Scales of Gold - Dorothy Dunnett [70]
He went to Sagres next day, a ride of fifteen miles, accompanied by a short retinue of followers, and Jorge da Silves, and Loppe.
Loppe, in the sleeveless robe and light cap they all wore, would not find his standing misunderstood here, where of all spots in the world the navigator, the interpreter, the man of special talents was valued.
From here, the most south-westerly corner of Europe, the late Henry, Prince of Portugal, Governor of Ceuta, Governor of the Algarve, Grand Master of the Order of Christ, had launched the expeditions of trade and discovery through which men like Alvise da Ca’ da Mosto had found their way down the African coast.
The ships might have sailed from Lagos, but to Sagres and the prince’s farm at Raposeira had come the Jews and the Arabs, the Catalans and the Germans, the Venetians and the Genoese whose combined knowledge of charts, of navigation, of ship design had made the voyages possible, and the courtiers and captains who sailed on them.
Some of these, in retirement, had returned to their lands, or to Lisbon. Some had married and kept fine estate among the orchards of Lagos. Others had settled near this, the ultimate headland; precipitous, bare, and scoured by north-westerly tempests from unknowable oceans. Standing at Sagres, or on the single Cape that lay westward, one looked down sheer sandstone cliffs twenty times the height of a man with the white of dashed foam at their feet; and abroad at the flat, shoreless ocean, upon which laboured the flecks that were vessels and the infinitesimal specks that were souls, witness to man’s perseverance, his greed and his courage.
Before leaving for Ceuta, Nicholas had begun to seek out and comb the minds of these men, and found in Jorge da Silves a willing mentor and escort. He was discovering – with some difficulty, for the Portuguese was a singularly reticent man – that pride itself could take second place to obsession. Da Silves had served great commanders; he had tested his courage in terrible waters, and longed to return to them. ‘Beware,’ the Jew of Mallorca had said, smiling. ‘Jorge da Silves will take you further than you conceivably wish to go.’
The man they were visiting today had been the companion of Prince Henry’s last years, as well as one of the most eminent of his captains; yet he lived simply when away from his post at the Palace at Sintra, and his house was blockish and plain, although with well-tended stables and bakehouse and mews set among the tousled palms bent askew in the courtyard. Nicholas, riding in with da Silves and his servants, noticed two horses unsaddled and steaming, and a horse-cloth whose blazon he recognised.
So, it seemed, did Jorge da Silves. He stood, his boots astride, his whip in his hand, and said, ‘Diniz Vasquez? Why is he here?’
Loppe’s head turned. Nicholas said, ‘I don’t know. Although, as I told you, we are taking Senhor Diniz and two of the ladies to Madeira.’ The news, he remembered, had been coolly received. He wondered if he now understood why. Then the door opened and a man emerged smiling; a lean grey fellow with a moustache and a stick, informal in chemise and slippers and hose with yesterday’s beard pricking his chin: Diogo Gomes, who had been to the Gambia and beyond. With him, hurrying forward, was the boy Diniz.
‘Jorge!’
‘And so you are home!’ said Jorge da Silves, and received the boy, smiling. Then he stepped back.
Diniz, eyes glowing, was still holding his arm. ‘You are to sail the new caravel! I’ve just heard. And I shall be on it.’ He looked over at Nicholas. ‘I called at your house, and they told me you were going to the headland, then here. You must listen! There is so much Senhor Diogo has to tell you!’
‘This boy!’ said the man with the stick affectionately. ‘What, child, can I tell that you haven’t already got from me, or Aires or João since you were in swaddling clothes?’
The boy coloured. The face of the Portuguese had turned cold. Nicholas said, ‘Perhaps I ought to have consulted Diniz instead of you, senhor.