The Company Portrait of a Murderer

by Edge, Arabella

• ISBN13: 9780743419185
• ISBN10: 0743419189
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-07-02
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Summary

Based on the 1629 voyage of the Dutch East India Company flagship,Batavia-- which foundered off the coast of western Australia with its cargo of untold riches --The Companytells the story of passenger Jeronimus Cornelisz, a heretical apothecary so twisted by lust and greed that he turns to mutiny, rape, torture, and murder.With the ship wrecked, its passengers dying, and its treasure at the bottom of the sea, Cornelisz marshals his mesmerizing charisma to assume command of the survivors. For forty hellish days, Cornelisz incites a reign of terror, leaving his victims with just one wish -- that they had gone down with the ship.In highly imaginative and exquisitely wrought prose,The Company"suggests that Robinson Crusoe was lucky to be marooned alone" (Publishers Weekly).

Author Biography

Arabella Edge was born in London in 1958 and now lives in Sydney, Australia. The Company was the winner of the Best First Book in the 2001 Commonwealth Writers? Prize in the Southeast Asia and Pacific Region and was shortlisted for the 2001 Miles Franklin Award.

Excerpts

Chapter OneAmsterdam, 29 October,Anno 1628.I stand alone on the spice wharf and inhale the cinnamon salt-sweet fragrance that lingers still. Once again I check my papers. All in order, no detail gone unnoticed. Tutt did well. I admire his meticulous work in forging the Company seal on my accommodation pass to the officers' cabins. At last it is final.Strange that Torrentius -- my mentor and only friend -- being an acclaimed Hollander miniaturist, was offered temporary refuge at the court of King Charles, whereas for certain beliefs of mine, I have to scuttle underground like a rat, board the shipBatavia,and adopt the crisp, moneyed manners of Dutch East India merchants bound on a five-month voyage to the Indias.I'm no mariner. I can't even swim. I fear death by drowning, the cold touch of water on my skin. I, Jeronimus, am a man of phials, a measurer of powders on bronze scales, a potion brewer, an opium and arsenic merchant. The primped and perfumed Amsterdam burghers came to me in droves requiring cures for fevers, love balms, the miscarriage of a bastard child, and, of course, poisons. Ah, poisons. And there are many. Dusting an ostrich fan, the rim of a claret glass, the bloom on a summer rose -- beware the innocent whose lips brush his lady's lace-gloved hand. Witchcraft I leave to the crones, the illusionists in market squares, the card shufflers, the crystal ball gazers, the decipherers of strangers' shadows in cracked teacups, reminding me of that other sorcerer, the lost prophet, who divided fishes and loaves, turned water to wine, spun tall tales to fisherboys and netmenders by the riverbanks.Torrentius's hospitality knew no bounds. My friend's mansion was one of the most magnificent residences in the town. Furnished with every conceivable luxury, the salons were designed for pleasure. Nightingales sang from the orangerie, and in the summerhouse by the ornamental lake there were frescoes of pucks, centaurs, satyrs, priapic in the Arcadian style.There were studios dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. One devoted to natural history held my attention for a while, the accidents of nature in particular, coiled in jars of preserving fluid.Another was a scholar's study of Zodiac charts, almanacs, the rarest of Tarot cards. These, day after day, I would play, until the worn emblems became intimate as friends.The mansion also housed a large library of curiosa, and it was there that I spent most of my time. In addition to Greek and Latin authors, my fingers roamed the works of Shakespeare and other moderns.Bent over his desk, in silence and solitude, my friend deciphered his family's genealogies, transcribed them from Latin to Dutch on finely calligraphed sheets of parchment in a beautiful, unhurried hand.Under his guidance, I began my study of the humanities and explored every part of the library, the trompe-l'oeil panels which slid open at a single touch. Among this secret archive of wax-sealed documents I found a precious collection of licentious literature. Bound in yellow calf vellum,The History of the Flagellants,a translation by an Abbe of the fifteenth century, was the first to catch my eye, and there was much to be learned from this tract.*My friend had a talent for masked balls. His guests would be asked to dress for the occasion, each request sending the district for miles around into a fever of anticipation. The delivery of those black scrolls caused considerable agitation among the jaded aristocracy, who, at the first sight of Torrentius's carriage in the streets, dispatched their servants to wait by the gate. And beware the hapless footman who returned to a house empty-handed. Not for my friend pastorals of goatherds and shepherdesses or seraglios of silken slaves -- he preferred more demanding themes. Guests arrived as inquisitors, executioners, Satan's angels, pagan kings and queens. For him life was a game