The Spring of the Ram - Dorothy Dunnett [279]
Catherine said, “You saved us.”
He looked at her. “Well, they’ve gone, anyway. And with any luck they’ll pass the word along to Stamboul, and they’ll let us straight through to Gallipoli. And at Gallipoli…Well, we just have to be quick, that’s all.” His gaze fell, and his face changed. He had seen Willequin. He said, “What happened?” without any slurring at all.
Catherine said, “He was barking.”
One of the women said, “It began to yap in the silence. Before we knew the noise didn’t matter. She just up and cut its throat. Just like that.”
Then he looked at her and said, “I’m so sorry. I know what it meant. Indeed, it might have saved us all, if things had been different. Thank you.”
“Her pet, he was,” someone said. You could hear, for the first time, a note of sympathy.
It didn’t reach Catherine. She was looking up at Nicholas, with tears in her eyes; and he was looking at no one but her. Then he said, “Poor Catherine. I’ll send someone to take him.” And, touching her lightly on the cheek, lifted himself up through the open hatch and into the sunlight. In a moment she heard his voice again, giving orders and breaking off now and then to laugh. Then the sails went up, and they got under way and he failed to come below again, although the German priest did. She sent him packing.
They passed Constantinople. Gaining confidence, they sailed from end to end of the Sea of Marmara. They reached Gallipoli, their supposed destination: the station of the absent fleet and the absent admiral which marked the western limit of Mehmet’s sea bases. There was no way they could trick their way out of a direct challenge here; or escape the guns if they invited them.
Nicholas made the run at night, with the skills of le Grant and Crackbene and his navigators to depend on. They were seen; and the guns fired, but they were not caught in the fire, for all the best gunners had gone with Kasim Pasha; and the big guns were at Constantinople and the Bosphorus now.
The day they came through the Dardanelles into the Aegean was the first day since she was small that Catherine had seen all her mother’s employees the worse for drink; even to the new chaplain, who had lectured her about lust. Surprisingly, Julius and Nicholas his young catechumen were among the first to succumb. In the old days, with Felix, they sometimes got drunk for several days when her mother had gone to Louvain; and they never seemed to lie down. But now, looking for Nicholas, she came across Julius first, fast asleep and smiling just outside the officers’ cabin; and when she went in, Nicholas was asleep on the floorboards inside; but not smiling. She was trying to rouse him when her mother’s doctor came in and told her to stop it. And when she persisted, took her by the arm and marched her out. She made a note of it. By now, she was making a note of everything. If Pagano had done that, he wouldn’t have lost all his money.
Next day, they all went about groaning, and she was glad. And in the days after that, with everyone freely on deck, they were all polite to her, as they should be; and friendly with one another, but not, of course, vulgarly triumphant. There was nothing triumphant about having to leave your post and rush home, even if you brought a lot of goods with you. And it was only right that they should remember that Pagano Doria, her husband, was dead. She had no material to make mourning clothes with, but some woman gave her black ribbon, and she wore it tied to the front of her dress. I am Caterina de Charetty negli Doria: widow. She said to Nicholas, “You remember the round ship is mine.”
They were just off Modon at the time, and he was standing staring at the island that closed the bay. He looked the way he had the morning after the celebration; although he had drunk nothing to speak of since then. John le Grant was with him. She repeated what she had said. Nicholas turned. “I’m sending the round ship straight through to Porto Pisano. You can go with her if you like.”
She said, “Aren’t you going to Venice?”
“Yes,” he