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

by Dorothy Dunnett

  They were sailing, of course, to the Gambia, seven days to the south, and on the way they would make a call at the mouth of the Senagana. Diniz, brought up on the Algarve, had expected that. Both rivers traded in gold. At the Senagana, they could offload the horses. From the Gambia, they could strike upriver until the water ran out, and then continue on land. From there they might reach the Nile, Ethiopia. ‘You still pretend that’s where you’re going?’ said Gelis van Borselen, and looked shocked when he almost opened his mouth to the bait.

  She, too, Nicholas thought, had made enquiries, but had expected a voyage much longer. From Arguim to the Senagana river was not above four hundred miles. ‘So,’ she said, ‘I have only three or four days in which to inflame the crew of the Ghost, and watch you agonise over it. Then, I assume, we transfer to the Niccolò? Or before?’

  ‘As soon as we catch up with them,’ Nicholas said. ‘And I don’t think I have to tell you how to behave with the crew until then.’

  ‘But you trust the master?’ said Gelis van Borselen. ‘As far as the Gambia?’ She had Baltic blue eyes shaped like almonds, and outlined in brown lashes, not blonde. From her earliest years, she had been clever.

  ‘Ochoa?’ said Diniz. ‘Did you see what he did to the Fortado? Of course we trust him.’ ‘With horses,’ said the girl.

  ‘I hired him. I trust him,’ said Nicholas. ‘At the moment, I’m more concerned with what the Fortado may do.’

  ‘Certainly, I hope your lookout is sharp-eyed,’ Gelis said. ‘Could she possibly overtake us at night? And if she did, could she also overtake the San Niccolò before the Senagana? I suppose she could, if the San Niccolò lingers to put off her slaves. And if she arrives ahead of both ships, you say there is a man on the Fortado who knows the Ghost is stolen, and may have seen you aboard her. But if he gets in first, whom would he warn? Diniz, who knows everything, says there is no official factor on the Senagana so far.’

  ‘There is now,’ Nicholas said. ‘That is what the patrol vessel was doing. She’s just returned from setting up a God-damned Portuguese strong house.’

  ‘Which would refuse to take the Ghost’s unlicensed horses,’ said Gelis thoughtfully. Diniz, champion of the horses, looked up.

  ‘I think there might be a way around that,’ Nicholas said. ‘Meanwhile, I don’t see how the Fortado could pass us, although she may yet appear, towed by three thousand sea nymphs who hope to go home and please Simon. If there’s trouble, I’ll warn you. There are weapons here in the cabin.’

  ‘Behind the hats and the parrots. The crossbow is too heavy,’ Gelis remarked, ‘but if you could get me a light bow, I could use it. Is the handgun as simple as it looks?’

  Diniz opened his mouth. Nicholas said, ‘It isn’t difficult. You need a reasonable eye. Would you like Diniz to teach you?’

  ‘It might be wise,’ the girl said. ‘And anything else he thinks I should know. I can sail. It might come in useful.’

  ‘In case the blacks come chasing us in their war-canoes?’ Diniz said. ‘They stopped that ten years ago – more. They don’t even shoot poisoned darts, except for their hunting. They’ve got Christians and Muslims among them. Some of them speak Portuguese.’

  ‘I am quite sure,’ said Gelis, ‘that the tribes are models of civility. It was the vengeance of the Fortado I thought we were fleeing. Till tomorrow then? Unless we are fired on beforehand?’

  They watched her leave. Diniz said, with gloom, ‘She’s worse when she’s friendly.’ He didn’t seem to expect a reply.

  Chapter 17

  THE SECOND NIGHT out of Arguim, the San Niccolò ran aground off the Bay of Tanit, straining her planks and creating panic below, so that one of the black captives broke free and loosed eight others who burst on deck and dived into the water before they could be stopped. The caravel was a mile off shore at the time, and some of the swimmers got halfway there before the breakers or the spears of the fisher-boats stopped them.

  It was all the more painful since precautions had been taken. Since losing the first four overboard north of Timiris it had been accepted that – as Jorge da Silves had always insisted – the slaves could not be permitted on deck. When seamen working between decks were attacked, it was found necessary to bow again to the master’s experience, and put the adults under light restraint. There was then only one child left, the baby having been carried into the sea by its mother.

  When, blazing in the dawn light behind them, the Ghost was perceived to be free of Arguim and about to join them at last, the San Niccolò was merely thankful, in its anguish, that its exhausted boat crews were about to receive aid to warp themselves free. Having seen or heard nothing of the Fortado since Funchal, the caravel gave its whole attention to its immediate difficulties. The two masters cried their enquiries and commands over the water; hawsers were thrown, and attached; and the seamen on both ships panted and strove, helped in silence by Godscalc and Loppe on one, and by Nicholas and Diniz rather more noisily on the other.

  Bel of Cuthilgurdy stood by the stern lantern as soon as the roundship came close, and after some time the lamps on the Ghost glimmered on a darting, waving figure she thankfully recognised. Bel of Cuthilgurdy screamed, ‘That’s Gelis there, padre. And Lucia’s lad, look – there’s the boy Diniz. But I see none of your sleek chiel’, Gregorio.’

  Groaning and squealing, the caravel was beginning her slow slide off the sandbank. Godscalc, his heart sliding and sinking, said nothing. He had observed Nicholas striding about on the deck of the larger ship, and heard his voice – when had he developed such a voice? – uplifted in Spanish and Portuguese, mixed with indecencies from the Venetian patois of the Arsenal. Twice he had come to the rail to hold an impressively technical conversation with Jorge da Silves, who had responded with quite unnatural warmth, even allowing for a warrantable gratitude. A cordiality which, Godscalc suspected, would not extend to Ochoa de Marchena when, floating and in the anxious care of her carpenter, the San Niccolò prepared to welcome her owner on board once again with his party.

  Godscalc, with the master and Bel at his side, watched the boat bringing the four of them from the Ghost.

  The van Borselen girl looked the same. Her brow and cheekbones were browner perhaps, under the white of her kerchief, and her gown stained with the wear of two weeks, but there was no trace of distress in her bearing. The handsome youth beside her showed more emotion, his hands restless, his eyes constantly moving between the ship’s decks and Nicholas. And Nicholas, a bonnet set on his hair and his working shirt under a doublet, sat riding the surge of the boat and holding some sort of low, profound discourse with a figure from carnival-time: a man whose hat bellied as big as a goatskin; whose hose climbed to his waist in eight colours, hardly fanned by the skirts of his doublet.

  ‘Ochoa de Marchena,’ said Jorge da Silves to the air. ‘I wonder where lies the body tonight whose garments those are.’

  ‘Wherever it is,’ said Bel of Cuthilgurdy, ‘it’s looking nicer without them.’

  First to board, Nicholas stood on the deck of his bright, virgin caravel, and looked past even Godscalc to Loppe. Then his gaze, softening, travelled over his seamen and returned to Bel of Cuthilgurdy, deepening into something that was not quite a smile, in response perhaps to something he saw in her face. ‘Mistress Bel. And Father Godscalc’ There was no trace now of a smile. Nicholas said, ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t be here.’

  ‘So am I,’ Godscalc replied. The inspection had already passed beyond him.

  ‘And the master. Well, Jorge. You kept in soundings all night.’

  The master’s head turned. ‘By my orders,’ Godscalc said. ‘That is, the villages change place, and the dunes.’ Beside him, Loppe stood perfectly still, his eyes only on Nicholas.

  ‘Yes. There is a lot to discuss. As you see, Diniz has rejoined us, and the demoiselle. Perhaps Mistress Bel would like to hear her news while we talk. Jorge, the Fortado is probably following, if she hasn’t cut in ahead of us. What damage do you have?’ />
  ‘The report is coming. We shall sail, do not fear. We have wasted too much time as it is.’

  Loppe said, ‘We have one call to make.’

  ‘No,’ said Jorge da Silves. ‘It is too late. And the surf begins before the Ksar, I have told you. We put off the rest at Senagana or nowhere.’

  ‘What do I hear?’ cried a voice from the ladder. Ochoa sprang on board. ‘You do not want your magnificent savages? I shall take them, I. Beginning with that one. And your crew! Your crew! Compared with my mangy one-legged scum! Niccolino, where do you choose them?’

  ‘You have heard me speak of Lopez,’ said Nicholas pleasantly. He was impatient, Godscalc saw, but neither he nor Loppe showed offence. ‘He is unfortunately attached to the expedition. But you know Señor Jorge da Silves of the Order of Christ?’

  The lean, adamantine face of the Portuguese confronted, without evident pleasure, the formless Andalusian visage in the centre of which sagged a smile pink as offal. The Portuguese addressed it in the third person. ‘Señor Ochoa may take what blacks he likes, provided that they are first baptised according to God’s law. We have already lost precious souls to the devil.’

  He shot a dark glance behind him. Godscalc stood, his arms folded, his balled fists meekly tucked in his sleeves. He said to Nicholas, ‘The poop cabin is free,’ Mistress Bel had taken the girl by the hand and disappeared. Diniz, unfortunately, was standing his ground. Nicholas said, ‘Then we had better go there.’

  He did, however, take longer than anyone else to reach the cabin, and both the sailing-masters and Diniz and Godscalc were seated before he came in, bringing Loppe; indeed, with his hand falling from Loppe’s doublet shoulder. Godscalc was not surprised, although it did not greatly please either master. Five minutes with Loppe would have told Nicholas all he needed to know. Depending on one’s viewpoint, Loppe was his most loyal friend, or his spy.

  Nicholas said, ‘We have a change of plan, so this must be quick. Jorge, what cargo do you have? Is there a paper?’ There was, and he spoke as he read it. ‘Gum – so many crates? Quintals of pepper … Orchella and dragon’s blood – I have more, from Grand Canary. And gold, yes I see. And what slaves are there left?’ He looked up. ‘I know you have landed some, and others jumped overboard.’

  ‘There are fifteen left,’ Loppe said. ‘They all understand what is happening. Most want to leave at the Senagana, or a fishing village just before it. Six are willing to come with us to the Gambia: two of these know how to reach their homes from there, and the rest will attempt to make their way, at any risk.’ He paused. ‘None wish to go with us to Portugal.’

  ‘They thought you were going to eat them. Whoo! Whoo!’ said Ochoa, merrily blowing out his candle-wax cheeks. ‘And you paid for them, my chickens? I get a better return for my parrots, even though half are dead and a quarter pecked bald on the journey. Your magnificent Lopez must be a guide worth a fortune!’

  ‘Ochoa?’ said Nicholas. ‘Do you see the water out there? The Fortado may appear any moment.’

  ‘You have seen her?’ said Jorge da Silves.

  ‘Seen her!’ said Ochoa, and flipped up his skirts with a finger. ‘We shot –

  Nicholas said, ‘We had an exchange in the dark. She has guns. She is certainly following. She knows the Ghost is the Doria, or will, as soon as she sees her in daylight. Also, there is now a Portuguese station at the Senagana, all of which means that the Ghost can neither appear there nor trade. Therefore we are now, at this moment, going to exchange our cargoes.’

  Diniz sat up, his lips parting. Jorge da Silves said, ‘You mean to put the gold and the rest on the Ghost?’

  ‘And transfer the horses and the grain, dear hearts, to you,’ said Ochoa. ‘And you can keep your handsome Negroes, although I should have liked a little one for my cabin. Have I put it well?’ He looked round at Nicholas.

  ‘As you always do. You understand, Jorge, why we are doing this? You can sell: the Ghost can’t. You’ll have to redistribute ballast; think of food and water stocks, both of you. The Niccolò will keep any trading goods she still has, and the shells. There are fifteen people and twenty-five horses to carry for two days at least. And while we’re trading, the Ghost will evaporate into some modest inlet where we hope the Fortado won’t see her. But we have to make the main transfer now, and fast.’

  ‘How?’ said Diniz.

  Ochoa gave him a simmering smile. ‘Dear one! Did you not see the hoists already preparing? Go up on deck, and you will find the boat on its way with the first of your darlings. You will have two more days with your horses!’

  They were all rising. Godscalc said, ‘I don’t understand. How does this other ship know you are the Doria?’

  ‘Guess,’ Nicholas said. ‘No, there isn’t time. Because Mick Crackbene has signed himself on as her sailing-master. What in hell is happening outside?’

  They could heard the voice of Melchiorre upraised, protesting. Another voice joined it. Then the cabin curtain was wrenched to one side. ‘You evil man,’ said Gelis van Borselen to Nicholas. ‘You knew this high-minded plan for the slaves was preposterous. You knew what was going to happen, and you let it.’

  She stood, breathing deeply before him; her face sallow as if she had been poisoned. She said, ‘They’re dead, aren’t they, most of them? Drowned; hacked to death by enemy tribesmen. They would have been taken to safety in Portugal, if you’d left them.’

  A shudder ran through the ship. A boat had arrived. ‘Please, not now,’ Nicholas said.

  ‘Not now!’ she said. She lifted her voice until it rang through the cabin. She was shaking with rage. ‘If they’d been bought by the worst trader in the world, this would never have happened. Would it? But because your pandering priest and your –’

  ‘I meant, not now,’ Nicholas said, and before Godscalc could cry out or help had pulled the girl forward and silenced her, one hand expertly over her lips, the other pinioning her with a kind of calm severity. He said over her head, ‘Go on, all of you. Send the Scots woman. Tell me if the Fortado appears.’

  The masters both left. Diniz hesitated and then made his way out, looking stricken. Only Godscalc and Loppe still remained, neither moving. For a moment the girl, looking at them, ceased her struggles. Then, her brow creased, she set herself to fight once again, and as the gagging hand tightened, she bit it.

  Godscalc heard Nicholas hiss through his teeth. A rope of blood ran over his fingers and drops began to seep from under his palm. The shape of her eyes and her jaw altered again, but he kept his hand where it was, and reinforced the parody of an embrace with the other. The kind of stern but charitable embrace, Godscalc thought, a physician gives to a child in a fit. Yet her face was full of despair, and his, bent upon her, showed a compressed violence directed wholly inward. He had not looked towards Loppe since it started. Now he shook his head at her, and spoke.

  ‘You’re not thinking. We’re in danger. Go to your cabin. Later. Later. Later, for this.’ He let her lift her head free, turning her so that Godscalc could not see her face. Her hair, loosened, strayed down her back; his shirt and doublet were studded and trellised with blood. He released her as if unleashing a dog, and showed her a handkerchief, pushing it into her fists. ‘Use it,’ he said. ‘Or they’ll know for sure that we’re cannibals. Bel is waiting.’ He was not even thinking of what he was saying, Godscalc thought. He was listening.

  She knew it too. She looked about her, and Godscalc met her look, but thought that Loppe did not. She was a formidable girl, Godscalc thought, to have had so weak a sister. Formidable as the fiery mountain of the Canaries, and as abrasive.

  She scrubbed her mouth across with the cloth, and then flung it down on the deck before Nicholas. His lacerated palm dripped on to it. ‘At least,’ she said, ‘I have had a taste of power, and you another family memento.’ She moved, putting her hand to the curtain, and spoke without looking round. ‘Your ship,’ she said. ‘Your new ship. Your new ship stinks of death.’ Then she went.

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nbsp; The sun blazed into the cabin. The deck outside shuddered as feet pounded and the bar of the boom-shadow swung. Tackle squealed and men roared and chanted. Nicholas turned, his back to the sun. Godscalc spoke, with unusual difficulty. ‘Not just now, as you said. You must cover your hand.’ He broke off. He began to say, ‘You should have let her say it all.’

  Nicholas looked at him, but not beyond him. ‘It was better stopped,’ he said. ‘And it was bad for her, too. Can you come quickly? The horses are here.’

  In the outcome, no slaves were landed on the beaches north of the Senagana, and the battle over their fate was deferred, if not forgotten. The caravel Fortado had appeared, finally, on the horizon.

  Retiring exhausted that night, with the cargoes safely exchanged and the Niccolò sailing freely south with her consort at last, Godscalc woke to find everything changed. It was not only that the Niccolò, her spars extended, was breasting the waves like a gundog. The Ghost, after so belated and glorious a reunion, had abandoned them. That is, she had taken a course towards some islands so far to the west of Cape Verde that she was already hull down, making it apparent to anyone that she had no intention of trading in Guinea.

  ‘She’ll come back,’ Nicholas explained, when found on the poop deck. ‘During the night, or behind a clutter of fishing-boats. Then she’ll hide herself a little away from the estuary and wait.’

  ‘She has our cargo,’ Diniz had remarked. He still looked sick. Only the crew appeared unaffected, if mildly mystified, by what had happened. It appalled Godscalc that Nicholas himself looked unchanged.

  He was saying, ‘She has a moderate amount, but not a full load. In any case, Ochoa is usually reliable, despite the rabble he chooses to work with. They’ll wait. All we have to do is get to market before the Fortado.’

  Godscalc already knew, from their voyage from Funchal and from their precipitous departure from Arguim, what Jorge da Silves was capable of when he wanted to hurry. Once Jorge had the measure of the Niccolò he had tested her to the limit, putting off the boats with a peremptory rattle when the slaves came to be landed and thrusting on day and night past the low, featureless coast with its shifting dunes and treacherous sandbanks. He had crowded on sail even when forced by Godscalc to cling to the shallows rather than sail in deep water. That had been after the mother had flung herself into the sea, and Filipe and Lázaro had been beaten.