Gemini - Dorothy Dunnett [256]
He had been told not to stay long, but to destroy as many ships as he could, obliterate harbour facilities, and put the fear of God into the local exporters. He had seen the balefires; he knew not to expect sitting ducks; if they had any sense (and it turned out that they had), the shaggy brutes would keep what ships they had close to land, and use their fire power to help hold off landings. He continued over the firth and sank one or two fishing-boats whose crews, he suspected, had been too drunk to notice the signals, and then, while the wind stayed where it was, led the way briskly north to the farther shore of the estuary. There, beginning with Crail, he proceeded to nose like a dog along the string of small ports that lined the river, ending with Kinghorn, which would allow him to turn and drift across directly to Leith, if he got the tide right. He wanted everyone to think he was attacking Leith. He knew he hadn’t the remotest hope of getting into Leith and staying there, or staying anywhere, without an auxiliary army and long-term provisions. That wasn’t the purpose of the exercise.
In fact, it went rather well. Crail produced nothing but sling-shot and shoals, so he veered off; but there was shipping in Pittenweem, and not just fishing-boats. A large, half-unloaded roundship from Danzig floated in the harbour with almost no one on board. Under cover of an exchange of crossbow fire, he got some of his marine soldiers across, threw off the crew, sliced her cables and had her towed out, cutting a swathe through the fishing-boats with a few cannon shot as he left. Of course, a foreign prize would cause endless wrangles between England and the country of origin, which was presumably why the Scots had left the poor ignorant sod in full public glare in Pittenweem. On the other hand, as Howard could have told them, foreign ships would think twice about going to Scotland, unless they had guaranteed safety. As they would have (he could promise them), once Berwick was English again.
Kinghorn was even better, with two ships from Sluys and three quite respectable local boats, all of which he eventually succeeded in taking, losing three or four men and some spars. He was content enough not to land.
By the time all six prizes were crewed and secure, the wine-carrier bobbing among them, the wind was quite strong from the south. He flagged the seven ships which were still at full strength, and led them across the river to Leith, but as he had suspected, the barrage that met him was at least as strong as his own, both from the fortified enclosure they called the King’s Wark, and from the ships lined up in the river. He dismasted one of theirs, but took a ball through his own mainsail before he signalled to leave.
The silly louts cheered as he sailed off. He supposed they couldn’t see the cluster in mid-water: his remaining ships guarding his prizes. In any case, they expected him to sail home. They must be watching amazed, as instead he turned the opposite way, and led upriver, on the flood, to the port they called Blackness.
‘I MUST SAY,’ Julius said, ‘Nicholas is good at reading the English maritime mind. Did he catch Preston’s ship? Where is he?’
‘At a rough guess, on the other side of the island of May,’ Gelis said. She wondered whether to tell him,