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'True, an admirable son, sure to reach positions of significance.' Dropping his voice, he reached for her hand. 'Positions of eminence, as I did under similar circumstances.'

'Jan Pieterszoon Coen often told us that you were one of the greatest. And you know that Karel is of your stamp.'

'But remember the counsel of prudent men where authority is concerned: "One must stand close enough to the fire to be warmed, but not so close that he is burned." Karel really must be seen in Compagnie headquarters. There is no alternative, Hendrickje.'

For some moments she reflected on this advice and knew it to be sound. Jan Compagnie was a curious beast, seventeen all-powerful men who did not know the East at firsthand, making decisions that influenced half the world. She would never want her sons to be members of that tight, mean-spirited gang of plotters, but she did want them to achieve positions in Java and Ceylon which only the Lords XVII could disburse. It really was time for Karel to put in an appearance. 'But Willem?' she asked softly, betraying her love for this tousle-headed lad. 'He's too young. Truly, he should stay with me.'

The governor laughed heavily. 'Hendrickje, you astonish me. This lad has been to Formosa, Cambodia. He fought valiantly at Malacca. He's a man, not a boy.' Then he grew serious, asking the servants to withdraw.

'Let us keep the fan-boys. They speak no Dutch.'

'Hendrickje, for Karel to be seen in Amsterdam is policy. For Willem to report there is survival. His entire future life may depend on this.'

'What can you mean?'

'What you know better than I. Few boys born outside Holland can ever hope to attain a position of power within the Compagnie. And especially no boy born in Java.'

Mevrouw van Doorn rose impetuously, ordered the fan-boys to leave the room, and paced back and forth. 'Outrageous!' she cried. 'My husband and I came here in the worst days. We helped burn Jacatra and build this new Batavia. And now you tell me that because our son was born while we were here . . .'

'I do not tell you, Hendrickje. The Compagnie tells you. Any boy born in Java suffers a dreadful stigma.'

He did not continue, for there was no need. No matter how angry Mevrouw van Doorn became over this tactless reminder that her son Willem suffered a disadvantage which might prove fatal in Compagnie politics, she knew he was right, for Dutch settlement in the East produced contradictions which simply could not be resolved. The Dutch were honest Calvinists who took their religion seriously, and the drowsy rooms in Batavia contained many persons whose forefathers had died protecting their religion. They were the spawn of heroes, prepared to die again if Calvinism were threatened.

But they were a paradoxical lot. They believed that God in His mercy separated the saved from the damned, and were convinced that the Dutch were saved, not all of them, but most. They firmly believed in sobriety, yet drank themselves into a stupor five days out of seven. They believed in strict sexual deportment, much stricter than the Portuguese or English; they spoke of it; they read those passages in the Bible which condemned lewd living; and their predikants roared at them from the pulpit. They did believe in chastity.

And there was the difficulty. For they were also a lusty lot; few men in Europe had a quicker eye for a flashing skirt than the Dutch of Amsterdam. They rousted and stormed through brothels, chasing girls brought from Brazil and Bali and from God knows where; but always they did this after protestations of virtue and before prayers of contrition. Few men have ever behaved so lustily between episodes of protective devotion.

In Java the problem was trebly difficult, for to it came the most virile young men of Holland to serve five to ten years, but with them came no Dutch women, or few, and these of the worst sort. Hendrickje van Doorn had written to at least a hundred young women in Haarlem and Amsterdam, begging them to come out as wives to these splendid young