Balty praised his host’s admirable wall and asked if it kept out the savages.
Stuyvesant smiled. “But the wall is not for keeping out Indians. It’s for keeping out English!”
“Oh,” Balty said, unsure how to respond. “Has it . . . worked?”
Stuyvesant chortled. “It seems not. After all, here are you.” He added diplomatically, “But you are welcome in New Amsterdam.”
“Too kind.”
“People now are saying we must have a bigger wall.”
“Not on our account, I hope.”
Stuyvesant shrugged. “If to this it comes, maybe I will ask your King Charles to pay for it.”
“A most amusing idea. Is it not, Huncks?”
“Sartainly, his majesty would find it so.”
Stuyvesant flicked his whip and they proceeded out New Amsterdam’s gate, to a salute from the guards that Huncks thought a tad slovenly. Dutch.
The highway was on an ancient Indian footpath that went the length of Manhatoes, through a forest Stuyvesant called Greenwych, which he translated as “place of pines.”
Shortly he veered east off the main highway onto a more narrow path through marshland alive with bird chatter and the flutter of bats. Balty thought it looked a bit malarial, though it had a kind of damp serenity. It was understandable that the old boy would look forward to ending the day here, after the thrum and bustle of New Amsterdam. They passed through squish onto more firma terra and presently arrived at Bouwerie Number One.
The address struck them as somewhat grandiose, there being no Bouwerie Number Two, Three, or Four. But it was handsome: two stories of stone and wood, with a small chapel, plain in the Calvinist fashion. The surprise was the conservatory, inhabited by a number of tropical birds. Stuyvesant had acquired a fondness for the exotically plumed creatures during his years in the Indies.
Mevrouw (Madame) Stuyvesant—Judith—was introduced. Balty thought her on the grim side. She was already a long-in-the-tooth spinster of thirty-seven when she met Stuyvesant two decades ago. She helped to nurse him back to health in Holland after his nine-year-long ordeal of the unhealing leg. Her father, like Stuyvesant’s, was a minister, a Huguenot who’d fled the horrors of persecution in Catholic France. Balty was about to try a few bons mots on the old girl in their shared native tongue, but the Governor tugged at them to follow him to the conservatory. He was impatient to preen over his menagerie. Mevrouw Stuyvesant retreated to the kitchen to supervise supper while Balty and Huncks were introduced to various birds.
Chief among equals in this feathery multitude was Johann, a Brazilian parrot of blazing colors. The gruff and imposing Governor-General of New Netherland became a boy of seven. He nuzzled, murmured, cooed. Johann requited his affection with squawkings and purrings and screeches. Here truly, as the saying had it, were two birds of one feather. Balty thought it rather touching.
Johann hopped from his perch onto Stuyvesant’s forearm and squinted in bliss as his master stroked his head with a forefinger. Old Petrus put a slice of apple in his teeth and offered it. Johann clamped his beak on it and pulled it out. A look of pure adoration came over Stuyvesant. Underhill was wrong when he said no one liked Old Petrus. And so in to dinner.
A splendid one at that: three varieties of fish, admirably poached; lobsters; roast fowl; veal and pigeon pie with a commendably flaky crust; tarts; puddings; apples, pears, peaches; a gallimaufry of cheeses—Balty tallied seven kinds—from various regions of the Netherlands. Old Petrus descanted in scholarly fashion on each, giving its pedigree as if describing lineages going back to Charlemagne. All of this washed down with an array of wines, including a standout Rhenish that had survived the tossings of the Atlantic passage without surrendering itself to vinegar. Stuyvesant barely touched his but attentively refilled his guests’ glasses. A model host. Contentment and geniality settled on the table as the last rays of the sun streamed through the windows. Old Petrus seemed in every way “at home.” But then, he was.
He spoke of the English with fondness, and what seemed genuine regret that the two greatest countries on earth should be at each other’s throat.
Prompted by a get-on-with-it glance from Huncks, Balty gently introduced the subject of the regicides. Stuyvesant frowned pensively.
He would pay his hests the compliment of candor. Himself he was no monarchist. Sure. Anteriorly, his sympathies were with Cromwell. Yes, he would admit to this. But all that was the past. They must understand that decades of terrible wars—with Spain, with France, atrocities about which one could not even speak—had made the thought of rule by kings a thing odious to the Dutch people.
Here Old Petrus paused—for effect, perhaps.
But rehicide . . . The moist lips pursed. A grave business.
Balty wondered: Was the old boy essaying a pun?
Stuyvesant’s voice lowered to the timbre of a bassoon as he embarked on an interminable story, the gist of which Balty was at pains to follow. Stuyvesant’s ornate, wooden English didn’t help.
So far as Balty could make out it had to do with some Old Testament king named Ahab. And another king, with far too many syllables in his name. Jehoshaphat or somesuch. Then yet another king was added, this one calling himself by the more modest name of Aram.
Jehosowhat and Aram didn’t get on with Ahab. There was a huge to-do over . . . by now Balty had completely lost track . . . some great to-do, anyway, with much shouting and banging.
Ahab declared he would not put on kingly clothing. This Stuyvesant related as if it contained a clue to the Apocalypse. It seemed to Balty that a king ought to be able to decide whatever kind of clothing he wanted. What was the point of being king? But never mind.
Then it was into the chariots and tallyho and once more onto the beach. The battle was joined against the enemy, whoever they were. Ahab got an arrow in his armpit and out the chest. No joy there.
Whereupon Ahab announced—nay, demanded—that he be taken home to Samaria. Why Samaria? Never mind.
On the way, he bled profusely into his chariot, making a nasty mess. But good news for the dogs, who lapped up the royal blood.
Now the chariot was so disgusting the only thing to do was to immerse it entire in a pool. Not just any pool, mind—one that prostitutes bathed in. Why? Was no other pool available? Never mind.
Balty wondered if the innkeeper had seen to changing the bed linen. He certainly didn’t relish sleeping in bloody sheets after this grisly story.
Stuyvesant was now in a rapture of narration. He looked like an Old Testament prophet, eyes glowing with holy fire.
Suddenly he broke off the story and went into a kind of trance.
“And so Ahab died,” he said, as if chiseling each word into stone, “and his son Ahaziah became king in his place!”
Not another king, Balty thought.
Stuyvesant went back into his trance. Balty had to pee. He glanced at Huncks. Stuyvesant roused himself from holy stupor and intoned: “. . . in the palace of ifry.”
Balty waited. “Ifry?”
Stuyvesant nodded.
“Ivory,” Huncks explained. “First Kings, twenty-two. Oh, a grand tale, yer excellency. And may I say, beautifully rendered.” Huncks thumped the table. “Bravo, sir. Bravo.”
The air was rent with yet another shriek from the conservatory—Akkkkkkkkhhh! Johann had been issuing clamorous interjections throughout the story, like a beadle banging the floor with his rod to wake dozing parishioners during the homily.
More food arrived. Balty, bloated and stuperous, bladder near to bursting, let Huncks hold up the English side while he concentrated on tightening his sphincter. Old Petrus was content to do all the talking, Huncks interjecting anodyne comments here and there.
Balty squirmed, dreaming of a pisspot. Someone had told him that Hollanders were a taciturn lot. Really? Old Petrus’s capacity for monologue was Homeric. Loquacity born of loneliness? Hard to imagine him and the Mevrouw jabbering away at each other.
Passing behind
Huncks’s chair with yet another dish, the serving girl stopped and stared at the back of Huncks’s head, eyes wide.
The attentive Mevrouw, who’d so far uttered barely a word, spoke to the girl in Dutch. The girl replied; Mevrouw Stuyvesant passed whatever it was along to her husband.
“You are bleeding,” Old Petrus said to Huncks.
“Apologies, sir. I ’ope I’ve not ruint yer rug.”
“It’s not my concern, the rug. Are you wanting a doctor?”
“Not at t’all, your honor. ’Tis nothing. Had a tumble in the street. This arternoon, boulevarding in yer lovely town.”
Stuyvesant looked from Huncks to Balty and back at Huncks.
“Both of you fell?”
Huncks laughed. “We’ve been in New England all this time. Where they’ve only dirt roads. None so handsomely cobbled as your own. You must take our injuries as a compliment.”
Stuyvesant shrugged. “Our streets are good, yes. But if our English visitors are falling upon the copples . . . perhaps we must put down straw. To make soft your fallings.”
“Ha. Entirely our own cloomsiness, sar. My own, rather. Marster Balthasar is himself a very deft person.”
“He cannot hear?”
“No, sir, I meant—but never mind. But speaking of doctors . . .”
Huncks began to probe. On their way here, he said, they had passed through land said to belong to a certain Dr. Pell. Was it true that this Pell had purchased the land from a savage named Wampage?
Stuyvesant scowled at the mention of Pell. Yes, he said. This was so.
Huncks asked if it was also true that there was some dispute as to whether Pell’s land was in New Netherland.
Out came the lion in Stuyvesant, roaring. Absolutely not! This Englishman, this Pell—he spat the word—owned the land, yes, but the land was Dutch. Every acre, Dutch! Never mind what Pell is always claiming! All the maps, all the documents to this would attest!
Huncks nodded sympathetically. “Yes, that were the impression Marster Balthasar and meself had formed. That the land is indeed part of New Netherland.”
Stuyvesant nodded, ire assuaged.
“The reason I brings it up,” Huncks continued, “is that whilst passing through this Pell land—in New Netherland, as your honor correctly points out—we occasioned to meet with some folk. We explained our parpose here—namely, that we’re by way of hoonting for Whalley and Goffe, the regicide judges. We gave a description. And these folk told us that they’d seen them. A number of times. Lurking about. On Pell’s land.”
Stuyvesant roused, eyes narrowing. “Is this for sure?”
“Oh,” Huncks said, “they were quite sure it were the dastard regicides they saw. Marster Balthasar and meself would have made a search of the woods ourselves, but it’s considerable large for the two of us to cover, what with so many wild savages about. So we thought it best to continue on to New Amsterdam and pay our respects to yer warship and ask yer advice.”
Stuyvesant fell into silent thought.
Huncks now went in for the kill. “I were only thinking, sir, that if these caitiffs—criminals, that is—are hiding there . . . well, as you yourself have made aboondantly clear, it is Netherlander land. When Colonel Nicholls comes to pay his respects to yer honor, I shouldn’t be surprised if he were to ask if yer honor has knowledge as to the whereabouts of the murderers of his majesty’s father. And, well, it might be somewhat arwkward for your honor if it turned out they was hiding in yer own backyard. So to speak. Might be taken the wrong way, I mean. I’m only looking out here for yer honor’s best interests.”
Stuyvesant had gone into another of his trances. He brightened. A look of mischief came over him.
He smiled. “If these persons have been seen there, then we must make a good searching of Pell’s land.”
“Just the thing.” Huncks nodded.
A look of dreamy pleasure came over Stuyvesant as he pondered swarming Pell’s land with his soldiers. “And if they are found there, it must be that Pell has been hiding them.”
“Well,” Huncks said, “sartainly that question will have to be asked. Oh, yes.”
“In that case, then Pell must forfeit the land,” Stuyvesant said. “As punishment, for hiding these men.”
“Well,” Huncks said, “I cannot speak for his majesty. But I believe yer honor may be onto something there. Sartainly his majesty would not be pleased to hear that one of his own soobjects has been sheltering his own dear father’s murderers.”
“Yes.” Stuyvesant nodded. “Yes.”
An expensive clock chimed the hour, prompting another ear-splitting shriek from Johann.
Stuyvesant apologized to his guests. How thoughtless of him to keep them so long. Forgive! But it was not so often that the opportunity presented to converse so pleasantly with English visitors. He pushed back from the table and, leaning on his cane, rose to flesh-and-wood feet.
His guests must bid good night to Johann. Johann would be very cross if they did not.
Good night, Johann. Johann was rewarded with a crumble of cheese. Was it not wonderful that he enjoyed cheese? Indeed, yes, it was. Johann likes many cheeses. Oh? But he does not like Gouda. Ah? Well. Fascinating. Brazilian parrots do not like Gouda. Who knew?
The carriage was sent for. Balty left Huncks and Stuyvesant talking on the stoop while he dashed around the side of Bouwerie Number One, unbuttoning as he went. With the expression of one transfigured, he aahed as his undammed bladder released a cataract into the soil of New Netherland. Here was a micturition to inspire a ballad. Nothing would grow here for years. Decades.
The carriage pulled up, driven by servant Willem, who would take them back to town. Tomorrow, they must come to see him, Stuyvesant said. To discuss how to make eventful and welcome the arriving of Colonel Nicholls. Meanwhile, he would immediately issue the orders for a complete searching of Pell’s land, however many soldiers were of necessity for this.
Balty and Huncks thanked the Governor for his hospitality. If only all Dutch and English could come together in such fraternity and good feelings.
Good night. God’s blessings.
Johann rent the night with a final valedictory screech.
* * *
“Ghastly bird,” Balty said when the carriage was a safe distance from the house.
Huncks put a finger to his lips and pointed at the driver. Balty said in a louder voice, “Glorious bird. Marvelous dinner. Splendid host, the Governor.”
The carriage rumbled along the path through the marshland. Pockets of water shimmered silver in moonlight. The chill damp and the silhouettes of dead trees gave the place an eerie air. Balty shuddered and pulled his jacket collar about his neck. They spoke in whispers.
“What was all that mumbo jumbo about Whalley and Goffe lurking in Dr. Pell’s woods?” Balty asked. “Sounds like he’s going to send his whole army in there.”
“Let’s hope he does. The more soldiers he sends there, the fewer there’ll be in New Amsterdam when Nicholls arrives.”
“Oh. I say. Clever you.”
“Now he’s got an excuse to occupy Pell’s land. To make a good show of being Dutch.”
“What was the point of that revolting—and very tedious—Bible story?”
“Which part of it confused you?”
“Every part.”
“Ahab was a wicked king who led Israel into idolatry. I suspect that was the point.”
“What’s idolatry got to do with the price of eggs?”
“It’s an allegory.”
“Might you explain the allegory for those of us who didn’t attend Harvard. However briefly.”
“The idolater is King Charles.”
“His majesty? He doesn’t go about worshipping golden calves. Nonsense.”
“Balty, by now you’ve gathered that many people think his majesty’s a closet Catholic.”
“What’s that got to do with dogs lapping up blood? Chariots immersed in prostitutes’ bathwater? Charming dinner con
versation.”
“I gather the significance of King Ahab’s queen also eluded you. Jezebel?”
“It’s a tart’s name.”
“Jezebel was the original tart. The ur-tart, if you will.”
“The what?”
“The allegory there is to his majesty’s mistress. Lady Castlemaine.”
“Daft. All of it.”
“It didn’t end well for old Jez. Got chucked out the palace window. The palace of ifry. And et by dogs.”
Balty winced. “The dogs in that household certainly didn’t lack for refreshment. Horrible.”
“All they could find of her to bury was her skull and the palms of her hands.”
“Huncks, please. It’s marvelous, this abundant erudition of yours, but my meal’s going to come up if you continue.”
“It was to fulfill the prophecy of Elijah. Second Kings, chapter nine.”
“So endeth the bloody lesson. Amen.”
Servant Willem had the horse going at a brisk trot. The lights of the town loomed.
“I’m exhausted,” Balty said. “Thank God we don’t have to sleep in bloody sheets, or I’d be dreaming of dogs licking at me.”
“What do you mean?”
“I tipped the innkeep to change our bed linen.”
Huncks groaned.
“What on earth’s wrong? Did you want to sleep in blood-soaked sheets? Very well. I’ll have him put them back on the bed. Really, Huncks, sometimes I simply don’t understand you.”
“You gave them a pretext to go into our room.”
“It’s an inn, for God’s sake, not some inner sanctum Holy of Holies.”
The Judge Hunter Page 21
