The King's Diamond Read Online Free

pull on their ropes and the waves slap against the stone. I ran along the Mole, hunting in agitation for the gilded names on their sterns.
    I had sat last night in the Angel with the Speranza ’s owners, a pair of Genoese brothers named Piero and Federico Fieschi. I had bought them wine and discussed terms of payment for this voyage: ten ducats they asked, for the two hundred and fifty sea miles to Rome. All risks were my own. Piero had looked at me in question. The price was high: some thirty shillings for a journey that should have cost less than ten, even supposing I needed cargo space in the hold. I told them the sum was acceptable; but I could answer at that time neither no nor yes. They went away displeased. ‘Remember,’ Federico warned me, ‘we sail tomorrow, without fail.’
    Ahead, men shouted from the decks of one of the ships. Her yards were raised high and clear, slanting out over her sides, and a wooden crane swung goods out from the Mole and down into her holds. Plainly she was loading up to depart.
    On the quay Piero Fieschi was standing among a band of five or six men. They had the air of old established merchants, all of them, with grizzled beards and gowns trimmed with rabbit fur and sable. They thought nothing of standing there in that chilling wind, watching with serious eyes as every last bale and crate was winched up from the Mole. Their grave faces showed they knew the risks, putting to sea in times such as these. Doubtless they had prepared well in advance. They would have their servants on board, numerous and well armed. No doubt they had insurance too for their valuables, so that, even if they perished, their heirs would profit. It gave me a sudden sense of my own vulnerability. I had taken none of these precautions. I realised, too, the hastiness and lack of dignity of my entrance. Still out of breath, I swept off my hat and bowed.
    â€˜Richard Dansey, Merchant, of London.’
    They bowed in turn and presented themselves with their nations of origin: Milan, Lucca, the Duchy of Ferrara. Their eyes lingered onme. Plainly I was a mystery to them. I must have seemed a mere boy, with my light, sand-coloured hair and my beard that was little more than a wisp of down. I was still only twenty-one, and although I was tall, and had gained some skill with a sword, I was not of a powerful build. Too young to be a merchant, in their eyes, and not dressed like one, either. My clothes had more the air of a fashionable young noble’s. I wore a purple doublet slashed with white cambric, my shirtbands falling over it from the neck, each garnished with lace and ending in a gold button. My black wool cloak was edged in silver, and my rapier too was silver-hilted.
    Piero Fieschi stepped forward from among the merchants with his partner and younger brother at his side. I held out to them the purse I had prepared hours earlier, containing ten gold ducats. Piero looked at me in astonishment.
    â€˜Messer Dansey! We sail at once: but do you have no goods to load?’
    Martin came panting up behind me. Fieschi glanced at the trunk on his shoulder, clearly pondering whether it might contain anything of value. Martin swung the thing roughly down on to the stones, and sniffed. Fieschi appeared to dismiss the idea. He gestured to the knot of merchants. ‘Our companions have loaded silks of Lucca and Genoa, and we have a solid stack of salt barrels belonging to Messer Pinotti here, of Milan: most welcome for ballast. But you, nothing? Truly nothing? You tell us you are a merchant: how will you turn a profit?’
    â€˜I have my means.’ I smiled, delighting in their disappointed curiosity, and turned from them with a graceful bow. I stepped from the Mole to the wooden rungs of the entering ladder nailed to the Speranza ’s waist, and pulled myself on board. Martin swung the trunk up on deck, hauling himself after it. While he asked in his London-accented Italian where he should stow my