A Flower for the Queen: A Historical Novel (17 page)

Masson looked at Thunberg. “How on earth did he know where to go?”

“It’s not like he sat down to tell me his life’s story,” continued Pieterszoon. “All I know is that he has two wagons and more than enough horses to pull them. Horses, I tell you! Who the hell takes horses into that country? They might be slow, but everyone knows that oxen are the only way to go! Why is it that you young fellows are always in such a hurry? Anyway, he also had a dozen or so slaves, an Englishman and that other bastard, Willmer, was with him, too.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t invite them in for dinner,” Thunberg said sarcastically.

The old man prickled with indignation. “Oh, and he insisted I notarise a contract between himself and someone called Forster. I asked him why he couldn’t come during office hours like everyone else, but he said he was in a rush and that he would make it worth my while if I would accommodate him.”

Pieterszoon seemed ready to explode. “Can you imagine the cheek of that little sneak? Trying to bribe me, the bloody Landdrost? Heavens above, whatever next?”

“So I assume you told him to come back later?” asked Thunberg rhetorically.

“Don’t be stupid, Thunberg. If he wants to throw money around, then who am I to stand in his way? I put on my hat, signed his permit, notarised his contract and off he went.”

“Do you remember the name of the Englishman who was with him?” asked Masson, who was still standing in the pantry doorway.

“Of course. Some frail youngster by the name of Burnette. If you ask me, he won’t last five minutes out there.”

“Are you sure?” replied Masson incredulously.

“Listen, my boy, I might be corrupt, but I’m not senile. I’ve been around long enough to know who’s who and what’s what!”

Thunberg cut in, “Schelling’s found himself a partner. Even if they do discover the flower, he would need someone with Forster’s credentials to bypass Banks and get it to the King. They must have made a deal to go into business together — Forster’s connections in exchange for Cook’s report.”

Masson was catching on. “If Forster did get the flower to the King, it would also give him the credibility he needed to rebut Cook’s report. He could turn disaster into triumph. But they would have to do it quickly, before Cook returned.”

“But where does Burnette fit in?”

Masson thought for a moment. “Burnette is a botanist. Schelling probably wanted to take someone along who could be trusted to keep the plants alive.”

“Look, this is all fascinating stuff,” interrupted Pieterszoon. “But in case you two blockheads haven’t noticed, it’s bloody early, and there are other things I would rather be doing. Speaking of which — say, uh, Thunberg …” He paused and cleared his throat. “Do you think I could have some more of that stuff you gave me for the, ah, you know?” The old man cleared his throat a second time and looked meaningfully at Thunberg, who hesitated for a moment before coming to the old man’s rescue.

“Oh, the
Anthericum
? But of course! Anything for you, my dear Hendrik. We can’t have you unable to perform your duties, now can we?”

Thunberg went and fetched a small jar of brownish-coloured powder from his room. Upon returning, he crouched down so that he was eye-to-eye with Pieterszoon, holding the jar just out of reach of the old man’s eager hands. “Now, Hendrik, this is the last of my supply. I could get more, but to do that, I would need …”

“What did you have in mind?” the Landdrost asked, reaching out for the jar.

“I would need a pass to the east country for my friend Mr Masson, who has agreed to draw all the specimens that I collect.”

“Yes, yes, of course. I’ll sign one right away!”

“We would also need one or two things for the expedition. You know, supplies and oxen. On second thought, horses would be better — we’ll never catch up with Schelling’s crowd if we use oxen. We would also need a cart — that one you brought in from Cape Town last week would be perfect.”

Thunberg handed the jar to the old man, who clutched it to his breast as if it were treasure. “You can have anything except the cart! And I told you — only a fool takes horses to the frontier country. After what you did the last time, I’d be the fool to lend you either. No way, Thunberg, not for all the potions in the world!”

As the dawn broke over the Hottentots-Holland Mountains, bathing the farms and vineyards of the Stellenbosch Valley in a golden light that reflected off of the morning mist, Thunberg and Masson rode behind Eulaeus, who sat in the driver’s seat of Pieterszoon’s brand-new cart. A fine pair of carthorses trotted ahead at a clip; a pair of spare horses, tethered and lightly loaded, brought up the rear.

“There are two routes that could take us to Two Rivers,” Thunberg said, breaking the silence. “The one that Schelling will probably take sticks to the coastal plain, where — for the most part — there’s plenty of fresh water and grazing for the horses. Plus there are farmsteads along the way where he can billet in comfort for the night and refresh his supplies. The problem for us is that even if we do manage to catch up and overtake him, he’s sure to get wind of us as he comes up behind, either from passing traffic or from the farmers along the way — we won’t be able to avoid them all. Our only hope is to hang back until we get close to Two Rivers, and then we can strike inland and circle around, outflanking him so that we get there before he does.”

Masson thought it over. “Isn’t there a faster way?”

Thunberg shook his head. “The last time I made this journey was with a team of six oxen, and it took almost four months to get there and back. With the horses we may be able to cut that in half, but that’s assuming we don’t—”

“I know, I know,” Masson cut in wearily. “That’s assuming we don’t run into gangs of escaped criminals, wild animals, marauding Khoikhoi or the odd runaway slave here and there.”

Thunberg smiled. “I believe you’re beginning to get into the spirit of things.”

They continued on in silence. Just after they had lost sight of Stellenbosch, Thunberg asked Eulaeus to pull the horses onto a side trail, which they followed for a short while before arriving at a farmhouse, where Thunberg dismounted.

“What are we doing here? Surely we want to be getting on our way?” whispered Masson.

“You’re not the only one in need of good spirits. I won’t be long.”

Thunberg walked up the gravel path to a front door that was set within an imposing whitewashed façade boasting the characteristic graceful gables of most homes in the region. After calling out and knocking, he let himself in and closed the door behind him, leaving Masson to stew in his juices whilst Eulaeus sat patiently, swatting at the flies that buzzed around the horses’ rumps.

A few moments later, Thunberg emerged from the house. He was followed by several servants who looked around furtively as they carried over half a dozen crates and loaded them onto the back of the cart. Thunberg thanked the men for their help, and after waving at the farmer who had appeared at the front door, the trio set off again, the crates making a tell-tale tinkling noise as they bumped along the track.

“Is that wine in those crates?” asked Masson, incredulously.

“Not just any wine, Mr Masson. That is the VOC’s own reserve from their estate at Constantia. If we were to be caught with it, we would probably be flogged, but given our circumstances, I thought we may as well take the risk.”

“I was rather looking forward to roughing it,” Masson said, trying to sound disappointed.

“There is fine line between rough and intolerable. My only condition for accompanying you on this ridiculous errand is that if that line is to be blurred, then it should only be done under the influence the finest wine that the Cape has to offer. Besides, if French Huguenots had to escaped oppression so that they could come here and plant their vines to make wine, then the least that we can do to salute their courage and ingenuity is to partake of the fruits of their labours!”

They joined the main track as they approached False Bay during the afternoon,, passing by the slave village before the road turned and made its way towards the enormous bulk of the Hottentots-Holland Mountains that jutted out and formed the eastern flank of the bay.

When the incline of the path increased sharply, Masson looked up at the track that lay before them and the pangs of fear that were by now becoming a familiar sensation settled into the pit of his stomach. Rusted and broken debris from numerous wagons and carts that had been destroyed in attempting to ascend or descend the pass littered the ground.

Thunberg caught Masson’s gaze and tried to reassure him. “I wouldn’t worry too much. They say that half the wagons passing through here make it with hardly any damage at all.”

Masson and Thunberg dismounted and whilst Masson led his and Thunberg’s mounts up the pass ahead of the cart, Thunberg and Eulaeus guided the reluctant carthorses on foot.

With perspiration pouring down their faces, Thunberg and Eulaeus strained against the incline and the stubbornness of the horses.

“Just remember that this is the fast way!” Thunberg called out as Masson began to wonder if it might not be easier to walk the six hundred miles to Two Rivers instead.

After toiling for most of the afternoon, they reached the summit and stopped to take a moment to look back on what they had just achieved. Beyond the treacherous pass — which seemed so much worse looking down that it had looking up — Masson could see the full sweep of False Bay, from the setting of the sun behind the mountains of the Cape Peninsula at its far end to the cluster of slave houses in the village that lay at the foot of the pass.

Having lived most of his life in the flat Kent countryside, Masson had never been so high up, and he was unaccustomed to seeing so much landscape at one time. Exhausted by the climb and overwhelmed by the scale of the vista and the feeling of vertigo that came with it, he sat down on a rock and closed his eyes, hoping that being closer to the ground would restore his equilibrium.

A while later, when he opened his eyes again, the sunset had given way to night, although the moon had not yet risen. Apart from tiny pinpricks of light that spilled from the windows of the houses in the village below, it was as if a giant shroud of darkness had fallen from the sky and rubbed out the landscape.

As Masson cast his eyes to the heavens, he saw a huge expanse of stars, the likes of which he had never seen.

But his awe and wonder were tainted by confusion and doubt. The sky that was familiar to him had been replaced by an alien firmament devoid of the constellations he knew so well, without which he could tell neither east from west nor north from south.

Unsettled and disoriented, he couldn’t help but think back to Schelling’s words: that a man alone does not survive in Africa. He turned away from the inky blackness that cloaked the bay and made his way to the camp that Thunberg and Eulaeus had pitched by the side of the track. As he drew closer to the warm glow of the small fire, the doubts that had begun to settle in his heart gave way to hope as he realised that he was not alone after all.

When Masson woke in the morning, the pains in his body bore testament to the effort that he had expended in making it over the top of the Kloof.

The new light of dawn found the small group on the eastern edge of a shallow basin about ten miles across and bounded on all sides by crumbling outcrops of light grey sandstone. The land within the basin was a verdant, gently undulating plain, strewn with weathered and crumbling boulders made of the same stuff as the outcrops that defined its rim.

Zebras and antelope stood stoically against the strong wind that blew over the basin’s seaward edge and rippled across the low scrubby brush that carpeted the plain.

Soon after setting off, they found that the cart was struggling over the rocky track, so Masson and Thunberg rode up to higher ground to see if they could spot Schelling’s party. When they couldn’t, Masson suggested pressing on at full speed, but Thunberg managed to convince him that they would be better off pacing themselves; nothing would be gained from straining the horses or the cart.

“We’re less heavily laden than they are, and they have a day’s head start on us at the most. The difficulty will not be in catching them, but in staying far enough behind so that they do not notice us,” Thunberg said, ending the debate.

With nothing to see except the faint line of the wagon track striking out towards the horizon, Thunberg told Eulaeus to go on ahead at his own speed.

Forced into accepting that the speed of events was, at least for the moment, outside of his control, Masson stopped looking for Schelling’s dust trail and when he did, he found an undiscovered world at his feet.

He realised now that walking along the shores of False Bay had been like summarising the growing beds at Kew that he knew so well, whilst the land in which he now walked presented him with something altogether different.

At a distance, the vegetation had seemed uniform and dull, but as they descended from the western ridge and moved deeper into the plain, with their heads bowed against the buffeting wind, Masson saw that between the rocks and at the base of the scrub, protected from the wind, there grew a myriad of flowering plants, none of which he recognised.

Thunberg pointed out the species that he had already collected, explaining their uses and telling Masson the names that the locals had given them. But such was the variety and array of plants that even Thunberg had to concede that there were many that he had not classified.

At every point Masson found something new. He turned to Thunberg, who was likewise engrossed, and shouted above the roar of the wind, “This must be the richest mountain in Africa!”

“It’s only the beginning,” Thunberg replied. “But with that sun and this wind, it might be your last! We can’t have you lying on the back of the cart laid low by heat stroke all the way to Two Rivers. Let’s get under some shade.”

After catching up to Eulaeus, they stopped to rest the horses and bivouacked off the side of the cart, sharing a modest lunch of biscuits and dried apricots washed down with some of the wine. While Eulaeus broke camp, the two men pressed the specimens they had collected into their journals.