To Lie with Lions (51 page)

He had said as much earlier to Moriz, who had stared at him with disbelief. ‘Martin’s ship belongs to Adorne! How could he wish to harm the young people!’

And he remembered his answer. ‘Martin won’t fire a gun against Adorne’s niece or his nephew. That’s Benecke’s privilege.’

Benecke had several options, when one gave it some thought. He could challenge the
Svipa
to surrender and use his own guns to beat down and board it. Or if unwilling to damage his ship, he might man and send in the
Unicorn
. Or he might land the crew from the
Unicorn
and attack the
Svipa
from both ships at once. Nicholas wished he knew more about Benecke.

Then had come Yuri’s prediction of snow. Ravens and Yuri knew when snow was coming. So did other men, advising the
Maiden
. ‘So think of Benecke,’ Nicholas had said. ‘We all know snow is coming, then darkness. Benecke doesn’t know me, but he knows Michael Crackbene. Mick, what does he know? That you wouldn’t give up. That you came up to Iceland last year and probably delivered that boat against stockfish. Would you go home without collecting the fish?’

‘You might,’ Mick Crackbene had said. ‘He doesn’t know you. Neither really does Martin. They might think you would reconsider the risk to your Bank and cut your losses.’

There had been a silence, indicating that a number of others thought the same. John had been grinning.

‘On the other hand,’ Crackbene added, ‘he used to know Ochoa de Marchena.’

Ochoa de Marchena, now invisible, had once been entrusted with a cargo of African gold belonging to Nicholas. Ten minutes alone with Ochoa would tell Paúel exactly what Nicholas was capable of. When that snow fell, Paúel would know the
Svipa
wasn’t going to flee, or abandon its fishing, or give up its feud with the
Unicorn
. The column of black smoke, thin against the grey sky and white snow of the land, caught his eye at that point. He had said, ‘I don’t suppose any other useful augurs have appeared that might be convenient? An opening of the Crapault d’Enfer?’

‘You never know,’ Crackbene had said. ‘But the reverse of hellfire seems to be likelier. Frozen pack ice all the way over to Greenland; foxes and bears coming ashore; snow in March. They say the hot springs have increased, which means something is boiling up somewhere, but I don’t think the sea will divide. Plan for snow. Benecke will. Benecke will stay till it lifts, confident that you’re not going to run. Then he’ll come for you.’

It had been good advice. That was when he had sent out to find Glímu-Sveinn.

Chapter 24

T
HE SNOW FELL
for two hours, as any Muscovite could have predicted. And, in the icy seas off the Westmann Islands of Thule, three well-found vessels each sought to make use of it.

On the
Svipa
, the work was already done: the weapons and cannon and armour prepared; the grappling irons laid out; the instructions given. When Nicholas gave the order to stand down and eat, he made sure that the food was the best they had left, and that there was enough ale to lift the heart without drowning it. Robin, torn between worry and ecstasy, obeyed his commands in a dream, and excitement sparkled like lightning in summer.

On the
Pruss Maiden
, men ate as they worked, but bore no grudge, because the Danziger had made them rich men, and they were going to be richer. The
Unicorn
, empty, would have recouped all the cost of the voyage. But it had proved to yield much more than that: an international broker to ransom, and a man who, on courteous questioning, had proved to come, would you believe it, from Cologne. But better even than that was the cargo, the surprising high-quality cargo lodged among all the barrel staves and the salt, and now being deftly transferred to the
Maiden
.

The
Unicorn
had been proposing to trade. The absence of stockfish must fairly have sickened them. The men chattered and laughed as they worked, and swore that Paúel Benecke was the best man off dry land.

Paúel Benecke, a jug of beer to his hand, sat apart in his room with his lodesman and studied the drawings before him. Stanislas, an old colleague, dared to speak. ‘You say he will stay, like a child, to confront you. With what? He is half your size. He did not take the
Unicorn
. We did.’

Benecke spoke without looking up. ‘He has cannon.’

‘There is no sign of them.’

‘Of course he has cannon. He would have left three days ago if he hadn’t. And a bigger crew than we think. He is equipped, as we are, for taking prizes.’

‘He didn’t know we should be here.’

‘No. He came intending to fight with the broker. You heard the man Martin. I think de Fleury still wants to capture the
Unicorn
. That is the other reason he stayed.’

‘And to find the stockfish,’ Stanislas said.

Paúel Benecke let the map close. ‘Great Christ, the man has the stockfish already. Did you not hear the Icelanders talking? They call him Nikolás-riddari, the Knight Nicholas, as if he were a talisman of some sort. That is why, before it is night, we must take him.’

‘If the snow stops,’ the pilot observed, and was quiet. He knew the shipmaster Paúel of old. A brutal, dedicated privateer while at sea, and a dilettante owning farms, castles, women at home. Many mercenaries – the Count of Urbino for one – behaved so, despising their underlings. Stanislas admired his employer, and didn’t give much for the chances of Nikolás-riddari.

On the
Unicorn
, even the prisoners were asleep.

There was no need to be vigilant. Just before the snow fell, the last of the boxes and bales had been hoisted across to the
Maiden
, and the skeleton crew had come on board, after which the grappling irons had gone, and the two ships had anchored apart. Enclosed in its circle of snow, the captive ship might have been quite alone; none, it: was sure, could interfere with it; and its new crew, leaving a watch, were thankful to huddle under whitening awnings close by the fokkedeck, while her master and mates were lodged in the broad poop.

Lying trussed below in the hold, Martin of the Vatachino listened to his fellows complaining, and wished he could watch what Benecke was going to do when the snow ceased. Indeed, he would like to have helped him. The ship swayed to the west-going current. The wind, gusting along her high sides, caused her gear to rattle and knock, and the slap of the waves vibrated through the rubbish-strewn void below decks. Their voices boomed. It pleased Martin to think that if he survived, de Fleury would soon be in equal discomfort – perhaps on the
Maiden
, perhaps in this same windowless prison. It would be dark in three or four hours. Benecke would want to storm and take the
Svipa
before then.

Although a far-travelled man, Martin had little interest in maritime matters: the crew worked for the merchant, not the other way round. When the water-sounds from the keel became louder, he thought at
first that the tide must have turned. Then he remembered that this could not be so: the ebb was not due to begin until darkness. It was some moments later that he, and all those with him, realised that their vessel was actually in motion. Mogens Björnsen the Faroese began to shout something, while Martin lay and attempted to think.

They were not going to sea. That would have been preceded by the stamping of feet overhead, the chant of the marines and the squeal and creak of the winches. They were not going to sea; they were simply changing their present anchorage. The snow must have stopped, and Benecke was moving forward to confront the
Svipa
. And to help with his capture, the damned Danziger was taking the
Unicorn
with him.

Mogens the Faroese was still shouting. Martin gritted his teeth and shouted back. ‘They must be bringing us into the fighting.’ The noise of turbulent sea was increasing: he could hear a distinct chuckle and flow, as if the water were under his elbow.

His elbow was wet. His padded tunic was wet. He was reclining in a vigorous small stream of liquid. Martin sat up. Crashing and rolling, the bound form of his pilot thumped against him. ‘I said,’ said Mogens loudly, ‘we’re running in front of the wind. We’ve broken loose from our anchors. Shout! Shout!’

‘We’re leaking!’ Martin said. Around him, men had started to bellow.

‘We’ll leak a lot more when we land on the rocks. Rouse the bastards! Hey! Hey!’ Mogens shrieked.

Martin’s heart started to thud. ‘Don’t they see?’

‘It’s still snowing, for sure. We’ll crash, and they won’t even notice. Bang your heels! Yell!’

‘How long have we?’ Martin said.

‘With a north-east gale at our backs, and in the height of a west-going current? Minutes,’ said Mogens Björnsen. ‘Yell!’

The snow started to wane. Nicholas said, ‘Stations, everybody. Get ready. It’s happening.’

The crew on the
Maiden
, avarice lending them speed, had finished their stowing, eaten, and were proceeding to arm for assault when the message came from the after-deck: to go to positions, and wait. The snow-veil was lifting. Animadverting upon the distant, cowering form of the
Svipa
, no one immediately thought to check on their first prize, the
Unicorn
. It was left to Benecke to discern, through the swirl of the flakes, that there appeared to be nothing but sea between himself and the clifftops of Bjarnarey. For a moment he thought the damned ship had gone.

It couldn’t have; he knew that. The prisoners could not have burst free. No one could have sailed in the snow. And, staring breathlessly from the height of the mast, he saw that of course he was right. The captive crew of the
Unicorn
hadn’t sailed his prize anywhere. It was the ship itself that was loose, and was now running, lurching and yawing towards the jagged rocks of the holm. His eye told him that it had not dragged its anchors: it was moving too fast and too wildly for that. The bloody ship had no anchors at all.

He dropped to the deck, shouting orders, his eyes on the runaway vessel. Its decks were full now of men. Someone threw out a kedge, then another. The steps came down, and the skiff came alongside: they had only one boat, he remembered. If they were wise, they would tumble into it all the men and the weights they could spare and tow it behind as a drogue. All around him, his own men were running, manning the helm and the capstan, preparing to break out a sail. At his ship’s side, the two pinnaces were drawn in and bouncing, awaiting their crew and himself. The
Maiden
couldn’t move fast enough to do any good, but the skiffs might get there in time, or at least would help to save what could be redeemed. He raced to the steps.

He didn’t go down, for there was nothing to go to. The waves, the cold green waves were buttoned with the dark heads of men, and the boats were two shivering nests of loose planking which disintegrated, as he watched, into single crescents of timber, undulating out of his sight.

Paúel Benecke said, ‘Pick up these men. Navigator, a course as close to the ship as you can. If they fend off a strike, we may save her. If not, we take back our own men and the broker. Are they towing the boat?’ The skies, leaden with wind, were losing all light. It was half an hour to full darkness; forty minutes before the ebb started to run, with all the harm that might do to the
Unicorn
. He saw that no one had answered his question because it had answered itself. As the
Unicorn
sped to destruction, it dragged no laden pinnace to brake it; only a starfish of dismantled timber spreading out on the sea at its side, and scoured by the disorganised flap of its rudder. As he watched, the
Unicorn
struck.

You would think the crash of it jarred through the
Maiden
, the way that silence fell, if you could have silence in a fast-sailing ship with a big working crew in full action. Then they all looked at him.

Nails.

Paúel Benecke knew what had happened, as if he had been watching it all. As if he had been able to pierce the ill-timed, monstrous screen of the snowstorm and set eyes on the nodding hoods, the claw
hammers, the shears; the small busy cod-boats like corks, mobbing the flanks of the
Unicorn
and withdrawing what held it together. He knew that somewhere on shore, carefully pouched, every nail from these three boats was sitting. The anchor-cables hung shorn; the anchors were marked, no doubt, for easy retrieval. Everything of iron had gone, even to the hinges on the
Unicorn’s
rudder.

And at last he realised why it had happened, and why he should have heeded the boasts of Ochoa. The crash of the
Unicorn
, still in his ears, had coincided with another crash from behind. At his side, catching his eye, a cascade in the sea was descending. He spun round then, as did they all, and looked into the confident guns of the
Svipa
.

Nikolás-riddari. Amid the rattle of orders, standing firm, as he spoke, to be armed, Paúel Benecke found himself moved to a grudging delight.

Nicholas said, ‘Well, John. The mainmast, if you please, and then the mizzen. Boatmen ready. Hackbutters ready. Grappling hooks ready. Mick, you have the helm. Father Moriz?’

‘It is unethical,’ said the voice of Father Moriz from halfway up the mast.

‘It will save lives,’ Nicholas said. ‘You’re the only one who can do it. Do it.’ Beside him on the crowded foredeck the fuses burned and the cans stood ranked with their powder. It appeared a little less orderly on the
Maiden
where someone stood, fully armed on the after-deck. A thin man, of about his own height. Paúel Benecke, for sure. Paúel Benecke, one hoped, in a towering temper.

Nicholas smiled, and put back his helm, and lifted the speaking-trumpet.

Temper was an indulgence of fools: Paúel Benecke had never been known to lose his. When the
Svipa
failed to fire off its guns, he put it down to mishap or mismanagement, and ordered a cannonade of his own. It should have been simple. Both ships were still sailing west by south-west, the space between them too small for comfort; the space between himself and the cliffs even smaller. A shot from each of his guns should resolve it. And so it might, had each gun not worked loose from its swivel plate. Because, they found, its nails had all vanished.