Читать книгу The Tiger’s Prey - Уилбур Смит, Wilbur Smith - Страница 6

The Dowager was carrying too much canvas. A warm monsoon breeze whipped the ocean into white peaks that glittered in the sun that shone from a sapphire sky. Her sails bulged, topsails and topgallants straining fit to snap their sheets. Her hull, heavy-laden, wallowed in the high waves rolling across the Indian Ocean. She was running for her life.

Her master, Josiah Inchbird, stood on the quarterdeck and looked astern at the ship following them. She’d appeared at dawn, long and low and sleek as a ravenous wolf. Red-painted gun ports chequered her black hull. She was gaining on them.

He checked the clouds of canvas flying overhead. The wind had stiffened; and the sails were straining at their seams. He dared not fly much more without risking disaster. On the other hand, disaster was certain if he did not take that risk.

‘Mr Evans,’ he hailed his mate. ‘All hands to set staysails.’

Evans, a hollow-eyed Welshman in his late thirties, glanced up at the sails and frowned. ‘In this breeze, sir? She can’t take much more.’

‘Damn you, Mr Evans, but you’ll get those sails bent on now. I’ll hang our laundry from the yards if it’ll get us another half a knot.’

Inchbird had spent twenty years sailing these oceans, working his way gradually up to command while lesser men with better connections had overhauled him at every turn. He’d survived voyages when half the crew had been buried over the side in their hammocks, in the pestilential ports of India and the Spice Islands. He wasn’t going to jeopardize his ship now.

‘What are you doing?’

A woman’s voice, calm and authoritative, cut across the quarterdeck. Some of the crew paused, halfway up the ratlines. After three weeks at sea, the sight of a woman on the quarterdeck was still a spectacle they enjoyed.

Inchbird bit back the curse that rose naturally to his lips. ‘Senhora Duarte. This doesn’t concern you. It is better if you remain below decks.’

She glanced up at the sails. Her long dark hair blew out in the wind, framing a smooth olive-skinned face. Her body was so slim that it seemed a strong gust might have whipped her overboard. Yet Inchbird knew from bitter experience that she was not so frail.

‘Of course it concerns me,’ she said. ‘If you lose this ship, we all will die.’

The men were still watching from the rigging. Evans, the mate, lashed out with his starter. ‘Get on with it, lads, or you’ll feel the bite of my rope end.’

Reluctantly, they began to move again. Inchbird felt his authority ebbing away as the woman stared him down.

‘Get below,’ he ordered. ‘Do I have to tell you what pirates will do to ladies they capture?’

‘Deck there,’ called the lookout in the crosstrees. ‘She’s running up her colours.’ Then, so loud they all heard it on deck, ‘Sweet Jesus.’

He didn’t have to say any more. They could all see it: the black flag snapping from their enemy’s mainmast and, a second later, the red flag at her fore.

‘No quarter!’ was the warning it gave them.

On the Fighting Cock, Captain Jack Legrange watched the flags snap taut in the breeze and grinned hungrily. They’d been shadowing the merchantman for three days, ever since they sighted her off Madagascar. She’d sailed late in the season, missing the convoys that most ships used as protection against the pirates who infested the Indian Ocean. The breeze had backed in the night and he’d crowded on more sail, betting that his ship could sail closer to the wind than the fat merchantman. The wager had paid off: they were now only a league or so back, and closing fast.

He looked down the length of his ship. She had started life as a Bristol slaver, plying the route from East Africa to the colonies in America and the Caribbean. Legrange had been first mate – until, one day, the master discovered him stealing and had him flogged. Next night, with the blood still soaking through his bandages, he’d led a gang from the forecastle and hanged the captain from his own yardarm. Then they’d sailed the ship to a deserted cove, where they’d cut down her forecastle and quarterdeck, stripped out all her partitions and bulkheads, and pierced a dozen new gun ports on either side. They’d sold the healthy slaves for a profit, saving a few of the prettiest for their own amusement; the unhealthy ones had gone over the side weighted with a length of chain – together with the ship’s officers, and all the crew who refused to join them. Now she was a man-of-war in all but name, a hunter that could prey on anything except the largest Indiamen.

‘Run out the bow chasers,’ he ordered. ‘See if she goes faster with a slap on the arse.’

‘If she crowds on any more sail, she’ll lose her topmasts,’ said the mate beside him.

Legrange smiled. ‘Exactly!’

His men started loading the bow chasers; long thirty-two pounders mounted either side of the ship’s prow. The gunner fetched an iron brazier from below and lit the coals to heat shot. They wanted the prize and her cargo intact – but if she threatened to outrun them, Legrange would rather see her burned to the waterline than escape.

‘What about that one, Cap’n?’ asked the mate.

Far off on the starboard quarter, another sail danced against the horizon. Legrange found her with his spyglass and she leaped into focus. She was a sloop; a lean, flush-decked vessel flying along under topsails and jibs. He could see her crew gathered at the rail, watching and pointing. One man was holding a telescope trained on the Fighting Cock. Probably shitting his breeches, thought Legrange, and thanking God the pirate had a richer prize to prey on; for the moment at least.

He chuckled, and lowered the telescope. ‘We’ll finish our business with the Indiaman first. Then we’ll catch up with that sloop and see what trade she has on board for us. But she won’t trouble us for now.’

Tom Courtney lowered his telescope. The pirate ship, with her black and red flags billowing from her mastheads, receded to a diminutive shape on the horizon.

‘The merchantman is piling on more sail,’ he observed. ‘She might outrun them yet.’

Light flashed from the pirate’s bow. A second later, they heard the dull clap of cannon-fire roll across the water.

‘Still out of range,’ said the man standing beside Tom, as a plume of water rose a few cables back from the merchantman’s stern. He was taller than Tom, his shoulders bunched with muscle as he moved. A pattern of scars covered his black face with raised whorls and ridges, the ritual marks of the African tribe into which he had been born. He had known Tom since he was a small boy – and his father, Hal, before that. Yet his ebony skin betrayed not a wrinkle, and not a single grey hair showed on his shaved cranium.

‘Not for long, Aboli. She has at least a couple of knots on that fat sow.’

‘The merchant would have been wiser to surrender. We know what pirates do to those who resist them.’

Tom glanced behind him. Two women sat under the awning on the foredeck, making no attempt to hide the fact they were listening to every word the men said.

‘I suppose we ought to leave the merchant to her fate,’ he said dubiously.

Aboli knew what he was thinking. ‘Forty guns to our twelve,’ he warned. ‘And at least twice as many more men.’

‘It would be foolhardy to get involved.’

One of the women on the foredeck stood and put her hands on her hips, her blue eyes glinting. She was not conventionally beautiful: her mouth was too wide, her chin too strong and her flawless skin had been tanned a golden brown by the tropical sun. But there was a vivid, living quality to her, a lithe energy in her body and intelligence in her face that had smitten Tom the first moment he laid eyes on her.

‘Don’t be a ninny, Tom Courtney,’ she declared. ‘You really aren’t going to leave those poor blighters to be murdered by pirates?’ She snatched the spyglass from Tom and put it to her eye. ‘I do believe there’s a woman on board. You know what will happen to her if the pirates take the ship.’

Tom shared a glance with the man at the helm. ‘What do you think, Dorry?’

Dorian Courtney frowned. The two men were brothers, though few would have guessed it. His skin had been tanned deep brown by years spent in the Arabian deserts. He wore a green turban wound about his red hair, and a pair of loose sailor’s trousers with a curved dagger stuck in the belt.

‘It doesn’t sit well with me either.’ He said it lightly, but they all knew the bitter experience that lay beneath his words. At the age of eleven, he had been captured by Arab pirates and sold into slavery. It had taken Tom ten years to find him again, ten years in which he had believed him dead. Meanwhile, Dorian had been adopted by a benevolent prince of Muscat, and become a warrior in his household. When Tom and Dorian finally met again, in the wilderness of East Africa, Tom had not even recognized him. They had come within inches of killing each other.

‘It will not be easy, Klebe,’ warned Aboli. Klebe was his nickname for Tom; it meant hawk in the language of his tribe. Aboli had his own reasons for hating slavers. Some years earlier, he had taken two wives from the Lozi tribe, Zete and Falla, who had born him six children. While Aboli was away on a trading expedition, Arab slavers had fallen on the village and captured its people. They had taken as slaves Zete and Falla and his two eldest sons, and killed all the infants. Four of Aboli’s baby sons and daughters had had their brains dashed out against a tree trunk, for they were too young to be worth taking on the forced march to the slave-trading ports on the East Coast.

Aboli and Tom had hunted them across Africa, following the trail beyond exhaustion. When they overtook them, they freed Zete and Falla, with their two surviving sons, and took savage vengeance on the slave traders. The boys, Zama and Tula, were now grown almost to manhood, as imposing as their father though as yet without his ritual facial scarring. Tom knew they were desperate to earn the right to wear them.

‘That merchantman’s heavy laden,’ said Dorian, as if it had only just occurred to him. ‘That’s a good cargo to collect a salvage fee on.’

Aboli was already priming his pistol. ‘You know what your father would have said.’

‘Do good to all men, but at the end remember to collect your fee.’ Tom laughed. ‘Nonetheless, I do not like going into battle with the ladies aboard.’

Sarah had disappeared below decks. Now she reappeared, carrying a gold-hilted sword, with a blue sapphire sparkling in the pommel.

‘Are you going to wear this Tom Courtney, or must I do so myself?’ she demanded.

The crash of another shot rolled across the ocean. This time, they saw the ball tear a piece of carving off the merchantman’s stern.

‘Good God, Mrs Courtney, I think the pirates would rather abandon all the gold of the Great Mughal’s treasure fleet than defy your wishes. What do you say, Yasmini?’ He addressed this to the lovely sloe-eyed Arabian girl standing behind Sarah. She was Dorian’s wife, dressed in a simple full length dress and white headscarf.

‘A good wife obeys her husband in all things,’ she said demurely. ‘I shall prepare my medicine chest, for no doubt it will be needed before you are finished.’

Tom buckled on the blue sword – the Neptune sword. It had been his father’s, and his grandfather’s before that. But it had originally been presented to his great grandfather Charles Courtney by Sir Francis Drake after the sack of Rancheria on the Spanish Main. With that sword, Tom had been dubbed a Knight Nautonnier of the Temple of the Order of the Holy Grail, like his ancestors before him – and he had used it to send countless men to the deaths they so well deserved. It was made from the finest Toledo steel, and the supple weight of the blade was perfectly balanced by the star sapphire in the pommel.

Tom drew the blade from its scabbard, and rejoiced in the way the sunlight danced off the gold inlay.

‘Load the guns, Aboli. Double-shot them with partridge.’ The small lead balls would spread out in a cloud to wreak havoc on all that stood in their way. ‘Mr Wilson, bring her down three points to windward.’

The pirate’s bow chasers roared again. One ball went wide; the other tore off a piece of the stern carvings, throwing up a cloud of splinters. Warm blood rolled down Inchbird’s cheek from where one of them had pricked him.

‘They’re aiming for the masts.’ The pirate had altered course fractionally, angling herself so that the Dowager’s masts presented themselves all in a row, like ninepins.

‘That’s a difficult target from this distance,’ the mate demurred.

As if to give him the lie, a crack sounded from above. All eyes turned upwards – just in time to see a tangle of wood and canvas plummeting towards them. Men threw themselves aside. Some were too slow. The mizzen topmast struck the helmsman and shattered his skull. The ship started paying off to leeward. The topsail settled over the man’s body like a shroud.

‘Cut it away,’ Inchbird shouted. ‘We must free the steering.’ Men ran with axes and started chopping at the shattered spars.

Another shot drowned his words, and Inchbird staggered in the disrupted air as the cannon ball flew over the deck, a foot in front of his face. He could feel his ship slowing as she came off the wind, slewing around. Her hull shivered; sails cracked and ropes snapped.

By the wheel, the crew had cut the sail free and were hauling it away. The canvas came away bright with the helmsman’s blood. Beneath it, the wheel lay in splinters where the spar had struck it. It would take hours to rig a replacement, and they did not have that time.

Off the port beam, the pirate was closing fast, bearing off to come alongside. So close now, he could see the men gathered on her deck. Some brandished their cutlasses aloft; others carried long, wicked pikes.

Inchbird gritted his teeth. ‘Stand by to repel boarders.’

The Fighting Cock’s helmsman brought her alongside the Dowager. The men aloft reefed her sails, while the rest of the pirates massed at her side, balanced on her gunwale and clinging to her stays and shrouds. The ships knocked and rocked as their yardarms touched. Only a few feet of open water separated them now.

Legrange leaped up onto the rail. This was almost too easy, he thought complacently. Looking down onto the merchant’s deck, he could see it was deserted. Her crew must be below, frantically trying to hide their valuables. A wasted effort: he’d soon have them screaming, begging to tell him where they’d hidden every last dollar.

He raised the speaking trumpet. ‘Strike your colours and prepare to receive boarders.’

His men jeered. Legrange ran his eye along the row of the merchant’s guns, and saw that all of them had been abandoned. They’d make a useful addition to the Cock’s arsenal. Or, more likely, he could refit the Dowager and add her to his flotilla. With two ships, all the oceans would be his. He grinned wolfishly at the thought.

A flash of colour caught his eye: an orange glow, like sunlight gleaming on metal near the breech of one of the guns. He peered at it. It wasn’t sunlight. It was the flame of a burning slow-match worming its way into the touchhole. Quickly he scanned the row of cannons and his blood froze. Every gun was loaded and shotted, and aimed at him.

‘Get down,’ he bellowed. The unmanned guns crashed out a point-blank broadside, grape shot laced with carpenter’s nails that pulverized the bulwarks and cut down the front rank of his men in a chaos of blood and pulped human flesh. A cloud of splinters tore through the line of men standing close behind and threw them to the deck. The awful silence that followed was immediately shattered as the Dowager’s crew poured out of her hatches and companionway armed with muskets and pistols, clambering up on her quarterdeck to fire down on the survivors of the carnage. As quickly as the pirates clambered to their feet, musket balls knocked them down again. The Dowager’s crew cheered as the ships began to drift apart.

Legrange’s prize was slipping away. But the Fighting Cock had carried over two hundred men; the Dowager, even at full strength, had fewer than a hundred. For all the losses the pirates had suffered, they still outnumbered their prey. All they needed was courage.

With a howl of pure fury, Legrange grabbed the dangling end of a rope that had come loose in the broadside. Wrapping it around his wrist, pistol in his free hand, he clambered back onto the rail.

‘No quarter,’ he roared. He swung across the open water, through the smoke that still hung in the air, and landed on the Dowager’s deck. One of the sailors, seeing him coming, dropped his spent musket and reached for a sword. Legrange shot him point-blank in the face, discarded the pistol and drew another from his belt. Another sailor stumbled towards him. Legrange shot him too, then drew his sword.

All along the Dowager’s side, grappling irons and bare feet thudded onto the deck as Legrange’s men followed him aboard. Splashed with the blood and guts of their shipmates, they swung out of the smoke that choked the air. The Dowager’s crew was almost immediately overwhelmed. Even after the broadside, the pirates still heavily outnumbered them – and they were in a savage mood for what had just overtaken the rest of their crew. One by one, the Dowager’s crew were cut down, until only a small knot remained herded below on the poop deck.

Some of the pirates, seeing the battle won, ran below to begin the looting. The rest surrounded the Dowager’s men at the stern, prodding them with their cutlasses but making no effort to kill them. They knew their captain would want to take his time, to exact slow revenge for the defiance they had showed in resisting.

Legrange strode across the bloody deck, stepping over the corpses of the fallen. ‘Which of you is the captain?’ he demanded.

Inchbird shuffled forward. Blood soaked his shirt from a cut on his arm. ‘Josiah Inchbird. I am the master.’

Grabbing his shoulder, Legrange pulled him forward and threw him to the deck. ‘You should have surrendered,’ he hissed. ‘You made us work for it. You should not have done that.’

He pulled the knife from his belt and pressed the blade against Inchbird’s cheek. ‘I’m going to skin you alive, and then I’ll feed your guts to the sharks while you watch them eat.’

The men around him laughed. Inchbird squirmed and pleaded.

‘We’ve spices and calicos from Madras in the hold, and pepper in the ballast. Take it all.’

Legrange leaned closer. ‘Oh, I will, you can be sure of that. I’ll pull your ship apart, every plank and bulkhead, and find every last dollar you’ve hidden. But I’m not going to punish you for that, but for your defiance and for what you did to my men.’

A commotion from the companionway distracted him. He turned around, as two of his men emerged from below decks dragging a prisoner between them. The men at the stern hooted and whistled as they saw it was a woman, clutching the neck of her dress where it had been torn open. They dropped her on her knees in front of Legrange.

‘We found her in the captain’s cabin, trying to hide these.’ One of the pirates opened his palm and let a handful of gold coins spill over the deck. The others whistled and cheered.

Legrange cupped her chin in his hands and lifted her face to force her to look at him. Dark eyes stared back at him, brimming with hatred and defiance. He’d soon change that, and he grinned happily at the thought.

‘Fetch me the brazier,’ he ordered. He pulled her up by her hair so she was forced to stand, then gave her a hefty shove. She stumbled backwards, tripped on a rope and sprawled on her back. Before she could move, four of the pirates pounced, spread-eagling her arms and legs and holding them down.

Legrange stepped over her. He slit open her skirts with the blade of his sword and his men spread them apart. The woman twisted and writhed, but the men had her pinned tight. Legrange pulled the skirts further apart, exposing her creamy thighs, and the dark tuft of hair where they met. The men whooped and cheered.

He glanced at Inchbird. ‘Is she your wife? Your doxy?’

‘A passenger,’ grunted Inchbird. ‘Let her go, please sir.’

‘That will depend on the ride she gives me.’

Two men came with a brazier on an iron tripod. The coals glowed dully. He stirred them with the point of his sword until the steel glowed red. He lifted out the smoking blade and held it over her. He looked into her deep brown eyes. Now there was no defiance – only terror.

A thin smile curled his lips. He lowered the blade towards the junction of thighs, letting it hover inches from her womanhood. She’d gone very still, not daring to struggle for fear of touching the sword. Smoke rose from the glowing steel.

He darted it at her and she screamed, but it was a feint. He’d stopped the blade a hair’s breadth from her parted genital lips. He laughed. He hadn’t had this much fun since the last of the slave girls had died from his attentions.

‘Take it,’ she pleaded. ‘Take the cargo, the gold, anything you want.’

‘I will,’ Legrange promised her. ‘But first, I’ll take my pleasure.’ The tip of his sword had cooled. He plunged it back into the brazier until it glowed hotter than ever, then held it in front of her eyes. Sweat beaded on her forehead. ‘You see this? It won’t kill you, but it’ll make you hurt more than you ever thought was possible.’

‘Go to hell where you belong,’ she hissed at him.

Her defiance only whetted Legrange’s appetite. He liked a woman with spirit – so much more satisfying when she finally broke down. He licked his lips and tasted blood. From below decks, he heard shouts and the clash of arms, but he was too caught up in his sport to pay it any heed. Probably his men quarrelling over the loot. He would deal with them later.

He wiped his mouth with the back of his free hand and said softly, ‘I’m going to burn you, woman. I’m going to burn you, and then I’ll have you, and then I’ll give you to my men to finish any way they like.’

‘Ship your oars,’ Tom ordered quietly. All eight dripping oars slithered inboard, as the Centaurus’ jolly boat came under the pirate ship’s black hull. Tom eased off the tiller. He didn’t look up: all his concentration was fixed on bringing the boat alongside as silently as possible. In the bows, Aboli and Dorian trained their muskets up at the Fighting Cock’s deck, where a swivel cannon was clamped ominously on the gunwale. If any of the pirates had stayed aboard the pirate ship and had not crossed over to the prize, he could churn them to mincemeat with that weapon.

Tom looked back at the Centaurus, standing off about half a mile away. The pirates hadn’t noticed her – or were too busy with their pillage to bother with her yet. He’d left only two men aboard with Sarah and Yasmini. If they failed here then the women were doomed. He put the thought out of his mind.

The bows of the jolly boat touched the pirate ship with barely a whisper. Aboli grabbed on to her steps and gestured upwards. Tom shook his head. Near the waterline, a row of hatches studded the pirate’s hull: too low to be gun ports. He realized that they were probably ventilation hatches, a remnant from her days as a slaver.

Tom took the knife from his belt and worked it into the seam of the nearest hatch. When the slaves were aboard, it would have been padlocked from the inside, but the pirates would not bother with niceties such as that. His blade touched the latch inside. He jimmied upwards.

The latch gave. He swung the hatch open and peered in at the gloom of the lower deck. No one challenged him. With Aboli holding the boat steady, he wriggled through. The others followed him, passing their weapons ahead of them. Aboli, with his broad shoulders and powerful body, struggled to squeeze through.

The lower deck was cramped and close. Tom crouched, and still nearly hit his head on a beam. He moved among the piles of stores and plunder the pirates had stored here, working his way towards the light coming in through the gratings from the main deck. Dorian and Aboli followed close behind with the rest of the crew men from the Centaurus. Among them was Alf Wilson, who had sailed with Tom’s father; and Aboli’s two sons, Zama and Tula. Their eyes shone white in the darkness, hardened to fury by the evidence they saw of the ship’s slaving past. All of them knew too well that in other circumstances they might have found themselves chained to the iron rings that still protruded from the wooden walls, carried across the ocean to be sold like animals to the colonists in the Caribbean and America; always supposing that they survived the voyage. They fancied they could still smell the residue of suffering and human misery leaching from the planks.

Tom shinned up the aft ladder and cautiously put his head through the hatch. He’d come up under the quarterdeck, near the mizzen mast. Out in the burning sun, only dead men lay sprawled across the main deck. All the living had gone across to Dowager to plunder her.

Tom beckoned for his men to follow him up onto gun deck. He pointed to one of the long guns, its muzzle protruding out through the open port and pressing right up against the other ship’s hull.

He snapped an order. ‘Run that in.’

Zama and Tula leaped to the tackles that held the gun to the ship’s frame. Alf Wilson and the other men joined them, and together they hauled it back. It rumbled in on its trucks, leaving the gun port an open square of light. Tom stuck his head through. The two ships moved together, their hulls knocking when they touched. A thin strip of clear water sparkled between them.

He unbuckled his sword belt. ‘Anchor me, Aboli.’

With Aboli grasping his legs, he wriggled out through the gun port until he could touch the other ship’s side. This far back, she had no gun ports: he found himself opposite her stern windows, looking into the captain’s cabin. He could see figures moving around inside behind the glass, ransacking the interior to carry off anything valuable. He froze, but they were too intent on their work to notice him in the deep shadow between the vessels.

‘Give me a hand with this,’ one of them called. ‘It’s bloody heavy.’

His voice came clear through a broken window. As Tom watched, another man joined him. Together, they lifted a strong box and carried it out the door.

The cabin was empty. Tom stretched as far as he could, glad of Aboli’s powerful arms belaying him. He reached through the jagged hole in the glass, careful not to cut his wrist, and undid the latch. He pushed the window open.

‘Let go,’ he whispered to Aboli. He grasped the window sill and hauled himself through. A pile of cushions broke his fall, their covers slit open and their stuffing ripped out in the pirates’ search for valuables.

Aboli passed Tom’s blue sword through the window. Tom buckled it on and checked the priming of his pistols as the others crawled through one by one. By the time they were all in, the cabin was so crowded they could barely move.

A roar of laughter sounded from the quarterdeck above. Tom wondered what was happening.

The door swung open. A pirate stood there. He must have been looting the wardroom, for he carried a fistful of silver spoons in one hand, and a candlestick in the other.

‘What are you doing? This is mine.’ And then, as he took in the strange group assembled there, ‘Who the bloody hell are you?’

There was no room to swing a sword in the cabin. Aboli extended his arm, blade in hand, and ran the pirate through the neck. He dropped to the floor clutching his throat. Blood gurgled through the wound. The spoons and candlestick clattered to the deck.

‘On me, Centaurus!’ Tom ducked through the door out onto the lower deck. It was a scene of utter carnage: men hauling bales of cloth from the hold, tipping out seamen’s chests, spilling precious spices across the planking. Further forward, some had broken open a cask of rum and they were drinking from the bunghole.

None had their weapons in hand. Most didn’t see the men emerging from the cabin, or didn’t realize who they were.

The Centaurus’ boarding party rushed at them. Dorian and Aboli were experienced warriors, veterans of countless fights. Zama and Tula, who had grown up with tales of their father’s wars, fought with the ferocity of young men given their first taste of battle. Alf Wilson and the rest of the crew had followed the Courtneys into more contests than they cared to remember. They knew precisely what they had to do.

The pirates barely realized what was happening to them, before most were felled without a fight. A few tried to protect themselves with whatever came to hand – navigation books, tankards or bales of cloth – but they were cut down swiftly. From the corner of his eye, Tom saw Dorian pressing forward with sharp, precise movements. One of the pirates had a knife in his hand. Dorian disarmed him with a flick of his sword, turned the blade and slid it between his ribs and through the pirate’s heart. With a twist of his wrist, the sword came out cleanly, in time to punch the steel guard into the next man’s face. The man reeled back, and Dorian stepped forward and ran him through.

But a few of the pirates had managed to escape up the forward ladder. ‘Up on deck,’ shouted Tom. Some of the pirates above must have worked out what was happening. If the pirates battened down the hatches, Tom and all his men would be trapped between decks.

Tom shot up the companionway, taking the blood-slicked steps three at a time. A man appeared at the top; Tom drew one of his pistols and shot him left-handed. At that range, he couldn’t miss. The man toppled towards him. Tom sidestepped him, took the last steps in a single bound and landed on the main deck.

With his senses heightened by the rush of battle, he took in the scene at once: the knot of prisoners corralled at the back, surrounded by armed pirates; the captain on his knees, bleeding from his face and arms; and the woman pinned down on her back, skirts spread, with a bearded pirate holding his sword between her thighs.

Tom raised his second pistol and fired. Too quick: the ball went wide of the mark and hit one of the men behind. The pirate captain jerked up. With a snarl of rage, he raised his sword to stab it through the woman beneath him.

Another shot rang out. Dorian had come up beside Tom. Smoke blew from the pistol in his hands; the pirate captain dropped his sword and stumbled back, bleeding from his wrist.

Tom grinned at his brother. ‘Good shot, Dorry.’

‘I was aiming for his heart.’ Dorian jammed the spent pistol in his belt, and swapped his sword back to his right hand. A pirate lunged at him with a pike. Dorian sidestepped the blow, caught the man off balance and lunged with his sword. It took him in the centre of his chest and the blood-smeared point appeared a hand’s length from between his shoulder blades.

Aboli had already cut his way back onto the quarterdeck. Tom followed him up the ladder. Another fierce melee boiled across the ship’s stern. With cries of ‘huzzah’ and ‘Dowager’, the merchant’s crew had turned on their captors. They were unarmed, but the pirates were off-guard. Some had gone to join the looting; others had been too busy watching Legrange toying with the woman. Some of them had put down their weapons, and now they were caught from both sides. Sailors wrestled swords from the pirates, or grappled them so closely they couldn’t bring their weapons into play. Tom moved through the melee, searching eagerly for the pirate captain.

His foot caught on something. His eyes flicked down. It was the woman he’d seen earlier, curled into a ball, holding her torn skirts around her. Nearby, he saw a smouldering brazier sitting on the deck, utterly forgotten as the fighting raged around it.

Even in the heat of battle, Tom felt a spike of alarm. Fire was every sailor’s worst fear – the one thing that could reduce a ship to black ash in minutes.

Aboli had seen it too. He picked up the brazier by one leg and hurled it over the side, onto the pirate ship. Hot coals skittered across her deck. One came to rest against a pile of rope, but with all the uproar aboard the Dowager, no one noticed it.

Tom stood over the woman, threatening off anyone who came near, still scanning the throng for the enemy captain. The men from Centaurus, the crew from the Dowager and the remaining pirates were all locked in mortal combat. More pirates emerged from below deck like rats: they kept coming, fighting with a ferocity he’d rarely seen equalled. Men who had everything to lose.

And then, like a shift in the wind, the pirates started to give way. Space opened in front of Tom, space to lunge and strike. He advanced, cutting down men as they ran from him. For a moment, he didn’t realize why they were running. Then he smelled it. It was not the acrid tang of gunpowder that had stampeded them, but the powerful choking scent of burning wood and tar.

Caught between determined foes and a burning ship, the pirates raced to get back to put out the fire that was sweeping through their own ship. Tom skewered one just as he made to leap from the Dowager’s side. He toppled into the gap between the ships and was crushed between their hulls. Tom looked across. Black smoke billowed out of the Fighting Cock; flames licked over her gunwale and started running up her stays.

‘Cut her loose!’ Tom yelled. If the fire jumped across to the Dowager, they’d all burn and drown. Zama started cutting away the grappling ropes with his boarding axe. Two of the Dowager’s men grabbed cutlasses that had fallen on the deck and joined him.

The flames ran higher. Still the ships remained locked together. Looking up, Tom saw the Dowager’s yardarms caught in the pirate’s rigging, forming a high bridge between the two ships.

‘Give me that axe.’ He grabbed it from Zama and ran up the ratlines. Dorian followed him.

He swung himself around the futtock shrouds and out onto the yard. As master of his own ship, he rarely went aloft any longer, but he had not lost the knack. He ran to the end of the yard and started hacking away at the tangle of lines and shrouds that had snagged it. The fire burned beneath him, jumping so high it looked as if the flames were licking the soles of his boots. Smoke made his eyes water. Dorian joined him, kneeling on the yard to cut away a block that had jammed on the clewlines.

Still the ships stayed fast in their mutual embrace.

‘Why won’t she go?’

Dorian pointed to a piece of tackle that had wrapped itself in the braces. He took the boarding axe from Tom and moved towards it.

Something struck the yard. Tom felt the vibration even before he saw the hole gouged in the side of the spar, just by Dorian’s foot. Down through the smoke, Tom saw the pirate captain lowering the musket he had just fired.

He means to kill us both, he thought. Without hesitating, he ran to the very end of the yard and leaped across into the Fighting Cock’s shrouds, swung around and grabbed for a stay. He slid down so fast he burned the skin of his palms, bracing himself as he landed hard on deck. In the smoke and chaos, no one noticed him. Her crew rushed about with buckets, trying to put out the blaze; others were trying to lower her long boat, which hung cockeye on its moorings.

Legrange was reloading the musket. Tom hurled himself at him. They both went down, the musket trapped under Legrange’s body. Legrange bucked and tried to throw him off, but Tom’s weight pinned the pirate down, while he reached for the knife in his stocking.

Under him Legrange reached out blindly, scraped his fingernails across the deck, trying to find a weapon. They closed around a handspike lying forgotten under the carriage of one of the cannons. With all his strength, he swung his arm back and slammed the iron spike at Tom’s head. Tom saw the movement just in time. He rocked back, so that the spike glanced off his shoulder – but that gave Legrange all the space he needed to free himself. He rolled out from under Tom and came to his feet. He snatched up the fallen musket and aimed it at Tom. He pulled the trigger.

The flint struck sparks from the steel. Tom flinched – but the musket had misfired. With a howl of fury, Legrange reversed the musket and came at Tom again, swinging the weapon by its barrel.

Wind whipped the smoke away. Behind Legrange, Tom saw that the two ships were drifting apart. Dorian had cut the Dowager free. He had to get across to her – but Legrange was blocking his way, brandishing the musket like a club. Tom edged backwards, ducking to avoid the pirate’s furious blows. The fire was taking hold; most men had abandoned any attempt to fight it and were instead trying to save themselves. Still Legrange came on, too quickly to allow Tom any chance to pick up a weapon from the littered deck.

Tom took another step back – and came up short against the ship’s side. He vaulted up onto the gunwale, just avoiding another wild swing of the musket.

Balanced on the narrow ledge, he darted a glance at the water below him. The ship was drifting down wind. If he fell he realized that he would be pushed under her hull and cut to ribbons by the razor-sharp barnacles that coated her bottom. That was if the sharks did not get to him before that happened.

Legrange knew it too. He paused a moment to savour the situation. He didn’t know who Tom was, where he had come from or how he had got aboard, but he knew he had cost him his prize – and probably his ship also. Snarling with fury, he lunged at Tom with the musket to force him overboard.

Tom anticipated the blow, and jumped backwards off the gunwale. To Legrange’s astonishment, he did not drop into the waves below but he swung out into space, flying out from the ship’s side as if he had sprouted wings.

Legrange had not noticed the taut halyard attached to the ship’s yardarm high above, that Tom had seized hold of. Tom reached the limit of his arc and started swinging back, gathering speed as the ship’s hull rolled and gave him impetus. He pulled his knees up onto his chest and then shot them out as he swooped back at Legrange. Both his booted heels slammed into the pirate’s forehead, driving his head back so hard that clearly Tom heard his vertebrae snap. Legrange staggered backwards with his legs giving way under him. He fell into the leaping flames that were sweeping across the deck towards him. They engulfed him instantly. For a second, Tom had a hellish vision of Legrange wreathed in fire. His beard, hair and clothes alight and the skin of his face blistering and shrivelling.

Tom swung out over the water on the halyard, and when he reached the limit of its arc he released his grip and dropped into the water. With powerful overarm strokes he covered the distance to the Dowager easily, before the sharks could scent the blood on him. Dorian was waiting on the bottom rung to give him a boost aboard.

‘Where are Sarah and Yasmini?’ Tom gasped, before he had fully recovered his breath. Desperately he scanned the waters around the Dowager and then exhaled with a great sigh of relief as he saw her well clear of the burning hulk of the Fighting Cock.

Tom switched his attention back to the pirate ship. Pillars of fire engulfed her masts and ran along her yards, devouring the canvas and outlining her in flame. Men hurled themselves into the water, flames leaping from their backs. The pirates who had been trapped aboard the Dowager fared no better. The crew were in a savage mood: they’d been given no quarter, and they offered none now.

‘We should lower a boat,’ said Dorian, pointing to the pirates floundering in the ocean. Screams rang out across the water as the sharks closed in on them.

‘It would be no mercy, rescuing them so they could be hanged in Cape Town,’ Tom pointed out.

Just then an enormous explosion sucked the air out of their lungs, then blew it back in an angry breath. A huge wave rocked the ship and sent the men staggering across the deck. Burning debris rained down on the roiling waters. But the Fighting Cock had vanished. All that remained were charred timbers settling on the water.

Tom pulled himself upright. There was no point searching for survivors now. Any men in the water would have been knocked unconscious and drowned by the force of the blast.

‘Her powder magazine must have caught.’ A weather-beaten man joined them at the ship’s side. He’d lost his coat; and he was bleeding from his arm and an open wound on his cheek. Even so, Tom recognized the air of command that was imprinted on his face.

‘Are you the master of the Dowager?’

‘Josiah Inchbird.’ The man nodded at the remnants of the Fighting Cock, the wide field of flotsam spreading across the water. ‘Good riddance to her and the thieves that sailed in her.’

Tom waited for him to pass comment on the battle, to acknowledge the help he’d received. But Inchbird said nothing further.

‘It was lucky we were in sight when you were boarded,’ he said pointedly. ‘We saved your ship.’

Inchbird took his meaning at once. ‘You’ll get no salvage,’ he warned sharply.

‘Your ship was overrun by pirates. You’d surrendered,’ observed Dorian.

‘I never surrendered.’

‘Then you gave a convincing impression of doing so.’

‘If you want to press the matter, you can take it to the Admiralty court in London.’

Tom swallowed. He had left England fifteen years earlier as a fugitive from justice, wanted for the killing of his eldest brother, Billy. A black-hearted man, quick to fury, Billy had tried to kill Tom in a midnight ambush on the Thames docks. Tom had killed him in self-defence, not recognizing him in the dark, but that would count for little in an English court. If he went back, all he’d face would be the hangman’s noose.

Inchbird couldn’t have known that, but he sensed Tom’s weakness. ‘If you wish to pursue the case, I will gladly give you passage to London aboard my ship.’

‘I risked my life to save your ship.’ An excited chatter arose from the sailors on deck. The Centaurus had come alongside, and Aboli was helping Sarah and Yasmini aboard. ‘I risked my crew, my ship, and my family,’ Tom insisted.

Inchbird softened his tone. ‘You must understand, sir, my hands are tied. If I concede anything now, without consulting my owners, I will never see another command. For myself, I would gladly give you everything aboard for what you did. But for that, you will have to ask the supercargo.’

Tom nodded. The master was responsible for the ship, but the contents of her hold belonged to the supercargo. ‘Then I had best speak to him.’

Sarah and Yasmini climbed the ladder to the quarterdeck. Sarah put her hands on her hips and looked around the carnage on deck.

‘The trouble with men,’ she declared to Yasmini, ‘is that they always leave things in such a mess.’ She turned to Inchbird. ‘I apologize if my husband has caused your ship any distress.’

Inchbird gave an awkward bow. ‘We were just discussing that very matter.’

‘Your husband saved us all,’ said another voice. The woman Tom had earlier rescued from Legrange came up the companion-way. Her voice was low and husky, tinged with an accent Tom couldn’t place. She’d changed into a new dress from the one Legrange had sliced open with his sword. It was a simple blue calico that mirrored the sea around them, cinched just below her full breasts. Her hair was tied back in a ribbon, with a stray wisp floating just above her neck. She couldn’t be much past twenty, but there was strength and wisdom in her face beyond her age. Every man on deck stared at her. An hour ago, they’d seen her most private parts exposed, but she bore their attention now with unflinching equanimity.

‘I hope, Captain Inchbird, you have not forgotten your manners,’ she said. ‘These men saved our lives, and I do not even know their names.’

Tom gave a little bow. ‘My name is Tom,’ he said. ‘My brother, Dorian; his wife, Yasmini; and my wife, Sarah. I am glad we could have been of service.’

‘I am Ana Duarte. And those pirates would have robbed us of everything.’ A small shudder rippled through her body. ‘I understand why Captain Inchbird cannot offer you salvage for his ship. But I do not want you to think we are ungrateful. Whatever the pirates left of our goods, please take what you feel is fair recompense.’

Tom waited for Inchbird to protest. However the captain had gone curiously silent.

‘I’m glad of your concern, ma’am, but I fear the supercargo may not like you being so free and easy with his goods. Especially if he is of the same mind as Captain Inchbird here.’

She tilted her head. ‘They are my goods.’

‘Yours?’

‘I am the supercargo.’

‘You?’ Tom could not hide his astonishment.

Sarah jabbed him in the ribs with her elbow. ‘Tom Courtney, you great booby. You’ve traded up and down the coast of Africa with every chieftain, brigand and cannibal you could find to take your goods. And now you are flummoxed to find a woman who can trade?’

Ana and Sarah shared a glance – some intuitive understanding that made Tom feel dull and dumb. Caught between them, he didn’t notice the strange look Captain Inchbird shot him when Sarah spoke his name.

Sarah looped her arm through his elbow and tugged him away. ‘Come,’ she said sweetly. ‘Miss Duarte has suffered enough for today without having you gawping at her. Let us choose a couple of bales of cloth, to pay for our powder and shot, and then leave these good people to continue their voyage in peace.’

In fact, it took the rest of the day and the next before they parted. Sarah and Yasmini tended the wounded, while Tom, Dorian and Aboli helped Inchbird’s men repair damage to the Dowager and jury-rig a fresh topmast. She had lost almost half her crew, and Centaurus’ men were needed to help splice her rigging and splint her masts before she could get underway again.

‘But we can make Cape Town, if the weather holds fair,’ said Inchbird. ‘And there I can find a replacement crew to get me home to London.’ Much remained to be done, but Tom could feel Inchbird’s eagerness to be left alone with his ship, and he respected that. They said their farewells and cast off. The wind freshened. As night fell, Sarah and Tom stood at Centaurus’ taffrail and watched the sun sink towards the hidden African continent in the west.

‘You’re thinking about that Duarte woman,’ said Sarah.

Tom started. ‘I am not.’

‘If only we had a son, she’s the sort of woman I would want for his wife.’

Tom hugged her to him. Ever since they had married, he and Sarah had tried desperately to conceive. A few years ago, she had become pregnant while they were trading on the Lunga river; Tom had felt their life was about to become complete. But she had miscarried, and since then, despite all their efforts, her womb had remained barren.

‘Do you ever wish you’d stayed in England?’ she asked. ‘Married a nice Devon girl and settled down at High Weald with a dozen children?’

He stroked her cheek. ‘Never. Anyway, High Weald belonged to Black Billy.’ Under the laws of primogeniture, the entire fortune passed to the eldest son. Billy, already married to the wealthiest heiress in Devon, had hastened their father to his grave to get his hands on the inheritance, though he had not lived to enjoy it.

‘The estate will have passed to Billy’s son Francis.’ Tom paused, remembering a red-faced baby cradled in his mother’s arms. ‘I suppose he must be fully grown now, and lord of High Weald.’

Sarah smoothed her skirts against the stiffening breeze. ‘Time deals unkindly with us all, Tom Courtney.’

He stared at the horizon, where the last tongue of sunlight licked the sea. Waves hissed along Centaurus’ hull as it carved through the water, south-west to Cape Town at the southern tip of Africa. The town which was the closest thing he had to a home since he had been driven from High Weald. In Cape Town they would refit and re-provision, sell their goods and buy more – and then many months later another voyage would begin.

He sighed. He grudged nothing in his life, but he had not forgotten how it had felt growing up: the big old house, the chapel with so many Courtneys buried in its crypt, the servants who had nursed his grandfather and whose children would one day serve generations of Courtneys yet unborn. The sense of belonging, that however far the family tree might spread, it remained rooted strong and deep in that place. He had cut himself off from it, and not yet found new soil in which to replant himself.

He put his arm around Sarah and kissed the top of her head.

‘I wonder whatever became of baby Francis,’ he mused.

Rain lashed the big house. A high wind howled around its turrets and gables, slamming the loose shutters on their hinges. All the windows were dark, except for the last room on the upper floor.

There, in the master bedroom, a single candle guttered and flickered on the mantelpiece, casting monstrous shadows around the vast room. Wind howled down the chimney, rattling the dead embers in the grate. Two figures sat in chairs drawn up beside the fireplace, though the fire had died hours ago, when the last of the coal ran out. A woman stitched her embroidery, while a young man pretended to read a book by the meagre light. It had been opened on the same page for the last fifteen minutes.

The woman gave a little cry. Her son looked up.

‘Are you all right, Mother?’

She sucked blood from her finger. ‘It’s so hard to see in this light, Francis.’

Alice Leighton – once Alice Grenville, later Alice Courtney – looked at her son, touched by the concern on his face. Not yet eighteen, his body was fully grown, big and strong. But there was a softness in his heart that made her worry for his future out there in the wide and wicked world. His jet-black hair framed a handsome face with smooth amber skin and lustrous dark eyes. A rebellious black forelock curled over his forehead, almost touching his left eyelid. She’d seen the way the girls in the village looked at him. It was the same way she’d looked at his father, once upon a time.

The shutters flapped and banged, like the devil himself hammering on the door. Francis closed his book, and rummaged in the grate with the poker. All he stirred was ashes.

‘Do you know where Father is?’

His father – his stepfather, technically, though the only one he’d known – had spent most of the last week locked in the library, going through papers he would not let them see. The one time Francis had tried to go in to him, Sir Walter had cursed him and slammed the door.

Alice put down her embroidery. Her dark hair was streaked with premature grey, her eyes sunken, her grey skin drawn tight across her cheeks. Francis still remembered when she’d been beautiful and gay. His earliest memories were like that: his mother returning from some ball or party, coming into his nursery to kiss him goodnight, her skin radiant and her eyes sparkling. He could almost smell the scent of her perfume as she leaned over his bed, her peach-soft skin against his cheek and the diamonds glittering at her throat in the candlelight. The diamonds had been the first to go.

A bang echoed through the empty house, shivering the floorboards and making the coals rattle in the grate. Francis leaped to his feet.

‘Was that thunder?’ said Alice uncertainly.

He shook his head. ‘Nor the shutters, either. It came from downstairs.’

He went down the long gallery and descended the great staircase. Wax dribbled from the candle and scalded his fingers: there were no silver candlesticks in High Weald any longer. He paused at the foot of the stairs and sniffed the air. He knew the smell of gun smoke well enough from game shooting, and watching the local militia at drill, but he’d never smelled it in the house before.

Dread rose in his chest, and his heart began to pound. He hurried crossed the hall to the library door. ‘Father?’ he called. ‘Father is all well with you?’

The only answer was the rattle of rain on the windows. He tried the door handle, but it was locked. He knelt, and put his eye to the keyhole. The stub of a key in the lock blocked any view inside.

‘Father?’ he tried again, louder this time. His father had been drinking almost without pause these last two weeks. Perhaps he’d lost consciousness.

Putting the candle aside, he reached in his pocket for his penknife and opened the blade. Then he pushed it gently into the key hole and fiddled the key, until he heard it drop on the floor inside. The old door had a good inch gap beneath it. He found a riding crop hanging on the hat rack in the corner of the hallway. Reaching with the tip of it under the door he was able to slide out the key.

He unlocked the door and opened it. The candle pushed back the shadows as he advanced across the long room. As a child, he could remember sliding across the polished floorboards. Now they were rough and splintered; they hadn’t been polished in many years. Empty bookcases lined the walls; the books had been sold like nearly everything else. He could see shadows on the plaster where shields and swords had once displayed the proud crest of arms and armorials of the Courtneys. Like the silver and cut glass, all of it had been sold.

At the far end of the room stood an old oak table, covered with papers and an open bottle of wine. No glasses or decanter. His father lay slumped in the chair behind it, as if he’d fallen asleep. A dark red pool spread across the papers.

Francis paused. Then, all in a rush, he ran to the figure and threw him back in the chair. Stronger than he’d intended: the chair tipped over and fell. His father sprawled backwards and crashed onto the floor, one arm outstretched towards the pistol that lay nearby.

Francis fought back the nausea that rose in his throat. ‘Father?’

Sir Walter Leighton had been handsome, once, before his addictions ruined him. Even in death, his face still bore a trace of that irresistible energy Francis remembered so well; the man who would fling him into the air as a boy and catch him, who would bet him a guinea to jump a fence on his horse, or propose a sudden trip to London. Now his lifeless blue eyes stared up at Francis, as if pleading for forgiveness. From the front, he looked completely untouched. Only further back could you see the edges of the jagged, bloody wound where the pistol ball had blown his brain out through the back of his head.

A short, shrill scream sounded behind him. He spun around to face it. Alice was standing there, her hands raised to her mouth, staring at the body on the floor.

‘I told you to wait upstairs,’ said Francis, horrified that she should have to see this. He ran and wrapped his arms around her, holding her face to his shoulder to block the sight.

She sobbed into his shirt. ‘Why did he do it?’

Francis steered her to one of the leather wingback chairs and made her sit down, where the desk top hid the body from her. She pulled her shawl tight around her, and didn’t try to follow when he went back to the table.

Francis grabbed the topmost paper from the pile and held it up to the light. It was a letter from a solicitor, a firm in London he’d never heard of. He read through the orotund legal phrases, struggling to understand. One paragraph leaped out at him.

If you fail to discharge these debts by midnight on the nineteenth of October, I shall have no alternative but to send bailiffs to seize the said property, including all fixtures and furnishings, in satisfaction of the same.

‘They are speaking about High Weald,’ Francis realized. ‘That’s tonight.’ He looked at the clock on the mantelpiece. It was later than he’d thought. The steeple bell in the little chapel on the hill would already have struck eleven, though he hadn’t heard it over the storm. Horror dawned on him. ‘They’ll be here within the hour.’

He looked down again at his father’s corpse. Anger rose inside him, driving out the sorrow he’d felt. It had been so long, he couldn’t remember when he first realized his father was a compulsive gambler. The way silver disappeared from the chest without explanation, only to reappear equally mysteriously some months later. The card parties in the drawing room he was never allowed to enter, that went on so late he could hear them still going when he woke the next morning. His stepfather’s swings of mood: drawn and silent for weeks at a time, then bright and merry and bringing presents into the house for Francis and Alice. The strange men who arrived on the doorstep at all hours, watched by Francis from behind the banisters on the upstairs landing. The rows afterwards, Alice screaming at him behind the closed bedroom door.

But he’d never realized it was this bad. A frantic banging erupted from outside, and for a moment he thought the bailiffs had already arrived. But it was only the shutters again. A glance at the clock said he had fifteen minutes left.

‘We have to go,’ he cried. He pulled his mother to her feet and led her upstairs again, locking the front door as they passed. Her face was pale, her hand cold as glass. ‘Get your things together, whatever we can carry.’

Listlessly, she went to her wardrobe and pulled out some dresses and petticoats. Francis went to his room and filled a bag with his few possessions. He could almost hear the seconds ticking past.

He ran back to his mother’s room and found her sitting on the four-poster bed surrounded by her clothes.

‘Come on,’ he said fiercely. ‘They’ll be here any minute.’ He started stuffing her clothes into a bag. ‘If only my father—’

‘Don’t call him that,’ she whispered. ‘Sir Walter was not your father.’

‘I know that. But you always said I should call him—’

‘I was wrong. I married him because I was a widow and you needed a father. After William died, my family disowned me; they didn’t even attend his funeral. My father hated me for marrying a commoner, even from a family as rich as the Courtneys. Then the circumstances of William’s death, the scandal that attached to it … He never forgave me.’

‘You never told me.’

‘You were an innocent child who had already suffered too much. Sir Walter Leighton was loving and charming and he made me laugh. I didn’t recognize his true character. Just as I didn’t know your father, until it was too late.’

‘But you always said my father – my true father, William Courtney – was a good man. A kind, noble man.’

Her face crumpled. ‘Oh Francis, those were all lies. I could not bear for you to carry the sorrow of knowing what sort of man William Courtney was. A black-hearted brute who almost danced a jig when his own father died; who beat me black and blue, and would have beaten you too if he’d lived. He almost killed his own brother, Thomas.’

Francis’ legs felt weak under him. He sat down hard on the bed. Angry tears pricked his eyes. ‘No. It was Thomas who killed him. You told me, Mother. You told me.’

‘Yes, that was true. Tom did kill William,’ she admitted. ‘But it was self-defence.’

‘Were you there?’ Francis demanded. ‘Did you see it?’

‘William went to London and never came back. The story went about that Tom had killed him, but I knew if that was true, he must have been provoked. Tom couldn’t have killed his brother in cold blood.’

Francis struggled to breathe. ‘He must have.’

A sudden, clamorous hammering sounded from downstairs, and this time there was no mistaking it: the sound of a heavy fist on a heavy door. Francis heard muffled shouts, and the rattle of someone trying to turn the handle.

Alice clasped him to her. ‘You are nearly of age, now. It is time you learned the truth of things.’

‘You’re lying.’ He shook her off and grabbed the bag. Another furious bout of knocking came from downstairs. ‘I have already lost one father tonight. Now you are trying to destroy the memory of the other.’

‘Open up,’ called a voice, loud enough to impose itself over the storm. ‘Open in the name of the law.’

Francis moved to the bedroom doorway. ‘We have to go. If they find us here, they will take everything.’

‘I will stay.’ Alice wrapped her shawl tightly around her. ‘They will not leave a poor, grieving widow without any succour or shelter. And with Walter dead, they cannot pursue his debts so easily. As for this house, let them have it. Excepting you, my darling, it has brought me nothing but misery and loss.’

He stared at her. Emotion choked his thoughts; he wanted to speak, but no words would come.

‘Open up,’ shouted the voice below once more.

Francis ran. He slipped down the back stairs, through the silent kitchens and into the stable yard. The grooms and stable boys had all been dismissed; the thoroughbreds he had ridden as a boy had long since been sold to new owners. Only one horse remained, Hyperion, the chestnut gelding his stepfather had given him on his thirteenth birthday. Alone in his stall, he whinnied as he heard Francis approach.

Francis lit a lamp and saddled him, working quickly. It wouldn’t be long before the bailiff’s men worked their way around to the back of the house, looking for a way in. He grabbed an oilskin cape from a hook on the wall and led Hyperion out into the yard.

A figure stood there, waiting for him.

‘Mother?’ His anger melted away at the sight of her, a grey apparition in the stable yard. Her soaking dress clung to her slender frame, like a little girl lost in the rain. She held a small velvet bag.

‘I couldn’t part from you without saying goodbye.’

He hugged her. ‘Goodbye, Mother.’

‘Where will you go?’ She had to shout in his ear to make herself heard over the rain.

He hadn’t thought about it until that moment – but the moment he did, he knew the answer.

‘The only family I have left in the world is my uncle Guy, in Bombay. I will go to the East India Company in London, and ask them for a position, and passage in one of their ships.’ He glanced back at the great house, so pregnant with memories. ‘Perhaps I will make my fortune, and return one day to reclaim High Weald.’

She twisted the drawstring of the little velvet bag in her fingers, trying to hide the pain in her heart at the thought of her only son going so far away.

‘It is a good plan. But be careful with your uncle Guy. Strange to say, when you were two years old you were the largest shareholder in the East India Company outside its Court of Directors. Your grandfather Hal had amassed more than twenty thousand shares, and when William died so soon after his father, they all came to you. They were to be held in trust, but Guy advised us to sell them. I followed his advice, but since then I have always wondered if he dealt honestly with us. If we had kept those shares in a trust, Walter could never have touched them. Once we converted them to cash …’

She sighed. Whatever William’s faults, he had left her one of the richest widows in England. In the fifteen years since, her second husband had turned that inheritance into nothing but debt and regret. How could she ask Francis to stay? There was nothing for him here. Sir Walter had seen to that.

‘Take this.’ She handed him the velvet bag. Rain had soaked the fabric, but he felt something hard and heavy inside. He opened it.

After the poverty of the past months, it was like a vision of heaven. By the light of the stable lamp, he saw that it was a large golden medal depicting a lion with a shaggy mane. It was holding in its paws the globe of the world, with diamond stars shining in the blue enamel heaven above.

‘What is this?’

‘The order of St George and the Holy Grail. The Courtneys have worn it for more generations than I can count. Now it belongs to you.’

‘But …’ He struggled to take it in, like a starving man confronted with a banquet. ‘This must be worth a fortune. The diamonds alone … If we sold it, we could keep High Weald.’

‘No.’ She held his gaze. ‘This is the honour of the Courtneys. Wherever you go, whatever you do, never lose it.’

Shouts sounded nearer, around the side of the house. She folded his hands around the bag and kissed him.

‘Go. The man to see in London is Sir Nicholas Childs. He was a friend of your grandfather’s, and he is still a powerful man in the East India Company. If there is any man alive who can help you, it is he.’

Francis had been to London many times as a boy, but always with his parents, travelling in a well-sprung carriage with a coachman to clear their way with a crack of his whip, and footmen to fetch and carry at every stop. Now, the journey took almost a week, long slow days struggling against boggy roads and relentless autumn weather. He slept in ditches, tethering Hyperion out of sight behind hedgerows, terrified lest anyone should come across him and find the red velvet bag under his shirt. One morning, near Salisbury, he was woken by a gang of Sheriff’s men, who called him a vagabond and a horse-stealer, and chased him across several fields until he finally escaped. At Richmond, he spent his last few coins on a bag of oats for Hyperion, and a mug of small beer for himself. By the time they reached London, the horse was almost lame and Francis was caked with mud.

The city terrified the horse: the crowds and noise, the carts and carriages rattling over the stones. He had to dismount and lead Hyperion by his bridle, whispering comfort in his ears. In the busy streets, most people ignored him, but he saw the way others looked at him, a shabby boy with such a fine horse. His cheeks flushed as he read the suspicion on their faces; he had never felt so alone.

At last he found a livery stable. The ostler gave Francis one look and declared he must pay in advance. The fee would be five shillings.

Francis patted his pockets. ‘I have nothing.’

‘Then I’ve got nothing for you.’

‘Please.’ Night was falling, and the thought of trudging around this hostile city any longer was too much to bear. ‘I can find the money tomorrow.’

A sly look came over the ostler’s face as he took the measure of Francis’ desperation. ‘You could sell the horse.’

Francis started in horror. He opened his mouth to reject the offer, but the words wouldn’t come. What had he expected? If he were going to make a new life in India, he would never be able to take Hyperion with him.

Tears pricked his eyes, but he refused to cry.

‘How much?’

‘Not for myself. I’ll find a buyer. He can stay here, until I do.’

Francis wrapped his arms around the horse’s neck, and pressed his face against its mane. Hyperion whinnied, glad to have the familiar smells and sounds of the stable yard around him again.

‘Can I at least have a bed for the night?’

The ostler looked him up and down. ‘You can sleep in the stables.’

Francis slept badly and woke early. He washed himself as well as he could in water from the trough, and brushed the mud off his clothes with a horse brush. It didn’t help much. Walking down Cheapside, he caught his reflection in the shop windows and grimaced. His dark hair stuck out at all angles, his eyes were rimmed with purple bags like bruises, and he had a week’s adolescent stubble darkening his cheeks. His clothes were tattered, and though the horse brush had taken off the worst of the muck, the mud had left deep stains all over the fabric. His big toe poked through a hole in his right shoe.

He was going to call on one of the richest men in London. Sir Nicholas Childs was the man who had built the East India Company from a small company of merchant adventurers into a behemoth that governed half the world’s trade. Francis had known the name for as long as he could remember – though if ever he or his stepfather mentioned it, his mother always changed the subject.

It seemed half of London knew the house on Leadenhall Street, and he obtained directions to it readily. At ground level, there was nothing very remarkable about it. Wooden shutters and a pair of heavy, studded doors hid the interior from casual passers-by; the only ornament was a pair of ornately carved oriental columns flanking the doorway, and a liveried porter. But if you raised your eyes, you would begin to notice details that suggested something grander. On the first floor, a wooden balcony fronted the street, with glass galleries behind; above it, a royal crest stood large and proud on the second-storey woodwork. Above that, so far up you had to crane your neck, the cornice had been painted with a gaudy mural, ships under full sail on a bright wave-flecked sea, flanked by dolphins and crowned with the statue of an honest Elizabethan sailor, scanning the spires and chimney pots of London.

Anyone who didn’t know might have mistaken it for a chandler’s yard that had misplaced itself in the city. In fact, it was the headquarters of some of the most powerful men on earth.

Francis hesitated, screwing up his courage. He approached the porter.

‘Please inform Sir Nicholas Childs that Francis Courtney wishes to see him on urgent business.’ Anxiety made the words come out higher than usual. He wished he didn’t sound so childish.

The porter stared down his nose at him. ‘Sir Nicholas Childs is busy today. And Sir Francis Courtney died in the reign of good King Charles.’

‘I am his great-grandson. And please, I must speak with Sir Nicholas.’ He tried to push past, through the great studded door. A stout arm blocked his way and pushed him back into the street.

‘Sir Nicholas is not receiving visitors.’ The porter emphasised every syllable with a jab of his finger on Francis’ chest. ‘And if you keep obstructing this door, I will have you charged with vagrancy.’

Francis retreated across the street, into the shadow of a coffee house. Through the windows, he could see men sat around tables in earnest debate, studying newspapers and sipping steaming cups of coffee. Nothing but glass between them, but it felt like another world.

A wave of powerless rage rushed through him, shaking him to his bones. There had been times, in the past few years, where he had felt as if he had nothing. He had never realized how much he had. Now he saw, with the bitter clarity of despair, how hopeless he had become. Nothing was possible without money. Lack of it had killed his stepfather, parted him from his mother, and cost him his home, his horse – everything except the clothes on his back and the emblem around his neck.

He looked at the men inside the coffee house again and imagined himself among them, regaling his fellow merchants with tales of investments recouped, profits taken and vast fortunes made in the Indies. Whatever was required to join their company, he would do it. He would sail to the far side of the world, suffer any hardship and risk any hazard. Even kill a man or many men, if he had to do that to succeed, though the thought made him tremble. He swore that he would win his fortune, or die in the attempt.

He settled down to wait. Every time the door to the coffee shop opened, the smells from inside made his mouth water. As the morning wore on, people began to walk past carrying steaming meat pies and hot pastries. He felt faint. The bag around his neck weighed heavier and heavier: so valuable, but he could not think of selling it. He thought about returning to the inn, to see if the ostler had sold Hyperion, but he didn’t want to miss a possible meeting with Sir Nicholas.

He had no idea how he would recognize him. His mother had said Childs was a friend of his grandfather Hal, so he must be of a great age by now. He watched the comings and goings at the house on Leadenhall Street. Older men in immaculate wigs, younger men stooped under the weight of bulging satchels of books and documents. Each time the door opened, the porter stepped out and glared at him, but he didn’t cross the street. Once, Francis thought he saw a man studying him from the shadows of the first floor balcony, but he retreated inside before Francis could get a good look at him.

The October day wore on. Shadows lengthened; the coffee house emptied. The church bells started chiming for evening prayer. Francis began to wonder where he would go that evening, and where he could eat. He had forgotten his noonday dreams of fortune and trade. All he wanted was a meal. He touched the velvet bag that bulged slightly under his shirt. He’d seen a pawnbroker’s near the inn: surely he could get a good price there. Only for a few days, until he had the money from Hyperion. The thought made him feel ashamed of his weakness.

Lost in thought, Francis didn’t see the porter hurrying towards him until he was halfway across the street. He was carrying a hotcake wrapped in a napkin.

‘I’ve been watching you all day. You haven’t eaten a thing.’

Francis almost snatched the cake out of his hands. He buried his face in it, too hungry to taste the sweet flavours of sugar and almonds filling his mouth.

He was so busy eating, he didn’t notice the two men who had accompanied the porter across the street. The first he knew was stout hands seizing his arms, another hand over his mouth and the porter holding a stick across his throat. He choked. The cake fell half-eaten to the ground and was trampled under hobnailed boots.

He struggled, but he had no chance. The porter and his men bundled him across the road and inside the building; he couldn’t even cry out. If any of the passers-by noticed, they knew well enough to keep on walking.

The house was much larger inside than it had seemed from the street. The men dragged Francis down a long corridor, thick with the smells of cloves and pepper, then up many stairs. Francis heard laughter and conversations, but all the doors were closed and no one looked out.

The men brought him to a great door on the top floor, with a brass handle shaped like a snarling lion. The porter knocked respectfully. Even he seemed to hesitate before opening the door, as if approaching the lair of a fearsome beast.

It was dark inside, the air hot and damp like a greenhouse. A small fire burned in the grate, and a candle burned on the vast desk by the back wall, but they cast little light on the curtained room. The walls seemed to lean in, huge paintings of ships and battles hanging floor-to-ceiling in ornate gilt frames. The air smelled rotten, as if a slab of meat had been left too long and forgotten. Francis searched the gloom but didn’t see anyone: only a large mound behind the desk, like a heap of discarded laundry.

His captors let him go and doffed their caps. Caught off balance, Francis stumbled forward and almost fell. He rubbed his throat.

A wet, rasping cough sounded behind the desk. The heap began to move. It was a man, Francis realized, as his eyes adapted to the gloom. It was an enormous, great-bellied man with a blanket over his knees and a silk dressing gown wrapped around his shoulders. His neck had disappeared beneath a cascade of wobbling chins. His head was shaved, but badly, so that white hairs sprouted out like the spikes on a thistle. Broken veins mottled his sagging cheeks. Only his eyes, sunk deep in folds of flesh, remained bright and alive.

‘Who are you?’ he demanded. He did not rise. In fact, Francis thought, he was probably not able to do so. Later he learned that the iron rings hanging from the arms of his chair, were there to enable him to be carried on the rare occasions when he left this office. They said that when he was at stool, it took three men to lift him onto the privy, and wipe his backside when he was finished.

One of the guards stepped up and slammed his fist into Francis’ stomach. ‘Answer when Sir Nicholas speaks to you,’ he barked.

Francis tried to speak, but the blow had winded him badly and no words would come.

‘Who sent you? Was it Norris and his Dowgate men?’

‘Who?’ Francis gasped. ‘I know nobody with that name.’

‘Do not play the fool with me, boy.’ Sir Nicholas twitched his head and another blow struck Francis hard in the guts, doubling him over. ‘You have been watching this house all day. Who were you spying on?’

‘I’m not—’

‘Was it those damned interlopers? They know the consequences if they attempt to steal my trade. I will burn their ships and see them rot in an Indian prison if I catch them.’

‘Please,’ said Francis, as another blow jabbed into his kidneys. ‘I am Francis Courtney. My mother sent me.’

Sir Nicholas’ face was crimson with rage. ‘What impudence is this? Sir Francis Courtney died near fifty years ago.’

‘My great-grandfather.’ Francis fumbled for the velvet bag inside his shirt. The guard saw him and though he was reaching for a weapon. He kicked Francis’ legs from under him, dropping him to the floor, and aimed a kick at his ribs.

Francis pulled out the bag. The guard snatched it from him. He jerked the drawstring stretched open, and the golden medal of the lion holding the globe in its paws fell out onto the floor.

The guard had raised his fist again.

‘Stop,’ called Sir Nicholas. ‘Give me that.’

Two of the men held Francis, while the porter retrieved the golden lion and laid it on the desk. Sir Nicholas held it up, letting the candlelight sparkle on the inset rubies and diamonds.

‘Where did you get this?’ he demanded of Francis

‘It belongs to my family. My father left it to me.’

Sir Nicholas turned the emblem in his fingers. He waved his men to let Francis go.

‘Who are you?’ Sir Nicholas said again, but more thoughtfully this time.

Francis drew himself up, determined to ignore the pain that shot through his body when he moved. He’d rehearsed the words all day, though he’d never imagined delivering them in such circumstances.

‘I am Francis Courtney, son of William Courtney and grandson of Hal Courtney, Baron Dartmouth and Nautonnier Knight of the Order of St George and the Holy Grail. Twenty years ago, my grandfather gave his life defending your company’s shipping from pirates. Now, all I ask is some preferment, an opportunity to join the Company’s service and prove my worth.’

Childs stared at him as if he were a ghost.

‘Leave us,’ he ordered his men.

They withdrew. Childs studied the boy. For decades, now, he had governed the East India Company as his personal domain, stretching out his tentacles from this office in Leadenhall Street to the furthest corners of the globe. Kings and Parliaments had come and gone, some of them claiming the Company was too powerful, that its monopoly should be withdrawn. He had seen them off, broken his competitors and outlived them all.

Courtneys, too, had come and gone. For a time, they had been useful servants and helped him build up the Company fortune. When that ceased to be the case, he had dispatched them as easily as he had done his enemies, with never a prick of conscience. From his home at Bombay House, he had sent Tom Courtney to be murdered by his brother William. To his surprise, Tom had sprung the trap and turned the tables on William, but that had not troubled Childs. Tom had fled, a wanted murderer, and William’s seven per cent holding in the East India Company had passed to his infant son. Childs had had little difficulty persuading the widow to sell it to him on the most advantageous terms, cementing his control still further. He had all but forgotten young Francis Courtney.

Now the boy stood before him, grown almost to manhood. A livid welt coloured his neck where the men had choked him; his face was pale, but firm with the unyielding pride Childs had seen twenty years ago in his grandfather Hal. He thought that this was a lad who could be useful, or dangerous.

‘My boy,’ he adopted a more kindly and avuncular tone, ‘come closer where I can see you better.’

It was an act: his body might be failing, but his blue eyes remained as clear and sharp as his mind.

Francis took a few hesitant steps forward.

‘I am sorry you were so roughly handled,’ Childs said. ‘My enemies have many spies, and will stop at nothing to thwart me and this noble company. I trust you were not seriously hurt?’

Francis rubbed his side. He could already feel the skin tightening as the bruises formed.

‘I am a little hungry, your lordship.’

‘Of course, of course.’ Childs rang a hand bell that stood on the corner of his desk, and bellowed for the servant to bring food. ‘Now, my boy, take a chair and tell me everything. How do you come to be here? If you had written, I could have given you a kinder reception.’

Francis lowered himself painfully into the chair. ‘My stepfather died last week. He left me nothing but the golden lion.’

Childs mopped his brow with a handkerchief. ‘I am sorry to hear it. Your mother probably never told you, but I always took a keen interest in your upbringing. The way your father died – I am afraid I feel some guilt for it. You see, I was the last man to see your uncle Tom before he committed the murderous deed. I have always asked myself, was there something I could have said or done to change his course? Could I have discerned what he intended, and taken steps to prevent it?’

He broke off in a fit of coughing, dabbing his mouth with the handkerchief. It came away dabbled with specks of fresh blood.

‘I’m sure you are beyond reproach, sir,’ Francis protested.

A troubling thought nagged him as he remembered those last frantic moments with his mother.

‘May I confide in you, sir?’

‘Of course, my boy. As your own father.’

‘Before I left home my mother made a most outlandish suggestion. She said – she believed – that my uncle Tom may be innocent of the crime. She said he only killed William in self-defence.’

Childs shook his head so hard, all his chins wobbled. ‘She is mistaken. Grief has addled her wits, poor woman. I saw William Courtney in the House of Lords the day he died. The concern he expressed for his brother, the love and affection he bore him – no man could doubt it. That very day, he told me, he intended to advance Tom ten thousand pounds to fit out an expedition to rescue their brother Dorian, who had been seized by pirates – though it later transpired that the boy was dead. But that was not enough for Tom Courtney. He ambushed William on the Thames path late at night, demanding a greater share of their father’s inheritance, and when William refused Tom cut him down without mercy.’

Francis shuddered as he imagined the scene. ‘You are sure of it?’

‘I had a full report from a boatman who witnessed the entire tragedy. Even after so many years, I remember every detail.’

A servant knocked and entered with a silver tray. He set out the dishes on Childs’ desk, mounded platters of roast meats, and poured two glasses of claret from a crystal decanter. It was all Francis could do to wait until the servant retired before he fell upon the food.

Childs ate almost as ravenously as Francis did. Gravy dribbled down his chins and dripped onto his shirtfront.

‘Do you wish to avenge your father?’ Pieces of food sprayed from his mouth as Childs asked the question. He went on without waiting for a reply. ‘Of course you do. You are a Courtney, and I know well what blood runs in those veins of yours.’

Francis took a gulp of wine. ‘Yes, sir. But I do not understand—’

‘Your presence here today is most auspicious; it is almost as if fate guided your footsteps. You see, a week ago a ship from the Indies docked at Deptford. The Dowager, under Captain Inchbird. He brought a most remarkable tale. Twenty-two days out from Bombay, near the coast of Madagascar, he was attacked by a pirate and nearly taken. It was a fierce fight by all accounts, but while he was gallantly fending off the enemy a small sloop joined the fray. Her captain was none other than Tom Courtney.’

Francis felt the room spin around him. The pictures on the wall seemed to press in on him, and the wine throbbed in his head. ‘That cannot be, sir. Tom Courtney died in Africa while I was a child. My uncle Guy confirmed it.’

‘Your uncle was wrong. Tom Courtney is alive and well, trading along the coast of Africa. Inchbird believes he resides in Cape Town, when he is not at sea.’

Childs put down his knife and fork. ‘You asked me for a position in the Company. For the love I bore your grandfather, and our long association with your family, I will gladly give you a clerkship with your uncle Guy in Bombay, and free passage on one of our ships. But I can give you more. The vessel will call at the Cape en route to Bombay. It may be there some weeks, provisioning and watering. If you wish, you will have time to disembark. You could find your uncle, if he is there.’

Francis chewed a piece of pork, struggling to take in this latest intelligence. Childs leaned forward. Wine stained his lips the colour of blood.

‘When Tom Courtney fled England, we offered five thousand pounds for his capture. I, personally, guaranteed the reward. It still stands. Five thousand pounds,’ Childs repeated. ‘A princely sum for any man, let alone a youth of your age just starting to make his way in the world. And if you invest it wisely in Bombay, you could double or triple the sum by the time you return.’

Francis tried to imagine that much money. He imagined returning to High Weald in a coach and four and taking possession of the house. Establishing his mother in her own apartments, scrubbing off the years to make it the bright, happy place he remembered from his youth.

The wine was hot inside him. He knew he should not drink so fast on a famished stomach, but he couldn’t resist. He felt sure there was more he should ask, important questions about Guy and Tom and his inheritance, but Childs’ tone brooked no discussion. When he poured more wine, Francis drained it gratefully.

‘This is the revenge you have waited for your whole life,’ said Childs. ‘A chance to settle unfinished business for both of us.’

The St George medallion still lay on the desk, half hidden under a sheaf of papers. Francis lifted it up, missing the flash of disappointment that crossed Child’s face. He stood, unsteady on his feet after so much wine.

‘Upon my father’s honour, Sir Nicholas, I will find Tom Courtney and bring him to justice.’

Tom and Dorian sat outside the tavern, nursing their drinks and looking down at the ships anchored in Table Bay. Tom was drinking a sweet muscadel wine, but Dorian was true to his adopted religion and eschewed all alcohol. He was drinking diluted orange juice. Behind them, the top of Table Mountain ruled a flat line across the sky, while the lesser summits of Devil’s Peak and Lion’s Peak reached out to enclose the bay in a natural amphitheatre. Below the forests on the lower slopes, a hundred or so stone-built, white-washed houses dotted the landscape, running down to the sea where warehouses and taverns lined the shore. At the northern end, the Dutch tricolour blew over the five-pointed fort that left no doubt as to where the power in the colony lay.

An Indiaman was beating in to the harbour. From her colours, and the state of her rigging, Tom saw she must be fresh from England. He made a quick calculation of what her arrival would mean. Ivory prices would rise, as the English merchants sought supplies to take to India; in return, they would want to trade knives and steel goods from England. The ship was late in the season, and most of the ivory stocks had been sold, but Tom had kept back a few good tusks from their last voyage for just such an eventuality. He smiled as he thought of the profits to be made.

Soon, he and Dorian would return to the boarding house where they lodged during their interludes in Cape Town. He had some ten thousand pounds deposited at the offices of an Amsterdam bank here, though he had never used it to buy his own home. The Dutch authorities laid ferocious restrictions on foreigners owning property in the colony, but a few rix-dollars in the right palms might smooth the way around that. He had never tried. Year after year, he waited out the monsoon in the boarding house, impatient for the next season to begin.

‘Are you bored, Tom?’ Dorian asked. In reply Tom swept his arm in a full circle, taking in the mountains and the sea, the cotton-fluff clouds and the sun sinking towards the horizon. ‘How could I ever be bored with all this to enjoy?’

‘I know you too well, brother,’ Dorian chuckled. ‘You haven’t fired a gun in anger since the day we rescued the Dowager from that pirate Legrange. And that was almost a year ago.’

The past ivory-hunting season in the African interior had been a quiet one. Tom and Dorian had taken an expedition almost two hundred leagues up the Zambesi River, but found none of the slavers he had warred with in the past. Even the hunting had been less bountiful than past years. Centaurus had returned with her hold only half full of ivory.

‘Fighting is bad for business,’ Tom said, without conviction.

Then he blinked with astonishment as he saw out on the far horizon, where the last rim of the sun was slipping away, a sudden flash of the most brilliant green he could ever imagine. It startled him; although he had heard of the phenomenon before, this was the first time he had actually witnessed it.

‘Did you also see that?’ Tom demanded as both of them jumped to their feet in amazement, staring at the distant horizon.

‘Yes, indeed!’ Dorian was as excited as he was. ‘Neptune’s Wink.’ It was one of those mysteries, like St Elmo’s fire, that you would seldom see unless you lived your life on the wild oceans of the globe.

‘I have heard tell that the man who sees it acquires special wisdom,’ Tom enthused as they resumed their seats.

‘Bully for you,’ Dorian teased him. ‘You can certainly use all the wisdom you are able to lay your hands on.’

In retaliation Tom grinned and poured the dregs of his wine over Dorian’s head. ‘For such impertinence you can buy me another glass of wine,’ Tom told him.

When Dorian returned from the bar with Tom’s glass topped up they settled down again in companionable silence to enjoy the last of the sunset, and to watch the Indiaman drop anchor in the bay.

As its anchor splashed into the darkening waters the bum boats from the beach swarmed about the ship, as eager as lambs for the teat.

‘They won’t bring their cargo ashore until morning,’ Tom decided. ‘We can wait until then to see what we can sell them.’

He left a coin for the drinks, and together they went back up to the slopes of the mountain, following Die Heerengracht, the ‘Gentlemen’s Walk’ that ran between the parade ground and the Company gardens. Deep in conversation, they didn’t notice the woman in the blue dress coming down the path towards them until she was almost abreast.

‘Tom Courtney?’ she said, and he looked up in surprise.

‘Ana Duarte?’ he responded, and her face flushed with pleasure.

‘You remember me!’

‘How could I ever forget you? In fact, my brother and I were just this instant recollecting the day we met. But I did not know you were here in Cape Town.’

‘My ship arrived two days ago from Madras.’

‘I hope you had an easier crossing than the last time.’

She touched a silver cross that hung at her throat. ‘Thankfully, yes!’

Suddenly Tom thought of the green flash. Though he was not superstitious, he wondered if perhaps it had portended this unexpected meeting.

‘You must dine with us,’ put in Dorian. ‘Sarah and Yasmini would be delighted to see you again.’

‘I would like that very much.’ She smiled. ‘In fact, I was hoping for it. I have a proposal for you.’

The Courtneys’ boarding house was at the far end of town, just under the walls of the Dutch East India Company’s garden. The Malay housekeeper, Mrs Lai, kept it spotless. The food she cooked was simple yet delicious, a unique blend of spices from the Indies with the flavours of the English recipes Tom insisted on.

Tom poured wine from a decanter. Dorian, as usual, drank only fresh fruit juice.

‘No wine for you?’ Ana noticed.

‘I am a Muslim.’

‘Are there many Muslims in England?’

‘It is a long story.’

‘But a good one,’ put in Tom.

‘Then I would be glad to hear it,’ said Ana.

So Dorian explained how he had been captured by Arab pirates as a boy of eleven, enslaved, bought by a Prince of Oman because of the red colour of his hair, the same as the prophet Mohammed, and raised in his household as an adopted son. Ana urged him to tell her more, so he told her how he had grown to manhood as a warrior of Islam, and how finally he had embraced that faith.

Ana listened in total absorption to the story of his life. When he was done she asked quietly, ‘Is there a man around this table who does not have a price on his head?’

Tom started. ‘How do you know?’

‘I have many contacts with the East India Company factors in Madras. From them I learned that the Governor of Bombay was a man named Guy Courtney. So I followed up and learned that you are related.’

Tom and Dorian exchanged a look that was fraught with meaning.

‘Guy is our brother,’ Tom admitted. ‘So far as he knows, Dorian died in Oman, and I disappeared somewhere in the African wilderness.’

‘You have not informed him that you are both very much alive?’

‘That news would give Guy no great pleasure. Frankly, he would prefer us both dead.’

Ana sipped her wine, as if this news was the most natural thing in the world. ‘I will not ask what came between you,’ she murmured.

‘It was a woman,’ Dorian said flatly.

‘And the woman was my sister,’ said Sarah, speaking up for the first time. ‘We were passengers on that fateful voyage, when Dorian was captured by pirates. I was still a child but my elder sister, Caroline, was in full flower. Silly thing; she was much too free with her charms. She went to Tom’s bed only too willingly.’

‘I believe it was actually the powder magazine,’ said Dorian with a grin. ‘It was the only place on the ship they could find privacy.’

‘It was my fault,’ said Tom, embarrassed to have this history raised in front of Ana. ‘I should have realized that Guy was in love with her.’

‘Guy was not in love with Caroline,’ said Sarah flatly. ‘Guy wanted only to possess her, like he would a horse or a cargo or a chest of gold. As soon as he had married her, she no longer was of any value to Guy. You forget, I lived with them as Guy’s ward for years after they were husband and wife. I saw the way he treated her.’ She closed her eyes. ‘He did not love her, God knows.’

‘Yet even though he married her, he could not forgive you?’ Ana asked Tom.

‘It was more than that. There was …’ Tom broke off. There were some things he could not discuss with Ana.

What have I done? he asked himself. One brother I killed, and another wants me dead. The two greatest mistakes of my life, and there is nothing I can do to atone for them.

He thought again of the green flash on the horizon the night before. God grant me wisdom.

Ana nodded gravely. ‘All families have their secrets.’

‘I think you are very brave,’ Sarah told her, lightening the mood with her bright voice, ‘coming to dine with these two wanted scallywags.’

‘You saved my life, all of you!’ said Ana, addressing the whole table. ‘You were in no danger. Your ship could have sailed on and left us to our fate. Ninety-nine men out of a hundred would have done that.’

‘Ninety-nine men out of a hundred do not have Yasmini and Sarah telling them what they must do,’ grinned Dorian. ‘The choice was not ours.’

The conversation moved on. After supper, they retired to the parlour, where Sarah entertained them on her harpsichord, playing arias from William Babell’s Book of Lady’s Entertainment. Tom had ordered the new harpsichord shipped all the way from England.

‘Tom threw the first one I had into a river,’ Sarah confided to Ana, in between pieces.

‘In fairness, you should mention we were stuck on a sandbank in an overloaded ship, pursued by an army of Arab swordsmen who wanted to murder us, and I was near to death,’ said Dorian, sitting on the floor on an ornately embroidered cushion.

‘I am sure Miss Duarte could not conceive it could have been otherwise,’ said Yasmini.

Sarah played some more, ending with a flourish. The others applauded. Sarah took a seat next to Tom.

‘Miss Duarte,’ Tom began. ‘When we met yesterday you said you had a proposal for us.’

She smoothed her skirts. She was the youngest person in the room by at least a dozen years, but she carried herself with calm assurance.

‘What do you know of India?’ she asked Tom.

Tom swirled wine in his glass, staring at the dregs. ‘What I hear on the waterfront. The traders say it is a dangerous country since the old emperor died.’

‘Since old Aurangzeb died two years ago, India has become a battlefield,’ Ana agreed. ‘His three sons are contesting the succession, and while they fight each other, every other prince and nabob makes war on his neighbour. In the west, the Marathas have been fighting the Mughals from their mountain fortresses for thirty years. On the Malabar Coast, the pirate Angria has established his own kingdom, ruled from the impregnable fortress of Tiracola. In the south, the Nawabs are in open revolt. The Mughal Empire is tearing itself apart.’

‘Bad for trade,’ said Dorian.

Tom waited while Ana hesitated, as if unsure how to proceed.

‘Before I explain my proposal, I must tell you something of myself and my family. My father was a Portuguese merchant from a family that had settled in Goa; my mother was Indian, the daughter of a local Mansabdar. Neither family approved their marriage, so they fled together to the British settlement at Fort St George – Madras. They began with nothing, but they worked hard. Soon, they had a thriving business in the cloth trade. They bought calicoes from the weavers around Madras, and shipped them to Europe. At first, they sold them to the East India Company, but the Company was greedy: they cheated us on the price. So my father resolved to find another way. He contracted with a Danish sea captain to carry his cargo.

‘Guy Courtney, the president of East India Company, learned of this. You know what they call these men, private traders who threaten their monopoly? Interlopers.’ She almost spat the word out. ‘The East India Company believe these private traders are nothing more than snakes in the walled garden of Eden which they imagine they have built. So the president informed the pirates when our ship would be sailing. They fell upon her near Cape Cormorin. There were no survivors.

‘My father had put everything he owned into that voyage. Even so, he knew the risks. If it had been an act of God, he would have borne the hardship. But President Courtney wanted to gloat. He summoned us to his house and told us to our faces what he had done, as a warning to ourselves and to others. There was nothing we could do, no hope of justice. The president is the judge and the jury.

‘My father died a few months later, brokenhearted and ruined.’ A tremor shook her voice; Sarah laid a hand on her arm. ‘I took on his affairs. That is why I was aboard the Dowager. The captain charged me a terrible fee to take my cargo, but I thought I would be safe on an Indiaman.’

‘Do you think the pirates we met had been alerted to your coming?’

‘No. That was just a stroke of bad luck.’

She pressed her fingertips together. ‘This is my proposal. I am a merchant, like you. I want to transport my goods to the market at the least cost, to sell for the best price. To pass safely from Madras to Cape Town, you need a pass from the British, a pass from the Dutch, a pass from the pirates and a pass from the Mughal emperor. Even if I bought my own ship, I could not afford to defend her. The crew to man the guns, the protection money I would have to pay … It is impossible.’

‘You want us to carry your trade?’

‘This is not just for myself. The Indian Ocean is crawling with pirates. The East India companies, the Dutch and the English, they can afford the ships to see them off – but they make their suppliers pay for the protection they give them. But there are other merchants, syndicates and traders in London, Amsterdam, Ostend, a dozen cities I have never seen, who could finance the trade and offer better terms, if only they could manage the shipping.’

‘The East India Company has a monopoly on the India trade,’ Tom pointed out. ‘Lord Childs has threatened to hang any man he finds breaking it.’

‘It has a monopoly on the “out and back” trade – from England to the Indies. The country trade, between the ports of the Indian Ocean, is open to all. Divide the journey in two, by trans-shipping the cargoes in Cape Town, and the monopoly does not apply. That is how I persuaded Captain Inchbird to carry my cargo. The European merchants would pay you handsomely to bear the risks of the Indian Ocean, while the factors in India would sell their best wares to you because you would pay more than the Company, and still make a handsome profit.’

‘The VOC, the Dutch East India Company, controls all the trade in Cape Town.’

‘And they will smile on any venture that weakens their hated English rivals.’

‘That would still mean we had to contend with the pirates,’ mused Tom.

‘I have seen how you deal with pirates. And why just India?’ She turned to Dorian. ‘You said your adopted father was the Caliph of Oman. There must be men in the Arab ports – at Lamu, Muscat, Mocha and Gombroon – who trust you. You speak their language and you pray to their God.’

‘The old Caliph was my adopted father. The new Caliph is my adopted brother, and he hates me every bit as much as Guy hates Tom.’ Dorian stroked his red beard. ‘But … there are other men I know.’

‘If you go about it in the right way, you could own the trade of a whole ocean.’

The proposition hung there, dangling between them.

‘We will think on it,’ Tom said. ‘Tomorrow, I will give you our answer.’

Dorian walked with Ana to escort her back to her lodgings. From the veranda of the boarding house Tom watched them descend the hill. He had eaten and drunk his fill, but it had not dulled his mind. He needed air, and space to think.

‘I am going to take a turn in the gardens,’ he told Sarah.

‘Don’t let the lions gobble you up. Take your sword.’

‘I don’t need it,’ he retorted. ‘I kill lions with my teeth, didn’t you know?’

Leaving the house, Tom didn’t notice the single figure lurking in the shadows of the cottage across the road. He walked briskly, whistling ‘Spanish Ladies’ softly to himself, and reached the nearest gate into the botanical gardens of the VOC. The gate was purely ornamental. On the other three sides, the gardens were open, with only a low ditch to keep wild animals out as the ground rose towards the slopes of Devil’s Peak. Sarah’s quip about the lions had not really been a joke.

The VOC had built the gardens for the pleasure of the residents of Cape Town. They had spent heavily when laying them out but recently they had been neglected. The further Tom went, the more derelict they became. Hedges soared twenty feet high, blocking the moonlight and overhanging the paths, which were overgrown with weeds. The sunken ponds had fallen in, becoming slimy holes filled with mud and rubble. The few flowers that had survived grew in sparse, sporadic clusters.

But Tom ignored his surroundings. Ana’s proposal had set his mind on fire. Twenty years ago, he would have agreed to it right there in the parlour. Now, older and wiser, he knew enough of himself to pause before leaping in.

But why not? The Courtneys were a restless family: it was their nature to move on to new lands, new adventures. We have been ploughing the same old furrow much too long, he thought. This is the opportunity I have been waiting for. Why not?

Out in the night, he heard the crazed giggling of a pack of hyenas, scavenging in the colony’s rubbish heaps.

Because of Guy, the more cautious part of his mind answered him. Because if you do this, you will be tweaking the East India Company’s tail, and sooner or later Guy will get to hear of it. Because the last two times you met, he tried to kill you, and if you meet a third time you know one of you will probably die.

Gravel crunched on the path behind him. Tom spun around. A figure stood behind him. Shadows from the wild hedges hid his face, but enough light seeped through to gleam on the naked sword in his hand. Tom was unarmed.

‘Are you Thomas Courtney?’ said an English voice.

‘I am he.’ Tom began to relax. He stepped forward, but the man lunged at him with sword in his right hand.

The morning after the Prophet anchored in Cape Town bay, Francis Courtney took a bumboat ashore. He stood in the bows and gazed at the high peaks cradling the bay, the rolling surf and the few houses clinging to the fringe of this great continent. As a child, he used to pull out the old charts in the library and pore over the strange names and distant shores. In his schoolbooks, he would draw his own maps and imagine exploring those undiscovered countries. And, at last, now he was here.

He went to the harbourmaster’s office to register his arrival.

‘Name?’ asked the clerk. Ink dripped from his pen.

He reached into his coat pocket and produced the false papers that Childs had given him. ‘My name is Frank Leighton.’

From the harbourmaster’s office, he walked along the shore to the fort. It stood about a musket shot from the town, commanding the harbour and the landing areas. Francis stared at it, trying to imagine his great-grandfather labouring in the heat. Growing up in High Weald, Francis had been surrounded by the memories of his ancestors: their effigies in the chapel crypt, their coats of arms in the stained glass, their portraits lining the walls. One by one, those portraits had disappeared: he remembered the first time he’d run down the long gallery and seen a gap on the wall, and the ache each time another painting disappeared to cover Sir Walter’s debts.

Yet here he was. His great-grandfather, the man in the portrait with the stern face and great mane of black hair, had stood on this very ground. So, according to the stories his mother told him, had his grandfather Hal. He imagined them now as they must have been: no longer flat on oil and canvas, but as living, breathing men.

A tremor went through him. He felt the presence of his ancestors, as if all the portraits in the long gallery had come alive, stepped out of their frames and crowded around him, impressing upon him the full weight and expectation of the Courtney name.

If he killed Thomas, would he be any better than the man he killed? A man who murdered his own family.

‘I owe it to my father,’ he told himself, trying not to think of the reward of five thousand pounds Sir Nicholas Childs had promised him. It seemed a mean motive for an act of such enormity.

He realized the sentry at the castle gate had started to take an interest in him. Francis turned, and hurried back to the waterfront where he found a tavern. This early in the morning it was almost deserted, but he needed a drink.

The beer was deep red in colour, flat and sour. Francis took one sip, and thought of the mornings he had come downstairs to find his stepfather already halfway through a bottle of wine.

A woman came over and sat on a stool at his table. She had bright red lips, and almost enough powder on her cheeks to smooth out the wrinkles that lined them.

‘Looking for something, dearie?’ She played with the ribbon that laced the neck of her blouse. ‘I can help you with whatever you want.’

Francis blushed furiously as he realized what she was offering. For a moment, he could hardly speak. Growing up in High Weald, rarely venturing far, he had never encountered such a person, though he had occasionally heard of them in whispered speculation with other boys.

‘I’m looking for Thomas Courtney,’ he mumbled. And then, seeing the recognition light her eyes, ‘Do you know him?’

He put a coin on the table. The woman snatched it up. She polished it on her skirts, and then slipped it into a pouch which she tucked inside her bodice.

Francis waited. ‘Well?’

‘Aren’t you going to buy me a drink?’ she wheedled. ‘A proper gentleman always buys a lady a drink.’

Awkwardly, Francis called the barmaid, who fetched the woman another glass of beer. She gave Francis a pitying look as she put it on the table.

‘First time, dearie?’ said the prostitute, slurping her beer. ‘A big, handsome lad like you? I don’t believe it.’

‘I’m looking for Thomas Courtney,’ Francis insisted.

‘He won’t do the things I can do for you.’ Under the table, her foot rubbed against his calf. Francis hastily pulled it away.

She grinned at his discomfort. ‘Got any more of those silver coins in your purse? For another one of those, I’ll not just tell you where to find him. I’ll show him to you.’

Francis realized he had been foolish to give her money without getting anything in advance. He took out another coin, but kept it firmly pressed under his thumb.

‘This is yours. When you’ve taken me to him.’

The prostitute looked disappointed. ‘You’re a quick learner. I could teach you a few other things you’d never forget. For another coin that is.’

‘Take me to him,’ Francis insisted.

‘I don’t have to. I can see him from here.’

She pointed out the tavern’s window, smeared with lamp soot and salt spray. Beyond it was the harbour front, and the wooden jetty extending out into the bay. The Prophet’s boats had moored alongside, and a gang of black stevedores was unloading her cargo. In the midst of the bustle, three men stood talking, studying a bill of goods. Francis recognized the first two, the Prophet’s captain and the harbourmaster. The third was the tallest, standing over six feet with shoulders as broad as any of the porters working around him. He wore his thick black hair pulled back in a sailor’s queue. He was smiling as he talked, but his hard features said this was a man who would yield to no one.

‘The tall one is Tom Courtney,’ said the prostitute, with more than a little admiration in her voice.

Francis felt as though the blood was freezing in his veins. For so long, Tom Courtney had been an almost mythic figure, the demon who stalked his nightmares. Now he stood a few yards away, talking and joking with the other men. Utterly unaware of the vengeance that awaited him.

The prostitute read the look on Francis’ face.

‘You hate him,’ she mused. ‘You want to kill him. Yes?’ she asked, then as Francis started to protest, ‘Do not argue. I have seen the look that is in your eyes before, though mostly on men who had drunk a good deal more than you.’

Francis couldn’t take his eyes off Tom. ‘What of it?’

‘Tom Courtney is no stumbling sailor still on his sea legs. He’s the most dangerous man in the colony. The stories they tell of him …’ She shook her head.

His stepfather had failed in many things, but he had made sure Francis knew how to fight with sword and fists. More than once, Sir Walter’s debts had led him to the duelling field at dawn; he knew how to account for himself. Sir Walter had been a ferocious instructor, drilling Francis until his knuckles bled and his numbed fingers could hardly close around the hilt of his sword.

One day, this will save your life, he had insisted.

‘I can defend myself,’ Francis assured the woman stiffly.

‘Of course you can, luvvy,’ she leered. ‘But why take the risk? Do you even have a sword? You are not the only enemy Tom Courtney has in Cape Town. There are others I know who would be only too willing to help you.’

Reluctantly, Francis dragged his gaze away from the window and looked at her. ‘What are you offering?’

‘Buy me another drink, and I’ll tell you.’

As darkness fell, Francis climbed the hill. The sword in his belt slapped against his thigh, and he put his hand on the hilt to steady it. Its solid presence reassured him. This was how he would kill Tom Courtney: not the distant, anonymous death of a musket or pistol ball, but the intimate end of a blade through the heart. The same way Tom had killed William.

He cast a nervous eye at the men around him. They were dark figures, their skin grey in the moonlight. Long, straight-bladed cane knives swung easily in their fists.

Behind Francis, Jacob de Vries strode up the hill, swatting at the flowers by the roadside with his cane knife. The knives – heavy blades, more like swords – had been destined for the sugar plantations of Barbados, but the vagaries of trade had brought them to Cape Town, where Jacob had found more than one use for them.

He studied Francis, wondering about this raw English boy. When the prostitute introduced them, he’d half suspected a trap. The boy was so scrawny, his new beard barely hiding his callow cheeks, he looked as if a stiff drink could knock him down. But Jacob had put him through his paces with the blade he had found for him, and discovered he was a more than adequate swordsman: quick with youth, always aware, and with a few moves that had surprised even Jacob. And the fire in his eyes, when he spoke of Tom Courtney, could not be feigned.

Jacob knew that feeling well. Two years ago, he had been bringing a cargo of slaves down from Mozambique when his ship grounded on a sandbar. Tom Courtney had salvaged him – but as his fee he had forced Jacob to free all his slaves. He had lost a fortune, and one beautiful slave girl in particular he had wanted for himself. The bitch Sarah Courtney had taken her, teaching her manners and giving her a passage to England where she could live as a freedwoman.

Desire stirred in his loins as Jacob thought of the girl. She’d been completely naked when she came aboard, high breasted and hair plucked after the fashion of her tribe, leaving nothing to the imagination. He thought of what he would have done to her, and what he would do to Sarah Courtney once Tom was out of the way and could no longer protect her.

They reached the top of the hill. There were a few houses here, but one was empty: the owner had gone to Amsterdam, and wouldn’t return for months. Jacob and his men hid in the shadows of the garden wall, watching the boarding house opposite. Harpsichord music drifted out; lamps burned brightly inside. Through the windows, Jacob saw Tom and his brother and their wives sitting in the parlour. The brother wore a turban wound round his head, no better than a Kaffir. Jacob wondered if the turban would stay in place when he’d separated the head from its neck.

He tapped Francis on the shoulder. The boy jumped as if he’d pissed himself. Not a good sign, thought Jacob.

‘Do we go in now?’

Francis shook his head. Jacob wondered if he was having second thoughts. If it came to it, he could get rid of the boy with one stroke of his cane knife. Jacob knew places where bodies could be left, so that by the time anyone found them the jackals and vultures had picked them bare.

But there was no harm in waiting. And, in fact, a few minutes later, the door opened and Dorian Courtney came out, escorting a woman Jacob didn’t recognize. A half-caste, by the look of her. Perhaps he could find her later, once he was through with Sarah.

For now, Jacob couldn’t believe his luck. Though he wouldn’t admit it, the prospect of fighting both Courtney brothers – even with his strength of numbers – had worried him. Now he could pick them off one at a time.

He waited until Dorian and the woman were out of sight, then he grabbed Francis’ arm.

‘Now,’ he hissed.

But just as he was about to move, light flooded onto the lane again. Tom stepped out the door. Jacob ducked down hurriedly, but Tom was too lost in his own thoughts to notice the movement. When Jacob risked another glance, he saw him walking towards the high wall of the Company garden. He was unarmed.

Jacob chuckled happily. He looked at Francis again. Whoever you are, he thought, you have the Devil’s own luck.

‘Is that him?’ Francis asked. Sweat beaded on his face and his eyes were wide. Jacob wondered if he had the balls to see this through. It wouldn’t matter. Whoever wielded the blade, Tom Courtney would die that night anyway.

They followed Tom, keeping a safe distance behind. Again, luck was with them. Tom headed deeper into the garden, away from the town and anyone who might hear. He walked quickly, but he never looked back.

Scavenging hyenas giggled in the night. Francis drew his sword, trying to envision the look in Tom’s eyes as he suffered the killing blow. Francis had dreamed of this moment so long, but now it was upon him he felt more fear than anger. He had never killed a man before. The sword weighed his arm down, and his legs were as soft as wax.

Do it, he told himself. Do it for your father’s memory.

And five thousand pounds’ reward, added Sir Nicholas Childs’ voice in his head.

Jacob sensed his hesitation and started to move forward, the cane knife at the ready. Francis waved him back. ‘He’s mine,’ he mouthed.

Jacob shrugged and nodded. The boy had paid him: let him have his chance. If he failed, Jacob was ready to finish it.

Francis drew back his arm. He had imagined this moment a thousand times on the long voyage from England. Yet now he was actually here, it was not like he had thought it would be. In his mind, he had called Tom’s name, and watched the surprise in Tom’s eyes turn to horror as Francis told him who he was, and the reason he must die. He had savoured the terror as Tom finally understood that justice would be done; had allowed Tom to fall to his knees and beg for his life, before finally ending it.

But now that he was here, all he wanted was for it to be over. His mouth was dry; he could not issue the challenge.

It did not matter, he told himself: the deed was all that mattered. He aimed the sword at the middle of Tom’s shoulders, holding the blade flat, the way his stepfather had taught him, so it would slide between the ribs. The blood sang in his ears. He stepped forward.

He trod too heavily. Gravel crunched under his foot. Tom spun around. For the first time in his life, Francis came face to face with the man who had killed his father.

‘Thomas Courtney,’ he asked, trying not to let his voice waver.

He looked surprised. ‘I am he.’

Francis lunged. Tom leaped back, just in time. The tip of the sword sliced open his shirt front; cold steel stung his skin, but it was only a scratch. The movement brought Francis too far forward, off balance. Tom could have knocked the sword from his hand, but already another figure was coming up beside the first, his heavy straight blade poised for a blow at Tom’s head. Tom retreated, out into a patch of moonlight that shone through a gap in the hedge.

In the moonlight he saw that there were five of them. He knew Jacob de Vries, and three of the others were familiar faces, rough men who he had seen before in Jacob’s company. The fifth was the youth who had attacked him with the sword. He had never laid eyes on him before. However, his features were hauntingly familiar.

He had no time to think about it. The boy came at him again, a flurry of quick, well-trained strikes that almost took his arm off. The other ruffians fanned out in a loose cordon, cutting off his escape and slowly tightening the net around him.

The boy was clearly the ringleader. The skill and ferocity of his attack marked him as the danger man.

‘Who in the Devil’s name are you?’ he challenged him. ‘Don’t I know you?’

The only answer he got was another lunge with the sword. Tom jumped back. Too late, he saw triumph light up his assailant’s face. The ground gave way beneath Tom. He tumbled down a muddy embankment into one of the empty sunken ponds. The youth stood at the top of the bank, breathing hard, looking down on his unarmed adversary.

Behind him, Jacob turned to one of his men. ‘Stay here with the boy, make sure he finishes the job.’ He would have liked to watch Tom die, but he had to get back to the house before Dorian returned. Dorian would be helpless if Jacob was holding a knife to his wife’s throat. Perhaps he’d make him watch what he did to her, before he turned his attention to Sarah.

He leered down at Tom. ‘It’s high time I paid a call on your pretty little wife. I’ll leave the boy to finish with you.’

With a last glance of triumph at Tom Courtney, he headed back to the boarding house. Two of his men followed; the third stayed with Francis.

In the bottom of the empty pond Tom was trying to recover his footing in the treacherous mud. He had killed so many men, perhaps it was inevitable that one day the angel of good fortune would desert him. His father had died before his time; so had his grandfather. But he still had no idea who this implacable enemy might be.

And while he breathed, he would not let Jacob de Vries lay a finger on Sarah. He pressed his hands into the mud to push himself up and there, half buried, he felt something hard and sharp. He wrapped his fingers around it, and pulled it out of the mud. It was a length of heavy three-inch pipe that had once carried water to feed the pond.

Francis came sliding down the muddy bank of the pond balancing like a dancer, with the sword poised to split Tom’s skull. Tom came to his knees and raised the metal pipe and blocked the blow. Metal rang on metal; but Tom was able to stop the blade inches from his own face.

Tom pushed back, throwing Francis off balance. Francis’ feet shot out from under him and he went down in the black mud. Tom pushed himself to his feet and ran at him with the metal pipe poised. But before he could reach him one of the other men charged down the bank brandishing a cane knife. Tom turned to meet him and ducked under the swinging blade. Then he grabbed the wrist of the man’s knife hand and used the impetus of his blow to keep him turning off balance, twisting his arm up behind his back until his shoulder joint popped out of its socket. The man screamed with the pain and dropped to his knees. Tom swung the water pipe in his right hand into his temple and he toppled face down in the mud.

Tom snatched up the cane knife from where it had fallen from the man’s hand and turned back to face Francis. But Francis was plastered with mud, and he had lost his sword as he fell. Now he refused to meet Tom again, and he staggered back up the bank, sobbing with terror and shame. Tom hurled the water pipe after him and it caught him in the middle of his back with a hefty thump. Francis screamed with pain but kept running. He disappeared into the darkness, and Tom let him go. His only concern now was for Sarah.

Jacob de Vries’ threat echoed in his ears as he started to run: ‘It’s high time I paid a call on your pretty little wife.’

Tom raced out of the gates of the garden and down the path that led to Mrs Lai’s boarding house. Two of de Vries’ henchmen stood on guard at the open door to the boarding house. They saw Tom coming but in the darkness they did not recognize him, and with the cane knife in his hand they took him for one of their gang.

‘You took your time, Hendrick,’ greeted one of them. ‘Jacob’s already getting started on the Courtney bitch.’

A high-pitched feminine scream echoed from the house and the two guards laughed and turned to peer back through the door. One of them died without seeing the stroke of the cane knife that killed him. The second guard heard the blow and the sound of the falling body and began to turn. But he was too slow. Tom’s cane knife chopped into the side of his neck, cutting through his vertebrae so that his head, still partially attached to his shoulders, flopped forward onto his chest.

As Tom jumped over their bodies and ran through the doorway with his heart pumping wildly, a pistol shot rang out ahead of him. He did not pause, but burst into the sitting room. Sarah stood across the room facing him, veiled in a thin cloud of gun smoke. Behind her crouched Mrs Lai, sobbing with terror and clinging to Sarah’s skirts.

In her right hand Sarah held her tiny flint-lock Derringer pistol still fully extended at arm’s length. On the floor at her feet was the spread-eagled body of Jacob de Vries. He lay face down. The back of his skull had been blown away by the exit of the bullet. His buttery yellow brains were splattered over Mrs Lai’s colourful Chinese carpets.

Sarah and Tom stared at each other for the hundredth part of a second then Sarah dropped the empty pistol and ran into his arms.

‘Tom Courtney!’ she cried, and her voice was half a sob and the other half hysterical laughter. ‘You promised to love honour and protect me. But where were you when the chips were on the table?’

‘Oh, my darling, my beloved darling.’ He dropped the cane knife and hugged her to his chest. ‘I shall never leave you again. Never! Never!’ Now they were both talking at the same time.

Then there was a fresh hubbub at the front door and Dorian came through it, shoving a dishevelled and mud-soaked figure ahead of him.

‘Sarah! Tom!’ Dorian shouted with relief. ‘Thanks be to Allah, you are safe. I heard a pistol shot and then I saw this creature running down the hill.’ He gave his captive a kick in the back of his knees which dropped him to the floor. ‘I thought he was up to no good so I grabbed him.’

Tom saw that it was the youthful swordsman who had attacked him in the Botanical Gardens.

‘Yes! He is one of the gang, if not the ringleader,’ Tom said grimly. Still with one arm around Sarah protectively he came to stand over the man on the floor.

‘Who are you?’ he demanded in a murderous tone. ‘Give me a good reason why we should not kill you the way we have done with your henchmen.’

The man on the floor looked up at him. Then with an obvious effort managed to control his terror, and scowled, ‘Yes, Thomas Courtney. You are a natural born killer. You murdered my father – why not do the same to me, his son?’

Tom flinched at the accusation and the ferocity of his expression faded into uncertainty. It was a few seconds before he could gather his wits.

‘Tell me then, who was this person that you accuse me of murdering?’ he demanded.

‘My father was William Courtney, your half-brother and my father.’

‘William …’ Tom gaped at him, ‘You cannot mean that Billy, Black Billy was your father?’

‘Yes, sir. William was my father.’

‘Then that must make you Francis; Francis Courtney.’

Again, Tom remembered the green flash of the Mermaid’s Wink. A soul returning from the dead.

He stooped and took Francis by the wrist and pulled him to his feet. ‘It seems that you and I have much to discuss.’ His tone was mild, but tinged with remorse, ‘At the very least I owe you an explanation.’

When Francis awoke, he was lying in a feather bed. After months at sea, cramped in a narrow cot, it felt like heaven. For a moment, he thought he was back in High Weald, waiting for the servants to bring his breakfast.

He rolled over. A spasm of pain went through his side, and he remembered everything. He wasn’t at High Weald. He hurt all over, he realized.

He opened his eyes. A coffee-skinned woman sat beside him, a shawl drawn over her hair. Behind her, a huge black man with a scarred face guarded the door.

‘Where am I?’

‘In the house of Tom and Dorian Courtney,’ said the black man.

Francis jerked upright – too quick. Another bolt of pain shot through his head. He tried to get out of bed, but the agony was too great.

‘Tom Courtney will kill me if he finds me here,’ he gasped.

‘Tom Courtney has spared your life. Who do you think had us bind your wounds and treat you like the gentleman I doubt you are?’

‘Drink,’ said the woman. She pressed a cup of some foul-tasting concoction to his lips. Francis tasted it, gagged and pushed the cup aside. The scar-faced black man stepped to the bed. He pinched Francis’ nostrils to force him to open his mouth.

‘Miss Yasmini says you drink, so you drink!’ The woman tilted the cup between his lips, and Francis took the easy option, he drank. The effect was swift. The pain of his injuries abated miraculously, and was replaced by drowsiness. The bed was so soft. He closed his eyes.

Yasmini had cleaned his wounds; they were superficial. She had dressed them with ointment that she had prepared from wild herbs she collected with her own delicate hands. With Allah’s grace, they would heal cleanly.

‘Is he really Dorian and Tom’s nephew, I wonder?’ Yasmini asked.

‘If he is not then he has come a long way for a lie.’ Aboli shook his great shaven head. ‘I knew William Courtney from the day he was born. This boy is his spitting image. Also, there is this.’

He showed her the decoration that sat on a dresser: a golden lion with ruby eyes, holding the world between diamond-spangled heavens. ‘This belonged to Klebe’s father. The boy was wearing it beneath his shirt. It proves beyond a doubt that he is who he says.

‘But they say that Tom killed William, his brother. That is why he can never return to England. Tom never forgave himself for what happened with William. He will not make the same mistake with the son,’ said Aboli.

A knock sounded at the door. Tom peered in. ‘How is the patient?’

‘You did not manage to kill him,’ said Yasmini tartly. ‘If you can keep yourself from assaulting him again, he will live.’

Tom went to the bed and looked down at Francis who was sound asleep. He had his father Billy’s dense and coarse black hair, but his features were soft, almost girlishly pretty. Not at all like his father’s had been. Tom hoped that his nature was also different. Black Billy had been hard, domineering and cruel.

Tom counted back the years since he had last seen the squalling baby Francis on the stairs at High Weald. The boy must be seventeen by now – the same age Tom had been when he left home.

Or rather when he had been forced to leave home, and never return to High Weald or to England. A wanted man with his brother’s blood on his hands and on his conscience. He would never forget the dreadful moment when he had lifted the brim of the hat from the face of the man who had attacked him murderously in a dark alley in the dock area of the Thames, and whom he had been forced to kill in self-defence … and found that it was his own half-brother.

He picked up the decoration of the Order of St George, the gilded Lion cupping the world in his paws, and felt the weight of its magnificence. Though Tom had been dubbed a Nautonnier knight, he had never worn the decoration. William had seen to that.

‘Call me when he wakes,’ he told Aboli and Yasmini as he turned back to the door.

I could not save the father. Perhaps I can redeem myself with the son.

When Francis woke again, the woman had gone but the black man still guarded the door. He did not seem to have moved; Francis almost wondered if he might be carved from wood.

He sat up, tentatively, and found that if he moved slowly the pain was tolerable. He swung his legs out of the bed and stood, leaning on the wall for balance. Aboli did not try to stop him.

‘Yasmini’s medicine is working,’ he observed.

Francis stared at him, then at the small window. Was it big enough? He wore nothing but a borrowed nightshirt. He would look like a lunatic, running through Cape Town. Would he be arrested?

Aboli indicated the corner of the room, where a shirt and a pair of breeches sat folded over a chair.

‘If you wish to go, you had better get dressed.’

‘You will not stop me?’

Aboli stepped aside from the door. ‘You are safe, here. But if you are determined to leave …’

‘Safe?’ Francis echoed. ‘Tom Courtney killed my father.’ He had meant it to shock, but Aboli merely nodded. ‘You do not deny it?’

‘I knew your father from the day he was born,’ said Aboli in measured tones. ‘I can tell you from my heart, he was an evil man. A week before William died, Tom went to High Weald seeking help for their brother, and William attacked him. He would have killed Tom, but Tom was the better swordsman, and in the end it was he who had his sword at William’s throat. Yet when Tom tried to make the final blow, he could not do it. His hand would not obey him. A week later, in London, William ambushed Tom on the docks without provocation; he watched other men do his work, and when they failed he drew his pistol to shoot Tom dead himself. I was there. Tom would have died that instant if he had not put his sword through your father’s chest.’

He went on, making no allowances for the impact his words had on the boy. ‘And even then, I think if your father had shown his face – if Tom had known who he really was – Tom would not have been able to strike the blow.’

‘Why are you saying this?’ Francis demanded. ‘To turn me against my father?’

‘It is the truth,’ said Aboli. ‘You may accept it, or not: it is your choice. But if you cling to a lie, eventually it will destroy you.’ He gave a small bow. ‘I will leave you to dress.’

After he had gone, Francis sat a long time on the edge of the bed. The storms that had raged inside him had blown themselves out; he hardly knew who he was any more. He looked at the clothes on the chair, and was not sure he had the strength to put them on. Aboli’s words chased themselves around inside his head until he thought it would split open.

There were some things he could not remember from the night before, but one fact was branded in memory. Tom could have killed him, but he had not done so.

And that one fact had upended everything Francis believed in. He remembered what his mother had told him: Tom couldn’t have killed his brother in cold blood. He had not believed her. Now that he had been at Tom Courtney’s mercy, and lived, he had to consider that she could have been telling the truth.

Sitting there, he saw himself with new eyes. Consorting with thieves and prostitutes, trying to murder a member of his own family: what had he become? And in return, Tom Courtney had repaid him with mercy and kindness.

If you cling to a lie, eventually it will destroy you.

But did he have the strength to let it go?

When Francis came down, Tom was in the parlour sitting in his chair and staring at the Order of St George in his hands. Francis had dressed in a pair of Dorian’s breeches and a shirt of Tom’s which hung off him like a mainsail. He paused on the stairs; Tom thought he might flee at the very sight of him. But Francis knew he could not put this off. He swallowed his fear and continued down.

He reached the bottom of the stairs. The two men stared at each other, uncertain of what to say.

Tom broke the silence. ‘Sometimes it’s easier meeting a man with a sword in your hand,’ he said gruffly. ‘You don’t have to think what to say.’

Francis nodded. Then, all of a sudden, words burst out of him, ‘I am grateful to you for your care. I … You would have been within your rights to send me to the authorities. Or worse.’

‘I am glad we can meet on more tranquil terms,’ said Tom. He stared at the boy as if he might disappear into thin air. ‘Are you really Billy’s son?’

Francis straightened. ‘I am.’

‘Then how did you come to be in the Company gardens with scum like Jacob de Vries?’

‘We met in a tavern. A … a whore introduced us.’ Francis looked shamefaced. ‘Perhaps I should tell you the whole story.’

Tom called Dorian and Aboli to join them. Francis stared in wonder at the two men, Aboli with his scarified face and Dorian in his turban and Arab dress. His real shock came when he learned who Dorian was.

‘Is everything I was told a lie? I always believed you were dead.’

‘It is a long tale,’ said Dorian. ‘Which you shall hear in its turn. But first, I think you were about to tell my brother how you came to find us here.’

Sitting on the torn cushions, Francis told them everything. Tom paced; he cursed audibly when he heard how Sir Walter had ruined High Weald.

‘Poor Alice. Everything stems from the day I killed Billy.’

‘She would have been no happier with William,’ said Aboli. ‘You saw how he treated her. The way he beat her, he might have killed both her and Francis. No,’ he added, seeing Tom’s protest, ‘the boy must know the full truth about his father.’

‘I knew it already,’ said Francis. ‘Before I left, my mother told me about my father and the way he treated her. She said you acted to defend yourself.’ He shook his head, embarrassed. ‘I did not believe her.’

‘Aye,’ said Tom, remembering that infernal night. ‘But it was not all Billy’s fault. I am certain he would not have known where to find us, had Lord Childs not arranged it.’

Francis’ face paled with shock. ‘Sir Nicholas Childs? Then I am doubly forsaken. It was he who sent me, who told me where I might find you. He promised me five thousand pounds if I killed you.’

‘For five thousand pounds, even I might have considered it,’ said Dorian, turning it into a little joke, but Tom continued seriously.

‘You would never have seen the money. Childs is a spider, spinning webs that reach to the furthest corners of the globe. He sits in his lair, his office in Leadenhall Street, and devours any man who threatens so much as a penny of his fortune. I had helped earn him twenty thousand pounds in prize money, yet he ordered me killed because I refused him a share of a tiny sloop. He is a monster.’

‘I see that now.’

‘Wiser men than you have been snared by his schemes. Even your father Billy, I think, did not realize he was but a pawn in Childs’ machinations. Billy wanted to kill me, but it was Childs who gave him the means. No doubt, had Billy succeeded, Childs would have found ways to use his guilt against him.’

Francis frowned. ‘Then what shall I do? Lord Childs gave me letters of introduction to my uncle Guy at the Company factory in Bombay, but—’ He broke off as he registered Tom’s reaction. ‘What is it?’

‘Guy is another story entirely.’

‘But Francis is a Courtney, and he should know the truth of our family,’ said Dorian gently. ‘It is these secrets and half-truths that drive us apart, and give men like Lord Childs the leverage to use us against each other.’

Before Tom could answer, there was a knock at the door. Ana Duarte came in.

‘Am I interrupting? I thought we had agreed to meet this morning to discuss my proposal further.’ And then, taking in the presence of Francis, she asked, ‘Who is this?’

A curious expression had come over her face. Her lips parted; she stared at Francis as if he were the only man in the room. Unconsciously, her hand moved to adjust the neckline of her dress.

Tom gathered his thoughts, and introduced them. ‘This is our nephew, Francis. He arrived from England, er, somewhat unexpectedly last night. Francis, this is Ana Duarte. She is a business partner of ours, or perhaps I am being premature.’

Francis nodded, as if in a dream – the most lucid dream he had ever experienced. Everything about Ana seemed to leap out at him with minute clarity. A lock of hair curling from behind her ear; the playful curve of her lips; the depths of her honey-brown eyes, locked on his.

The silence stretched out. Everyone waited for him to say something, but he did not trust his voice.

‘Francis took a blow to the head last night. Perhaps he has not quite recovered,’ said Tom.

Worry clouded Ana’s eyes. ‘Is he hurt? What happened?’

‘Tom had to knock him out to stop him trying to murder us,’ said Dorian.

Ana looked between the two brothers. She took in the cuts and contusions on their faces and arms. She had been aware of the smell of burned gunpowder in the air and the spot of blood on the carpet that all Mrs Lai’s exertions had not managed to remove.

‘I trust you have persuaded him to reconsider?’

Dorian peered at Francis. ‘I believe so. I think he was under a misapprehension.’

Francis stood carefully, not sure his legs would oblige. His mouth had gone dry.‘I was poorly advised.’

No, he realized, that was not right. He felt the others watching him, Ana most of all. It was time for him to take responsibility.

‘I listened to other men’s lies, and not to those I should have trusted. I am sorry for the danger I brought on your family, and if there is anything I can do to make amends I will do it gladly. I have learned my lesson.’

Tom put his arm around his shoulders. ‘Come,’ he said. ‘Before you arrived last night, Miss Duarte had just suggested we become partners in business. You left England to seek your fortune: perhaps we can help you find it.’

Francis nodded, and followed the others to the dining room, holding the door for Ana.

He had entirely forgotten the conversation that had been interrupted by her arrival. Only much later did he think to wonder: why had Tom acted so strangely when he mentioned his uncle Guy?

In the brilliant sunshine the surface of the sea seemed so smooth and bright that it might have been carved from solid rock. Even where the wavelets met the land, they undulated but did not break. Just off the beach two East Indiamen swung lazily on their anchors.

In the estuary, a ring of low-lying islets clustered around a marshy basin. Stone built forts crowned every hilltop. The tiered towers and multiple eaves of a great pagoda rose from a grove of ancient twisted Banyan trees. Across a narrow channel, barely wider than a musket shot, lay the shores of the great Indian subcontinent.

Christopher Courtney heard the fort gun boom out the noon hour. He wiped his face, sweating in his best coat and heavy breeches. All the merchants in Bombay concluded their business in the early morning before retreating to the relative cool of their houses. At this hour, he was the only man abroad.

‘Two monsoons are the age of a man,’ said an old Bombay proverb – to reach it Christopher had only to survive two years. For some men, that was optimistic. The foetid air rising off the salt marsh, coupled with the noxious stink of the rotted fish the natives used to manure their coconut palms, claimed some arrivals even before they got off their ships. The rest stayed indoors as much as they could, counting their profits and the days until they could escape to England.

Christopher had now survived fifteen monsoons – his whole life, leaving aside three years spent in Zanzibar. Indeed, while other men wilted and died, he had flourished: tall and lean, with a firm jaw and deep brown eyes – not a bit like his father, men said approvingly, though never in his father’s presence.

Despite the heat, he was shivering. A slouching sentry let him through the gate, and across the courtyard to the Governor’s house. It was a relic from the time when the Portuguese had owned the islands: an imposing three-storey building with a Portuguese crest still carved above the door. It towered over the walls of the fort, which had been built around it when the English took over the island.

Even though it was his home, Christopher’s breath quickened with anxiety as he entered. He climbed the stairs, and knocked timidly on the stout teak doors that guarded the Governor’s office.

‘Enter,’ barked the familiar voice.

Guy Courtney sat at his desk, in front of three tall windows from which he could look down on every ship anchored in the harbour. Papers were stacked neatly on his desk: letter books and consultation books, manifests and loading bills, all the ink and paper that drove the Company’s trade no less than the winds that sped her ships. On the wall to his left, Guy’s father Hal looked down from an oil painting, his hand resting on the hilt of a great golden sword. A huge sapphire bulged from its pommel, painted with such lustre it seemed to glow off the canvas.

A black servant stood beside Guy, wafting him with a silver-handled peacock feather. Guy didn’t look up.

‘What is it?’ he snapped.

Christopher clutched the brim of his hat. He took another deep breath. ‘I have come to ask your permission to marry, Father.’

Guy went still. ‘Marry?’ He repeated the word as if it stank of dung. ‘What in the world possessed you of this notion?’

‘I am of age.’

‘That hardly signifies. Who is the girl who has caught your foolish fancy?’

‘Ruth Reedy.’

‘Who?’

‘Corporal Reedy’s daughter. From the garrison.’

‘That wench? She’s little more than a punch-house doxy!’ Guy’s expression changed. He tipped back his head and laughed. ‘For a moment, I thought you were serious. I had heard reports you were seen together, but I assumed you were merely tupping her behind the stables, like a dozen other youngsters of your age are doing to her. Perhaps I gave you too much credit.’

‘I love her.’

Guy studied his son through half-closed eyes. The boy had always been headstrong – like his father. Quick witted and strong willed, he had all the makings of a fine merchant. So much potential: Guy had taken great pains in his education. He had beaten him blue, trying to thrash out the contrary elements in the boy’s nature, to make him fit for the future he alone could give him. And still the boy had not learned.

Perhaps kindness could succeed where force had failed. He softened his tone.

‘I know how it is to be young. When I was your age, and foolish, I loved a girl so hard I almost gave my life for her honour. It was only later I found she was a common whore, a bitch who’d give herself to anyone who had a few rupees.’

Even after so many years, the memory made him hot with anger. He forced himself to be calm. He had made her pay many times over, once she became his wife.

‘Your mistakes are not my concern, Father.’

‘But yours are mine. You will not marry this girl. I forbid it, as your father and as Governor of the Bombay Presidency. You know that any marriage contracted in this colony must be approved by me in order to be valid.’

‘You would deny your own son?’

‘When he is out of his mind, yes.’ Guy pushed himself back in his chair. ‘You wish to marry? I will see to it. You are of age now, and it is right you should take a wife. I have been remiss: if I had acted sooner, perhaps we would have avoided this foolishness altogether. After the monsoon, we will sail to England together, and I will find you a suitable bride. Sir Nicholas Childs has a niece who is eligible, or perhaps the Earl of Godolphin’s grand-daughter. We will make a match that secures your prospects admirably.’

And mine, he thought, though it hardly needed to be said. What use was a son if not to advance his father’s interests? Already, in his mind, he was counting the extra shares he might acquire with a well-contracted marriage. Perhaps a seat on the Court of Directors, even a royal appointment as Ambassador Plenipotentiary.

Christopher just stared at him. He had always been a sullen boy, Guy thought, despite all his paternal efforts. An ingrate, who could not conceive how much Guy had sacrificed for him.

‘I hear from London that Sir Nicholas Childs is not a well man,’ Guy went on. ‘One day, perhaps you may find yourself sitting in the great office in Leadenhall Street.’

Even this optimistic prospect drew no reaction from the lad. It occurred to Guy that perhaps Christopher had not even been rogering the corporal’s daughter. Perhaps he had been saving himself, out of some misguided ideal of marriage. When Guy was his age, after all, he had believed in a pure, chaste love. Before his brother Tom had snatched his illusions from him.

‘I know you have needs. I am guilty of neglecting them.’ He pulled a golden pagoda from the locked drawer in his desk and tossed it to Christopher. ‘A down payment on your future bride’s dowry. Take yourself to the brothel by the customs house – the clean one, where the officers go – and find a girl who can service you.’ He chuckled. ‘Just don’t fall in love with her, for God’s sake.’

Christopher stared at the coin as if he had never seen one before. He held it up, so that the golden light played across his face.

‘You would do all this? For me?’

Guy felt a rare spark of paternal pride. ‘All I have ever wanted is a great future for you.’

The coin slipped through Christopher’s fingers and fell onto the desk. It landed on its edge, spinning round and round making a glittering orb.

‘You are a monster, Father. A cruel, calculating ogre with nothing but a strongbox where your heart should be. You would sacrifice your only son’s happiness to make me a pawn to your ambitions. I will not play that game.’

The coin fell flat as Guy stood, pushing the desk away from him in fury.

‘How dare you defy me?’

Christopher stood his ground. ‘I am not a little boy any longer, whom you can beat to your will. I will make my life how I choose, not how you design it. I will go where I please and marry whom I please.’

The veins in Guy’s neck throbbed. ‘Be careful, Christopher. There is nowhere on either side of this ocean that my power does not reach.’

‘I do not fear you.’

‘You should,’ said Guy dangerously. ‘I could destroy you.’

Christopher stared at him. ‘Can you hear yourself? What sort of a man would say such a thing to his son? Sometimes I think you cannot be my father.’

His words struck a nerve he had never touched before. With an incoherent howl of rage, Guy grabbed a silver paper knife from his letter basket and hurled it at Christopher. It flew past his ear and stuck, quivering, in the doorframe.

Christopher didn’t flinch. He stared down at his father, his body rigid with controlled fury. It occurred to Guy that he had never noticed how tall his son had become.

‘Farewell, Father. We shall not meet again.’

‘Wait,’ Guy called. But Christopher had gone.

The sunlight struck him like a bolt of lightning before his eyes. Dazed, reeling from the enormousness of what he had done, he stumbled across the square. Ruth met him by the shore, where rusting anchors and cast-off lengths of rope littered the strand. Though it was less than an hour since she had seen him last, she flung her arms around him and clung to him as if they had been parted for years.

She had arrived with her father nine months earlier. Christopher had watched the arrival of the Indiaman that brought her. From the castle walls, he had glimpsed her in the boat that rowed her ashore: just sixteen, with alabaster skin and rich red hair, colours he’d never seen on a girl before. As her boat passed the castle, she had looked up – doubtless wondering about her new home – and caught Christopher’s eye. At that moment, he had felt a stir in his loins such as he had never felt before; he could hardly breathe with desire.

Of course, an English girl arriving in Bombay was like a rose in the desert, and there was no shortage of men wanting to pluck her for themselves. But they all retreated when they learned Guy Courtney’s son was interested.

Even then, it took time. Christopher was awkward; he did not know how to speak to a girl who was not a servant. Many nights he lay awake, abusing himself, imagining the taste of Ruth’s lips, furious at his lack of courage.

But Ruth was patient. She understood how Christopher felt, in a way his mother and father never did. She saw the love in his heart, and coaxed it out. At an assembly in the Governor’s house, where soldiers’ families were admitted because there were so few other women, she sought him out for a dance. The first time he touched her hand, his whole body convulsed. He had danced the whole night almost bulging out his breeches, certain that everyone must be laughing at him. But Ruth did not laugh. She helped him around the dance floor, and when they moved towards each other she overstepped just a little, so that she pressed against him and he felt every curve of her body through her thin cotton dress.

After that, he saw her almost every day: snatched moments behind the warehouses, or on the beach at Back Bay, beyond the coconut plantations. They held hands and walked across the sand while she told him about England, the country he came from but had never seen. She had seen so much, things he had only ever read in books or heard discussed among his father’s Company colleagues. She spoke to him with respect, talking easily while he stood tongue-tied by her beauty.

They kissed, and he thought life could not get any sweeter. Later, she had allowed him to unlace her bodice and touch her breasts, while she slipped her hand inside his breeches and teased his throbbing manhood. But she would not let him go further. ‘I cannot, until I am married,’ she insisted; and he buried his face between her breasts and promised, ‘I will marry you.’

Now, she saw Christopher’s desolate expression and cupped his face in her hands. ‘What did he say? Dear heart, are you ill? Did he give his permission?’

‘He forbade it.’ Christopher sat down hard on the hull of a rotting boat drawn up above the tideline. A cloud of flies rose off it in protest.

Tears clouded her innocent blue eyes. ‘Whatever will we do? I cannot live without you, my love. I would rather die.’

Christopher closed his eyes. The blinding light made it impossible to think. He rubbed his temples, replaying the conversation with his father. His love for Ruth was so pure, so true, how could his father deny it? How dare he? For a moment, the futility was so bleak he contemplated tying one of those rusting anchors to his leg and throwing himself into the harbour. He would end it all, escape the suffocating weight of his thwarted love and make his father understand.

But that would be no victory.

‘I will leave Bombay,’ he said suddenly.

‘Let me come with you!’

He shook his head. ‘My father has left me with nothing. I must earn my fortune the hard way, and it will be no place for a woman. Stay here, stay with your family, and wait for me to return.’

‘I cannot.’

‘You must. I know it will be hard, but you must for both our sakes.’ He stood and hugged her tight to him, breathing in the perfume of her hair. He was alive with desire for her, but even more than that he longed to prove his father wrong. ‘Stay here, and let him think he has won. When I return, my victory will be complete – and so will our happiness.’

She kissed him on the lips. ‘Promise me, Christopher. Promise me we shall be happy.’

‘I promise, my love. If you wait for me, I will make such a fortune that even my father cannot touch us.’

‘I will wait. I swear it, even if you are gone twenty years I will wait for you. I will sit every day in this place and watch the sea for your return.’

‘Like Odysseus and Penelope,’ said Christopher, stroking her hand.

She wrinkled her brow. ‘Who?’

‘It doesn’t matter.’ He shrugged off the coat that was now heavy with his sweat. Now that he had decided, he was suddenly impatient to be away. Shading his eyes, he stared out into the harbour. The East Indiamen still slumbered at their moorings, but there was movement on the deck of a small coastal trader as her crew made ready for sea.

‘That ship will be sailing on the tide. I will take passage with her, and go wherever she takes me.’ He kissed her again, and she thrilled at the feel of his strong arms around her.

‘Wait for me, my love.’

‘I promise I will.’

He had no baggage to take with him. All his possessions were in his room in the Governor’s house, and he could not go back there. Christopher went to the landing place and hailed one of the small bumboats to take him out to the trader. He read her name Joseph, carved on her transom as the boatmen rowed him out to the trader.

He went aboard. Most of the crew were Indians, dark-skinned men working almost naked to stow the cargo. The only white man on deck seemed to be the master, a large man with close-cropped hair and a mermaid tattoo on his bulging forearm. He broke off from supervising the loading and came over.

‘Well?’ he barked.

‘I want to join your ship.’

The master looked him up and down. His face soured. ‘I know you. You’re Christopher Courtney, the Governor’s son.’

Christopher nodded.

‘He’s a sorry twat.’

He was so close that his spittle sprayed Christopher’s face. Christopher didn’t flinch.

‘Well?’ said the master. ‘Are you going to let me insult your father and just stand there? What sort of a man would do that?’

‘If I cared what my father thought, I wouldn’t be here.’

The master gave him a stinging slap across his cheek. ‘That’s enough impertinence. You respect your betters on this ship, or else.’

He bared his teeth, daring Christopher to strike back. Christopher fought the urge and forced himself to stay still. If he had learned one thing from his father, it was how to take a beating.

The master spat on the deck. A gob of phlegm landed next to Christopher’s toe.

‘Have you ever worked a ship?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Ever been to sea before?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Then why should I take you on my crew? This isn’t one of your father’s gold-plated Indiamen with a crew of layabouts. Every man here earns his keep, or by God I’ll have him off this ship so fast you won’t even hear the splash.’

‘I’m a hard worker, sir.’

‘You don’t know the meaning of hard work.’ He snatched Christopher’s hand and turned it palm up. ‘Look at that lily-white skin. The only thing you’ve ever used these hands for is jerking your own cock.’ He turned his back. ‘Get off my ship, before I throw you in.’

‘Wait,’ said Christopher. He grabbed one of the bales of cloth sitting on the deck. ‘What is this? Culbeleys? Silk mixed with carmania wool? And this is jurries, the longest-lasting cotton cloth. This one—’

‘Get your hands off my cargo.’ The master grabbed Christopher by his shirtfront, lifted him off the deck and carried him to the side. He pushed him out over the gunwale.

‘Eight rupees,’ gasped Christopher. ‘Eight rupees the yard. That is what the East India Company will pay for culbeleys. Six rupees for jurries.’

He teetered on the gunwale. The master’s face loomed above him, framed by a matrix of rigging and the blue sky behind.

‘How do you know this?’

‘I clerked for my father. I wrote the entries in his ledger books. I know what the Company will pay for every cargo in every port on this coast.’ Big hands choked his neck; he could hardly breathe. ‘That knowledge could be useful to you.’

The master let him go. He slumped onto the deck, rubbing his neck.

A heavy boot kicked him in the ribs.

‘Get up.’

Ignoring the pain and the nausea in his stomach, Christopher stood. The master studied him like a hungry shark.

‘I’ll take you as my apprentice. Your pay is four rupees a month, less deductions for rations and slops.’ He saw the look on Christopher’s face and laughed. ‘You think you’re worth more than that, you lily-fingered bum boy? Find another ship.’

Christopher clenched his fists. You knew it wouldn’t be easy, he told himself. You must learn a trade before you can hope to make your fortune.

‘I accept.’

The master almost looked disappointed. He wants to hit me again, Christopher realized. The thought didn’t frighten him. Growing up with Guy, he took it almost for granted.

The master fetched the muster book and Christopher signed his name. His neatly printed English letters were like genteel islands against the sea of marks, crosses and Indian characters the other sailors had left on the page.

In the heat, the ink dried almost faster than he could put it on the page. The master slammed the book shut.

‘You belong to me now, and God help you if I catch you shirking your duty. Aboard my ship, your father’s name counts for nothing. You may have white skin and pretty writing, but I’ll flog you as hard as any of these darkies if you cross me. You understand?’

‘Yes, sir.’

The master glared at him. Christopher dropped his head meekly, stooping his shoulders in a submissive attitude he had often adopted during his father’s tirades. The master grunted.

‘Now get to work.’

In less than ten minutes, Christopher discovered the hardship he had let himself in for. Stripped to his waist, still wearing his best wool britches, he joined the other seamen on the capstan to haul up the anchor. The sun flayed his naked back; the capstan bars rubbed his hands raw. He glanced up, staring at the horizon to take his mind off the pain. Ashore, he saw a commotion on the waterfront: a group of men in Company uniforms gesticulating at the Joseph. Was it his father? Perhaps he had reconsidered.

A heavy blow fell across his back. He jerked around, and was almost knocked down by the capstan bar swinging into him from behind. He resumed his position at the capstan bar. From the corner of his eye he saw the master watching from the sidelines, dangling the short length of rope he’d used to strike him.

‘No second thoughts, Lilyhands. Desert, and I’ll see you keelhauled.’

‘Don’t let him goad you,’ whispered a voice behind him. He spoke Portuguese, the lingua franca of the Malabar coast. Christopher craned back, still trudging at the capstan, and saw a slim youth with dark skin and bright eyes, pushing at the near spoke. He must have been younger than Christopher, but his hands were calloused and his young body rippled with muscles.

‘Captain Crawford’s a devil,’ he whispered again, barely audible over the creak of the capstan. ‘But there are ways to avoid him. The more you fight him, the more he’ll try to break you.’

The anchor came up and was catted and fished. The sails were loosed, and slowly they filled with the afternoon breeze coming off the sea. Christopher hauled on the ropes as he was ordered, always with a lick of Crawford’s starter rope to encourage him. He refused to look back.

That night, he made his bed on deck, near the bow. He lay on the hard planking, feeling the aches racking his body, and stared at the stars. That morning, he’d woken in his feather bed at the Governor’s house, servants jumping to his every need. Now he didn’t even have a blanket to lie on.

A dark figure came and sat beside him. White teeth gleamed in the darkness. It was the youth who’d spoken to him on the capstan.

‘My name is Danesh,’ he introduced himself.

‘Christopher.’

‘Is your father really the Governor of Bombay?’

‘Yes.’

‘You must hate him very much.’

Christopher remembered the look in Guy’s eyes. ‘Yes. I do.’

Danesh handed him a blanket. ‘Before we are finished, you will hate Crawford even more.’

The next three weeks were the hardest Christopher had known in his life. On the second day, Crawford sent him aloft to reef a sail. It was only when he was halfway up the shrouds that he looked down and realized no one had followed. The other men waited on deck, watching him, making wagers among themselves.

A gust of wind made the ship heel over. Only gently, but to Christopher it felt like a hurricane. He tipped back; the waves seemed to race towards him. The men on deck catcalled and jeered, Crawford shouted something, but he could hardly make out the words above the blood pounding in his ears. His grip started to slip.

The ship rolled back. His stomach lurched again. His gaze began to drift down, but he knew that if he looked at the sea again he would let go and fall. He wrenched his gaze upwards, fixing his sight on the main top and forcing himself to move, one hand at a time, hauling himself up. Each step was pure terror; each time his hands closed on the ropes again, he gripped them like a baby clutching his mother’s finger.

At last, he reached the top. It was misnamed, for it was only the top of the main mast – the topmast and topgallant mast rose higher still – but to him it felt as if he’d conquered the highest mountain.

Down on deck, no one cheered him. With a shock, he realized they were not impressed with what he had achieved. Rather, they had wanted to see him fall. That was all his life was worth: entertainment to liven up the watch.

They might yet get it. His ordeal wasn’t over. Now he was up, he had to edge out along the main yard, with nothing under his feet except the thin foot rope. Reluctantly, the other sailors joined him. They ran along the yard, balancing like monkeys and immune to the roll of the ship. Some jostled Christopher intentionally, treading on his fingers or knocking his shoulders as they passed.

They want me to die.

His fingers slipped and fumbled as he struggled to undo the gaskets that bound the sail. The foot rope swung under him, the thinnest thread that felt like standing on thin air. Then there was the descent, the terror every time he lowered a foot, finding each foothold by touch because he didn’t dare look down.

When he finally reached the deck he clung to the shrouds, not trusting his legs to keep him upright. He nearly vomited over the side. But deep down, a small ember of satisfaction glowed inside him. He’d done it. From across the deck, Danesh mouthed, ‘Well done.’

The slap of the starter rope across his shoulders scattered his thoughts. He spun around, raw and vulnerable, to see Crawford leering at him.

‘I didn’t order you to come down.’

Christopher bit back the retort that came to his lips. Automatically, he lowered his head and waited for Crawford’s temper to pass.

‘I want you keeping lookout. There are pirates in these waters. If one of them gets within a mile of us, I’ll skin you alive.’

Christopher flinched as if he’d been hit again. He looked up at the main top, impossibly high. Could he really go there again?

Crawford followed his gaze, and an evil smile spread across his lips.

‘You won’t see anything from there. I want you on the crosstrees.’

High above the main top, the crosstrees were little more than a wooden grating sticking from the top of the topmast. So small, Christopher could hardly see it from the deck. Even looking up at it made him dizzy.

He didn’t move. Crawford licked his lips and coiled the rope. He flexed it, testing its strength.

‘Are you disobeying an order?’

Christopher fought back the tears that were pricking his eyes. He would not give Crawford the satisfaction.

‘No, sir.’

‘Then get your lily white arse aloft before I have to order you again. And you’ll stay there,’ he added, ‘until I give you permission to come down.’

Christopher began to climb.

He had hated before, but he hated this more than anything in his life. Even more than his father. Indeed, he rarely thought of Guy any longer. The constant work of handling a ship, forever fumbling, always the last to finish his tasks, left no time for idle thoughts. When he stumbled off watch, he would curl up in the forecastle, nursing his aches and rubbing oil on the blisters that formed as big as pagoda coins on his hands.

The rest of the crew shunned him. As a white man, he was alien; as a sailor, they despised him. Only Danesh showed him any kindness, and even he seemed cautious about being seen with Christopher too often. He had never been so lonely. In time, he began to look forward to being sent up to the crosstrees, though he could never look down. Sitting among the sails, he felt like a god in the clouds, far above mortal men and their petty fears and hatreds. In those moments, he tried to imagine his future with Ruth, the house they would live in and the fine presents he would buy her. But all too often, those thoughts turned dark, as he began to dream of how he would get even with Crawford, his father, and every man who had ever done him wrong.

One afternoon, during the dogwatch, he went below to fetch water. He liked going into the hold. The smells of baling yarn and freshly packed cloth reminded him of the Company warehouses where he’d played as a child.

‘Chris,’ Danesh hissed from the gloom. ‘See this.’

Something gleamed in the palm of his hand. A brass key.

‘What’s that for?’

‘The forward locker,’ whispered Danesh. ‘I stole it from Crawford’s cabin while he was inspecting the rigging.’

The forward locker was where they kept the spirits. It was supposed to be for the use of the crew, but it was widely rumoured that Crawford kept most of it for sale on his own account.

Christopher glanced anxiously over his shoulder. ‘What if he finds us?’

‘He won’t miss a few bottles. We can sell them in port. Hurry.’

Danesh slipped the key in the padlock and sprang it. The sharp tang of spirits wafted out through the open door.

‘You stay here and keep lookout. If he catches us, he will flay us alive.’

Danesh handed Christopher the key and ducked into the store. Christopher stood there, staring. He knew he should run, leave Danesh to his fate and disclaim all knowledge if he was caught. It wasn’t his idea. But Danesh was the closest thing he had to a friend on the ship. If he lost him, he’d have nothing.

Feet thudded on the deck above; the ship’s movements made shadows flit across the square of light that came through the hatchway.

‘Be quick,’ Christopher called. ‘I think someone’s coming.’

Danesh reappeared, with four bottles of brandy cradled in his arms. He laid them on the floor.

‘Crawford keeps enough to make an elephant drunk,’ he whispered. ‘One more load will be enough for both of us.’

‘No,’ hissed Christopher. ‘Let’s go now. We—’

The ladder creaked under the weight of a heavy tread. A pair of shoes appeared, giving way to a pair of fat legs in white stockings, then a pair of breeches, then a corpulent torso straining the buttons of its shirt.

Quick as thought, Danesh dived behind the anchor cable, whose huge coils made a nest big enough for a man. Christopher, petrified, stayed rooted to his spot.

Crawford ducked his head under the hatchway and stepped off the ladder. Deliberately, he took in the open locker, the bottles at Christopher’s feet and the key in his hand.

‘I thought I might find someone here when I noticed my key was missing.’

Christopher said nothing.

‘How did you get it? Who helped you?’

Christopher stared straight at Crawford, fixing his gaze so he wouldn’t betray Danesh with a stray glance. Crawford took it as arrogance.

‘Do you think you’re better than me because your father’s Governor of Bombay? Do you think that gives you the right to steal from me?’

Crawford’s face was dark with rage, like clouds threatening thunder. Christopher knew that look. He braced himself.

‘Boatswain,’ Crawford bellowed. ‘Bring Mr Courtney on deck, and summon all hands to witness punishment.’

Rough hands dragged him up the ladder. By the time he reached the top, all the crew had gathered around a small barrel that had been set out behind the mainmast. Crawford went to his cabin and returned with a length of rope, thinner and suppler than the starter rope which he usually used. He ran it through his fingers, then tied two knots in the end.

‘Prepare the prisoner,’ he ordered.

They bent Christopher over the barrel. The iron hoops, which had been sitting in the sun, seared welts across his naked chest, but he knew that was just a taste of the pain to come. The boatswain held his hands, while one of the sailors pinned his feet, so he was stretched over the barrel like a piece of laundry.

Behind him, Crawford rolled back his shirtsleeve. Methodically, he uncoiled the rope. He cracked it on the deck, twice, limbering himself up. He planted his feet firmly, reached back his arm and the first blow hit Christopher with a sound like a musket shot. The pain was excruciating. He bit down on the rag between his teeth, determined not to cry out. Before he could even draw breath, a second blow hit him between the shoulder blades. Then a third, then—

He almost lost count. Pain came in waves, one after another so fast they blurred together into a single moment of agony. Crawford had abandoned all pretence of discipline: this was a thrashing, savage and uncontrolled, as if he wanted to crush every bone in Christopher’s body.

But Christopher forced himself to keep counting. Through the agony, he counted every stroke. It was how he had survived his father’s beatings, and it was how he survived this one, drawing strength from the number he had endured. Totting up the blows in some imaginary ledger, to be repaid with interest one day. As long as he could number them, he would survive them.

The blows became weaker. Crawford swung his arm with undimmed fury, but he was tiring. He dropped the rope, its end frayed and matted with Christopher’s blood and skin. The crew drifted back to their tasks. The men who had pinned him let Christopher go: they were spattered with his blood. He rolled off the barrel into a heap on the deck. He closed his eyes, soaking up the pain.

Someone put a mug of rum to his lips and he drank thirstily. Danesh. It didn’t make the pain go away, but it did dull it a little.

Danesh cleaned his back. Crawford refused him fresh water: he had to use a bucket dipped over the side. The salt water hurt almost more than the whip. A black haze covered Christopher’s sight; he wanted to move, but his limbs wouldn’t obey.

‘Forty-nine,’ he croaked.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Forty-nine lashes.’ Christopher grinned, his lips cracking with the effort. ‘He couldn’t even get to fifty. Weakling,’ he said, and fainted.

A week later, the Joseph anchored in the port of Trivandrum. The crew were merry: it was their first opportunity to go ashore since Bombay, and they planned to enjoy themselves to the full. Crawford brought out a table and stool onto the main deck, and the men queued to receive their pay.

Christopher waited until all the others had finished, scrawling their marks in the book and walking away with a few coins in their fists. At last, when it was his turn, he stepped forward and put out his hand. Crawford leered at him.

‘What do you want?’

‘My wages.’

‘Of course.’ Crawford made a great play of counting out the coins. He pushed them across the table, but as Christopher reached to take them, he grabbed his wrist and bent it back until the coins spilled out.

‘What do you think you’re doing?’

Tears of pain blinked in Christopher’s eyes. He thought his wrist would snap.

‘Taking my wages.’

‘Are you thieving from me again? Those belong to me.’

‘You said four rupees a week.’

‘You signed on as my apprentice. That means all your wages go to me.’ Crawford let go of Christopher’s wrist, so that he stumbled backwards into the group of watching sailors. No one caught him; he landed hard on the deck. Crawford swept the coins off the table and put them back in the box. He snapped it shut and stood, hand twitching at the knife in his belt.

‘Have I made myself clear?’

Christopher lay on the deck, clutching his wrist. Hatred consumed him: all he wanted was to stick the knife in Crawford’s guts and see him bleed out on the deck. He felt the eyes of the whole crew watching him, enjoying his humiliation, and he hated them too.

He pushed himself upright, ignoring the pain that shot through his wrist, and faced down Crawford. The master looked surprised to see him standing.

‘I understand,’ said Christopher thickly. He didn’t trust himself to say more.

Crawford was about to provoke him again, but something made him pause. Even in the few weeks of their voyage, Christopher had changed from the callow youth who had come aboard in Bombay. His shoulders had broadened out, and his arms had become thicker. He no longer stooped as much. But it was in his face that the difference was most obvious. Harder and firmer, with black eyes that unsettled with the intensity of their gaze. Though Crawford would never admit it, they frightened him.

He turned away. ‘Lower the boats,’ he ordered. ‘We’re going ashore. Not you,’ he barked at Christopher. ‘You stay aboard to keep anchor watch. Anything happens to my ship while I’m away, I’ll nail you to the topmast and let the crows have you. Understand?’

Christopher saw Danesh giving him a sympathetic glance. None of the others even glanced in his direction. All Christopher could do was watch as they clambered into the longboat and rowed ashore. Danesh went too. A group of women waited on the beach to welcome them, dragging each man towards the nearest punch house. Whatever pay they’d had, it would be gone by morning. That was no consolation to Christopher.

He settled down in the shade of the awning, whittling a piece of wood with his knife. He had the ship to himself, and he revelled in the solitude. All his life he had been kept on his own, an only child forbidden to mix with the other children in the settlement, because his father deemed them inferior. Of the few he had befriended, most had died or gone back to England. His mother kept to her chamber, for fear of rousing his father’s temper. He was used to being alone.

But he now realized that he would never make his fortune this way. Even if he survived Crawford’s bullying, it would be years before he had enough money even to buy himself a new suit of cheap clothes. He could not ask Ruth to wait so long.

There was another lesson he had learned from his father. Sitting in the Governor’s house, quiet and unnoticed, he had watched men come and go from his father’s office. In the silent house, conversations carried. He had heard men abuse his father in terms he could not have imagined, and walk out of the office with their heads high, convinced they had won a victory. And he had seen those same men weeks or month later, boarding ships to England in poverty or disgrace, broken men who had lost everything. One had even been taken aboard in irons, all for having been discovered in a unnatural act with a sepoy drummer boy.

Never forget. Never forgive. And take your vengeance when it will most hurt your enemy. He had discovered a new axiom.

He brooded on this, until the sun went down and the land disappeared. The lights in the harbour burned bright against the darkness.

He lit the ship’s lamps fore and aft, and checked her anchor cable. He went to the galley, and helped himself to stew from the pot the cook had left. Rummaging through the stores, he found a bottle of arak, the local liquor. He gulped down three or four mouthfuls, delighting in the fiery taste. It gave him courage.

‘I didn’t escape my father to serve another tyrant,’ he muttered to himself. He slipped through the hatch to the lower deck. Much of the Joseph’s cargo was bulk goods, bales of cloth and sacks of rice too large for his purposes. He scrabbled around until he felt the smooth sheen of a parcel of silk. That would do.

This close to the waterline, he could hear the water lapping against her timbers. Every creak of the ship echoed down through the mast. Something knocked against the hull – probably just a wave, or a piece of driftwood, but it set him on edge. Sweat prickled his hands; the liquor rose like bile in his throat.

He stuffed his pockets with betel nuts from a sack, hoisted the silk bale over his shoulder and stole up the companionway. The longboat was still ashore, but there was a small jolly boat he could row single-handed. He took out his knife and started sawing through the ropes that held it.

‘Where do you think you’re going?’ growled Crawford. He stood silhouetted against the stern lantern, casting a long shadow across the deck. ‘Are you stealing from me again? Didn’t I beat it out of you last time?’

He had come aboard without Christopher hearing. Whether because he did not trust Christopher, or because he had come back to finish the boy without witnesses, Christopher never found out. The captain stepped forward and punched Christopher in the face so hard he flew backwards into the rigging.

‘You’ll have to hit me harder than that,’ Christopher told him. A dangerous wildness had come over him. ‘You hit like a small girl or an old woman.’

With a grunt, Crawford charged. Christopher stood his ground. He put up his hands, forgetting for a moment he was still holding his knife. In the dark, rushing like an enraged bull, Crawford didn’t see it either.

Instinct took over. Christopher swayed out of the way of Crawford’s lunging fist, and as the big man grappled him he thrust forward.

The knife slid into Crawford’s belly almost before Christopher realized it. Hot blood gushed out. Crawford screamed and writhed; he tried to pull away, but only succeeded in opening the wound further. His guts spilled out over Christopher’s hand.