Scales of Gold - Dorothy Dunnett [114]
‘They thought you were going to eat them. Whoo! Whoo!’ said Ochoa, merrily blowing out his candle-wax cheeks. ‘And you paid for them, my chickens? I get a better return for my parrots, even though half are dead and a quarter pecked bald on the journey. Your magnificent Lopez must be a guide worth a fortune!’
‘Ochoa?’ said Nicholas. ‘Do you see the water out there? The Fortado may appear any moment.’
‘You have seen her?’ said Jorge da Silves.
‘Seen her!’ said Ochoa, and flipped up his skirts with a finger. ‘We shot –
Nicholas said, ‘We had an exchange in the dark. She has guns. She is certainly following. She knows the Ghost is the Doria, or will, as soon as she sees her in daylight. Also, there is now a Portuguese station at the Senagana, all of which means that the Ghost can neither appear there nor trade. Therefore we are now, at this moment, going to exchange our cargoes.’
Diniz sat up, his lips parting. Jorge da Silves said, ‘You mean to put the gold and the rest on the Ghost?’
‘And transfer the horses and the grain, dear hearts, to you,’ said Ochoa. ‘And you can keep your handsome Negroes, although I should have liked a little one for my cabin. Have I put it well?’ He looked round at Nicholas.
‘As you always do. You understand, Jorge, why we are doing this? You can sell: the Ghost can’t. You’ll have to redistribute ballast; think of food and water stocks, both of you. The Niccolò will keep any trading goods she still has, and the shells. There are fifteen people and twenty-five horses to carry for two days at least. And while we’re trading, the Ghost will evaporate into some modest inlet where we hope the Fortado won’t see her. But we have to make the main transfer now, and fast.’
‘How?’ said Diniz.
Ochoa gave him a simmering smile. ‘Dear one! Did you not see the hoists already preparing? Go up on deck, and you will find the boat on its way with the first of your darlings. You will have two more days with your horses!’
They were all rising. Godscalc said, ‘I don’t understand. How does this other ship know you are the Doria?’
‘Guess,’ Nicholas said. ‘No, there isn’t time. Because Mick Crackbene has signed himself on as her sailing-master. What in hell is happening outside?’
They could heard the voice of Melchiorre upraised, protesting. Another voice joined it. Then the cabin curtain was wrenched to one side. ‘You evil man,’ said Gelis van Borselen to Nicholas. ‘You knew this high-minded plan for the slaves was preposterous. You knew what was going to happen, and you let it.’
She stood, breathing deeply before him; her face sallow as if she had been poisoned. She said, ‘They’re dead, aren’t they, most of them? Drowned; hacked to death by enemy tribesmen. They would have been taken to safety in Portugal, if you’d left them.’
A shudder ran through the ship. A boat had arrived. ‘Please, not now,’ Nicholas said.
‘Not now!’ she said. She lifted her voice until it rang through the cabin. She was shaking with rage. ‘If they’d been bought by the worst trader in the world, this would never have happened. Would it? But because your pandering priest and your –’
‘I meant, not now,’ Nicholas said, and before Godscalc could cry out or help had pulled the girl forward and silenced her, one hand expertly over her lips, the other pinioning her with a kind of calm severity. He said over her head, ‘Go on, all of you. Send the Scots woman. Tell me if the Fortado appears.’
The masters both left. Diniz hesitated and then made his way out, looking stricken. Only Godscalc and Loppe still remained, neither moving. For a moment the girl, looking at them, ceased her struggles. Then, her brow creased, she set herself to fight once again, and as the gagging hand tightened, she bit it.
Godscalc