When the man stood again, he gathered up a coat and draped it over his arm, bent down for his boots. Then he looked over at Elisabeth and smiled and bowed his head. He began walking away slowly down the beach.

BEHIND CLOSED DOORS

Claus von Rolt had a small mahogany box made for the shrunken head. The wood was engraved in old Celtic patterns and inside it was lined with cushioned black velvet. Fine silver hinges and clasps attached the lid, and there was a delicate filigreed lock and key, the small key a jewel, just like the keys on music boxes. It had cost him a lot of money.

Each time he opened the box, it was with great anticipation, and the thrill of seeing the head never diminished, in fact only intensified. Opening the box was like lifting the lid on a holy relic, once possessed by bishops and kings, Alexander the Great, Kublai Khan, Caesar.

To wear the head in public was an incredible feeling, but it bulged under his clothing and looked strange. Only a coat and scarf hid its presence; unfortunately, the English weather had turned unseasonably mild.

At night, Rolt undressed and wore it naked through his rented rooms.

He’d run through the rooms as fast and silently as he could on the balls of his feet, run until he began to sweat, until he collapsed on the cold floor, exhilarated. He’d rest a moment, do it again, sometimes four, five times, the head around his neck, running.

He longed to run outside in the open, in the starred dark and under the sun, across a field and through the desert, streaming between the trees of a dense green forest. A warrior running.

Claus von Rolt ran through his rented rooms and imagined himself in new lands and on endless grass plains, running, faster, his chest heaving. In the mirrors of his rented rooms, he’d pause and look and be unable to see himself at all.

By the end of the month, he’d booked passage on an English ship, the convict transport Guildford, bound for New South Wales.

LONDON — CANARY ISLANDS — RIO DE JANEIRO — CAPE TOWN — PORT JACKSON

The prisoners were given lighter leg irons and their last rancid rations, and then they were ferried off the hulk. None of them received any of their possessions back.

Carted by bony bullock teams to the London docks, they were unloaded under guard and then long-boated again, over to where their ship waited at anchor. A few women had gathered and called out to their husbands. They cried bitterly and held up their children. Some of the women spat on the guards. They were pushed away and sworn at. Scuffles broke out and the women scratched at the guards’ faces.

‘Bastards! Scum!’

‘You give it to ’em, darlin’!’

‘Fuckers!’