The Golden Cross

by Angela Elwell Hunt

Aidan paused beside the table in Van Dyck’s cabin and ran her hand over the unfinished map. “Farewell, master,” she whispered, feeling the fine quality of the vellum beneath her palm. Her eyes filled with moisture, and her voice went suddenly husky. “I shall miss you very much.”

  She had already tossed her paints, pens, pencils, and brushes into a crate, but she could not bring herself to touch her master’s map. It was a mocking shadow of all he had dreamed for himself and for her, hopes that now seemed lifeless and void. Six years before, she had gone to sea and found herself acting out of survival instincts. Now, as then, she would have to abandon her dreams of a new life. And now, as then, she found herself paired with someone who might bring about her downfall. Lili had led Aidan into the seedy wharf district of Batavia, and Sterling Thorne could lead her into an emotional dominion more treacherous than any Batavian alley.

  The door creaked in protest as someone pulled it open. Aidan shrank back in reflex as Francois Visscher entered the room, his arms filled with two gleaming bundles of fabric. “These,” he said, tossing his burdens on her narrow bunk, “are for you, a gift from the doctor. And this—” He gestured at the art supplies still scattered around the cabin. “—must be gone at once. I tolerated the old gentleman because Tasman told me I had to. But you I will not accept.” He finished with a flourish, thrusting his hands to his wide hips, his face settling in a marble effigy of contempt.

  “I am sorry, sir,” Aidan said, cautiously moving about to gather the remaining canvases that littered the cabin. “I will clean up and be gone in a moment. If you will excuse me—”

  “A wench,” he interrupted, forcing the words through clenched teeth. “A useless woman! The old man must have been senile! What did he see in you, the dreams of his lost youth or his lost art? I would not have slept in this room a single night if I had known what you were. Shame on you, girl, you should have known better! What did you hope to gain by playing on his sympathies, his money or his favor? You are a disgrace to all women, a blot upon the face of seagoing men.”

  Against her will, rage rose in Aidan’s soul. This man had insulted her master and his art, and she had never met a finer, more eminently Christian man than Heer Van Dyck.

  “I am not a disgrace.” She dropped a sheaf of papers into the crate and stepped forward, not willing to let herself be put down by this brute. She lifted her chin and met his angry gaze head-on. “Heer Van Dyck said I am an artist … and one day you will know that I am.”

  Flushing to the roots of his hair, Visscher stepped back. “I don’t care what you are,” he said, his voice taut with anger, “but when I return, you had best be gone from this cabin. And take all that foolishness with you.”

  “Get out and your wish will be granted.” Aidan jerked her head toward the door.

  She was surprised when he obeyed, and in the resulting glow of pleasure she gathered up the rest of the art supplies, found her missing box of paints, and stuffed her discarded wet clothes into the crate. She paused at the table with Van Dyck’s map, then hastily rolled it up into a tube. She wasn’t worthy to complete it, but she would not leave it here for Visscher and his ilk to deface with their messy renderings.

  She was on her way out the door with the crate when she noticed the two bundles Visscher had dropped onto the bunk. For her, he had said, from the doctor. A gift.

  She lowered her crate to the bunk, then picked up the green silk. A sweet floral fragrance clung to the fabric, and fine twine, like that from a dressmaker’s shop, held it together. Curious, Aidan slipped the loop free and gasped in amazement as she unfolded an elegant shirt, underbodice, sleeves, and skirt.

  These were the components of a fine lady’s gown! Where in the world had Sterling procured them? She ran her fingers over the rich emerald silk of the skirt, bodice, and sleeves, and smiled as a wave of nostalgia swept over her. She had dreamed of wearing a dress like this … but her dreams had never included a husband generous enough to provide it.

  A wedding gift. The man never ceased to surprise her.

  Aidan held the skirt up to her waist, and sighed in pleasure as the soft fabric rubbed against the rough texture of her man’s shirt.

  Was there anything Sterling Thorne could not do?

  Sterling jiggled his leg nervously as he and Holman waited for Aidan in Tasman’s cabin. The captain sat behind his desk, his brows drawn downward in a frown, his pen driving furiously across the page of his log as he pretended to ignore the men waiting in his cabin.

  Silence filled the air like a heavy mist. In an effort to avoid Holman’s gaze, Sterling shifted his eyes to the wide windows over the stern. Through the open space he could see the Zeehaen following in the Heemskerk’s wake, the smaller vessel rising rhythmically on each strong swell of the sea.

  He frowned at the thought of Witt Dekker aboard that ship. The man had offered to marry Aidan himself, and Sterling knew Dekker well enough to know that he did not value the young woman’s talent, her soul, or her heart. Most likely he saw her as a means to curry Captain Tasman’s favor or a pretty prize to enjoy in the privacy of his cabin.

  A soft knocking sound came from the door, and Holman stepped forward to open it. Aidan stood in the open doorway, but Sterling blinked in surprise, for this lady and the ketelbinkie were as different as lace and oilcloth. She wore one of the dresses he had purchased from Holman, and no apparel had ever suited a woman more perfectly. The dark green silk accented her emerald eyes, and her skin, bronzed from the sun, glowed against the dark fabric.

  Sterling quickly averted his eyes as Aidan entered. Any sign of obvious attraction to his bride might prove perilous. Apparently she intended to cast him away as soon as they reached Batavia, and Tasman still resented the fact that Sterling could not ignore the vibrant creature who had been thrust into his arms.

  Holman cleared his throat and squared his shoulders. “In the absence of the chaplain, Captain Tasman has asked me to perform the ceremony,” he said. Holman pointedly ignored the fact that ages-old tradition gave the captain the honor of performing marriages at sea.

  Sterling’s eyes drifted to Tasman, who scowled darkly. This was one wedding that clearly would not be approved by the ship’s captain.

  “Being the skipper of the ship, I have the authority.” Holman turned and lifted a brow toward Aidan. “I trust you do not object, my dear?”

  Sterling thought he would burst with impatience as Holman observed useless civilities. Tasman’s frown seemed to grow deeper and more ominous by the moment. “It matters not, just commence,” Sterling said, locking his hands before him.

  Holman shrugged and pulled his prayer book from his doublet. He opened to a marked page, then lifted his gaze and stared pointedly at Sterling. “I believe, Doctor, that it is customary to hold your bride’s hand, not your own.”

  “Oh.” Flustered, Sterling reached out for Aidan’s hand. As Holman began reading the prayer that opened the wedding ritual, Sterling could not help but notice how small and delicate Aidan’s hand was. Were these the fingers that would astound the world with their skill? They hardly seemed strong enough to wield a paintbrush, let alone open doors and carve out a name for immortality.

  “We Dutch believe,” Holman was saying now, his eyes drifting from the prayer book to Aidan’s flushed face, “that together with the procreation of children and the avoidance of fornication, there is a third reason for the institution of marriage—companionship. God specifically made woman to be a helpmate for man. Just as a head cannot survive without a body, a groom cannot survive without a bride. Like Ruth and Boaz, you should cleave to each other and never be separated. Marriage is companionship in care and in joy, in bustle and in rest, in loss and in gain, in recreation and in work, in risk and in fortune.”

  Sterling stole a quick glance at his bride. He wondered if Holman guessed she had insisted upon a marriage in name only. Would he urge them to cleave to each other if he knew Aidan planned to annul this action as soon as the voyage ended? Perhaps the skipper w
as speaking from his knowledge of the obvious facts. They scarcely knew each other; therefore he urged them to become friends and companions.

  “At the core of your marriage should be affection, tenderhearted sentiment, and love,” Holman droned on. Like little chips of quartz, his eyes glittered shrewdly above the prayer book. He is doing this on purpose, Sterling thought. Deliberately making me squirm. He’s enjoying it!

  “A man and his wife must be tied to one another through a very dear and affectionate marriage-love. Through the kindling of affection in all friendship and dearness, you should warm each other’s hearts with conjugal feeling and love.”

  “Yes, yes, get on with it,” Sterling interrupted, feeling Tasman’s burning gaze upon the back of his neck. “We promise to be friendly companions.”

  “But, my friend, there is much more to a happy marriage.” Holman lowered the book, and Sterling sighed in frustration. Holman was a man of the sea, but his first allegiance fell to hearth and home. The officer could talk about his family for hours. And now he had a captive audience to listen to his sermonizing about the joys and responsibilities of married life.

  “Hearts as well as souls and bodies must be united in the union of marriage, for fidelity in affection ensures purity in the married home. The true test of your love is that you take pleasure in no one’s company more than that of your spouse.”

  “That is very wise, sir,” Aidan spoke up. A rosy flush spread over her cheeks—a blush that Sterling, in spite of himself, found utterly charming. “But I am sure the captain would prefer that we be married quickly as well as thoroughly.”

  “Er … yes.” Holman glanced over Sterling’s shoulder, nodded to acknowledge Tasman, then lifted the prayer book again. “Will you, Sterling Thorne, have this woman to be your wedded wife, to live together after God’s ordinance in the holy estate of matrimony? Will you love her, comfort her, honor and keep her in sickness and in health, and, forsaking all others, keep you only unto her so long as you both shall live?”

  Sterling ripped out the words impatiently. “I will!”

  Holman then turned toward Aidan. “Will you, Aidan O’Connor, have this man to be your wedded husband, to live together after God’s ordinance in the holy estate of matrimony? Will you obey him, and serve him, love, honor, and keep him in sickness and in health, and, forsaking all others, keep you only unto him so long as you both shall live?”

  “Yes.” Aidan’s answer was so soft Sterling strained to hear it.

  “Then—” Holman paused, running his finger down the pages of the prayer book. “Hmm,” he muttered, “there’s no one to give the bride away, no ring, no chaplain to pray—oh!” He brightened and smiled. “Here we are. Let us pray.”

  Sterling bowed his head, but peered through his lashes at his bride. Her light breathing fluttered a wayward curl at her cheek, and for a dizzying moment he wondered how it would feel to lose himself in that fiery riot, to hold her in love and not in panic, to know that she came to his arms willingly and not out of necessity.

  “Send thy blessing upon these thy servants,” Holman intoned, still reading from his prayer book, “this man and this woman, whom we bless in thy name; that, as Isaac and Rebecca lived faithfully together, so these persons may surely perform and keep the vow and covenant betwixt them made, and may ever remain in perfect love and peace together, and live according to thy laws; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”

  A strange glint of wonder flashed in Holman’s eyes as he closed his prayer book and smiled at Sterling. “You may now salute your bride, Doctor.”

  Sterling turned, drawn more by the force of the skipper’s suggestion than by any desire to kiss Aidan in the face of Tasman’s burning disapproval, but she quickly stepped toward the door. “I’m certain the captain has important things to do,” she said, fumbling awkwardly with her skirt as it snagged on a corner of a trunk. Sterling bent to help her free it and caught a glimpse of a shapely ankle—an ankle he’d seen a hundred times when she wore a boy’s breeches. Yet the sight had never stirred him as it did at this moment. Some intense attraction flared through his being, and he kept his eyes lowered lest she see what he was feeling.

  “I shall retire to my—to the doctor’s cabin,” Aidan finished, moving through the doorway. “Perhaps I may be of service there.”

  Holman bowed slightly and gave her a rare smile. “You have made a lovely bride, Mejoffer.”

  Sterling puzzled over the word until he realized that the skipper had just referred to her using the Dutch address for a married woman. He flinched, abruptly realizing that the skipper spoke of his wife.

  “I’d better go see if she needs help,” he said to no one in particular. He smiled his thanks at Holman, then nodded carefully at Tasman before moving toward the door.

  “She will need it,” Tasman called from behind his desk. “There is a most violently ill fellow waiting in your cabin. I myself sent him to see you not half an hour ago and gave him leave to spend the night in your care.”

  Aidan had made up her mind to be as pleasant as possible, but her nose curled in disgust when she entered the tiny cabin that served as the doctor’s home and hospital. Here the air was thick with the earthy odors of the human body: stale sweat, grimed skin, the tang of urine and the sickly sweet scent of vomit. A flour-faced seaman, his shirt splotched with rum and spewed food, lay upon the low bunk beneath the porthole. Visscher had tossed the crate with her belongings upon the other bunk, which was still strewn with blankets and the doctor’s discarded wet clothing.

  Straightening in the cramped space, Aidan braced herself against a beam in the sloping ceiling. The seaman on the cot opened one eye, then grinned appreciatively. “I’d heard there was a woman on board,” he said, displaying an astounding assortment of blackened and yellow teeth, “but I never thought she’d be visiting me.”

  “The doctor will be visiting you,” Aidan replied, heaving the crate aside in order to find a place to sit. A moment later the door opened again and Sterling entered, his eyes moving first to her, then to the drunk. As she expected, the drunk won his attention. “Hobart, isn’t it?” he asked, crossing the cabin in three long strides. “Haven’t I warned you not to drink your entire ration at one time?”

  With nowhere else to sit, Sterling knelt on the floor and pressed his fingers to the man’s neck. “Your blood is moving steadily,” he announced. As the drunk shook his head in denial, Sterling lifted the flesh above and below the man’s bloodshot eyes, then began to rummage in a small case stashed under the bunk.

  Aidan leaned back upon the cluttered cot, fascinated in spite of herself. She might as well have left the room; Sterling seemed entirely concentrated on his patient. He treated the drunk with a wise mix of patience and firmness, for a sailor who drank his entire ration of rum in one hour did not exactly deserve sympathy.

  “Hmm,” Sterling murmured, prodding the man’s swollen stomach. “Is this tender?”

  “Ja, ja!” the sailor groaned, clutching his gut. “And that’s not all that hurts. I’ve pains in my loins, stomach, and bowels, sir, and ofttimes my arms and legs swell up like a dead fish.”

  “How are your teeth?” Sterling asked, ignoring the obvious.

  “Looser than wet string,” the patient complained. He squinted one eye suspiciously as Sterling rummaged in his bag, then gasped as Sterling pulled out a sharp knife. “Sakerloot, Doctor, you aren’t going to cut me!”

  “Not tonight,” Sterling answered, calmly pulling a shriveled lemon from the same bag. He cut several slivers from the rind, mixed them in a mug with water, then gave it to the bedridden sailor. “Drink it. You’re suffering from a touch of the scurvy, my friend, and it’s because you’ve been avoiding the peas and fruit. You must eat what’s set before you, or these pains will get worse.”

  Trembling in fear, sickness, and something else—a touch of reverence, Aidan supposed—the wizened sailor rose up on one elbow to guzzle down the concoction Sterling offered. She tilted her head, watching
. There was something remarkable in the image of Sterling on his knees, lifting a cup to the older, weaker man. Scarcely aware of what she was doing, she fumbled in her crate and found a sketch board, parchment, and a pencil.

  And while Sterling tended his malodorous patient and listened to his myriad complaints, Aidan sketched her husband.

  The shades of night had begun to fall by the time the old sailor gave up his struggle and fell asleep. Sterling carefully replaced his medical implements in his bag, almost afraid to glance toward the bunk where his bride lay sleeping. Unwilling to discuss their peculiar situation and tend to a very loud, very smelly patient at the same time, he had largely ignored her all afternoon. But he had heard every sigh, every crackle of her paper, every scratch of her pencil as she sketched. She had fallen asleep right before the old man, for he heard her soft, regular breathing even above the pull of the sea and the angry flap of canvas in the wind.

  Content to know the old sailor would sleep peacefully through the night, Sterling lowered himself to the floor and braced his back against the sloping wall. Aidan lay curled up on his bunk, her legs folded under the shimmering silken skirt, her hands pressed together and tucked beneath her chin. Her hair swirled like a molten river across his pillow, and copper ringlets curled on her forehead and on the exposed flesh of her throat. The soft pink light of sunset shimmered over her delicate face like beams of golden radiance, and soft color lined the sweetly curled lips that had voiced a promise to be his wife. By heaven, she is beautiful.

  He didn’t know how long he sat there, but the sound of movement outside brought him out of his reverie. A whistle blew, signaling the change of the watch, and Sterling knew if he didn’t get some sleep, he’d be fit for nothing on the morrow.

  He stretched out his legs, then bent one knee and rested his arm upon it, his mouth twisting in a wry smile. If Tasman had seen fit to invite this patient to lodge himself in the doctor’s cabin on Sterling’s wedding night, it was a certain bet that a steady stream of patients would find themselves assigned to sick bay in the days to come.