To Lie with Lions - Dorothy Dunnett [166]
‘He’s going to say “Ey”,’ said Katelijne.
‘Ey!’ said Crackbene. And in the boat now surging up to their flank the blue eyes, the myriad blue, icy eyes opened and shone.
‘Svipa, ey!’ bawled the man from the boat. And the cry was taken up, from boat to boat under the gulls until all the faces were turned to Mick Crackbene, and smiling.
Peace, not war. They were in Thule and, thank God, they were welcome.
Only Katelijne, watching the dogger arrive, was disturbed. She said, ‘The fishermen know Master Crackbene. They’re coming aboard. Where would they get a new boat of that size?’
Robin wouldn’t have told her just yet. It was John le Grant, on his way to the steps, who seized the chance to explain. ‘Could you not guess? We built the doggers in Leith, exchanged them in Orkney for yoles, and presented the yoles to the Icelanders, together with one twenty-ton dogger that can fish as far out to sea as the Hanse ships.’
‘In return for what?’ Katelijne said. But she knew almost before she was told. In return for all the existing stores of dried cod, and the fill of M. de Fleury’s holds, if he liked, in fresh landings. She should have guessed. She should have managed to forewarn her brother. Betha Sinclair, so anxious to keep her at Dean, had known of her father’s Orkney involvement. Only Kathi had been blind.
The dogger, arriving, made fast to Svipa’s side and the oarsmen slowly clambered aboard, heavily creaking.
‘Don’t laugh,’ Robin said. ‘They’re wearing sheepskin made supple with fish-oil. It’s waterproof.’
‘I’m not laughing,’ Kathi said, and departed. Robin looked after her.
‘She’ll be all right,’ said the chaplain. ‘Divided loyalty is an upsetting thing, with or without halibut-oil. Give her time.’
Robin said nothing.
Father Moriz surveyed him. ‘Some of that was new to you also? I share your doubts, but lives may be saved. The Svipa can be freighted and leave in two weeks, before anyone sees or can stop her.’
‘Except the Unicorn,’ Robin said. He wasn’t stupid, and he didn’t want to be soothed. He was anxious about Kathi’s brother.
The priest removed his handkerchief from his nose, and replaced it quickly. ‘The Vatachino have no more right to be here than we have. With no stockfish to buy, they’re going to be far too busy catching wet fish to complain. And even then, they’ll have to leave if the Hanse come.’
Robin said, ‘Won’t the Icelanders be punished for selling to us?’ Below, the dogger’s master was calling to M. de Fleury.
The German smiled. His eyebrows, fluttering, made him wink. He said, ‘I doubt it. They are tough. Royal officials have been killed in the past. We are more in danger than they are.’
‘If a Hanse ship were to catch us,’ Robin said. M. de Fleury had made a remark, and the dogger man was waving his arms.
‘We must hope that it doesn’t,’ said the priest.
‘It has,’ Robin said. ‘Father, you’ve got your hat too far over your ears. That’s what the man from the dogger is saying.’
The priest dropped his handkerchief. ‘What?’
‘Ever since we came in, there’s been a Hanse ship hidden there in the harbour. The Pruss Maiden, they say. Her men watched us come in. And now she wants her full due of stockfish, or she’ll sink us.’
Apart from a carrying voice, the man who brought the bad news, by name Glímu-Sveinn, possessed the shape of a dicker of hides and a jaw as long as his beard, above which bulged two ferocious eyes in a ring of white lashes. Nicholas absorbed what he said and pondered all through Lutkyn’s translation, having already picked up the gist. He hoped the others were doing the same.
It was, of course, catastrophic. A mature man would have wept. Arrived at Ultima Thule, faced with six well-oiled aliens and a thundering threat from a Hanse ship, Nicholas experienced a jolt of pure juvenile pleasure. He said, ‘Lutkyn, Yuri and Mick: let’s have the ale up, and a brazier, and as much as there is of the beef. And then, my friends – then, my friends, let us see how we can help one another.’
It took an hour, but he got the help that he wanted. He had