Scales of Gold - Dorothy Dunnett [105]
‘The sailing-master’s in a right stew,’ advised Bel. ‘The blue caravel’s chasing behind, and we’ve to get to the markets afore it. That’s why they’re taking the triangles down and putting up tablecloths. And biscuit and salt beef again: we’re not to stop and buy at the Canaries. I wanted to stop and buy at the Canaries.’
As Nicholas had learned to do, Godscalc listened. Biscuits and salt beef: they were short of food, then, but not of water. And the Fortado was coming. He knew, now, what the Fortado represented. On the surface, a Portuguese caravel on its way to Guinea with a licence to trade. In fact, a caravel propelled by the mercantile might of the Lomellini; the ill-will of the Vatachino; the single-minded venom of Simon, whose recent actions had lost him the goodwill of his sister-in-law.
Godscalc said, ‘Mistress Bel? Why did you come back on board?’
‘I’ve told you,’ she said. ‘I wanted to buy a canary. And of course, if the laddie Diniz gets himself on to the Ghost, so will Gelis. She doesna trust him with your Nicholas.’
‘Do you?’ Godscalc had said.
She was helping him at the time with the seaman-cook’s blistered forearm. Since her excursion into the nursing of Filipe (on board again, and pallid, and sullen) she had been presented with a gashed hand, a broken toe and an aching tooth by a crew who preferred her cantankerous care to the chaplain’s. She said, ‘No, I wouldna trust anyone with your Nicholas, but she hasna had the chance to trip him up yet. First things first.’
‘Meaning, first target the Fortado?’ said Godscalc. The cook, departing, was blessing her. ‘You stunned de Salmeton so that the Ghost could escape and find a way to impede the Fortado?’
‘It would be handy,’ said Bel. ‘I’m sure Gelis thought it would be handy. And she didn’t even know your Nicholas would be on the Ghost at the time.’
His anchor, but not an unmixed blessing.
Between Funchal and Arguim, by contrast, Father Godscalc saw little of the third member of his party. The adult crew, having found Loppe far from simple, had placed him in a familiar category: that of the able, trained Negro with whom they could be amiable without being intimate. The youngsters Lázaro and Filipe, once more confederates, thought it good sport to try and goad a black man wearing hose like a westerner. Godscalc, seeing that Loppe took it calmly, left him to himself. It took some restraint. Loppe would know if Nicholas intended to bring Diniz with him. Loppe, he noticed, scanned the ocean as intently as anyone, watching for following sails: a blue caravel, with a red roundship in pursuit of her. But the Negro volunteered nothing, and the padre refrained from testing his loyalty. In one respect, Godscalc was comforted. He had asked Jorge da Silves point blank if he intended to buy slaves at Arguim. And Jorge da Silves had said he did not.
When Arguim Bay began to appear, and still they were alone, with no sign of the Ghost or the Fortado, the prearranged plan came into effect. They were to enter and trade in the gulf, with Melchiorre, the second mate, acting as Nicholas.
It was hard not to feel fierce excitement, up until the moment they saw the patrol boat at anchor. They were about to set foot on strange shores; achieve the first stage of their mission; replenish their meagre provisions. In return for a thousand ducats of goods – cloth and carpets; alum and salt; shaving basins and pots – they would take whatever lay in the stone and mud warehouses they could see on the shore: precious white pepper and gold