Scales of Gold (29 page)

‘I didn’t mean to kill any of them,’ Nicholas said. ‘It was Ochoa’s idea.’

He turned his eyes from the flushed face of Diniz to the girl. Her hair ruffled, her hood fallen back, she looked as composed as a tall marble caryatid, undisturbed by battle or gunfire, far less her recent feminine company. She said, ‘From what you say, it was just as well he conceived it. There was a man on the
Fortado
who knew you both?’

‘He may not have seen us,’ said Nicholas. ‘In any case –’

‘He’s probably dead,’ Diniz repeated. The bandage-end, not yet neatened, hung rakishly over one cheek in a style reminiscent of one of Ochoa de Marchena’s confections.

Nicholas said, ‘In the name of hell, what has come over you? You were excessively lofty about the Lalaing brothers calling out Arabs in Ceuta, but you don’t seem to have many qualms about Christians.’

Diniz said, ‘I suppose the Genoese in Famagusta weren’t Christians!’ Then he sucked in his breath.

Nicholas swore. Gelis said, ‘How exciting. I can’t remember when I last debated religion. I think Diniz is right.’

Diniz said, ‘I shouldn’t have spoken.’

‘Why not?’ said Gelis van Borselen. ‘We mustn’t lose sight of the wider issues. Involuntary martyrdom of its nature is sad, but consider the souls you will proceed to encounter and save, now this man and his friends can’t denounce you.’

‘They can’t anyway,’ Nicholas said. ‘Even if they speak from their coffins. There is no way they can get to Arguim before us. Can I finish that for you?’

She had begun to tie the end of the bandage, forcing Diniz’ glowering face down. She turned her head from left to right slowly. Diniz said, ‘If we hadn’t fired first, they’d have killed us.’

He wasn’t speaking to Gelis. ‘Ah,’ said Gelis none the less. ‘Ah, but they might have fired over our heads. I’m sure that’s what Nicholas has in mind. You don’t mind if I call you Nicholas, Claes? Or Nikko, perhaps?’

‘You needn’t call me anything,’ Nicholas said, ‘after Arguim. May I tell you both what is going to happen there? We three transfer by boat from the
Ghost
to the
Niccolò
, so that it appears we’ve been there all the time. The
Ghost
has no permit to sell, but the Portuguese factor is greedy for horses. The
Niccolò
will even offer to help with the paperwork. Meanwhile the demoiselle packs, takes her companion and lands. The trading-post is quite large, and the factor’s wife will be happy to entertain two charming ladies and set them aboard the next ship for Madeira.’ He finished on a reasonable note. In fact, he didn’t care how he finished.

Gelis had completed her task. The circlet of linen was tied in a chic lovers’ knot. She picked up the bowl and held it on her splashed skirts. ‘Oh dear,’ she said. ‘I mustn’t kill anybody? And Diniz has to go back as well?’

Diniz said, ‘No, of course I’m going on. But he’s right. You must go, and Bel. It’s far too dangerous.’

‘What a discovery,’ Gelis said. ‘You made a promise at Ponta do Sol. You don’t go unless I come with you.’

She raised her brows at the boy. The boy glanced at Nicholas who, steadied by the negligent arm over his head, continued to sway with his eyes almost shut. Diniz said, ‘Then I take it back. I don’t need protecting from him. I thought you’d have seen that by now. And I thought he’d get rid of you, anyway.’

‘You thought he could get rid of me?’ Gelis said. ‘May God in His mercy give me patience. He can barely get his ship to obey him, never mind anything else. Of course I shan’t go. And Bel had better stay on board, we may need her. Tell me, Nikko …’

‘No,’ said Nicholas.

‘Claes? Tell me, Claes, how you expect to go on? Certainly, you will beat the
Fortado
to Arguim, but since she has not unhappily sunk, she will surely hunt this ship south and impeach her?’

‘Impeach the
Ghost?
’ Nicholas said. ‘You haven’t seen what we’ve done. Come and look at her.’ He was far from at ease in her company, but his arm had grown numb, and the bench she occupied was his bed.

She made no demur. They walked, leaving Diniz, the length of the deck. The lamps had been lit. The false erections were already half down, and the guns cleaned, cooled and covered. Fulfilling his hopes, the men sniggered and called as she passed, saying nothing. The bawds were all out of sight.

He took her to the side – the side which, throughout, had faced the
Fortado
. Firmly pegged and smoothed from long practice, a length of sailcloth covered her strakes from bow to stern and down to the waterline. Seen at night; seen even over the water by lamplight, the roundship appeared painted white; appeared to be without flag or name, and with few of the characteristics of either the
Ghost
or her shell the
Doria
.

Rolling with the ship, the master approached them. Nicholas said, ‘That’s why Ochoa couldn’t turn fully and follow. There was only enough cloth for one side. Just as well, you ravening jackal. You might have ruined the game.’

Manifest in clean lilac taffeta, Ochoa gave an agreeable wink. ‘So whatever the mischief, demoiselle, the
Fortado
cannot say it was the fault of our splendid red
Ghost.
’

‘Can’t they?’ Gelis said.

‘She means,’ Nicholas said, ‘that whoever the caravel thought had attacked her, she would still blame the
Ghost.
’

Ochoa de Marchena leaned over and patted the demoiselle’s sleeve. ‘There is acumen. But we, too, have our genius. Yes, the
Ghost
will be accused. Our enemy’s crew will be instructed to report their attacker as red, and of our style and even our name. But a man paid to lie can be paid more to come out with the truth.
And if two such poor men, taken separately, confide to the Portuguese agent that the marauder was really white, and had no name and no flag, and was shaped thus and thus – will the truth not prevail?’

‘The truth?’ said Gelis.

‘In a manner of speaking,’ said Nicholas. ‘Do you know, I think I might go to bed.’

Chapter 15

T
HE DAY AFTER THAT
, the cry of ‘
Tier-ra!
’ came from the masthead, and Nicholas, already on deck, stayed to watch the line between sea and sky darken.

Land. The edge of the desert.

The selfsame cry heard off Madeira had brought him a shock of delight stronger than all his cares at that moment. Off Grand Canary the call, no less thankful, had seemed to promise reunion at last with his caravel, and separation, at last, from his penance.

In both he had been disappointed. The girl was still in his life, like an ulcer.

The dispute had hung in the air for three days, during which Diniz and Gelis van Borselen had to put up with one another at table, and with Nicholas rather less often, since he spent most of his time on the poop deck.

The
Fortado
lay crippled somewhere behind. Somewhere ahead, sailing at a caravel’s speed, was the
San Niccolò
. It would be pleasant to raise her.

Ochoa was soothing. The caravel had had four hours’ start; she had spent more time in easier waters; Jorge was experienced in choosing a course and would not, like the
Ghost
, have had to stop or to deviate. Moreover, the
Niccolò
would be in urgent need of provisions, having loaded nothing since Lagos but some hurried barrels of water at Funchal. They would meet her at Arguim.

Detecting a note of anxiety, Nicholas didn’t argue. The roundship, lunging and hissing, was close to her maximum speed. More canvas would put her bows under.

He had had his blazing row with Ochoa, and had hammered it into his head that so long as he, the patron, was on board, no cannon would fire without his permission. It was not a popular edict. The crew were Ochoa’s, and unused to an employer who meddled. When a man showed too bold a resentment, Ochoa put
him promptly in chains, which was even less popular. The little mice might comply, but in the long run a divided command would impair Ochoa’s authority. It would be as well for Ochoa, also, to get to Arguim quickly.

Nicholas was well aware of the dangers. As the sun increased its heat and the ship, running free, fell into the routine of fair-weather sailing, he kept a light touch in his relations with the upper seamen of the poop, and showed no disposition to check the rough games, the bloody contests, the obscene entertainments the men chose to indulge in. He also kept an unobtrusive eye on his passengers.

The horses were Diniz’ salvation. Cooped up sweating below on a daily diet of hay and a hundred buckets of sorely grudged water, the
Ghost
’s twenty-five valuable Berbers were no longer the fire-eaters who had embarked at Sanlúcar. Their condition was closer to that of the pigs, the goats and the poultry which had also, in logic, become the groom’s charge until eaten. Forking hay and shovelling dung-laden straw, the man was first shocked and then pleased to find the young Portuguese happy to help him.

It suited Diniz, who had been reared on the land. His headache waned; he found the labour undemanding and restful; he began to think the smell of fresh air quite peculiar. Also the man took to him readily, and he was not entirely shunned by the crew, who knew he had been in Ceuta and who had assessed and approved of his shooting. He appeared in the cabin for food, although Gelis recoiled and Nicholas and Ochoa did all the talking. He also liked to stand by himself at the rail, watching the pallid crust of the coast sliding past, separated from him by the heaving blue ocean, so weighty, so endless, so deep.

Diniz was not afraid. He and his father had lived on Madeira. Madeira was on the same ponderous sea. Over there was Cape Bojador,
caput finis Africae
, the spume of whose reefs, seething and flashing with fish, had made mariners think that the sea boiled; that magnetic rocks would dismantle their vessels; that ahead was the brink: the terrible cataract at the end of the world. The man who ventured his life in these waters was clearly deranged, the wise men of the Koran had thought.

Men knew better now. Diniz had seen fishing-boats. There were porpoises in the water and birds he knew in the air. Certainly, as Ochoa set a course nearer land, he saw the sea flush, as if stained by pus or by blood, but this was merely sand, Ochoa explained, spilled and tumbled from the long, clinging, crumbling cliffs. And that very day a haze of light rosy sand brushed the roundship, sifting over the deck and sliding into the folds of men’s shirts, patching their glistening faces and bodies like fawnskins. It lay as
dust on the sea, except where the ship smoothed it clean with her sides, and her wake trailed a gloss in the water. There was no mystery in it.

The best tales, at this time, came from Ochoa, and especially if Gelis were there. He wanted her to remember the great island peak he had steered by; twelve thousand feet high, and named after the fire on its summit. Had they landed there, instead of on Grand Canary, he would have shown her naked savages painted with goat fat and coloured red and yellow and green like a carpet. And merry they were on that island: dancing, laughing and singing all day; for there was fruit to be had for no labour, and every man could fill a field with his wives. ‘And you have never wanted to stay?’ Gelis said.

Diniz thought her unwise in some of the things she said and did now to amuse herself. She would even linger on deck while the men took their ease in the bows, and once, when they were laying coins on the flight of two birds, she joined in, and carried the prize. When she made gift of it back to the common purse they said no direct word to thank her, but made no objection, either, when she wanted to try the next wager.

That time she lost, and soon after left, though still smiling. The next day she did it again, over a match between two fighting crickets. She remained for half a turn of the glass, and took some tentative chaffing, and went. She had only one gown, but kept it neat; and covered her head and shoulders and neck with fresh linen. She was tall, and spoke like a man, but she wasn’t one. There was only one day to Arguim, and if for no other reason, Diniz knew he had to talk somehow to Nicholas.

The chance came that night after supper, when Gelis left table early, and the master and mate were already on deck, having eaten. The sails were being reduced. Forty miles, Ochoa reckoned, lay between the
Ghost
and Cape Blanco that evening, and he had no wish to come across it in darkness; already, he was as close to the shore as was prudent. No, he wanted to raise Blanco by first light. Behind Blanco was the greatest gulf on the coast, twenty miles of it. And ten miles beyond that was Arguim.

Alone with Nicholas at the table, Diniz played with his cloying Madeira, and wondered how to begin. He said, ‘The
Fortado
didn’t catch up.’

‘Did you suppose she would?’ Nicholas said, without looking up. He had come late, and was cutting up meat with precision. Despite an enviable deposit of garments, he inhabited nothing grander on board than hose and shirt and a loose sleeveless pourpoint, although the tags and cords were apt to be gold. His complexion, merely
mellowed by sunlight, was saved from daintiness by the scar on one cheek, in the same way that his size was offset by his bearing, and his unthreatening mien by the range of his voice.

His thatch, tousled with salt, would scarcely bed the round cap he crammed on it and ought to have been cut. It was not cut, Diniz conjectured, because tomorrow in truly commonplace guise Nicholas had to smuggle the three of them aboard the
San Niccolò
, where they were supposed to have been ever since Funchal.

Diniz said, pursuing his point, ‘Ochoa says the
Fortado
should be a whole day behind us.’ He paused, without really expecting any grateful acknowledgement. ‘He says you must expect a few dead in that sort of skirmish. The men wouldn’t have stood for being fired on. It’s true. I’ve been talking to some of them. I tried to explain how you thought.’

‘I heard,’ Nicholas said. ‘Even the horses have become versed in polemics. I notice that Gelis, too, thought we were on the brink of a mutiny.’