Scales of Gold - Dorothy Dunnett [216]
Gregorio would have enjoyed personally enlightening Simon de St Pol about that, but the bastard hadn’t chosen to come to Madeira. His sister Lucia had arrived, yelling and screaming, but he hadn’t wanted to tell her. It was bad enough making excuses for the desertion of Diniz. Then he’d had to tell her what Simon had done to the company. He’d had to get a sick-nurse to calm her, and had seen her sail back to Lagos with both exasperation and pity.
None of this, he discovered, appeared to affect the pleasure the Lomellini took in his society. Business was business, and friendly rivalry need not (it seemed) upset personal relationships. He was reminded of other Genoese with similar attitudes. With the Genoese, it paid to be vigilant.
The reception was a lavish one, as was to be expected, but to his surprise he had hardly entered the room when his host Urbano seized him. ‘My friend. Signor Gregorio. I have something to tell you before it becomes public knowledge. Come into my office.’
Gregorio stood still. He had not brought Jaime with him. He had no one with him but his groom. He said, ‘It is bad news.’
‘Come in. Sit down,’ said the Genoese; and placing him on a board stool, sat opposite. He said, ‘Yes. It is bad news. It is from the Fortado. I shall break it swiftly. Diniz Vasquez is dead, killed in a dispute over gold. I have told you first, because you manage his business. I cannot tell you how sorry I am for you, and for his poor mother, widowed so recently.’
‘How did it happen?’ said Gregorio. ‘On the San Niccolò? Did the San Niccolò arrive in the Gambia?’
‘She arrived, but met with the greatest misfortune: an attack, it seems, by murdering natives which left her boats smashed, her seaman mostly injured or dead and her cargo carried off. A tragedy. You have my profound condolences.’
‘There were women on board,’ Gregorio said. ‘And, of course, Niccolò vander Poele who led the voyage.’
‘They survived. Let me pour you some wine. It is shocking news. There are implications also, of course. We shall think of these, you and I, some time soon, for I must leave you to see to my guests. But no, the ladies and vander Poele survived, and so did the boy Diniz, at that stage. It was later, when travelling to the goldfields, that the boy lost his life. And Jorge da Silves, the master. You will hear the details. I have asked Master Crackbene to relate them to you. Ah yes, here he is.’
The door had started to open. Urbano Lomellini rose, distress firmly fixed on his face. Presumably, he knew perfectly well what lay between Crackbene and Nicholas. Presumably he judged that, in such a case, it had lost its significance. Probably he was right. Gregorio thanked Lomellini and stood watching as he walked to the door and passed the man standing there. Then Gregorio allowed himself to look at Crackbene.
Last autumn, haled from prison in Castile, the sailing-master, although battered, had still been recognisable as the large and powerful man who had joined the service of Nicholas after Trebizond. Now as he entered the room, placing his feet like a man long at sea, Gregorio saw the change in Michael Crackbene: his fair hair whitened and thinned, his skin patched like a leper’s, his whole frame shrunken and light. He looked as other seamen did, coming back from the Senagana and Arguim: his sight pitched to some horizon, his body worn out with flux and fever and stress.
Gregorio thought of the women, and cursed Nicholas under his breath, and himself. He said, ‘What happened?’
The blue, Scandinavian eyes gazed at him with little expression. With the same erratic gait, Crackbene walked slowly over the room to the wash-stand, from which he lifted the ewer of water, and stood, as if judging its weight. Then he poured a little into the basin, and set both palms downwards into the liquid. ‘We had a successful voyage,’ he said.
Gregorio looked at the back of his neck. He said, ‘I suppose it was hard, bringing her home with only ten of you. But you chose to go.’
‘Nine, really,’ Crackbene said. ‘The boy was useless. Yes, I chose to go. I was