Scales of Gold - Dorothy Dunnett [75]
Nicholas smiled and Loppe, catching it, smiled in return. Nicholas said, ‘I’ll take a chance. Persuade him out of it, of course, if you like. Persuade Diniz, too, while you’re at it. I don’t quite know how you’ll stop him going to Madeira, short of tying him up.’
‘You won’t do what I ask?’ Godscalc said.
Nicholas stood. ‘No. But now, you don’t need to come.’
He thought the priest would answer at once; but he just rose to his feet, and stood in silence a moment. Then he stretched out his hand for the roll and, collecting it, walked from the room.
Loppe said, ‘Ah, Nicholas.’
Nicholas said, ‘He is better away.’
He looked up at the silence. Loppe said, ‘But he isn’t away. He has to come now. You have compelled him.’
Chapter 12
IN THE THIRD WEEK of October, the Governor came to the wharf with his gentlemen to bid Godspeed to the Venetian merchant and banker who, by His Christian Majesty’s grace, was about to take the word of the Lord to the heathen, and bring back from the converts many comforts.
The Governor had hopes of this expedition. He had exerted himself, the previous night, to hold a banquet of some splendour for the near-gentlemen who were to lead it, and this morning, despite the hour and the rain, felt confident he would not regret it. Nicholas kissed his hand and embarked, glittering, on one of the San Niccolò’s boats.
With him were Gregorio his purser, Loppe his steward and the self-contained figure of Father Godscalc, his apothecary and chaplain. Already on board was the determined group of his Madeira-bound passengers. Father Godscalc, if he had tried, had not dissuaded Diniz Vasquez from coming, or Gelis van Borselen and Bel her companion. Neither had the priest gone back to Venice, although he had stood long at the quay and watched the Ciaretti turn home, fully laden. He had left then, in silence, to prepare for this, his unhappy voyage as the pedagogue, the conscience of Nicholas.
The ship rode in deep water, her masts rocking, her passengers out of the way as she made ready to sail. They had practised this, the formal routine of departure, and Nicholas knew it by heart. He took his place on the high vestibule of the poop, watching without seeming to watch as the orders passed from captain to mate, and from mate to the helm and the mariners. The bare feet thudded on deck: stowing the companionway; hooking the tackle and hoisting the ship’s boats inboard.
A whistle blew and was followed by jerks of racketing noise: the anchor-chain coming in, bringing the new, two-hundred-pound anchor strewn with weed and sand that would be unlike the weed and sand of its next bedding. Then a rush and a chanting of voices and the ship trembled as the triangular foresail rose and broke out, followed by the great racking heave as the mainsail began to ride up.
The helm stirred. The caravel moved, the sea bathing her flank. The smell of paint struck Nicholas for the last time, and the odours of sawn wood and resin and pristine white hemp, and the great flaxen draught of new canvas as the mainsail shook out its folds and was pulled in and bellied, and the mizzen sail followed.
Then the wind found her and nudged, and for the first time the San Niccolò heeled, dipping her gleaming black flank in the sea, and all the limp smells of earth were blown through her and vanished. The second mate, gripping a trumpet, came up the ladder and stood, his gaze switching from the captain to the six handgunners dodging across to the rail, match in hand. Nicholas turned his eyes to the shore, slowly receding.
The wharf was crowded, and the rough beach, and the path along the edge of the estuary. Not only the King’s representatives but the whole of Lagos had come to watch the San Niccolò leave; for those who had not built her had equipped and provisioned her, and those who had done none of these had stood on the shore waving off other ships bound for Bilad Ghana, the Country of Wealth, and had seen them return as, God willing, this pretty caravel would, laden with parrots and feathers and ostrich eggs, and Negroes, and