Scales of Gold - Dorothy Dunnett [80]
‘The factor’s family,’ Nicholas said. ‘And perhaps his uncle Simon de St Pol of Kilmirren. In which case anything really might happen.’
Godscalc said, ‘Simon might be in Funchal already.’
‘Yes,’ said Nicholas.
‘And come out forthwith to see you.’
‘Yes,’ said Nicholas. He had stopped at the top of the ladder, because Godscalc had stopped at the bottom.
Godscalc said, ‘You say the Ghost can take to her heels. Can the Niccolò, if she isn’t provisioned?’
‘Not before I’ve seen Simon,’ said Nicholas. ‘Afterwards – yes, if we have to. That was why I was mean about oranges.’
Whatever else she had on her mind, Gelis van Borselen knew what was required of the guests of honour at a homecoming feast, and especially if the guests were on shipboard, and ladies. Her gowns were all drab, out of mourning for her parents and sister, but she fished out the costliest, and enlivened it with a cat’s cradle of ribbons in her salt-whitened hair and a necklace of corals. Bel of Cuthilgurdy, taking her place at the trestles, was remarkably grand in creased velvet and Filipe, in attendance, was neat and comely if pale. He had already, under Bel’s eye, been marched to make his peace with the big seaman Luis, who tweaked him by the ear and told him he bore him no grudges, while the boy’s eyelids flickered.
By now they knew every man by his name and the men knew well enough how to behave in superior company, although, like effervescence, the success of their landfall kept manifesting itself in raised voices and bursts of quick laughter. The lamps shone on the meat, four days old and still fresh: duck and mutton and pork, and platters of peppered fish steaks, and baskets piled high with soft bread. And when their first hunger had died, the tambourer lifted his drum, and the fifer his pipe, and Gregorio, slipping below, brought his fiddle out, and tuned it, and led into the choruses he had already heard all the way from Ancona. And Nicholas, astride this bench and that, perched on a table, his arm wound round a shroud, shared sea-going gossip and sea-going jokes while the wine went round without stint under awnings spread like butterfly wings in the bay, frazzled with the glow of ships’ lanterns and within a bowshot of the black mountainous shore, with its powder of lights and the distant sound, like a hush, of its torrents.
He had not parted with Diniz light-heartedly. Their discussion had been hurried and curt – no more than was necessary to establish that, should Simon be found at Ponta do Sol, the San Niccolò would wait for his coming.
‘He may not be there,’ Diniz had said. ‘Or want to come.’
‘Then send me word. I can’t wait more than two or three days. And you’ll be busy enough, settling your mother’s affairs. Your uncle will help you.’
You could help me, said the expression on the boy’s face, but he didn’t say it aloud. Neither did Nicholas reiterate all the things that, under other circumstances, he would have said. ‘Study your property. Analyse the books the way you learned in Nicosia. Weigh up whether you and your uncle can manage. Consider what offers you may get. Remember, the Vatachino are your uncle’s rivals elsewhere; to sell to them would be dangerous. Nevertheless, refuse nothing outright. You want to keep other growers in hope; you don’t want them to join the Vatachino against you.’
As if against his will, Diniz said, ‘What if we can’t run the business ourselves?’
‘You and your uncle? Of course you can,’ Nicholas said.
‘I could have sold it to you,’ Diniz said. ‘But for my grandfather and Simon.’
‘When I’m tired of life,’ Nicholas said, ‘I’ll remember the offer. Don’t sell St Pol & Vasquez to anyone. That would be my advice.’
Diniz had stood, at last, as if unwilling to go. He said, ‘If I were free …’
And Nicholas said, ‘If you owned only the clothes that you stood in, the answer would still be no.’
Lamps ablaze, banners fluttering, noisy with music and laughter,