They Come When You Sleep: 16 Tales of Horror and the Supernatural (Stories for Late at Night), page 4
“No.” The sergeant failed to contain the distaste in his tone. “That particular prisoner does not participate in work activities.”
He grunted and placed a gnarled hand on his sword hilt as he returned to his trek up the stairs. They continued the rest of the climb in silence, their heavy footfalls echoing in the long, narrow stairway.
The stairs ended on a small landing containing a single thick wooden door with a barred window no larger than the palm of a man’s hand. Daan watched as the sergeant unlocked the room with a large iron key and swung open the door.
Daan followed the sergeant into the dimly lit chamber, illuminated only by the light of a small barred window, ten or twelve feet off the floor. The air in the room smelled of damp, musty stone mingled with the odor of human waste that Daan surmised came from the chamber pot in one darkened corner.
A prisoner lay atop a straw-filled mattress on a wooden cot against the wall, the room’s only furnishing, and he sat up as the small procession entered the room. The man’s bare feet and hands were manacled together and connected with a short length of heavy chain that Daan imagined made it impossible to stand fully upright.
He wore a shirt and trousers that may have once been white but had grayed with the constant grime of the cell. The man’s thinning blond hair was greasy and clung close to his scalp as he studied them with deep-set blue eyes. He breathed deeply through a nose that was too large for his face and spat a wad of mucus into the corner of the room before turning to grin at the sergeant with yellowing teeth.
“I’d walk over and spit in the chamber pot,” the man raised a manacled hand to a purplish bruise on his cheek as he glared at the white-haired guard, “but it seems I’m a bit clumsy when I try and walk.”
The sergeant glared at the prisoner as the two guards set the small writing table and chair down in the room.
“Mr. Heppostall is here to prepare your case for the magistrate.” The sergeant gestured to Daan and then turned to face him. “We will be outside on the landing if you require assistance.”
“Don’t worry, Sergeant, I’ll be on my best behavior.” The prisoner winked at the guards. “But I’ll be sure to call you boys if I need any assistance wiping myself later.”
The sergeant only grunted as he left the room with the two guards, swinging the heavy wooden door closed behind them. Daan sat down on the stool and withdrew a piece of parchment, an inkwell, and a quill pen, which he placed on the writing table. He felt the prisoner studying him, from the tips of his dark buckled shoes to the perfectly clean frill of his circular collar and the shoulder-length curls of the powder-white wig. Daan smiled awkwardly at the man as he shifted the inkwell and parchment on the desk.
“Mr. Van der Sloot, I am Daan Heppostall; the Dutch East India Company has sent me to…” Daan clasped his hands together to keep from nervously fidgeting.
“I know who you are.” The prisoner leaned forward from his seat on the edge of the bed, letting the light streaming through the small window fall across his homely face. “I requested Mr. Von Drieberg send you specifically.”
“So I have been informed. Mr. Van der Sloot, you are charged with a very heinous crime—the gruesome murder of a young woman—and if you are found guilty, you will hang from the neck until dead.” Daan spoke slowly to be sure the man understood what he was saying. “We have far more experienced lawyers that may be better suited to make your case before the magistrate. I am still apprenticing with Mr. Von Drieberg; my responsibilities have largely consisted of drawing up routine contracts and wills.”
“Mr. Heppostall, I don’t give a rat’s ass about the magistrate, and I think we both know that I am guilty of what I am accused.” Van der Sloot stared fixedly at the young lawyer. “I asked for you because I want you to write down my tale, then I will give you something and ask something of you in return.”
“I… I don’t understand.” Daan looked at the prisoner in confusion.
“You will.” Van der Sloot sat back in the shadows and leaned against the wall. “To comprehend the reason for my rise and fall, you must understand the island of Lanka, where I have spent most of my adult life.
“I had seen you before, Mr. Heppostall, when I was a man of some prominence with the Dutch East India Company. Underneath that wig and white powder, I recognized your features. You are a Dutch Burgher, half Dutch and half Sri Lankan. My guess is your mother was an island girl.”
Daan opened his mouth to speak and then closed it. He studied Van der Sloot for a long moment before he spoke. “Yes, I am a Burgher, and you are correct; my mother is, was, Sri Lankan. She is deceased now. However, I do not see how this has any bearing on your murder of a young woman.”
“Ahh, but it does, young Heppostall. It has everything to do with the murder.” Daan could make out the faint lines of the man’s face in the shadows. “It has everything to do with the murder; it has everything to do with the cause of her death.”
“And why is that, Mr. Van der Sloot?”
Van der Sloot leaned forward, and the sunlight caught a gleam of madness in his eyes. “Because it has to do with the heart of the island.”
“I first set foot on Sri Lanka almost thirty years ago; I was just a lad in my twenties then, but I was already the second in command under Captain Andies Villiers, the Dutch East India Company’s commandant of Mullaitivu.” Van der Sloot’s eyes took on a far-off look. “It was a paradise. The Portuguese were gone, the women were beautiful, and we had peace with the island’s Kandyan Kingdom. I was in charge of exports of cinnamon and betel; Captain Villiers and I could have grown rich on that alone. We even shipped elephants to Bengal and Golconda. For use in battle, of all things!”
Daan looked up from his writing and saw Van der Sloot’s look had gone wistful. “However, Captain Villiers had higher aspirations than just riches; he wanted power. Villiers desired real power, and not just in Sri Lanka. He wanted power in Amsterdam.
“So he set his sights on the gemstone trade, and to his credit, we made an abundant trade in tourmaline. Labor was cheaper than harvesting cinnamon, and Europe could not get enough of it. We were making more money than we ever imagined, and the Dutch East India Company could not be more pleased.”
“This won’t last, Van der Sloot,” he told me one night over drinks. “Sri Lanka is too profitable for those fatted calves in Amsterdam to let us keep running things.”
“We have done well here. I told Villiers that if the company moves us, they will send us someplace even more profitable, like India or the Spice Islands. But he insisted that our days in Sri Lanka were numbered, and we would need to secure our financial futures before that day came.”
Van der Sloot laughed mirthlessly and shook his head. “That is when Pieter Crozier came to us. May the Devil take that man for what he started.”
“Who is Crozier?” Daan glanced up at Van der Sloot.
“Crozier was a Dutch Burgher, like you.” Van der Sloot pointed at the young lawyer. “He worked within the Kandyans, in the central area of Sri Lanka. Crozier came to Villiers and me with a fantastic story.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Van der Sloot. I find this all very interesting,” Daan laid the quill down on the writing desk, “but I fail to see how this has any bearing on the murder.”
Van der Sloot’s expression soured, and he leaned forward, placing his elbows on his knees. The chains affixed to the manacles rattled loudly as he moved. “Don’t you worry, Heppostall; just keep writing.”
Daan sighed, picking up his quill and dipping it in ink. “Very well, proceed.”
“In 472 AD, Kasyapa the First, the Sri Lankan king’s son by a royal consort, usurped the throne and became ruler of the Moriyan Dynasty. There was a legend that Kasyapa was aided in the takeover by the discovery of an Alexandrite stone in one of the mines of Rathnapura. The stone was rumored to be as large as a plum and would turn a brilliant green in sunlight and violet-red in the torchlight. However, when Kasyapa held the gem in his hand, it would turn into a cat’s eye, with a band of light running right through the middle of the stone.”
“Kasyapa used this stone to finance the overthrow of his father?” Daan looked up at the disgraced merchant.
“No, son, this gemstone had a magic all its own. It was the heart of the island, and it saw into the soul of Kasyapa, learned what he desired most, and granted it to him. But it also carried a curse.”
“A curse?” Daan eyed the prisoner curiously.
Van der Sloot nodded slowly. “Such powers are not to be trifled with. We are all fools to think we could control such power. The Heart of the Island betrayed Kasyapa, as it did to all who thought they had mastery over it.
“In 495, Moggallana, the rightful heir to the throne, made war upon Kasyapa. The king rode into battle on a war elephant with the Heart of the Island embedded in a crown atop his head. The legends say that the cursed stone drove the elephant mad in the thick of the fight, and it fled the battlefield with Kasyapa still upon its back. Thinking their king was fleeing, Kasyapa’s army deserted, and Mogallana seized the throne. Rather than be captured, Kasyapa committed suicide. However, before he did so, he entrusted a loyal servant to bring the stone back to its resting place in Rathnapura.
“The lure of the Heart of the Island was too great for the servant to part with, and he secreted it somewhere within the old fortress on top of the Sigiriya rock. The servant took its location to the grave, and its hiding place remained a mystery.”
“Until Crozier?” Daan looked up, proud of his deduction.
“Until Crozier.” Van der Sloot nodded appreciably. “The man was accompanying merchants to a Buddhist temple on Sigiriya when he stopped to draw water from an octagonal pool with a raised podium in its northeast corner. As he filled his water skin, the strap snared upon a stone at the podium’s base, just below the water line. While freeing the water skin, Crozier dislodged the rock and found it intentionally hollowed out.
“Crozier reached into the hollowed space in the podium, and his fingers ran over something large and round but with facets, not smooth like a stone. When Crozier withdrew his hand, he saw through the water it was the largest Alexandrite gemstone he had ever seen. He feared taking it from the water lest one of the merchants or Buddhist monks spy what he discovered and seize it. So he replaced it in the hollow and covered it with the stone so that he could return for it.”
“Did Crozier sell you the Heart of the Island?” Daan was reluctantly beginning to find himself caught up in the tale.
“Not exactly.” Van der Sloot shook his head. “He wanted to partner with Villiers and me to use our company contacts to sell the stone in Europe, perhaps to one of the royal families. We would split the proceeds evenly amongst the three of us.
“But first, he needed our assistance in retrieving the gem. Sigiriya is deep within the lands of Sri Rajadhi Rajasinha, the Kandyan king. The way is long and fraught with many dangers; carrying the Heart of the Island such a distance would be perilous, even for one as skilled as Crozier. So he needed our assistance.”
“The company allowed you to take soldiers into Kandy?” Daan could not contain his shock.
“Heavens no.” Van der Sloot laughed bitterly. “To do so would violate every treaty we had with the Kandyans. They would we be raiding our forts and burning our garrisons just like they did thirty years ago. The governor would have had Villiers and me on the first ship back to Amsterdam if we even suggested such a thing.”
“So what did you do?”
Van der Sloot gave him a wry smile and a shrug. “We did it anyway. Villiers selected a dozen of our best men, and we traveled to Sigiriya disguised as merchants. Kasyapa’s palace lies in ruin now, maybe for a thousand years or more, but what a spectacle it must have been in the days. The frescos, the gardens, the Lion’s Gate.”
The prisoner sighed and fell silent for so long Daan began to wonder if he had fallen asleep. When Van der Sloot spoke again, he sounded contemplative.
“The Dutch, the English, the French, the Portuguese, all of us. We think the world is ripe for our taking; we go to lands we have no business in and claim them for our own. Our explorers discover lands inhabited by peoples since the dawn of time.” Van der Sloot laughed mirthlessly. “How do you discover a land where people have lived for millennia?
“We trample upon their ancient cities and loot their sacred treasures. We think there will be no accounting for that. There will be no balancing of the books. Villiers, Crozier, and I should have left the Heart of the Island in its hiding place. We had no claim to such a treasure. In our arrogance, we brought about our ruination.”
Daan studied Van der Sloot quietly and asked, “What happened?”
“We had almost made it back to Dutch territory when we encountered the Kandyan patrol. Villiers feared they would discover the Heart of the Island. A melee ensued as muskets were drawn and shots fired. I would tell you that I fought valiantly beside my comrades, but we are both well past believing I am the hero of any tale. I fell to my knees and hid among the brush until the shouts and firing stopped. When I emerged from my hiding place, I found all the Kandyans and our men slain. Crozier lay dead with a musket ball through the eye. Only Villiers remained alive, albeit just barely. He was shot in the leg and gutted with a sword; I discovered him sitting up against a tree, trying to keep his innards from spilling out—a horrible way to die, slow and painful. We were not the best of friends, but I liked the man, and I sat with him until he gasped his last breath. Then I pried the Heart of the Island from his bloody, clenched fist and left.
“The incident caused quite the uproar on the island. The governor accused the Kandyans of attacking a merchant party, and the Kandyans accused us of a military incursion into their territory. It was quite the diplomatic row. I claimed ignorance of the incident and let the blame fall upon Villiers and Crozier as I traveled to the court of the Kandyan king to make amends. The company and the governor were so happy with my handling of the situation that I received an appointment to handle all of the company’s affairs on the island. In a very short time, I became the wealthiest merchant on the island.”
“And what of the Heart of the Island?” Daan was enrapt in the merchant’s tale as he dipped the quill’s tip into the inkwell.
“I kept it locked away after the Villiers-Crozier Affair; possessing such a treasure would have raised too many questions at a sensitive time. However, I suspected that, like Kasyapa before me, my rise to power came from the stone’s mysterious power. I was just too arrogant to believe that I, too, would fall under its curse.” Van der Sloot stared down at his manacles and ran the thick iron chain through his fingers.
“What evidence do you have that the stone had anything to do with your success in Sri Lanka?” Daan set the quill pen down on the writing table and folded his arms across his chest. “It sounds very logical that someone in your position with the Dutch East India Company on an island such as Sri Lanka would enjoy rich financial rewards. Is it not conceivable that your rise and fall were wholly your own doing and this ancient legend surrounding the stone is a mere fable?”
Van der Sloot leaned forward, his blue eyes slit into a gaze that reminded Daan of a serpent preparing to strike. “I have been a merchant my whole life; you strike a deal when an arrangement is advantageous to both parties. Occasionally, you come across a fool agreeing to more profitable terms for you than for them. Once I came into possession of the Heart of the Island, people always agreed to terms that benefitted me disproportionately, and they did so with a smile on their faces. I do not profess to understand how the stone’s power works, but I believe it is how Kasyapa was able to win the hearts and minds of his countrymen to overthrow a just and righteous king and place him on the throne.”
“So you have no empirical evidence to support your claim. Will you not at least entertain the notion that you were responsible for your success and undoing?” Daan stared defiantly at Van der Sloot. “If you genuinely believed in the stone’s power of persuasion, then why not use it to convince the magistrate to let you walk free? Why continue with this farce of laying the culpability for the murder of a young woman on an inanimate gemstone?”
“Let me be clear with you, young Heppostall.” Van der Sloot’s face contorted into a mask of contempt. “I have never assuaged my responsibility for the crimes committed, and I welcome the final justice of the gallows. It is what I deserve and desire.”
“You said that you wished to ask something of me and, in turn, had something for me.” Daan did not shrink from the man’s withering gaze. “You can tell me what they are now, or I will burn this parchment and leave you alone with your stinking chamber pot.”
Van der Sloot stared at Daan, his blue eyes icy cold. He then slid his hand along the sweat-stained sheet to a hole toward the foot of the bed. His fingers dug inside the hole and withdrew a small folded slip of parchment that he unceremoniously tossed onto the writing table.
“What is this?” Daan picked up the parchment, unfolded it, and scanned the scrawled writing inside.
“It’s instructions on how to retrieve the Heart of the Island from its hiding place,” Van der Sloot whispered, casting a wary eye toward the cell door to catch any guards eavesdropping. “You wanted to know what I would ask of you? Bring the stone back to Rathnapura.”
“And do what with it?” Daan looked from the note to Van der Sloot. “Just hand it to the King of Kandy?”
Van der Sloot shrugged. “Bury it in the ground or throw it in a lake, I don’t know. Just bring it back to Rathnapura before the curse spreads any further.”
“Spreads to who?”
“I don’t know. It could spread to the company, Amsterdam, or maybe the whole republic.” Van der Sloot shook his head at the limitless possibilities and met his lawyer’s gaze. “You wanted to know what I would ask of you; there it is. As to what I would give you, you will have to wait until the end of my tale. We’re almost there.”
Daan looked at the prisoner and saw him, really saw him for the first time. Van der Sloot was a sad, pathetic man—likely insane. At one time, Van der Sloot was one of the most powerful men in the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands; now, he stood accused of an unspeakable crime and faced certain death on the gallows. He picked up the quill pen, blew a deep breath, and then nodded for Van der Sloot to continue his tale.
