Oh, how deGraeff had! Because Jan Spaen had not only held him captive through blackmail, but also destroyed his hope of redemption.

Upon joining the East India Company, deGraeff had planned to forsake his sordid life and purify himself through work, hardship, and prayer. At first it seemed he would succeed, though his job presented myriad dangers: long ocean journeys that provoked forbidden intimacies among the all-male ship crews; foreign ports where heathens pandered to every sexual perversion. By avoiding contact with other men, deGraeff had resisted temptation. Scurvy, tropical fevers, and other illnesses suffered by overseas travelers reduced his desire. For fifteen years he remained celibate, while discovering in himself a talent for trade. He rose from clerk to secretary, and finally attained a position as functionary in Batavia, the Dutch stronghold on the Java coast. He decided to work a few more years, save some money, and return home to his religious studies.

His dreams had died the night he delivered his life into Jan Spaen’s hands.

Now memory transported deGraeff back to that time, four years after he’d arrived in Batavia. He could see his small, sparsely furnished room, and feel the terrible moist heat that weakened the body and mind. Sleepless and lonely, he’d left the trade compound to walk the streets of town.

Batavia’s exotic glamor enchanted deGraeff. Along the canals, parties enlivened the balconies of the houses and lanterns shimmered upon the water. Dutch men and women strolled the lanes and bridges; Asian merchants, sailors, and laborers jammed the drinking houses and gambling dens. A blend of languages rose above music from Dutch mandolins, Chinese flutes, Indonesian drums and cymbals.

“Sir! You seek pleasure? Come in, come in!” Outside a row of tumbledown buildings in the native sector stood a smiling young Javanese man who beckoned deGraeff into a room where naked native girls paraded before a crowd of men. “I sell you beautiful woman, good price.”

“No, thank you.” DeGraeff walked away, but the procurer followed.

“You no like woman, sir? Then come with me—I give you what you want.”

Every sane, pure instinct demanded deGraeff’s refusal. His soul was at stake. The threat of exposure loomed large in this small colony where everyone knew everyone else’s business. Yet deGraeff’s need for physical release and human companionship outweighed his yearning for salvation. The roar of his own blood drowned out the voice of caution. He followed the procurer through dark, fetid alleys, over rank canals, to the river. The tropical night pulsed with insect songs and smelled of jungle flowers. A moon like a huge gold florin lit the footpath down which the procurer led deGraeff, past moored boats with bamboo roofs and ragged curtains sheltering the long hulls. Aboard a few, lamps flickered. The procurer stopped beside one of these.

“Here, sir,” he said, parting the curtains.