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XAVER VON ADELSHOFEN / THE GUAIQUINIMA TALES
VOL II / EALISAD
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XAVER VON ADELSHOFEN / THE GUAIQUINIMA TALES
VOL II / EALISAD

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English / V 1.2 / 08.01.2022
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CHAPTER I : PAMPUS

I wake up from a bad dream. But as I open my eyes, I find reality even worse. It is freezing cold, chilling to the bones. It doesn't help that my boots and pants are wet and hard to the touch, frozen, as it seems. I am in a confined space, damp and moldy, like rotten wood, with a hint of cold urine in the air. It is almost dark, except for some faint light filtering through a wooden grating in the ceiling some yards away. The floor underneath my body is moving a bit, up and down, barely perceptible. A ship? That must be it. There is water gurgling somewhere outside and a humming vibration running through every timber around me. The wind, harping through the masts and rigging? In utter dread, I turn my head, inspecting my surroundings. I am not alone. A few more men are resting on the floor, huddled together, sleeping, or dozing, their warm breath an intermittent white cloud over their heads. The man beside me is lying on his back under a sturdy canvas sack, moaning in pain. His fuzzy blonde head brings me back to reality. Karl! What is my lute-playing friend doing in this hellhole? Our friend Søren is here, too, propped up against the wall beside me.

Within minutes, it is all coming back to me. It is New Year's Day this morning. We are on board some ship in the port of Amsterdam, out at anchor in the River Ye. A horde of thugs has abducted us! My lower lip has barely stopped bleeding and hurts badly now. They beat me up, and the shards of my broken spectacles gave me that cut. I am lucky that I did not lose an eye. Søren, a former sailor from Denmark, sits nearby, propped up against the wall. His pale skin and black shock of greased hair make him look like a vampire. I know that he isn't, though. He is a fellow musician of Karl and playing the harpsichord in their new music ensemble De Buitenlanders, meaning »The Foreigners«, a quartette for canto, lute, harpsichord, and fiddle, which had lately turned into a quintette. Seeing Søren beside me shifts my mind towards young Hedwig, naturally. Beautiful and fair-haired Hedwig is the golden voice of the ensemble, full of volume through every pitch and readily able to shatter a thin glass just by tuning in to it. Poor Hedwig must have gone mad, waiting for us at the Karpershoek, the sailor's inn, where she lodges with Karl. She and I went out last night, exploring the frozen canals of Amsterdam on skates. We ate fried Oliebollen at the Nieuwmarkt together before rolling around on the ice and kissing for a long time. Later, I had dropped her at the Karpershoek and walked back alone towards Heerengracht. Foolishly, I had not gone home directly but taken a detour along the Damrak instead, the inner harbor basin of Amsterdam. I dreamed about a happy future with Hedwig when the thugs took me and forced me into a small boat, gagged and with a heavy canvas sack over my head. I saw nothing, but I am sure we went out onto the River Ye from the Damrak, passing under the outer bascule bridge. The bridge keeper saw us and even asked my abductors for their destination. My Dutch is bad, but I clearly remember what I've heard: »Waar gaan we heen?« he had asked, and some hatefully raspy voice had answered him.
»Naar de Safi! We vertrekken! Naar Marokko!«
And then, the goddamn bridge keeper had wished us a safe journey: »Nou dan, een goede reis!«
Naar de Safi? Now I wonder if Safi might be the name of the ship we're on now. And Marokko? Is this ship headed for Africa perhaps?

Karl is moaning in pain again. At least he seems conscious, which I must consider an improvement. He had passed out when they dropped him on top of us through the hatchway, and it proved impossible at first to wake him up. Søren and I have bedded him as best as we could, covering him with the canvas sacks, which these rogues had forced over our heads. »Karl? Can you hear me?« I whisper into his ear.
Karl's answer sounds calm and reasonable enough: »Xaver? Ja, wos isn etzt dös?«
»You passed out, that's all.«
»Sacrament… Dös san Deifis, Xaver, Deifis!« Karl says to me in Bavarian.
»Shshshhhh!« hisses a voice out of the darkness at one side. »Zij mogen ons niet horen!«
The Dutchman is right, of course. These thugs should better not notice yet, that we have freed us from the gags and sacks. Karl's Bavarian swearwords make me feel a bit better, though. Leaning closer to his ear, I whisper: »Søren says that we have been crimped!«
»Crimped?«
»Yes. We've been recruited as additional crew for some oceangoing ship, so to speak.«
»What?« Karl tries to jump up, but the pain makes him groan.
»Are you hurt?« I ask him.
»Sakrament… It's my shoulder, Xaver. I can't move it. And… and it hurts terrible, really terrible.«

From many months of traveling with Karl, I know that it must be severe. Karl is a tough man and does not complain easily. Together, we've escaped from the ruins of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, from war, witch-hunters, and musket-wielding lansquenets. We rowed down the best part of the mighty Rivers Main and Rhein in a small boat and freed young Hedwig from the clutches of an abusive bunch of Benedictine nuns. The three of us have made it into the Zeven Provinciën, the Dutch Republic, with the firm intention to build a new and better life for ourselves.

»What happened? To your shoulder, I mean?« I ask Karl.
»I don't remember. I think I tried to strike this one body who had grabbed my lute case… Where is my lute case anyway?«
Karl is a master lutenist. He and his lute are inseparable friends. He has built it himself. It is a wonderful instrument with an incredible voluminous voice. »Wait a moment… It might be here somewhere,« I tell him.

A wooden box had hit me in the head when Karl and Søren were thrown down the hatch. It doesn't take long until I find it, groping about the floor, not far from my feet, along with two more shards from my broken spectacles. It's Karl's lute box, all right! The handle is missing, and the floor has a splintering hole. As I open the latches and the lid, I see that Karl's valuable tools and spare parts are still in place. The lute itself appears to be undamaged, albeit dripping wet. The box must have swum in the water. » It's a bit soggy, but otherwise, it seems to be fine…«
»Soggy? Sacrament… But that's terrible! Give it to me!« Karl tries to reach out for his instrument, but the pain strikes him so hard that he almost passes out again. His right arm sticks out at an unnatural angle, and his shoulder… No, that can't be right. As I carefully finger his upper arm, I can find no broken bones, though. Then it occurs to me that the head of the shoulder joint might have moved out and forward out of its socket.

Karl moans heartbreakingly now. He is in devastating pain. I need to fix this somehow. It costs me a considerable effort to push my anguish and fears aside for a moment. It is freezing down here, and my teeth are chattering. In theory, I ought to know a thing or two about shoulder joints. Two years ago, my superior at the Collegium Willibaldinum at the town of Eichstätt had asked me to work out a translation into German of our ancient Latin copy of Guy de Chauliac's Inventarium sive chirurgia magna. This comprehensive guide to surgery and practical medicine was written in the fourteen-hundredth for Pope Clement VI, who had commissioned it. The human shoulder is well described there, as I remember. But more recently, just the other day, I have seen an etching of a dissected shoulder in Professor Nicolaes Tulp's Observationes Medicae. The Professor's extraordinary volume describes hundreds of medical cases from his practice, with detailed descriptions of all kinds of diseases. According to his Observationes, the shoulder joint is more susceptible to dislocating than other joints, as it can be moved and rotated into such a diversity of positions. When a joint ball, any joint ball, gets ripped out of its socket, it usually causes devastating pain. That can happen quite quickly with the shoulder, for example, when one breaks a forward fall with an outstretched arm. If the ball gets jerked out of the socket and doesn't go right back in, muscles and ligaments pull it back tightly against the side of the socket, where it gets stuck to the outside. There's no single proper way to get it back in without unsticking the ball or breaking the socket. I must not break the socket, though, as this might ruin Karl's shoulder for good.

Professor Tulp describes two methods to reset a shoulder. Both of them are very painful and difficult to execute. One needs to apply a lot of force in the right way, and if this doesn't work, one causes more damage than good. As it is, I am clearly in no position even to try such a thing. I am about to despair when my mind wanders to poor Magdalena Vischerin, my beautiful green-eyed lover and gifted healer back at Eichstätt. The Prince Bishop had her arrested for Teufelsbuhlschaft, meaning that she somehow made love with the devil. With me, that is. She's probably long dead by now, tortured and burned alive in public. I fled the Collegium Willibaldinum and the Sacrum Imperium Romanum because our sinful relationship was about to come to light. But I am digressing here.

Plagued by tremendous back pain and in desperation, I had made an appointment with Magdalena one day, on a recommendation by my good friend Bruder Freitag, the gardener of the Collegium Willibaldinum. I soon discovered that Magdalena's approach to surgery and medicine was far more practical than Guy de Chauliac's. Always smiling and with a mischievous twinkle in her luminous green eyes, Magdalena had convinced me that my fits of back pain aren't caused by extensive reading. Instead, it probably originates from a state of constant anxiety, which causes the abdominal muscles to contract chronically, pulling the shoulders down and forward into a grotesquely hunched position. This anxiety is, according to Magdalena, a common problem with feeble persons, who are troubled with issues of all kinds, real or imagined, poverty, a miserable childhood, or not being acknowledged by their father, their peers, or the world at large. As I see it now, almost all of her theorems had turned out to be accurate or pretty close to the truth. Magdalena and I had spent a good time together and talked a lot, amongst other things, about everything medical. Due to the majority of her cases, she was exceptionally knowledgeable at orthopedics. And now, as I am thinking about this, I remember a patient of hers: An oldish man, a poor fuzzy bearded farmer, who had come into her house with a terrible, searing, and almost unbearable pain in his shoulder. I don't know exactly, what had been wrong with him, but Magdalena had cured him within minutes, mumbling something about a dislocation.

»Karl?« I croak.
»What?« he groans.
»Let's try something.«
»What?«
»With your shoulder, I mean. I might just be able to help you.«
»All right,« he whispers weakly. »But you'll better be right about this.«

Søren is awake now, too. Together we help Karl out of his cloak, which turns out to be extremely painful. When this is done, we make him sit upright against the wall, with the affected arm close to his body and the elbow flexed to a right angle. Now I am trying to emulate Magdalena's words and deeds as precisely as possible. I tell Karl to try his utmost to relax his shoulder and arm, despite the pain. Then, holding his injured arm firmly between one hand and my thighs, I begin to massage the strong bundle of muscles along his neck and down his substantial biceps and continue to do so for quite some time. As the strained muscles begin to soften up a bit, I ask Karl to straighten up his back carefully and to slowly pull his shoulders up and back at the same time. Now! With sudden promoting movement I give his arm a pronounced shove. Plopp! The resulting slight noise sounds healthy and somehow satisfying. When I turn Karl's arm slightly inward, he doesn't complain. »How's that?« I ask him.
Karl moves his arm a bit, tentatively rotating his shoulders. »Magic…« he says at last, the sweat of pain glistening above his brow.

I've done it. Oh, sweet Jesus, I've done it! I slump back against the wall, totally exhausted. »You'll better go easy on that joint for a few days,« I urge him.
Karl throws me a grateful smile, and after a while, he happily starts fingering his flooded lute case. Our demure friend Søren, too, congratulates me and expresses his utter admiration for my skills. Although I am only copying what I have learned from more knowledgeable souls, this makes me a bit proud of myself. It feels good to be helpful and to be acknowledged by one's fellow man. It certainly helps me now to stay warm, despite our decidedly disagreeable situation.

For the next hour, or so, nobody says a word. Karl scrambles on with his soaked lute and tools, while Søren and I just sit there, taking in our surroundings and watching as the waxing daylight begins to filter through the wooden grating above us. There are seven more men down here with us, dozing or sleeping. Beards, tattoos, golden earrings, greatcoats, and sea boots. Sailors, all of them. There appears to be a strange kind of understanding, and a code of conduct, like peeing into the same corner or taking a solitary into a combined heap. To my relief, they seem to accept the three of us as belonging to them.

We have been crimped! Can we do anything to get us out of here? Maybe Egidius can save us? My influential friend is one of the Heeren XVII after all, which means that he is holding a seat on the board of the seventeen directors of the VOC, the Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie. Even if he should be angry at me for missing our New Year's dinner, it's only a matter of time until young Hedwig will call on him at his mansion at Heerengracht and ask him for help. He will certainly send out his men to look for me. As long as this ship remains at anchor in the outer harbor, there might still be hope. Black Sekou, Egidius trusty manservant, will surely ask around. If they talk to the bridge-keeper, they might just draw the right conclusions.

No movement from above so far, no steps, nothing. Just the wind, harping through the masts and rigging and fanning down the grating, dispersing the incredible stench which attacks our noses in heavy bouts. Long may it last. Without thinking, I fumble for my rosary, but fail to find it, as it resides with Anna Maria now. Searching through my pockets in earnest, I find that nothing else was taken from me, except for my Gupti, my absurdly valuable sword cane. Egidius had recently given it to me as a gift, to make me look more important. One of the rogues had ripped it out of my hands before forcing me down into a small boat back at the Damrak. I wonder where it might be now. It seemed to me that these idiots just threw it away onto the pavement. Now, it comes to my mind how farsighted Egidius had urged me to take fencing lessons because of some abductions he had heard of. »It's always good to be prepared,« he had said to me. How prophetic! But be that as it may: I could never have fought these thugs with any kind of weapon. They came from behind, and there were four or six of them.

My wallet is still there, holding almost fifty guilders. That's quite a bit of money. I quickly take out most of the coins and, trying to move inconspicuously, divide them up between my leather boots, positioning the gold and silver flat under my wet socks. I can only hope that the money is safe in there. My other pockets contain my current diary, the ink pot, my quills, and the small leather-bound Bible my mother had handed me on her deathbed. It had become wet one day in the rain, as Karl and I were rowing down the River Rhein, but in the meantime, I had dried every single page carefully at Heerengracht. My small pack of surgical instruments appears complete and undamaged: A scalpel, some needles and twine, a scissor, and two small tweezers. And then there is this small wooden box, silver-bound and tied close with a fine leather belt. It is the beautiful spectacle case, which my friend, the renowned poet Joost van den Vondel, had given me along with a precious set of spectacles inside. These had once belonged to his late wife Mayken de Wolff. »I have a strong feeling that you will behold a fair share of oddities with them and, perhaps, carry them to fame and fortune. Mayken would have liked that.« That's what he had said…

As it is, I carefully finger the pockets of my leather jerkin now, where I have stored the remains of Mayken's delicate metal frame with some shards of my new lenses. The left lens is broken in two. Both pieces are there. The right lens is a different matter. So far, I have found only one shard in my clothes. God knows how many bits are missing. Young genius Benedictus de Spinoza and I had finished my lenses just the other night, after a few weeks of grinding and polishing at his workshop in the Nes, where he lives with my old mentor Franciscus van den Enden. For one beautiful day, I had left my lifelong shortsightedness behind and seen the world in all its crispness and beauty. I had seen young Hedwig flying along the canals on her rented skates like a swan. Now, everything has fallen back into the mist. Tears are rolling down my cheeks and hurt my swollen lips as I put my bent and broken spectacle frame and the shards of my lenses into the box and secure the lid with the leather strap. It doesn't help that I find a light blue envelope and a small ivory pipe in the other pocket of my jerkin.

The envelope contains a perfumed letter from Anna Maria which had reached me yesterday from Utrecht: A polite apology and an invitation for breakfast at the Ovidius next week. She will be in town for our next assembly at the surgeon's guild, where Professor Tulp intends to dissect Klaas Annink's brain. Meeting Anna Maria for breakfast at the Ovidius would endanger me now, after this unexpectedly amorous encounter with Hedwig last night. The small ivory pipe belongs to Anna Maria, too. I had picked it up from the floor at the Karpershoek, where she had lost it in the crowd when she had left in a hurry with the talented and tasty young Mathematician Christiaan Huygens during a concert of De Buitenlanders. I don't smoke, at least not yet, and only use her pipe as a keepsake. It smells like her, smoky, like the devil. It might prove impossible now for me to honor our new appointment. An irksome thought, but one that also contains some relief.

There is some kind of commotion above our heads now, shouted commands and the clattering of many boots. Something heavy is lifted on top of the wooden grating in the ceiling, blocking out almost all of the daylight which had begun to filter down to us. Søren jumps up and tries to see something through the grating. »They are retrieving the cutter!« he hisses towards Karl and me.
Søren is a Dane, a strange-looking one, because of his black hair. One of his forefathers had been a Spaniard, or at least that's what his father had told him. He has his mother's eyes, though, a bright blue. Additional to some Dutch, he speaks a fair enough German, albeit with a strong Danish accent. Before Søren became a professional musician and harpsichord player, he had worked as a sailor on oceangoing ships for a few years. Søren has a lot of experience with seafaring, which makes his opinion trustworthy. »The cutter?« I ask him.
»Yes, one of the ship's boats. Probably the one that they used to deliver us aboard. They've secured it in place, on top of this grating.«
»Why did they do that?« I ask him.
»They are going to sail! They've only waited for high tide.«
»Why high tide?«
»There will be a bit of a current setting out into the Zuyder Zee from the River Ye, rather than into it. It helps them to clear the anchorage and the shallows.«

Some of the other sailors down here follow Søren's example now, trying to discern something through the grating. Karl has restored his lute in its case, and, cradling his injured arm, he tentatively gets up to his legs, too. »Why do you think they are leaving today?« he asks Søren.
»Two reasons, I guess,« the Dane replies. »They are probably concerned to get trapped here by ice. You might have noticed that it has constantly been building during the last weeks.«
»Right. And the other reason?« I inquire.
»The wind shifted into the South yesterday. It will probably clock around to the Northwest now, in the next two days or so, allowing them to get out of the Zuyder Zee and into the open sea, passing the island of Texel.«
»How far is that?« Karl asks.
»About seventy-five nautical miles, I'd assume.«
That doesn't tell me anything. »Aha,« I tell Søren. »And how far is that?«
»About twenty-five leagues. At least two days, I guess. They can't sail this ship at night because the Zuyder Zee is a mudflat sea and riddled with shallows. They'll anchor somewhere early this evening because the days are short in midwinter. It all depends on the tides and the wind. Listen up! …They are making sail!«
That sounds strange. »They are making sail?« I ask.
»It's just a figure of speech,« Søren explains. »They are hoisting up sails to get underway.«

Now all ten of us are assembled under the grating, trying to see something. There is mayhem on deck above us: A clattering, squeaking, grating and creaking, more shouting of commands, and a continuous pattering of many heavy boots. »They weigh anchor,« Søren comments. »We are underway!«
Suddenly, we hear a tremendous rattling and fluttering which shakes every timber of our prison and every bone in our bodies. Then, under an ominous creaking, the whole floor begins to tilt slightly to one side. A rustling and a gurgling resonate from the wooden walls, which sounds terrifying to me. »They've set the topsails,« Søren tells us. »Now they are sheeting in!«
»Sheeting?« Karl asks.
»Yes. They pull in the ropes which are attached to the corners of the sails so that they fill with air and drive the ship forward.«
I am beginning to feel a bit queazy, as it is getting hard for me to stay on my legs. Naturally, I don't want to show that to my friends. »Will they let us out at some point?« I ask Søren.
»No, not until we are past the island of Texel, I'd say.«
»Two more days trapped down here?« I cry in dismay, feeling worse every minute.
»We must get out somehow,« Karl urges. »Maybe we could swim for it during the night?«
»Oh, most certainly not!« Søren replies. »The water is too damn cold. You wouldn't last the first two hundred yards. Don't even think about such a thing. It'd be suicide.«

After a thorough inspection of the room we are trapped in, the three of us return to our positions, propped up against the walls, and trying to stay warm under our winter coats and the coarse canvas sacks. For some reason, we feel more comfortable sitting on the high side, as the floor has begun to sway a bit and to tilt even more now. Staring helplessly around me, I notice a long row of eyebolts attached to the damp floor on both sides of this cavern. A length of chain with scary-looking hand and foot cuffs is dangling from each of them. »What do you make of these contraptions over there?« I ask Søren. »Will they put us in chains?«
»No, not us, at least not if we behave ourselves. This is a slave ship, you see. These chains are used for black people when they come onboard in Africa.«
»Are we headed for Africa then?« Karl asks.
»I have no idea. It's not unlikely, though,« Søren replies.
»I've heard them talking to the bridge keeper,« I say to my friends. »They told him something about Safi and Marokko. Safi could be this ship's name, I suppose. We could be sailing for Marokko then.«
»Could be,« Søren says. »Safi is indeed the name of some seaport there, as far as I am told.«
»How far away is Marokko?« asks Karl.
»Around two thousand nautical miles, I'd guess, depending on where exactly we are going.«
»Aha,« I tell him. »And how far are two thousand nautical miles?«
»Three weeks of sailing if all goes well, depending on wind and weather. We could get stuck in the English Channel or run into a zephyr in the Bay of Biscay. There are many variables,« Søren explains.
Our experienced Danish friend knows his business and the sea. That helps me tremendously to calm my nerves and to obtain at least some answers to my many questions.

Our prison is quite low, too low to stand upright, but not small. Its floor is measuring at least six by eight yards. God knows how many black people they usually cramp in here. There is a solid wall forward, and a solid wall aft, both made from heavy timbers. No doors anywhere, only this grating above and the small hatch through which we were dumped. There are two square portholes on each side, though, probably former gun-ports. They are padlocked now, but there is no way to get out anyway, as they are secured with substantial iron bars. Most likely, they are only opened for cleaning or ventilation purposes. Another locked hatch leads down to God knows where. Probably another cargo hold, deep down inside the belly of the ship.

As we are squatting there, being cold, anxious, and trapped, Karl picks up his lute from its case, tunes it up, and starts to play an intricate melody. His fingering is not as great as usual, but still admirable, considering the cold, the stench, and his injured shoulder. He almost makes the lute sound like a harp, elegant, dynamic, and light: Rapid successions of precisely tuned notes, with razor-sharp distinctions between each of them. It doesn't take long until all the men in our prison are huddled together in a circle around Karl, listening intently and even applauding once in a while. Being the son of a boat builder from Lake Chiemsee by the Alp mountains, Karl has built his beautiful lute himself. He is in his early twenties like me and dreams about opening his own lute building workshop somewhere. What is happening to us here must be as devastating for Karl as it is for me. The famous Dutch lute player and composer Constantijn Huygens, the father of tasty young Christiaan, had just commissioned Karl to make a new lute for him. That won't be happening now, or any time soon, for that matter. We spent an hour or two in this way, listening to the lute, trying to stay warm, and waiting for something to happen. It must be snowing hard outside, as snowflakes begin to swirl through the grating above, dense and moist. »Visibility must be bad outside,« Søren comments.

Just as he says this, we perceive a slight shudder running through the ship's timbers, a sliding and slightly grinding noise. Those of us on our feet are pulled forward, staggering and looking a bit helpless, but not for long. The ship has come to a standstill, slightly leaning to one side. Muddled commands are being shouted above us, and the sails are clattering and flapping frantically. While Karl and I are anxiously listening to the clamor, the sailors down here are grinning broadly. »They've run her into the Pampus!« Søren declares.
»The Pampus?« Karl asks.
»It's a silty channel at the mouth of the River Ye which leads out into the Zuyder Zee, east of Amsterdam.«
Pampus is a curious name that stimulates my imagination. »It's a strange word,« I remark.
»Indeed, it is,« Søren acknowledges. »Pampus is ancient Dutch, meaning thick mash, or mud. The Dutch sailors have this odd expression: Lying Pampus, which means being bored while waiting, or being pissed, or being too full of food to move.«
»Is it a sandbank?« I ask a bit stupidly, wondering if a substantial delay could help us to get rescued somehow.
»No, Xaverius, at least not a stationary one. It's better described as a tideway, a shallow navigation channel with a soft muddy bottom, which constantly shifts and changes. If you are driven too far to one side where it gets more shallow, you might get stuck. It's annoying to them, but they'll get her out eventually. It might take a while, though. The water is running out right now. They'll have to wait until it rises again with the incoming tide,« Søren explains.
»When will that be?« Karl asks.
»Ten or twelve hours? I don't know exactly. It's not quite spring tide yet, but it's getting there, and that will help them.«
»Now, what exactly is spring tide?« Karl asks, being almost as inquisitive as usual again.
»About twice a month, the tides are higher than usual. Roughly speaking, spring tide occurs when the moon is new or full. Nobody knows why that is, though,« Søren explains.
That sounds most interesting to me. At Eichstätt, I had studied the Latin translation of the works of a Muslim astronomer, one Abu Ma'shar, the Introductorium In Astronomiam. In this comprehensive volume, the ingenious Muslim makes a case for the moon as the cause of ebb and flood tides, as the timing of the moon's phases appears to correlate nicely with the tides. Deep inside, I tend to agree with him. Somehow, the tides must be induced by the general circulation of the heavens. But how does this work? Wouldn't it be fascinating to try and solve this riddle? But as it is, I am in no position to pursue such a project now.

There is no end to the hammering and rumbling above us. All of a sudden, it gets brighter down here. Apparently, they lift the cutter, the ship's boat, back into the water, freeing up the grating of our prison. »What's going on?« Karl inquires.
»They might want to drive out a kedge,« Søren says, every bit as enigmatical as usual.
»Aha!« I tell him.
»A kedge?« Karl asks.
»A kedge is a secondary anchor which can be used for a variety of purposes. It can, for example, be rowed out in a suitable direction by a ship's boat, enabling the crew to winch the ship off a shoal with its own capstan. They'll need quite a few men for that, though.« 

Søren must possess some prophetic capabilities. Just as we are all standing there, gathered under the grating to see, the hatch is thrown open, and a few heavy thugs come climbing down the ladder, all armed with dangerous-looking clubs. One of them is holding a pistol in one hand and a short cutlass in the other. »Ga buiten, je slakken!« he roars, wagging his pistol unmistakably towards the hatch.
I instantly recognize this voice, raspy and hateful: The ruthless leader of the gang which brought me in. The man is big and muscular and still smells of cheap grogg. What I see from his face through his fuzz beard is a thick knobbly nose, red and pockmarked. Fizzy hair and dirty clothes go well with his expressionless, bloodshot eyes, which seem to see everything going on. One by one, we are made to climb up on deck and forced to assemble in a small huddle near the waist-high rail. It's still windy and snowing hard, but the brightness of the daylight makes us blink our eyes. I don't see a thing at first, as there is only white on white all around the ship. The cold is bone-chilling. The sails and some ropes are still flapping madly above us, shaking out little shards of ice. A few sailors are scrambling about, trying to secure them. After a while, I can make out a low strip of land on one side, grey and green. Oh, how I long for a large pot of thee and suiker with lovely Hedwig now, watching out over the River Ye from our favorite perch at the Karpershoek. At some point, I would heartily call her a Snoekbaars, and she would call me a Fiep. Oh my God, I have fallen in love with Hedwig! Could I jump in and swim for it?

It costs me some effort to overcome this impulse. Not here, not in the freezing waters of this Pampus. Søren is right. Jumping in would be suicidal, even if I could swim, which I can't. Blonde curly Karl is the son of a boatbuilder and swims like a trout, though. When we came down the River Rhein together, he saved young Hedwig from drowning when she threw herself into the stream in desperation, trying to escape from the Benedictine nunnery on the island of Rolandswerth. Now he cradles his injured shoulder and stares into the white nothingness, probably dismissing that same impulse.

For the moment, we are ordered to wait and not to move. Taking in the chaos around us, I am trying to make sense of what I perceive. We are standing on the main deck of a large three-masted sailing vessel. There is a long row of heavy-looking guns, at least eight of them on both sides, secured in place by thick ropes and chains. A narrow stair on each side leads to raised upper decks forward and aft, which apparently serve as working platforms above the main deck. There is an incredible tangle of ropes leading up the masts from these platforms, too complicated to understand. Several sailors are running about, swarthy men with wild beards and heavy black cloaks, pulling ropes or fastening them with heavy wooden belaying pins while yelling at each other in an unknowable idiom. I count ten of them at least, but there must be others, probably down below or away with the cutter, the ship's boat. At the railing on the aft deck, right by the mainmast, a tall man with a long black coat and high sea boots leans and watches us, his arms resting on the rail. Out of his grey beard protrudes a long and remarkably hooked nose. I can also make out thoroughly tanned skin and a piercing gaze. The man wears a kind of turban wrapped on his head, an Oriental turban, green silk, or something like that. In contrast to all other crew members, the Oriental seems to be calm and in control. Might he be the captain of the ship?

Something's going on at the bow, and, sure enough, the Raspy Fuzz Beard orders us to move forward, pointing and waving his pistol up the narrow ladder. Now, he forces us onto the forward upper deck, where we find a kind of thick wooden spindle just behind the mighty foremast. A handful of sturdy beams protrude from this strange contraption, akin to the spokes of a wheel. We have to grab these spokes in pairs and move around the spindle in circles. That goes quite easy at first. We run so fast that I almost get dizzy. »What are we doing here?« I ask Søren, who handles the same spoke as I.
»It's a capstan,« he says, »or also called a windlass. We are supposed to pull in the anchor cable.«
»Where is this cable then?« I ask him, a bit disoriented.
»It comes in through the hawseways at the bow, down below, under the foredeck. This spindle leads through to the main deck. Someone handles the cable there and fastens alternating messenger lines to it, leading to the capstan, as the cable itself is too thick for that. They've run out the anchor with the cutter. We are supposed to pull the ship out of the mud and into deeper waters.«
»Will that work?«
»It might,« Søren says, »but it will probably suck. Just wait and see, Xaverius.«

Presently, it is getting more challenging to turn the spindle, even with the full force of all ten of us. Karl is right in front of me, moving around awkwardly, working his spindle one-handed. His injured shoulder still hurts him. Two more turns, and then we are stuck for good. Luckily, there is an ingenious mechanism that prevents the capstan from running backward. Several inconspicuous-looking pawls engage into coarse toothing at the bottom of the spindle. The messenger line wound around the spindle down below must be taut now and probably tensioned to the point of rupture. All of us are straining and pushing now, but we can't get the spindle to move another notch. Raspy Fuzz Beard rages while two of his thugs threaten us with their clubs but to no avail. We are stuck. At that, the Oriental on the aft deck yells a couple of precise sounding orders to his men, and immediately, a few of them begin to climb up the rigging again, using narrow rope ladders that are tied between the great cables which hold the three towering masts in place. Now, a few of them even climb out onto a long yardarm which protrudes over the water on both sides of the ship. There, they loosen a big sail high up, which begins to flog madly again, sounding like thunder and lightning, until it eventually fills with wind. »What are those bodies doing up there?« I ask Søren.
»They've reset the main topsail.«
»Why?«
»They probably want the ship to heel a bit to free her from the suction.«
At that, we perceive a slight shifting of the deck under our feet. The timber shudders and groans. Raspy Fuzz Beard rages again, and we lean into the spokes with all our might. Then, suddenly, there is some movement again. We can turn the spindle a bit and then a bit more. The ship has moved, at least a little.

The next hour is pure agony. We have to keep turning the spindle in fits of twenty rounds or so, pulling the whole mighty ship through the muck slowly, step by step. Soon, my back begins to hurt badly, and my lungs are burning. There is one short break when the anchor comes up at the bow. But as the ship is still firmly stuck in the mud, the crew takes the heavy anchor aboard the cutter again and drives it back out a long way until they disappear in the white flurry of snow ahead. Another hour at the cursed capstan passes, round by round. I begin to see fiery rings before my eyes. I've had nothing to eat or drink since Hedwig and I enjoyed our fried Oliebollen at the Nieuwmarkt together yesterday evening. Now my throat feels dried out, while the cut in my lower lip hurts more badly with every minute. The only thing which prevents me from giving up is the observation that all my comrades at the spokes are experienced sailors who seem to accept their fate with more magnanimity than I.

Then, silently at first, Søren begins to chant: »Wie will er mee naar Wieringen varen…« he sings out, repeating it a couple of times.
It is a sailor’s song, I figure, a shanty, that everyone seems to know by heart. One by one, the men begin to answer as a chorus: »’s Morgens vroeg al in den dauw…«
Søren goes on: »Met een mooi meisje van achttien jaren…«
»Dat zo graag naar Wieringen wou…« they answer.
Then comes a refrain, repeated many times and exactly in sync, as we strain around and round the capstan. I don't understand a word of what we are singing here, but I eventually fall in with them, as it feels much better to belong, even it is only to this desperate company.

Suddenly there is no more resistance in the spokes. We all stumble and fall over each other, cursing and struggling for breath. Have we torn the cable? The ship shakes and straightens up, and swings uncontrollably to the left. The sail above us begins to flutter again until it is brought under control by the ship's crew. We have defeated the Pampus! We are out of the mud and in deeper waters. But that doesn't mean that our struggles are coming to an end. Immediately, we are made to work on the capstan again until the mighty anchor is finally secured under the bow. Then, we have to hoist the ship's cutter back in, until it is lowered and set down on its cradle above the grating on the main deck. At last, we are dismissed and forced back through the hatch into our dark and damp prison below deck.

I am totally exhausted and just dump down in my usual spot beside my two friends. Someone has removed the pile of dung, which is a decent thing. But the stench still lingers, entangled with the damp aroma of rotten wood, turpentine, tar, and hemp. I am so parched now that my thoughts begin to circle around water and nothing else. Soon I feel cold and dizzy again. Being tall and skinny, this happens to me quite often. To deal with that, I usually drink a lot of water and eat a lot of food. Are they trying to starve us? Until now, we've received nothing from our captors, neither drink nor food, not even a single drop of water. I ask Søren about it, but he gives a sibylline answer: »Just wait and see, Xaverius. Just wait and see.«

»Have you seen the captain?« Karl asks no one in particular.
»The Oriental?« I ask back.
»Yes, that was the Kapitein all right,« Søren tells us. »A Sephardim, to be sure.«
I have heard the term before but cannot place it immediately. »A Sephardim?« I ask him.
»Sephardi means Spanish or Hispanic in Hebrew, I believe.«
Søren appears to be a well-read man. »Is he a Spaniard then?« asks Karl.
»No, Portuguese rather,« Søren replies.
»Have you noticed that they are not sailing under the flag of the Zeven Provinciën?« I ask Søren and Karl, but both of them are shaking their heads.
Finally, I can tell them something of interest: »I cannot be sure, as my eyes are too bad, but it was not red, white and blue. I think it was a red flag with some kind of green symbol or letter in its center.«
»That makes sense,« Søren says. »The flag of Marokko is red and bears the green Star of David in its center.«
»The Star of David?« I ask him.
»Yes,« Søren says. »The Sephardim are Jews, you know. A long time ago, the Catholic Church forced them to either flee from Spain and Portugal or convert to the Christian faith. Rather than becoming Conversos, many of them escaped to Marokko instead, where they were welcomed by the Muslim rulers there, as the Sephardim are such successful merchants. Through them, the Maroccan rulers began first to trade with the Zeven Provinciën. The ambassador of Marokko at ’s-Gravenhage is a Sephardim, I believe. But lately, many Portuguese Conversos, too, are coming into the Zeven Provinciën and Amsterdam in particular, where they reconvert to their old Jewish faith. As neither the VOC nor the WIC are trading with Catholics, the Portuguese are at great advantage here, with their vast trading networks and influence all over Africa and the Mediterranean Sea.«

Now it comes back to me. Egidius had told me that Christians are not allowed to own or sell slaves in the Zeven Provinciën. Only the Portuguese merchants are because they are Sephardim. All that makes sense to me now, as we appear to be on a slave ship bound for Marokko. That is just great. I can't believe our bad luck. »Did you say that they'll need two days to reach the island of Texel?« I ask Søren.
»Aye, but it could be more, depending on the weather.«
»Is it possible to reach this island on horseback?«
»No, not directly. You can ride up to Den Helder, though, and take a ferry.«
»Den Helder?«
»Aye. It's a lively fishing village close to some safe anchorages around Texel, where ships and fleets can assemble before sailing into the world's oceans. By the way: Den Helder means Door to Hell.«
»That sounds reassuring,« I reply.
»Indeed, it does,« Søren confirms, seemingly unfazed. »The Island of Texel lies to the North, across a narrow channel which is called Marsdiep. The current of the water can be so strong there that many ships are lost each year as they are thrown onto the sands. That happened to the poor Århus, the Danish merchantman I was sailing on a few years ago. Luckily, we all survived and made it safely to Amsterdam. I happened to like the town, as the people were so helpful, and because of the many musicians who live there. It didn't take long until I decided to stay for good.«

What Søren is telling us gives me some new hope. »Listen, Søren! My friend Egidius is one of the Heeren XVII of the VOC. Couldn't they stop this ship at Den Helder if he sends a messenger there on horseback?«
Søren contemplates this for a moment, stroking his black stubble beard. But then he dismisses my idea: »Theoretically yes. But sadly, they won't stop a Moroccan flagged vessel, as this could bring about a diplomatic crisis.«

Chewing this disappointing thought, we all fall back into a painful stupor. Noisy commotions are going on above us a couple of times with the sails flapping and cracking madly and the whole ship listing to one side or the other. But eventually, towards the evening, the crew on deck decides to recover the sails and to let go the anchor. We must be somewhere in some protected bay. According to Søren, we could be close to a walled town called Medemblik, but he cannot be sure about this, as we don't get to see anything from our prison. Tormented by thirst and hunger, I have a hard time finding any sleep. It doesn't help that the smell of some substantial stew comes wafting down on us through the grating and the pleasant laughter of content men. Now I miss my rosary more than ever. Anna Maria has taken it from me. I don't know why. This woman is the devil. She tempted me, and I eagerly fell, the same way as I did with Magdalena. And now, I am on my way to hell. I don't deserve to be with Hedwig. Fingering Anna Maria's small ivory pipe instead of my rosary, I think about her, and about Hedwig, and hell. Godfather has finally abandoned me, and this time for good. But trying to ask the Redeemer for forgiveness gets me nowhere these days. I need help, but there is none to be had, not even from my friends.


The end of CHAPTER I and thus the end of the free sample… but do not despair:

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XAVER VON ADELSHOFEN / THE GUAIQUINIMA TALES
VOL II / EALISAD

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