‘What?’ said the physician.
‘Martin of the Vat – Martin is going to Moscow,’ said Paúel. ‘Yuri has won him from Nikolás.’
Father Moriz, groping, found the lamp and laid hands on the tinder. ‘Martin is not going to Moscow,’ he said. ‘Nor is anyone else on the Unicorn. The doctor is waiting to tell you his news.’ The lamp flared, lighting his inimical, troglodyte’s face.
On the floor, Crackbene turned over and mumbled. Lutkyn snored. The bandaged Danziger opened one eye and then closed it. ‘Tell us,’ he said.
Yuri was clearing the chess from the box. The pieces clicked into their bag, or on the floor, or slid from the folds of his clothing. ‘Tell us,’ Nicholas echoed. He made no effort to help.
‘The Unicorn has gone,’ said the doctor.
‘You missed one,’ said the Danziger. Stretching his unbandaged arm, he picked up a crudely hewn queen.
‘You missed them all,’ said Father Moriz.
‘They’ve sunk?’ Nicholas said. His beard gilded the rims of two dimples.
The German priest leaned over the table and slapped his face hard with one palm. With the other he swept the cups, the bag, the table, the pieces to the floor. Then he sat down beside Nicholas, who was staring at him in a slow, aggrieved way.
‘The Unicorn has gone,’ repeated Father Moriz. ‘Not sunk. Not wrecked. Not floating upside down on the tide. But sailed away with Svartecop and Mogens and Martin, after they patched up the damage – superficial – and bribed someone to find enough nails, and planted all the Maiden’s prize crew on the rocks and abandoned them. The Maiden’s men were very cold. The doctor here had to revive some of them. We brought the worst cases back, and will fetch all the rest in relays.’ He broke off. His chest heaved like a portative organ. He said, ‘You had better play another game, for a different prize.’
‘Oh,’ said Nicholas. He was looking at Benecke.
‘Ah,’ said the mercenary, returning the look. Between the knobs of his throat, something quacked. Nicholas coughed. The cough turned into a splutter. Then he laid his head on the table and laughed. On the floor, the bloodstained master of the Pruss Maiden brought his knees up and began laughing too. Yuri looked cross and, still looking cross, slid under the table.
Crackbene opened his eyes. ‘What is it?’ he said.
Nicholas rested his chin on his hands. Happy tears had run into his beard. ‘We’ve lost the Vatachino,’ he said. ‘They’ve sailed off with their ship and the salt and all the bits of the cargo that Danziger Diavolo here didn’t transfer from its hold and its arse and its fokkedeck. You could say,’ added Nicholas wildly, ‘that the Unicorn has fokkedecked the Maiden.’
‘I didn’t hear that,’ said Father Moriz. ‘Nor did the doctor.’
To his surprise and gratification, Nicholas sat up and gazed at him, clearly half sobered.
‘Bloody hell,’ Nicholas said. ‘Now I’ll have to sail over and bring back the Adornlings.’
Chapter 25
TO ANSELM SERSANDERS, aged twenty-eight, factor, businessman, representative on this expedition of his eminent uncle the Baron Cortachy, the resignation in de Fleury’s voice, had he heard it, would have been the last straw in a bale of such offered over the previous twelve hours, and all of them short.
His ruined sister had refused to leave de Fleury and join him. De Fleury had kicked him off the ship and virtually into the prison hold of the Pruss Maiden, except that the Icelanders had got to him first. And now the Icelanders had dumped him 011 the south shore of Iceland and taken his boat, leaving him in a hut hanging with fish and choking with smoke composed in equal parts of seaweed and sheep’s trittles and cow-pats. When he ran out again shouting, they only waved as they rowed off without him. The shore was thick with fish-guts and cod’s heads and whale blubber which sagged and squeaked under his feet.
After a while, he sat down and waited. It was possible that the Hanse ship would be outgunned by the Unicorn. Martin, whom he didn’t particularly like, was nevertheless one of the toughest men he had met, and would not quickly give in. If they won, they would come for him. He was coldly furious with Nicholas de Fleury, who had sold them all to the Maiden. He would have sold Kathi too, he supposed, if he had thought it worth while.
The cold reached through his jacket, and he got up to walk. He didn’t intend to go back into the reeking hut, or any of the other humped grassy mounds, which were also cabins, built of rocks stuffed with grass and roofed with turf. Round about them were the fish-cleaning trestles, the vats of unspeakable offal, and the wind-huts where the grey fish hung drying. The people working all about, their knives flashing and sucking, were women. As they worked they chanted and chattered and looked at him, calling and giggling. He ignored them, although he observed without conscious volition the wet, powerful ankles and feet; the rounded bosoms and bellies like fish-floats; the golden hair plaited round the strong necks. He didn’t know what language they spoke, having only German and no Scandinavian tongues.
He knew what language they spoke.
When the snow began, and he was forced to return to the hut, he found two of them there, lifting a mighty cauldron on top of the fire, while a hooded figure with reptilian finger-bones hooked live mussels on lines coiled in a basket. The younger girl stared, all the time she stirred the mess in the pot with a ladle. At first he could see only a heavy white scum, as of sheep grease. Presently, as it warmed, it suggested other themes, partly blocked by his pink swollen nose. It was the only recent service that Nicholas, damn him, had done him.
Then he heard, through the snow, the voices of men; and among them, incredibly, the animated, cheerful voice of his sister Katelijne. Anselm Sersanders rose and ducked through the door, to stand lowering. The girls came out behind him, and the woman. All the nearby huts emptied. They all stood in the slush smiling at Kathi, as a fisherman carried her up from the boat on his back.
She looked pretty. That was the first thing he saw as they set her down. She looked clear-eyed and red-cheeked and happy, with none of the anxiety she had shown when he was trying to persuade her to part from the Svipa. He exclaimed, with relief, ‘You got away!’
The men round her were grinning. ‘Well, not exactly,’ said his sister. ‘I was invited to leave. Her se Gud. Hvad heittir thú? May I come into your house?’
She was not speaking to him, but to the women. He had to guess what she said. When the women replied, Kathi laughed.
‘What?’ said Sersanders. ‘Can they take us back to the Unicorn? Can we leave?’
‘No. They ask how many babies we have,’ Kathi said.
‘Who?’
‘You and I.’
‘Tell them we are brother and sister!’
‘I have,’ Kathi said. She was bidding goodbye to the oarsmen, each of whom kissed her on the mouth. She kissed them all back and returned. ‘We can’t leave. The Hanse ship has taken the Unicorn. If we go back, they’ll hold us to ransom. If we wait, it may work out all right.’
‘How?’ said Anselm Sersanders.
She looked at him thoughtfully. ‘M. de Fleury has a plan.’
‘I’m sure,’ said her brother. ‘To leave.’
‘No. To do with the Unicorn. He said if you and I stayed, we’d be picked up.’
‘Who by, do you suppose?’ enquired her brother. ‘You say the Unicorn can’t, and the Hanse ship doesn’t know we are here. They’ll all leave, Nicholas too, and we’re stranded. That’s why he put us off, isn’t it?’
‘I guessed he was getting sated with me,’ Kathi said, ‘that last moonlit night up the mast-basket. Anselm, don’t be an idiot. He put us off because he’s got a plan to deal with the Maiden, and he doesn’t want us about if there’s fighting. If it works, he will come, or the Unicorn. If it doesn’t work, I fancy he’ll tell Benecke where we are, and we’ll be taken prisoner as we should have been in the first place. Aren’t you getting cold?’
‘No. He’s tricked you. I’m going to do something.’
/> ‘What?’ Kathi said. ‘We’re in the midst of a snowstorm. It’ll be dark in two hours. Whatever happens, the fishing-boats will find out and we’ll hear. If it’s bad news, you can think what to do in the morning. Is this the house you were in? Something’s cooking.’
He followed her in, arguing still. The old woman stood up, the fish-forest parting above her, and Kathi, smiling, went over to speak. They talked for a long time. The cauldron reeked of mutton and sheep grease and fish. Kathi, returning, took up the ladle and dipped it. She said, ‘It is Tryggvi-Sigurdsson’s house. He is doing something for Nikolás-riddari, but will be back when it is dark. She apologises for the fishing-hut; their farmhouse inland is much bigger, and Glímu-Sveinn’s farm is the biggest of all. She says it’s the custom to lodge foreigners in the church, but there isn’t one handy.’
‘There is a cathedral,’ Sersanders said. ‘At Skálholt. Ask where Skálholt is.’
‘Why? We’re not going there,’ Kathi said. ‘Oh Anselm, look.’ Her ladle, dipping and stirring, had brought up a fish. Its eyes had withered. The next attempt produced a long slackened form, its neck drooping. ‘A cormorant,’ Kathi said. ‘Or a shag? And oh, look.’
She paused. Sersanders said, ‘Oh Christ, I can’t bear it. Kathi!’
‘I know,’ she said sadly. ‘A poffin. The poor little bird with the enormous red beak and the feet. They made love beside them on Nólsoy.’
‘Who made love? Kathi, don’t cry. Kathi, sit down, it’s all been too much, I’ve been thoughtless. Kathi, they won’t make you eat it.’
‘I know. I don’t mind. It isn’t that,’ Kathi said. ‘But what will they do if he dies?’
‘Who?’ said Sersanders.
‘The parrot,’ said Kathi. ‘It made me think of the parrot. Come and help her bait hooks while we wait.’
‘No, thank you,’ said Sersanders.
The news came, brought by Tryggvi-Sigurdsson after dark. The Ein-hyringr, the Unicorn, had dragged her anchor and run on the reefs of Bót Bay, with what loss no one so far had discovered. The Pruss Maiden, forging out to recapture her, had been set upon by de Fleury and crippled, her mainmast gone and her master held hostage.
‘Paúel Benecke’s ship has been captured by Nicholas?’ Sersanders did not want to believe it.
‘So it seems,’ Kathi said. She had had some of the broth, and was eating a pudding made of moss cooked with milk. ‘M. de Fleury means to lodge the Maiden inside the harbour in daylight, and then fish the cod banks until his holds are quite full.’
‘And the Unicorn? Martin, Mogens and Svartecop?’ Sersanders said.
‘The Svipa is sending boats through the night to try and help the prize crew and our people,’ Kathi explained. ‘There’s a doctor, it seems, and Father Moriz will make them do what is right. That is, if M. de Fleury claims the Unicorn and its cargo, I don’t suppose Father Moriz can stop him.’
‘But I can,’ Anselm said.
‘I’m sure. And Uncle Adorne and his lawyers. But nothing can be done until daylight, and even then, Tryggvi says, the Svipa will have to see the Maiden is settled in harbour before M. de Fleury can think about coming in to the mainland for us. So we might as well lie down and sleep.’
‘I shan’t sleep,’ Sersanders said. ‘I don’t propose to wait to be picked up and ransomed by Nicholas de Fleury.’
‘But you can’t do anything now,’ Kathi said. ‘Tryggvi’s mother has made you a bed in the corner. I’m just outside in a hut with the girls. I’ll see you at first light.’
She looked perfectly cheerful. The apprehension or despair of a short time ago seemed to have passed. It was characteristic of Kathi: one minute living at ten times the pace of anyone else, and the next moment exhausted. She left. He stumbled, led by the grandmother, to his bed, which was a slab of basalt covered with sand and a mattress. On top was a thick, faded eiderdown, smelling of fish. The old wife patted him down and went back to the fire, where the two girls were serving their father.
Sersanders took off his boots. After an interval he lay back on the mattress, his rolled jacket under his head. Someone pulled the feather-filled cotton over his body, patting it gently. He closed his eyes, and was surprised, opening them, to find that the lamps had gone out, the bog-cotton wicks having expired in a warm stench of fulmar. Someone was still pleasantly patting the quilt. He realised that the patting hands were not only on top of the quilt, but smoothing restfully under it, and that one by one his points were being drawn undone and apart. In the glimmer of the low fire he saw a dark yellow plait swinging loose, then a pale one. Presently the girl on one side of him lifted the quilt and slid in, to be joined by the girl on the other.
Affrighted, he lifted his head. He discerned the snoring form of his host, bedded on the far side of the hut. He saw the old woman still sat and toiled at the hand-lines, her lidless eyes fixed on his face. He made a sudden involuntary movement, and one of the girls laughed aloud. The grandmother smiled like a leaf, plucking, plucking the molluscs and ramming them ceaselessly down on the hooks.
At dawn they had to shake him awake, snug and reeking of fish, and with a fair attempt at sang-froid he managed to assume his clothing under the quilt and venture into the half-light outside. He found Kathi up, fed and being taught how to slit and gut cod. Beside her was a bucket of fish-heads and a vat full of livers and bladders and oil. She put the knife down and waved. ‘I can give you some news of God’s chosen victim, the Unicorn. Guess?’
Her eyes were sparkling. ‘They saved it?’ he said.
‘Better than that. It rescued itself before anyone reached it. It got itself off the rocks, and managed to sail out to sea and escape. It’s free! Uncle Adorne’s ship is safe, and the Cologner and Martin and everyone!’
He realised that his lips were drawn back like a gargoyle’s. He said, ‘Now pretend you haven’t been fooled, Master Nikolás-riddari. Where did the Unicorn go?’
‘South. Home, of course. They’ll be home before us; they don’t even know that we’re here. It doesn’t matter. M. de Fleury said he would come if they didn’t. Anselm, isn’t it splendid?’
‘You don’t know anything,’ said Sersanders indulgently. ‘And they haven’t gone home, I would bet on it. And I don’t intend to wait for Nicholas de Fleury to condescend to pick us up, if he ever would, which I doubt. No. Clean your hands. Get your bag. I’m going to find us a boat and some horses.’
‘Turn round,’ she said.
He looked at her, puzzled, and turned.
It was an odd time, he thought, to admire scenery. Certainly, the landscape had been obscured before, and he had had other things on his mind. He still had. To please her, he studied the view: the plain of the delta, and the snow-covered lava beyond. They were pink. He said, ‘Very nice.’
‘Very nice,’ Kathi repeated. She gazed at her brother. Then she turned back to the sight which she hadn’t even wanted him to observe: the distant place where the sky was still dim, and an ethereal city swam in the air – a marble confection of mosques and towers and tombs which hung sugar-pink in the dawn. It lasted one moment more; and then the light changed, and showed the massifs and the peaks to be lifeless.
Spiralling into the paling blue sky were two thin columns of smoke. Two, not one.
She said, ‘Look. I’m not going anywhere. I’m waiting for M. de Fleury.’
Her brother faced her. She had a feeling that she was still misunderstood. He said, ‘Kathi, I know what it’s like. I can’t boast. I’m no prude. But Nicholas de Fleury doesn’t want you. You would never be more than his mistress.’
‘Heaven preserve us!’ said Kathi. She rolled up her eyes. ‘Anselm? Listen! The reason I didn’t go back to Bruges is because Uncle thinks I should find someone in Scotland to marry. Poffins in soup. I don’t mind. But having decided to stay, do you think I’d waste my maidenly charms on a much-married husband and father?’
He said, ‘So come to Skálholt with me.’
‘Why?’ she said. ‘Anselm, w
hy? If it’s over, we ought to wait and go home.’
‘It isn’t over,’ he said. ‘And we can get ourselves home without the help of the Banco di Niccolò. It’s going to be Nicholas’s second surprise. If you’re frightened, I’ll go on my own.’
‘And desert me?’ said Kathi. ‘Abandon me at the portals of Hell? Relinquish me to the clutches of –’
‘You’ve just said the opposite,’ said Anselm unkindly. ‘You don’t want him, he doesn’t want you, and you are on kissing terms with the entire population of Iceland, so far as I can see. You don’t need me.’
And that was true, Kathi conceded; but silently. She gazed at him with wistful affection tempered with admiration. He looked remarkably fresh. She wished, for the hundredth time, that he would marry.
‘I’ll come with you,’ she said. She hoped she hadn’t given in too abruptly. She was dying to know what he was up to. She had made up her mind, long before, that she was going to make the most of her journey to Iceland. She just found Anselm a boring companion, that was all.
Nicholas came to land that afternoon, arriving in someone’s flat-bottomed boat not much larger than a Thames shout, Robin with him.
It was later than he had planned. The Pruss Maiden had taken time to disable; now it was lodged with the Svipa in the sheltered north bay of the harbour. The fish-cleaning stations were in place on the shore by the ships, along with the trading-booths and the tents they’d brought with them. It was the usual practice, when southern fleets fished at the Westmanns. If any Icelanders had been rash enough to set up summer house, they were thrown off and their hovels re-occupied. Only the Hanse ships could operate here. Or, of course, anyone crazy enough to have captured one.
As a place of residence, the mother holm of the Westmanns had few attractions to offer. Like the parent Iceland itself, the island was uneven and wild, its surface contorted with misshapen mountains, its sea cliffs defended by ferocious rock-teeth and reefs. Against the white of the snow the bright tasselled pavilions, diced with colour, might have blown from a tourney in Florence until you saw how they shook in the wind, the snow sliding glazed down their sides. There was one spring of water, half frozen.