‘Why would you do that?’ the officer queried. Lady Carintha stood dumb, clearly overwhelmed by Isolde’s grandeur.
Isolde answered the officer, completely ignoring the woman. ‘My brother has usurped my place at the castle,’ she said. ‘He is passing himself off as the new Lord of Lucretili. I don’t want him to know that I am going to seek help against him from my godfather’s son. That is why we are travelling through Venice. That is why we assumed different names.’
‘And who is your godfather’s son, Milady?’ the officer asked deferentially.
‘He is Count Vlad Tepes the Third, of Wallachia,’ Isolde said proudly.
The officer and all the guards pulled off their hats at the mention of one of the greatest commanders on the frontiers of Christendom, a man who had defended his country of Wallachia from the unstoppable Ottoman army, been driven out, and would, without a doubt, conquer it again. ‘You are the great count’s god-daughter?’ the officer confirmed.
‘I am,’ Isolde said. ‘So you see, I am a woman of some importance.’ She took another step into the centre of the room and looked Lady Carintha up and down with an expression of utter contempt. ‘This woman is a bawd,’ she said simply. ‘She keeps a disorderly house where there is gambling and prostitutes. She boasts of her own immorality and she quarrelled with me only when I refused to join in her lascivious ways.’
Slowly, Lady Carintha’s husband detached himself from her gripping hand and turned to look at her.
‘I imagine it is well known to everyone but you, Sir,’ Isolde said gently to him. ‘Your wife is little more than a common whore. She has quarrelled with me because I would not let her into this house at night and lead her to the room of this young man of my household, whose spiritual well-being is my responsibility. She wanted to lie with him, she offered to buy time with him by giving me jewellery or an alibi for my own absences, or introduce me to a lover. She said she would make him into her toy, she would have him for Carnevale and then give him up for Lent.’
Brother Peter crossed himself at the description of sin. Luca could not take his eyes off Isolde, fighting for their safety.
‘She’s lying,’ Lady Carintha spat.
‘When I treated these offers with contempt, this woman attacked me,’ Isolde said steadily.
Lady Carintha crossed the room and stood, her hands on her hips, glaring at Isolde. ‘I will slap your face again,’ she said. ‘Shut up. Or you will be sorry.’
‘I am sorry that I have to speak like this at all,’ Isolde said glacially, one glance at Brother Peter as if she was remembering his claim that a lady should not fight for herself. ‘A lady does not tell such shameful secrets, a lady does not soil her mouth with such words. But sometimes, a lady has to defend herself, and her reputation. I will not be bullied by this old streetwalker. I will not be scratched and pinched by such a she-wolf.’ She smoothed back the veil which flowed from her headdress and showed the officer the scratch marks on her cheeks. ‘This is what she did to me this very afternoon for refusing her disgusting offers. I will not be assaulted in my own home. And you should not work at her bidding. Any denunciation from such as her means nothing.’
‘Absolutely not!’ he said, quite convinced. ‘My lord?’ He turned to Lady Carintha’s husband. ‘Will you take the woman home? We cannot accept her denunciation of this family when she clearly has a private quarrel with them. And this lady,’ he bowed towards Isolde, who stood like a queen, ‘this lady is above question.’
‘And she receives forged coins,’ Isolde added quietly. ‘And gambles with them.’
‘We’ll go,’ Lady Carintha’s husband decided. To Isolde he bowed very low. ‘I am very sorry that such a misunderstanding should have come about,’ he said. ‘Just a misunderstanding. No need to take it further? I would not want our name mentioned to the count, your kinsman. I would not have such a great man thinking badly of me. I am so sorry that we have offended, inadvertently offended . . . ’
Isolde inclined her head very grandly. ‘You may go.’
The officer turned to Brother Peter and Luca. ‘I apologise,’ he said. ‘Of course, no arrest. You are free to come and go as you please.’
He bowed very low to Isolde, who stood very still while he ordered the men from the room, and they waited until they heard the clatter of their boots on the stairs and then the bang of the outer door.
There was a sudden total silence. Isolde turned and looked at Brother Peter as if she expected him to criticise her for being too bold. Brother Peter was silent, amazed at this newly powerful version of the girl he had seen before as a victim of her circumstances: clinging to a roof in a flood, or weeping for the loss of her father.
‘I will defend myself,’ she said flatly. ‘Against her, or against anyone. From now on, I am going to fight for my rights.’
Freize rowed in determined silence, heaving the little boat through the water, until Ishraq, hunched in the prow, shivering a little in her dripping gown, looked behind and said: ‘Nobody’s following.’
He paused then, and stripped off his thick fustian jacket. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘Put this round your shoulders.’
Almost she refused, but then she took it and hugged it to her.
‘You look like a drowned rat,’ Freize said with a smile, and set to the oars again.
She made no reply.
‘A sodden vole,’ Freize offered.
She turned her head away.
‘It was a hell of a dive,’ he said honestly. ‘Brave.’
Ishraq, like a champion of the games receiving the laurel crown, bent her head, just a little. ‘I’m cold,’ she admitted, ‘and I hit the water with a terrible blow. I knocked the air out of myself.’
‘You hurt?’ he asked.
He saw her indomitable smile. ‘Not too bad.’
They found their way through the network of little canals towards the Jewish quarter of the city, and rowed slowly along the outside of the steep ghetto wall, until Ishraq said: ‘That must be it. That must be their watergate. It’s on the corner.’
The alchemists had no gondola, and their gate was closed, the two halves of wrought metal bolted together. Ishraq was about to pull the bell chain which hung beside the gates when Freize raised his hand for her to wait, and said: ‘Listen!’
They could hear the noise of someone pounding on the outer door to the street, they could hear someone shout: ‘Open in the name of the law! In the name of the Doge: open this door!’
‘We’re too late,’ Freize said shortly. ‘They must have got to the money changer, and he must have told them that he got the coins from here.’
Ishraq listened to the loud hammering. ‘The guard isn’t in yet,’ she said. ‘We might be able to get them away . . . ’
Without another word, Freize rowed the boat towards the gate and Ishraq leaned over the prow and struggled to push the heavy bolt upwards. But whenever she pushed against the gate, the boat bobbed away. Finally, in frustration she stepped out of the boat altogether and, clinging to the wrought iron of the gate, her bare feet flexed on the trellis work, she used all her strength to push the bolt upwards. Stretching between the stationary gate, and the one which was opening, she kicked off from the anchored gate and swung, slowly inwards, dangling over the cold waters.
Freize brought the boat up against the opening gate and Ishraq stepped back into the prow and then turned as he took the little boat against the internal quay. She jumped ashore and took the rope, tying it to the ring in the wall.
Now they could hear the noise more clearly, the hammering on the door echoing through the stone storeroom and through the wooden hatch to where they stood on the quay.
‘Sounds like a raid,’ Freize said. ‘Ten men? Maybe eight?’
Cautiously, he tried the hatch which led from the quay to the storeroom. It opened a crack and Freize looked in.
‘They’ve bolted the door to the street,’ he said. ‘But I can hear the Doge’s men are breaking it down now.’ Freize pulled the
hatch from its housing and jumped upwards, getting his chest and belly over the ledge, and wriggled through the low gap. There was a crash from inside the house as he got to his feet, and Freize whirled around to see Jacinta running through the door, her father behind her, their arms filled with rolls of manuscript, a chest of papers in her hand.
She recoiled for a moment, as she saw Freize’s broad frame and the open hatch and then she recognised him. ‘Thank God it’s you!’ she exclaimed. She thrust the papers at him. ‘They can’t have these,’ she said. ‘No one can see these. They’re secret.’
‘Get in the boat,’ Freize said shortly, throwing the papers through the hatch. ‘We’ve got one in your watergate, waiting.’
‘I have to fetch . . . ’
They could hear a steady violent thud at the front door as the men took a ram to it and started to break it in. Drago Nacari was gathering up small glass jars in his haste, passing them through the hatch to Ishraq, who stacked them pell mell into the bottom of the boat.
‘Come!’ Freize shouted at the pretty girl, who was piling small spice boxes one on top of another to carry away. ‘That door won’t hold! Come now or you will lose everything!’
She raced towards the hatch and handed the boxes to Ishraq on the waterside. Drago Nacari was through the hatch already and at the oars of the boat. ‘Come!’ he commanded her.
‘The baby!’ she shouted.
‘Baby?’ Freize repeated, horrified.
There was a crash as the outer door to the street yielded to the battering ram and then shouts as the guard came up against the locked storeroom door. Jacinta dragged a stool across the stone floor and jumped up on it so that she could reach the highest shelf. She stretched out her hands for the bell jar where Freize and Ishraq had first seen a little brown mouse beside a flickering candle, and then, on their later visit, seen the naked lizard-like thing.
‘This . . .’ she said, as the kitchen door burst open and a band of the Doge’s guards hurled themselves into the storeroom. One man threw himself at her, grabbing her around the knees and bringing her down.
The bell jar flew from her hands and smashed on the floor. The young woman screamed, struggled in the man’s grip, writhing like a serpent as her cap fell off and her rich russet hair tumbled down around her shoulders. Freize, took hold of the guardsman in a strong grip from behind, pulling him off her, so he was facing Jacinta as she wormed out of the man’s grip. Freize saw her, saw her transformed: her long straggling locks of completely white hair, her face gnarled and old, her merry brown eyes pouched under drooping eyelids and her wrinkled lips stretched over toothless gums as she gave a croaky scream.
For one second they were all frozen still with horror, and then the guardsman released her with a bellow of shock, pushed her away from him, thrusting her away like a man in terror. In that moment she was out of his arms, and through the hatch, wriggling like a white-headed snake through the gap, down to the quay, and into the boat, and Drago and Jacinta were gone.
‘Good God!’ the man said. ‘Did you see? Did you see that?’
Freize did not reply, so shocked that he could not catch his breath. Then he saw the contents of the bell jar that Jacinta had tried so hard to save. Amid the broken shards of the glass bell jar there was a little creature. At first he thought it was a lizard, only pale and pink. Then he thought it was a kitten that they had obscenely skinned and left to bleed. Then he saw the thing more clearly. The little being rose up on its hind legs and held up its arms to him, and he heard a tiny piping voice say: ‘Help me! Help me!’
The other guardsmen were pouring into the storeroom and kicking in the wooden frame of the hatch that led to the quay. Among the turmoil of the broken glass and the stamping of leather boots the little thing scuttled in fear and called again to Freize: ‘Help me!’
Compassion overcame his disgust and with a horrified shudder Freize bent down towards the tiny animal which stood no taller than six inches, like a perfectly formed naked man, but with a grimace of fear on its miniature bare face, and a word written in silver across its forehead: EMET.
Freize could not bring himself to touch it, but he pulled the cap from his head and laid it down. The little thing took a bold leap and landed in the cap like a fish in a net. Freize shook his head in horror and bafflement. ‘What am I to do with you?’ he whispered.
He heard the breath of a whispered reply: ‘The canal.’
The guardsmen had kicked out the old wooden hatch that closed off the quay and now they saw Ishraq’s pale frightened face in the opening.
‘There’s a girl here!’ someone shouted. ‘Get her!’
One man bent down and tried to slide through the opening feet first as Freize made a mighty dive, hands first, getting in before him, blocking the gap with his shoulders. ‘Ishraq!’ he yelled, and thrust the cap towards her.
She caught the cap in her hands. ‘What?’ she recoiled at the little being, curled up inside. ‘What’s this? My God Freize! What is it?’
The soldiers fell on Freize’s legs and dragged him backwards from the hatch. ‘Get it in the river!’ Freize shouted to her. ‘Get it in the water.’ Someone trod on his outstretched hands in their haste to get through the hatch to capture Ishraq. ‘Let it go!’ Freize yelled. ‘Set it free!’
He saw her duck away from the hatch towards the canal, but then someone kicked him in the head and something fell beside him with a loud clatter, and then everything was dark.
Quietly dripping, Ishraq approached the garden gate of the palazzo on the Grand Canal, and tried the latch. It yielded and she stepped into the garden. It was dusk, and the waning spring moon was rising over the shadow of the wall. She was still wet, and her hair was in rat’s tails down her back, her costly gown torn from hem to hip and tied out of the way. She stepped warily into the enclosed space and looked up at the house.
Everything seemed quiet. Ishraq tiptoed barefoot to one of the windows and listened. There was silence; she cupped her hand over her eyes and peered in. The room was empty. Carefully, Ishraq went under the shade of the portico to the garden door and pushed it open. There was a slight creak but in a moment she was in the stone-flagged back hall, and then picking up her damp skirts, she crossed the hall and mounted the stairs, past the main room and up to the floor that she shared with Isolde.
The door to their rooms was locked. Ishraq tapped the rhythm that they had used from childhood
and at once the door opened and Isolde pulled her in.
‘I have been waiting and waiting for you. You’re freezing! Are you safe? You’re soaked! Did you get to them in time?’
Isolde ran to her room and fetched a linen sheet and started to towel Ishraq’s hair, while the girl pulled off her wet torn clothes.
‘I got to them before the Doge’s men came, and they got away. Their equipment was broken and Freize is arrested.’
‘No! We must tell Luca!’
Ishraq took a blanket and wrapped it around her bare shoulders. ‘Has the guard all gone?’
‘They left only one man behind, at the watergate. That’s why I stayed locked in, up here, though they have gone. They didn’t see you go, so they think you’re locked in here with me. Change your clothes and nobody will ever know you were out of the house. There’s nothing to connect us with the alchemists. Hurry – we have to tell Luca and Brother Peter about Freize.’
Ishraq rubbed her hair dry, pulled on a dress and tied her hair back. ‘Let’s go,’ she said.
The two young women hurried down the stairs and into the main room. Brother Peter and Luca were at the window, looking down to the darkening canal, as the door behind them opened and they turned around and saw Ishraq.
‘Thank God you’re safe!’ Luca exclaimed. ‘What a dive you made! Ishraq, what a risk you took!’ He crossed the room and hugged her to him. ‘You’re still wet!’ he said.
Brother Peter was shaking his head. ‘I suppose you went to warn them,’ he said. ‘Were you seen?’
‘Worse
,’ Ishraq said briefly. ‘I am sorry, Brother Peter. They saw me, but I got away; and they arrested Freize.’
‘Freize!’
‘We rowed there together. We went in by their watergate. We could hear the Doge’s men at the front door. The alchemist and Jacinta were trying to get their things, the books and the manuscripts and some herbs and things from their work room. They got into our boat . . .’ Ishraq broke off at the memory of the horror of the young woman with the old, old face and straggling white hair who had rushed past her to get into the boat. ‘Anyway. They got away in our boat. But the men charged in; and they got Freize. I swam for it.’
She stopped again. Somewhere in the water, not far from her as she had dived off the quay, had been the little thing, something like a baby, something like a lizard, something like a frog. She had held the cap towards the water’s edge and seen it jump into the water, seen it dive, the soft skin of its back gleaming palely as it went deep down into the canal.
‘What happened?’ Isolde asked, seeing the expression of blank horror on her friend’s face.
Ishraq shook her head. ‘I don’t know what they were doing there,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what they had done. I don’t know what they had made, in that bell jar of theirs. I don’t know what sort of thing it was.’
‘What sort of thing?’ Luca repeated, taking her hand.
She met his honest brown eyes with a deep sense of relief, as if Luca was the only person that she would be able to tell.
‘Luca,’ she whispered. ‘I want to tell you.’ She hesitated. ‘But I am afraid to even speak. It was horrific – and pitiful. I want to tell you. I can’t.’