The Gilded Fan (Choc Lit) (15 page)

Midori knew what he’d intended, but had he succeeded? Nico had said nothing had happened, but what if he’d been trying to spare her from learning the truth? She needed to know for sure. With determination, she sat up and removed her clothes to check for signs of violation, but didn’t find any. There was slight bruising to her upper body, but nothing anywhere else. The relief was so great, she burst into tears.

Nico came in time. He saved me.

Midori hadn’t cried since she was a little girl, but now the tears came pouring out in a great, unstoppable torrent. Huge, painful sobs racked her body, and in her weakened state she let them have their way. It was all too much and her mother would have said it was cleansing.
Oh, Mother, if only you were here to guide me …

When the tears dried up at last, Midori tried to think rationally.
Samurai
women were expected to kill themselves if their chastity was so much as threatened. If she had still been in Japan, Midori knew she would have been expected to take her own life, since her honour was now gone. In fact, she should have turned the knife on herself immediately, instead of trying to harm Barker with it. But her only thought at the time had been to hurt him.

‘I fought as best I could,’ she muttered. ‘But not even Father could have expected me to beat four men on my own and they didn’t fight fair.’ Although, as she well knew, that wasn’t the point.

There was only one thing to do.
Hara-kiri
.

With gritted teeth, she made herself stand up and seek out her swords. After checking that the blades were honed to perfection as always, she sat down on top of her bunk, cross-legged, and put the two swords neatly by her side. They gleamed and shimmered in the dazzling sunlight streaming in through the tiny portholes. She felt as if they were trying to encourage her with their shining beauty, saying, ‘Look at us, we’re your friends, we will help you to do the deed quickly.’ She took deep breaths to steady her nerves, and tried to clear her mind of everything except thoughts of what she must do, what honour required her to do.

She wrapped a cloth round the blade of the shorter sword and took a firm grip on it about halfway down, then slowly undid her garments and bared her taut stomach. Then she pushed the tip of the sword into the smooth skin until she knew it couldn’t go any further without piercing the flesh.

But I don’t want to die.

The treacherous thought came out of nowhere, startling her, interrupting her measured breathing and making her heart thump painfully. When she looked down again, she saw a drop of blood trickle out of a small wound and realised she must have jumped as well, but she hadn’t felt anything. She tried to analyse her emotions, tried to make sense of her unwillingness to do what she knew was right. After a while, she came to the conclusion she wasn’t afraid of dying as such, nor even of the pain this would entail, but she simply wasn’t ready. She hadn’t finished living.

That’s no excuse. No one has ever finished with life when their time comes. Everyone wants to stay alive just that little bit longer.

And yet, she knew she wasn’t prepared for this, the ultimate act.

A small, insidious voice whispered inside her brain, giving her the perfect excuse as to why she shouldn’t commit
hara-kiri –
or
seppuku
as it was also known.
My fellow countrymen didn’t want me. Why then should I follow their rules?
Besides, had her chastity really been threatened, or was she overreacting? Suicide on such shaky grounds seemed a bit too drastic a step. Another thought occurred to her –
samurai
women were only supposed to commit
hara-kiri
with the permission of their clan leader. As she didn’t have anyone here to authorise it, surely she ought to wait?

She closed her eyes and put the blade aside. It was a dilemma, and one she couldn’t solve without a lot of thought. She decided the best thing to do for the moment was to bide her time and see what the future brought.

January 1642

A day later, just as the new year began, the
Zwarte Zwaan
left the harbour in convoy with a fleet of other homeward-bound merchantmen. All were heavily loaded with exotic goods and, in case anyone should dare to attack them, they were escorted by a couple of warships. It wasn’t long before they cleared the Straits of Sunda and reached the open sea. Midori felt an intense sense of relief, as if in leaving Batavia behind she also left the bad memories, but the thought that Barker was still with them niggled at her mind.

‘The cap’n will deal with him in his own time,’ Harding had told her. ‘Let ’im stew for a while first.’

She tried not to think about it, and instead concentrated her energies on making Jochem better. To her delight, he responded well to the remedy de Jong had concocted out of the herbs she’d bought. After that, they merely had to help the boy regain his strength with nourishing broths and the fresh fruit which was available at the beginning of the journey. Jochem was soon on his feet again, back to his normal, bouncy self. He did his best to take her mind off things, and she was grateful to both him and Harding.

Three days into the voyage, Nico came to knock on her cabin door and when she opened it he came straight to the point, looking very solemn. ‘Do you want to be present when we mete out justice to your abductors?’

Midori managed to keep her face expressionless, even though her stomach flipped over uncomfortably at the thought of having to face Barker. ‘Yes, of course. You mean now?’

‘Yes, but if you’d rather not, I will understand. It might be … too unpleasant.’ His eyes searched hers as if he was making sure this was what she really wanted.

‘I need to be there. If you could just give me a moment to ready myself?’

He nodded. ‘I’ll wait for you on deck.’

Harding escorted her and stood very close to her side, as if trying to imbue her with his strength. Midori appreciated this gesture, although she didn’t consider it necessary. It was her duty to watch these proceedings, and she thought seeing Barker punished might help her to combat the nightmares which continued to plague her. She schooled her expression into one of outward calm and watched as Barker and his friends were brought up from the hold, blinking against the piercing sunlight.

A bedraggled individual was dragged forward and Midori realised that it was Abe Jessop. She had thought a lot about his perfidy in leading her to Barker, but she’d come to the conclusion he’d only acted under duress. She remembered something Barker had said which indicated he had a hold over his crony.

‘Well, Jessop, and have you thought of anything you would like to tell us?’ Nico barked at him in English. ‘Remember what I said to you?’

Jessop nodded and darted a look of fear at Barker, who was pretending indifference, although Midori noticed he was shaking slightly.

Nico continued in Dutch for the benefit of the rest of the crew. Jochem, who was on her other side, translated for Midori in whispers. ‘We are gathered today to see that justice is done. This lady,’ Nico indicated Midori, ‘was abducted and badly treated, and I have asked Jessop here to give us his version of events. Proceed, please.’

Jessop wet his lips and cleared his throat several times. ‘I, er, that’s to say, uhm, he …’ he nodded towards Barker, ‘was sure the lady would leave the ship at some point and he made plans to … to abduct her, because he wanted to have some s-sport with her.’ His voice cracked and he had to clear his throat once more.

‘Go on,’ Nico said.

‘Barker said as how he’d hit on a really good idea. I was to try and lure her into the Chinamen’s area of town, to a place we’d been before.’ Jessop took a deep breath before continuing. ‘He and the others went on ahead.’

Nico, visibly impatient, interrupted at this point. ‘Very well. The lady was then abducted and taken to an opium den, is that correct?’ Jessop nodded, while Barker spat nonchalantly on deck, as if the entire proceedings were of no interest to him whatsoever. One of his guards cuffed him hard. ‘What happened next?’ Nico asked Jessop.

‘We helped Barker force the lady to smoke a pipe of opium, sir. She … she tried to defend herself and fought something fierce, but we held her down. I didn’t want to, honest, but I owed Barker money and he threatened me and … After that, you came,’ Jessop finished lamely, his shoulders slumped, as if in defeat.

‘Nothing else occurred?’ Nico frowned. ‘Was the lady mistreated in any other way?’

‘Not that I saw, but then again, Barker did carry her off to a back room, though he can’t have been there more’n a few moments when you arrived.’

Barker, who had been standing docilely between his guards until that moment, suddenly sprang to life. Before anyone had time to react, he managed to snatch a knife out of the belt of the nearest guard and then made a dive for Jessop. The man stood stock still, his expression that of a petrified animal. Barker, obviously expecting some resistance, feinted to the left and came up behind Jessop, who still hadn’t moved. With the knife at Jessop’s throat, Barker hissed, ‘I want you to lower the dinghy now or I kill him. Abe and I are leaving, understand?’

‘We’re three days out of Batavia. Where do you think you’re going in a rowing boat?’ Nico asked. He sounded calm, although Midori saw a muscle twitch in his jaw, as if he was keeping himself under tight control.

‘I don’t care! Anywhere’s better than dancin’ at the end of a rope here on account o’ that whore of yours.’ He nodded towards Midori, who sent him what she hoped was a fierce glare.

‘Who said you were going to be hanged?’ Nico took a step towards Barker. ‘You haven’t killed anyone, so the cat-o’-nine-tails seems a more appropriate punishment. Now give me that knife and accept your fate like a man. You’ll die on the open sea otherwise.’

‘D-do as he s-says, John, please,’ Jessop begged. ‘I’d rather s–stay here and be flogged.’

‘Fool! You think we’d survive the cat?’ He glared at Nico. ‘He’ll not stop till we’re good and dead.’

‘Y-yes, he would. He’s a fair man.’ Finding some courage at last, Jessop drove his right elbow into Barker’s gut and tried to twist away from the knife. But Barker managed to grab hold of Jessop’s left arm and pulled him back.

‘Traitor!’ he shouted. ‘Mewling, lily-livered worm!’ Then, without the slightest hesitation, Barker sank the knife into the smaller man’s back.

A collective gasp was heard from the crew as Jessop froze, made a gurgling noise, then sank slowly down into a lifeless heap. Blood flowed freely, staining both the victim and his murderer, as well as the deck planking. Nico took his chance and before Barker could retrieve the knife, he ran full tilt at the man and knocked into his shoulder. Off balance, Barker stumbled and Nico hit him square on the chin. The blackguard was quickly overpowered and Nico bent over Jessop’s body with a muttered oath. ‘He’s dead,’ he said, unnecessarily.

A murmuring broke out among the crew and there were shouts of ‘hang him’ and ‘keelhaul the whoreson’. Jochem tried his best to keep up with his translations, but the words came out rapidly and disjointed, making it difficult for Midori to follow. She gathered that, although telling tales was never encouraged among the men, outright murder was a different matter altogether. It couldn’t be tolerated.

‘You think I care?’ Barker shouted defiantly, glaring at Nico with hatred in his eyes. ‘You was goin’ to kill me anyway for darin’ to touch your precious whore.’ He spat once more. ‘Well, I’m glad I had her, and I hope you rot in hell the pair of you!’

Midori drew in a steadying breath and told herself the man was saying such things out of sheer desperation. The words ‘I had her’ stuck in her mind, however, and echoed round and round inside her brain, even though she knew them to be false. The mere thought of such a thing turned her stomach.

Nico’s mouth thinned, but he didn’t reply. Instead he turned to the crew and asked, ‘Are we all agreed this was cold-blooded murder of the worst kind?’ A resounding ‘
Ja
!’ acknowledged the truth of this. ‘Very well, fetch me some ropes.’

These were soon found and Barker brought forward. He raised his neck in yet another gesture of defiance, but the expected noose didn’t descend over his head. Instead, at a nod from Nico, Jessop’s body was raised up by two men to stand face to face with Barker, who swore and tried to jerk away. ‘What the hell? What are you …?’

‘Stand still. You will die with your victim, as is the custom,’ Nico said.

‘How? What? No! No, you can’t … you whoresons!’

The ropes were wound round Barker and the corpse tied securely to him while still leaving the legs free. Barker began to spout obscenities and thrashed around, trying in vain to wriggle away from such close proximity to his victim. He only succeeded in smearing more blood on himself.

‘Shut up.’ One of the guards cuffed him again, but it had no effect. He continued to shout imprecations.

‘Attach the other rope, then throw him overboard. There should be more than enough blood to attract the sharks before Barker has time to drown.’

Nico’s orders were executed immediately and Jessop’s body hung like a dead weight on his murderer, whose shouting was growing hoarse.

‘Does anyone have anything to add?’ Nico called out. No one replied. ‘Then let’s get it over with.’

It took four men to manoeuvre Barker to the railing and throw him over. The assembled crew ran to that side of the ship, craning to see what would happen next. Midori stayed where she was. She didn’t want to witness the gruesome spectacle of Barker being pulled along next to the ship. The sharks were never far away and it would all be over in seconds in any case. For her, it was enough that he was gone.

‘That was too quick for ’im,’ Midori heard Harding mutter soon after, but she didn’t care. The only thing which mattered was that Barker couldn’t hurt her again.

Nico’s voice spoke from just behind her. ‘Do you want to stay for the flogging of the other culprits?’

‘No, thank you. I’ve seen enough.’ She turned to look him in the eye. ‘I believe they may have only acted out of fear of Barker, so perhaps some leniency would be in order?’

Nico nodded. ‘I’ve already thought of that. They’ll only be given a few strokes of the lash, enough to teach them a lesson. Let us hope that’s the end of the matter.’

Not long afterwards, he came and knocked on her cabin door again and when she opened it, he came inside and shut it behind him. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked, putting his hands on her shoulders, staring at her intently.

Midori nodded, but her body was shivering with delayed reaction and he must have noticed straight away. Without a word, he pulled her into his arms and stroked her back in a soothing rhythm while she closed her eyes and gave in to the momentary weakness. It felt so good to be held like that, so safe. She breathed in his unique scent – he smelled of sea, salty breezes, man and some sort of sandalwood soap. For some reason she found it almost intoxicating and she stored away the memory of it deep inside her mind.

‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t know what’s come over me.’

‘It’s natural you should feel upset. I’m only surprised it’s taken this long,’ he murmured. ‘But it’s over. He can’t hurt you again.’

‘He didn’t actually do anything to me; that was a lie.’ She felt compelled to tell him that, in order to clear her tainted honour somewhat.

‘I’m glad. I didn’t believe him anyway.’

They stood like that for a long time, until at last the shivering stopped and Midori started to feel calmer. ‘Thank you, Nico,’ she said, and pulled away slightly. She had drawn strength from his nearness, but she knew she had to put some distance between them again or she might be tempted to do more than hold him.

‘You’re welcome.’ He bent to place a swift kiss on her cheek, then looked at her once more. ‘Will you be all right now?’

‘Yes.’ And she knew this time she spoke the truth.

Nico deliberately kept away from Midori for over a week to give her time to recover, but finally he couldn’t stand it any longer. He had to see her, had to make sure she was still all right. When he knocked on her cabin door and gave her the agreed password, she opened it, looking slightly wary.

‘Are you well?’ he asked, immediately concerned by her pallor and the way she hesitated before letting him enter. Before, she’d always seemed eager to see him and he had thought she’d enjoyed their discussions as much as he did.

‘Yes, thank you. It’s just … you haven’t visited for a while so I thought perhaps I’d done something wrong.’

A slight blush stained her cheeks and Nico gathered she was referring to the embrace they’d shared. At the time he had only wanted to comfort her, but he couldn’t deny he’d enjoyed holding her and maybe he’d held her a little too closely. That wasn’t her fault, though.

‘No, of course not. I just wanted to give you time to recover from your ordeal.’

‘I see.’ An expression of relief flitted briefly across her features. ‘That was kind, but there is nothing wrong with me now, apart from my tainted honour, of course …’ She broke off, seemingly mortified at blurting this out. ‘Oh dear, I’m turning into a
gai-jin
in more ways than one,’ she muttered. ‘Please, forget I said that.’

Nico regarded her with his head slightly tilted to one side. ‘Tainted honour? Is that how your countrymen would see it? I’m afraid I don’t agree and besides, you’re not in Japan now. You are on board my ship, where my word is law.’ He smiled and took her hands in his, squeezing them. ‘Forget what happened, Midori. It’s over with.’

She nodded and he noticed her trembling as the slight contact between them sent shockwaves up his arms. He tried to ignore it. She was a beautiful woman and it wasn’t to be wondered at if he reacted to her. Any normal man would. That was all there was to it.
She’s not for me. At least not here, not now.

‘You’re right. I’m on my way to a completely new life, where I’ll no doubt have to change my way of thinking in more ways than one.’ She gave him a small, slightly wistful, smile that tugged at his heartstrings and made him want to pull her close again. He resisted the urge.