To Lie with Lions - Dorothy Dunnett [178]
M. de Fleury said to the priest, ‘There. Do you hear? God and St Barbara will forgive you. Do you think our Flying Danziger may be visited?’
‘I suppose it is safe. John and Crackbene have returned from his sickbed with their lives. I dare say so will you, provided his teeth are removed.’ Father Moriz sounded sour. Robin was sorry. He bobbed up hopefully when M. de Fleury rose and made for the door, but was told firmly to go off to bed.
Laid in the dimly lit quarters usually occupied by Crackbene and his companions, Paúel Benecke wore, inadvertently, the livery of his captors, being picked out by the white of his bandages and the black of his bright eyes and his lank hair and his beard. His feet, projecting over the end of Yuri’s mattress, were long and bony and thin, and he had the frame which in a sick man seems gaunt, and in an active, lithe one is simply due to a misarticulation of the limbs. He looked, for a man covered in bruises, quite at ease. ‘The Nikolás-riddari,’ he said. ‘I am told you kept a knife at my throat until my deputy agreed to surrender.’
‘The Bergenfahrer,’ Nicholas returned with equal politeness. ‘By that you may know how highly you are esteemed in the Artushof. Being practical men, my crew would have bargained and sailed off.’ He sat. ‘Apart from your freedom, is there anything I may offer you?’
‘Your master gunner,’ said Benecke. ‘He is good. Engrained powder, not riddled. One of sulphur to seven parts of saltpetre and two of charcoal, unlike most. And I’ll swear my man went to fire before he did.’
‘He is John le Grant,’ Nicholas said. ‘I hope you made him an offer.’
‘He prevaricated. Trained in Germany, I hear. Your chaplain also is German.’
‘My counter-masters are Danish and Scottish and Muscovite. Crackbene was born in mid-ocean. I have no one from Poland as yet.’
It was not an observation he would have made, for example, to an Ochoa. He risked it because of something he glimpsed in the man’s face. Nothing of appeal, nothing of complaisance, nothing of softening but something. A gleam, perhaps.
The man said, ‘Perhaps we are good at prevaricating as well.’ He let a pause develop before adding, ‘I hear you have friends in Murano.’
Nicholas lifted his brows. ‘And little good have they done me when it comes to getting ships built. But I always say it’s good to have friends on an island.’
‘I would not deny it,’ said the other man. ‘You are familiar with Venice, of course. I hear their custom is to whip a nail-thief round the Arsenal, with his nails hung in ropes round his neck.’
‘Indeed?’ said Nicholas. ‘Ropes round the neck. A barbarity. Why did you cut yourself free? If you had hit the sea, we couldn’t have saved you.’
‘I contemplated it,’ the man said. ‘But it seemed a trifle flamboyant. The Hanse don’t pay me that much. No. I cut the rope to remind myself not to be so stupid next time.’
‘You didn’t think I would sail up behind you?’
‘I assumed that, having arranged the diversion, you would fly. I apologise.’
‘Apology accepted,’ Nicholas said. ‘Although, of course, there was no question of leaving. Why should I? After all, I helped you to capture the Unicorn, and in return, you sanctioned two weeks of authorised fishing. I have to thank you.’
There was a silence. At length, the thin man said, ‘You are staying to fish?’
‘There is still room in the hold,’ Nicholas said. ‘And all that salt in the Unicorn, if it hasn’t dissolved. And while we fish, I trust the Maiden will wait in the harbour. Minus her remaining masts and her sails and, of course, without yourself until you are better. But we shall be sure to reunite you all with one another about the time that we leave.’
The man stared thoughtfully at him, saying nothing.
‘That is,’ Nicholas went on, expatiating. ‘You are a Hanse ship from Bergen, and licensed. I shouldn’t want to interfere with your fishing. Only to do all mine first.’
‘And the