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

by Dorothy Dunnett

  He wore a half-suit of armour, and there were fifteen armed men in mail at his back. Bel of Cuthilgurdy dropped a slight curtsey and Gelis, when prodded, did likewise. Dear oh dear, thought Mistress Bel. Dear oh dear, shellfish.

  No one spoke. Jorge looked like a killer snake faced with another. Nicholas, his face bland as a pat of butter, said, ‘Signor Doria, you may always be sure of entertaining us. And, of course, may be further assured we shall cause you no trouble. Senhor da Silves, gentlemen, no trouble, d’you hear?’

  The last words, spoken as quietly as the first, were in Portuguese; and as he said them he walked slowly forward, blocking Bel’s view. She realised why he was blocking her view, and felt queasy.

  ‘That is wise,’ said Doria. ‘The ladies may sit. There are mats. Did you receive some refreshments? I have sent for more. Messer Niccolò, you will remove your cloak very slowly and unbuckle and drop whatever weapons you carry below it. Senhor da Silves the same; and then all the rest of you. Then they will be collected, and you will be searched. As you see, there are fifteen crossbows trained upon you.’

  Nicholas said, ‘No, padre.’

  ‘But yes,’ said Godscalc, walking up to Doria and dumping a box before him. Bel wondered, not for the first time, why he had chosen the Church, and not made use of his build, his ability, his muddled belligerence to serve as a happy warrior in some freebooting troop. And Doria, with his firm, meaty face and machicolated teeth, looked less the Caesar than the hard-headed trader he probably was. But the sword at his side was real enough.

  Godscalc opened the box. ‘Perhaps you wish to search that for arms? I came here to celebrate Mass before the black heathen. Why are you, a Christian, preventing it?’

  ‘Why did your friends, supposedly Christian, fire on the Fortado?’ said Doria. ‘And from the stolen ship of my dead cousin? Why did you cheat and lie at the Senagana, employing even your ladies to rob us of trade? I brought you here; there is no question of Mass – the King has his own mumbo-jumbo and would not listen. I brought you here because I wished to express my disappointment. And you will agree that I have not been unduly cautious. You come oddly prepared for the sacrament.’

  ‘I knew nothing of this,’ said Father Godscalc. The hidden arms, rattling down, formed a buckled pile at the feet of every man from the Niccolò with the exception of Saloum and Ahmad. Nicholas, if not bearing the forecastle mortar, had been fortified with a small Turkish bow and a quiver and a very handy short sword, all now in an untidy heap slightly behind him. Three of Doria’s searchers began to move forward.

  ‘Goats,’ said Nicholas shortly, in Flemish.

  Behind him, plump on the floor beside Gelis, Bel stared at his back. Behind him, the previous occupants of the compound, uneasily cornered, sniffed the foreign smells and eyed the butchers’ knives on the ground. The leader, a great beast with curled horns, suddenly squealed at the top of his voice, leaped straight into the roof, and then bolted. Gelis withdrew her pin. The rest followed.

  Dust rose. The heaps of arms tumbled with the vibration. Bel braced herself for attack: for the clash of swords and the thud of arrows as Nicholas and the rest snatched their weapons.

  They did not snatch their weapons. Nothing happened because Doria’s crossbowmen stood firm, their bows already stretched, their barbs levelled. A charge by Nicholas, whatever its outcome, would have cost the lives of some of his party. And Nicholas had preferred not to make it.

  The three soldiers, stepping forward, resumed their uplift of arms. Hemp was brought, in great coils. The seamen were tied hand and foot. Nothing had happened, except that Doria’s men, now cackling, had been given a fright. Nothing, except that Gelis, she saw, now had two knives inside her chemise and a quiver lodged between that and her tunic. And the object she was thrusting towards Bel was a bow.

  As it chanced, Bel had already come well provided with helpful objects matched to her contours and headgear. Reassembled, she settled back in a sitting position. ‘Och, och,’ she remarked. ‘It near gars ye wish that they’d try for a rape. What next, d’ye think?’

  What came next, irrelevantly, was a supper, brought in baskets and spread on the floor for their captors. Perhaps they were hungry. They took it in turns, Bel observed, to eat and stand guard: two in front and the rest spaced outside round the pillars. Doria, reclining at ease, invited Nicholas to share his meal, sitting opposite, and then thought to make room for the ladies, and finally for Godscalc and Jorge and Diniz. He wanted, she thought, to humiliate Jorge in particular. Doria’s men kept peering at Gelis, who smiled back at them from time to time. Bel hoped she knew what she was doing. She could hear Filipe, whining.

  She stirred a finger in a few dishes but felt no compulsion to eat. She envied the rest of the party, including Filipe, who had not been invited – who, indeed, would have been a puzzle to feed since the seamen had been left, tied and stripped to the waist, where the goats had been. There was, as before, nothing to be done; nothing, yet, that was worth risking lives for. Outside, shadows crawled on the brilliant grass, black as predators, and above the trees, the first pallid stars were just visible. Nothing quite yet.

  Doria’s crew still wore their jacks and their helmets. Beside them, the Niccolò’s men looked like peasants: bare of head, and reduced – even the priest – to gaping shirts over their hose. No one had suggested that the ladies should disrobe, which was as well. Which was, Bel understood, what Nicholas had intended.

  She let her gaze dwell on him, and then wander over Diniz. The lad had filled out better than you would have expected. She could imagine, without looking further than the two of them, what King Gnumi’s wives had also imagined. She glanced at Gelis, and had the impression that Gelis had recently directed her gaze somewhere else. She had the further impression that Jorge da Silves had seen it and was scowling. On the other hand, he had been scowling ever since they arrived, either upon Nicholas or upon Saloum and Ahmad.

  Two lamps had been brought, warming the underside of the corn roof to chestnut. Outside, something screamed in the bushes. Inside, Nicholas, dabbling in rice, was placidly clarifying the situation. He said to Doria, ‘So you bribed the King to stay away?’

  ‘It wasn’t difficult,’ Doria said, a bone between his ringed hands. ‘We had, through your kind intervention, this large bale of weapons to offer him. He has a great deal of hunting to do, and has told his young men that they may amuse themselves as they like in his absence. They don’t like gold robbers or spies.’

  ‘They can’t afford to harm us,’ Nicholas said. ‘Whatever you tell them.’ He sounded quite calm. Diniz sat like a man under orders, and da Silves like a man rebelling against them. Father Godscalc, his eyes lifted, might have been praying or chewing.

  ‘I’m afraid they’ll get the blame, none the less,’ Doria said. Gelis drew in her breath. The two lamps burned in the silence. Outside, it was black.

  Nicholas said, ‘Were your orders to exterminate us? It seems a little unpolished for the Vatachino. What you promised the others I don’t know.’ Underlit, his eyes might have been pursed with laughter. It was a face fixed in the mould of frivolity. Bel had seen others like it, some of them dead.

  ‘I always make the same promise,’ said Doria. ‘To bring back the largest profit they have ever known. As a result, I am rich.’

  ‘What did Simon de St Pol ask you to do?’ Diniz said.

  Godscalc turned his head. Gelis didn’t move. Raffaelo Doria looked at the boy. He said, ‘I never discuss who my clients are.’

  ‘We know who they are,’ Diniz said. ‘The Lomellini, the Vatachino and St Pol. What did St Pol ask you to do?’

  ‘Why?’ said Doria. Reclining on one elbow, he had nibbled half down the bone.

  ‘He was my father’s partner. He sold his half of the business to the Vatachino. He wants my half.’

  ‘And so he might want your death, you think? And perhaps Messer Niccolò, as his business rival – as everyone’s business rival – is also feeling vulnerable?�
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  ‘I generally do,’ Nicholas said. He stopped kneading and sat back to study the Genoese. He said, ‘I don’t think you have orders to kill us. I think you’ve decided to do it from pique. You’ll blame the Mandinguas. And if that doesn’t stick, you’ll blame your patrons. Would I be right?’

  ‘You flatter my patrons,’ said Doria. He put down the bone and, drawing a kerchief, wiped his hands slowly. ‘Some wine? You may drink it with confidence. You are one of the two persons who are going to survive this little adventure.’

  ‘What? What, you scoundrel?’ said Godscalc. Diniz gripped his arm, but he was staring.

  ‘Who is the other person?’ Nicholas said. His voice had flattened.

  ‘Ask Saloum,’ Doria said. ‘Is that what you call him? Or his Negro companion. They conducted you here, to get you away from the ship.’

  ‘Away from the ship!’ It was Jorge da Silves.

  ‘Oh, the San Niccolò, I am sure, is in perfect order,’ Doria said. ‘A little emptier, perhaps, than you left her. As you must have expected, your other dark gentleman, your travelled gentleman, your Lopez has joined us.’

  Chapter 23

  THE CICADAS SHRILLED in the invisible grass. A bird flew over the guest-hut, complaining. Somewhere, as always, drums were beating.

  A pulse was ticking, too, above the damp lawn of the shirt Nicholas was wearing. He said, ‘No.’

  ‘Go to the ship,’ Doria said. ‘You will find your Lopez has gone.’

  ‘You have taken him,’ Nicholas said. He hadn’t moved, but he seemed to have solidified, sitting hunched opposite Doria. His brow was striped with sweat released from the crooks and curls of his hair.

  ‘I warned you,’ ejaculated Jorge da Silves. ‘Blackamoors, unbaptised and dyed in sin as black as their skins.’

  ‘Be quiet,’ said Nicholas. ‘Saloum.’

  Bound and prone beneath the threat of the crossbows, the men of his crew and the two slaves could hardly be seen in the dark. Saloum shifted his head. ‘If Lopez has gone, he has been captured.’

  ‘He elected to stay on the Niccolò,’ said Jorge da Silves.

  ‘It was your suggestion,’ said Nicholas. ‘So who has taken him? Has Crackbene? Where is Loppe?’ The early name came by chance, Bel guessed, out of an unusual distraction.

  ‘I told you,’ said Doria. ‘Lopez was loyal but you offered him nothing. I promised him he should have half of whatever the secret of Wangara was worth. He is with my people now, waiting to lead me there. And to make sure that he does, you are coming.’

  ‘No,’ said Nicholas again.

  Godscalc looked at him. The look was full of alarm, as if a bear trained to caper had suddenly snarled. Gelis spoke under her breath and stretched out her hand. Slowly, Bel slipped the bow into it. Nicholas said, ‘He will not take you to Wangara, whether I am there or not.’

  ‘You would kill him first, or see that he was killed? I assumed as much. I assumed he had told you the secret,’ said Raffaelo Doria. ‘That is why you are coming. One of you might deceive me, but not both.’

  Nicholas moved. It seemed to Bel that in the next moment she would see him hurl himself forward at Doria; it would have been, she thought, the first unpremeditated attack he had ever been seen to make. Doria, in fact, was expecting it: he was sitting back with his unsheathed sword in his hands, waiting to use it, while a glitter came from the line of raised bows all round the cabin.

  Instead, quicker even than Nicholas, Godscalc jumped to his feet, stamping hard on the hand Nicholas had spread beside him as leverage and thrusting him, deliberately or not, to one side. ‘How dare you!’ Godscalc said to Doria. ‘How dare you prate of gold, and threaten good men! If these poor people, the miners, wish to protect their livelihood, neither you nor we have any right to wrest its source from them. Neither would Lopez, I am sure, dream of doing such a thing, for himself or for us or for you. What is more –’

  ‘He is giving us time,’ murmured Gelis in Flemish. Her face contorted with fright, she pulled herself back from the supper circle and sat studiously shivering. ‘Why?’ Bel put her arm round her. Behind them, she thought she heard rustling. Doria was toying with his sword.

  ‘– what is more, if you lose all chance of redemption by perpetrating what you seem to have in mind, you will suffer for it on this earth as well. The pillars will fall about you, as strong men pull down your false edifice. And do not think you can blame the Mandinguas. Men will come. They will find crossbow bolts in our bodies.’ In his vehemence, he had delivered part of his harangue in Flemish, as Nicholas had already done.

  ‘They may even find lead balls from new handguns,’ Doria said. ‘For it seems that some vile trader has recently armed the Mandinguas. Bati Mansa will hang, and Gnumi Mansa will take over his territory. What could be neater?’

  He rose to his feet and stood breathing strongly, a little grease on his chin, his naked swordpoint teasing the priest’s matted chest. Godscalc clenched his fists. Nicholas, sitting limply, appeared to be looking up at them both. In fact, Bel observed, his gaze was focused prayerfully rather above them. She heard herself make a sound, and Gelis looked at her. Raffaelo Doria scratched with the point of his sword, lightly, and then turned the blade towards Nicholas.

  ‘I think it is time. Get up. Walk out. And we’ll have no more Flemish.’

  ‘All of us,’ Nicholas said. It was between a plea and a statement.

  ‘You. Of your own will, or not. They have their orders not to kill you. You might find yourself with one arm.’

  Doria’s men ringed the hut, rope in their hands. The seamen from the San Niccolò and the two slaves lay in the corner. ‘The women?’ said Nicholas. He got up suddenly, unfolding the neat-jointed, powerful frame, so at odds with the comedian’s face. Godscalc watched him, visibly anguished. Diniz stood as well, but quietly, as a young brother might. All through the voyage they had been at odds, these three. Only now, her mind busy, did Bel see confirmed the truth of it. And the dawning horror on the face of Jorge da Silves.

  ‘Everyone will stay,’ said Doria. ‘Everyone but you. Out. And no Flemish.’

  ‘No,’ Nicholas agreed. Side by side with Doria, he walked to the edge of the hut, about to leave; about to abandon them all. At the very last he turned, the light from the two lamps bright on his unconcerned face. He said caressingly, ‘Date stones.’

  Doria took it, perhaps, for an obscenity. Gelis lifted her fist. The nearest lamp shot spinning over the carpet and overturning into the dirt floor, extinguished itself. Sprawling full length, she got a grip of the other and smothered it. Darkness fell in two stages. Doria’s sword flashed, and the swords of his men, their bows useless. Where Nicholas had been was the paler black of outdoors, and the sound of his voice, and the sound of Diniz, replying, taken up by many voices.

  Bel, rising, found herself buffeted by many bodies, some mailed and some not. The space under the millet was filled with shouting and the thudding of feet; with the clash of steel and the smack of flesh meeting flesh; with grunts of endeavour and anger. Someone screamed. Someone fell. She felt her arm grasped and realised that she was being dragged running out of the hut along with Gelis: Godscalc’s voice in her ear said, ‘Stay there.’ She slid on the grass, and saw his big shape in the faint starlight, running back to the hut. She heard Diniz shouting somewhere and voices replying: gasping voices from outside the hut where figures struggled, some dimly sparkling with mail, others shirted.

  The crew. The crew somehow were free, and slowly pushing Doria’s men inside the building. The clash of arms became muffled. She heard the voice of Nicholas, calling names, and being answered. Then she saw, a blur in the darkness, that between the encircling pillars every figure was white: the building was ringed by linked men as by chain. Then Nicholas shouted.

  ‘Heave!’ he yelled.

  Afterwards, Bel thought she had heard the panting groans of endeavour, the stamping feet, the first creaking and grinding, the startled screams of apprehension. At the time
, she was aware of little but the immense shock of the crash: of the rumbling roar of thirty trees tumbling and bouncing and blundering against one another; of a forest felled, and slamming all that once stood or lay under it. The pillars, pulled inwards, collapsed. And upon them descended their cap; fell, with an encompassing thud, the mighty tiered roundel of millet, with Doria’s men pinned down beneath it.

  Silence followed. Bel panted. Not far away, several men started to cough; and the same sound, but fainter and mixed with muffled shouting and moans, began to emerge from under the dome of the roof. Sharply, the roof itself broke into sound, became a buzzing, squealing, rustling city of frantic wildlife. Birds whirred. Something swarmed over the tail of Bel’s skirt, and she heard Gelis exclaim.

  Bel of Cuthilgurdy sat up and, groping within the arsenal of her shift, pulled out a tinder-box and made a torch of her kerchief.

  Gelis was standing beside her. Diniz, a stick in either hand, was running howling towards her through rushing streams of brown rats. Behind him, a pair of feet were advancing which she took to belong to da Silves, behind that were many more legs and feet whose upper parts were wholly concealed by a deep, powdery cloud of dirty saffron which arched over the clearing and rose into the indigo air until it expired in faint columns of verdigris.

  The legs were running forward, bringing their owners out of the blanket of chaff, and the coughing and wheezing, now tremendous, had become charged with whoops of what appeared to be excitement and triumph – indeed, both emotions were plain on the battered faces that now emerged into the clear. The rodents proceeded to vanish.

  Diniz said, ‘They meant to do that to us. Did you see? They’d weakened all of the pillars, and connected them with the rope. Saloum saved us. Saloum and Nicholas. Saloum had a knife in his hair. He freed the crew and they dragged the soldiers inside. Oh glory be, did you see?’

  ‘Is anyone hurt?’ Gelis said.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Diniz madly, ‘but we’re all out. Here he is. Here’s Nicholas. It was Godscalc who warned us, you know.’