The Unicorn Hunt - Dorothy Dunnett [251]
The skiffs lay about her for a long time. Finally, the customs boat left, the violent activity ceased, and the big Genoese ship was left to float, battered, in the late sun, with the sound of faint music and reviving laughter to tell that crew and passengers and helpers were at last able to toast their arrival in Eunostos, in the Port of Safe Return.
Nicholas de Fleury stood on the fondaco roof, watching them. He was alone.
Earlier, warned by tambour and trumpet, all the staff of the consulate and its merchants had crowded the space where he stood, agonising over the incomer’s struggles; cheering when she at last made her way safely in. She was too far off, of course, to distinguish passengers. Men and women were like ghabr, like dust; like the minute script they tied to the wing-feathers of pigeons. Wherever Gelis was standing, or Dei, they could not distinguish him either.
Lingering there, he had been startled, like the rest, when a voice shrill with alarm had raised itself far below in the courtyard, repeating a phrase over and over in a thick Venetian vernacular. Nicholas had been among the first to leave the roof, bounding downstairs, the others pouring behind until all the men and women of the fondaco were crowded together below. There the Consul, holding the man by the shoulders, was speaking. Then the man, weeping, repeated what he had said.
Nicholas had stayed with Achille and the rest for a while, then had found it oppressive. When he came up the second time, he had the roof to himself, and the view of the harbour. The sounds that floated over the water were not very different. After a while, the small boats began to leave the big Genoese one by one, rowing across to their various ships, and Gelis’s vessel swung to its anchor. It was two hours to sundown, and outside the harbour the storm-waves crashed gold on the spit. He was not thinking about Gelis, or Dei. A few hours ago, he had been thinking about nothing else.
Tobie’s voice spoke at his elbow. ‘I came when I heard. Negroponte has fallen.’ He paused and then said, his voice shaking, ‘The bastards.’
‘Who, the Turks?’ Nicholas said.
‘No, the Genoese. The bastards are celebrating.’ Tobie paused. He said, ‘What have you heard? Your Consul will know more than ours.’
Nicholas said, ‘It was taken at noon five days ago, fighting street by street. They have butchered every male over eight. Erizzo gave himself up on condition he kept his head: they have sawn him in two at the waist, and beheaded his daughter. It was worse than it might have been because Mehmet thought he was losing: the Venetian Captain-General brought seventy ships up the strait. But instead of breaking the bridges, he took fright, it seems, and sailed back to Crete. So Mehmet gave his troops all that they wanted.’
Tobie moved, but Nicholas didn’t look at him. ‘So we’ve still got the Ghost and the San Niccolò, those two happy ships. Even the Duke of Burgundy’s two galleys would have been safe: Tommaso might risk them next time.’ He broke off and said, ‘Oh, damn them.’
Beside him Tobie swore, too. The harbour, so peaceful a moment before, had erupted into a cacophony of noise; of blaring, hooting and warbling, of the clang of bells and the thudding of drums, punctuated by the erratic thunder of cannon. The Turkish ships of the western harbour had just heard the news, and those from their fondaco were rushing to join them. As they watched, boats laced with turbans began to skim towards the Christian galleys. The tumult gusted into the city as if roused by bellows.
‘Hound music,’ Nicholas said, and made as if to break away suddenly.
Tobie gripped him. ‘No. Listen. It’s happening too in the streets. Leave it to the Mamelukes. The Mamelukes are probably as sick over the victory as we are.’
‘They can’t police the harbour,’ Nicholas said. ‘I hope to God the Genoese keep their heads.’ The harbour now was