Scales of Gold - Dorothy Dunnett [106]
The Ghost, of course, was not an authorised trader, but the factor was amenable, it seemed, to persuasion. It was not an issue that Godscalc felt entitled to worry about. He was not even greatly disturbed when Jorge da Silves pointed out that so long as the naval vessel remained, the outcast Ghost, when she arrived, could neither trade, nor should she come near the Niccolò. It seemed merely unfortunate that they were not to see Nicholas.
It would have eased Godscalc’s mind, certainly, to wait for the Ghost’s safe arrival, but meanwhile he found intense interest in observing the passage of the caravel through the gulf’s thready channel, and agreed with alacrity when the master proposed that he should accompany the first boats on shore. ‘Because,’ said Jorge da Silves, ‘the nuisance of it is, that we shall have to carry the blacks.’
The word hung between them. It was a moment Godscalc would not forget; the moment that confirmed all his darkest fears of this voyage. From the day she had loaded her horses at Sanlúcar, the Ghost had meant to exchange them for slaves. Nicholas had not refuted it; only he, Godscalc, could not believe it of him. Jorge da Silves had denied it the other day with easy casuistry, knowing that it was the Ghost and not he who would handle them.
They had not meant to involve Godscalc himself. Perhaps they had hoped to load their living cargo in darkness … But no. Why should they trouble? It was a valid trade: they were not ashamed of it. And in any case, Loppe had to help them. That was why Loppe was here. That was the sin for which he, Godscalc, couldn’t forgive Nicholas.
He, a priest, knew what slavery was. The Church had its own bondsmen; the law allowed a man to sell himself or others for debt. He understood that nations at war made slaves of their captives in place of slaughtering them. It had happened when the Turks had attacked Trebizond. Nicholas had come to him at Trebizond and placed his dilemma, and himself, in his hands.
His advice had been to leave. Nicholas had taken that advice, and knew what had followed. Was that why he was doing this? To flout, to punish him? But Byzantines – all Oriental nations – also used slaves: for the house, for the fields. The Crusaders had done, and the Jews. Christians had made slaves of barbarians, and the other way round. Many lived better, in the end, than at home. The Muslim world sold off their captives; the Church bought back what Christians it could. But the Muslim world also elevated them. Turks trained up alien children to become the elite of their army; captured children ruled Egypt as Mamelukes. Portugal, depleted by plague and by warfare, had welcomed the first frightened Negroes captured from Guinea; found them intelligent, biddable; had trained them, freed them, sent for more.
But now they were not acquired as prisoners of war. They were bought, seven hundred a year, as goods from middlemen who stole them from their villages. True, they would learn a civilised tongue; be baptised; earn their salvation. Their lives would not be hard. But what of the great, dark, barbarian land they came from? How could you bring a people to Christ while stealing their children?
So, thunderstruck on the deck of the Niccolò, Father Godscalc of Cologne seized the master of the ship by the collar and the arm, there before all his own men, and said, ‘I will have no men purchased with coin and brought aboard this ship against their will. Swear that you will leave them.’ And because rage gave him power, and he was a vigorous man accustomed to battlefields, he felt Jorge da Silves quiver before he stiffened and said, ‘The sun has harmed you, padre. There are men all about.’
‘But you and I are here,’ said Father Godscalc. ‘And I want a promise.’
Then Jorge da Silves took hold of himself and said, ‘It is easily given, but it is not the promise you want. If I leave them, the next