An ibis watched from the mangrove swamp, but Paul did not see it.

  They carried on up a gravel path between the flower beds. Bees buzzed; the air was rich with the scent of fruit and blossom. Paul had been living off salt fish, rice and flatbread for two years. When he saw a fat plum bending the branch of its tree, so ripe the skin had almost split, he picked it without thinking and bit into it. Even without a tongue to taste it, he could feel the sweetness in the juices that filled his mouth and squirted down his chin.

  Only when he had eaten it down to its stone did he remember his manners. His eyes made an apology, but Mary waved it away.

  ‘There is plenty here. Take whatever you like.’

  Two people had emerged on the porch of the main house – a man and a woman, both in their forties. Their faces were tanned and weather-beaten from decades under the African sun. The man was ruddy and blond; the woman paler, with chestnut hair. From the look they directed at Mary, Paul thought they had to be her parents.

  ‘You have found another castaway.’ The man gave Paul a searching look. ‘Who is he?’

  ‘He cannot speak,’ Mary explained. ‘He has lost his tongue. And I do not think he understands English.’

  She turned to Paul and pointed to the man.

  ‘Gert,’ she said, speaking slowly and clearly. She pointed to the woman. ‘Susan. My parents.’

  Paul bowed. He did not understand what his hosts said, but he could see in their faces they did not trust him. The mother was giving Mary a curious look, while the father was examining Paul with undisguised suspicion.

  ‘He can go to the guest room and clean himself up,’ said Susan. ‘I will prepare some food.’

  Mary took Paul’s hand to lead him away, but Gert stopped her.

  ‘One of the servants can show him there,’ he said. ‘You help your mother in the kitchen.’

  ‘But, Papa—’

  ‘Do as you’re told.’

  While Mary followed her mother, with a lingering glance at Paul, he accompanied one of the African servants into the house. It was not lavish – certainly to Paul, who had grown up in the decadent luxury of Ancien Régime France – but it was warm and homely. Persian rugs and animal hides were spread on the mahogany floorboards, while the walls were decorated with many beautiful objects gathered from all over the world: tapestries, wood carvings, dried flowers and seashells. Paul took particular interest in the paintings. There were oil canvases that must have been imported from Europe; Ottoman miniatures executed with extraordinary finesse; pictures of ships at sea; and wild landscapes of India. The one he liked best was a watercolour, simply painted: a view of the beach and the bay they had passed, with a ship at anchor. It was sunrise, and the eastern horizon glowed with a beatific pink radiance. The picture was signed ‘Mary Jansen’.

  The servant brought Paul down a corridor to a small room at the end. There was a washstand and a wardrobe, and two sturdy wooden beds. Paul gave a cry of delight as he saw Sana lying on one of them, sleeping the way she always did, with her legs tucked up to her chest.

  She opened her eyes.

  ‘They found you,’ she said. ‘I could not make them understand. They do not speak Arabic.’

  Paul seated himself on the opposite bed.

  I do not speak their language either.

  ‘What do you think they do here?’

  I don’t know.

  ‘Could they be slavers?’

  Slaving was rife on the coast, with Portuguese and local slavers exporting people to the slave markets of Arabia and India.

  I don’t think so.

  They had seen plenty of slave barracoons on their travels down the African coast – squalid stockades jammed with humanity. If you did not see them, you could smell the stench coming off them, and hear the groans. There was nothing like that here. And of all the black people he had seen – the servants in the house and the workers in the gardens – none wore shackles or had brands on their skin.

  ‘Maybe we have arrived in America,’ said Sana hopefully.

  Paul laughed.

  This is not America.

  ‘Or Cape Town?’

  No.

  ‘Then why are there white people here?’

  Sana twisted one of her braids, chewing it like she had when she was a girl.

  ‘Did you see the one with the golden hair? She is very beautiful.’

  I didn’t notice.

  She reached across the gap between the beds and pinched him.

  ‘Liar. You know she is beautiful.’

  It was hard lying when you could not speak. Sana was so used to reading his face that it was impossible to hide his thoughts from her.

  ‘Am I as beautiful?’

  The question caught him off guard. He nodded vigorously – but not fast enough. Sana caught the hesitation. Her face collapsed into a scowl.

  ‘Liar.’

  She threw the pillow at him and stormed out of the door.

  What does it matter? Paul asked, bewildered. But he said it silently, and nobody heard.

  *

  They ate with the family that evening. Though the Jansens might have misgivings about harbouring two unknown castaways in their home, hospitality prevailed. Sana and Paul were treated as guests.

  When Paul came to the table, he found it was laid for eight. As well as Mary and her parents, there was a boy called Marcus, aged about twelve, who was such a perfect miniature of Gert that he had to be his son. He had a sister, Rachel, a little girl who had just learned to walk, with rosy cheeks and auburn hair. She spent the meal staring at Sana and saying nothing. The eighth chair, at the head of the table, was empty.

  Gert said grace. Servants brought dishes of food: grilled fish, manioc cakes and fresh vegetables from the garden. They had started eating when the door banged open. An old man with white hair came in. He leaned on a walking cane, carved from ebony and with a warthog tusk for a handle. One of his legs was missing below the knee, replaced with a scarred wooden stump. The stump and the cane beat out a jerky rhythm as he limped across the room and threw himself into the chair at the head of the table. A servant hurried to fill his glass with wine.

  ‘George,’ Gert greeted him.

  Paul noticed how his shoulders tensed the moment the old man entered.

  George looked down the table. His eyes were hooded, his face etched with distrust. His gaze landed on Sana and Paul at the far end; he scowled.

  ‘What are they doing here?’

  Mary put her hand on his arm. ‘I told you, Grandpa. These are the castaways I found on the cliffs.’

  ‘And where do they come from?’

  ‘Somewhere to the north. We cannot speak their language to ask them.’

  ‘Their dhow was fitted out in the Arabian style,’ added Gert. ‘I would guess they come from the Horn of Africa.’

  George jabbed at Paul with his fork.

  ‘That one is not from Africa. He’s a white man.’

  ‘I’m a white man, and I’m from Africa,’ Marcus pointed out.

  ‘You’re kin. That one . . .’ Another dark look at Paul. ‘Who knows what brought him here?’

  ‘He nearly died,’ said Mary indignantly. ‘Nothing brought him here except chance. Bad luck that his ship foundered, and good luck that we found him.’

  ‘Good luck?’ sneered George. ‘Did you stop to think what a white man was doing two hundred miles from anywhere, in a sinking boat with only a girl to crew it? How did he get here? Where was he going? What about the other ship?’

  ‘He was attacked by pirates,’ said Mary. ‘Remember? We heard the cannon fire and went up on the cliffs to watch. You saw it.’

  ‘She was a French frigate. And I saw the dhow sail up to rendezvous with her. How do you know our guest did not come from the ship?’ He leaned down towards Paul. ‘Are you a Frenchie? Français?’

  It was the first thing anyone had said that Paul understood. He nodded, utterly surprised to hear a word of French.

  ‘I knew it!’ George’s voice was loud with triumph, amplified by wine.

  Sana could not follow what he said, but she heard the threat in his voice. She slipped her table knife into her lap, holding it ready to defend herself.

  Paul put his hand on her arm to steady her. His hopes had soared. If George spoke French, they would be able to communicate. Paul could tell them his story.

  But that one word seemed to be the limit of George’s French. He turned to the others.

  ‘What do you think he is? A deserter? A spy?’

  ‘You think he deliberately risked shipwreck and cannon fire to come here to spy?’ said Susan.

  ‘Who would want to spy on us?’ said Mary.

  ‘More people than your little girl’s mind can imagine.’ George snapped a bone in two and sucked out the marrow. ‘Do you know what happened to our family before I was born? They were driven out of England, accused of murder. Then they were driven out of Cape Town, accused of treason. Twice they made themselves prosperous, and twice they lost everything. They almost died in the wilderness.

  ‘But, thank God, they reached Nativity Bay. I was born here, I have lived here my whole life, and – by God’s grace – I will die here. But that has not happened by chance or good luck. The price of our liberty is eternal vigilance, keeping the prying eyes of the world well away.’

  ‘Uncle Robert did not think so,’ said Mary.

  George’s knuckles went white around the handle of his fork.

  ‘He made his own choices. But it is one thing to go out into the world – it is another to invite it in to our home. Our sanctuary.’

  He pointed to Paul and Sana again.

  ‘Maybe they are what they seem, and maybe they are not. They will not tell us. But we did not invite them here. We owe them nothing.’

  ‘They have nothing,’ said Mary.

  ‘That is not our concern,’ said Gert.

  ‘Papa,’ Mary protested, ‘you cannot speak about them as if they were not here.’

  ‘They cannot understand,’ answered Gert. He had a farmer’s manner, direct and practical.

  ‘Tell Grandpa we must help these people. We should let them stay with us as long as they want.’

  Gert pursed his lips. ‘Your grandfather is right. They do not belong here. When the next ship calls, we will put them aboard to take passage to Cape Town.’ He peered down the table at Paul. ‘Cape Town,’ he repeated loudly, as if Paul was hard of hearing. ‘You go to Cape Town.’ He pointed to the painting of the ship on the wall. ‘Ship. Cape Town.’

  Paul nodded. He had not understood the conversation, but it was easy enough to read Gert’s and George’s attitudes in their faces and their voices.

  He supposed he should be grateful. The shipwreck had shown what an impossible idea it had been, that he and Sana could sail the dhow to Cape Town by themselves. That they had survived was beyond lucky; that they found themselves sitting down to a fine supper, in a comfortable home, was a miracle. And now their hosts were offering to put them on a large, safe ship to take them to their destination. All that he had wished for over the years crewing the boat had finally been granted.

  Yet now that he was here, he did not want to go.

  *

  An uneasy atmosphere hung over Fort Auspice in the following days. Paul could not leave unless a ship called, and no one knew when that would be. Until then, Paul and Sana were guests who did not know their hosts; strangers who could not speak; visitors who were not to be trusted. Through gestures, Paul offered to work in the fields, but Gert refused. Paul couldn’t tell if it was from some vestigial sense of obligation to his guests, or fear that Paul would steal the cattle. Sana went to the kitchens and settled down to work. She asked no one’s permission, and nobody stopped her.

  Paul was left to entertain himself. He began to take walks around the property, down to the beach and around the mangrove swamps, up into the inland pastures. The fertility of the land astonished him. The cattle grazed fat, and crops grew in abundance.

  On the third day, Paul was walking on the whale-backed hill that commanded the bay when he found Mary. She was sitting at an easel, with a palette of watercolours in one hand and a brush in the other. She was so engrossed in her painting, she did not notice Paul come up. He stood behind her, examining the picture over her shoulder. She had sketched the scene in pencil, and had begun painting it in. The colours she chose fascinated him: each one more vivid than the object it was portraying. The rocks were blacker, the sea a deeper blue, the mangroves more vibrant green. Overhead, the mid-afternoon sky was a hazy blue, but in the picture she had painted it in an explosion of reds, oranges, pinks and purples.

  Paul coughed. Mary turned suddenly, smudging the mountain top she had been painting.

  ‘Oh.’ She smiled. ‘You surprised me. Usually I am alone up here.’

  Paul pointed to the painting, nodding and smiling.

  ‘You like it?’ She squinted at it appraisingly. ‘I know it is silly – I have painted a sunset in the east, for one. Papa always tells me I should paint things as they are, even if that is drab and grey. But I want them to be bright.’ She blushed. ‘Listen to me prattling. I forget you cannot understand me.’

  Her sketchbook and pencil lay on the ground. Paul picked them up, with a glance at Mary for permission.

  ‘Of course. Do you draw?’ she said in surprise.

  Paul took the pencil. His fingers were calloused and hard, more used to knots and tar than paint and pencil now. But when he put it to the paper, it was as if the muscles in his arm were suddenly awoken from a deep sleep. Hardly aware of what he was doing, he drew a series of swift clear lines, then turned the pad around to show Mary.

  She gasped. It was not one of his best pictures – done in haste, with hands that had almost forgotten how to draw – but it captured her flawlessly.

  She put a hand to the lock of hair that was hanging down over her cheek, tracing one of the lines he had drawn.

  ‘I am sure I do not look quite like that.’

  Paul tore off the paper and gave it to her. His hand brushed hers as she took it; pencil lead from his fingers dirtied the sleeve of her dress. She tucked the picture in the pocket of her pinafore.

  ‘I wish you could speak. I wish I could speak to you.’

  Their eyes met. Hers were filled with frustration and longing; his with hope and uncertainty.

  Or maybe words were not necessary. She was seventeen, and what she felt was new and overwhelming – a feeling that shivered through her body. The nearest sensation she could relate it to was when she sometimes walked to the top of the cliffs and peered over: the dizzying thrill of such great depths of danger, and the sea foaming below.

  A noise sounded on the path up from the bay. A stone dislodged; a bird called in alarm. Running footsteps came around the corner. It was Marcus, flushed and bad-tempered. He glanced between Paul and Mary, and though he was only twelve he did not like the way his sister looked at the man. His scowl deepened. It made him look even more like Gert, Paul thought.

  ‘Papa sent me,’ Marcus said to Mary. He ignored Paul. ‘You are supposed to be looking after Rachel while Mother has her nap.’

  Mary didn’t move. Her body tensed like a cat’s.

  ‘I will be down presently.’

  ‘Papa said immediately.’

  The two siblings glared at each other. Neither moved.

  ‘I will go and tell him you disobeyed him,’ Marcus warned. ‘You know what he will do to you.’

  ‘I am grown-up now. He cannot belt me like he used to.’

  ‘There are other things he can do.’ Marcus’s voice turned spiteful. ‘Maybe if I tell him you were up here alone with the castaway, he will not wait for a ship to take him away. Papa will cast him out for the lions to eat.’

  He had found her weakness, as only a brother could. Mary snatched up her painting equipment and folded away the easel with a bang. The wet paint on the canvas was smeared beyond repair. She stalked away down the path. Marcus lingered a moment longer.

  ‘Stay away from her,’ he warned Paul. ‘She does not want your attentions. You understand?’

  Paul hadn’t comprehended a word that had been spoken. But he understood perfectly.

  *

  Everything was upside down. The almanac on Gert’s desk said it was October, but the plants outside shouted spring. Flowers carpeted the ground with rampant colours. The trees were in bud, the sky a cobalt blue. Every day the sun rose higher; every day the weather grew warmer. Corn sprouted in the fields, while the pastures sounded to the bleating of young kids and the lowing of calves. It was a bountiful time.

  Yet a cloud hung over Paul. An invisible wall seemed to have sprung up between him and Mary. He hardly saw her: she was forever being sent on errands to examine distant cattle herds, or assess some new patch of land, miles away, for clearing. When he did see her at meals, she was seated at the far end of the table. She kept her head down, staring at her plate, and said little.

  Gert treated Paul with undisguised hostility. Marcus followed his father’s lead. Apart from Mary, the only member of the family who showed Paul any kindness was Susan, Mary’s mother. When she heard that Paul could draw, she gave him paper and pencils to occupy him. In return, Paul gave her a sketch he made of the house, surrounded by flowers. She liked it so much, he began drawing more: the farmhands, the bay, the twisted mangroves, and the wild animals that roamed nearby. He bound them into a portfolio with some thread he had found, and presented it to her.

  ‘Thank you.’

  She smiled as she turned through it, delighting in the familiar scenes captured so well. Each picture burst with tiny details Paul had included: a monkey throwing fruit from a tree at a passing cow; a bird preening itself on an elephant’s back, while the elephant raised its trunk to douse itself from the river; a baby mouse using a banana leaf as her cradle.

  Susan stopped at the second-last picture. It was of the yard in front of the house, bustling with farm workers getting ready to tend the fields. Mary was there, too, mounted on horseback. Paul hadn’t meant to draw her, but somehow, even in the background, she had become the focal point of the picture.