Scales of Gold - Dorothy Dunnett [135]
‘The same Kings!’ Diniz said. ‘The same Kings the caravels met! Gnumi Mansa is a Christian, isn’t he, Nicholas? And Bati held a great congress for Diogo Gomes, far up the river. How they will welcome the padre!’
‘We hope so,’ said Nicholas. ‘But time has passed since Gnumi was dipped by an abbot, and I doubt if Bati was ever brought to the fold of the Faithful. We can only hope that if they possess any venom, they expend it on the Fortado. For, my braves, it seems she is not sailing home: she is ahead of us.’
There was no need to underline the implications of that, and no time, then, to explore them. Ahead, within the vast lake of its estuary, lay the mouth of the Gambia, cumbered with shoals and flats and a tidal stream of two knots on the ebb which posed problems seldom found in the Middle Sea, and would test, very soon, the kind of crew the San Niccolò had made for herself. Let them enter the Gambia. There would be time enough after to plan.
Jorge awaited slack water, and launched the caravel boldly into its passage. With a lookout at the masthead and two in the bows; with the lead splashing and splashing and the ship answering keenly as a veteran to her helm, the caravel threaded her way from hazard to hazard. The master had been to the Gambia outfall before. He had the measure of its famous swamp of an island, barely one mile by three, and knew to sail its length to the preferred anchorage in the sandy mud of its eastern end. He moved cautiously, watching for masts.
The Fortado was not there, nor was there sign of any vessel other than the upturned canoes on the beach. There was no evident danger, but much emerging inconvenience: a lack of any one of the services that Arguim and Senagana had possessed: no store of timber or rope; no provision for meal or for water. There was scant welcome as well: the few blacks they’d seen had vanished by the time Jorge took his small party ashore, tying up to the drunken jetty some exasperated ship’s carpenter had knocked together and left. Beyond was beaten sand and bushes and trees, and a few mud-brick huts, and a row of crooked boughs upholding tattered straw awnings over nothing but pressed and mat-patterned sand.
Jorge reported an hour later to Nicholas. ‘There’s nothing left. Doria bought what they had, and took all the provisions and even the water. The traders had a little gold to sell, but not much. They’re sullen: Doria bullied them, and told them we would be worse, and had almost nothing to give them, which is near enough the truth: we must save what we have for the Kings. I don’t want to careen here. There’s an island we can get to tomorrow, where we’ll have peace to look at our patches.’
Nicholas said, ‘Did Doria say where he was going?’
‘No. Just that he wanted to trade up the river. It is nine days’ sail, as we know, to the rapids. Of course, they say he means to land there and go further. They say he seeks the source of the gold.’
‘What did they think of that?’ Nicholas said.
‘They laughed,’ Jorge said. ‘They always do. Don’t you hear the drums? Long before any ship can arrive, all seven hundred miles of the river know what is happening.’
‘Then,’ said Nicholas, ‘there is no particular reason for stealth. All right. I assume it’s safe to stay here at anchor tonight, and move on in the morning. Unless the padre wants to reconnoitre the settlement?’
‘I should go ashore,’ Godscalc said. ‘There may be men of faith,