Scales of Gold - Dorothy Dunnett [207]
‘But he doesn’t want to,’ said Gelis.
‘Of course he doesn’t want to,’ said Godscalc with calmness. ‘Why don’t you stop him? You probably could.’
‘I might,’ Gelis said. ‘But I wonder what good it would do? Without him, your chances are lessened. Without you, he would have to stay here until autumn anyway. There seems quite a lot for him to do. He might not go back to Europe at all.’
Godscalc’s gaze came up and met hers. He said, ‘Surely not. Too much rests on it. You remember Gregorio’s letter.’
She remembered every word of Gregorio’s letter, because she had been present every time they had discussed it, before Diniz had left. She knew the Vasquez business was failing; that Lucia, learning that her son Diniz had abandoned her to sail off to Guinea, had taken ship for Madeira and, bursting in upon Jaime and Gregorio, had been thrown into fits of screaming by the news that Simon her brother had sold his half of the business and gone off to Scotland, and she was a pauper. It was why Bel had gone.
She knew that Martin, the agent of the Vatachino, had appeared in Bruges, and that some crisis in trade was approaching from which the Charetty manager was trying to shield the two girls. She knew that Julius, with whom once, at a very young age, she had thought herself in love, had sent a long and sombre report of the Bank’s doings in Venice, although she had not been shown the figures. She knew there was what Nicholas thought was a piece of good news: there was a new Pope, and he was a Venetian.
When Diniz left, she in her turn had given Nicholas every opportunity to think and talk about Gregorio’s news; about the gold and its future. She had enough van Borselen blood to understand about trade, and she could ask intelligent questions. Another man, she thought with annoyance, would have enjoyed it, but very soon Nicholas diverted the talk and presently Godscalc also, she saw, ceased to mention Europe himself and discouraged her when she opened the subject.
It was clear enough why. Nicholas, these last weeks, was steeling himself for the forthcoming expedition by not thinking beyond it. And Godscalc was brutally held to his cause, which hoped for the strong arm of Nicholas in the future, but which also needed it now. Gelis said, to the air, ‘Would anyone like to take a small wager?’
It was then April, and unpleasantly hot, and dangerously close to the rains. Far off on the Gambia, sick and weary and thankful, a boatload of people strained their eyes to see the masts of a ship, but long before the mangroves gave them their view, they heard voices shouting in Florentine and Portuguese, and saw shooting towards them a primitive boat, in which rocked the familiar persons of Melchiorre and Fernão, with other remembered faces cheering behind. And around them flocked the boats of King Gnumi Mansa.
The drums had done their work well. Diniz and Bel, Vito and Saloum had the welcome they deserved, and the crew of the Niccolò, weeping, saw their fellows again.
Three-quarters-way through April, the Niccolò left with five hundred pounds of pure gold for the north, sailing out to the sea past the empty wharf where the Fortado had once lain in wait for her. But Raffaelo Doria was dead, and the drums had carried the news long since to Crackbene, who had recognised that it was time to take his cargo home, and reap the rewards of patience and loyalty.
He had two months’ start. So it was that the Fortado arrived in Madeira before anyone, with the news that Diniz Vasquez had perished. For on board was Filipe, who had shot him.
Chapter 30
TWO DAYS AFTER Gelis made her wager, the Wangara gold reached Timbuktu.
Unlike Diniz, Nicholas failed to rush to meet the camels as they lurched in from the wharf at Kabara, although he guessed what was happening. Since first light, he had been in the first-floor storerooms of the Qadi And-Agh-Muhammed, which were empty of