Scales of Gold - Dorothy Dunnett [265]
And he had not thought, at all, of what that would do to the people around him. Many were dead. All were altered. Most of all, late and laggard, himself.
He did not think he would change again. He carried with him now, below all the turbulence, the quietness Umar had found for him; Umar and the desert. When he was alone, as now, sitting in silence, he had only to reach for it.
He was so far lost in his thoughts that he didn’t at once hear the voice of Mustapha, calling up from the yard to his balcony. ‘Lord! They have rooms! You may stay as long as it pleases you! And there is one ship in the harbour.’
Nicholas rose to his feet. ‘Going where?’
‘No one knows. It lies there, gathering weed. My friends have sent to the wharf to seek news of the patron’s intentions. It is a galley. My friends have written its name.’
He held up a paper. Nicholas ran down the steps. In the humid air, his skin felt slippery, as if it had been oiled. He took the paper.
Mustapha’s friends were not scribes, but they had managed to letter the name of the ship. They had seen it often enough. She had been at anchor in Oran since September.
Nicholas managed to read it as well. He read it twice, while Mustapha watched him. Then he read it a third time, or appeared to.
The galley that lay in the harbour was his own. The name of the lone, steadfast ship was the Ciaretti.
The tavern used by the crew of the Ciaretti was on the quayside, and a good deal more lax about liquor than the one belonging to Mustapha’s friends. When word went round that someone was enquiring about the Ciaretti, the crew did what they usually did, and deputed the two least drunk to row out to the ship and inform the officers.
So it came about that, when Nicholas pushed his way down to the port, two men in Venetian dress had already landed and were hastening uphill towards him. They saw each other at the same time. He stopped, and the men from the Ciaretti faltered.
They saw a tall man in a striped cloak stained with travelling, his head and shoulders bound in a white corded headcloth. Beneath the cloak was a gown of thick cotton, from the girdle of which hung a heavy, curved sword, and, on the opposite side, a leather purse ornamented in sticky, frayed silk. His sandals, too, were much mended, although once elaborate. Within the Egyptian cloth was a lean face, broad at the cheekbones and brow but hollow elsewhere, and in two tints of brown, as if a beard had been recently shaved.
The face slowly broke into a smile, producing two dents black as caverns. ‘Melchiorre?’ Nicholas said.
Melchiorre Cataneo of Florence jogged unevenly upwards towards him and, reaching him, found himself in an embrace he might or might not have initiated. Nicholas said, ‘You are well?’ and Melchiorre hesitated, and then gave a choking laugh, looking behind him.
‘You are speaking in Arabic,’ said Tobias of Beventini, physician, climbing rather more carefully. ‘God’s Dines, have ye turned? The Pope’ll murder you.’ His nose was pink.
‘Tobie?’ said Nicholas. He added, more clearly, ‘But you were always seasick.’ It came out in Flemish.
‘I nearly didn’t come,’ Tobie said. He put his hands on the striped shoulders and held them, but not over-tightly. His thumbs moved about. He said, ‘Come down to the ship. We can’t all stand and weep in the street. You didn’t expect us.’
‘It was a really pleasant surprise,’ Nicholas said. It came out in Arabic again. He couldn’t make jokes and deal with the shock also. His mind filled with the fragments of a hundred queries, but there was only one now that mattered. Or perhaps two. He said, ‘Godscalc, Tobie?’
‘In Bruges with young Vasquez. He’s all right,’ Tobie said. ‘Everyone’s all right. The Bank’s all right. What about Loppe? Nicholas?’
‘Umar,’ said Nicholas. ‘He’s staying. He’s well. I left him two months ago. So what cargo do you have?’
He had asked