Scales of Gold - Dorothy Dunnett [90]
‘And if Diniz wants to fight beside you, you’ll take him?’
‘You were willing,’ Nicholas said. It was necessary.
Gregorio said, ‘But you need swordsmen. I understand.’
He had walked halfway back to the house, his shadow behind him, when the front door opened again and the factor Jaime came out and spoke to him, and then called for his grooms. Five minutes passed; then Diniz rode out to Nicholas, a bag strapped at his back and his eyes unusually bright.
Behind him, cloaked and mounted, was Gelis van Borselen. Nicholas said, ‘Where are you going?’
‘To a nunnery,’ she said. ‘Oh, how your face cleared! I go wherever you go with Diniz. We have made a bargain.’
‘Not with me,’ Nicholas said.
‘You said you didn’t care either way,’ said Gelis van Borselen. ‘If he comes, I come. I thought you were in a hurry?’
‘Diniz,’ Nicholas said. ‘We are going to Africa.’
‘I can’t stop her,’ he said. ‘I don’t care. I need the gold for my mother.’
He looked driven. Nicholas turned on the girl. ‘You’re doing this for Lucia too? Well, why not. I’m sure she thinks you can manage. But I’d mind out for the brick if young Diniz gets buggered despite you.’
Diniz went patchily red. Gelis said, ‘Shouldn’t we ride? I heard you’d gone. I guessed the San Niccolò would creep out and pick you up somewhere. I told Bel to slip back on board and come with her.’
‘Along with your luggage?’ said Nicholas. All she had slung on her horse was her coffer.
‘I left quite a lot in my cabin. I shan’t miss my luggage,’ she said.
‘Good,’ said Nicholas. ‘Then we might as well ride.’
He had never seen Câmara de Lobos in daylight. Asleep under the stars, it was a pretty village, huddled among wattle fences and great skeins of fishing nets drying. The village boats rocked in the bay, surrounding a single great vessel, quietly at anchor where the water was deeper. She was a roundship.
Two men rose when he rode down to the beach, and spoke to him softly, and held the horses as all three dismounted. Far out, a light boat began to move from the mother ship, which had put up a lantern. Diniz said, ‘That isn’t the Niccolò.’
‘No,’ said Nicholas. ‘That is the Ghost, our allotted transport to Africa. Full of pirates, but deficient in clothing and women. I don’t recommend it; not on one coffer.’
‘Where is the Niccolò?’ Gelis asked. For the first time, she looked disconcerted.
‘Speeding to Arguim,’ he said. ‘Bearing Bel of Cuthilgurdy, it seems, and your wardrobe. I assume you’ll see sense now and stay on Madeira. I can’t protect a woman out there.’
‘I never thought you could,’ said Gelis van Borselen. ‘It isn’t your forte.’
She didn’t see sense. He could have detained her by force, but he didn’t. Partly, perhaps, because the solitary Bel was now on the Niccolò somewhere ahead of them. Partly because, denied his conclusion with Simon, he felt compelled to confront and to master his demon in some other form. Partly, then, to chastise himself.
He thought how pleased Father Godscalc ought to be.
Chapter 14
IT WAS NO SURPRISE to Ochoa de Marchena to send his caique to Câmara de Lobos and find it return with a youth of eighteen and a young lady of nineteen, as well as his owner. As well, that is, as the man who had signed him on as master. Who owned the Ghost didn’t concern him. He was quite surprised, however, when the girl was allotted the wainscoted cabin, and the owner and the boy joined the mate and himself in the big one.
The council of war, too, was unexpectedly brisk. Instead of sailing in convoy, the San Niccolò in all her legitimacy had fled the harbour at Funchal and was now making straight for the African coast, pausing to take on fresh stores in the Canary Islands. The Ghost, with her great spread of canvas, was to make all haste to catch and protect her. Preferably in Grand Canary itself. The Ghost of Seville, full of horses, had no permission to sell them in Portuguese