The Map of Bones, page 26
Now they were out of the cover of the trees.
‘We don’t know for sure that he does have her,’ Adriaan replied.
Tia gave a scornful laugh. ‘He killed her guide and she is missing, what other explanation is there?’
‘We will continue to Olifantshoek,’ he said steadily. ‘See if we can find the man juffrouw Joubert was seeking.’
‘And what if Kmame is waiting for us with more men, what then?’
‘Sister,’ Harrie warned.
Adriaan could see he was nervous for Tia. They might have fought side by side the previous day, but Harrie knew better than to assume friendship with a VOC official. He suspected Harrie believed that the Dutch, for all their talk, never let the Khoi forget who was in charge.
‘Well, sir?’ She spoke with a challenge in her voice.
‘Tia!’ her brother said sharply. ‘Guard your tongue!’
‘We will face that challenge if, and when, it happens,’ Adriaan replied calmly. Tia had a point. Harrie had told him that Kmame had had three men with him at the Cochoqua encampment, as he had yesterday. But that didn’t mean that he didn’t have other allies or fighters elsewhere.
Tia’s eyes glinted. She said nothing more, but the way in which she stamped out the fire left Adriaan in no doubt that she thought men were fools.
‘Do you know where in Olifantshoek this farmstead might be found?’ Harrie asked.
Adriaan shook his head. ‘No more than when I hired you in Stellenbosch.’
Harrie crouched down, examining the ground. ‘It looks as if a person has passed this way. Kmame, perhaps? He was the only one to escape your gun, sir. We should follow, in case my sister is right.’
Adriaan took out his eyeglass and scanned the horizon. There were no signs of human habitation. He looked down at the faint marks in the grass, the blades flattened, imagining Kmame’s running feet bruising the ground. He nodded. It was as good a plan as any.
It was downhill all the way and they made good time, Adriaan riding at a steady trot, with Tia and Harrie running beside. Once they reached the river, they stopped to take stock. It was likely any farm buildings would have been built close to the water. The question was should they go upstream, or down?
Harrie pointed to a pile of human excrement, partly covered by leaves. ‘Kmame – or someone – was here.’
‘What do you advise?’ Adriaan asked.
Harrie did not answer, but continued to examine the surroundings. Shortly, Tia and Adriaan watched him wade knee-deep across the fast-running river and examine the opposite bank. Then he straightened up and beckoned for them to join him. Adriaan mounted his horse to save his boots and Tia tucked up her skirts.
‘There are footprints here, do you see?’ Harrie said, pointing to where the grass and mud met on the far side of the water. ‘More than one pair.’
‘You think Kmame found an ally here?’ Adriaan asked.
‘I cannot say, only that three men were here and they walked in that direction.’ He pointed south. ‘The prints are not clear once they leave the banks. The ground there is too dry for tracks.’
Adriaan nodded. ‘We will go the same way. But we should be on our guard. We might be heading into an ambush.’
Théodore fetched a tray of pears from the sill and put them on the table, together with a loaf and a bowl of dripping. He laid out two cups and two plates, brought a jug of wine, then sat down.
He watched Suzanne eat, then, unexpectedly, he laughed. Did that mean he believed her that Kmame was an enemy not an ally?
‘Well,’ he said, ‘let me hear this story of yours. But tell me the truth, mind. I shall know if you are lying.’
Suzanne looked him the eye. ‘I am not accustomed to lying, monsieur, I have no need to do so. As I told you, the man you found trespassing on your land is no friend of mine. His name is Kmame, he is the leader of a splinter group of the Cochoqua.’
Théodore narrowed his eyes. ‘I have heard of him. The Khoi say he is attempting to overthrow his father.’
‘He has already done so,’ Suzanne said, then stopped. ‘You speak their language?’
‘I do.’
Suzanne put her thoughts in order, then recounted everything that had happened after she and Harrie had talked to Shansi in the Cochoqua encampment. All the time she was talking, she watched Théodore’s reactions closely and saw that Shansi’s name meant nothing to him.
‘So Kmame followed you here?’ he said. ‘Why?’
‘You could ask him.’
Théodore was frowning, still clearly struggling to believe her story. It sounded outlandish that two women and a man would have stood firm against Kmame and three warriors.
‘I know it sounds unbelievable,’ she said, ‘but we had no choice. We could not afford to lose the horse and, well, there were things of great personal importance to me in the satchel.’ Suzanne stopped. The moment had perhaps come to begin the conversation that had brought her here in the first place. ‘The reason we were there was to speak to Shansi, whose mother, Fala, was a wise woman. She told us that, many years ago, Fala had delivered a baby to a white settler.’ She saw him stiffen. ‘I think you were that child,’ she finished gently, not wanting to provoke him to anger again.
Théodore was silent for so long, that she wondered if he had even heard her.
‘I never knew her name,’ he began. ‘But my mother talked of a Khoi woman who had helped them.’
Suzanne leant forward. ‘Louise kept a diary,’ she said. ‘She started writing it when she was imprisoned, and continued it as a record of her life at sea. I know that all the men of the Vidal family have this white streak in their hair. As you do. Which means, I think, that you are the son of Phillipe Vidal, who sailed to the Cape with my ancestor Louise on the Old Moon.’
Suzanne saw a look of revulsion cross his face. ‘That is correct.’
She was acutely aware of the silence in the kitchen. She knew she had to tread carefully, and yet she felt she could do nothing more than ask the questions she had carried with her like a burden for so long.
‘Monsieur?’ she said, when he still did not speak. ‘Théodore?’
‘Forgive me,’ he said, ‘I never expected this day to come.’
She nodded, wanting to give him time. ‘What I do not understand is this. Shansi said her mother told her there were two women present at the birth, Louise and another. But there was never any mention of another woman in her diary. The only person Louise writes about, save Phillipe, is Gilles Barenton.’ She held his gaze. ‘You bear his name.’
Théodore’s face softened. ‘I do.’
‘Why?’
He did not answer. Suzanne shook her head.
‘I don’t understand. You admit Phillipe was your father. Who was your mother, if not Louise?’
Théodore gave a long sigh, as if ridding himself of a lifetime of secrets inside him.
‘Gilles Barenton was my mother. And I loved him.’
‘There,’ Tia shouted, pointing.
Adriaan followed the line of her gaze. In the distance, he could see the outline of a house. A thatched roof, a more permanent structure than the huts built by the Khoi as they made their way across the veldt.
This surely had to be the farmstead Lars Eltorp had talked about? Who else would be living here, so far from civilisation? Our civilisation, he corrected himself, imagining how Suzanne would remind him how the Khoi and the San had lived here for millennia. He felt a sudden knot in his chest. What if she was dead? What if Kmame had murdered her, as he had murdered Khasso? How would he ever tell Judith?
‘What do you want to do, sir?’ Harrie asked. ‘Do you think they are there?’
Adriaan shook his head. ‘I don’t know.’ He looked down over the valley. There was no possibility of approaching unseen. The land was too open. If Kmame had other men and had taken the farm, if they were holding Suzanne there, then he, Harrie and Tia needed to wait until cover of darkness to make a move. To do anything else would risk not only their own lives, but also Suzanne’s.
‘We will wait until nightfall,’ he said, ‘then attack while they are sleeping.’
Overhead, they heard the first ominous rumbles of thunder.
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
OLIFANTSHOEK
‘Gilles Barenton was your mother? But how is that possible . . .’
Suzanne stopped, words now failing her. Théodore was looking at her with a mixture of sympathy and, she thought, something approaching affection.
‘What you are saying makes no sense,’ she said, trying again. ‘In her diary, Louise wrote of her affection for Gilles, of their . . .’ Again, she tailed off.
‘All of that was true,’ he said. ‘Theirs was a love match.’
‘So, help me to understand!’
Théodore walked across the kitchen and pushed open the shutter, letting a shaft of subdued light into the grey-shadowed room.
‘I grew up hearing stories about Louise,’ Suzanne said tentatively, when still he did not speak. ‘My grandmother remembers Louise from when she was a child – but it was only when we arrived in Amsterdam last October, and I read her diary for the first time, that she suddenly came to life for me. After that, I read everything else kept in our old family home – my great-great-grandmother Minou’s journals . . .’
‘Ah, Minou,’ Théodore said warmly. ‘Louise often talked about her.’
Suzanne smiled, relieved that he was finally engaging in the conversation.
‘Also, I read records kept by Minou’s sister, Alis, and her companion, Cornelia van Raay, and pieced together more of Louise’s story. It helped me forget . . .’ She stopped herself, changed tack. ‘It was Cornelia’s house in Warmoesstraat where the archives were kept. She and Alis loved Louise, too.’
Outside, she heard a rumble of thunder behind the mountains. Storms clouds were gathering, masking the face of the sun.
‘As did I,’ Théodore said. ‘She and Gilles, they chose to live a wild and different life.’
‘From the rumours I have heard since arriving in the Colony, they succeeded.’
‘Mostly, yes.’
Suzanne looked at him, trying to understand. ‘Have you lived here your whole life?’
‘For all of my sixty-five years on this earth. This farm is very close to the original patch of land granted to Louise by an old Goringhaiqua headsman when they first arrived.’
‘Which they were forced to abandon after their whereabouts were betrayed, isn’t that right?’
Théodore topped up his wine and sighed. ‘You have discovered a great deal.’
Suzanne blushed, feeling strangely guilty. ‘What I do know – at least, what I think I know – is that Louise and Gilles, for whatever reason, were trying to get away from Phillipe. Your father.’ She looked him in the eye. ‘Is that true, Théodore? Do you know what happened between the three of them?’
He put down his cup. ‘You have to understand that much of what took place – I was only told long after the events in question.’
‘I understand.’
Théodore took a deep breath. ‘Although he lived his life as a man, Gilles was born a woman.’
‘What?’ the word exploded out of her. ‘How can that be?’
‘Gilles’ mother, who was a vile and debauched creature, forced him to dress as a boy from the age of ten, to gain an inheritance from his uncle. This was in La Rochelle in the summer of 1610.’
Now he had started, the words came easily enough. The story was fantastical, astonishing, devastating in parts, but yet she found she had no trouble believing it. It was as if she had spent days looking at the wrong side of a tapestry, all the colours and threads entangled, obscuring her view, but had now walked round to the other side and seen the image as it was supposed to be seen.
Théodore started to pace around the kitchen. ‘Tell me something of your life, Suzanne,’ he said, and she realised he was still not quite ready to talk about what had happened on the day Phillipe found Louise and Gilles again. ‘Why did you leave La Rochelle?’
She took a breath. ‘We lived in Louise’s house. She left it to my great-grandfather when she sailed for Gran Canaria.’
Théodore smiled. ‘Gilles talked often about the grand house on the rue des Gentilhommes.’
‘Things are different now. In their time, La Rochelle was the Huguenot capital of France. Its glory has faded and people of my faith are no longer safe there. Or anywhere. We have all been driven into exile – to Holland or England, Germany or the New World – or made prisoners in our own homes by the dragonnades, soldiers who—’
Suzanne broke off.
‘Something happened to you,’ he probed gently, a statement rather than a question.
‘Yes,’ she said. It was painful to talk about, but she wanted him to understand how her quest to find Louise was tied up with what had been done to her.
‘I am so sorry,’ he said, when she had finished.
‘It is a common story. Others have suffered just as much, sometimes much more.’
‘That doesn’t make your experience any the less terrible.’
In the west, the sun was slipping from the sky. Suzanne heard another rumble of thunder, closer now. All the same, she felt calm. Somehow, in these five months, the burden had lifted from her shoulders. What had happened that night – her rape, she could name it now – did not define her. It was one incident, traumatic and violent, but she would refuse to give it more weight than any other experience of her twenty years on the earth.
‘What are you thinking?’ Théodore asked, noticing the altered expression on her face.
‘About being whole again,’ she replied, with a catch in her voice. ‘About the possibility of beginning anew.’
‘Here?’
She shook her head. ‘I understand, now, that it lies within me to heal myself. It is not distance that makes the difference, but my own courage.’
Théodore got up, walked to the door and pushed it open to let in a little air. ‘You have spoken plainly with me, Suzanne.’
‘I have tried to.’
‘I owe to you the same honesty. You want to know what happened between Louise, Gilles and Phillipe – how I come to be here?’
‘Yes,’ she replied simply.
She saw the anguish on his face. ‘The fact of the matter is that it is hard for me to speak of it. Indeed, I never have.’
Outside, Suzanne could see how the clouds had turned from grey to black, and were now covering the top of the mountains. There was another cascade of thunder and the first spots of rain started to fall. And Théodore began the hardest part of his story.
‘When you were attacked in your home, there was no child?’
Suzanne shook her head. ‘That, at least, I was spared.’ Then, she turned cold. ‘You were conceived – you are the result of . . .’ She found she could not say the word out loud.
‘A rape, yes.’
‘Théodore, I . . . I don’t know what to say.’
He sighed. ‘I did not learn this until I was an adult, you understand. I knew nothing but love from Louise and from Gilles.’
‘Why would Phillipe do something so heinous?’
He held up his hand. ‘To make sense of it, we have to go back to the beginning. As you know, Louise and Gilles dropped anchor in Table Bay on the seventh day of May in the year 1622 . . .’
When Théodore had finished talking, Suzanne sat in silence. She hardly knew what to say, how to express what she was feeling. Everything she had imagined was wrong but, at the same time, her instincts had been right.
‘I feared that Phillipe had killed Louise, not the other way around,’ she said eventually. ‘I never imagined . . .’
Théodore’s eyes dimmed. ‘He was a wicked man, and I regret with every sinew of my body that he was my father.’
She exhaled. ‘Thank you for telling me the truth. It cannot have been easy.’
He gave an exhausted smile. ‘It was easier than I thought it might be. Given what you have suffered, I thought you would understand.’
Suzanne took Louise’s prison diary from her satchel and pushed it across the table to him. ‘When I found this in the archive in Warmoesstraat, it became the focus of my determination to find Louise.’
Théodore stared at the leather cover as if he was scared to touch it.
‘There is also this,’ she added, taking out the Justice card. ‘I don’t know why it was so important to Louise, nor why she kept it. She never struck me as a superstitious woman, but it must have meant something for her to have gone to such lengths to preserve it.’
Théodore’s weather-worn face lit up. ‘It did mean something, but not to Louise. It belonged to Gilles. It was the only thing he possessed from his younger life in La Rochelle.’
Suzanne passed it across the table. ‘You should have it. It rightly belongs to you.’
He smiled. ‘The card meant a lot to him. To them both, the ideal of justice. It is what they fought for all of their lives.’
Suzanne watched as Théodore went into his bedchamber, then returned moments later with a book with plain brown boards, like a child’s school jotter.
‘Louise continued to keep a diary of our lives here,’ he said. ‘It was the reason I accompanied Gilles to Table Bay from time to time, to trade furs and timber for the paper and ink the ships brought back from China.’
He put it into her hands, then went to the door.
‘Where are you going?’
‘To give you time to read this. While you do so, I will check on the animals and pay a visit to our house guest. The storm is nearly upon us.’
‘There he is,’ Harrie said, pointing as a white man came out of the farmhouse.
Adriaan, Tia and Harrie watched him head first to the animal pen to check on the sheep, then to lead the horses from the kraal to a shelter behind the house. This had to be the man Eltorp had met near Stellenbosch several weeks before.
‘He knows the storm is coming,’ Tia said, as a roll of thunder echoed overhead.
The man then headed to the nearest hut. Adriaan watched the two San get to their feet, then all three went inside. Moments later, they came out with another man between them.
