Scales of Gold - Dorothy Dunnett [94]
‘For, see, my angels, my little mice,’ said Ochoa de Marchena. ‘Her mizzen-sail cannot be set in this wind, for it would steal the wind from the rest; and she has her foresail held flat as a board until the wind settles, much though she would like to fly after your poor San Niccolò, labouring ahead in the dark (although you may be calm, Jorge will not risk his life until he has his honour). So we must wrest from her the squaresail, which I will take my oath is the only one that she has, and is of light flax of the kind that might even rip free from its sheets and yard and take to the sky like a bird, like an expensive bird never to be captured. And even if it is not, she may turn round to the wind and be caught aback, and then what will happen? Delay, delay, my children. Delay and mortification.’
A small inconvenience, nothing more. The Vatachino and Simon were not on board; this was a matter of trade, not of war. If she still had her cannon from her Ceuta days (and Ochoa had seen no sign of them), the Fortado was unlikely to test them against the gleaming power of the roundship’s armoury, trained on her flank.
Any crew worth the name could repair small-arms damage; could replace a main with a lateen sail, patch canvas and splice rope and rig up jury spars. The beauty of it was that it took time, and the Fortado’s sailing thereafter would be sluggish – sluggish enough to let the little San Niccolò fly ahead to the market at Arguim, and for himself to follow briskly and do his business there, and transfer to the San Niccolò before anyone stopped him, such as Father Godscalc.
It was a reasonable plan, and it began well enough, for the watch on the Fortado was evidently poor and no warning cries, or whistles, or drumbeats floated back to the Ghost, although her bow wave must now have been visible. Admired by Nicholas from Ochoa’s side, the roundship spread her canvas, presented her gleaming red quarter to the formidable wind and began to cut through the heaving sea and up towards the weather side of the other ship’s stern.
Ochoa, a burning slow-match over each ear, stood gripping the rail of the poop, his eyes on the just-discernible dark shape ahead and her seething green wake off his beam. The helmsman and his mate waited, rigid and ghostly in the compass light. And throughout the dark and silent roundship, points of dusky red flame glimmered along the deck, in the waist, on the forecastle, above in the rigging where the hackbutters waited, Diniz among them, their guns primed and their matches ready to touch.
Then they were within range of the Fortado’s sternpost, and Ochoa gave the order to fire.
The noise and flame from the handguns followed instantly, but only one of the balls struck the rudder, for even as they fired, the Fortado started to turn by the lee. At the same instant, the stern lantern of the caravel sprang to life, flinging a great yellow beam over the water, and followed by other lamps at masthead and rigging and poop, so that the Ghost, looming to windward, became brilliant.
They had been tricked. The Fortado, fully manned and alert, had seen them and was waiting, prepared for them. The light showed her stern and waist busy with men, their voices now ringing out. And although her squaresail had spilled air, it could be seen that the caravel’s mainbraces were manned, and a moment later the foresail broke out and, catching the wind not yet masked by the Ghost, began to assist her to swing.
Ochoa screamed orders. The vessel shook as her sails were reset and she rolled, her pace slackening. The caravel continued to turn. The Ghost’s hackbutters, hardly hesitating, kept up their deliberate fire, and with the rudder much less accessible, transferred their attentions to the retreating mainsail and rigging. In the lamplight, the