Scales of Gold - Dorothy Dunnett [115]
‘You’re not thinking. We’re in danger. Go to your cabin. Later. Later. Later, for this.’ He let her lift her head free, turning her so that Godscalc could not see her face. Her hair, loosened, strayed down her back; his shirt and doublet were studded and trellised with blood. He released her as if unleashing a dog, and showed her a handkerchief, pushing it into her fists. ‘Use it,’ he said. ‘Or they’ll know for sure that we’re cannibals. Bel is waiting.’ He was not even thinking of what he was saying, Godscalc thought. He was listening.
She knew it too. She looked about her, and Godscalc met her look, but thought that Loppe did not. She was a formidable girl, Godscalc thought, to have had so weak a sister. Formidable as the fiery mountain of the Canaries, and as abrasive.
She scrubbed her mouth across with the cloth, and then flung it down on the deck before Nicholas. His lacerated palm dripped on to it. ‘At least,’ she said, ‘I have had a taste of power, and you another family memento.’ She moved, putting her hand to the curtain, and spoke without looking round. ‘Your ship,’ she said. ‘Your new ship. Your new ship stinks of death.’ Then she went.
The sun blazed into the cabin. The deck outside shuddered as feet pounded and the bar of the boom-shadow swung. Tackle squealed and men roared and chanted. Nicholas turned, his back to the sun. Godscalc spoke, with unusual difficulty. ‘Not just now, as you said. You must cover your hand.’ He broke off. He began to say, ‘You should have let her say it all.’
Nicholas looked at him, but not beyond him. ‘It was better stopped,’ he said. ‘And it was bad for her, too. Can you come quickly? The horses are here.’
In the outcome, no slaves were landed on the beaches north of the Senagana, and the battle over their fate was deferred, if not forgotten. The caravel Fortado had appeared, finally, on the horizon.
Retiring exhausted that night, with the cargoes safely exchanged and the Niccolò sailing freely south with her consort at last, Godscalc woke to find everything changed. It was not only that the Niccolò, her spars extended, was breasting the waves like a gundog. The Ghost, after so belated and glorious a reunion, had abandoned them. That is, she had taken a course towards some islands so far to the west of Cape Verde that she was already hull down, making it apparent to anyone that she had no intention of trading in Guinea.
‘She’ll come back,’ Nicholas explained, when found on the poop deck. ‘During the night, or behind a clutter of fishing-boats. Then she’ll hide herself a little away from the estuary and wait.’
‘She has our cargo,’ Diniz had remarked. He still looked sick. Only the crew appeared unaffected, if mildly mystified, by what had happened. It appalled Godscalc that Nicholas himself looked unchanged.
He was saying, ‘She has a moderate amount, but not a full load. In any case, Ochoa is usually reliable, despite the rabble he chooses to work with. They’ll wait. All we have to do is get to market before the Fortado.’
Godscalc already knew, from their voyage from Funchal and from their precipitous departure from Arguim, what Jorge da Silves was capable of when he wanted to hurry. Once Jorge had the measure of the Niccolò he had tested her to the limit, putting off the boats with a peremptory rattle when the slaves came to be landed and thrusting on day and night past the low, featureless coast with its shifting dunes and treacherous sandbanks. He had crowded on sail even when forced by Godscalc to cling to the shallows