Scales of Gold - Dorothy Dunnett [157]
What they would find ahead, no one knew. The crew talked, in gasps, among themselves. That old Genoese bastard, he was lying. The black, Lopez, was a reasonable fellow. He’d never cross sides. And if he didn’t want to, how could a few sailors capture him? Vicente was on board, with the cannon, the handguns, the crossbows. If, of course, he hadn’t turned about and sailed off to safety.
Silence followed that, for a while.
Jorge da Silves, applied to, said that if any man sailed off and stranded him, he’d have his liver. And if the black had gone, there were other interpreters. The fellow Saloum knew his way about.
The fellow Saloum, said someone, sotto voce, had led them all, hadn’t he, right into this trap? The fellow Saloum was likely working for the Fortado, and would knock young Niccolino on the head first go off, and drag him back to the Genoese. If the Genoese hadn’t got killed by the roof, which he deserved. The master had had the right idea: burn them to cinders. Talking of Nicholas, the general tone was a blend of kindliness, admiration, and a judicious awareness of the prejudices of Jorge da Silves and his cronies.
A little later, they fell to reminding one another about King Bati’s men in the canoes. Scores of heathen blackamoors waiting about in canoes, fully armed with the Fortado’s consignment. Filipe called out a phrase he knew fitted blackamoors, and Fernão cuffed him. Godscalc said, ‘We have no alternative. These murderous men are behind us. We must go on, and pray to God, and trust to our patron. If vander Poele has taken Saloum, then he has no doubts of his loyalty.’
‘I should think,’ Gelis said, ‘that is probably true.’
At midnight, Ahmad spoke stiltedly. ‘We shall soon be in sight of the anchorage. Does my lord wish to put out the brands?’
‘No,’ said da Silves. ‘The main party will stay here, the brands lit. You will lead me in the dark to the anchorage. I trust you, but I have a knife, you understand?’
The Mandingua smiled and nodded, and then saw the knife and nodded again, but uncertainly. Godscalc said, ‘Will you signal?’
‘One whistle for Come,’ da Silves said. ‘If you hear two, hide yourselves. I shall find you if I can.’
This time, no one spoke. They sat or lay where they had stood. The wounded men, one with a smashed leg, the others with split ribs and a bloody, half-severed hand, groaned and whimpered. The burning wood crackled. The voice of the bush began to make itself heard again: the shrilling insects, the twitter and screeching of birds, the bark of a jackal and the belly-grumble of an irritated animal, drowsy with food. Their torches eddied and flinched in strange currents, and streamed sideways as something heavy passed overhead: an ape, the flame bright in his eye. A high, thin sound came from the darkness ahead. It was not repeated.
‘The whistle!’ said Diniz. He jumped to his feet. So did Gelis.
‘Or a bird,’ said someone on the ground. ‘A damned bird. Or a lure.’
‘Well, we’ll never know, will we?’ said Diniz. ‘Unless we try.’
You could be jumping with fear, thought Bel of Cuthilgurdy, and still be struck to the soul by the great, jocund stars that shone now upon them, and the clarity of the high-sailing moon against which the stems and fronds of the trees were like fine Lucca velvet on silver. The water beyond ran thin rippled satin.
She could hear the Gambia flowing. She could hear no other sound: not the splash of paddles nor the hum of men’s voices. Certainly not the boom or crackle of gunfire. With the rest, she beat out her torch, and padded forward into the moonlight.
The stretch of river opening before them was empty. It unreeled its emptiness as they pushed past the last trees and walked through the trampled dust of the trading-place and stood on the strand of the island, off which the San Niccolò, their pretty caravel, should have awaited them.
There was nothing there. Nothing in the anchorage, and nothing across the broad silvered expanse of the river, visible to the opposite shore.