Scales of Gold: The Fourth Book of the House of Niccolo

  His release had not been hard to procure. Autumn was here. The Moorish offensive against Ceuta was over. If the Bastard of Burgundy were to fulfil his vow in a greater arena, he should be proceeding immediately to the Pope’s side. Or at the worst, wintering in some port in Europe where he could be reached from his father’s bier or bedside in Brussels.

  Throughout it all, the young Senhor Diniz saw nothing of Nicholas in Ceuta, and very little on the voyage to Lagos, on a ship encumbered with returning officials. Nicholas, on the other hand, saw rather more of him than Diniz knew. Landed at Lagos, he let the passengers go ashore, and then had Diniz brought to his cabin. He took his eyeglasses off.

  Physically, the boy had matured. The hollow-cheeked, bloodless youngster of Famagusta was a man of middle height who would never be broad, but who now had the shoulders, the neck and the forearms of a soldier. He looked his father’s son, except for the shape of his eyes and something about the set of his back, which came from his half-Scottish blood. Nicholas said, ‘Are you sorry?’

  ‘No,’ said Diniz. His eyes were bright. He said, ‘You’ll come to the house with me?’

  ‘I think that would be a remarkably bad idea,’ Nicholas said. ‘No. It’s your own affair, what you and your people decide. Anyway, I’m supposed to be out of town. Send and tell me tomorrow what happened.’

  Diniz said, ‘I thought I’d tell them …’

  Nicholas rose. He said, ‘Diniz, I don’t want to know. You’ve had time to think. It’s your business. If your mother wants, I’ll take her to Madeira. But I shan’t take you without her.’

  The boy’s skin darkened. Then he said, ‘Of course not,’ and left.

  Nicholas went ashore in disguise, and passed the hours until sunset in the house Gregorio had taken, for ostensibly he had spent the last days in Lisbon, not Ceuta, and was not due to return until evening. He used the time to talk to his companions in residence, among them Jorge da Silves, now installed to supervise the commissioning of the vessel whose master he would be.

  Time now was precious. Heat and rain were the enemy: every voyage to and from the African coast had to be made between September and May. In three weeks the ship had to be ready, to the last detail of equipment, provisions and crew. On this, the first day of his return, Nicholas mastered the reports, read the lists, and discussed the last fitting-out of the caravel. It had a name.

  ‘The what!’ Nicholas said.

  ‘The San Niccolò,’ Gregorio said. ‘We had to call the ship something. What are you going to use for the other one? The Doria, the Ribérac, or just Future Trouble? Stolen, unlicensed, and trading where anyone can blow her out of the water? Who’s going to sail her?’

  ‘No one reputable, you may be sure,’ Nicholas said. He didn’t want to upset anyone, yet. He didn’t particularly want a ship named after himself either, but knew well enough when to recognise a gesture. He said, ‘I wonder whom Jordan insured her with?’

  By the time he went to bed that night he had seen over his completed ship, now afloat. After the Ciaretti, the caravel felt like a fishing-boat. Half the length, three-masted, beamy, she answered to twenty-five mariners, as the slender Ciaretti answered to two hundred or more, and had room in her stout pinewood belly for food and water and cargo; and a rig and a rudder to take her anywhere her captain had heart to go. Still warm from the sun, she was so new she smelt like a banquet, and shone in the lamplight like satin. The pain he felt this time, unwisely, was joy.

  Next day, he was arguing over some drawings of collapsable boats when Bel of Cuthilgurdy was announced, and for a moment he couldn’t recall who she was. Then she came in, upholstered from neck to floor like a tent and wearing a linen towel on her head, bunched heavily over each ear. She was not carrying a hackbut. She said, ‘Aye. And are ye sober today?’

  Simon’s sister’s companion. He said, ‘You need to come very early for that,’ and smiled at her, and got rid of the others who fortunately didn’t speak Scots. He found her a cushioned stool and some wine. When she sat, all the stool and part of the floor disappeared. He sat down opposite. ‘Now, about sodomy,’ she began.

  ‘… Yes?’ said Nicholas.

  ‘Oh, ye can cackle,’ said the woman. Her eyes were brown as two coppers. ‘But spoil that laddie’s good name, and I’ll have ye cold as a chine of boiled mutton. He’s for going to Madoora.’

  ‘Madeira,’ Nicholas said. ‘With his mother?’

  ‘Ye know Mistress Lucia?’ the woman said. ‘Well, you’ve cause to. She got three good dunts on ye afore we pulled her away.’

  ‘You had a hackbut,’ said Nicholas.

  ‘But I didna use it. No. Ye don’t want Mistress Lucia on Madoora.’

  ‘Worse than sodomy?’ Nicholas said.

  ‘You’re a cheeky young bastard,’ she said.

  ‘So I’m told,’ Nicholas said. He lost his inclination to laugh.

  She said, ‘Aye. That’s you, then. Now listen. My wee lady doesna want to go to Madoora: she’s feared. But she’s just as feared the boy will escape her again. She’s not the one to stand up to bullying, Mistress Lucia. She’s seen ower muckle.’

  She paused. He didn’t say anything. She went on, her voice dry. ‘There’s no doubt, my fine Master Niccolò, that she will lose her grip of the business if someone doesna go out to Madoora and fight for it. The boy’s willing. He’s better than naebody.’

  ‘He’s a good deal better than that,’ Nicholas said.

  ‘I’ll take your word for it,’ said the woman. ‘His mother – you’ll allow – is inordinate light in her humours, poor lass, and not sortable.’

  Nicholas said, ‘He would be on my ship for three days. Presumably you have a good factor at Funchal? Or does he practise sodomy too?’

  ‘Oh, aye, you’re a clever hoor,’ said Bel of Cuthilgurdy, ‘and would lay that tongue of yours against anybody. But there’s never been cause to complain about Jaime, and the lad will be safe in his hands. Forbye, the girl will go, and me with her.’

  ‘The girl?’ But of course he remembered.

  ‘Gelis. Sister to Simon’s sorry young wife. The boy says ye tended the lass Katelina in Cyprus.’

  ‘Her sister doesn’t think so,’ said Nicholas.

  ‘Then the two of us, I take it, won’t be let go. And Diniz can’t go. And hence the company falls into your pooch? Supple tricks, Master Niccolò.’ Her consonants could have cut tin.

  Gregorio opened the door, said, ‘Oh. Forgive me,’ and closed it. The hour-glass was empty. Nicholas stretched out his hand and reversed it. The drawings he had disputed so violently had rolled themselves up. They weren’t so bad: with one major change, they would give him the adjustable, the portable boats which were going to make all the difference. He had meant to ride to Sagres today, but it was getting late now to go visiting. He said, ‘Does Simon pay you? Or Jordan?’

  She must be between forty and fifty. Her features were floury and blunt as a pastryskin over a pudding. She said, ‘Seek your excuse somewhere else. Mistress Lucia pays me, when I’m paid. My gash is my own.’

  Nicholas rose, looking at her. He went to the door and, opening it, called. Father Godscalc came in.

  ‘This,’ Nicholas said, ‘is Mistress Bel, companion to the lady mother of Diniz. She says Diniz may sail with us to Madeira, provided she and Gelis van Borselen come also. Otherwise, since his mother can’t go, he can’t either.’

  Godscalc looked from him to the woman. ‘You’re the priest?’ she said. ‘Gelis said ye were nimble.’

  ‘Demoiselle,’ Godscalc said. He stood, looming darkly and thoughtfully over her. He said, ‘You would leave your bereaved mistress here?’

  ‘That’s the idea,’ said Bel of Cuthilgurdy. ‘When the King goes abroad, the sleekit jackmen are made to go with him.’

  ‘Gelis van Borselen?’ Godscalc said.

  ‘I think,’ Nicholas said, ‘she means the delectable David. He said he was going to Madeira.’

  ‘He’s gone,’ said the woman.
‘If it’s the bonny wee broker ye mean. Got a berth on a Portuguese ship for Porto Santo as soon as your own ship went off. He can cross to Funchal easy from there.’

  ‘Without first making his offer?’ said Nicholas. ‘Or was it turned down?’

  She sat, her hands folded in front of her, smiling. ‘Let’s say he has other competitors.’

  ‘On the island? Another firm? Who?’ Nicholas said.

  So far as he could read her look, it was pitying. ‘Now, what would an auld carline ken? To find out the rights of that, ye’d need to go to Madoora.’

  ‘Madeira,’ Godscalc said, and Nicholas let him. She knew what she was saying. She knew what she had come to demand of him. And he knew, and she knew, that she was going to get it.

  Chapter 11

  ‘YOU’RE NOT PLEASED,’ Godscalc said, at the hurried supper they took, the four of them, after she’d gone. ‘You should be. Diniz will protect you against Simon.’

  ‘The ladies won’t,’ Nicholas said. ‘You think Simon is going to be on Madeira?’

  ‘They said he might be,’ Gregorio said. ‘He can’t safeguard his business from Scotland. And he sent you that letter.’

  He and the padre often supported each other, Nicholas noticed, since Venice. Since Venice Gregorio, always agile-minded and effective, had developed in range, in curiosity, in confidence. Now he might find it less easy to slip into the quiet ways of the past, playing music or cards, or talking dreamily under the starlight. And Godscalc, pursuing his own dogged course, had encouraged him. The harshness Nicholas had met in San Michele had hardened into something to be watched. Only once, in the tavern, had Godscalc allowed him a measure of the protective friendship he had had as a boy. But that was all right. No one owed anything to a banker; and vice versa, of course.

  Gregorio continued to talk. ‘Of course, there’s no law that says you’ve got to take up Simon’s challenge. You can land the ladies and Diniz and sail.’

  ‘Leaving Simon free to sell to whom he pleases,’ Godscalc commented. His knife, upright in his fist, had two sardines on it. ‘Something Nicholas had expected to prevent, I deduce, given three days with the volatile Lucia.’

  ‘There is that,’ Nicholas said. As it happened, he had wished himself alone from pure impulse: a desire to board his virgin ship free of memories, and threatened only by the violence of Nature.

  ‘Am I wrong?’ Godscalc said. There was no escape: his expression was heavy and mutinous.

  ‘And you a priest?’ Nicholas said. ‘But assuming I do want St Pol & Vasquez, wouldn’t it make better sense to let Simon and Lucia sell, if they want to, and take the company over myself once I have money enough? On the whole, I’d rather fight the Vatachino than Simon.’

  ‘Perhaps the Vatachino won’t succeed in getting it,’ Gregorio said.

  Nicholas said, ‘You’ve met David de Salmeton. He’ll do what I’d do. Buy from Lucia on her own. Or allow Simon to sell, and then buy from the buyer. Don’t you know yet what we’re dealing with? Did you never wonder why the Vatachino haven’t interfered with us, or the Ciaretti, since Venice?’

  ‘You’ve been too well protected,’ said Loppe.

  ‘And at Ceuta, you covered your tracks,’ said the priest. ‘They’re not miracle men. De Salmeton didn’t know you were on the Ciaretti, and she sailed without warning. They always do, for fear of corsairs.’

  ‘Oh, come,’ Nicholas said. ‘The Ciaretti leaves, and I disappear? It would take four days to discover I wasn’t in Lisbon, and no time at all to find out what her cargo was, and therefore where she must be going. Diniz and the Doria were both in Ceuta: it was a reasonable guess that I was going to try for them both. But de Salmeton didn’t send to warn either Governor, or try to stop either ship.’

  ‘Perhaps he had other ideas,’ Gregorio said. ‘If he knows where she is, the Doria may not be at Sanlúcar very much longer.’

  ‘I’ll be surprised,’ Nicholas said. ‘She’s extraordinarily well protected, and he can have very few men at his command.’

  ‘Perhaps that’s why he didn’t stop you?’ said Gregorio. ‘Suppose all he’s really concerned with is taking over St Pol & Vasquez, and your absence gave him the chance to slip off to Madeira and do it?’

  ‘Then why not have me caught and imprisoned?’ Nicholas said. ‘Why not send a warning to Ceuta?’

  He was watching Loppe, who suddenly answered. ‘Because he has made up his mind that you will take Diniz to Africa.’ It was not what Nicholas had expected.

  ‘No, surely,’ said Godscalc.

  ‘I wonder,’ said Nicholas. ‘I wonder if that’s what he is counting on.’ He had stopped looking at Loppe.

  ‘Why?’ said Gregorio.

  Loppe was silent. Godscalc drew an angry breath. Nicholas said, ‘On the chance that we’d both find the source of the gold. Get to Ethiopia, even. Then on the way back, something would happen to me, and to Diniz, if it hadn’t happened already. Then he’d salvage the ships and the gold and end up with St Pol & Vasquez. I told you. They’re exquisite adversaries.’

  ‘You like them,’ said Godscalc.

  ‘I admire them. Different thing,’ Nicholas said. He thought Godscalc would corner him afterwards and deliver a lecture, but he didn’t. He remembered, belatedly, that he had drawn up his projection without even thinking of Godscalc.

  He went to Sagres next day, a ride of fifteen miles, accompanied by a short retinue of followers, and Jorge da Silves, and Loppe.

  Loppe, in the sleeveless robe and light cap they all wore, would not find his standing misunderstood here, where of all spots in the world the navigator, the interpreter, the man of special talents was valued.

  From here, the most south-westerly corner of Europe, the late Henry, Prince of Portugal, Governor of Ceuta, Governor of the Algarve, Grand Master of the Order of Christ, had launched the expeditions of trade and discovery through which men like Alvise da Ca’ da Mosto had found their way down the African coast.

  The ships might have sailed from Lagos, but to Sagres and the prince’s farm at Raposeira had come the Jews and the Arabs, the Catalans and the Germans, the Venetians and the Genoese whose combined knowledge of charts, of navigation, of ship design had made the voyages possible, and the courtiers and captains who sailed on them.

  Some of these, in retirement, had returned to their lands, or to Lisbon. Some had married and kept fine estate among the orchards of Lagos. Others had settled near this, the ultimate headland; precipitous, bare, and scoured by north-westerly tempests from unknowable oceans. Standing at Sagres, or on the single Cape that lay westward, one looked down sheer sandstone cliffs twenty times the height of a man with the white of dashed foam at their feet; and abroad at the flat, shoreless ocean, upon which laboured the flecks that were vessels and the infinitesimal specks that were souls, witness to man’s perseverance, his greed and his courage.

  Before leaving for Ceuta, Nicholas had begun to seek out and comb the minds of these men, and found in Jorge da Silves a willing mentor and escort. He was discovering – with some difficulty, for the Portuguese was a singularly reticent man – that pride itself could take second place to obsession. Da Silves had served great commanders; he had tested his courage in terrible waters, and longed to return to them. ‘Beware,’ the Jew of Mallorca had said, smiling. ‘Jorge da Silves will take you further than you conceivably wish to go.’

  The man they were visiting today had been the companion of Prince Henry’s last years, as well as one of the most eminent of his captains; yet he lived simply when away from his post at the Palace at Sintra, and his house was blockish and plain, although with well-tended stables and bakehouse and mews set among the tousled palms bent askew in the courtyard. Nicholas, riding in with da Silves and his servants, noticed two horses unsaddled and steaming, and a horse-cloth whose blazon he recognised.

  So, it seemed, did Jorge da Silves. He stood, his boots astride, his whip in his hand, and said, ‘Diniz Vasquez? Why is he here?’

  Loppe??
?s head turned. Nicholas said, ‘I don’t know. Although, as I told you, we are taking Senhor Diniz and two of the ladies to Madeira.’ The news, he remembered, had been coolly received. He wondered if he now understood why. Then the door opened and a man emerged smiling; a lean grey fellow with a moustache and a stick, informal in chemise and slippers and hose with yesterday’s beard pricking his chin: Diogo Gomes, who had been to the Gambia and beyond. With him, hurrying forward, was the boy Diniz.

  ‘Jorge!’

  ‘And so you are home!’ said Jorge da Silves, and received the boy, smiling. Then he stepped back.

  Diniz, eyes glowing, was still holding his arm. ‘You are to sail the new caravel! I’ve just heard. And I shall be on it.’ He looked over at Nicholas. ‘I called at your house, and they told me you were going to the headland, then here. You must listen! There is so much Senhor Diogo has to tell you!’

  ‘This boy!’ said the man with the stick affectionately. ‘What, child, can I tell that you haven’t already got from me, or Aires or João since you were in swaddling clothes?’

  The boy coloured. The face of the Portuguese had turned cold. Nicholas said, ‘Perhaps I ought to have consulted Diniz instead of you, senhor. But he is only travelling as far as Madeira, and with his mother’s consent. If, Diniz, I am right? Your mother has agreed that you and the ladies should go?’

  ‘Gelis has decided,’ said Diniz; but his eyes, shifting away, had fallen on Loppe. He walked over and held out his hand. ‘This is better than Cyprus.’

  ‘It is different,’ Loppe said. And their host, walking over, held out his hand also to Loppe and said, ‘I have heard of you. Senhor vander Poele is fortunate to have such a guide. Come in, all of you, and let us talk about this hell-hole you are determined to visit.’

  The words were light enough. They covered the same trace of defensiveness Nicholas had observed among all this brotherhood of solitary voyagers; even among those with crooked limbs and warped yellow skin and heads that nodded and trembled, who would never travel again.