Scales of Gold - Dorothy Dunnett [217]
‘And you could take your revenge,’ Gregorio said.
‘You think so?’ said Crackbene. He had a curious accent, part Flemish, part northern. He had never been anyone’s man but his own. He said, ‘I didn’t deserve the thrashing vander Poele gave me. But he got me out of jail. The Genoese would have liked us both killed. I’d rather have sailed with vander Poele than Doria. Or I thought so then.’
‘But not now? Why?’
‘Because I don’t like what he did,’ Crackbene said. He turned, and taking a towel from the stand, dried his hands slowly, rolling the soft linen over each of his big-jointed fingers. He said, ‘Vander Poele killed the Portuguese boy. And murdered da Silves.’ He looked up.
‘What Portuguese boy?’ said Gregorio stupidly.
The big man threw the towel down. ‘Diniz Vasquez. The youngster I brought back from Cyprus. The lad ran back to vander Poele, sailed with him, and then fell out with him over gold. You heard how the Niccolò was attacked?’
‘Yes,’ said Gregorio.
‘Well, vander Poele left a small crew on board, and he and the rest set off by canoe and by land for the gold marts. Only Jorge da Silves and a few others had grown a bit tired, it seemed, of my lord Niccolò’s high-handed ways and thought they’d feel safer with the gold in their own hands. He followed, and killed them.’
‘You saw it?’
‘I heard it from someone who saw it.’
‘And you believe it?’
‘You don’t?’ Crackbene said.
‘Never,’ Gregorio said. ‘A quarrel with da Silves, perhaps: men get greedy; there might have been a struggle. But the boy, never. You’d be spreading a lie, if you say so.’
The big man shrugged. ‘It isn’t my lie.’ He spoke without venom and almost without interest. Gregorio believed him. Crackbene had brought the Fortado home, and he was half-dead of it.
Gregorio said, ‘I have a cup of wine I don’t want.’ And when Crackbene had taken it, Gregorio added, ‘So where is he? Vander Poele? And the ladies?’
The other man emptied the cup. He sat down, nursing it, and looked at Gregorio as if for the first time. ‘You don’t know how good that was. Vander Poele took the two women up-country with him. The dame and the van Borselen girl. The old woman was ill. They all got as far as the place where Doria was murdered, near the Joliba. I wouldn’t have blamed vander Poele, mind you, if he had killed that bastard Doria, but the Berbers got there before him. I don’t know if he went on any further. The San Niccolò was to wait in the river until the third week in April, and then come home. If she does, she’ll be here in a month or just over. If there are enough left to sail her.’
‘Where were they going?’ said Gregorio.
‘The vander Poele party? To look for more gold, I was told. And to visit Ethiopia, if it seemed to be easy. There’s a place on the way there where the caravans come down through the Sahara.’
‘I know. They take messages. I’ve tried to send one,’ Gregorio said. ‘To say the Ghost arrived empty.’
‘I heard. Well, he deserved that,’ said Crackbene. ‘Not but what it was ingenious. They gave the Fortado a spot of trouble, that ship, and it wasn’t all Ochoa’s idea. I have to give him that. Nicholas vander Poele is nobody’s fool.’
He sounded admiring. Gregorio said, ‘How was he ingenious?’
Crackbene lifted his lids with an effort. ‘What?’
‘You said Nicholas had been too ingenious, and deserved what happened to the Ghost.’
‘They impounded her,’ Crackbene said. His eyes had opened.
‘I know. But you wouldn’t expect her to be empty.’
‘I don’t know,’ Crackbene said. ‘She hadn’t a licence to trade. Not even the caravels always bring back a cargo. We were lucky, but your San Niccolò ended up in the Gambia with nothing. And if those who killed Doria decide to do the same to your party, that’s what your caravel will turn up with this summer.’
‘The same as the Ghost,’ Gregorio said.
‘Yes. Christ, I’d better go back before I start sleeping.’
‘Yes. I suppose,’ Gregorio said, ‘you don’t owe us anything. I could wish this nonsense didn’t go further about Diniz. You can’t believe Nicholas brought about the lad’s death. And the mother