To Lie with Lions - Dorothy Dunnett [182]
‘I know. I don’t mind. It isn’t that,’ Kathi said. ‘But what will they do if he dies?’
‘Who?’ said Sersanders.
‘The parrot,’ said Kathi. ‘It made me think of the parrot. Come and help her bait hooks while we wait.’
‘No, thank you,’ said Sersanders.
The news came, brought by Tryggvi-Sigurdsson after dark. The Ein-hyringr, the Unicorn, had dragged her anchor and run on the reefs of Bót Bay, with what loss no one so far had discovered. The Pruss Maiden, forging out to recapture her, had been set upon by de Fleury and crippled, her mainmast gone and her master held hostage.
‘Paúel Benecke’s ship has been captured by Nicholas?’ Sersanders did not want to believe it.
‘So it seems,’ Kathi said. She had had some of the broth, and was eating a pudding made of moss cooked with milk. ‘M. de Fleury means to lodge the Maiden inside the harbour in daylight, and then fish the cod banks until his holds are quite full.’
‘And the Unicorn? Martin, Mogens and Svartecop?’ Sersanders said.
‘The Svipa is sending boats through the night to try and help the prize crew and our people,’ Kathi explained. ‘There’s a doctor, it seems, and Father Moriz will make them do what is right. That is, if M. de Fleury claims the Unicorn and its cargo, I don’t suppose Father Moriz can stop him.’
‘But I can,’ Anselm said.
‘I’m sure. And Uncle Adorne and his lawyers. But nothing can be done until daylight, and even then, Tryggvi says, the Svipa will have to see the Maiden is settled in harbour before M. de Fleury can think about coming in to the mainland for us. So we might as well lie down and sleep.’
‘I shan’t sleep,’ Sersanders said. ‘I don’t propose to wait to be picked up and ransomed by Nicholas de Fleury.’
‘But you can’t do anything now,’ Kathi said. ‘Tryggvi’s mother has made you a bed in the corner. I’m just outside in a hut with the girls. I’ll see you at first light.’
She looked perfectly cheerful. The apprehension or despair of a short time ago seemed to have passed. It was characteristic of Kathi: one minute living at ten times the pace of anyone else, and the next moment exhausted. She left. He stumbled, led by the grandmother, to his bed, which was a slab of basalt covered with sand and a mattress. On top was a thick, faded eiderdown, smelling of fish. The old wife patted him down and went back to the fire, where the two girls were serving their father.
Sersanders took off his boots. After an interval he lay back on the mattress, his rolled jacket under his head. Someone pulled the feather-filled cotton over his body, patting it gently. He closed his eyes, and was surprised, opening them, to find that the lamps had gone out, the bog-cotton wicks having expired in a warm stench of fulmar. Someone was still pleasantly patting the quilt. He realised that the patting hands were not only on top of the quilt, but smoothing restfully under it, and that one by one his points were being drawn undone and apart. In the glimmer of the low fire he saw a dark yellow plait swinging loose, then a pale one. Presently the girl on one side of him lifted the quilt and slid in, to be joined by the girl on the other.
Affrighted, he lifted his head. He discerned the snoring form of his host, bedded on the far side of the hut. He saw the old woman still sat and toiled at the hand-lines, her lidless eyes fixed on his face. He made a sudden involuntary movement, and one of the girls laughed aloud. The grandmother smiled like a leaf, plucking, plucking the molluscs and ramming them ceaselessly down on the hooks.
At dawn they had to shake him awake, snug and reeking of fish, and with a fair attempt at sang-froid he managed to assume his clothing under the quilt and venture into the half-light outside. He found Kathi up, fed and being taught how to slit and gut cod. Beside her was a bucket of fish-heads and a vat full of livers and bladders and oil. She put the knife down and waved. ‘I can give you some news of God’s chosen victim, the Unicorn. Guess?’
Her eyes were sparkling.