Scales of Gold: The Fourth Book of the House of Niccolo

by Dorothy Dunnett

  ‘Ah!’ said David de Salmeton. ‘I had hoped … That is, surely you planned, like myself, to call on the way at Madeira? The plantations of St Pol & Vasquez are there. I hoped your new caravel might offer me passage at, of course, the right price.’

  ‘Free,’ Nicholas said. ‘Provided I am the new owner of St Pol & Vasquez. Otherwise the ship will be full, I much fear, of inedible merchandise. Demoiselles, I must leave.’ He got up.

  ‘A cool drink?’ said Gelis van Borselen. ‘There is no hurry, surely.’

  There was not so much hurry that he couldn’t make them all an extremely elaborate bow. He said to David de Salmeton, ‘Perhaps we shall meet in Madeira. Or elsewhere.’

  ‘I’m sure of it,’ the agent said. ‘There are Negroes enough for us all, although I envy you that young Guinea fellow you’ve tamed. He’ll take you straight to the pick of the bunch. I’m told the piccaninnies are charming.’

  ‘I’ll send you one,’ Nicholas said; and got himself outside quite adequately, he was so angry.

  The plump, friendly woman was still in the tavern when he eventually called on his way back, and so was Father Godscalc, sitting in a settled way before a small, half-empty flask.

  Nicholas paused. The woman had her foot on the steps. Godscalc said, ‘If you want them, the chamberlain has given me the addresses of three proper houses. You have one bastard too many already.’ Then he looked again and said, ‘Who did that to you?’

  ‘Simon’s sister,’ Nicholas said, ‘hit me on the head with a brick.’ He sat down, overwhelmed by the humour of it. He said, ‘The Vatachino were there.’

  Godscalc said nothing.

  Nicholas said, ‘And Gelis. Gelis van–’

  Godscalc said, ‘So what of it? You knew what to expect.’ He waited and then said not unkindly, ‘And they are not alike. You would hardly think they were sisters.’

  ‘No,’ said Nicholas.

  He heard Godscalc throw a coin on the table and get up. Godscalc said, ‘Come. I have a horse. Time you were back on board ship.’

  Chapter 10

  STRANDED WITH THREE thousand Portuguese and two thousand Burgundians on one of the Pillars of Hercules, Diniz Vasquez was far too stubborn to admit that he had made a mistake in coming to Africa.

  From the hill-top fort to which he had been posted, he looked across fourteen miles of water to the opposite Pillar, named Jabal Tariq by the Moors who had occupied the rock until practically yesterday. To his right was the Middle Sea. To his left was the Ocean Sea of the West. Behind him on its narrow peninsula lay the Christian city he had come to relieve, called Septem Fratres by the Romans, and Ceuta today.

  The name referred to seven hills and not to any visible record for brotherhood. In seizing it fifty years ago, the King of Portugal had proclaimed a number of charitable aims, such as gaining access to the desert beyond, and hence to the savage blacks of the south whose souls required to be rescued. He wished to stop Barbary pirates from preying on Christian shipping. He wanted to sap Muslim confidence. He had his eye on all the other Moorish garrisons on the coastal strip (which, once dislodged, would have no use for their hinterland cornfields). And he also wanted to remove from unworthy hands the greatest African mart in the West.

  All the riches of Africa and the Indies came to Ceuta, brought by caravan up through the Sahara. The Turks might throttle trade in the east, but to Ceuta on thousands of camels came the goods that the Genoese, too, saw and coveted; the rice and the salt, the silks and peppers and ginger, the elephants’ teeth. The slaves. And the gold.

  The theory was excellent. In practice, Portugal managed to conquer little but Ceuta. In the outcome, ringed by enemies, they found it impossible to penetrate the Sahara. And the Moors of Ceuta regretfully shifted their caravan terminal a shade to the east, leaving twenty-four thousand stalls crumbling and vacant.

  In the years that followed, the displaced Moors returned quite a lot, often with shiploads of friends from Granada, and had to be beaten off once again, with many fine feats of arms. A German knight errant dispatched a Saracen champion here in single combat, during the wave of Christian feeling that followed the fall of Constantinople.

  That was when the Duke of Burgundy held his great feast in Lille, where a giant dressed as a Saracen had brought in a weeping damsel, representing Holy Church lamenting oppression, and mounted upon a plaster elephant. Upon which everyone present, including the Duke’s illegitimate sons, had sworn to perform high deeds of arms and wash their hands in the blood of the Infidel. Eleven years ago, that had been.

  That was why two of the bastards were here, and not before time: the older would never see forty again. All the commanders were old, and famous for jousting, and anxious about their immortal souls. The knight Simon de Lalaing was probably sixty, and his two sons were no chickens: Ernoul was close by Diniz now.

  Ernoul’s cousin had been one of the most famous knights of all time. Ernoul’s father and cousin had jousted in Scotland when Diniz was two, and Ernoul assumed Diniz had heard all about it. Ernoul was bountifully scathing on the subject of skulking Islamic dogs who abandoned their siege the moment the relieving force landed and, instead of offering battle like men, lured soldiers out through the gates and then fell on them.

  Skirmishing parties returned with half their numbers or not at all. Guides were few and irresolute. And although heralds emerged and challenges were read out in all the customary language of chivalry, even ordinary decency seemed to have gone. No one replied. Ernoul, who was destined for the Church, had received in a matter of weeks all the reinforcement his faith might have needed. He hated the Saracens.

  Diniz Vasquez, who for personal reasons had learned to hate at least one man of Muslim persuasion, began, on the contrary, to find his convictions diminish. He had come because of what had happened on Cyprus, and to escape the clutches of grandfather Jordan. But in defying Jordan, he had left his mother unchampioned, and her livelihood in the hands of an agent.

  He had thought – he still thought – that her brother Simon should take care of it all, but of late he had had doubts about the warlike, brilliant Simon. He had had doubts about beauty, in men and in women. He was eighteen years old, and a passionate virgin.

  Doubts about beauty, and doubts about faith. Ernoul of Burgundy said, ‘You realise His Holiness might even be dead, and the Crusade called off before we can join it? Men are living in Paradise who helped fight for Constantinople, and I haven’t killed a Moor since I came here.’

  ‘Join the next foraging party,’ said Diniz; and then regretted it. The fault was hardly Ernoul’s. Ernoul begged daily to lead the next sally into the hills. Charging, drums beating, into oblivion seemed more proper for a man of birth, a future prince of the Church, than messing about bringing in fodder and unloading storeships. Hoisting in stores was routine: the food supply of Ceuta had never really been interrupted. Diniz had not, after all, come to the relief of a citadel that was in extremis.

  He had begun to doubt, even, if he had come to kill Moors. The Portuguese, the Ghenters, the Burgundians fought for the greater glory of God, Christ against Antichrist, as well as for personal redemption. Diniz, son of a trader, had been reared to believe the division less arbitrary. Before coming here, he had fuelled his hatred with the deeds of one Egyptian Mameluke. Now he remembered a great Arab doctor, serving the Christian sick in the horror of Famagusta, with Nicholas at his side. And how in Trebizond, he had been told, Nicholas had taken arms against Turks, but the Turcoman Uzum Hasan had been his ally.

  His unseeing eyes found they were watching a galley making heavy weather of crossing the narrows. The Spanish port of Algeciras lay behind her and, once past the Rock, the wind and the current were pushing her east. From the efforts she made to adjust, he saw that she was trying to come into Ceuta.

  Afterwards, he remembered asking Ernoul if they were expecting a victualling ship, and being told that they were. It meant casks of arrows, and supplies of powder at least for the bombards, and pike
s and bows and crates for the smiths and the armourers. And, usually, a nice selection of fresh fish and meat and some fruit. He helped unload if he had to. It made him feel sick.

  Today, being on duty elsewhere, he didn’t have to; and by the time the galley arrived and found a place to drop anchor, Diniz was free and on his way down to the sea-moat and the isthmus, threading past the old souks and crumbling palaces in order to eat and play dice at the castle with a couple of bowmen from Lisbon. The galley’s captain went by, on his way up the stairs to the governor, followed by his clerk with his inkhorn and papers. The captain, he’d heard, was a Ragusan. The scribe was double the size that scribes usually were, and what his cap left uncovered was obscured by the whorls of two grandiloquent eyeglasses. They glinted at Diniz.

  Diniz had to get up at midnight to take his turn at the watch on the walls. He had been there an hour when he became aware that the ship’s clerk was standing beside him. The starlight glimmered on glass, and a voice he had missed for six months addressed him in almost inaudible French. ‘How much did you lose? The man you had on your left is notorious in twenty-five cities.’

  Diniz turned, his throat closed. ‘Ah no,’ Nicholas said, and laid a large, calm hand over his. ‘Don’t give me away. Or, if you remember, we shall both be arrested for sodomy.’

  He always went to the heart of the trouble. Diniz produced a sound which began as a laugh. He said, ‘It was awful. They made me. I wouldn’t have left you.’

  ‘I know,’ Nicholas said. ‘Master Michael Crackbene and I have had a conversation about that. Did your grandfather make you come here?’

  This time, he managed a proper laugh, although quietly. ‘It was the last thing he wanted.’ And then, with sudden anxiety, ‘They wouldn’t believe me. Have you seen them?’

  ‘Your grandfather and Simon? No. They’ve both gone. I’ve seen your mother. And Gelis van Borselen is at Lagos.’ The calming grip loosened, and Nicholas, taking off the affair on his nose, settled his arms on the parapet, holding the glass in one hand. A bird cried in the night. He said, ‘So you’ve found your vocation? You are taking the Cross?’

  Taking the Cross. It was the sort of thing the Lalaing brothers were in the habit of saying. Diniz said, ‘Why are you here?’

  ‘Not because your mother sent me,’ Nicholas said. ‘She seemed … seemed to think I was lying as well. No. I had a call to make anyway. And I wondered if you knew that David de Salmeton was at Lagos? The Vatachino want to buy out your company.’

  Doubts about beauty, and doubts about faith. David de Salmeton of the silken hair and feminine hands, annexing the dyeyard in Cyprus. Diniz said, ‘She wouldn’t sell!’

  ‘She will, to someone,’ Nicholas said. ‘She has at least two other offers. One of them from me.’

  Along the wall, someone spoke. Against the deep blue of the night and the black rounded chain of the hills, nothing moved. Nicholas added tranquilly, ‘It wasn’t serious. I couldn’t afford it. It was only to slow matters down. But for some reason Simon has left, and she has the decision to make.’

  Diniz said, ‘You think I should go back.’

  And Nicholas said, ‘I think Jordan thinks you should go back. He paid Simon, I’m told, to get out of Portugal. And that leaves only you.’

  ‘I won’t be coerced,’ Diniz said.

  ‘No,’ said Nicholas.

  Silence fell. Instead of the irritations and tedium of the campaign, Diniz found his mind invaded again by the fear his grandfather inspired; the angry pity for Lucia his mother; his disillusionment with Simon, that flower of chivalry her brother. He knew he ought to go back, and that he wouldn’t. Not even for Nicholas, who had searched him out to tell him. Searched him out, incongruously dressed as a ship’s clerk from a galley. I had a call to make anyway.

  Diniz said, for the second time, and much more abruptly, ‘Why are you here?’

  Then Nicholas stirred. He wrinkled his nose like a dog and sat the eyeglasses on it again. ‘Guess,’ he said.

  Further along the walls, out of sight, someone was whistling. Below in the town, a donkey brayed, and a dog began to bark, and broke off with a squeal. A scent of incense floated up from the mosques turned into churches, together with the smells of humanity and of the sea. In the bay, the lanterns of the fleet that had brought the Burgundians festooned the darkness and, by their interrupted reflections, gave substance to the host of small boats that also littered the water.

  Nicholas had sailed in the supply ship that had come in from Lagos today; a great galley of Florentine build that had seen long and hard service. He knew what ships Nicholas had. This one fitted all he knew of the Ciaretti, which had stayed with the Bank all the time that Nicholas had been in Cyprus.

  He had watched her come in, flying the Portuguese flag. He had watched the fuss she made, seeking a berth, before settling next to one of the troopships. Diniz had paid little attention. Otherwise he would have realised sooner that he recognised the roundship beside her, because he had sailed in that same ship from Cyprus. She was the Doria, the vessel which Jordan and Crackbene had stolen. Diniz said, without explanation or context, ‘You can’t!’ His breath caught.

  He felt Nicholas move. Nicholas said, ‘I hope the garrison can manage without it. Wouldn’t you think so?’

  Diniz boiled with frustration. ‘You can’t. How can you?’

  He heard, rather than saw, Nicholas give a smile. Nicholas said, ‘It wasn’t hard to arrange. There’s only a watchman aboard, and a roundship doesn’t need much of a crew. We’ll transfer twenty-five mariners, and they’ll take her over to Spain before daylight.’

  ‘And then where?’ Diniz said. ‘Jordan leased her to Portugal for a year.’

  ‘She wasn’t Jordan’s to lease,’ Nicholas said. ‘You don’t mind? By the time she lifts anchor, you won’t be on watch.’

  He had thought of everything. Diniz said, ‘You’re going with her?’

  ‘Great God no,’ Nicholas said. ‘Triadano and I have to stay behind, expressing sympathy and completing our business.’

  ‘Of course,’ Diniz said. ‘And then to Venice, picking up the rescued roundship on the way.’ It was neat, and successful, and brilliant. He said, his eyes damp, ‘I don’t suppose you need an able dyeworks apprentice?’ Then he said, ‘It’s all right. I didn’t mean it.’

  Nicholas said, ‘I know you didn’t. I asked you if you were taking the Cross?’

  Diniz’ head ached. He said with sudden conviction, ‘No. I don’t belong here.’ He stopped. He said, ‘I suppose I should go back to Lagos.’

  ‘Only you can decide,’ Nicholas said. ‘But if you want, I can carry you. I have to take the Ciaretti back to load cargo. She does sail back to Venice, but I have to stay and make money. The Bank and the Charetty company are in need of funds. I told you, I think, that I couldn’t really afford to bid for your company.’

  He didn’t believe it. He said, ‘How? What has happened?’

  ‘The Vatachino,’ Nicholas said. ‘Among other things. So I’m taking Ludovico da Bologna’s advice, and launching my own private crusade into the African interior. That’s why I need the Doria. She’ll load at Sanlúcar, and meet me off the African coast at Madeira.’

  ‘How will you get there?’ said Diniz.

  ‘By caravel, licensed by Portugal. I shall have to pay for it.’

  ‘With African gold,’ Diniz said.

  ‘I have to redeem the Bank,’ Nicholas said. It was all he said. He wasn’t like Jordan. He didn’t coerce. He presented the facts, and then waited.

  Diniz said, ‘When does my mother decide? About selling the business?’

  ‘Why?’ said Nicholas.

  ‘Because surely she should inspect the plantations first? See her managers?’

  ‘What are you asking?’ Nicholas said.

  Diniz said, ‘Take us both to Madeira. I’ll come with you to Lagos and persuade her.’

  ‘She may have sold,’ Nicholas said. ‘I told you who was there.’
r />   ‘Yes,’ Diniz said. ‘Gelis van Borselen.’

  Nicholas said, ‘I won’t involve her. Neither should you.’

  ‘She is involved,’ said Diniz. ‘She drives my mother wild, but she listens to her. I think she won’t let her sell. I think she might persuade my mother to go to Madeira.’

  ‘On my ship?’ Nicholas said. ‘After the death of your father? Don’t expect it. She may be troubled enough that you turned back from Ceuta.’

  The sharpness of the words cut, and a deeper anguish welled up. ‘They weren’t starving,’ said Diniz.

  ‘It isn’t a sin,’ Nicholas said.

  It was not, perhaps, quite as easy as Nicholas had made out to man Jordan’s roundship and sail it out of harbour, and when it was finally done, she had to deceive the fast ships Ceuta sent off to locate her. But she had a good start, and when daylight came they were still casting about. By the time they got as far as Sanlúcar the Doria was drawn up in dock draped with matting and her name had been changed. She had been there for two weeks, said the Spanish authorities. The Venetian consul in Seville was Antonio da Ca’ da Mosto.

  Behind in Ceuta, there was an eruption of charge, counter-charge and horror over the purloining of the roundship Doria, but the blame, it was finally concluded, lay with pirates and renegades who, stealing through in the night, had manned and taken her for their own illicit purposes. The officer in charge of the watch was, fortuitously, of such a high degree that no punishment could be inflicted.

  A letter of explanation was dictated to be sent to His Sacred Majesty, and another to the lord vicomte de Ribérac, who had leased the ship to Portugal for the highest of motives. Both letters stressed the hardships being suffered in Ceuta, the loss of gallant young lives, and the consequent exhaustion of the rest of the garrison. The governor also mentioned that his pay was eighteen months in arrears, and the amount of supplies just unloaded had been rather less than he asked for.

  This was true, since a third of it lay safely locked in Sanlúcar. The rest, however, exactly matched the bill of lading handed over (and written) by the clerk of the Ciaretti. The Ciaretti also, naturally, carried both letters back to Lagos, along with young Senhor Vasquez, who had been recalled to deal with his widowed mother’s affairs.