Scales of Gold (24 page)

Nicholas had seen it all for himself, shinning barefoot early that morning to the peak of the yardarm, watched by the narrowed eyes of da Silves. Below him, the ship leaned away from the light, the long shadows sliding in rhythm as she shouldered the waves running under her. She had come through her trials: the trials that, but for his haste, should have been conducted off Lagos, with a whole repairyard of craftsmen to support him.

As it was, they had set her to rights as they went. She would sail into the harbour of Funchal with her spars and rudder in order, her sails easy, her trim well-judged, and her crew at the beginning of making a vigorous, if somewhat opinionated team. He wanted her to look well, for he didn’t know what awaited him.

They neared the anchorage just before dusk. For the last hour or two, among all the bustle of refurbishing ship, they all took time to stand on deck beneath the soft, blustering wind from the sails and watch the island appear; the biggest of the archipelago, thirty-five miles in length: a wild, mountainous, uninhabited place less than fifty years since, and now growing to wealth under the rule of its Portuguese captains.

The bay of the southern capital opened up. Nicholas saw a sprinkling of low painted houses on the volcanic slopes behind it,
and the white of a chapel, and a large house, higher up, above which he thought he caught sight of a flagstaff. Low by the shingle he could see the rectangle of a stone customs house from which a boat was putting off, no doubt to lead them to their anchorage.

Jorge da Silves was ready. As the boat threaded towards him, he began to guide the
San Niccolò
to the edge of the swaying flock of fisher-vessels and barges and row-boats that occupied the inner part of the bay, while Nicholas watched.

These were not what interested him. From a long way off, he had seen the masts of two much larger ships, one a roundship and one a caravel like his own. The roundship, for all her peculiarities of shape and her unnatural colour, was one so well known to him that he identified her from her outline alone. The caravel, painted blue, was a stranger, and in spite of the uncertain gusts in the bay, the
San Niccolò
edged past at close enough quarters for him to see the name on her side: the
Fortado
.

‘Have you heard of her?’ It was Godscalc, surprisingly, standing beside him.

Nicholas said, ‘Yes. She’s Portuguese owned, and does a trade in yew bowstaves and sugar. I suspect she brought David de Salmeton from Porto Santo to Funchal.’ The caravel, in the poor light, showed some activity. The roundship, on the other hand, looked almost deserted, as if most of her crew were on shore. Occasionally she gave a small shiver, accompanied by a hollow drumming that carried fitfully over the water. Her topsides were scarlet.

The harbour boat, arriving and amiable, allowed them to drop anchor a judicious distance away from both the roundship and caravel. Godscalc watched the manoeuvre without pleasure. He said, ‘And that, I suppose, is your
Ghost
, with her horses. You still think her reincarnation will pass muster? David de Salmeton must know her as well as Simon – Who is that going ashore?’

‘Diniz,’ Nicholas said. The boy jumped into the harbour boat as he spoke and looked up, his face set in the lamplight. ‘He wished to leave first.… What were you asking? Would de Salmeton recognise the
Ghost
as the
Doria
? Not for sure. He didn’t see her on Cyprus, and has no proof, although he’ll suspect her, of course.’

‘And Simon?’ said Godscalc.

‘If he were to board her, perhaps. But I remind you. Ochoa de Marchena is a pirate. If threatened with boarding, he’ll sail. Are you going below? It is customary to give a supper on deck, and they’ll wish to put up the awnings.’

‘A supper?’ said Godscalc.

‘To celebrate our arrival. And say farewell, of course, to the ladies, whose magnificence we ought to try to match.’ The awnings
lay on deck already, and were being untied with the greatest alacrity.

‘The ladies are going this evening?’ said Godscalc.

‘To stay with the Captain of Funchal. Diniz has gone to arrange it, and then will take horse to his family estate, where they will join him tomorrow. Ponta do Sol, twenty-five miles round the coast to the west.’

‘So he has gone,’ Godscalc said. Nicholas said nothing. He had met the same guarded surprise from Jorge da Silves. Godscalc said, ‘Whom will he find there?’

‘The factor’s family,’ Nicholas said. ‘And perhaps his uncle Simon de St Pol of Kilmirren. In which case anything really might happen.’

Godscalc said, ‘Simon might be in Funchal already.’

‘Yes,’ said Nicholas.

‘And come out forthwith to see you.’

‘Yes,’ said Nicholas. He had stopped at the top of the ladder, because Godscalc had stopped at the bottom.

Godscalc said, ‘You say the
Ghost
can take to her heels. Can the
Niccolò
, if she isn’t provisioned?’

‘Not before I’ve seen Simon,’ said Nicholas. ‘Afterwards – yes, if we have to. That was why I was mean about oranges.’

Whatever else she had on her mind, Gelis van Borselen knew what was required of the guests of honour at a homecoming feast, and especially if the guests were on shipboard, and ladies. Her gowns were all drab, out of mourning for her parents and sister, but she fished out the costliest, and enlivened it with a cat’s cradle of ribbons in her salt-whitened hair and a necklace of corals. Bel of Cuthilgurdy, taking her place at the trestles, was remarkably grand in creased velvet and Filipe, in attendance, was neat and comely if pale. He had already, under Bel’s eye, been marched to make his peace with the big seaman Luis, who tweaked him by the ear and told him he bore him no grudges, while the boy’s eyelids flickered.

By now they knew every man by his name and the men knew well enough how to behave in superior company, although, like effervescence, the success of their landfall kept manifesting itself in raised voices and bursts of quick laughter. The lamps shone on the meat, four days old and still fresh: duck and mutton and pork, and platters of peppered fish steaks, and baskets piled high with soft bread. And when their first hunger had died, the tambourer lifted his drum, and the fifer his pipe, and Gregorio, slipping below, brought his fiddle out, and tuned it, and led into the choruses he had already heard all the way from Ancona. And Nicholas, astride
this bench and that, perched on a table, his arm wound round a shroud, shared sea-going gossip and sea-going jokes while the wine went round without stint under awnings spread like butterfly wings in the bay, frazzled with the glow of ships’ lanterns and within a bowshot of the black mountainous shore, with its powder of lights and the distant sound, like a hush, of its torrents.

He had not parted with Diniz light-heartedly. Their discussion had been hurried and curt – no more than was necessary to establish that, should Simon be found at Ponta do Sol, the
San Niccolò
would wait for his coming.

‘He may not be there,’ Diniz had said. ‘Or want to come.’

‘Then send me word. I can’t wait more than two or three days. And you’ll be busy enough, settling your mother’s affairs. Your uncle will help you.’

You could help me
, said the expression on the boy’s face, but he didn’t say it aloud. Neither did Nicholas reiterate all the things that, under other circumstances, he would have said. ‘Study your property. Analyse the books the way you learned in Nicosia. Weigh up whether you and your uncle can manage. Consider what offers you may get. Remember, the Vatachino are your uncle’s rivals elsewhere; to sell to them would be dangerous. Nevertheless, refuse nothing outright. You want to keep other growers in hope; you don’t want them to join the Vatachino against you.’

As if against his will, Diniz said, ‘What if we can’t run the business ourselves?’

‘You and your uncle? Of course you can,’ Nicholas said.

‘I could have sold it to you,’ Diniz said. ‘But for my grandfather and Simon.’

‘When I’m tired of life,’ Nicholas said, ‘I’ll remember the offer. Don’t sell St Pol & Vasquez to anyone. That would be my advice.’

Diniz had stood, at last, as if unwilling to go. He said, ‘If I were free …’

And Nicholas said, ‘If you owned only the clothes that you stood in, the answer would still be no.’

Lamps ablaze, banners fluttering, noisy with music and laughter, for an hour the
San Niccolò
rocked in the bay, the centre of all attention. Nicholas, clowning his way through some doggerel, saw the knots of men at the rails of the other ships in the harbour; heard the splash of oars as boats returning from shore circled the caravel en route to their mother ships; was aware that other dark boats came and lingered and went. So far, no one had challenged him. He had set a man aloft, just in case.

The chirrup of sound, when it came, was just enough to warn those below who were listening. Nicholas rose, hardly noticed, and
slipped aft. Clear of the hubbub and laughter, he could hear the splash of muffled oars and the half-felt bump that meant a boat had lodged at the base of the ladder. By then, four of his men were at the caravel’s side, their swords drawn. Nicholas joined them, and looked down.

There was no great barge at his feet filled with cuirasses; no coats of arms, or threatening crossbows or hackbuts, and the face he dreaded to see was not present. A ship’s boat lay below him, manned by two pairs of half-naked oarsmen, and rising from its midst was a fellow in a great floating hat, bound to his cranium by hanks of gay ribbons. The head tipped back, revealing the bristled chin, the formless face, the violent bonhomie of a man he had met once before, in strict secrecy, in a room of the villa at Lagos. A man who, of all men, he did not want to see at this moment. Ochoa de Marchena, pirate; Spaniard; master of the resurrected roundship, the
Ghost
, floating somewhere behind in the darkness.

Nicholas said, very sweetly, ‘Go away.’

The unshaven jaw hoisted a red, dismayed lip. ‘Oh, I am disliked. I kill myself. Your signal is read, and my crew is aboard, but I kill myself. Why does Señor Niccolò frown? His guests are surely ashore?’

‘One of them is,’ Nicholas said. ‘Can’t you count? The rest are still here.’

The toothless face lengthened like wax. ‘No food, no wine, no kiss for Ochoa?’

‘It depends,’ Nicholas said. ‘Why don’t you keep watching the flags?’

‘Tonight?’ the man said.

‘Perhaps,’ said Nicholas.

‘Of course,’ said the man. A bubble winked inside his gums. He said, ‘The woman is pretty.’

‘She saw you?’ said Nicholas.

The face below, ploughed by pox-marks and scars, displayed horror. ‘I waved to her. It was only civil. She is of the enemy party? I have exposed myself? Execute me!’ Ochoa de Marchena flung his arms wide, letting go the sides of the ladder and falling backwards through the empty air towards his boat. Two of his crew silently caught him and set him upright in a practised way in the well. ‘What can I do?’ he added, peering from under his hat. He was dressed, Nicholas noticed, in scarlet satin.

‘Go away,’ said Nicholas equably; and watched them do just that. Returned to his feast, he was prepared for questions, but none came. He had to remark at large to the company: ‘The roundship master, presenting his compliments. He wouldn’t come aboard; they have sickness. No sign of the barge for the ladies?’

‘Perhaps,’ said Gelis van Borselen, ‘we should think twice about disembarking. If the
Ghost
has sickness on board, she must have infected all Funchal by now. All her crew were on shore till she recalled them.’

‘I didn’t know –’ Nicholas began, his voice easy.

‘I recognised signals? You should live on a hillside with an excitable widow and nothing to read except the ships in the harbour. You told the
Ghost
to recall them.’

Nicholas smiled. ‘I wish I had that kind of power. I did put up a lantern for water.’

‘They must have very good eyesight,’ she said. ‘I’d have sent that kind of order by Diniz. Jordan de Ribérac leased a roundship called the
Doria
to Portugal. I heard it was stolen from Ceuta.’

‘Was it?’ said Nicholas.

‘While you were away.’

‘In Lisbon,’ said Nicholas.

‘I heard you once claimed it was yours. Is that the same ship?’

‘No, of course not,’ said Nicholas. ‘This is the
Ghost
out of Seville, with a Spanish master who likes ogling ladies. I said you were busy, but if you wish I could ask him back over.’

‘I think you should,’ said Gelis van Borselen. He was trying to think what to say when the whistle blew again. Blew, not chirruped. He drew a deep breath.

Gelis van Borselen continued to view him. He wondered how she kept her eyes from watering. ‘Simon,’ she said. ‘He knows ships. He knows his father’s ship. Let him tell us.’

Chapter 13

T
HIS TIME, THERE WAS
no concealing that something was going to happen. The music died, and the laughter. Nicholas stood, collecting the attention of Gregorio and Father Godscalc and Loppe, all of whom got to their feet and came quietly to join him. One of his men ran towards him. He was smiling.

‘Signor, the viceregal barge for the demoiselle and her attendants. They are loading the boxes. Captain Zarco has sent a gentleman to attend them. Here he is.’

Nicholas had time to feel enormous relief, and astonishment that he had forgotten, and time even to register that whatever he might like to believe, his meeting with Simon was something that occupied most of his thoughts. Then – ‘Here I am,’ said David de Salmeton, walking softly from the head of the ladder and resting his dark, long-lashed gaze on Nicholas. ‘I do believe you’d forgotten me.’

The brilliant light flamed on the jewels that buttoned his doublet, that weighted his fingers, that clasped the cunning drape of his hat below which his hair hung warmly curling, like Zacco’s.

Nicholas didn’t know why now, and not in Lagos, he should be put in mind so suddenly of Cyprus and its King. Compared with the power of Zacco, David de Salmeton was a sinister toy: an ivory figurine possessing the same comeliness but without the fierce, immature courage. Perhaps David de Salmeton had courage. Perhaps maturity
was
courage, but it didn’t wring the heart, as the King’s did. On the other hand, David de Salmeton didn’t come with a mace in his grasp, or a leopard, or a sword with which to cut off a Mameluke’s head for a friend. Or with a lure for a hawk, or a woman.