Scales of Gold (38 page)

‘Not for me; not for Loppe,’ Godscalc said.

‘Then he’ll work on you both,’ said Bel of Cuthilgurdy calmly. ‘And despite your misdoubts, he has gone on to sail south. Can he be intent on more gold? Or is he a crusading son of the kirk after all?’

‘I don’t know,’ Godscalc said. ‘Perhaps gold makes men dizzy, like wine. The very ship seems to sing.’

‘Do you say?’ said Mistress Bel. ‘Nothing vulgar, I hope.’

Through a day and a night, the
San Niccolò
danced her way south, and her light heart was not wholly due, Godscalc perceived, to the treasure. The ship had become a community: one already half formed before the disruptive advent of the slaves, and now welded close by their fortunes. Moving among the faces he and Bel and Loppe now knew so well Godscalc guessed that, laden with gold, they would have shown themselves readier to turn and go home than to go on. But they had regard for their master, and seemed to think that there might be other chances, now their lucky young patron was back. The slaves would have been kept to sell for good money if Niccolino’d been there, the word went. The name Ochoa had used in the Bay of Tanit had stuck.

Nicholas worked to make them his, too. He had the name and history of every man, and not only Melchiorre and Vito and Manoli who had sailed with him on his galley to Lagos. He cultivated the first mate, Jorge’s lieutenant Vicente, and he took trouble with the boys: the active, insolent, well-beaten Lázaro, who was enough of a thug to be a natural seaman, and the causelessly insolent Filipe, who was not.

He had asked Bel, in Godscalc’s hearing, not to protect Filipe when he was punished, but to let him deal with it himself, and Bel had agreed without arguing. Godscalc wondered if Nicholas had found out about the two boys and the blacks; he was bitterly unsure if it was right to conceal it. He dreamed of the baby rising to the rim of each wave like a butterfly.

Jorge, he supposed, had not really forgiven them for failing to keep their human merchandise. There were still six Negroes on board: all white-capped and shirted Mandinguas, and all free to rove the ship as they pleased, since they could understand what Loppe told them. Slighter in build and less talkative than the Jalofos, they were both quick and observant, as Godscalc found when he, too, tried to communicate with them. The natural leader, a tranquil man of about thirty-five with a fringe of a beard, knew Arabic and somewhere had picked up a few phrases of Portuguese, to which he was adding daily. In the absence of Loppe, it was Saloum who now helped to interpret. Their fellows who had leaped overboard had probably been as able and amiable as these, Godscalc thought, before they were captured. Only there had been no words to deal with their fear.

They had put the others ashore at the Senagana, but had said nothing of them to King Zughalin, for he would have set out to trap them again, and sell them cheerfully to the next comer. Godscalc had learned that tribes at war saw nothing wrong in seizing their rivals. Kings did little, either, to prevent parents within their own lands from selling the odd child, like Tati, although the loss of young, active boys would, he suspected, be frowned on. It was one of the hidden flaws in Loppe’s programme. These people could not afford to lose the flower of their kindred; not unless they came back.

It had become the custom since Funchal for those who were not of the crew to gather just before noon at the
bitácula
on the poop deck, to see the pin set in the compass-card and to wait until the cry came that meant the shadow had moved to the fleur-de-lys point of the north. Then the binnacle’s Venetian hour-glass would be lifted by Filipe or Lázaro and turned, as it was every half-hour, day and night, and the comparison made which would show how far east or west the ship might be sailing. At every stop they had made, the
balestilha
had been taken on shore – the cross-staff that ships carried in place of the heavy astrolabe used on land – and Godscalc had seen the creased charts and the worn tables written at Lagos with their lists of daily solar altitudes.

It did not surprise him that Nicholas was always present and active in matters of navigation. Numbers were his tools. It did
surprise him to notice how much Gelis had mastered during a journey which had, after all, been made largely on the extraordinary roundship of Ochoa de Marchena. He had assumed, he saw wrongly, that a young woman of birth would have spent such a voyage modestly in her cabin below. It had already struck him to wonder what she had done during the engagement between the
Ghost
and the
Fortado
, but she had said nothing of it herself and Bel, consulted, had told him to mind his own business. That, at least, was what he thought that she said, and he always took Bel’s advice concerning Gelis.

In any case, navigation mattered, whether they were out of sight of land, as they had been, or whether as now they were sailing down a treacherous coast invisible to them by night, and distorted through dust-clouds by day. The eighty feet of the
San Niccolò
pitched through the ocean, sailing wide, the set of her sails hardly altering, but the lead dipped and dipped from her side while the knots of the log told her speed.

From the poop deck, there was little to see. The coast they were passing was featureless still: a ribbon of low dunes and hillocks and bushes which became greener as the second day progressed, with a line of trees visible above the distant beaches, and the white of surf on low reefs, and a glimpse of mangrove islands, now seeming near and now far in the haze.

Early that morning they had passed the basalt cliff, fifty feet high, which marked, Jorge said, the western limit of Guinea, along with the green point called Cape Verde. After that, their course turned south-south-east, as did that of the
Fortado
, when she could be glimpsed. Having raised her, Jorge da Silves was quite content to keep his distance, hurrying when she hurried, but making no attempt to gain ground. Except in the matter of slaves, he seemed quite in accord with his patron’s intentions.

Diniz, joining Godscalc under the pavilion of the poop, was happier trying to prove Nicholas wrong. ‘What would you do if you were the
Fortado
, and having to report back to David de Salmeton? I’ll tell you. You’d get to the Gambia quickly. You’d unload the arms as well as the legitimate cargo. You’d take on everything you can buy – including slaves, I shouldn’t wonder. And then you’d arrange a warm welcome for the
Niccolò.
’

He sounded unaffectedly happy, visualising it. Also he smelt of horses again. Of the twenty-five they had brought, they had kept five for themselves. He added wisely, ‘No one would know. We’d simply appear to have sunk with all hands in some accident. If I were Nicholas, I’d have hurried and wrecked the
Fortado
instead.’

‘Did you mention this to Nicholas?’ Godscalc said. He moved
away from the helm and the master, and leaned on the rail looking aft. Diniz followed him.

‘He says the
Fortado
won’t invite battle, because she wants to load and get her cargo home safely. He says she has nothing to gain since we’re practically empty. I say that Crackbene and Doria can’t afford to let him off. Think what he’s done to them!’ His dark, narrow face glowed.

‘I suppose,’ Godscalc said, ‘it depends on how successful they are in the Gambia. The smiting of Nicholas might seem less compelling than a quick exit with a mountain of gold.’

‘Except that they won’t find much gold, according to Jorge,’ Diniz said. ‘Gum and pepper and cotton, perhaps. But when the Senagana has gold to sell, the Gambia doesn’t.’

‘You mean it comes from the same mines?’ Godscalc said. ‘But perhaps Doria knows how to obtain it at source.’

‘No,’ Diniz said. ‘Even Diogo Gomes didn’t know that. They keep it secret.’

‘Who?’

‘The heathens who mine it. They dig holes, and send their women down them with feathers.’

It sounded like a joke. Godscalc was in no mood for jokes. He said, ‘Where did this nonsense come from?’

Diniz, as he usually did, kept his good manners. ‘The classical writers spoke of it. All the navigators were told about it at Sagres. The Carthaginians came here for their gold: Herodotus wrote about it fifteen hundred years ago. The silent trade, it was called. No one ever saw who the miners were. No one knows, even yet.’

‘Then how do they sell?’ Godscalc said.

‘You are telling him about the silent trade?’ said Jorge da Silves, joining them unexpectedly. ‘It has been done the same way for hundreds of years. The traders pile their goods on the banks of a river, each pile named for its owner, with a hollow of a certain size made beside it. Then they make a smoke signal, and go back to their boats. When they return, they find no people, but the hollows filled or part-filled with gold. If the gold is sufficient it is taken, and the salt – it is always salt – left for the miners. If not, they retreat again to their boats, upon which the amount of gold is increased. The trade depends on absolute honesty: this timid race, who are never seen, make no effort to make off with the salt until the gold has been removed.’

Diniz said, ‘Of course, you know the story as well.’

‘Of course,’ said Jorge da Silves. ‘And so, naturally, does Senhor Niccolò.’

‘And the
Fortado
,’ said Father Godscalc.

‘Yes,’ said Jorge da Silves. ‘It is one reason why it is advisable to keep that vessel in sight. We trust she will do her business and turn, but the season is early. She may decide to linger, hoping for more. She may decide to find more for herself. And that is why it is better, Senhor Diniz, to have her ahead rather than following us.’

‘I don’t understand,’ said Father Godscalc.

‘Because, padre,’ said Jorge da Silves, ‘they may think that your Lopez has been persuaded to give up the secret.’

On shipboard, the second gathering of the day was at sunset – or perhaps the first, since that was when the new day was deemed to begin. Then the steam rose from the cooking-pots, and dishes of eggs would go round, and maize bread to dip in the stew, and a pail full of oysters, with all the usual hilarity directed at Bel who, in return, would explode like a good-humoured missile. After supper the air became cold and all but those serving the ship turn by turn through the night withdrew behind doors, or between decks, and soon slept.

Until that time, it was hard to find privacy, and what Godscalc wished to say to Nicholas was not for other ears – even those few who understood Flemish. He waited, therefore, until the ship was quiet and the after-deck empty but for Fernão standing stolidly at the helm with one of the boys in attendance.

Nicholas, in fact, elected to climb to the tiller before him, alarming Filipe and causing Loppe, who had been standing unseen in the shadows, to step into Godscalc’s view. Godscalc hung back. He was therefore in the uncomfortable position of hearing Loppe move forward and address Nicholas by name from below.

Nicholas turned, his hair flickering in the light from the binnacle. Loppe said, ‘You don’t want me?’ in Flemish. The helmsman and the boy were both watching.

Nicholas said, ‘Come up.’

Loppe ran up the steps, his skin black on black, and only the vast leather jacket he wore dimly visible. He said, ‘You think I am so easily influenced? There is no need to avoid me.’ He smiled at the helmsman, who smiled back.

‘I suppose not,’ Nicholas said. ‘You are all sons of Adam, as we are.’

Loppe laughed, the sound rumbling softly in his deep chest. He said, ‘Oh, the bitterness! Very well. But I beg to share your apple as well as have you stung by my serpent. I shall not hold it against you if you smile.’

Nicholas stared at him. He said, ‘Jesus son of David, I am preserving your sensibilities, you interfering bloman.’

‘And when the time comes, I shall do whatever I choose. Does that annoy you as much as I hope?’

‘Hosanna to thee, suffering Africa,’ Nicholas said. ‘I don’t know why I listen to you. Especially as someone else seems to be listening too. Behind you. Oh. Father Godscalc?’

‘As you unfortunately see,’ Godscalc said. ‘I was on my way to talk to you also. Probably on the same subject.’

There was a little silence. Then, ‘Oh dear,’ Nicholas said. ‘The two ladies ought to be here; they are extremely adept at exploiting this vein. I assume it is the same vein? The Sun and I alone know the boy is beautiful?’

‘Nicholas?’ said Loppe. ‘You won’t divert him that way.’

‘What do you want me to do, then?’ Nicholas said.

‘Why not tell me the truth?’ Godscalc said. ‘What has Loppe promised to do?’

Nicholas said very slowly, ‘Loppe is not required to make promises. And I don’t exact them.’ In the bows of the ship, someone suddenly screamed.

Nicholas gripped the rail. A whistle blew. A man shouted, and then several others, and there came a pounding of feet and the voice of Vicente, yelling commands to the helmsman, to the mariners, to his deputy. The sheets of the mainsail flew free and the trumpet started to stutter and blare, summoning the full crew from below. Men ran forward, poles in their hands; the lead splashed and splashed in wider casts, and the mizzen also spilled its wind suddenly. A great shudder ran all through the ship, and a jolt that threw Godscalc to the deck, followed by another. He saw Jorge da Silves running towards him, and stagger as the ship lurched again. There came a squealing of timber.

‘A reef,’ Nicholas said. ‘Not a sandbank, a reef. How could there be one in this place?’

The helmsman turned, livid with shock. The two boats, bobbing behind, had men and cable in them already, and the capstan was being rigged. The boy Filipe, staggering back, had flung an arm round the mizzenmast. He was whiter than the man, and was whimpering. Nicholas looked at him. Then he looked at the binnacle.

Loppe said, ‘Nicholas, come. We must find out the damage.’

Nicholas said, ‘You did that before.’ He wasn’t speaking to Loppe.

The boy whimpered again, but mixed with the whimper was a wild snigger.

Nicholas said, ‘When she ran aground before. You did that.’