. ‘Use your common sense, child.’
Catrina bowed her head and scuttled from the room. Madame Lombard did not have time to feel guilty. She was determined to do what she could to reverse the hold the ague had taken, but she feared it was too late.
‘Is your head troubling you, Florence?’ she asked quietly, and was rewarded with the slightest of nods.
‘That was how it began,’ the old woman replied, her eyes creased shut. ‘As if I had a thousand flies buzzing inside my head, and the pain . . . I have known nothing like it.’
Madame Lombard took her left hand. ‘And now?’
‘Like the pounding of a drum,’ she whispered, ‘over and over.’ She struggled to catch her breath. ‘I thought I saw her, standing in the corner of the room? She looked so alive, so real.’
‘Who, Suzanne?’
The faintest of smiles flickered across Florence’s face. ‘Louise. I have lost many people in my long life – my own daughter on the day my beloved Suzanne came into the world – but it is Louise who comes most often to me now. She is waiting for me, I think.’
Suddenly, she opened her eyes. Marie Lombard wanted to avert hers, seeing the mark of death in Florence’s unfocused gaze, but sat down close to her on the bed. Her only hope was for the fever to break, but she knew it was too late. Once the fever reached the brain, there would be no way back. She had even seen it in the good air of the Pyrenees when she helped her father in Puivert. She had seen it on the road to Rotterdam, and here in the Colony. But she would do her best.
Petronella put the pail down beside her.
‘Now be quick, child. Fetch Pierre Simond. Run.’
She dampened the cloth and held it to Florence’s forehead, hoping it would provide a little respite. Catrina tiptoed back in with a cup of brandy and a square of fabric. Madame Lombard dipped the cloth in the amber liquid, then dabbed a little to the dying woman’s lips. Florence cried out as the brandy stung her cracked lips, but Marie persevered until she had persuaded her to drink a little. The fever would take the moisture from her body, and the brandy might help numb the pain in her head. It might help her to sleep.
‘Suzanne has gone to find Louise,’ Florence said, suddenly fixing her gaze on her.
‘I know.’
Florence gave a long sigh. ‘In La Rochelle, I could not protect her.’
Madame Lombard squeezed her bony hand tighter, fearing what Florence needed to say, a story too commonplace to be shocking in these days of persecution. Knowing this might be Florence’s last confession, so she could depart this life without it weighing on her conscience.
‘Tell me, my friend,’ she said gently.
‘We were lucky for so long,’ Florence murmured slowly, as if each word cost her a little bit of life to say. ‘But, in the end, they came. Dragonnades, given licence by the King, to establish themselves in Christian households.’
‘I know,’ was all Marie said. What more could she say? The stories were legion. Every Huguenot family had suffered.
‘Their behaviour, Marie, uncouth and vulgar. We sent our servants away so that they should not be bullied or . . .’ She stopped and Marie saw a precious tear run down her cheek. ‘But I never thought . . . Not in France.’
‘You do not have to tell me,’ Madame Lombard replied, wanting to spare her friend.
‘I have to tell someone. We never talked about it, you see, Suzanne and I. First, because our thoughts were only of getting away before we were discovered. Later, I was silenced by my guilt in not having protected her. And my beloved girl, for her part, did not want to distress me. All this time, it has lain there unspoken between us.’
Marie wetted the cloth again, squeezed it and placed it across her friend’s forehead, felt the heat steam through the damp fabric.
‘We tried to stay out of their way and we locked our doors at night, but one night, a dragonnade surprised Suzanne as she was returning to her chamber.’
Marie did not want to hear more, but knew she had to listen.
Florence closed her eyes. ‘I didn’t even know it was happening, not until it was over. She didn’t want to cry out for fear of waking his comrades down below. She didn’t want to scare me, scared that they might come and . . . When it was over, he tried to give her a coin. A coin, Marie.’
Madame Lombard felt sick to her stomach. ‘And then?’
‘She came to my chamber. I saw the blood, her face, and knew we had to leave. If it had happened once, it would happen again.’
‘You slipped away?’
‘Yes. We headed to the port. A fisherman, to whom the name Joubert still meant something, hid us beneath the creels and netting. He took us as far as the Île de Ré. We waited there, keeping out of sight of the Catholic patrols, until we could get passage on a Dutch ship.’
‘Listen to me, Florence,’ Marie said. ‘There was nothing you could have done. Nothing. If anything, you might have made it worse. In too many of these cases, dragonnades kill the girl they violate rather than have them stand witness to the crime.’ She hesitated. ‘There was no child as a result of it?’
‘No. No child.’
‘That is good. I am sure Suzanne does not blame you for what they did, she is devoted to you. You know that. You should not blame yourself.’
‘But it was my role to keep her safe,’ Florence cried.
‘And you have. Didn’t you get her to Amsterdam? Didn’t you come across the known world with her to build a new life here? She is strong and sure of herself. Suzanne will come back full of the stories of the interior and what she has discovered, just wait and see. Finding Louise is what gives her life purpose, she told me that. And she will revel in her adventures a second time by sharing them with you.’
Florence sighed. ‘She thinks that by finding Louise she will find herself. Heal the darkness in her own heart.’
‘And who is to say it will not. Sometimes, by saving others, we can save ourselves. Suzanne has much to give in her life. She is a survivor – no, a victor.’
Florence gave another long sigh. ‘Ah, Marie. You are a good friend. Take care of my girl, do you promise me that? She does not belong here. Encourage her to go back home. To Amsterdam, if not La Rochelle. She must not stay here to keep watch over my bones.’
Marie blinked away the tears. ‘I promise.’
They heard the Castle bell toll the hour. Then, moments later, Florence started to shake, and Madame Lombard knew the end was coming. Her thin old body wracked with spasms. Then, just as quickly as it had come, the fit passed.
Now Florence lay still, her breath coming in shorter and shorter gasps. Finally, it stopped altogether.
Madame Lombard bowed her head. Then she released her friend’s hand, pulled the sheet up over her body and face, and let her own shoulders slump in sadness. She didn’t know how long she sat there before Petronella’s voice cut into the silence.
‘The pastor is here.’
Madame Lombard wiped her eyes, straightened her shoulders, then turned to see Pierre Simond in his black robes, clutching his prayer book, standing in the doorway.
‘You are too late,’ she said brusquely. ‘She’s gone.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
THE KHOI ENCAMPMENT
Three people sitting around a fire, their faces lit by the flames: Suzanne, Harrie and Tia, each enjoying the crack of the wood, the lingering scent of roasted meat, the companionable silence that comes with a full belly and a slaked thirst.
Suzanne felt a sudden surge of emotion. How glad she was to be sitting beneath the upside-down stars, scattered silver against the black velvet sky. Harrie and Tia were not yet her friends. More separated them than united them – their position in the world, the colour of their skin, their experiences, the land of their birth. All the same, Suzanne felt more content than she could remember. She knew that they would protect her. Her experiences fleeing across France, and before, had made her a good judge of a person’s character. Learning who to trust in the blink of an eye could mean the difference between survival and death.
In the air above her, she heard a sudden beating of wings. She turned to see a flash of white against the dark sky, lit by the fire, as a solitary bird flew out of the coppice and wheeled away towards the mountains.
‘A white owl,’ Harrie said. ‘Very rare indeed. I have never before seen one.’
Suzanne watched the speckled wings wheel higher and higher, then swoop away into the cover of the woods. ‘What does it mean to see one?’
Harrie looked up at the now empty sky. ‘Some say it is a good portent. Others, an omen of death. I would say that the natural world exists beyond the wills and desires of men. The bird cares nothing for us.’
Suzanne nodded, then sighed. She did not want to break the spell, but the time had come.
‘We should talk about our plans.’
Harrie leant forward and took another handful of fragrant kindling to feed the fire.
‘We are waiting for someone to join us.’
Suzanne felt a spark of unease. She was comfortable in the company of Tia and her brother.
‘Who?’
‘A member of my clan, the Goringhaiqua, as the Dutch call us. He has information that will be of interest to you.’
Suzanne looked at him in the firelight. ‘What has mijnheer Van Dijk told you?’
‘That you seek a white man who lives in the valley of the elephants.’
‘That’s right. He was seen near Stellenbosch some two weeks ago.’ She hesitated. ‘Though he is not the primary person I am seeking. I had a relative, a woman, who came to the Cape many years ago. She and her companions – one man, possibly two – travelled into the interior, but were never heard of again.’
‘And you think this man might be either of those original travellers?’
Suzanne traced a pattern in the dirt. ‘Possibly. Or perhaps a son . . . The man had a distinct marking, a stripe of white in his hair.’
‘What of your ancestor?’
‘She was called Louise. She captained her own vessel and ran down corsairs, disrupting the slaver ships on the Atlantic Ocean.’ Suzanne paused, again marvelling at Louise’s courage. ‘She cannot still be alive, but to find out what happened to her is the purpose of my expedition.’ She turned to Harrie. ‘Has there been talk of such a woman among the Goringhaiqua?’
She saw brother and sister exchange a glance.
‘When mijnheer Van Dijk engaged me, I spoke to other clans – not just our own – who travel between those lands and the coast. There are some I can trust.’
‘And?’
‘There were some who remembered such a woman, though perhaps their tales were magnified in the telling. A she-devil, they called her, a warrior. They remembered she learnt some of our ways and came to pay homage and to ask for permission to settle on our land.’
‘When was this?’
‘Twice the life-span of a man.’
Suzanne worked it out in her head. ‘Sixty years ago?’
Harrie shrugged. ‘Before the Dutch came.’
‘The elders met her? Talked to her?’
He nodded. ‘The leader of the clan that roamed the lands around the elephant’s valley said she asked for his protection. She was travelling with one other, a man.’
‘Just one?’
‘That is what he said.’
‘Did he describe him?’
‘He was one of your people,’ said Harrie, with the ghost of a smile. ‘According to the elders, the headsman believed they were in flight. Certainly, they asked for sanctuary and negotiated his silence in exchange for copper and iron.’
‘Did the old chief grant her shelter on his lands?’
Harrie nodded. ‘He ordered his warriors to take them into the deepest valley, and that no one was to speak of its location on pain of banishment. He passed down this command to his eldest son, so that the oath would be binding. He was a man of honour.’ He paused. ‘Unlike his younger son. You understand that none of the elders are still alive, so I am recounting this story second- and third-hand.’
Suzanne smiled. ‘But every word is precious.’
‘It seems that the chief had only two sons. One, his favoured child, wished to keep separate from the white men from the sea. He did not trust them, did not believe their word to be binding. He wanted only for their ships to pass by. The second son wished for riches. Unknown to his father and older brother, he began to trade privately with the vessels that sailed from Holland to Batavia. He became greedy, always wanting more, selling information as well as cattle and ivory.’
‘What sort of information?’
‘The location of springs that never dry up, even in the heat of summer. Where the elephants go to calf, and where to go to plunder their ivory. Which plants are wholesome and which will kill.’
Suzanne began to understand. ‘And he told someone where Louise and her companion were living. He broke his father’s oath of secrecy?’
Harrie nodded. ‘It seems that a third member of your ancestor’s party was at the camp at the waterfront. Left behind, or had chosen to stay behind. The elders talk of him as being very rich and having a Devil’s mark. That is to say, a white stripe in his hair. They remember him because he did not speak Dutch.’
A shiver went down her spine. ‘Louise’s half-brother. He was French.’
‘All the same, he managed to communicate well enough to buy information, to secure a guide to take him and—’
‘– went in search of them.’ Suzanne stopped, trying to make sense of the sequence of events. ‘And then what? Did he find them?’
‘When my kinsman arrives, you will hear it from him. It is better.’
Feeling she could not bear another delay, Suzanne stood up and started to pace. ‘When will he be here?’
‘Soon.’
Suzanne knew that could mean anything from an hour to a day. She peered out into the inky darkness and saw nothing, hearing just the same night sounds, the same high howling of a jackal. More than one. The atmosphere now seemed menacing, the pack closer at hand. Despite the warmth of the evening, she wrapped her arms around herself, and kept walking to and fro beside the fire.
Back and forth, back and forth.
Suzanne didn’t know how long they waited, but Harrie and Tia’s kinsman arrived in silence and, it seemed, without movement. One moment they three were alone, the next he was standing before them. In his right hand, he carried a spear.
‘||Khore||hare’,’ Harrie said, embracing the man, then added in Dutch for Suzanne’s benefit: ‘Welcome.’
The newcomer was dressed in the clothes of his clan: a sheepskin cloak around his shoulders that Suzanne knew was called a kaross, a smaller apron kaross around his waist and leggings of dried raw-hide. She had seen men and women dressed in this way in the markets in the Colony.
She listened as he and Harrie spoke in their mother tongue, an extraordinary music of sounds punctuated with clicks. Their visitor tilted his head to Tia, who pressed her hands together in greeting, then he turned to Suzanne and bowed.
‘Welcome,’ she said.
‘This is Tshu,’ Harrie said. ‘He has a few words in Dutch, but not sufficient for conversation. He is the one who heard the stories from his father who – himself – was a boy when the white woman came to the valley. Tshu witnessed none of this himself, you understand?’
Suzanne nodded. ‘I do.’
Tia added more scrub to the fire. They all sat down, then the conversation began, Suzanne asking a question, Harrie translating it, listening to Tshu’s answer, then explaining the gist of his reply.
‘So,’ Harrie said, ‘Tshu says that when the old chief heard his younger son had betrayed the white woman, and revealed her whereabouts to the man with the Devil mark, straight away, he sent men to the valley. But he was too late.’
‘Why? What had happened?’
‘The camp was destroyed, evidence of conflict, blood.’
