Fools' Gold

  Luca pulled himself free, refusing to admit to any assignation, though his heart pounded at the thought of a dark blue dress and mask. ‘I’ll just walk around,’ he said, and stepped unsteadily ashore.

  With a shrug, Brother Peter ordered the gondolier to take him and Freize round by boat to the watergate and left Luca climbing the steps to the quayside.

  Isolde and Ishraq shrank back against the wall as Luca got to the top of the steps and turned and looked back over the Grand Canal, a big yellow moon high above, the bright stars shining in the darkness of the sky. He stood for some time, listening to the sounds of distant music and laughter.

  ‘And all in a moment I know that I love her,’ he said simply, speaking to himself but hearing the words fall into the quietness of the night and mingle with the lapping of the canal on the steps. ‘It’s extraordinary, but I know it. I love her.’

  He gave a quiet laugh. ‘I’m a fool,’ he said. ‘Half-promised as a priest, fully committed to the Order of Darkness, on a quest, and she is a lady of such high birth that I would not even have seen her if I had stayed as a novice in my monastery.’

  He fell silent. ‘But I have seen her,’ he said steadily. ‘And she has seen me. And tonight I understand for the first time what people mean by . . . this . . .’ he broke off and smiled again. ‘Love,’ he said. ‘What a fool I am! I love her. I have fallen in love. Coup de foudre. In love, in a moment.’

  He opened the door to the walled garden and let himself in. The girls heard his footsteps crunch the gravel and then silence as he threw himself onto the bench beneath the tree.

  On the shadowy quayside the girls stood in horrified silence.

  ‘Was he speaking of her?’ Ishraq said wonderingly. ‘Of Lady Carintha? Has she done what she said she would do? Seduced him, already, and in only one meeting?’

  Isolde turned, and Ishraq could see the shine of tears on her pale cheek beneath the dark blue mask. ‘He said that he fell in love tonight,’ she said, her voice low with misery. ‘Fell in love, coup de foudre, all in a moment, tonight. With a lady he would never have seen if he had stayed in the monastery. He’s in love with that woman. That painted—’ Isolde bit off her words as another gondola edged to the quayside stairs and Lady Carintha, in a cape and hood of deep blue, with an exquisite mask of navy feathers, snapped her fingers for the gondolier to help her step onto the stairs and up to the quayside.

  ‘She’s meeting him!’ Isolde exclaimed in an anguished whisper as she and Ishraq shrank deeper into the shadows. ‘She’s meeting him in our garden!’

  The two young women stood, pressed against the wall, hidden in the shadows while the big spring moon lit the quayside as brightly as day. Lady Carintha, with her back to them, took a tiny looking glass from the gold chain at her waist and scrutinised her dark blue mask, her smiling painted lips, her blue silk hood and cape. Her gaze went past her own reflection and she saw, in the mirror, the two girls, pressed back against the wall and broke into a quiet laugh.

  ‘The pretty virgins!’ she said. ‘Walking the streets. How quaint! And I am meeting a third pretty virgin! What a night for a debauch! Will you come with me?’

  Even Ishraq, usually so bold, was stunned into silence at the woman’s bawdiness. It was Isolde, with tears hidden by her mask who stepped forward and said: ‘You shall not meet him. I forbid it.’

  ‘And who are you to forbid or allow a grown man what he shall do?’ Lady Carintha asked, her voice filled with careless scorn. ‘He wants me. He’s waiting for me. And nothing will stop me going to him.’

  ‘He wants me too,’ Isolde said wildly. ‘He asked me to come to the garden. You can’t come in.’

  ‘His sister?’ Lady Carintha asked. ‘My! You are a stranger family than I thought.’

  ‘She means me,’ Ishraq intervened. ‘He asked her to bring me to him.’

  Lady Carintha put her hands on her hips and looked at the two younger women. ‘Well, what are we to do? For I won’t share him. And we can’t all go in together and let him choose. That would be to spoil him, and besides, I don’t take gambles like that. I’m not lining up against you two little lovelies.’

  ‘But you like to gamble,’ Ishraq pointed out. ‘Why don’t we gamble for him?’

  Lady Carintha gave a delighted laugh. ‘My dear, you are wilder than you appear. But I have no dice.’

  ‘We have nobles,’ Ishraq pointed out. ‘We could toss for him.’

  ‘How very appropriate,’ she said drily. ‘Who wins?’

  ‘We each toss a noble until there is an odd one out. That woman wins. She goes into the garden. She has time with Luca – whatever she does nobody ever knows – and we never speak of it,’ Ishraq ruled. ‘Do you agree?’

  ‘I agree,’ Isolde whispered.

  ‘Amen,’ Lady Carintha said blasphemously. ‘Why not?’

  Ishraq took the borrowed nobles from her pocket and gave Isolde one, and took another for herself. Lady Carintha already had hers in her hand.

  ‘Good luck!’ Lady Carintha said, smiling. ‘One, two three!’

  The three golden coins flicked into the air all together, turned and shone in the moonlight, then each woman caught her own as it fell, and slapped it on the back of her hand. They stretched out their hands each holding a hidden coin under the palm of the other hand. Slowly, one at a time, one after the other, they uncovered them.

  ‘Ship,’ said one, showing the engraved portrait of the king in his ship on one side of the coin.

  ‘Ship,’ said another, uncovering her coin.

  The two of them turned to the third as she raised her fingers and showed them the shining face of her coin.

  ‘Rose,’ she said, and without another word, turned to the door in the high wall, turned the heavy ring of the latch, and went quietly in.

  The light of the moon suddenly dimmed as a cloud crossed its broad yellow face. In the garden, Luca rose to his feet as very, very quietly, the garden gate opened and a masked figure stood underneath the arch. Luca stared, as if she were a vision, summoned up by his own whispered desire. ‘Is that you?’ he asked. ‘Is it really you?’

  Silently, she stretched out her hand to him. Silently, he stepped towards her. Luca drew her into the shade of the tree, pushing the door shut behind them. Gently he put his hand around her waist and held her to him, she turned up her face to him in the darkness, and he kissed her on the lips.

  She made no protest as he led her under the roof of the portico and they sat on the bench in the alcove. Willingly, she sat on his knee and wound her arms around his neck, rested her head on his shoulder and inhaled the warm male scent. Luca drew her closer, heard his own heart beating faster as he unlaced the back of her gown and found her skin, as smooth as a peach beneath the dark coloured silk. Only once did she resist him, when he went to untie her mask and put back the hood of her robe, and then she captured his hand to prevent him from unmasking her, and put it to her lips, which made him kiss her again, on her mouth, on her throat, on the warm hollow of her collar bones until he had spent the whole night in kissing her, the whole night in loving her, in learning every curve of her body, until the first light of dawn made the canal as dark as pewter, and the garden as pale as silver, and the birds started to sing and she rose up, gathered her shadowy cloak around her, pulled the hood to hide her hair, shading her face when he would have kept her and kissed her again, stepped silently out of the garden gate and disappeared into the Venice dawn.

  Next morning the five of them met for a late breakfast. Luca jumped to his feet to pull out a chair for Isolde and she thanked him with a small smile. He passed her the warm rolls, straight from the kitchen, and she took the bread basket with quiet thanks. Luca was like a man who had been staring at the sun, utterly dazzled, hardly knowing himself. Isolde was very quiet.

  Freize raised his eyebrows to Ishraq as if to ask her what was going on, but serenely she ignored him, her eyes turned down to her plate, smiling as if she had a secret joy. Finally, he could contain h
imself no longer. ‘So how was your party, last night?’ he asked cheerfully. ‘Did it go merrily?’

  Isolde answered smoothly. ‘We went upstairs to meet Lady Carintha, and we borrowed some gold nobles from her to gamble. I suppose we’ll have to return them. The women were a vain, vapid lot. They spoke of nothing but clothes and lovers. Brother Peter is quite right, it is a city empty of anything but sin. We came home about ten o’clock and strolled about for a few minutes and then went to bed.’

  Luca was staring at his plate, but he looked up just once, as she spoke. He stared at her, as if he could not understand the simple words. She did not glance at him, as he pushed back his chair from the table and went to the window.

  ‘So what are we to do today?’ Freize asked.

  ‘As soon as Luca and Ishraq have completed work on the manuscript and returned it to the alchemist and his daughter then we must report them to the authorities,’ Brother Peter said firmly. ‘If you could return it today, we could report them today. I would prefer that. I don’t want them coming to our house again. They are criminals and perhaps dabbling in dark arts. They should not visit us. We should not be known as their friends.’

  ‘How do we report them?’ Ishraq asked. ‘Who do we tell?’

  ‘We’ll denounce them,’ Brother Peter said. ‘All around the city and in the walls of the palace of the Doge there are big stone letter boxes with gaping mouths. They call them the Bocca di Leone, the mouth of the lion. Venice is the city of the lion: that’s the symbol of the apostle, St Mark. Anyone can write anything about anybody and post it into the Bocca. All Luca has to do is to name the pair of them as alchemists, Freize and I will sign as witnesses, and they will be arrested as soon as the Council reads the letter.’

  Isolde blinked at the Venetian way of justice. ‘When will the Council read the letters of denunciation?’

  ‘The very same day,’ Brother Peter said grimly. ‘The boxes are constantly checked and the Council of Ten reads all the letters at once. This is the safest city in Christendom. Every man denounces his neighbour at the first sign of ill-doing.’

  ‘But what will happen to Drago and Jacinta?’ Freize asked. ‘When this council reads your accusation?’

  Brother Peter looked uncomfortable. ‘They will be arrested, I suppose,’ he said. ‘Then tried, then punished. That’s up to the authorities. They’ll get a fair trial. This is a city of lawyers.’

  ‘But surely alchemy isn’t illegal?’ Isolde objected. ‘There are dozens of alchemists working in the university here, and even more at Padua. People admire their scholarship, how else will anything ever be understood?’

  ‘Alchemy isn’t illegal if you have a licence, but some applications of alchemy are illegal. And forgery is a most serious crime, of course,’ Brother Peter explained. ‘Anyone making gold English noble coins anywhere outside an official mint is a forger, and that is a crime, that is very heavily punished.’

  ‘Punished how?’ Freize interrupted, thinking of the pretty girl and her bright smile.

  ‘The Council will hear the evidence, make a judgement and then decide the punishment,’ Brother Peter said awkwardly. ‘But for coining, it would usually be death. They take their currency very seriously, here.’

  Freize was shocked. ‘But the lass – the bonny lass—’

  ‘I don’t think the Doge of Venice makes much exception for how pretty a criminal is,’ Brother Peter said heavily. ‘Since the city is filled with beautiful sinners, I doubt that it makes much difference to him.’

  Freize glanced at Luca, who was still gazing out of the window. ‘Seems too harsh,’ he said. ‘Seems wrong. I know they’re forgers, but it seems too great a punishment for the crime. I wouldn’t want to turn them in to their deaths.’

  Luca, hardly listening, glanced up from his silent survey of the canal. ‘They would be aware of the punishment before they did the crime,’ he said. ‘And they will have made a fortune. Didn’t Ishraq say they had six sacks of gold on the quayside? And didn’t you see the moulds for making the gold yourself, and their furnace?’

  ‘I don’t say they’re innocent, I just think they shouldn’t die for it,’ Freize persisted.

  Luca shook his head as if it were a puzzle too great for him. ‘It’s not for us to decide,’ he ruled. ‘I just inquire. It’s my job to find signs for the end of days, and if I find sin or wrongdoing I report it to the Church if it is sin, or to the authorities if it is a crime. This, clearly, is a crime. Clearly it has to be reported. However pretty the girl. And these are Milord’s orders.’

  ‘They’re not just forgers,’ Freize pressed on. ‘They’re inquirers, like you. They study things. They’re scholars. They know things.’

  He reached into the deep pocket of his coat and brought out a little piece of glass. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘They’re interested in light, just like you are. I stole this for you. Off Jacinta’s writing table.’

  ‘Stole!’ Brother Peter exclaimed.

  ‘Stole from a forger! Stole from a thief!’ Freize retorted. ‘So hardly stealing at all. But isn’t it the sort of thing you’re interested in? And she’s studying it too. She’s an inquirer like you, she’s not a common criminal. She might know things you want to know. She shouldn’t be arrested.’

  He put it on the table and uncurled his fingers so slowly, that they could see the little miracle that he had brought from the forger’s house. It was a long, triangular-shaped piece of perfectly clear glass. And as Freize put it on the breakfast table between Isolde and Ishraq, the sun, shining through the slats of the shutters, struck its sharp spine and surrounded the piece of glass in a perfect fan of rainbow colours, springing from the point of the glass.

  Luca sighed in intense pleasure, like a man seeing a miracle. ‘The glass turns the sunlight into a rainbow,’ he said. ‘Just like in the mausoleum. How does it do that?’

  He reached into his pocket and brought out the chipped piece of glass from Ravenna. Both of them, side by side, spread a fan of rainbow colours over the table. Ishraq reached forward and put her finger into the rainbow light. At once they could see the shadow of her finger, and the remnants of rainbow on her hand. She turned her hand over so that the colours spread from her fingers to her palm. ‘I am holding a rainbow,’ she said, her voice hushed with wonder. ‘I am holding a rainbow.’

  ‘How can such a thing be?’ Luca demanded, coming close and taking the glass piece to the window, looking through it to see it was quite clear. ‘How can a piece of glass turn sunshine into a rainbow arc? And why do the colours bend from the glass? Why don’t they come out straight?’

  ‘Why don’t you ask them?’ Freize suggested.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Why don’t you ask them to show you their work, or tell you about rainbows?’ Freize repeated. ‘He’s known as an alchemist, he’ll be used to people coming to him with questions. Why don’t you ask him about the rainbow in the tomb of Galla Placidia? See what we can learn from them before we report them? Surely we should know more about them. Surely you want to know why she has a glass that makes a rainbow?’

  ‘You’re sweet on the girl,’ Ishraq accused bluntly. ‘And you’re playing for time for them.’

  Freize turned to her with his comical dignity. ‘Actually, I have a great interest in the origin of rainbows,’ he said. ‘I don’t even know what girl you mean.’

  Isolde laughed and even Brother Peter raised his head at the clear joy in her voice. ‘Ah Freize, admit it! You have fallen in love in this city, where everyone seems to be in love.’

  ‘Everyone?’ Luca asked her pointedly, but she turned her head away from him with a little colour in her cheeks, and did not reply.

  Freize put his hand over his heart. ‘I tell no secrets,’ he said gallantly. ‘Perhaps she admires me? Perhaps not. I would not say a word to anyone, either way. But I still think you should talk to her and to her father before you hand them over to the Doge and his men. We need to know more of what they were doing in that strange secret room o
f theirs. And why can’t we warn them that the game is up and they should pack up their business and go away?’

  ‘They can hardly pack up and go on their way, and nothing more be said!’ Brother Peter exclaimed irritably. ‘They have swindled the merchants of the city of a fortune: making a market, profiteering in the gold nobles. They have cheated the nation of England of thousands of gold coins, perhaps hundreds of thousands, receiving the gold nobles stolen from them. We ourselves have bought gold nobles, giving good money in exchange for bad. This is a serious crime. They must be stopped. And anyway, Milord’s orders are clear: we must report them.’

  ‘But they’re not bad coins,’ Ishraq insisted. ‘They’re growing in value every day. Everyone is making money. They have made no one poorer. Actually, everyone is getting richer. Us too. The Venetians themselves don’t want the coins questioned. We tested the nobles, ourselves, as Milord said that we should. The coins are good, as good as gold. And now they’re being exchanged for more than gold. The coins are better than gold.’

  ‘I’ll visit them,’ Luca said. ‘I need to see their work. And we’ll ask them about it. And we’ll decide what to do.’

  ‘Milord has given orders,’ Brother Peter warned him. ‘He commanded us to find them and then report them. He didn’t say that we should understand why they are doing it, or their other work. His instructions were plain and simple: go to Venice, find the coins, find the suppliers, report them.’

  ‘He must be obeyed,’ Luca agreed. ‘And I don’t question our orders. We will report them as he commands. But not immediately. First, I will go and see them. I’ll take Freize and –’ he turned to Ishraq – ‘will you come too? And bring the manuscript page.’ He hesitated for a moment, clearly wondering if he could ask Isolde to come.

  ‘If Ishraq is to come she’ll have to be masked and hooded and travel from door to door by gondola,’ Brother Peter ruled. ‘And, in her absence, Lady Isolde will have to stay at home, or go to church.’