1636: Seas of Fortune (18 page)

Maurício wasn’t eager to see white sails billowing over the dark waters of the Essequibo.

Gustavus (Paramaribo), Suriname

Maria returned to Gustavus with rubber, cotton and tobacco from Marshall’s Creek, and Heyndrick told the colonists that it was time to do some trading with other Europeans on the Wild Coast. At the town meeting, they announced, “We are taking the
Eikhoorn
to Fort Kykoveral, on the Essequibo.” It was the principal Dutch colony in the Guianas, perhaps two hundred forty miles to the west. “We need samples of everyone’s products that might find a market there, whether among the traders, the Indians, or visiting ships. And we need your ‘wish list’ of what to try to get there that we don’t have here.”

It would, of course, be more than a mere trading voyage. This would be their first chance to explore the coast, and Maria looked forward to seeing and drawing new plants and animals. And perhaps, just perhaps, some of them would be of economic value to the Gustavus colony.

At any rate, it was a chance to escape the ennui of helping to administer the colony. Maria now understood why David de Vries, their nominal leader, spent most of his time at sea.

On the coast of Guiana

They had made camp on a sandy beach, between the Berbice and Demerara rivers. They were now perhaps fifty miles from the mouth of the Essequibo. The next day’s sail would be easy, with the trade winds broad on their starboard quarter. As, in fact, they had been every day on their trip westward. Getting back home to Gustavus would be more arduous, of course.

As the tide went out, it became apparent that a little ways down the coast, there was some large object sticking out of the exposed bottom. Maria, Heyndrick and two sailors went out to investigate.

The object was the ravaged remains of the hull of a pinnace, its blackened framing timbers looking like the ribs of a sea monster. It didn’t seem particularly likely that any useful artifacts would still be left, but they were now so close that it seemed reasonable to look and see.

“That’s odd,” said Maria. While Heyndrick and the sailors looked for stray coins, and the like, in the sand, she had been studying the hull.

“What’s odd?” asked Heyndrick, who, out of the corner of his eye, had been studying her.

“Look how most of the wood is heavily holed.”

“Sure, that’s because of the teredo, the ship worm. They’re a real plague in these tropical waters.”

“Yes, but there is one piece that’s barely pitted. You see? I think it’s a different type of wood than the rest of the hull.”

Heyndrick studied the mystery futtock more closely. He felt and sniffed it, and did the same to the nearby wood. “I think you’re right. It couldn’t have been part of the original hull, it must have been cut to make a repair.”

“Can we take it out, please?” pleaded Maria. “I think it might be greenheart. It’s a tree mentioned in the encyclopedias; it’s resistant to marine borers. The crew of this hulk must have cut a greenheart tree and used it to make repairs, without realizing their good fortune. Might be a fine export product if we can find a grove to harvest. We can ask the local Indians . . . once we find them.”

Heyndrick scratched his chin. “Even if you’re right, the Indians are going to have a hard time figuring out what tree you are looking for, if all they have to go on is a bit of cut wood. They don’t cut their trees into lumber, they just hollow them out.”

“We can shave off the outer layers of the piece, then they might recognize it as being the same wood as one of their dugouts.”

Heyndrick shrugged, and ordered a sailor to cut out the wood of interest. Once he had done so, Maria asked him to chop off a small piece and give it to her. She took it down the beach, to where the waters of the South Atlantic played with the sand, and dropped it in. It sank.

Maria nodded thoughtfully, and turned her head to look at Heyndrick, who was standing a few feet behind her. “It’s denser than water. That’s true of greenheart, too. One of the reasons it’s a strong wood.”

“Then you might be right that it’s greenheart, Maria, but please don’t get your hopes too high. Even a wood that normally floats can sink if it gets waterlogged.”

Maria shrugged. “When we find some Indians, we’ll get some answers. I hope.”

Fort Kykoveral (modern Bartica), Essequibo River, Guiana,

Short Wet Season (December 1634–January 1635)

“Well, there it is. A sail,” thought Henrique. “Kykoveral” meant, in Dutch, “looks over all,” and he had an excellent view of the river from his position on the parapet.

It made him think of the legend of Theseus. Theseus had gone to Crete to slay the Minotaur. He sailed, with the other sacrifices, on a ship with a black sail, but he promised that when he returned victorious, he would hoist a white sail so his father Aegeus would know he had succeeded. Unfortunately, he forgot, and Aegeus threw himself into the sea.

This time, it didn’t matter whether the sail Henrique saw was black or white. Either way, it would bring both joy and sorrow.

* * *

To Henrique’s surprise, the ship, although Dutch-built, wasn’t from Europe. Nor was it en route to the Caribbean, or America. Rather, it was from another colony on the Wild Coast, paying its respect to the traders at Kykoveral.

Which meant that perhaps, just perhaps, there was no need for the foursome to separate.

* * *

Commander Jan van der Goes of the Zeeland Chamber of the Dutch West India Company cleared his throat. “Mevrouw Maria Vorst, permit me to introduce Henrique Pereira da Costa, formerly of Belém do Pará, the intrepid discoverer of a river route between the Amazon and the Essequibo.”

Henrique bowed.

“Senhor da Costa, I introduce to you Mevrouw Maria Vorst. She is the daughter of a physician, and sister of the curator of the Leiden Botanical Gardens. She has received training in natural philosophy at Grantville, the town of the future that you have surely heard of by now. She is attached to the new Swedish colony to our east, Gustavus.”

Maria curtseyed.

“And her companion, Captain Heyndrick de Liefde, is of a good merchant family in Hoorn, and has been to the Caribees, Zwaanandael, Virginia and New Netherlands.” Zwaanandael was the ill-fated Dutch colony in Delaware. “His cousin, Captain David Pieterszoon de Vries, founded Gustavus, and Captain de Liefde has given us the great pleasure of transporting Mevrouw Vorst to our company.”

“Yours must have been quite a dangerous journey, Senhor da Costa,” Maria murmured. In the meantime, she was trying to visualize the up-time maps, and guess at its length. Twelve hundred miles? Sixteen hundred?

“Indeed it was, my lady. Giant crocodiles. Poisonous snakes. Deadly rapids. A thousand times, I thought myself at death’s door, and took solace in the thought that I would be taken into Heaven. And then I made it here. And now I must wonder whether I died after all, and have come to Heaven, for surely you are an angel.”

Heyndrick rolled his eyes.

Maria smiled at Henrique. “Surely it is too warm here to be Heaven.”

Heyndrick saw the smile. “I am surprised that you speak so blithely of Heaven, Herr da Costa. The guards told me that you are a Marrano, a secret Jew, wanted by the Inquisition for heresy.” Having been baptized, however insincerely, Henrique could not avow Judaism without being considered a heretic.

“I am a heretic only in the eyes of the Catholic Church, not in the eyes of the Lord,” Henrique retorted. “And I daresay that the Catholics would consider you, too, to be a heretic, Captain.” Heyndrick was indeed Protestant.

Commander van der Goes winced slightly. “Tell me more about your colony, Mevrouw Vorst.”

“We have both a sawmill and a glassworks, the first on the Wild Coast, I believe. So we have manufactures that we can sell here and to other colonies. We have shipped home a kind of clay called bauxite. We have planted, as cash crops, cotton, tobacco, and the dye tree orlean. And we are collecting the sap of a strange tree which I doubt you would have heard of, since, until the coming of the up-timers, the only Europeans who knew of it were a few Spanish, and they had no use for it.”

“Oh, what tree is that?”

“It is called the rubber tree, the up-timers know much about it. Its sap hardens into a material which is waterproof, and is elastic, an—”

“I know what rubber is!” Henrique interjected. “That is what I was collecting, in Brazil!”

Maria spilled her drink. “In Brazil? How did you learn of it? Have you shipped any to Europe? Who is buying it? I would have heard if, before I left, someone was selling Brazilian rubber in Grantville. And that’s the only market for it.”

“Dear lady, I suspect that my family knows about it the same way you do, we have some connection who has studied the books of Grantville. In 1632 I was given a map, and a description of the tree. We started tapping the trees in the summer of 1633, and the first shipment went out thereafter, on one of the sugar ships out of Bahia. When rubber first reached Lisbon, I know not.” He was too polite to mention that, beside storms, the likeliest reason for the rubber not reaching Lisbon was interception by privateers. Dutch, French or English.

“And I don’t know what my family would have done with the rubber. It might have been some time before they sent samples to business associates outside of Portugal or Spain, and in these troubled times it could have taken many weeks to reach Grantville. It is somewhere near Magdeburg, is that right?”

“Hmm . . . we left Hamburg in December of 1633. That would explain why we heard nothing about it. Is Belém still shipping rubber to Portugal, you think?”

“It is hard to say. Maurício and I were the only Europeans involved in the tapping operation. We are both here now. The same . . . incident . . . that led me to leave Belém, would also have had unpleasant repercussions for my family. I hope they were warned, and fled in time. The Inquisition seizes the properties of heretics. It is possible that they will read the private papers, decide that rubber trees are worth exploiting, and recommend that the Crown send an agent to Belém to take over the business. More likely, they will decide it is too much trouble, or tainted by its association with Grantville, and the Indian
seringueiros
I recruited will just return to hunting and fishing.”

* * *

“We should ask Henrique and his friends to join us at Gustavus,” said Maria.

Heyndrick snorted. “I think that would be a mistake, Maria. Henrique’s allegiance is to Portugal, and, so long as Philip rules Portugal, the Portuguese are our enemies.”

“But now that they know he is Jewish, he cannot return to Portugal. He must find a new home. He was born and bred in the New World. What would he do in Europe?”

“I still think he would be a bad influence. His whole life has been a lie. We can expect him to have imbibed deceit with his mother’s milk.”

“Heyndrick . . . I do believe you’re jealous.”

Heyndrick took a deep breath. “I have no claim on you . . . other than one of friendship . . . and affection.” He didn’t dare say more, not yet. She was of substantially higher rank than him, although not hopelessly so.

“I have already married once and have been a widow for several years. I have become accustomed to making my own decisions. And the good women of Grantville have taught me that I need be in no rush to remarry.

“Which isn’t to say that I don’t like you . . .

“Now then. Back to business. And Henrique, flowery compliments and all, is strictly business. He has run a rubber tapping operation. We could use him to do so for us, up at Marshall’s Creek, and at the same time keep a closer eye on Captain Marshall and his men.”

Heyndrick nodded slowly. The thought occurred to him that if Henrique were in residence at Marshall’s Creek, then Maria wouldn’t have to travel there so frequently. And he would be mostly out of Maria’s sight and hence out of Maria’s mind. Or so Heyndrick hoped.

But suddenly he realized that Maria was still speaking. “And if he was able to cross over a thousand miles of rainforest, he must have impressive survival skills . . . and no doubt an impressive knowledge of the plants and animals. Some of that knowledge will doubtless be relevant here in the Guianas, too. In fact, I have a question or two to put to him right away.”

“Greenheart?”

“Greenheart.”

* * *

“Senhor Henrique, I am looking for trees with a particular wood, called ‘greenheart,’ because it is of a dark green color. It grows”—she stopped to consult her notes—“seventy to one hundred thirty feet high, and three feet or more in diameter. It is very strong and heavy, heavier than water. And I think I found some lumber cut from it, in a ship’s hull, but of that I am not sure. Here is a sample piece.”

Henrique examined Maria’s mystery futtock. “It was used in a ship? And it is strong, but too heavy to float? Perhaps it is like the ‘stone tree,’ itauba, which we have on the Amazon. Coqui had a dugout canoe made from that tree. It is good for running rapids, but if the canoe fills with water, it sinks.”

Maurício coughed. “I don’t suppose you have any idea what the native word is for this ‘greenheart’ of yours?”

“Actually, I do. At least if the encyclopedias in Grantville are right. They said that it was called ‘bibiru’ or ‘bebeeru’ in one language. And ‘sipiri’ in another. But I don’t know which language.”

“Bibiru,” Henrique muttered. “Sounds like a word from the language of the Indians who live just north of the Amazon delta. They call themselves Aroo-waks, I think. Are there Aroo-waks, here? ‘Bibi’ is ‘mother,’ I think. Or maybe it’s just ‘woman.’ But I don’t recognize ‘bibiru.’ Do you, Maurício?”

Maurício shook his head. “Not ‘sipiri,’ either. Do the ‘encyclopedias’ say what the Indians use the tree for?”

Maria wiped sweat from her brow. Guiana was warm even in December. “Not clearly. But the wood is used in the construction of ships and docks, and the bark to make some sort of febrifuge. Probably tastes vile.”

“Isn’t that something that the physicians insist on?” asked Maurício. “Don’t they figure that the worse a medicine tastes, the better it is?”