Scales of Gold (34 page)

‘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.

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.

None of the slaves, dead or alive, had been baptised, which had been another bone of contention. He was not a witch doctor, saving souls with a sprinkle of water. There was more to baptism than that, whatever the Order of Christ might expect. Instead he gave them his care and his time, those who were left; and Loppe stayed with them if they would have him. Most of them distrusted Loppe, and had no use for a priest. The person they welcomed was Bel.

This morning she had spent in another place, with the girl. The uncharacteristic outburst of yesterday had proved to have a common physical reason, as Godscalc had privately suspected. Its immediate handling had also been physical. Faced with an overwrought girl, Nicholas, the best-served apprentice in Bruges, had known what to do better than Godscalc. Godscalc wondered how he had decided to exploit it.

He found out soon, for the girl came up before noon to see the
Fortado
. Everyone came from time to time; even Diniz, leaving his horses. Diniz was here, Godscalc now comprehended, partly because of Simon’s treachery; partly to redeem his mother’s fortune; and partly, there was no doubt, because of Nicholas, alternately friendly and alienating. Godscalc wished from the depths of his heart that Gregorio and not Diniz had been allowed to come on this voyage. He had no doubt at all that it had fallen out according to plan. Loppe, of course, had suspected. And the Vatachino had been sure.

Nicholas had not, however, expected Gelis van Borselen to persist. Godscalc would have wished her safe at home too; growing to womanhood, setting the fate of her sister behind her. As it was, her obsession fed on itself. She risked her life for no good except the one she least wanted: that she might unwittingly bring Nicholas to his senses.

It seemed unlikely she would. Loppe had been given a free rein in this terrible experiment for a reason. For all Nicholas might claim, this so-called Christian expedition to Ethiopia was concerned wholly with gold, and depended upon the advice of someone who knew about gold. And for all he further claimed, the gold was not
for his Bank or for Diniz, but to salve his own pride and the scars of his dreadful and personal losses. His very real losses; of course one gave Nicholas that. One understood much about Nicholas, but one could not excuse.

Godscalc was silent therefore when Gelis climbed the steps to the deck, Bel behind her, and after a word with the master joined Diniz at the rail looking aft. She said, ‘Is that the
Fortado
? The blue ship?’

‘You can see it’s blue?’ Diniz said. ‘No one could, early this morning. It got a better wind for a bit, and gained on us. You could see where the spar came down, if she was nearer. You could see where we shot right across her midships. Nicc– They say she must have carried out her own repairs. She can’t have stayed long at Arguim; just for stores. She can’t beat us, though.’