" And the Lord prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights."

The words still resounded through her head just as they had echoed through the church. The vicar's voice had been fierce and threatening when he spoke of the terrible ordeal...

She walked along the IJ and watched the great ships that were moored along the quays. Water babbled gently against their hulls and high up in their masts the colours of the Republic waved against a grey sky. She looked at the gold painted sterns, decorated with images of mermaids and sea monsters. They seemed so magnificent, these vessels, floating islands full of technology, with pulleys and tackles, winches and rigging.

Ships... the call of the sea, the call of fortune and wealth. Spices from the East Indies, gold from the Americas, silk and tea from China, coffee from Arabia... She had never touched or tasted any such things.

Just one hand full of any of those could change everything, but she knew she should not even think about such things. She would be hanged and burn in hell forever.

" Neither shall you desire your neighbour's house, or field, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbour..."

She knew that the Lord was watching and He would some day reward her for her suffering, just as He had ended Jonah's ordeal. Soon it would be different. A ship would arrive carrying a treasure more valuable than any pepper or porcelain, a treasure for her alone...

She imagined how her husband would come down the gang-way and they would embrace; His strong arms around her, her lips against his cheek. It would be an embrace of two lovers, an embrace of more than bodies, an embrace... Without sin... She shivered. He would hear how she survived; Hear how she had been in the arms of many sailors while she imagined to be with him. She had tried not to see their rotten teeth, the scars on their faces and their beer soaked beards, tried not to smell their sweat or hear their grunts and curses... But would she be able to forget them when she would be with him? And would he be willing to forgive?

She walked past the tall merchant houses, where women slept with one man alone, beneath sheets of silk and on pillows filled with goose down; Past houses where people drank tea and coffee from porcelain cups. She had heard how her friends had left their babies on the doorsteps of such houses. It was their destiny. The Lord had created some to be rich and others to be poor. He had created men to own ships and others to man them. He had created women to embroider with golden threads and others to sleep with sailors and have babies they couldn't keep.

But one day she would be rewarded for her suffering, one day she would hear how he had not drowned, but instead been swallowed by a fish.