The Dutch (7 page)

Henri sensed that Johanna Rudderman was testing him and he felt he was about to fail that test. The matron really wanted to know his overall understanding of the true art of shipbuilding. From within his anxiety, he suddenly remembered his drawing skills and the variety of ships and sails he had once sketched for his parents. Henri confidently assured Mrs. Rudderman that he could draw imaginative sail designs after collaborating with more experienced people like herself. Initially he told her he would copy the sail on the existing Kaags until he was ready to bring forward his own innovative design. Henri admitted that rigging would be a challenge because he sailed infrequently during his apprenticeship but modeling and collaborations would allow the early rigging to be also done properly. He noticed, when admitting his lack of sailing experience that Johanna had frowned. It was the only time Mrs. Rudderman showed any visible sign of displeasure during their discussions.

The final topic she initiated was religion. Johanna Rudderman wanted to know whether Henri considered himself a saint or a sinner, and Henri knew enough about the followers of the new Protestant faith to well know the word “saint” would be the only word she would want to hear. Instead, Henri probably shocked her when he confessed he no longer considered himself a Catholic but thought little about replacing the Roman faith with another. Henri told her about the strong feelings he felt regarding his parents' early death. She seemed almost sympathetic, possibly harboring a similar viewpoint over her own recent loss.

The dialogue then turned to what sailors always like to talk about, the way to increase the speed of any ship and the conversation drifted as pleasurably as the little Kaag did on the estuary until the tide came in and the wind began shifting toward the city. Johanna suggested Henri raise the sail and take command on the journey home. Henri enjoyed sailing the fast little vessel and only reluctantly relinquished the tiller as they approached the dock at Rotterdam. She let him off near his lodging and gave him a departing smile. For a time he watched her limberly maneuver the little boat away from the busy dock with the same dexterity she used to avoid giving him any indication about her future plans. He thought about Mrs. Rudderman and the unfinished kaags as he walked to his lodging and Henri envisioned many more specific changes to the keels that would make them faster. He wished he had shared these thoughts with her. Henri would have agreed to finish those kaags if she had asked him to do so. When he arrived at the boarding house, he took a few sheets of his finest paper and began to sketch a little kaag. He had trouble remembering the exact dimensions of the craft he had sailed which continued the frustrations of a day that had gone in an unexpected way.

The next morning, knowing her mistress had always liked to observe the morning activities at the shipyard, Mrs. Rudderman's housekeeper opened the shuttered window letting in the first morning light as the sun rose in the sky. The servant was opening the window out of habit since there was little activity at the yard since the master's death. As Mrs. Rudderman opened her eyes she spotted unusual movement and, with a smile, dispatched the maid to the kitchen. “Prepare a breakfast tray and a jug of fresh buttermilk and take it to the young man at the dock.”

Henri Roulfs had arrived before dawn and patiently awaited the rising sun before using a knotted cord to measure the little kaag still tied at the dock. It was the same craft he had sailed the previous day. He recorded each measurement with a precision worthy of the fine workmanship he was now appreciating after intense scrutiny. Each measurement demonstrated the superior skills of the late Mr. Rudderman and the craftsmanship revealed a true master shipwright. Armed with exact measurements, he began to draw the kaag with fine detail. A smooth plank served as a drawing table. It took half the morning to sketch a flawless image of the little boat. Finally, satisfied, he consumed the tray of food that was brought hours earlier.

After breakfast, he began a second drawing of how he would complete the first Rudderman hull. The drawing showed a similar sailboat with a deeper keel and a taller mast placed nearer the bow. In his second drawing, a small new cabin took up a portion of the bow space and part of the stern was decked to create a sheltered and useful compartment. He codified his drawing so it showed softer, lighter weight, pine for the cabin and decking, reserving the harder and heavier oak for the frame and hull. Henri knew the taller mast and the deeper extended keel would make his new version of the little sailboat faster and more stable than earlier models. It was already mid afternoon as he neared finishing the second drawing; Henri felt the presence of another person on the dock. He continued to concentrate on his work but couldn't help to noticed Mrs. Rudderman looking on with interest, delight, and approval.

They dined together at the main house and reached a business agreement that was simple and mutually acceptable. Becoming the new shipwright, Henri would move into the vacant cabin and would be given a free hand to make all decisions at the boat yard though Mrs. Rudderman hoped he would retained the few remaining shipyard workers who had worked for her husband. The two would collaborate on the designs but ultimately Henri would also make those final decisions. Johanna would evaluate each completed vessel, as she had done for her husband, and it would be her responsibility to set the price and sell each completed craft. The profits on each would be divided equally. When all the unfinished Kaags were completed, they would negotiate Henri's purchase of the shipyard or a continuation of their venture partnership. Because they were by now beginning to value each other's talents, both felt comfortable with the arrangement.

That night, the forthright Mrs. Rudderman also insisted they discuss her religious activities since fellow Protestants were being persecuted throughout the Habsburg Empire. Johanna confided to Henri that her home was a meeting place for local Sacramentarians. These forerunners of the Calvinist religion occasionally gathered for Sabbath services in her home. Johanna also disclosed that she provided lodging for “Field Preachers” doing missionary work in the area and feared the local Catholic hierarchy and Royal Officials would eventually learn of her activities. The matron was concerned her righteous behavior might endanger Henri, particularly since he no longer attended Catholic services except when forced to attend guild activities. Henri shrugged off the danger but understood the need to keep these things a secret. The next morning Henri moved his belongings into the little cabin and that evening by candlelight drew a novel design for the first sail. With the matron's support, Henri contracted with a young master sail maker to sew his design and later assist with the rigging of the initial converted kaag. The sail master carefully examined the design of the heighten sail and studied the plan for the deeper extended keel. The sail master referred to the new kaag as a Jachtschip, meaning the new sailboat would be an exceptionally fast vessel.

Working with the most completed hull, Henri put the finishing touches on the first conversion in less than two months, despite some difficult alterations which included re-working the dense and less forgiving oak timber. After the refitting, Henri completed the alterations by adding a taller pine mast to the kaags heel; the young sail maker then installed the sail. He kept his word and spent a few days instructing Henry on the intricacies of rigging. At first light, on a late November morning, Mrs. Rudderman took the completed vessel on its maiden voyage. She returned that afternoon, too chilled to tell Henry her thoughts but he detected an expression of satisfaction on her face. At dinner, neither Mrs. Rudderman nor Henri was willing to broach the subject of the boat's performance, though; at times Mrs. Rudderman's eyes seemed to glow mischievously as if she was waiting for Henri to raise the question. Indeed, he was anxious to hear her evaluation, but in Henri's typical fashion he said nothing.

When he awoke the next morning, the boat and the matron had disappeared. Henri was sorry he had not asked about its performance and his anxiety only grew as the matron remained missing throughout the day. The weather grew even more blustery than the day before but even the housekeeper was tight lipped about her matron's location. Finally, a smiling Mrs. Rudderman arrived just before the evening meal and almost casually mentioned that the Kaag had been sold. She told Henri that it had sold at nearly twice the price of her husband's last Kaag and seemed extremely pleased with the profit. The maiden voyage had sparked a bidding-war among the rich and powerful. The Catholic bishop, the richest and most powerful person in Rotterdam, was the ultimate winner. She nearly giggled as she told Henri the bishop included special indulgences and prayers for her late husband's soul as part of the purchase price. Henri and Johanna spent the evening celebrating with a few glasses of cognac and finalizing their plans for the coming year. They agreed to hire an extra journeyman to expedite the conversions and collaborate on a totally new design for the first “real” Jachtschip that would be larger, faster and hopefully far superior to anything sailing on the inland waterways. Johanna saw the project as the first step toward building God's perfect sailboat. Henri wanted this prototype to be fully decked, carrying a taller mast and much longer bow sprit. It would carry a spacious cabin for protection against the elements. The hull would feature an even deeper keel, making the design appropriate for short forages into the open sea. It would be built with a series of pulleys, allowing a single person to raise and lower the sail while maintaining control of the steering. Pure speed and strength would dictate all other aspects of the new design. The matron and the young man had grown to respect each other's decisions and had bonded together as a team for the risks and rewards of their joint enterprise. While profits were still important, the two were now focusing on creativity. Johanna truly believed they were making progress toward building the perfect sailboat. An unbreakable attachment was forming between the young man who had never forgotten his dead mother and the matron who were unable to have a son of her own, at least until she grew to know Henri.

It was a month later on a frigid mid-December day, in the legendary cold winter of 1552, when the weather halted all work at the shipyard. A persistent North Sea storm had forced even the largest fishing and cargo ships to seek safe anchorage higher up the estuary at Rotterdam. For days freezing rain coated and re-coated everything until three feet of snow and ice covered the yard. A lull in the storm allowed a French Carrack, one of the largest ships of its kind, to chip away the deck ice and make an ill-timed attempt to reach a safer harbor upstream through the partially frozen estuary. It was caught in a blinding storm which iced the ship irregularly and tilted it to starboard. The crew struggled to keep the vessel upright and in the center of the river away from the ice that packed the shoreline. From a perch at his shipyard's slip, Henri watched the activity on the deck of the troubled ship, helpless to offer assistance. Occasionally the chilling arctic wind forced him to retreat to the sanctuary of his cabin. A sip of hot ale and a few warming moments by the fire allowed him to again venture outside to watch the chilling epic of survival. He noticed that the crew were able to lower the ice covered main sail and were now trying to use the icy top sail, with some help from the evening tide, to reach the security of Rotterdam. As night fell, Henri finally saw the dim light of an iron-framed lantern that hung from the ship's stern, as the ship moved almost normally past the shipyard.

The sky cleared for a moment and a bright full moon began peeking through the darkness. Henri was elated at the ship's survival when his reverie was shattered by a human form smashing through the broken ice at the bottom of the slip. A young and very naked teenage girl with a large wooden crucifix around her neck was trying to stand on the slip's bottom beam. She stood with difficulty and attempted to walk up the icy ramp when extreme shivering collapsed her legs and she fell to her knees. Her head rolled forward and back and forward again. The young woman saw Henri and attempted to speak, but any sound was lost in the wind. Her short, almost boyish blond hair was transformed to an icy grey color and the water on her naked body was crystallizing before his eyes. The freezing rain suddenly returned. For a brief moment, Henri was too startled to act and could only looked upon this ice maiden with shock, sadness, and fascination. The girl covered by icing crystals was the most beautiful young woman Henri had ever seen, maybe that anyone had ever seen.

For fifteen hundred years, the patriarchs of the van Weir dynasty religiously taught their children that the water surrounding their homeland was sacred. Each drop was treated with reverence. It was said, that the salt water marshes to the north, and the fresh water swamp to the south, was ordered by the ancient gods to merge into each other at the tips of the east and west. This gift of those gods made the solid ground a much easier place for inhabitants to defend. It made the Duchy of the Droger Land, for all practicable purposes, an inland island. For fifteen centuries the van Weir family managed those wetlands carefully and when danger arose, each body of water enabled the family to isolate themselves from mainland Holland and the more distant frontier with Germany. It was said that the early gods had allowed the rich clay soil to float a few feet above the surrounding flooded plain. Yet this slightly elevated ground and seemingly stable ground provided a dry earth well suited for agriculture. With proper planting, the fertile soil became the most productive farmland in all of the Netherlands. The experiences of van Weir family over time taught them to make consistent sound agricultural decisions. They learned that tempered by the warmth of the surrounding water, the clay soil allowed two bountiful grain crops and numerous crops of vegetables. If given proper care, the orchards of fruit trees they planted would also provide a rich harvest of apples, pears and plums.

The family became adept at conserving other wondrous gifts of nature within the Droger Land and learned to protect the forest of hickory, maple and oak trees that grew at the slightly higher elevations of the Lord's Forest. When a great tree was felled for the immediate needs of the people, the family required a seedling to be planted so the same valuable wood remained for future generations. The family regulated fishing and hunting and even curtailed the mining of the few deposits of salt in the marsh. The family knew the ancient god's demanded they live in harmony with the environment. They soon learned that living with neighbors and the brutal and powerful kingdoms that continually evolved on the European continent was sometimes much more difficult.

The founder of the van Weir dynasty spent most of his life in the organized plunder that was Roman warfare in Gaul. The original family patriarch, Roman General Claudius Abraham Weir would lead the first, and for the next fifteen hundred years, the only successful assault on the Droger Land. It would be by right of conquest, in the first century that this man would choose to become the first of many great “Lords of the Droger Land.” Each succeeding Lord or their competent widows would bequeath control of this sacred land from one generation to the next.

In 8 A.D., twenty years after the famous Roman General Drusus had completed the conquest of what we know as Middle Holland today, the Droger Land became a sanctuary for disenfranchised Ingvaones tribesmen from both the Roman and neighboring Frisian provinces. These residents and outcasts were considered brigands by the native populations on the coast for good reason. From a seemingly impregnable base on the Droger Land, they launched raids out of the marshlands, crossing the dunes and the meandering waterways to attack the peaceful terp-building settlements by the sea. In a host of small flat bottom canoes and under the cover of the morning mist, the tribal brigands indiscriminately plundered and burned Roman and Frisian communities. After devastating a coastal town, they would return to the safety of the marshes with canoes overflowing with stolen goods and captive women. The nearby tribes, subjugated by Rome, demanded the promised protection from Roman authorities.

The command of the difficult campaign to capture the brigand's base in the Droger Land was given to a relatively little known Roman commander of auxiliary troops, General Claudius Abraham Weir, who had few influential connections in Rome because his family tree was tarnished with questionable marriages. Those unions came long before Rome began offering citizenship to its captured provinces in the east. Worse still, slave rebellions and speculations in Egyptian grain had reduced his family's once great fortune. The diminished wealth left his family venerable to speculation about those earlier marriages and their true roots within the Roman aristocracy. Nevertheless he was given the assignment because of the reputation for tenacity he earned in service along the eastern Germanic border. None of the more politically powerful and wealthier Roman generals wanted such a demanding assignment. The general was allocated five cohorts of soldiers from the Tenth Roman legion, which he augmented with engineers, sailors and his own detachment of Germanic cavalry who had escorted him across Gaul to his new command.

The general caused a sensation at the Tenth Legion's camp when he arrived at the head of two hundred gigantic Barbarian horsemen, whose long blond hair flowed to their waist from beneath their helmets. The pure size of the riders made their horses, which were the Roman standard 15 hands high, seem like ponies. Their very ferrous presence immediately inspired the army for the coming campaign. The legionnaires needed little inspiration; the new commander had a reputation among the ranks for being a soldier's general who cared about his men and he came with a history of victorious campaigns. One crusty old centurion told his hundred men: ‘Our new commander is a shrewd tactician who knows how to fight.” The Roman soldiers and sailors were now ready for the difficult journey across miles of uncharted marshlands before the actual conquest of the Droger Land could begin. A barbarian cavalryman named Roulfs, who carried the General's standard into camp that day, had fought at the general's side for many years and even saved his life on a few occasions. He could not have imagined that the fate of his own future generations would become forever bonded to those of his commander. Roulfs had no way of knowing that the banner, a rectangular flag featuring a Germanic sword embellished by an oak tree on a solid green background, would one day become the coat of arms of the oldest noble family in all Europe. More important to this son of the German forest, who had never seen the ocean before arriving in Holland, his own heirs would be destined to become the greatest shipbuilders in sixteenth century Europe.

General Weir did devise a “shrewd” plan for conquering the Droger Land. It was a typical Roman solution for crossing ten miles of marshland too soft and deep for marching and too shallow for Roman ships to sail across. He first marched his soldiers over the sand dunes while his sailors found passage for their ships through the narrow waterways. Once he arrived at the beginning of the marsh, his men began dredging a canal deep enough for the Roman barges to carry supplies while an adjacent causeway capable of bearing the weight of heavily armored formations was built. The first mile of the canal was completed without incident, but when the barges began delivering timber for the construction of the causeway the Ingvaones tribesmen reacted. They hid in the marsh's tall grass and fired a constant barrage of arrows and missiles at the Roman sailors and soldiers working in the belt high water. The Ingvaones also risked hand to hand fighting under the cover of the early morning mist which masked their numbers and movements. During the day they sent formidable flotillas of small canoes filled with painted tribesmen to strike at vulnerable point along the line of construction. The Romans always outnumbered at the point of attack and unarmored because of the work, suffered severe casualties. Eventually these successful tactics halted the construction.

To counter the enemy's strategy General Weir had his men erect tall watchtowers, where they mounted their long range catapults and batistes and fired them at the approaching enemy during daylight. The towers allowed the work to continue, but the soldiers were forced to sleep in full armor. At night only their javelins and short swords could be used to drive off the Ingvaones who came to burn the causeway and watchtowers. Three months into the costly campaign, the Roman army began to doubt it could reach their objective before being stopped by cold weather. Suddenly, nature intervened almost miraculously on the Roman's behalf. At the beginning of a bright sunny day, a large flotilla of enemy canoes, were maneuvering for a morning attack on a Roman position. Astoundingly, the Ingvaones entire force began to flounder as the water level in the marshes abruptly rose dramatically. An unseen storm, far out in the North Sea, had sent a series of rogue waves crashing across the coast line and pushed huge amounts of sea water into the marshlands. The dissipating force of the channel waves struck with enough force to tip over the over-crowded Ingvaones canoes. The Romans, warned of the incoming water by alert sentries in the watchtowers, safely clung to the already completed parts of the causeway and their larger barges. The general ordered a rapid and forceful Roman counterattack that killed or captured the entire floundering flotilla. In the aftermath of the battle, many Romans celebrated the event as a sign that their gods favored this conquest. Even General Weir, less mystical than his men, agreed someone's gods had intervened. Being a practical commander; the general immediately put the prisoners to work dredging the canal allowing more of his skilled soldiers to work on the causeway. He also salvaged the enemy's canoes for his army's use.

After this battle, there were no daylight attacks on the Romans and their advance gained speed. Instead the enemy tried more insidious means to turn the advancing army around. The Ingvaones often set fire to the dry grass of the marshlands or placed sharpened oak stakes below the waterline in finished sections of the canal. While a few Roman soldiers suffered burns and two supply barges were sunk when impaled, the Romans continued to advance at a relentless pace and the struggle continued. The enemy tactic that the ordinary legionaries feared was the nightly raids when small groups of painted tribesmen would carry off an unfortunate sentry. Each loss of a friend enraged comrades who only pushed harder to reach the objective and hopefully free them. Thoughts of revenge drove the Roman soldiers and sailors to an almost super human effort and by the end of the fifth month of the campaign the Droger Land could be seen in the distance.

That same night, an old heavily bearded and unkempt man, accompanied by his pretty teenage granddaughter approached the Roman position in a canoe. He asked for a parley with the commander. The old man's name was Flocenwal, a Shaman from the original tribe that claimed to have settled the Droger Land at the time of creation. His tribe was in constant warfare over the past few decades, first fighting the traditional Frisian enemies, then the Roman invaders, and more recently decimated by their fellow Ingvaones. These “brothers” had come to the Droger Land as refuges of the earlier Roman conquest seeking asylum. They soon became brigands, eventually turning on their hosts and killing the tribe's few remaining young men.

The Shaman claimed it had been his gods who sent the great wave earlier in the campaign. Flocenwal prophesied to the general that the Spirits of the Droger Land would allow his conquest and grant him and his heirs the power to rule the land for eternity, if the general granted mercy to the surviving members of the Flocenwal clan, and more importantly, if the general pledged wise stewardship over the blessed place. With a bit less spirituality, Flocenwal promptly informed the general that his army was nearing two secret pathways beneath the water, worn hard over the centuries by the feet of his clan and their pack animals as they gathered salt from small deposits in the marsh. Each narrow path would bear the weight of a man or a horse and would lead to the mainland's dry ground near, but out of sight of, where the tribesmen planned to oppose the causeway's final connection to the Droger Land. Claudius Abraham Weir committed only to sparing the lives of Flocenwal's clan in exchange for the information.

It had taken nearly six months for the waterlogged, weary and mean-spirited Roman army to finally draw within arrow range of the enemy occupied Droger Land. A relatively short distance away, on the shoreline, stood a marauding, painted mob of brigands. There were thousands of them brandishing weapons and screaming obscenities across the last strip of marshlands that separated the two armies. The Ingvaones and their allies clearly outnumbered the Romans. The general knew, by the huge numbers and the variety of colors used to paint their bodies, that the brigands were reinforced by other tribesmen who felt some grievance toward Rome. On a hilly dune directly behind the rabble a giant blazing bonfire was set where it could be seen by the Romans. One by one, a dozen helpless and bound Roman comrades, captured during the night-time raids, were flung into the blazing fire and burned to death to the delight of the frenzied mob. Claudius Abraham Weir and his army could only watch helplessly. He ordered the prisoners who dredged the canal brought to the end of the causeway and had each one decapitated. A hundred severed heads were catapulted into the howling mob, while the general gave his commanders their final instructions for the next morning's assault.

Immediately after sundown, the Romans laid narrow strips of weighted planks under the water, connecting the causeway to the paths that Flocenwal had disclosed. The general's Germanic cavalry of two hundred, armed with bows and their trademark swords, were the first to reach dry ground and make their way undiscovered to the top of the sandy hill behind the tribesmen. One veteran cohort of infantry from the Tenth Legion used the other path to secure another foothold, also undetected and out of sight of the assembled brigands. Just before dawn the Roman engineers finished work on a pontoon bridge made from the captured canoes. They had almost made the final connection to the mainland when they were forced to fall back under a hail of missiles from the Ingvaones.

Suddenly, the rear ranks of the Ingvaones began to wither and fall from a barrage of arrows from the top of the hill. Hundreds died before the multitude could turn one hundred and eighty degrees and begin using their shields for protection. Even then, the cavalry's arrows continued to inflict causalities among the bunched tribesman. In a rage, most of the multitude charged up the hill, but the cavalry withdrew and the tribesmen who arrived at the top of the hill became spectators in the battle with no one to fight. From the hordes new position on the top of the hill, they could no longer offer any resistance to the engineer's second and successful attempt to complete the pontoon bridge.