The scream of the birds never ceased, nor the howl of the wind, nor the surf-roar. It was not a haven of quiet.
When he left, the fishing had already begun, and the yoles were coming back to his men with their catch. One of his ship’s boats was in use, and the other, damaged by Paúel, would soon be out of the carpenter’s hands. The rest of the fishing was being done for him by the Icelanders. He reckoned that three days or four would complete it. He had some salt, but not much: most of the barrels were now filled by the pre-empted stockfish. He remained ineffably pleased about that. No one liked to handle green fish: the cold, aching toil of the gutting; the blood and the offal. But it would all fetch its price in the market. He would even fill and tow the Unicorn’s boat, which had carried Sersanders to the Svipa. The Icelanders had returned it.
He used a borrowed boat now, on his way to collect the Sersanders siblings. When at the last moment Benecke asked to go with him, Nicholas agreed on a moment’s reflection. He should be back before nightfall. And all his best men were on board behind him: Crackbene and John, Lutkyn and Yuri and, of course, Moriz. Their guns were trained on the Maiden, and there were watches on each of the hills. It was not impossible that another ship would arrive, but unlikely. And if it did, it would be well advised not to make trouble.
Nevertheless, to have the Maiden’s master at his side was not a bad precaution. Added to which, he liked the man as much as he mistrusted him.
Today, the blizzard might never have been. The sand of the strange double coastline with its dangerous surf was quite black, and even the Markarfljót strand, when he reached it, was glistening grey and not white. Only through the haze of the smoke could you see banks of brilliant purity which might be clouds, or uplands, or mountains. There were, he noted, two columns of smoke in the sky. Robin’s head turned towards them, and away.
He walked on through the settlement, with Paúel and Robin. Women and children clamoured about them. The stench of fish was appalling. There was no sign of Sersanders, or Kathi. Then he heard what the women were saying. Robin, who was also a pupil of Lutkyn, halted beside him. He said, ‘She was longing to visit the mainland.’ He sounded apologetic.
Benecke said, ‘Something is wrong?’ Beneath the leather cap over his bandage he wore a permanent, black-bearded leer. He knew the girl had fled from her brother’s care to de Fleury. He was unlikely to believe she had come to his ship as a peace-maker.
Nicholas said, ‘They’re not here. They’ve gone inland, it seems. You’d better go back to the ship. It’ll be dark pretty soon. I’m coming anyway, to get some provisions. Then I’ll sleep here and collect the pair of them tomorrow.’
‘Where?’ said Benecke. ‘They are surely not coming back here?’ He was not smiling now. He suspected.
‘Probably not,’ Nicholas said, after a pause.
‘Then let them go,’ Benecke said. ‘Unless the girl matters a great deal, why trouble?’
His eye glinted. It pleased Nicholas to notice his injured arm, tucked into his jacket. At the same time, he cursed Katelijne Sersanders. She should have stayed. Then they could all have gone back on board, and he would have paid someone to find and bring back her brother. And if they didn’t find him, he could damned well hide here till some ship came. For choice, a greedy big Hanse ship from Lübeck.
Nicholas turned from the Danziger’s black, cynical eye to the clear supplication of Robin’s. Nicholas sighed. He said to Benecke, ‘What did you hear?’
Paúel Benecke smiled. He said, ‘I heard the word Einhyringr.’
‘All right,’ Nicholas said. He had made a criminal slip over that vessel. There was no way he could keep it from Benecke. He turned his back on the crowd and made the best of it. He said, ‘The Unicorn hasn’t gone home.’
‘It hasn’t come here,’ Benecke said. ‘We should have seen it, or heard.’
‘No,’ Nicholas said. ‘It hasn’t come here. But they all know where it’s gone. So did Sersanders. He’s taken his sister and set off by sea to the mouth of the Thjórsá. From there, they’ll ride to the Bishop at Skálholt. Then, with his help, they’ll cross to the Danish Governor’s house near Hafnarfjördur and either join the Unicorn there, or ride down to the south coast at Grindavik. As I said, the Unicorn didn’t go south. It circled the Westmanns, and came straight back to the south-west of Iceland.’
He kept his voice even. He didn’t feel like keeping it even, because he knew he had been fatally stupid, and his only comfort was that Benecke hadn’t guessed either. Nicholas said, ‘Didn’t you wonder about the Unicorn’s cargo? All that salt … Yes, of course Martin was going to fish. But all those small, compact high-value bales in addition? We thought it was barter for stockfish.’
‘By the Virgin!’ said Benecke. His teeth showed neat as pebbles within the black beard. ‘Your cannoneer might have told you. He knows, if anyone knows, what the ingredients of gunpowder are. My poor Nikolás, Martin has gone to buy sulphur at Hafnarfjördur! And unless you lift the guard from my ship, you cannot stop him!’
It was difficult, after that, to maintain any ascendancy. They did return to the ship, where Nicholas acquired certain equipment, and left behind certain explicit orders for which he would one day be thankful. It was all he did leave behind: Benecke insisted on coming back to Markarfljót with him, and in the end he gave in and took Robin too. If they were going to wander about, he would need an intermediary posted at Markarfljót. That would be Robin’s job. Robin, who had hoped to wander about with him, agreed in a way half jubilant, half subdued. Then they all three left the ship, and returned to the shore they had just left.
They passed the night as Sersanders had done, in Tryggvi’s ill-smelling hut. Tryggvi was not there: he had put to sea with Sersanders and Kathi, with a son to help with the rowing and to handle the ponies they would hire when they landed. On winter-weak beasts, it would be a day’s ride to Skálholt, or more.
It sounded a laborious journey, but it was safer than most. In theory, you could make the whole trip directly on horseback, but that was to ignore all the rivers: those fast, swollen Icelandic rivers that dragged men and horse into crevasses and overturned ferries in spate. Nicholas was thankful that Kathi had not chosen that way. And for the journey from Skálholt, she would have the help and advice of the Bishop.
From the beginning, Benecke set out to irk him. ‘Let the fools go,’ was his refrain. He said it again, as they sat in the hut before bedtime, drinking an anonymous soup provided by a crone and two giggling girls. ‘The Unicorn may have loaded and gone before they get there.’
‘Will it?’ said Nicholas. Robin was nodding: sleep would mend the hurt of his banishment. Nicholas felt no remorse.
Paúel Benecke replied with an amiable sarcasm. ‘You think the Danish deputes should impound the Unicorn, since it is not a tax-paying ship from the Hanse? They should. But your friend is astute. Your friend Martin has guessed that a small gift to the Governor and the Bishop may not go amiss. There is no such thing, you see, as an absolute monopoly.’
‘You surprise me,’ said Nicholas.
‘Do I?’ said Paúel Benecke. ‘So, how far will you put yourself out for this girl? For that is all it amounts to. There is no other reason for following.’ He paused. ‘Of course, were you to release me and my ship, we could waylay the Unicorn for you, and expose those improper practices.’
‘I should not dream,’ Nicholas said, ‘of putting you to any such trouble. As for our strays, I put them on shore, and promised to lift them. If we find them at Skálholt, I hope you will support me with the authorities.’
‘I wonder,’ Paúel Benecke said. ‘I might denounce you as an unlicensed pirate, and return to do as I please with my ship.’
‘The first half would be easy,’ Nicholas said. ‘But I am afraid that if you returned to the harbour without me, my master gunner would be seized with alarm. Do you want to come then, or not? Robin could take you back now if you wish. You have the use of only one arm.’
‘
But I do not keep my brains in my arm. No, I shall come with you, Nikolás,’ said Paúel Benecke. ‘And disport myself in this fishy Paradise guarding the smouldering portals of Hell. I hear there have been horse carcasses found, and cattle-sheds fallen in splinters. I hope you have weapons, or spells.’
‘Of course,’ Nicholas said. He had weapons. He had no intention of arming Benecke. He saw no reason, indeed, to believe him.
That night, they slept in the cabin Sersanders had used. When, half awake, Nicholas heard the girls creep giggling in, he told them to go, without consulting Paúel. Robin appeared to be sleeping.
He used the remains of the night hours to think, as once he had used calculation to neutralise music. The aridity of one part of his life was not something he normally dwelled on. When not in the same house as Gelis, he found it possible to repress that particular hunger reasonably well, as he could train himself to drink water. There had been times when the need had disappeared, and others when he had been able, in his own interests, to harness it. This night on shore, although unplanned, had called for no particular effort; but the frank availability of the girls, and a sudden sense that there had been commerce here, stirred a current kept carefully stagnant.
He was forced to recognise it next day, when the soaking, stormy boat-trip was behind them and the hooves of their low, shaggy horses were tripping through uneven snow on the way north to Skálholt. The first climb up from the shore had been toilsome, with the Danziger and the horse-minder behind, and the menhir of Glímu-Sveinn himself in the lead, the spare ponies plodding between them. Then they left the roar of the river and entered silence and sunlight, with no sound but the jingle of harness, and the snuffling white breath of their mounts, and the occasional deep-chested bark of the dog Glímu-Sveinn had brought with him.
Strung over the snow, the piebald ponies glowed in the oil-yellow afternoon light, their manes erect, their shadows prancing beside them. They kept their even, hobby-horse gait over an invisible track which ran from one man-made cairn to the next; for under the snow on each side was a lava-field, and on top, sticky sepia and white, lay the boulders and blocks which had not been created or tossed there by man. And beyond that were the heights.
It was upon these that Nicholas rested his eyes as he rode: upon the swooning battlements and immaculate cones of a landscape moulded by chance, random as primaeval shapes under sand; rounded; melting; softly enamelled with snow.
The snow was not white. The snow was the yellow of cream, and the shadows on it were blue. The snow shone in the sun, and the breeze of their passing was fresh on their cheeks, but so light in itself that it hardly stirred heavy cloaks, or parted the pale, heavy fur of the dog. And so transparently clear was the air that the eastern glaciers lay, rank upon rank, as if iced on the blue of the sky for a feast, or a wedding.
In Edinburgh, there had been gales. In the lands that he knew, there was no terrain like this, nor such light. Nor such golden, golden light.
Behind Nicholas, the Icelander did not speak. Gradually Paúel Benecke also fell silent, and Glímu-Sveinn rode alone by the dog which looked up at him from time to time, its feathered tail waving. Once, a flock of ptarmigan rose, white on blue in the sparkling air, and once an eagle passed with its shadow, to a frisson of bird-cries below. ‘Take heed of any falcon you see,’ Glímu-Sveinn said. ‘Emperors have given a coffer of pearls for our falcons.’
His eyes on the eagle, Nicholas made no response. Into his mind had come something grave, to do with his child. Part of his consciousness told him that, whatever it was, it was not fatal. Part of his mind attempted to turn his thoughts back to the present: to the beauty and silence through which he was riding. He wished he could soar alone, like the eagle. Or that one person was with him, to whom he could say: Match this beauty, this white and gold beauty, with yours.
It would soon be time to camp. As the sun declined, so, like dancers unveiled, the far-off slopes and ridges and gulleys revealed themselves to the altering light. Curves and lines in the snow gleamed like script; harness dazzled, and where the horses had stepped, a crusted sparkle of gold rimmed the prints.
By the sixth hour all had dimmed, and their tents were put up by the seventh near a farm, at the onset of darkness. His pavilion, for himself and Benecke, had come from the ship and was ungainly and tall. The Icelanders made a home from three poles, two of them upright, with a cross-pole of eight feet between them. The cover was wadmol, its white folds pegged and weighted with baggage. For mattresses, they employed slabs of turf from under the hook-saddles, and the farmer gave them some dung for their fire, and a wooden pail of warm milk, and some curds. There were no girls in the house, it would seem.
Viewed from the blue dusk of their shelter, the distant tableland glared like their fire, and was quenched. They talked as they ate. After a while, when all the news had been exchanged, and the pointed – the surprisingly pointed – cross-questions had ceased, Nicholas contrived to lead Glímu-Sveinn to speak of his island as once it had been.
The first to come had been the Culdees: Irish monks, Robin had told him, who worshipped Christ on St Serf’s island in Fife as well as here, on the islets of Iceland, and who knew the pink-footed geese in both lands.
Then had come the Norwegian settlers, worshipping Odin and Thor, whose hammer-symbols and giants and trolls still haunted the fiery hills and the caves and the fissures, even though Christ had ousted Odin, and there were devils with new names in Hell. Glímu-Sveinn was familiar with all the stories because, since his ancestors came, they had been related over and over through the dark nights, and written down, and made into poetry, and sung. Everyone in Iceland knew who his ancestors were. Every farm, every hill, every rock had its name and its story. The plague had come twice this last century. The Black Death had killed half the populace. But still the vellum rolls were kept in their coffers, and for those who could not read, the farmer would tell over the tales in the evenings, or give room to the travelling bard, who paid his way with his stories. ‘Who were your ancestors,’ asked Glímu-Sveinn, ‘ten generations ago?’
And Nicholas laughed a little and said, ‘I do not even know who my father might be.’ It sounded friendly. It didn’t need to be true.
By then Benecke had fallen asleep on his bed, and soon Nicholas joined him. After that, he wakened and slept, and occasionally attended to the health of the fire. Once he saw Glímu-Svein silently rise and move out, a lighted spar in one hand and his knife in the other. The dog had been uneasy and jumped up and went out with his master. Then they both returned and the Icelander went back to his tent, saying nothing.
Nicholas lay and considered. He had put aside the matter of Kathi. She and her brother had passed; the farmer confirmed it. They would have reached Skálholt this morning, and might already be embarked on the last of their journey. He would catch up with them. He would reach Skálholt tomorrow. What happened then might be amusing.
Now he should sleep, but could not. He wondered if Glímu-Sveinn had daughters. He wondered how Sersanders had fared, and was faring, and if his sister had learned of the hospitable customs of the country. She would greet the discovery, he knew, with genuine laughter.
It was not how he felt. He didn’t know why, tonight of all nights, he should remember the scents of an African night, the pillowed dunes of a much smaller island; the arms in which he had lain – on which he had lain – over and over. The sense of loss, of foreboding stayed with him till dawn, and caused him to reply curtly when his prisoner rallied him. He regretted it, and shook off the mood. It was not Benecke who had turned out to be humourless. He busied himself, packing up, and noticed that nothing had changed about the two fitful emissions of smoke on the horizon. The demons which stoked them were absent. The demons, damn them, had been busy elsewhere.
Chapter 26
IN EDINBURGH – the ancient epicentrum towards which, in counter-flow, there had streamed for six months all the molten concerns of the Banco di Niccolò – in Edinburgh, no word came
from the north. In the house in the Canongate, Govaerts prosecuted his business tight-lipped with his hard-working staff of the counting-house, and maintained and developed all that the padrone had instituted with the great officers of the Court, and the Court itself.
He did not find it especially easy, for although some – the Lords Sinclair and Hamilton – were prepared to be remarkably patient, his grace the King and his brother were not. And although his master’s lady herself did not trouble him, he had to suffer the daily importunities of Berecrofts the Younger. A father’s feeling: it was natural enough. There were times when Govaerts wished, none the less, that Nicholas had left the boy Robin behind. He was only thankful that news of the whole escapade had yet to strike Venice.
It had of course travelled to Bruges, and from there to the Burgundian camp. He could imagine Astorre’s spit of disgust. It meant little. Whatever his boy chose to play at, Astorre was confident that he would return to his real task unimpaired. Astorre was looking forward to fighting this year.
Sometimes, his thoughts straying, Govaerts allowed himself to wonder what Zacco of Cyprus would think of his Nikko de Fleury, if he thought of him at all, while he had David, the dark-eyed David of the Vatachino, at his side. In uncharitable mood, Govaerts occasionally hoped that somewhere in the far north, Nicholas was slicing up David’s friend Martin and feeding him to strange foreign ducks. He also wondered about the Gräfin von Hanseyck, who would have had a share in this venture, had the Danzig ship been finished in time.
Gelis did not keep to the house. The Play had made her more friends than she had possessed in her years with the Princess, and other doors opened, of course, to the wife of her spouse. It was not her intention – not yet – to disillusion all these decent, tedious people: to say to them, Do you never ask yourself what kind of man performs best on a stage? What person is this with the calculating efficiency of a quartermaster; who can command and drive people as a general does, or seduce them with cunning? There are men of genius, and there are tyrants, and there are men who might be either or both.
To Lie With Lions: The Sixth Book of the House of Niccolo Page 42