Scales of Gold - Dorothy Dunnett [169]
‘It was for his mother,’ said Bel.
‘And perhaps he was encouraged,’ said Gelis. ‘It would suit many people if Diniz didn’t return.’
‘You think,’ said Godscalc, ‘that Nicholas has gone to kill him? With Vito as witness?’
‘I didn’t say so,’ said Gelis. Saloum was praying, his brow touching the ground, his torn and swollen face darkened with pressure. She was not sorry for what he was suffering. Unrefreshed, they got up and went on.
They saw the camel first, and then the red hair of Vito, and only later that there was someone lying prone in the shade, with Nicholas on one knee beside him. Vito greeted them with joy and relief. ‘It’s the padre! The lot of them!’
‘Be quiet,’ Nicholas said. The man lying beneath him looked round.
It was Diniz, his face hollow with pain. ‘You shouldn’t,’ he said. ‘You shouldn’t have come.’
‘But how useful that they have,’ Nicholas said. ‘Forward the doctors. We are not making too much noise at present, because Jorge’s men think that they’ve left Diniz to die, and we’d like them to go on thinking it.’
‘Where, my hinny?’ said Bel. She knelt, her own face paler than usual.
‘A crossbow bolt in the shoulder, and a lot of good blood leaked away. A falling-out among thieves.’
‘Thieves!’ croaked Diniz. ‘They’re madmen! They’ve gone crazy for gold!’
‘They talked,’ said Nicholas, ‘Of going back and torturing Saloum, it appears. They thought he’d misled them, and they believed he really did know the way to the mines.’
‘I did mislead them,’ said Saloum. ‘The silent market is not where I told them.’
Diniz wriggled in Godscalc’s arms. He was breathless. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘they know where it is now. They caught a man and began to force him to tell them. That’s when I told them to stop, and the little bastard – and Filipe shot me.’
‘You’ll get your reward,’ Godscalc said. ‘Although it may not feel like it at the moment. Nicholas, will Jorge be in danger?’
Nicholas was looking at Saloum. ‘You misled me, too,’ he said. ‘You knew …’
‘I knew you were not only concerned for the boy. But I chose to give you the boy,’ said Saloum. ‘Had I not, you would have missed him.’
‘And now?’ Nicholas said.
‘Oh, now, if you wish,’ said Saloum, ‘I shall take you to the silent market. I have kept my promise. You are too late for Doria and Lopez. If you wish to rescue these Portuguese murderers, I leave the matter to Allah.’
The silent trade known to the Carthaginians had many places of concourse, but all of them depended, as did this one, on rivers. The salt came by boat, grey-white slabs scribbled over with charms, and still corded in packs as when it crossed the Sahara. The gold came from Wangara, brought on foot over many days’ travelling. The salt was left, and the signal fires lit, and in time the gold would be found placed beside it. Then the invisible bartering would begin.
Jorge da Silves never reached it. The hunched, naked clusters of vultures caused Saloum to stop, a glance of warning at Nicholas, and the trudging procession came to a halt, the porters dropping their loads, the camel resting, that carried Bel and Diniz. The object, when they found it, might have been some half-eaten kill of the wild, but was not. The death had been merciful. Jorge, the acolyte of the Order of Christ, had been killed by the soft leaden ball of a hackbut.
‘His own men,’ Diniz remarked, having forced the information from Godscalc, returning.
‘Yes. He must have protested, in the end, as you did. It is in his favour,’ said Godscalc, and adjusted his harness with hands still bleeding and soiled from the burial. ‘There are only five of them left.’
‘Will they ambush us?’ Diniz said. He was burning with fever.
‘They don’t know we’re coming,’ Nicholas said, coming up. ‘How is Bel?’
‘Shellfish,’ she said, her ravaged face smiling grotesquely.
‘You will indulge,’ he said, and smiled back at her. There were mountains on the horizon. He had no means of hurrying now, with his sick to carry, and the five renegades already far off and mounted. And as Saloum said, they were too late