Scales of Gold - Dorothy Dunnett [112]
‘Behind the hats and the parrots. The crossbow is too heavy,’ Gelis remarked, ‘but if you could get me a light bow, I could use it. Is the handgun as simple as it looks?’
Diniz opened his mouth. Nicholas said, ‘It isn’t difficult. You need a reasonable eye. Would you like Diniz to teach you?’
‘It might be wise,’ the girl said. ‘And anything else he thinks I should know. I can sail. It might come in useful.’
‘In case the blacks come chasing us in their war-canoes?’ Diniz said. ‘They stopped that ten years ago – more. They don’t even shoot poisoned darts, except for their hunting. They’ve got Christians and Muslims among them. Some of them speak Portuguese.’
‘I am quite sure,’ said Gelis, ‘that the tribes are models of civility. It was the vengeance of the Fortado I thought we were fleeing. Till tomorrow then? Unless we are fired on beforehand?’
They watched her leave. Diniz said, with gloom, ‘She’s worse when she’s friendly.’ He didn’t seem to expect a reply.
Chapter 17
THE SECOND NIGHT out of Arguim, the San Niccolò ran aground off the Bay of Tanit, straining her planks and creating panic below, so that one of the black captives broke free and loosed eight others who burst on deck and dived into the water before they could be stopped. The caravel was a mile off shore at the time, and some of the swimmers got halfway there before the breakers or the spears of the fisher-boats stopped them.
It was all the more painful since precautions had been taken. Since losing the first four overboard north of Timiris it had been accepted that – as Jorge da Silves had always insisted – the slaves could not be permitted on deck. When seamen working between decks were attacked, it was found necessary to bow again to the master’s experience, and put the adults under light restraint. There was then only one child left, the baby having been carried into the sea by its mother.
When, blazing in the dawn light behind them, the Ghost was perceived to be free of Arguim and about to join them at last, the San Niccolò was merely thankful, in its anguish, that its exhausted boat crews were about to receive aid to warp themselves free. Having seen or heard nothing of the Fortado since Funchal, the caravel gave its whole attention to its immediate difficulties. The two masters cried their enquiries and commands over the water; hawsers were thrown, and attached; and the seamen on both ships panted and strove, helped in silence by Godscalc and Loppe on one, and by Nicholas and Diniz rather more noisily on the other.
Bel of Cuthilgurdy stood by the stern lantern as soon as the roundship came close, and after some time the lamps on the Ghost glimmered on a darting, waving figure she thankfully recognised. Bel of Cuthilgurdy screamed, ‘That’s Gelis there, padre. And Lucia’s lad, look – there’s the boy Diniz. But I see none of your sleek chiel’, Gregorio.’
Groaning and squealing, the caravel was beginning her slow slide off the sandbank. Godscalc, his heart sliding and sinking, said nothing. He had observed Nicholas striding about on the deck of the larger ship, and heard his voice – when had he developed such a voice? – uplifted in Spanish and Portuguese, mixed with indecencies from the Venetian patois of the Arsenal. Twice he had come to the rail to hold an impressively technical conversation with Jorge da Silves, who had responded with quite unnatural warmth, even allowing for a warrantable gratitude. A cordiality which, Godscalc suspected, would not extend to Ochoa de Marchena when, floating and in the anxious care of her carpenter, the San Niccolò prepared to welcome her owner on board once again with his party.
Godscalc, with the master and Bel at his side, watched the boat bringing the four of them from the Ghost.
The van Borselen girl looked the same. Her brow and cheekbones were browner perhaps, under the white of her kerchief, and her gown