Scales of Gold - Dorothy Dunnett [233]
He would have liked, also, to have bought the caravel, but there was not enough money for that. He hired her for another year, and the King made the terms easy, and also the loan arrangements which would permit him to buy his next cargo. So he had lost little in the markets, after all.
When it was all finished, he spent a night at Sintra with Diogo Gomes, who enjoyed the news of Madeira, but listened to what Melchiorre had to tell with hunger in his eyes. At the end he had said, ‘And vander Poele – he is still in Timbuktu?’
‘Until the autumn,’ Gregorio said. ‘You will hear the adventure from his own lips when he comes back next spring. And meantime, you must come south and call on young Diniz. You have a fine young Portuguese explorer there.’
For the sake of the market – why else? – the expedition to Ethiopia was not to be mentioned. The King, of course, had wanted news, but Gregorio had merely replied that the distance seemed greater than was at first thought, and the journey impracticable. The King had not demurred, any more than he had expressed dramatic regret at the loss of Jorge da Silves, potential Knight of the Order of Christ. Gregorio had not said how he died. And the King, with the gold in his lap, was not overmuch distressed by either occurrence.
Gregorio spent some time with other lawyers, establishing his Bank’s intention to challenge the ownership of the empty roundship now called the Ghost, and also their proposal to take to court the joint owners of the caravel Fortado for her actions in the river Gambia and elsewhere. He met the lawyers for the Vatachino, but neither David de Salmeton nor Martin was there. He said nothing to anyone of that fact that the Ghost had carried a cargo, and no one, even Diogo Gomes, even seemed to have considered the possibility.
Everyone else who might know anything had gone. Simon de St Pol had long since passed through Lisbon on his way from Madeira, returning, it was concluded, to Scotland or France. Michael Crackbene and the boy Filipe had vanished, but that was not surprising, given the coming case against the Fortado.
Even less surprisingly, there was no trace of Ochoa de Marchena and his crew. There seemed no doubt, by now, that if Ochoa had purloined the gold, it had not been to keep it safely for Nicholas. The Ghost herself lay in dry dock, and Gregorio was not permitted to view her.
The next time he left Madeira, it was to co-ordinate the refitting of the San Niccolò at Lagos, and to complete the arrangements for her cargo. He took the same house as before, empty this time of Nicholas and Godscalc and Jorge da Silves.
And of Loppe. He could not get used to calling him Umar, as Diniz did. He could not get used, either, to what Diniz had told him about Loppe. About the slaves, first of all. And then about how he had joined Raffaelo Doria, and led him to his death. To preserve the secret of Wangara, Diniz had said.
Gregorio had refrained from asking the questions which plagued him. Had Loppe promised to lead Nicholas to Wangara if Nicholas indulged him over the slaves? Or had he only promised to act as his guide, knowing what Nicholas would expect, but determined to baulk him? If Doria had not been there, would Loppe have had to decide between Wangara and Nicholas?
These were matters Gregorio would discuss with Godscalc, perhaps, but not with young Diniz, and especially not since he had discovered Diniz knew who Nicholas was, or was not. Since that one, unexpected exchange, Gregorio had found Diniz mute on the subject of Nicholas. Mute and anxious.
Gregorio had only called once on Lucia de St Pol e Vasquez, and then on his return voyage, when she should have recovered from the shock and delight of her son’s return, and the considerable pleasure of discovering that the Vasquez estate had a little money again, and might have more. He had also had no wish to find Simon de St Pol living there, with his obstreperous