XVII Bee

This prose article is stil a WIP, and published in support of the SC21 article Order of the Bee

Rose was nervous, she was already waiting more than an hour in this interrogation room, the bare stainless steel was cold, the fluorescent light blinked one in a while, it made her nervous, exactly as it was designed to do. She kept glancing in the big mirror, knowing that there were probably people behind it studying her behaviour. When the door opened she jumped. The officer took the seat on the other side of the table arranged some papers, then glanced at her hands, Rose was playing with her ring.

The officer glanced at the camera and the sound recorder, both still off.
“The ring” the officer asked, “where did you get it?”
Rose taken back with the question, looked at the ring, a simple gold ring with a marking stamped into the seal part.
“It was the only thing my father didn’t sell to buy alcohol. He gave it to me. Told me to never take it off.”
The officer looked at his hand, it showed the same ring with the same symbol but made out of silver.
“Lie.” He whispered.
Then he pushed the button to start the camera and sound recordings.
“Today is Monday 31st of January, I’m Inspector Andrew Gibson. Interviewing Miss Rosalind Abigail Oak. Miss please confirm your name.”
-“I won’t say anymore without a lawyer”
“You are hold under the terrorism act, you have no right for a lawyer, please confirm your name.”
-“No comment.”
“Under the terrorism act you are not allowed to keep silence, your name. Please.”
- ….
“You know that under the terrorism act I can hold you for up to ten days before I need to file charges with the judge?”
-“I can wait.”
“Are you a crew member of the pirate vessel sailing under the name Blue Swan?”
Rose had to bite her tongue not to smack in his face that she was the captain. But she managed to keep silent.
The Inspector looked on his watch. “I terminate this interview, will be continued later.” He said for the sake of the recording. He pushed the buttons and slammed his folder with papers shut.
When he pulled open the door, Rose spoke, “Inspector is it possible I can have a coffee? Just black please”
“I’ll see what I can do.”

Rose leaned back in the chair, staring straight in to the mirror she smiled, the smile of a confident person who knew everything would be all right, not that she thought so, but to fuck with the body language expert who she suspected to be on the other side of that reflective glass. A while later two uniformed agents entered the interrogation room. “We are to escort you to a cell miss.” Rose stood and let them lead her.

The cells where in the basement of the police station, down some old granite stairs, which showed the age of the building. The cell was simple, a steel door with inspection window, and brick walls on four sides. A thin plastic wrapped mattress on a bench in one corner a toilet and sink in the other. But on the edge of the sink stood a steaming mug of black coffee.

Rose thankfully took the mug and sat on the edge of the bed. On her way down to the cells she had seen a clock, it was just after 11 in the evening, not even that late, she had thought they would keep her awake in the interrogation room for hours till the early morning to try to break her. Rose looked around her cell, while taking a sip from the mug, when she spotted it in the mirror which was above the sink protected by a steel wire mesh. There was something on the bottom of the mug. She didn’t rush her coffee, she wanted to enjoy it, and she guessed she had time anyway. But as soon as she finished it she turned the mug around. There was the same symbol as on her ring. With her thumb she wiped the bottom of the mug clear, white board marker she thought. She woke up from the sound of a key being turned in the lock. The lights in the cell had gone out soon after she had finished her coffee, and with nothing else to do she had laid down on the mattress, not expecting to actually fall asleep.

“Miss?”
-“Yes Inspector?”
“Come with me please, we only got 90 seconds before the cameras are finished with their internal test cycle.”
With a few quick steps she was out the door, which the inspector carefully closed behind them. He hurried along the corridors. He changed his nice office shoes for some black police boots Rose noticed, no click-clack from his heels.
He went through a door which she thought let to a cleaning cabinet, but there was a cast iron stairs behind it. The inspector went up three steps at the time, not slowing down, and Rose actually had to run to keep up. Before she knew it he stopped her, and he carefully opened a door to the outside.
“James?” he asked.
-“Yes sir” the answer came back.
The inspector pushed her out. “Go with him.”
And before she could ask him or thank him the door was closed again.
Rose stood outside in an alley behind the police building.

James was a middle aged men, of average height broad shouldered, wearing a well-worn pair of jeans, a black no-name brand jacket and a grey beanie hat, he gave her a long black coat. “Put the hood up” he told her, and after she had put it one, he hooked her arm into his and led her out of the alley. James was talking about friends and football and some bar adventure, as if Rose knew all about it. He was good, he was talking like she was a good friend. They passed several people like that, and even a few police men, none of them stopped them. James let her into some back alley where most of the lights where broken. He shouldered a wooden gate and she found them in a back garden of some house. She half expected James to break down the back door, judging on how he handled the gate, but he had a key and he let her via the kitchen into the living room. James closed the curtains before turning on any lights.

“Hungry My Lady?” he asked her?
-“A little and please call me.. “
“My Lady stop! I do not know your name, and it is better if we keep it that way.”
-“Oh okay, but please stop with the My Lady, it is very uncomfortable.”

“Girl why are you sleeping on the couch? We’ve six empty bedrooms in this house, didn’t James show you one? Probably not as he also neglected to clean up my kitchen.”
Rose stretched and sat up from the couch, slightly sore, not from the couch, but from the cold, she had slept under the jacket. There was a friendly looking woman dotting around with her dirty plate from last night, sun light was beaming in through the windows.
“Oh look at you.” The woman blurted out in a way that made Rose feel ashamed about how she looked, blood smears on her tank top, her pantyhose full of brown muddy spots instead of the original nude colours.
“Let me show you the shower, and get you something more decent to wear. Come along now.”
The woman let Rose up the stairs and showed her the shower. “Leave your clothes outside, I’ll try to wash them, although I think that undershirt is ruined.”
Rose thanked her and quickly undressed while she let the shower run for the water to get hot. She folded her clothes up trying to hide the dirt a bit and put them outside the door.

When she was done with the shower Rose peaked outside the door where there was a clean pile of clothes, but on top there was a package of pads. The woman was thorough Rose thought, but she was glad they were there none the less. The pile of clothes included new underwear still in plastic. There must be a store nearby because Rose didn’t take that long in the shower. The clothes consisted of a pair of yellow tights, which were nice and warm, better than the pantyhose she wore before especially now the weather had turned cold. A calf length skirt and a checkered blouse. There was also a pair of heels, which Rose left where they were, she would ask her sneakers back, she wasn’t running from the police on heels.

Rose made her way down the stairs, looking for the lady to ask if she had a hairbrush. In the hallway there was a full length mirror, and Rose studied herself for a moment, she didn’t usually wear long skirts, but she actually looked nice in this one. And when she had put it on she had found it had pockets, deep pockets she could put her whole hand in side them past her wrist with room to spare, and that was a real sweet feature. When Rose entered the living room, the police Inspector was there, sitting at the table, looking very tired.

“Ah there you are, you cleaned up nicely.” He smiled when he saw her. “The whole department is out looking for you, big mess at the station, a terrorist escaped jail without a trace.”
-“I’m not a terrorist inspector, I’m a pirate. There is a big difference, one uses violence to scare people, and the other steals valuables at sea.”
-“And both professions are not fitting for a lady.” The woman commended from the kitchen doorway.
“My wife, Sophie” the Inspector introduced the woman which had showed Rose the bathroom.
Rose saw her looking down at her feet, noticing the lack of the heels and her face showed that she didn’t approve.
-“Do you maybe have a hairbrush I could borrow?” Rose carefully asked to change the subject.
“Yes off course, I’ll get it.”
“You don’t shun some violence yourself, pirate.” Andrew said.
Rose just smiled while she took a seat across the table: “No comment.”
“Don’t worry, I personally don’t care what you did, I was just doing my job. But what do you know about that ring of yours?”
Rose looked at her hand, the ring seemed pretty insignificant but it made this policemen break her out of jail, where she was expecting to never get out of again.
-“My father gave it to me, he always wore it. He sold everything he owned to buy alcohol, whatever kind was the cheapest at that day. He gave it to me and a few days later he died. He only told me to never take it off.”
“What does it say on the inside?”
Rose looked at him in surprise, she hadn’t taken it off since she got it, and she didn’t even remember if it had any markings on the inside.
After some minutes peeling it off her finger, she could read the markings, they were faint but the word was unmistakeable. “Holland”
A sigh from the inspector made her look up.
-“What about yours?”
“Mine is a bit different” Andrew pulled the ring of his finger, and showed her. The symbol was the same but made of silver. “Serve and protect” it said.
“Your father ever mentioned the Order of the Bee?”
-“No, bees where his favourite animal though. But I never connected that with this ring.”

“We are historians, mostly. Our order was founded by Willem II van Oranje prins van Oranje, not the King but the Steward. It consisted of common men, which was unusual for the time. Scholars, librarians, historians. We were charged to trace the old noble houses and find and protect the living descendants, the heirs. If they were still in power that was easy, but if they had faded out of history that was a lot harder. We carry silver rings, the bees the ancient symbol for royalty, it is the predecessor of the fleur-de-lis.

Gold rings on the other hand where given to the descendants we found. To be passed down the generations. When the Netherlands became a Republic the order hid their records. Then the Napoleon came, he hunted the order down, he didn’t want any native Dutch to claim land nor title, it would weaken his rule. The last few of the order smuggled the records to Prussia and hit them with the xxx order. The Netherlands became independent and a kingdom, but the order was too weak, reduced to only three members, too weak to come to the attention of the new King. Three kings passed, the order did their job, kept the records searched history and chased descendants, but the task was too big. Then horror struck, Thorbecke wrote a constitution. Stripping all nobles from their power, the king barely came out of the confrontation alive, he was too loved by the people to be set aside by the republican merchants. But they had spies within the German order, they knew about the records, and they were hell bent to find them and to use them to wipe out the ones who could make any claims.

The last order members did the only thing they could to protect. They burned the records down. The historic evidence the records where based on was spread out, untouched but they had been gathering the information for 300 years. It wasn’t an easy task to start again.

But over time the order grew, their records made new, they befriended historians, tricked them to do research, for history sake. The first and second world war happened, people moved, hided, changed names, and historians couldn’t work. The Nazi’s loved history and removed a lot of works that could have information. Another blow for the order so to say, we organised the resistance, got many people out, not just the nobles we were tracing, Jews, gypsies, everyone who was at risk or in need.

But the rings remained, the people kept passing them on, sometimes the persons getting them not knowing what they got, like you. The house of Holland has been lost to the order since Thorbecke and his republicans planned to hunt you down. So you might get my surprise when a girl, with a criminal record a mile long sits in my interrogation room wearing a gold ring with a bee symbol. I had to get you out, and at least find out more.

So please tell me what are your parents’ names, and grandparents, dates of birth, dates of death, any information about you family tree. I can pass on to the historians of the order to trace back your line. To confirm you’re indeed of the House of Holland.”

Rose looked at him and could only think of one question: “What if I’m not, and this ring came to my family by some unknown event?”
Andrew leaned back in his chair. “Even if our historians can’t find a link, doesn’t have to mean you are not who the ring says you are. Judged by what you tell me of your father, he knew at least something about the value of the ring and what it meant.”
“I won’t hand you back to the police, I can promise you that, because if you tell them how you escaped that would seriously affect my live. But there is a limit to the protection I can offer.”
“If I stay disappeared, there might be people, former crewmembers of mine, who will start investigate by themselves where I went. They could think the police made me disappear, they could arrive at your name as the last one to speak to me. They aren’t all as nice as I am. Inspector.”
Rose didn’t meant it but her words where ice cold. And she saw the reaction they had on Andrew, his face didn’t show it, but his eyes couldn’t lie, she scared him.
“What exactly is it what you do on that ship, miss?”
“Did. The Sunset Dawn has been blown to smithereens by the Bolivarian Navy of Venezuela. I was her Captain.”
James looked surprised, the Sunset Dawn? You mean that ship that saved the Royal Netherlands Navy, I forgot her name, in the Battle at Curaçao? You where her Captain?
“The Zr.Ms. Willem Barentsz. And yes.”
“That was the big story of the war. It was known very quickly that a sailing ship had saved a grey one. But it took months before the details sipped trough, and that it was a highly sought after pirate vessel that did it. There have been some journalists searching for you after the war, to get your story.”
“I didn’t want to be found, the Victory Ballon Aruba was public enough.”
“So you are both a hero and a wanted criminal. That must be complicated, if the boys at the station had known who we had in our jail, I wouldn’t have been able to get you out. The Blue Swan and Sunset Dawn what is connection?”
“They are the same ship, Blue Swan is an alias we used for a while. But due to some unfortunate events, we buried that name deep.”

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