To Lie with Lions - Dorothy Dunnett [180]
‘Oh,’ said Nicholas. He was looking at Benecke.
‘Ah,’ said the mercenary, returning the look. Between the knobs of his throat, something quacked. Nicholas coughed. The cough turned into a splutter. Then he laid his head on the table and laughed. On the floor, the bloodstained master of the Pruss Maiden brought his knees up and began laughing too. Yuri looked cross and, still looking cross, slid under the table.
Crackbene opened his eyes. ‘What is it?’ he said.
Nicholas rested his chin on his hands. Happy tears had run into his beard. ‘We’ve lost the Vatachino,’ he said. ‘They’ve sailed off with their ship and the salt and all the bits of the cargo that Danziger Diavolo here didn’t transfer from its hold and its arse and its fokkedeck. You could say,’ added Nicholas wildly, ‘that the Unicorn has fokkedecked the Maiden.’
‘I didn’t hear that,’ said Father Moriz. ‘Nor did the doctor.’
To his surprise and gratification, Nicholas sat up and gazed at him, clearly half sobered.
‘Bloody hell,’ Nicholas said. ‘Now I’ll have to sail over and bring back the Adornlings.’
Chapter 25
TO ANSELM SERSANDERS, aged twenty-eight, factor, businessman, representative on this expedition of his eminent uncle the Baron Cortachy, the resignation in de Fleury’s voice, had he heard it, would have been the last straw in a bale of such offered over the previous twelve hours, and all of them short.
His ruined sister had refused to leave de Fleury and join him. De Fleury had kicked him off the ship and virtually into the prison hold of the Pruss Maiden, except that the Icelanders had got to him first. And now the Icelanders had dumped him 011 the south shore of Iceland and taken his boat, leaving him in a hut hanging with fish and choking with smoke composed in equal parts of seaweed and sheep’s trittles and cow-pats. When he ran out again shouting, they only waved as they rowed off without him. The shore was thick with fish-guts and cod’s heads and whale blubber which sagged and squeaked under his feet.
After a while, he sat down and waited. It was possible that the Hanse ship would be outgunned by the Unicorn. Martin, whom he didn’t particularly like, was nevertheless one of the toughest men he had met, and would not quickly give in. If they won, they would come for him. He was coldly furious with Nicholas de Fleury, who had sold them all to the Maiden. He would have sold Kathi too, he supposed, if he had thought it worth while.
The cold reached through his jacket, and he got up to walk. He didn’t intend to go back into the reeking hut, or any of the other humped grassy mounds, which were also cabins, built of rocks stuffed with grass and roofed with turf. Round about them were the fish-cleaning trestles, the vats of unspeakable offal, and the wind-huts where the grey fish hung drying. The people working all about, their knives flashing and sucking, were women. As they worked they chanted and chattered and looked at him, calling and giggling. He ignored them, although he observed without conscious volition the wet, powerful ankles and feet; the rounded bosoms and bellies like fish-floats; the golden hair plaited round the strong necks. He didn’t know what language they spoke, having only German and no Scandinavian tongues.
He knew what language they spoke.
When the snow began, and he was forced to return to the hut, he found two of them there, lifting a mighty cauldron on top of the fire, while a hooded figure with reptilian finger-bones hooked live mussels on lines coiled in