The Golden Cross (41 page)

Aidan nibbled at the foods the natives held to her lips, drank gratefully from the gourd they offered, and generally tried to appear pleasant though not altogether approving. She had fought and struggled and thrashed between the two brawny natives who brought her to the village, but they proceeded straightaway to tie her to this chair, then grinned at her weakness. She tried her bonds and found them tight. She pleaded with the women who adorned her with flowers, but in response to her entreaties they smiled and patted her bound hands as if she were a child who ought to know better than to protest.
To protest what?

She had been watching them for at least an hour, but she still could not understand the purpose for this gathering. The natives
seemed to be elated at their victory over the strangers who had invaded their waters, yet Aidan hoped with all her heart that they had not succeeded in chasing the Dutch ships from the harbor.

A tall, cocky warrior with a broad face and thighs like tree trunks came toward her, then tilted his head and regarded her with a sly smile before moving on to join his companions by the fire. Aidan’s mouth twisted in exasperation—clearly she was a focus of attention, but she wasn’t certain whether they envisioned her as an object of worship, a defeated foe, or the featured course of their next meal. Stunned by the brutality of her comrades’ murders on the beach, she was now perplexed by the natives’ generosity. Little children, naked and dark in the moonlight, tottered up to deposit bananas and other small fruit in her lap, while the men danced in strange circular patterns around the fire as if to show off their skill and prowess.

The part of her brain not immediately occupied with survival speculated about the fate of her companions. For all his bravado, Heer Van Dyck was an old man and in no condition to fend off a savage attack. And the doctor—he must have survived. She had a fleeting memory of him pushing her toward the shore, then one of the savages had surfaced from nowhere. Lightheaded and gasping for breath, she felt the world spin around her and later awakened on the beach, surrounded by broad-faced, squatting natives.

But what had happened to Sterling? He knew how to swim, so surely he had gone back to the ship. Perhaps he would convince Captain Tasman to organize a search party, and soon he and the others would burst into this gathering with swords and muskets ready to free her.

No
.

Some ruthless inner voice scathingly reminded her that Tasman would not risk a barge to save the life of a mere ketelbinkie, especially an orphan for whom he might now be responsible. And if the doctor revealed that Heer Van Dyck’s ketelbinkie was a woman, the captain might be so angry at her deception that he would not risk the life of even a single crewman. After all, the
mere signs of hostile natives on the island he called Van Diemen’s Land had been enough to deter him from going ashore.

She could no longer deny the truth. In all likelihood, her fate rested entirely in her own hands. If her mentor was dead, she was alone, abandoned, already forgotten. Heer Van Dyck always said that God wanted to work in her life, but she could see no signs of God in this place.

The sound of food being scraped from a bowl brought Aidan back to the present, and she stiffened. The tenor of the celebration had changed. The natives’ revelry seemed to be winding down. Just like a typical night in Bram’s tavern, the feasting had stopped, the noise diminished, and men and women had begun to slink away in pairs. Only a few men now remained huddled in conversation around the fire, and soon those would grow weary and fall asleep, just like the sailors who drank too much of Bram’s ale and passed out before the fireplace.

But what did they intend to do with her?

The answer was not long in coming. The hum of the men’s conversation died down and ceased for an instant, then the group cheered with sudden delight, as if some great debate had been decided. One warrior, the tall, broad brute who had smiled at Aidan earlier, stood from the circle. A swath of shiny black hair flowed from the top of his head like a crest, and his powerful, well-muscled body moved with easy grace as he came toward her with a sharpened stone in his hand.

Aidan clenched her fists as he hesitated a few feet away from her chair. He swallowed nervously, and she watched in horrified fascination as his Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat. His dark eyes probed at her face and form, and Aidan knew this was no cannibal come to claim his dinner. This was a suitor coming to claim his prize. She had seen that look in the eyes of a hundred hungry males, and hard experience had taught her that such men were not easily dissuaded.

Where was Lili when Aidan needed her? It was time to bring
out the old story about the white streak in Aidan’s hair, time to dissuade, to defend, to discourage this man like the others.

The savage had made up his mind. He came forward, his eyes raking her with a fiercely possessive look, the sharpened stone extended.

“Faith, sir, you don’t want me,” she whispered, pulling uselessly at her bonds as he sauntered forward. She gulped as he sliced the bonds at her wrists with one smooth stroke. Keeping his eyes upon her, he made a low sound in his throat and moved to cut the vines holding her ankles to the chair.

Aidan closed her eyes, then felt the pressure of her fetters ease and opened them again. The warrior’s solid frame blocked her path, and she looked past him, searching for an escape route. She had not fought off a hundred lecherous drunks to have a heathen savage forcefully take her maidenhood in the middle of a jungle. Nor had she worked like a ship’s slave and donned an unnatural disguise to end her life in anonymity.

Fight!
something inside her urged.
Do something!

But what could she do? Thousands of miles from civilization, without a friend or a farthing, here she did not have even the most basic structures of society to uphold her rights and freedom.

Snorting slightly, the savage warrior stooped before her and threw his arms about her waist. “No!” Aidan protested as he lifted her. She struck at his shoulder in protest, drawing laughter from the other men at the fire. Anger replaced the fear she had known earlier. This was a man like any other, and if he had wanted to harm her, he would have done so long ago.

“Listen, I warn you!” She bristled with indignation as he carried her away from the fire. “As soon as you put me down, I’m running away!” Her abductor paid her no attention, so Aidan turned her face toward the other grinning fools by the fire. Pointing toward the shore, she yelled, “The Dutch will come for me, do you understand? They will come! And they will not be happy about this!”

The warrior snorted and bent his knees, and Aidan suddenly
found herself inside a small straw hut that sat a distance away from the others. The man released her, dropping her more like a sack of potatoes than a prized bride, and Aidan cried out as she landed on the packed earthen floor.

“You stinking savage!” she cried, seething with anger and humiliation. The man before her only smiled and muttered something unintelligible, then knelt at her feet and took the sharpened stone from his belt.

Aidan froze, not certain what he intended. The stone was razor sharp; she had seen evidence of that when he cut the vines at her wrist. Did he intend to kill her if she didn’t submit? Was this some sort of threat?

Slowly, almost reverently, the man lifted the stone and placed it over his chest, cutting a three-inch slash in the flesh of his breast. As the blood quickened and began to flow, he smeared his fingertips in the dark liquid, then reached toward her.

Horror snaked down Aidan’s backbone and coiled in her belly as the warrior leaned closer. She scrambled backward until her head hit the thatched wall, then dug her fingers into the sandy floor and held her breath as his hand slipped into the collar of her shirt. He paused, found her collarbone, and smeared his blood on her flesh.

Aidan didn’t have to know the language to understand the significance of the gesture. Marked with his blood, she now belonged to this behemoth.

Apparently satisfied with this ritual, the native squatted back upon his haunches and began to slice a thick yellow fruit he pulled from a basket. He cut off a section, licked it with a smile, then offered it to Aidan.

She shook her head, pressing her lips together as a cold sweat prickled under her arms. The truth crashed into her consciousness like surf hurling against a rocky cliff. No one was coming for her; no one cared. She was alone with this murdering savage, and for all she knew he himself had killed Heer Van Dyck, the one man
in the world who had believed in her.

The native tossed the fruit back into the basket, then rose to his hands and knees and loomed over her, his dark eyes narrowing speculatively.

Closing her eyes, Aidan felt a shiver start from somewhere at the base of her spine, then a sharp and sudden sound brought her eyes wide open.

“You will stop right there, sir, or die.”

The native groaned in surprise and reared up, astonishment marking his broad face. Before the man could stand, Sterling brought his foot firmly in contact with the man’s solar plexus, sending the brute sprawling back upon the sandy floor. He lay there, gasping for breath as his hand rubbed at his breastbone. Sterling hovered over him, wanting to make certain his adversary would not rise until they could be away.

“Where did you learn that?” Aidan’s tone held respect and a trace of grudging admiration.

“Montpellier—the school of medicine,” Sterling answered. He pulled a sodden handkerchief from his belt, then stuffed it into the man’s mouth. “I knew the blow would work in theory, but had yet to see it actually performed. A wonderful thing to know, really—one blow to the solar plexus will leave a man gasping for the space of several minutes.”

Aidan scrambled to her feet. “Shouldn’t you hit him again? So he will gasp for more minutes?”

“I’m a doctor; I can’t
hurt
him.” Kneeling by the struggling man’s side, Sterling pinched the man’s nostrils and held his mouth shut.

“Won’t that kill him?”

“No.” After a moment of frenzied effort, the man’s eyes fluttered shut, and Sterling immediately released him. “When a person cannot breathe, he falls unconscious before he dies. He will wake soon, and by then we will be gone.” He paused for a
moment and looked up at Aidan. The hut was lit only by moonlight that streamed in from a ventilation shaft in the domed roof, but still the sight of her stole his breath away. If they weren’t on the run for their lives, he might be tempted to forget more than one vow.

“Hurry,” he said, turning from the sight of her as he extended his hand. “We must get away from here before he wakes and rouses the others.”

She took his hand, and he pulled her through the narrow passage in which he had hidden, then darted down the long trail to the beach. She followed quietly, undoubtedly grateful to be away from the fate she had nearly suffered, and spoke only when he led her into a sheltered glen not far from the beach.

She fell to the ground, breathless from her ordeal and their headlong rush. “I’m exhausted,” she said, her voice breaking. “And I need some water.”

“There’s no time for that now.” Sterling parted the palm fronds that screened them from view and looked out across the silvery beach. Two ships still rode the horizon, two blessed shadows backlit by the moon. But Tasman certainly would not tarry much longer. The savages could mount an attack with the next sunrise, and flaming arrows could do a great deal of damage even to large ships.

“We have to swim out to the
Heemskerk
before dawn,” he said, turning to face Aidan.

“Swim?” Even in the dim moonlight he could read the alarm in her eyes. “I can’t swim! Even if I could float a wee bit, there’s no way I could float all the way to the ship!”

“There’s no other way.”

“Yes, there is; I’ve thought it all out.” She rose to her knees and eagerly reached for his hand. “We could steal one of their boats and paddle out before sunrise.”

Sterling shook his head. “They have lookouts posted on the beach, and I am certain their boats are guarded. I spent all afternoon
watching them. They may be ignorant, but they are not foolish. And in case you haven’t noticed, they aren’t extremely fond of men. They allowed you to live only because you are a woman.”

Her lips thinned with irritation as she pulled her hand from his.
“Live?
You call that living? I would rather have died. If you hadn’t come along when you did—”

“Believe me, you would
not
rather be dead,” he answered in a clipped, tense voice that forbade any argument. “So you might try being grateful for the fact that you are spared and safe. I watched you for some time. I would not have let anyone hurt you.”

He heard her breath quicken, and she looked away. “I am grateful, of course.” She glanced around, faltering in her attempt to apologize. “Well then. Suppose we light a fire on the beach. Someone aboard the
Heemskerk
would see it and come to rescue us.”

“I hate to tell you this, my dear,” Sterling said, “but Captain Tasman has no great need for either of us. He is fond of me, perhaps, as his physician and future son-in-law, but would he risk more men to pull me off this hostile shore? I doubt it. He is already sensitive about an earlier expedition where he lost a goodly number of men; he will not want to risk more.” He shrugged. “The fire would attract the natives, as well, and ’tis likely we’d be dead before our companions ever reached us. No. It is a good idea, but our people won’t come to us. We have to go to them.”