Scales of Gold (33 page)

Nicholas said, ‘No. A school. You have made me your custodian. From time to time we shall meet like this, and I shall tell you my plans, and I shall also tell you the part I expect you to play in them. I shall listen if you object. I don’t promise to accept your objection. Do you understand this?’

‘On the principle of the oranges,’ the girl said. The parrots squawked.

‘On the principle, certainly, of a single command. Demoiselle?’ Nicholas said, and turned to her fully. For the first time, he had forced himself to bring all his experience to this meeting with Gelis van Borselen. His relations with Diniz were simple, and could be made, he thought, painless or better. The opposite was the case with the girl. The hostility between them was dangerous, and now had to change. And the only way he could do it was by locking away all his past with Katelina – the past about which her younger sister had guessed a good deal, but not everything. If she had guessed everything, she would have told Simon.

So he said, ‘Demoiselle. You want to punish me, even to loading me with the guilt of your very possible fate. It’s a little hard on your friends. And at this rate, I might not think it a punishment.’

‘You may die first,’ she said. She spoke without humour, and for the first time directly. Diniz drew in his breath.

Nicholas said, ‘But you haven’t tried to bring it about?’

‘I prefer a clear conscience,’ she said. ‘There are plenty of others less scrupulous.’

He said, with fleeting amusement, ‘And that’s a clear conscience? Well, maybe Father Godscalc would agree. He doesn’t approve of my methods, as your Mistress Bel will no doubt shortly tell you. I expect he is raging up and down the
San Niccolò
at this moment, coming as near as he can to cursing Jorge da Silves and certainly me.’

‘Over the slaves?’ she said. ‘Was he manacled when your sailing-master took them on board? He could have stopped it. He could have threatened to denounce you and the
Ghost
as I did.’

‘He could,’ Nicholas agreed. ‘But no one would have believed him, would they? Can you see Father Godscalc condemning us all, including Diniz, to be hanged in public for piracy? Death to the crew. Confiscation of both the
Ghost
and the
Niccolò
. Disaster to my Bank and all those dependent on it and on Diniz. He may be pig-headed, the padre, but he’s not blind deranged.’

Diniz was silent. The girl herself showed no change of expression, although the curious pricking of colour showed itself under her cheekbones. She said, ‘You are upsetting the parrots. And you think Father Godscalc could save them by no other means, such as paying to free them himself? I imagine even Bel would have opened her purse for him, if he asked her. He is not a man of God. He is your minion.’

‘I wish he were,’ Nicholas said. ‘In fact, someone else on board has given more thought to the care of these captives than you or me or Father Godscalc, and it is his suggestions which are going to be followed. Let me tell you what they are.’

He made it simple, the story of Loppe’s design for the slaves the
San Niccolò
carried, and of his hopes for changing the trade in the future. As he spoke, the boy coloured up, but the girl sat like a stone, her lids tightened as if against glare. At the end she looked up. But it was Diniz who exclaimed, his eyes brilliant, ‘I wish my father had heard you. And Lopez. But the blacks you already have, can it be done? Will the
Niccolò
put them off near their homes?’

‘Those who wish it,’ Nicholas said. ‘I’m going to say now that I don’t agree with Loppe over this. I think most of them will beg to leave, and will die.’

‘I am sure,’ the girl said, ‘that enough will be kept to make a profit. And how is Loppe – Lopez? – to repay you?’

She was implacable, but he hadn’t really expected a sunburst of charity. He wondered if Bel had asked the same question. He said, ‘He will repay us as guide and interpreter. He speaks Mandingua and Jalofo and Arabic as well as Christian languages. He knows the Gambia and the lands to its east as do few other blacks whom you might pick up in Lagos or Madeira. Whomever the
Fortado
employs, it will be no one of that calibre, I can promise you. So, yes, you are right. We need Loppe, and he wouldn’t have come without our support over the slaves. You know we are going to be together now for four months? We are committed?’

‘I assumed so,’ she said. She either felt nothing, or she could cover everything she was thinking. She added, ‘I don’t expect to stay on the ship when you leave her. I can ride. I can walk.’

‘Among lions?’ said Diniz in an annoyed voice. ‘Among snakes? You’ll have to stay on the ship. And what about Bel?’

Nicholas caught the edge of a glance from her, but chose to do nothing about it. She said, ‘Bel is your mother’s representative, Diniz, not mine. She makes up her own mind what she will do, and why.’ And turning back to Nicholas, she said, ‘She is your responsibility. All three of us are.’

He said, ‘I should put it even wider than that. The two ships are my responsibility, and everyone in them. If I lead, and I suppose that I do, then private skirmishing could harm the whole expedition. Look, I don’t expect you to change, or be generous. I do ask you to hold back your grievances meantime. After the spring, I don’t care. It’s open season.’

He ended a little more colourfully than he had meant. He had made her a speech once before. Because she wouldn’t engage in discussion he had been driven to deliver a second one. Diniz said, ‘She’ll behave. I shall answer for her.’

There followed the kind of silence Nicholas had been punishing himself to avoid. The girl was watching him. Then she said, ‘Shall I slap him for you?’ And leaning over, she gave Diniz a tap on the cheek. ‘My self-esteem is being usefully fostered. You are not supposed to undermine it.’

‘You are not supposed to undermine his, either,’ said Nicholas rather quickly. ‘And I won’t be tripped into discriminating between you. You both listen to what I have to say, and you both keep your prejudices out of it. Diniz, hand me the map.’ It was time to tell them where they were going. They waited with the same air of intelligent attention he had seen worn by scholars at Louvain after a bout of professorial abuse. He had learned a lot at Louvain, including how people thought.

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

T
HE 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.’