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house. Her name was Surya. I was a young man, just nineteen. Takouhi always freed her slaves immediately they came into her house. Actually, when I inherited this estate she obliged me to free every person on Brieswijk too. She cannot abide slavery, particularly women in slavery. Of course, I did so. Not to have agreed would have chased her from my life, something that was impossible to imagine. So this girl was a free girl. I thought about nothing but her for months. She was so lovely. So young, only seventeen. Near my age. I admit I was a little crazed.”
    Charlotte, listening to him, found herself wishing she had not asked. She felt a strange annoyance at these professions. Was she jealous? As the thought entered her head, she dismissed it. It was twenty years ago, and she was the one filled with rather uncivil curiosity.
    â€œI was nineteen and already a father of two children. I had not known real love, I think. I asked Takouhi to see if Surya would want to be with me, and she was so happy.” He smiled at the thought, and Charlotte could see that in some ways it was still fresh in his mind. “We had two girls, but they died, you know … of fever, on the same day.” He stopped speaking, and Charlotte could sense his thoughts flying back to that time.
    â€œThe same day … God bless them.” His voice had grown very quiet. “It was a bad time and she got … low and very sick.”
    Charlotte now utterly regretted prying into past wounds. She put out her hand to his.
    â€œI’m sorry, Tigran, I should not have asked.”
    He turned to look at her.
    â€œNo, I’m glad to tell you. I want everything to be clear between us. These things are in the past, old wounds. If we live, and especially if we love, we must have wounds. But when we are young they heal, Charlotte, though it seems they never will.”
    She said nothing, looking down.
    â€œThe second girl was Ambonese, like Mia. After Surya, I needed someone. I couldn’t bear being alone. I didn’t want Mia. It was a strange time, a bit like I was dead. I can’t remember the days. I needed a woman with me all the time at night. If I was alone, ghosts would come. I couldn’t get rid of them. She wanted to come to me. When Surya died, she went to Takouhi and asked. She was so good to me, for she must have known I did not love her at all. There were no children. It would have been too much.’
    Tigran smiled and looked at Charlotte.
    â€œThe ending is happier. When I was healed, I lost all need, all feeling for her. There was nothing I could do. So I proposed to find her a husband, gave her a dowry. She is respectably married to a trader in Surabaya and has three children with him. She has become a Dutch housewife; it is far better than being my concubine.”
    Tigran jigged the horses into movement.
    â€œNow you know my whole life. I gave my heart a rest and thought it would be peaceful, but now here you are, unsettling it again. Are you satisfied, Madam?”
    Charlotte looked straight ahead.
    â€œFor now, sir. Just so long as when you are done with me, you do not send me off to a trader in Surabaya.”
    Tigran laughed. He had a nice, throaty laugh, she thought.
    â€œImpossible. You shall be mistress of all you see, the unassailable queen of Brieswijk.”
    They emerged into the sunshine, and Charlotte saw a village ahead. An old man was driving a pair of buffalo down the track with two little boys mounted on their backs. Their long horns curved from their heads like crescent moons. Two baby buffalo, fluffy and gangling, came behind. It was a charming scene, like a painting, almost unreal. In the distance lay the village, clean and swept, the stilt houses of wood and thatch surrounded by the greens of the jungle and the lime-coloured rice stalks. A narrow, three-tiered, thatch-roofed mosque occupied one side. On the other was another small temple of unusual design, it too, three-tiered