To Lie With Lions: The Sixth Book of the House of Niccolo

by Dorothy Dunnett

  They were not going to sea. That would have been preceded by the stamping of feet overhead, the chant of the marines and the squeal and creak of the winches. They were not going to sea; they were simply changing their present anchorage. The snow must have stopped, and Benecke was moving forward to confront the Svipa. And to help with his capture, the damned Danziger was taking the Unicorn with him.

  Mogens the Faroese was still shouting. Martin gritted his teeth and shouted back. ‘They must be bringing us into the fighting.’ The noise of turbulent sea was increasing: he could hear a distinct chuckle and flow, as if the water were under his elbow.

  His elbow was wet. His padded tunic was wet. He was reclining in a vigorous small stream of liquid. Martin sat up. Crashing and rolling, the bound form of his pilot thumped against him. ‘I said,’ said Mogens loudly, ‘we’re running in front of the wind. We’ve broken loose from our anchors. Shout! Shout!’

  ‘We’re leaking!’ Martin said. Around him, men had started to bellow.

  ‘We’ll leak a lot more when we land on the rocks. Rouse the bastards! Hey! Hey!’ Mogens shrieked.

  Martin’s heart started to thud. ‘Don’t they see?’

  ‘It’s still snowing, for sure. We’ll crash, and they won’t even notice. Bang your heels! Yell!’

  ‘How long have we?’ Martin said.

  ‘With a north-east gale at our backs, and in the height of a west-going current? Minutes,’ said Mogens Björnsen. ‘Yell!’

  The snow started to wane. Nicholas said, ‘Stations, everybody. Get ready. It’s happening.’

  The crew on the Maiden, avarice lending them speed, had finished their stowing, eaten, and were proceeding to arm for assault when the message came from the after-deck: to go to positions, and wait. The snow-veil was lifting. Animadverting upon the distant, cowering form of the Svipa, no one immediately thought to check on their first prize, the Unicorn. It was left to Benecke to discern, through the swirl of the flakes, that there appeared to be nothing but sea between himself and the clifftops of Bjarnarey. For a moment he thought the damned ship had gone.

  It couldn’t have; he knew that. The prisoners could not have burst free. No one could have sailed in the snow. And, staring breathlessly from the height of the mast, he saw that of course he was right. The captive crew of the Unicorn hadn’t sailed his prize anywhere. It was the ship itself that was loose, and was now running, lurching and yawing towards the jagged rocks of the holm. His eye told him that it had not dragged its anchors: it was moving too fast and too wildly for that. The bloody ship had no anchors at all.

  He dropped to the deck, shouting orders, his eyes on the runaway vessel. Its decks were full now of men. Someone threw out a kedge, then another. The steps came down, and the skiff came alongside: they had only one boat, he remembered. If they were wise, they would tumble into it all the men and the weights they could spare and tow it behind as a drogue. All around him, his own men were running, manning the helm and the capstan, preparing to break out a sail. At his ship’s side, the two pinnaces were drawn in and bouncing, awaiting their crew and himself. The Maiden couldn’t move fast enough to do any good, but the skiffs might get there in time, or at least would help to save what could be redeemed. He raced to the steps.

  He didn’t go down, for there was nothing to go to. The waves, the cold green waves were buttoned with the dark heads of men, and the boats were two shivering nests of loose planking which disintegrated, as he watched, into single crescents of timber, undulating out of his sight.

  Paúel Benecke said, ‘Pick up these men. Navigator, a course as close to the ship as you can. If they fend off a strike, we may save her. If not, we take back our own men and the broker. Are they towing the boat?’ The skies, leaden with wind, were losing all light. It was half an hour to full darkness; forty minutes before the ebb started to run, with all the harm that might do to the Unicorn. He saw that no one had answered his question because it had answered itself. As the Unicorn sped to destruction, it dragged no laden pinnace to brake it; only a starfish of dismantled timber spreading out on the sea at its side, and scoured by the disorganised flap of its rudder. As he watched, the Unicorn struck.

  You would think the crash of it jarred through the Maiden, the way that silence fell, if you could have silence in a fast-sailing ship with a big working crew in full action. Then they all looked at him.

  Nails.

  Paúel Benecke knew what had happened, as if he had been watching it all. As if he had been able to pierce the ill-timed, monstrous screen of the snowstorm and set eyes on the nodding hoods, the claw hammers, the shears; the small busy cod-boats like corks, mobbing the flanks of the Unicorn and withdrawing what held it together. He knew that somewhere on shore, carefully pouched, every nail from these three boats was sitting. The anchor-cables hung shorn; the anchors were marked, no doubt, for easy retrieval. Everything of iron had gone, even to the hinges on the Unicorn’s rudder.

  And at last he realised why it had happened, and why he should have heeded the boasts of Ochoa. The crash of the Unicorn, still in his ears, had coincided with another crash from behind. At his side, catching his eye, a cascade in the sea was descending. He spun round then, as did they all, and looked into the confident guns of the Svipa.

  Nikolás-riddari. Amid the rattle of orders, standing firm, as he spoke, to be armed, Paúel Benecke found himself moved to a grudging delight.

  Nicholas said, ‘Well, John. The mainmast, if you please, and then the mizzen. Boatmen ready. Hackbutters ready. Grappling hooks ready. Mick, you have the helm. Father Moriz?’

  ‘It is unethical,’ said the voice of Father Moriz from halfway up the mast.

  ‘It will save lives,’ Nicholas said. ‘You’re the only one who can do it. Do it.’ Beside him on the crowded foredeck the fuses burned and the cans stood ranked with their powder. It appeared a little less orderly on the Maiden where someone stood, fully armed on the after-deck. A thin man, of about his own height. Paúel Benecke, for sure. Paúel Benecke, one hoped, in a towering temper.

  Nicholas smiled, and put back his helm, and lifted the speaking-trumpet.

  Temper was an indulgence of fools: Paúel Benecke had never been known to lose his. When the Svipa failed to fire off its guns, he put it down to mishap or mismanagement, and ordered a cannonade of his own. It should have been simple. Both ships were still sailing west by south-west, the space between them too small for comfort; the space between himself and the cliffs even smaller. A shot from each of his guns should resolve it. And so it might, had each gun not worked loose from its swivel plate. Because, they found, its nails had all vanished.

  It was then, from the other ship, that the hail came.

  De Fleury, if it was he, was a big man, and fluent in the German the Hanse merchants spoke. With moderate politeness, he was inviting Benecke to take the way off his ship and surrender.

  ‘You must excuse me, Nikolás-riddari,’ Benecke said, cupping his hands. Then, gesturing, he sent for a trumpet. Every moment’s delay was of use. The cliffs were ahead. In a very short time, he must either turn or tack to the south, presenting his beam to the guns of the Svipa. He needed time to set guns amidships. Those in the poop were already half restored to their moorings, and his hackbutters and bowmen in place. There were more of them than Svipa carried. The trumpet came, and Benecke spoke through it. ‘I have no quarrel with you. You must excuse me. A ship has run upon reefs. Men are dying.’

  ‘We shall gladly offer our chaplain,’ said the hollow voice helpfully. ‘Meanwhile, we are too close for our guns to miss. I suggest that …’

  ‘Fire,’ said Paúel Benecke in a murmur. He did not speak through the trumpet, but directed it at the gunner beside the one culverin primed and ready. The gunner lifted his taper and stretched. The roar that followed came not from his gun but the Svipa’s. With intolerable prescience, de Fleury had fired before he did.

  It was a direct hit. The mainmast broke with an echoing bark; the noise shot about within the
deeper reverberations of the cannon, and the ship jarred as if rammed. He would have been thrown off his feet but for his grasp of the rail. He knew from the screaming behind that some of the men in the stays had been hurled to the ground; he could see others clinging. Arrows were flying aboard. He lifted his mailed arm to his bowmen, to command them to answer the fire. There was a hiss as they shot. He found, to his amazement, that his arm would not drop to his side.

  He assumed at first, with annoyance, that he had been wounded. Then he saw that a thick piece of cordage had settled across his gorget and cuirass, and was tightening fast. He drew out his sword, but already his feet were leaving the deck. He dangled, half-choked. Men were picking themselves up and running towards him, staggering as timber and blocks rained about them. The cans had spilled, and there was powder all over the deck; he saw his gunners, returned to their posts, looking up at him with blankest astonishment. Then, with a stupendous jerk to his ribs, he was taken sailing over the gunwales and across the patch of rough sea that separated his ship from the Svipa. He saw there was a ship’s boat below.

  He gave the whole matter a moment’s consideration: they had rigged a cargo hoist from a spar, and someone had hurled over a noose. They did such things, he had heard, in the Tyrol. He gave further consideration to the benefits of travelling light. He was sufficiently stirred to decide to make his own gesture. As he swung over the boat, he lifted his sword and slashed through the rope by which he was suspended. He rather hoped, as he landed in a welter of splintering timber, that he had killed somebody.

  *

  ‘He’s broken his arm,’ Robin said. ‘Father Moriz says he’s black and blue everywhere. He’s got a cut on the face from his helm, and a stave got through the joint in his greaves and he’s still got a headache from being knocked out by the fall. Otherwise he’s just fine.’

  It had been his first engagement, and there had been eight injured and no dead, and they had taken Paúel Benecke hostage, and the enemy’s ship had surrendered, to save the life of their famous commander. For the moment, Robin had forgotten that the enemy was the man who had the right to be here, and that M. de Fleury was the pirate.

  Father Moriz said, ‘Get that boy out of here. I am ashamed. I collaborated in a piece of chicanery while men on Adorne’s ship were drowning.’

  ‘The Pruss Maiden’s physician has gone to them,’ Robin said. ‘In our boat, with a crew from the Maiden. There’s no one of Ser Adorne’s on the Unicorn now, just the Vatachino and their friends. And they’re on rocks: they can’t drown, and it’s dark now. We’ll put it all right in the morning.’ He lingered, reluctant to leave M. de Fleury. It was as if the magic would stay if he stayed. He longed to tell Kathi.

  M. de Fleury said to the priest, ‘There. Do you hear? God and St Barbara will forgive you. Do you think our Flying Danziger may be visited?’

  ‘I suppose it is safe. John and Crackbene have returned from his sickbed with their lives. I dare say so will you, provided his teeth are removed.’ Father Moriz sounded sour. Robin was sorry. He bobbed up hopefully when M. de Fleury rose and made for the door, but was told firmly to go off to bed.

  Laid in the dimly lit quarters usually occupied by Crackbene and his companions, Paúel Benecke wore, inadvertently, the livery of his captors, being picked out by the white of his bandages and the black of his bright eyes and his lank hair and his beard. His feet, projecting over the end of Yuri’s mattress, were long and bony and thin, and he had the frame which in a sick man seems gaunt, and in an active, lithe one is simply due to a misarticulation of the limbs. He looked, for a man covered in bruises, quite at ease. ‘The Nikolás-riddari,’ he said. ‘I am told you kept a knife at my throat until my deputy agreed to surrender.’

  ‘The Bergenfahrer,’ Nicholas returned with equal politeness. ‘By that you may know how highly you are esteemed in the Artushof. Being practical men, my crew would have bargained and sailed off.’ He sat. ‘Apart from your freedom, is there anything I may offer you?’

  ‘Your master gunner,’ said Benecke. ‘He is good. Engrained powder, not riddled. One of sulphur to seven parts of saltpetre and two of charcoal, unlike most. And I’ll swear my man went to fire before he did.’

  ‘He is John le Grant,’ Nicholas said. ‘I hope you made him an offer.’

  ‘He prevaricated. Trained in Germany, I hear. Your chaplain also is German.’

  ‘My counter-masters are Danish and Scottish and Muscovite. Crackbene was born in mid-ocean. I have no one from Poland as yet.’

  It was not an observation he would have made, for example, to an Ochoa. He risked it because of something he glimpsed in the man’s face. Nothing of appeal, nothing of complaisance, nothing of softening but something. A gleam, perhaps.

  The man said, ‘Perhaps we are good at prevaricating as well.’ He let a pause develop before adding, ‘I hear you have friends in Murano.’

  Nicholas lifted his brows. ‘And little good have they done me when it comes to getting ships built. But I always say it’s good to have friends on an island.’

  ‘I would not deny it,’ said the other man. ‘You are familiar with Venice, of course. I hear their custom is to whip a nail-thief round the Arsenal, with his nails hung in ropes round his neck.’

  ‘Indeed?’ said Nicholas. ‘Ropes round the neck. A barbarity. Why did you cut yourself free? If you had hit the sea, we couldn’t have saved you.’

  ‘I contemplated it,’ the man said. ‘But it seemed a trifle flamboyant. The Hanse don’t pay me that much. No. I cut the rope to remind myself not to be so stupid next time.’

  ‘You didn’t think I would sail up behind you?’

  ‘I assumed that, having arranged the diversion, you would fly. I apologise.’

  ‘Apology accepted,’ Nicholas said. ‘Although, of course, there was no question of leaving. Why should I? After all, I helped you to capture the Unicorn, and in return, you sanctioned two weeks of authorised fishing. I have to thank you.’

  There was a silence. At length, the thin man said, ‘You are staying to fish?’

  ‘There is still room in the hold,’ Nicholas said. ‘And all that salt in the Unicorn, if it hasn’t dissolved. And while we fish, I trust the Maiden will wait in the harbour. Minus her remaining masts and her sails and, of course, without yourself until you are better. But we shall be sure to reunite you all with one another about the time that we leave.’

  The man stared thoughtfully at him, saying nothing.

  ‘That is,’ Nicholas went on, expatiating. ‘You are a Hanse ship from Bergen, and licensed. I shouldn’t want to interfere with your fishing. Only to do all mine first.’

  ‘And the Unicorn?’ asked Paúel Benecke gently.

  ‘A wreck. The prize of the first person to reach it. I have sent your scaffmaster to watch her tonight, and we shall see what needs doing tomorrow.’

  ‘I seem to remember,’ said the other, ‘that I was the first person to reach her?’

  Nicholas pondered. ‘I have it,’ he said. ‘You take the man Martin to ransom, and I shall take the equivalent worth from her cargo.’

  The other man thought. ‘That seems fair,’ he remarked.

  ‘Good,’ said Nicholas. ‘Where I come from, we seal a pact with some wine. That was what was wrong with the last deal we made. There was no wine. You remember.’

  ‘I am not sure that I do,’ said Paúel Benecke. ‘But I am willing to celebrate this one. Nevertheless I have to warn you: I have a very hard head, as you see.’

  ‘Would you like to make a wager?’ said Nicholas.

  Two hours after midnight, a semaphoring lantern in the cold windy dark announced the return of the boat which had gone to the wreck of the Unicorn. It was full of exhausted men on their way to the Maiden; their physician, grim of face, insisted on boarding the Svipa to report. Father Moriz, roused, met him and listened. Then he said, ‘Follow me. The patron will have to hear this.’

  Had he been less disgusted with Nicholas, he would have left the man
outside the cabin. As it was, the priest flung open the door and ushered him in. ‘Go and tell him yourself.’

  ‘Which one?’ said the physician distastefully.

  Father Moriz moved forward. The bodies of Crackbene and Lutkyn Mere, both snoring heavily, first caught the eye, an overturned tankard between them. A third recumbent form, languidly stirring, turned out to be that of Paúel Benecke, his bandages scarlet.

  ‘Dear God!’ said the physician, starting forward. ‘Dear God, is that blood!’

  The Danziger slowly looked down. ‘Dear God,’ he repeated. ‘Oh, dear heaven, thank heaven, it is. Is there any more of the wine?’

  ‘Behind you. You lost the wager,’ said Nicholas. ‘Check. Yuri, you bastard, it’s check.’

  ‘It isn’t,’ said the voice of the Muscovite. The box upon which the chess was laid out could hardly be seen, so fragmentary was the candle beside it. Both the players sat preternaturally upright.

  Father Moriz said, ‘You’re both drunk. I thought you were waiting for news of the Unicorn.’

  ‘Are we?’ said Nicholas.

  ‘No,’ said Yuri.

  ‘Yes we are,’ said Paúel Benecke from the floor. He had lain down again.

  ‘But not till the candle goes out,’ Yuri said. ‘We have a wager.’

  ‘You are not concerned about fifty men’s lives?’ Moriz asked.

  The Muscovite sketchily crossed himself. ‘When the candle goes out,’ he said. ‘Mate.’

  The candle went out. ‘Hell,’ said Nicholas.

  ‘Not here,’ said Paúel Benecke drowsily. ‘You do not invoke Hell on this island. Who won?’

  ‘He did,’ said Nicholas. His voice, in the darkness was placid. ‘Martin is going to Moscow.’