The Spring of the Ram - Dorothy Dunnett [66]
Astorre grunted. His face, without eyebrows, looked naked. He said, “You tell a soldier to stay on board and he stays. Tell a sailor he can’t go ashore and he drowns his sorrows and tips over his lantern. Cheaper to let them ashore.”
No one answered. Tobie looked over to Nicholas. As if he had just heard le Grant speak, he looked up. “A week? No. We have to be able to sail in a day.”
Tobie saw the rest exchange glances. “We can’t,” said le Grant flatly.
Nicholas remained looking up. “Why not? We have unlimited help. We can buy what we want from the arsenal. We refit what we can. We buy ready-made what we can. And at the end of the day, we collect what we haven’t managed to finish, load it on board with the workmen, and sail with it. This isn’t a round ship, it’s a galley. All we need is a seaworthy hull, the right number of oars and enough benches. If you can’t get those in time, then I can.”
John le Grant looked at him. “Aye,” he said. “Ye need even less for a raft. What about that?”
He and Nicholas stared at one another without noticeable animosity. Nicholas said, “All right, I’ve understated it. But not by much.”
“That’s your opinion,” said the red-haired engineer. “As, of course, a seagoing man. Allow me to advise you. I can get this ship seaworthy in twenty-four hours for rowing right round this harbour, and she won’t take in a drop. But the Aegean in March? That’s for dummies.”
“I’m in a hurry,” said Nicholas. He held the lamp out of the way and threw the tablet over the deck. “Twenty-four hours.”
“Why?” said the engineer. He picked the tablet up, but didn’t look at it.
Tobias Beventini didn’t look at it either, because the light had shown him Nicholas’s face. He wondered if the others saw what now existed, fixed, beneath the dirt and the burns. He had been wrong, and twice over; and Godscalc had been right, with nothing to go on but guesswork. Despite the disorientation on shore, Nicholas had possessed, after all, the reserves to deal with the fire. Such things normally brought their own mercy. Now Tobias Beventini looked at Nicholas and recognised that not for a moment had Nicholas let the matter slip from his mind. It still occupied all his real thoughts as he sat there. And as awareness reached him, he heard Nicholas repeating the engineer’s question. “Why the hurry? I have something to raise with Pagano Doria. He won’t like it. He may dislike it so much he lifts anchor. And if he tries to leave, I want to outsail him.”
“I”. Not the company “we”. Not either the disarming tone they were familiar with. The face of le Grant showed he could make nothing of it. Tobie, half-prepared to be called on as an ally, wondered if Nicholas even remembered his existence. It was Loppe’s voice which broke in before them.
“Messer Niccolò?” Alone of them all, he gave Nicholas the title, and his Italian name. Nicholas rose to his feet.
Loppe said, “The smoke has cleared. The Doria is not in the harbour.”
The cold of the night swirled through the masked door as Nicholas left. The others, scrambling, followed. At Tobie’s side, Julius said, “That business on shore?”
“Yes,” said Tobie. With the rest, he got to the side.
It was true. Where the round ship had lain was pooled water, reflecting the light on the mole, and the bow lights of the small ships at anchor, masked by the last drifting smoke from their fires. The fires which the Doria had helped to extinguish. And then, politely withdrawing her skiffs, she had made herself ready for sea and, in the smoke and the darkness, had vanished.
Godscalc came up. He said, “She must have been provisioned already. He meant to go.”
“I should have known. Of course he meant to go,” Nicholas said. “He started the fire.”
There was a second’s pause. “Rubbish,” said Astorre.
“You think so?” said Nicholas. When he turned suddenly, Astorre had to look up to him. Crewmen, taking notice, were listening. Nicholas didn’t look at them, but his voice was pitched louder