Scales of Gold by Dorothy Dunnett

Author:Dorothy Dunnett
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780307762405
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2011-10-12T10:00:00+00:00

Chapter 23

THE CICADAS SHRILLED in the invisible grass. A bird flew over the guest-hut, complaining. Somewhere, as always, drums were beating.

A pulse was ticking, too, above the damp lawn of the shirt Nicholas was wearing. He said, ‘No.’

‘Go to the ship,’ Doria said. ‘You will find your Lopez has gone.’

‘You have taken him,’ Nicholas said. He hadn’t moved, but he seemed to have solidified, sitting hunched opposite Doria. His brow was striped with sweat released from the crooks and curls of his hair.

‘I warned you,’ ejaculated Jorge da Silves. ‘Blackamoors, unbaptised and dyed in sin as black as their skins.’

‘Be quiet,’ said Nicholas. ‘Saloum.’

Bound and prone beneath the threat of the crossbows, the men of his crew and the two slaves could hardly be seen in the dark. Saloum shifted his head. ‘If Lopez has gone, he has been captured.’

‘He elected to stay on the Niccolò,’ said Jorge da Silves.

‘It was your suggestion,’ said Nicholas. ‘So who has taken him? Has Crackbene? Where is Loppe?’ The early name came by chance, Bel guessed, out of an unusual distraction.

‘I told you,’ said Doria. ‘Lopez was loyal but you offered him nothing. I promised him he should have half of whatever the secret of Wangara was worth. He is with my people now, waiting to lead me there. And to make sure that he does, you are coming.’

‘No,’ said Nicholas again.

Godscalc looked at him. The look was full of alarm, as if a bear trained to caper had suddenly snarled. Gelis spoke under her breath and stretched out her hand. Slowly, Bel slipped the bow into it. Nicholas said, ‘He will not take you to Wangara, whether I am there or not.’

‘You would kill him first, or see that he was killed? I assumed as much. I assumed he had told you the secret,’ said Raffaelo Doria. ‘That is why you are coming. One of you might deceive me, but not both.’

Nicholas moved. It seemed to Bel that in the next moment she would see him hurl himself forward at Doria; it would have been, she thought, the first unpremeditated attack he had ever been seen to make. Doria, in fact, was expecting it: he was sitting back with his unsheathed sword in his hands, waiting to use it, while a glitter came from the line of raised bows all round the cabin.

Instead, quicker even than Nicholas, Godscalc jumped to his feet, stamping hard on the hand Nicholas had spread beside him as leverage and thrusting him, deliberately or not, to one side. ‘How dare you!’ Godscalc said to Doria. ‘How dare you prate of gold, and threaten good men! If these poor people, the miners, wish to protect their livelihood, neither you nor we have any right to wrest its source from them. Neither would Lopez, I am sure, dream of doing such a thing, for himself or for us or for you. What is more –’

‘He is giving us time,’ murmured Gelis in Flemish. Her face contorted with fright, she pulled herself back from the supper circle and sat studiously shivering.

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