To Lie with Lions - Dorothy Dunnett [224]
After that, word of what had happened in Iceland did not take long to spread. First, that the Vatachino had achieved a brilliant if opportunist success, not only bringing back their great vessel against the most vicious odds, but having as cargo the finest quality of Icelandic sulphur, to be sold off in Bruges as soon as the ship was in a fit state to take it. The partners in the Unicorn venture were rich.
The rest of the story, picked up by Pasque and conveyed to Clémence, was one that merchants avoided when speaking to Gelis van Borselen, although the news would reach her eventually. Many people had seen Master Martin marching down to the Canongate to burst into the Banco di Niccolò where, it was said, he had stormed at de Fleury’s man for an hour.
By nightfall, everyone knew what Nicholas de Fleury had been up to in Iceland: preserving his own illicit cargo, in return for exposing his fellow-Burgundian’s ship to the Hanse. Further, he had caused the Unicorn to run on the rocks, from which it had only saved itself by a miracle. The last seen of the same Nicholas de Fleury, Martin was happy to say, was gun to gun with the Hanse ship the Maiden, whose captain Paúel Benecke had a sharp way with a person who didn’t deliver.
‘And the little maiden? Katelijne Sersanders?’ had asked Mistress Clémence, hearing it all from the voluble Pasque.
‘Ah!’ said Pasque. When she said Ah! in that fashion, Mistress Clémence always wished she had not asked.
‘Ah, the poor silly child,’ said the woman. ‘They have attempted to hide it, you know. They would like you to think that she stayed with her brother. But the girl ran away on her own, and was with M. de Fleury for six days, before her brother went to persuade her to leave. He never returned. They are at the bottom of the sea with M. de Fleury. Will our terms of employment remain the same?’ Pasque said. ‘The Lady might even want to increase them.’
That was on Tuesday, the twenty-fourth day of March. For two days the lady Gelis stayed at home, save for one visit to the Bank at the Canongate, and one to the house of Adorne, where she heard the account, in person, of Master Martin. During that time, she behaved as she usually did, although her complexion was pale, her eyes darkened, and she could not disguise her disinclination for food. The household were proud of her stoicism and served her in whispers, even though it was not absolutely sure that M. de Fleury was dead.
On the third day, in a fashion no one had contemplated, the doubt was resolved. An English privateer, foundering off Dunbar, had been seized as a prize and brought into harbour, where it was discovered that this ship also was returning from Iceland. If the state of the Unicorn was bad, it was a wonder that the Charity had stayed afloat at all, with her strakes splintered with balls, her sails patched and both her boats missing.
Half her crew was missing as well. According to Jo Babbe, her master, she had sent two boats to make a peaceable landing on Iceland, when she had been set upon by the crews of two skiffs from the Svipa, the vessel of Nicholas de Fleury. After some severe fighting, the Englishmen had been tied up and handed to Icelanders, the two boats confiscated, and a message sent to the Hull ship advising her to get off at once, reinforced by some shots from a cannon. Without a proper crew, they had been unable to respond and without boats they could hardly go fishing. They had turned and sailed off, intending to demand compensation from the Banco di Niccolò.
‘They’ll be lucky,’ had said Govaerts, arriving from the Bank to report to the lady Gelis. The words sounded more defiant than flippant. He was nervous. Mistress Clémence, who had been asked to remain in the room, saw her employer observe it and brace herself. The child was not present.
Then the lady Gelis said, ‘You did not come to tell me only that.