Without thinking, he put his arm around her shoulders and walked her away from the other two. When their heads were close together and his arm was tight around her waist, he felt her lean towards him and relax against him, as if he were warm, as if he were safety for her.
‘You can tell me,’ he said. ‘Whatever it was.’
She turned her face to his neck and then raised her mouth to whisper in his ear. She could smell the light clean scent of his hair; he smelled of the real world, of normality, of a young man. She felt desire as if it were the only real thing in a dangerous world filled with mysteries. It was as if the only thing that was real, the only thing that she could trust, was Luca. ‘I think they had made a homunculus,’ she breathed.
He froze at the word and turned to face her. ‘Would that be what they meant by saying they were making life?’
Her eyes dark with fear, she nodded. ‘Perhaps. I don’t know.’
‘What was it like?’
‘Like a tiny man, like a horrible tiny man. I thought it was a lizard but it was a person, a tiny, tiny person. It was in the bell jar. I think they had made it in the jar. Jacinta was trying to get it away, but when the bell jar broke, Freize took it up and passed it through the hatch to me.’
‘Why? Why did Freize save it?’
A ghost of a smile touched her lips. ‘Because that’s what he’s like; because he’s Freize,’ she said. ‘If it called out to him, he would have to answer. It wanted to be in the canal. Freize had put it in his cap. I held the cap to the edge of the canal and it jumped out.’ She shivered. ‘I didn’t throw it in,’ she said quickly. ‘I wasn’t trying to drown it. He told me to set it free. It jumped in and then it dived down, like a fish, and then it was gone.’ She gave a deep shudder.
‘What?’ Luca asked.
‘Luca, it wasn’t like a fish, it was just like a child. I saw its face as it bobbed in the canal. It took a breath and then dived down. I saw its rump and its feet as it went down. Like a child but tiny, as small as a rat, but swimming like a man. Horrible.’
He held her closer as she trembled. ‘And then?’
She raised her head and spoke so that the others could hear her. ‘I dived into the water and I swam round to the side canal beside the Nacari house. I waited in the water. I kept down low. I saw the Doge’s guards bring Freize out in manacles. He was walking all right, he was not hurt; but he looked dazed. They put him into their galley, the guards’ galley with a wooden prison at the back, and I ducked down below the water to let them go past me into the Grand Canal, then I swam out too. I swam for a long time until a fisherman picked me up and brought me back here.’
She turned her face to Luca’s shoulder. ‘It was terrible,’ she said with a little moan of fear. ‘It was really terrible, Luca, being in the water and knowing that the little thing was in the water too. I was afraid he would come on the fishing boat with me. I was watching the oars in case he climbed on board. I was afraid he would follow me home.’
She gave a shaky sob. ‘I kept waiting for the touch of his little hand in my hair,’ she whispered. ‘I thought he would hold on to me and make me bring him home.’
He tightened his grip on her. He held her close, her face against his neck, so that she could not see the horror on his own face, the fear of the unknown, the ancient fear of the creature which is not of earth or air, which is not beast, fish or fowl.
‘What if it’s a golem?’ she breathed.
He composed himself and faced her. ‘There is no such thing,’ he said staunchly. ‘It’s not like you to frighten yourself with imaginary fears, Ishraq! It was a lizard, or a plucked bird, or something like that, and Freize must have imagined that it cried out. It won’t come after you. It can’t have swum. It will have drowned in the canal. It’s nothing. You’re safe.’
He turned from her, as if the matter was closed, and to Brother Peter he said: ‘We’ll have to go and get Freize out. We’ll probably have to say who we are to clear our names. We’ll have to take our papers from Milord. Will you come with me?’
Brother Peter nodded, appalled at the whole situation. ‘I’ll get my cape. The young ladies should go to their rooms, and stay there.’ He looked severely at them both. ‘If anyone comes at all don’t admit them. Don’t say anything, and don’t show yourselves. The Doge’s guard will stay at the watergate but don’t speak to him.’ He scowled at Ishraq. ‘Don’t you go diving out of the window,’ he said crossly. ‘Just wait here till we get back, and try not to cause more trouble.’
The guard at the watergate had been reinforced by a second man and they had clearly been told to take anyone from the household if they wanted to see the city magistrates.
‘Do you think they were waiting for us to confess?’ Luca asked Brother Peter quietly, as the two guardsmen took their seats in the gondola at prow and stern.
‘Yes,’ Brother Peter replied shortly.
‘They were waiting for us to ask to go to the palace?’
‘They would perhaps have ordered us to attend later, after midnight. They mostly work at night. They usually arrest people at night.’
Luca nodded, hiding his growing fear. ‘Do you think that they didn’t believe Isolde is the Lady of Lucretili?’
‘They believed her. But they would still want to question us if they know you have been working with the forgers.’
‘They can’t know that,’ Luca argued, denying his own doubt.
‘They probably do,’ Brother Peter said dourly.
There was no sound for a moment but the slap of water against the gondola’s single oar, and another boatman crying: “Gondola gondola gondola!” as he made a blind turn into a small tributary canal.
‘They will release Freize to us, won’t they?’ Luca confirmed.
‘It depends on three things,’ Brother Peter said dryly. ‘It depends on what he has done. It depends on what they think he has done. It depends on what they think that we have done.’
Giuseppe rowed the gondola just a little way up the Grand Canal and then drew up between the forest of black mooring poles in the canal at the imposing white carved front of the Doge’s Palace.
‘What’s that?’ Giuseppe suddenly demanded, startled, looking down at the glassy waters of the canal.
‘What?’ Brother Peter asked irritably.
He shook his head. ‘I thought I saw something,’ he said. ‘Something like a frog, swimming beside us. Odd.’
‘Help me out,’ Brother Peter said crossly. ‘I have no time for this.’
Flanked by the guardsmen, Luca and Brother Peter went up the shallow steps to the quay, where the waves were slapping like a gabble of denunciations, and then the two men and the guards waited before the great palace doors, where a row of burning torches showed their pale faces to the sentries.
‘I need to consult the Council of Ten,’ Luca said with more confidence than he felt. ‘We are on business for the Pope.’
Boyishly, he feared that the man would simply ignore him, but the sentry saluted and pushed open a low door cut inside the great ceremonial gate, and Luca and Brother Peter ducked their heads and went through.
At once they caught their breaths. They were in a massive courtyard, big enough to house an army, as broad and wide as a square of the city: the heart of the Doge’s Palace. On their left was a great wall of red brick pierced by white windows, new-built and all but completed. Ahead of them was a white stone façade and behind that the towering bulk of the Doge’s own chapel, the massive church of San Marco. On their right was a wall as high as a white cliff, studded with windows. It was the Doge’s Palace, the heart of government, and all the offices. Most of the windows showed a light – the Republic never slept, business was always pressing; and spying and justice were done best at night. The whole courtyard was ringed by a square colonnade studded with huge white towers. Above the colonnade rose a series of narrow windows, placed one set on top of the other in the three tall storeys. It was as if all four walls of the palace were staring dow
n at them with blank accusing eyes.
Two guards came towards them and guided them to the building on their right, and led the way up the stone staircase. Luca found he was growing more and more apprehensive with every step he took. At the top of the stairs, the guard tapped on the huge wooden door, and a smaller door swung open. A man dressed in the black robes of a clerk, seated on a small plain chair at a wooden desk, beckoned them in.
‘I am Brother Peter, I serve the Order of Darkness under the command of the Holy Father. We are ordered to inquire into the end of days and all heresies and signs of the end of the world. This is Luca Vero, one of the inquirers.’ Brother Peter was breathless by the end of his introduction, it made him sound nervous and guilty.
‘I know who you are,’ the clerk said shortly. To the guards before and behind them, he said simply: ‘Take them to the inquiry room. They’re expected.’
One guard led the way through the narrow passage, the other followed behind. Luca was certain that they were being observed, that the lattice work in the wood panelling in the walls served as a window for another room and that an inquisitor was watching them walk by, and judging their anxious faces. Luca tried to smile and stride confidently, but then thought he must appear as if he were playing a part, as if he had something to hide.
The corridor twisted round and round; clearly they were threading between secret rooms, their footsteps muffled on the uneven wooden floors. As they walked, dozens of half wild cats scattered before them, as if these tunnels were their home. Then they stopped before a great door, where a silent sentry stood. The man nodded and stood aside, opened the door only to reveal a second closed door behind. He tapped, it swung open, and Luca and Brother Peter went into the room where three magistrates, wearing dark robes, were seated behind a great polished table. To the side, four clerks were seated around a smaller table. There was a fire in the fireplace for the comfort of the magistrates but it did not heat the room, which was miserably cold.
The double doors swung shut, first the inner one with a sharp bang, then the outer door with a dull thud, making the room soundproof, almost airtight. Luca and Brother Peter stood before the table in complete silence.
At last, the magistrate in the central seat looked up at them. ‘Can I help you, my lords?’ he asked politely. ‘You want to give evidence to us?’
Luca swallowed. ‘I am Luca Vero, an inquirer for the Order of Darkness, sanctioned by the Holy Father himself to investigate the rise of heresy, the danger of the infidel, and the threats to Christendom. This is my clerk and advisor, Brother Peter.’
Blandly, the three regarded Luca. Moving as one, they turned their heads to look at Brother Peter, and then back again.
‘My servant was in the course of making an inquiry for me at the house of an alchemist, Drago Nacari,’ Luca went on. ‘He was arrested by the Venice guard. He has done nothing wrong. I have come to request his release.’
The magistrate glanced at his two colleagues. ‘We were expecting you,’ he said ominously. ‘We have been watching you for some days.’
Luca and Brother Peter exchanged one aghast look, but said nothing.
‘Your papers? To prove your identity?’ One of the clerks rose up from the table and held out his hand.
Brother Peter produced the papers from his satchel and the clerk glanced at them. ‘All in order,’ he said briefly to the silent men at the table. He offered to pass them over the table but they waved them away. Clearly, they were too important to bother with letters of authority.
‘Authorised by the Holy Father himself,’ Brother Peter repeated.
The clerk nodded, unimpressed by the status of the Church. Uniquely in all of Christendom, all the administrators of Venice were laymen. They had not been recruited and trained by the Church; they served the Republic before they served Rome. Luca and Brother Peter had the misfortune of being in the only city in Europe where their papers would not command immediate respect and help.
‘So you are not, as you claimed, servants in the household of the Lady Isolde of Lucretili,’ the clerk observed.
‘No,’ Luca said shortly.
The clerk made a small note as if to record Isolde’s lie.
‘And what was your business with Drago Nacari, the counterfeiter?’ the magistrate seated in the centre of the table asked quietly.
‘We didn’t know that he was a counterfeiter at first,’ Luca said honestly. ‘As you see from our instructions, we were on a mission to find the source of the gold nobles. The lord of our Order had told us to come here, to pass as merchant traders, to find whether the nobles were good or fake, and if they were fake, where they had come from.’
‘Did you not think to inform us?’ was the question from the magistrate on the left.
‘We were going to inform you,’ Luca replied carefully. ‘As you see from our orders, we were commanded to inform you as soon as we had evidence to give to you. Indeed, we were on our way to inform you when our own palazzo was raided, and we were put under house arrest. Then we agreed that we should come and talk with you at dawn. But when our own servant was arrested by you this night, we had to come and disturb you – even though it was so late.’
‘Considerate,’ the third man said shortly. ‘Did you not think to inform us before you began your inquiry? When you arrived in our city looking for counterfeit gold? When you started questioning our merchants and deceiving our bankers? When you started buying counterfeit gold, trading in it, and profiting from the deception? Withholding information which would have affected the price?’
‘Of course not,’ Brother Peter said smoothly. ‘We were obeying the orders of the lord of our Order. We did not know what we might find. If we had found nothing, we would have been very wrong to disturb the confidence of your traders.’
‘They are disturbed now,’ the magistrate observed.
‘Unfortunately, yes.’
‘And what was your relationship with Drago Nacari the alchemist?’ the second magistrate asked ‘For we know he was an alchemist as well as a coiner.’
‘He consulted me about a manuscript that he had,’ Luca admitted. ‘He brought it to my house for me to read, and I returned it to him.’
‘And what did it say?’
‘I was not able to translate it. Not at all.’
‘And what was your impression of his work? When you went to his house?’
‘I did not see enough to be sure,’ Luca said. ‘He certainly had a lot of equipment, he had a number of pieces of work in progress. He had a forge and a vat of rotting matter. He said that it was his life’s work and he spoke of the philosophers’ stone. But I saw nothing of such importance that I would report to my lord or to you.’
‘Everyone speaks of the philosophers’ stone,’ the Council leader said dismissively.
Another nodded. ‘It is irrelevant. He had no licence to practise here so he was a criminal on that count alone.’ He paused. ‘Was he trying to create a living thing?’
Luca stifled a gasp with a little choke.
Brother Peter stepped into the awkward silence. ‘How could he? Only God can give life.’
Luca nodded. ‘Excuse me. No. I saw nothing but some dead and dried animals and insects.’
The clerk took a meticulous note.
‘So to the most important accusation: that he was coining,’ the first magistrate moved on. ‘Did you see any evidence of his coining?’
Luca nodded. ‘He, himself, showed me the moulds for the coins. He told me that the first coins had come from John, Duke of Bedford, that he had known him long ago in Paris. First he had the duke’s true coins and then here in Venice he made a batch of coins according to the duke’s recipe, and planned to pass them off as good, using the duke’s seal.’
‘And yet still, you did not report this to us?’ one of the men queried, his voice like ice. ‘Counterfeiting is a crime that strikes against the very heart of the Republic. Do you know what a run on a currency can do to traders in Venice?’
L
uca shook his head, thinking it wiser to stay silent.
‘Ruin them. Ruin us. Ruin the greatest city in the world. And you did not think to report it at once? This criminal confessed to you and you stood in his house and saw the evidence and you did not tell us?’
‘We were on our way,’ Luca said. ’We were coming to you tomorrow morning. At dawn.’
There was a terrible silence. Finally, the man at the centre of the three spoke. ‘Did he tell you how many chests of good coins he had released?’
Luca said: ‘No.’
‘Did he tell you how many forged coins? The bleeding coins, the weeping coins? They are going bad all over the city tonight. People will be hammering on the shutters of the bankers houses, demanding their money back as soon as it is light. Nobody wants bloodstained coins. Nobody wants forgeries. How many are out there?’
Brother Peter cleared his throat. ‘We were coming to you with the evidence against the forgers at dawn tomorrow. Of course we were going to report all that we knew as soon as we had evidence. We were prevented by the charges laid by Lady Carintha. But we don’t know how many coins.’
‘But you were able to send your servant out of the house though you were under arrest?’ one of the men said silkily. ‘In that gravest moment, you did not send him to us to warn us that the coins were melting and bleeding. In that crucial moment you sent him to them – to the alchemists. Why did you do that?’
Luca opened his mouth to speak, found he had nothing to say, and closed it again.
‘Your own officer saw the coins bleed,’ Brother Peter said feebly. ‘He must have reported to you? He must have sent men to arrest the money changer and the counterfeiter?’
The door to the right of them opened and Freize stood in the opening. His clothes were torn, and he had a black eye and a bruise on his forehead. Someone pushed him from behind, and he took a stumbling step into the room. Luca exclaimed and would have gone forwards, but the clerk put a firm hand on Luca’s shoulder and held him back.
‘Freize!’ Luca exclaimed.
‘I’m all right,’ he said. ‘Took a bit of a kicking, that’s all.’