‘Of course, there is the boat,’ Martin said. ‘If you don’t come back, we shall have lost a good boat.’
‘Buy another. Go and do what we planned, and go home. So long as you don’t provoke Nicholas, he’s not going to want to make trouble. I’m sure there’s enough fish for all.’
‘Except stockfish,’ said Martin thoughtfully. ‘I rather wondered about the shortage of stockfish. Does it look to you as if the Svipa is laden? Of course, the fish may have been bought by the Maiden. Ask him, Master Sersanders. If you get the chance, ask M. de Fleury.’
From the deck, Martin watched the skiff leave, threading its way into the distance. None of the creaking small boats tried to stop it. He watched until it prepared to round the far side of the Svipa. The young man’s eyes were fixed on the ship, which showed no particular sign of awareness. Indeed, the only sounds to be heard were those of a number of lethargic voices combined in some sort of ale-sodden ditty. Those in the skiff might have noted that one of the singers was female.
‘Holà, Svipa!’ called Anselm Sersanders.
Walking into sight by the rail, Katelijne refrained from answering ‘Ey!’, and not merely because M. de Fleury, possibly short of patience, was not far behind her. Instead she said quickly, ‘Anselm. Come up.’
The face in the boat, ruddy within its light beard, wore its familiar expression of harassed obstinacy. Sersanders said, ‘I’ve come for you. It’s all right. Come down.’
‘I can’t. Come up. Leave the boat and come up.’
‘You can’t stay, Kathi. Come. He can’t stop you.’
‘No,’ his sister said. Her eyes shifted sideways and back. She said, ‘Quickly, then,’ and opening the rail very fast, stepped out and trod on the ladder. Sersanders set his foot on a rung and stretched up. His sister seized hold of his hand, and instead of stepping daintily down, hauled him up with a disjointing yank. He clung to the walloping rope and exclaimed. He saw someone else was behind her: the large person of Nicholas de Fleury. De Fleury smiled. His powerful hand released the girl’s grip and firmly shoved her back upwards on board. His equally punctilious foot, following through, courteously punted Sersanders face down in the boat. Sersanders sat up in the skiff, his nose bleeding.
‘Sorry,’ said Nicholas cheerfully. ‘She said no.’ He had stepped back and pulled up the ladder.
‘I said I couldn’t come down!’ said Kathi furiously. ‘Look what you’ve done! I asked him up! Let him up! Anselm, you don’t know what’s –’ She stopped, being deprived of the means of continuing.
Nicholas kept his hand over her face. ‘Anselm?’ he said. ‘She is well. She is protected. So far as all at home know, she has never been out of your sight. She is staying here as my special insurance, and you are staying with Martin as his. You are being thrown off this ship. There is no way you can board it. Turn, and sit up, and tell your men to row you as far back to your ship as they can. And if anything happens, lie down.’
‘What do you mean?’ Sersanders said.
‘What I say,’ said Nicholas de Fleury; and removed his hand from the face of the girl.
‘Katelijne?’ her brother said.
And very shakily, his sister answered. ‘I think you should leave.’
There was nothing more he could do. The ladder had gone. The rail was lined with men even bigger, it seemed, than their patron. Sersanders picked himself up, and sat down, and gave orders in a low voice to the oarsmen. They grasped the shafts of their blades, and the boat slowly rounded the stern and began to pull away from the Svipa. He sat this time in the prow, so that his accusing gaze rested all the time on the face of his sister. She was pale, and staring too; but not at him.
No one was looking at him. They were all looking past him, and up. He turned to see why. He was confounded by a sudden frenzied hauling of lines in the cod-boats. He perceived the Unicorn where he had left it, but now its decks were a curious antheap of jostling men. And he saw, emerging from the back of Bjarn Island, a dragon. No, not a mythical beast; but the vast high-decked bulk of the licensed Hanse ship the Pruss Maiden, preceded by a gentle puff of white smoke from its bows.
The Svipa had not been alone. Nicholas de Fleury had saved his own cod by agreeing to be the Lübeckers’ mussel.
*
Martin had no chance at all. The first shot, a warning one, fell into the water and sank by the Unicorn. The other cannon were trained on its deck. And by then the Lübecker was so close that the best its victim could manage was a defensive burst of stray bullets and arrows.
Martin was wearing his cuirass. He had already drawn his short sword when Svartecop laid a hand on his arm. ‘It isn’t worth it. I know Paúel. He wants the loaded ship, and its merchants to ransom. Let him have them.’
It sounded suspicious. ‘But you and the men?’ Martin said.
Svartecop grinned. ‘Lutkyn, Paúel, Colombo, Ochoa de Marchena, Mick Crackbene, myself – we belong to the same brotherhood of classionarii, sometimes on one side, sometimes another. Paúel knows what gold I have, and will take it. Next time I will take his. Our crew are select; he will probably keep and employ them; Mogens too. He is telling you to throw down your arms and let him board. Only don’t tell him who Reinholdt is. He despises Cologners.’
Martin took the advice. He had no one else to consult: Reinholdt had small wish to fight, and Sersanders had not returned from the Svipa: presumably he was now fast in irons. De Fleury must be scared, or mad, to trust the Pruss Maiden to keep to its bargain. This might be the end of the Unicorn; but very soon, according to Svartecop, the Svipa would find itself the next prey of Paúel Benecke. Martin of the Vatachino went forward bitterly to speak to his captors, but beneath the undeniable rage was some satisfaction. If he was to suffer, then so was de Fleury.
Outwardly placid, the Svipa, swaying at anchor, was corporately quite aware of the anomalies in the situation. It heartened Kathi to observe that M. de Fleury at least appeared inwardly placid as well; and sufficiently easy of conscience to take his stance on the deck with her, watching. The rest of the ship appeared plunged into activity.
Half the fishing-boats had now dispersed towards the south coast of Iceland, two hours away, and the Unicorn and the Pruss Maiden were linked together by grappling irons and cable. She couldn’t see the skiff that had carried her brother.
M. de Fleury said, ‘It’s all right. They stopped rowing when the trouble began, and Sersanders is being taken ashore by the fishermen. They’ll see he has shelter and food till it’s over.’
‘How did you know he would come to try and fetch me?’ Kathi said.
‘Because he’s touched, like his sister. But if he’d stayed on the Unicorn, he would just have been ransomed with everyone else. Benecke wants an intact vessel, and cargo and money. There wasn’t much danger.’
‘So you rather hoped he would stay,’ Kathi said.
‘Well, of course. Your uncle has plenty of money, and Sersanders would quite enjoy Lübeck. The beer is stupendous, they say.’
‘Lucky Martin,’ said Kathi, gazing to sea.
‘Yes. Well – I do have plans for him.’
‘Amazing,’ said Kathi. ‘And for me, I am sure. What did you tell the Maiden’s blue boat? That if the whole season’s stockfish had gone, then Martin must have it?’
‘More or less,’ M. de Fleury said.
‘And now that they see the Unicorn doesn’t have it, Benecke will know that you have?’
‘I have?’ said M. de Fleury.
‘Yes,’ Kathi said. ‘That was what you were taking on board every night you were waiting for Martin?’
‘You didn’t drink your drugged claret,’ said M. de Fleury.
‘I would have drunk it rather than the syrup Mick serves. So what are you going to do when the Maiden comes to make you her prisoner? You don’t think she’s going to leave you alone?’
‘No,’ said M. de Fleury. ‘But they’ll take an hour or two to fix up the Unicorn. Put their prize crew on board. Transfer the be
st of her cargo. Blacken Martin’s eyes if he’s cheeky.’
‘Lucky Martin,’ said Kathi again. ‘You can’t fly. Benecke would outsail you. You can’t sail in the dark: it’s too dangerous. And what’s going to happen to Anselm?’
‘You’re going to join him,’ said M. de Fleury. ‘Don’t tell me you didn’t guess that.’
‘On the south shore of Iceland. In Hell.’
‘Naturally.’
‘When?’
‘When it snows. Yuri says it’s going to snow in an hour. Blinding snow; the kind that will stop them moving themselves or the Unicorn. It usually lasts for two hours.’
‘How does he know?’
‘Ask him some time. Either the Unicorn will pick you up, or I will. In the Naglfar if I must.’
Then she stared at him. ‘I’m not going. Anyway, how in Heaven’s name could the Unicorn …’
‘You can’t guess?’ said M. de Fleury. ‘You deserve to be stranded. Kathi, get ready to go. Robin will help you with clothes for your brother. The Maiden has cannon. And if the oratory palls, there might be a scuffle on board. Heigh-ho, you know how it is with rough boys.’
She knew how it was. Of course, he wanted her out of the way. He even wanted her safe, and her brother. But transcending everything else was his anticipation of the excitement ahead, from which she was excluded. The dizzy, glorious contest, with cannon, against a man he had never met, but who was said to be the best of his kind. He might be speaking to her, but M. de Fleury was thinking, all this while, of Paúel Benecke.
She said, ‘I think you are right. Yes, I’ll go.’
She would have preferred him to look mildly pleased; but supposed that his lack of surprise was a compliment.
The snow came in an hour, and as soon as it closed white around them, the yole arrived, and Nicholas sent Kathi off with a man he could trust and could spare. Then he joined Crackbene and John and Lutkyn and Yuri and Moriz, and all the fun started.
It was unlike the Play. Everything was based on guesswork. It had been guesswork that Martin would linger, hoping that the Maiden would finish Nicholas off, and in fact allowing him leisure to load up his stockfish. It had been a guess that the Unicorn would come when it did, using the first of the tide, and allowing itself plenty of daylight. It was pure luck that the snow had come, too; and that Glímu-Sveinn had proved to have a sense of Ultima Thulery fun, and to be so very pleased with his dogger.
He wondered how humourless the Danziger Benecke was. Crackbene and Lutkyn called him a brilliant mariner; a man who became bored with the routine of the Hanse and now worked as a mercenary. A man so lucky and rich that crews begged to join him. A man who, within the last year, had captured and held to ransom both John of Salisbury and the Lord Mayor of London.
Now Paúel was working for Lübeck and, while fishing himself, was entitled to stop other nations from fishing or trading off Iceland. He might have noticed the yoles and dogger and drawn some conclusions. The Icelanders would not, Nicholas thought, mention stockfish, but Paúel might guess. All in all, it seemed he was unlikely to honour his promise, and let the Svipa slip scatheless away, keeping its reward of three days’ hurried fishing. The fact was that the Svipa was nothing. The capital prize was himself, patron of the Banco di Niccolò – a capture to make the Bank rock, if the concern for a baby had shaken it. And, of course, Benecke could expect gold for the Sersanders youngsters. For though they were no longer here, Martin thought they were.
He had said as much earlier to Moriz, who had stared at him with disbelief. ‘Martin’s ship belongs to Adorne! How could he wish to harm the young people!’
And he remembered his answer. ‘Martin won’t fire a gun against Adorne’s niece or his nephew. That’s Benecke’s privilege.’
Benecke had several options, when one gave it some thought. He could challenge the Svipa to surrender and use his own guns to beat down and board it. Or if unwilling to damage his ship, he might man and send in the Unicorn. Or he might land the crew from the Unicorn and attack the Svipa from both ships at once. Nicholas wished he knew more about Benecke.
Then had come Yuri’s prediction of snow. Ravens and Yuri knew when snow was coming. So did other men, advising the Maiden. ‘So think of Benecke,’ Nicholas had said. ‘We all know snow is coming, then darkness. Benecke doesn’t know me, but he knows Michael Crackbene. Mick, what does he know? That you wouldn’t give up. That you came up to Iceland last year and probably delivered that boat against stockfish. Would you go home without collecting the fish?’
‘You might,’ Mick Crackbene had said. ‘He doesn’t know you. Neither really does Martin. They might think you would reconsider the risk to your Bank and cut your losses.’
There had been a silence, indicating that a number of others thought the same. John had been grinning.
‘On the other hand,’ Crackbene added, ‘he used to know Ochoa de Marchena.’
Ochoa de Marchena, now invisible, had once been entrusted with a cargo of African gold belonging to Nicholas. Ten minutes alone with Ochoa would tell Paúel exactly what Nicholas was capable of. When that snow fell, Paúel would know the Svipa wasn’t going to flee, or abandon its fishing, or give up its feud with the Unicorn. The column of black smoke, thin against the grey sky and white snow of the land, caught his eye at that point. He had said, ‘I don’t suppose any other useful augurs have appeared that might be convenient? An opening of the Crapault d’Enfer?’
‘You never know,’ Crackbene had said. ‘But the reverse of hellfire seems to be likelier. Frozen pack ice all the way over to Greenland; foxes and bears coming ashore; snow in March. They say the hot springs have increased, which means something is boiling up somewhere, but I don’t think the sea will divide. Plan for snow. Benecke will. Benecke will stay till it lifts, confident that you’re not going to run. Then he’ll come for you.’
It had been good advice. That was when he had sent out to find Glímu-Sveinn.
Chapter 24
THE SNOW FELL for two hours, as any Muscovite could have predicted. And, in the icy seas off the Westmann Islands of Thule, three well-found vessels each sought to make use of it.
On the Svipa, the work was already done: the weapons and cannon and armour prepared; the grappling irons laid out; the instructions given. When Nicholas gave the order to stand down and eat, he made sure that the food was the best they had left, and that there was enough ale to lift the heart without drowning it. Robin, torn between worry and ecstasy, obeyed his commands in a dream, and excitement sparkled like lightning in summer.
On the Pruss Maiden, men ate as they worked, but bore no grudge, because the Danziger had made them rich men, and they were going to be richer. The Unicorn, empty, would have recouped all the cost of the voyage. But it had proved to yield much more than that: an international broker to ransom, and a man who, on courteous questioning, had proved to come, would you believe it, from Cologne. But better even than that was the cargo, the surprising high-quality cargo lodged among all the barrel staves and the salt, and now being deftly transferred to the Maiden.
The Unicorn had been proposing to trade. The absence of stockfish must fairly have sickened them. The men chattered and laughed as they worked, and swore that Paúel Benecke was the best man off dry land.
Paúel Benecke, a jug of beer to his hand, sat apart in his room with his lodesman and studied the drawings before him. Stanislas, an old colleague, dared to speak. ‘You say he will stay, like a child, to confront you. With what? He is half your size. He did not take the Unicorn. We did.’
Benecke spoke without looking up. ‘He has cannon.’
‘There is no sign of them.’
‘Of course he has cannon. He would have left three days ago if he hadn’t. And a bigger crew than we think. He is equipped, as we are, for taking prizes.’
‘He didn’t know we should be here.’
‘No. He came intending to fight with the broker. You heard the man Martin. I think de Fleury still wants to capture the Unicorn
. That is the other reason he stayed.’
‘And to find the stockfish,’ Stanislas said.
Paúel Benecke let the map close. ‘Great Christ, the man has the stockfish already. Did you not hear the Icelanders talking? They call him Nikolás-riddari, the Knight Nicholas, as if he were a talisman of some sort. That is why, before it is night, we must take him.’
‘If the snow stops,’ the pilot observed, and was quiet. He knew the shipmaster Paúel of old. A brutal, dedicated privateer while at sea, and a dilettante owning farms, castles, women at home. Many mercenaries – the Count of Urbino for one – behaved so, despising their underlings. Stanislas admired his employer, and didn’t give much for the chances of Nikolás-riddari.
On the Unicorn, even the prisoners were asleep.
There was no need to be vigilant. Just before the snow fell, the last of the boxes and bales had been hoisted across to the Maiden, and the skeleton crew had come on board, after which the grappling irons had gone, and the two ships had anchored apart. Enclosed in its circle of snow, the captive ship might have been quite alone; none, it: was sure, could interfere with it; and its new crew, leaving a watch, were thankful to huddle under whitening awnings close by the fokkedeck, while her master and mates were lodged in the broad poop.
Lying trussed below in the hold, Martin of the Vatachino listened to his fellows complaining, and wished he could watch what Benecke was going to do when the snow ceased. Indeed, he would like to have helped him. The ship swayed to the west-going current. The wind, gusting along her high sides, caused her gear to rattle and knock, and the slap of the waves vibrated through the rubbish-strewn void below decks. Their voices boomed. It pleased Martin to think that if he survived, de Fleury would soon be in equal discomfort – perhaps on the Maiden, perhaps in this same windowless prison. It would be dark in three or four hours. Benecke would want to storm and take the Svipa before then.
Although a far-travelled man, Martin had little interest in maritime matters: the crew worked for the merchant, not the other way round. When the water-sounds from the keel became louder, he thought at first that the tide must have turned. Then he remembered that this could not be so: the ebb was not due to begin until darkness. It was some moments later that he, and all those with him, realised that their vessel was actually in motion. Mogens Björnsen the Faroese began to shout something, while Martin lay and attempted to think.