Fools' Gold Read online

  Father Pietro laughed delightedly. ‘Because that is his name. And a great name among the infidel. If you have his friendship then you are favoured by one of the greatest men in the Empire.’

  ‘I had no idea . . . I met him only once. I asked about my father and one of his slaves said he was with Bayeed. I had no idea he would think of me again. He showed no interest in me or my father, he didn’t seem to care at all. And he is the mortal enemy of my lord.’

  ‘Well, you are wrong. He’s no enemy of yours. He took an interest, and to great effect. Bayeed was ready for your request, he regarded it as a request from the sultan, Mehmet II himself, and he sends me this reply.’ The priest showed Luca a small piece of paper with a scrawl of black ink and a roughly stamped seal.

  Gwilliam Vero, galley slave

  Five English nobles

  Father Pietro frowned a little. ‘He’s kept his price at five English nobles, though their value has risen, and is still rising. That’ll cost you twelve ducats now. Last week it would have been ten.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ Luca said, still breathless with the news. ‘I have funds, I have nobles.’ He shook his head again. ‘I am stunned. I am dazzled.’ He drew a breath. ‘What do we do now? Do I go to fetch him?’

  Father Pietro shook his head. ‘No, certainly not. You give me the money and I send it by my emissary to Bayeed. He will leave tonight, pay over the money and receive the slave, your father. He’ll take him to an inn and get him a wash and some food, and some clean clothes. I find that all the men want to take a moment to return to life.’ He smiled. ‘It’s a shock you know, the rolling back of the rock from the tomb. A man needs to take a moment to come back to life. He has to learn what has happened during the passing of the years, he has to prepare himself for the world he left so long ago. How long has your father been gone?’

  ‘Four years,’ Luca said. ‘That’s why I want to fetch him myself, at once.’

  ‘You only have to wait a little longer, my son. My messenger will bring your father to you.’

  ‘How long?’ Luca demanded impatiently.

  ‘If you give me the money, my agent can sail for Trieste, he’ll be there by tomorrow evening or at worst the next day, a day to ransom him, and get him fed and clothed, then two days’ journey home.’ The priest had been counting on his rosary beads, as an abacus. ‘Say five days in all. You will see him within the week.’

  ‘I’ll fetch the money at once,’ Luca swore, all thought of the alchemists driven from his mind. ‘I’ve got my gondola here. I’ll fetch the money from home and come back to you.’

  ‘Come before sundown. I will be here until dusk.’

  ‘At once! At once!’

  Father Pietro nodded. ‘One moment, my son,’ he said gently. ‘I would bless you.’

  Luca curbed his impatience and dropped to his knees.

  With great gentleness, the priest put his hand on the young man’s bowed head. ‘In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti.’

  ‘Amen,’ Luca replied fervently.

  The priest kept his hand on Luca’s warm head, he imagined that he could almost feel the whirling thoughts swirling beneath his fingers. ‘Prepare yourself,’ he said gently. ‘You will find him much changed.’

  Luca rose to his feet. ‘I will love him, and honour him, however he is,’ he promised.

  The priest nodded. ‘He will have led a life of brutal cruelty, he will be scarred by it, outwardly on the skin of his back, in the brand on his face, and perhaps inwardly too. You must expect him to be different.’

  ‘But I am changed too,’ Luca explained. ‘He last saw me as a boy, a novice hoping to be a priest. Now I am a man. I have loved a woman, I have kept my love for her as a secret, I have seen some terrible things and looked at them and made a judgment. I am in the world and I am worldly. We will both see a great difference in each other. But I have never stopped loving him, and I know he would never have stopped loving me.’

  The priest nodded. ‘So be it,’ he said gently. ‘And I shall pray that the love of a father for his son and the love of God helps you both in your reunion.’

  ‘Where shall I meet him?’ Luca demanded.

  ‘Come to me here at the Rialto, at Sext, in four days’ time, for news, and then you can come every day till he arrives,’ Father Pietro said.

  ‘I’ll be here,’ Luca promised. ‘Four days from now.’

  Dazed, he walked away from the busy bridge and found his way to the waiting gondola. He shook his head to the questions of Ishraq and Freize. ‘My father is found,’ is all he said. ‘I am to send the money. He is to come home to me.’

  Back at the house Brother Peter was waiting for them at the watergate stairs.

  ‘I have no idea what is going on,’ he complained. ‘That woman came, and she and Isolde had some kind of quarrel, a terrible fight, and now Isolde is locked in her room and won’t come out, nor speak to me, and she says she will never ever speak to Luca as long as she lives.’ He turned to Luca. ‘What have you done?’

  The rush of crimson which rose from his white collar to his black hat betrayed him. ‘Nothing,’ he said, glancing guiltily at Ishraq. ‘I’ve done nothing.’

  Ishraq stepped out of the gondola and went up the stone stairs, past the men’s floor to the top storey, into the big room where the reflection of the water made rippled light on the ceiling, and tapped on the door to Isolde’s bedroom. She turned to see that Luca had followed her, his hat twisted in his hands, his young face wretched.

  ‘Isolde?’ she called. ‘Are you there?’

  ‘Yes,’ came the muffled monosyllable from inside.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘That woman was here and I punched her and she scratched my face, she pulled my hair and I pulled hers and we were like fishwives in the Rialto. I was not better than her. I was like a jealous . . . puttana. I demeaned myself!’

  ‘Why?’ Ishraq was finding it hard not to laugh.

  ‘Because she said . . . she said . . .’ Isolde choked on a sob.

  ‘Ah.’ Ishraq was moved at once. ‘Don’t cry. It doesn’t matter what she said.’

  ‘It does matter. She says that Luca made an assignation with her and that was why she came to the house last night, that he was going to lie with her in the garden. They had agreed to meet. He wanted her. And she ordered me to let her into the house tonight. She says that he wants her. She says that she will make him desire her. She says that she can drive him mad for her, that he will be her toy.’

  ‘I never!’ Luca exclaimed unconvincingly. He stepped towards the door, and rested his forehead lightly against the panel, as if he would feel Isolde’s cool hands on his face. ‘I never invited her,’ he said. ‘Not at all! Or at any rate, not exactly.’

  ‘Are you there too?’ Isolde exclaimed, from the other side of the door, her voice muffled by the wood as if she were leaning her lips to the panel, to be as close to him as she could.

  ‘I’m here. I’m here.’

  ‘Why? Why are you there?’

  ‘Because I cannot bear the thought of you being unhappy. And never because of me. Because I would do anything in the world to make you happy. I would give everything I own to prevent your distress. There is only one woman for me. There has only ever been one woman for me. There only ever will be one woman that I love.’

  ‘She said you were ready to fall in love with her.’

  ‘She lied.’

  ‘She said that she can make you fall in love with her.’

  ‘She cannot, I swear that she cannot.’

  ‘She said that you had agreed to lie with her after the party, that you had agreed to meet.’

  He stammered. ‘I did agree. I was a fool, and she said… it doesn’t matter. But then in the garden I thought it was not her, but another. . . . Isolde . . . I don’t know what happened. I thought . . . I hoped . . . I was certain it was . . . ’

  ‘Luca, I think she is a bad woman, a vile woman.’

  ‘Isolde, I am a
man, I felt desire, I touched, I kissed . . . but it was dark, I didn’t know . . . all along I thought it was . . . I didn’t know it was her. I was half-drunk, I was thinking of . . . ’

  ‘Don’t say. Don’t think. Don’t say what you thought. You can never say what you thought. You can never say who you thought you were with.’

  ‘I’ll say nothing,’ he swore, his hands flat against the door, his forehead pressed to the wood, his lips whispering so that only she could hear him.

  ‘No one will ever say who went into the garden last night,’ Ishraq said to him quietly. Luca turned to her and saw her dark gaze on him. He gasped as a thought struck him as powerful as a bolt of desire. ‘Ishraq? Was it you?’

  ‘We won’t even think about it,’ she said.

  Silently, she gave him a little smile, turned away and crept down the stairs.

  ‘Ishraq?’ Isolde whispered.

  ‘She’s gone. She said nothing,’ Luca replied. ‘But I must know! Beloved . . . ’

  ‘What? What did you call me?’

  ‘I called you beloved, for that is what you are to me. If you insist then I shall never speak of the night in the garden and the stranger who came to me. If you tell me it was a terrible mistake, then it was a terrible mistake. If you tell me it was a moment of love, out of time and out of place, never to be mentioned again, then I will believe that. If you tell me that it was a gift from another girl that I love almost as much as I love you, then I will keep that secret too. But if you tell me it was a dream, the most wonderful dream that I could have, then I will believe that. I am yours to command. It is a secret, even if I don’t know it. But I know that I love only you. Only you.’

  There was a long silence from the other side of the door and then he heard the key turn in the lock and Isolde stood there, her hair tumbled down, her eyes red from crying.

  ‘Can you keep the secret and never even ask? Never know for sure? Can you never ask and live not knowing?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Luca said honestly. ‘I dreamed I was with you, I longed to be with you, I had taken too much wine, I am so much in love with you that I thought I was with you. Can you tell me? Was I mistaken? Terribly mistaken? Or was I the happiest man in all of Venice?’

  Slowly she shook her head. ‘I can never tell you,’ she said. ‘You will have to live with never knowing for sure.’

  Strangely, he did not press her for an answer, it was as if he understood. Simply, he opened his arms to her and she stepped towards him and laid her head on his shoulder and her hot face against his shirt.

  ‘I will never ask,’ he said. ‘It was like a dream. A most wonderful dream of something that I did not dare to dream. It can stay as a dream. If you order it: I just had a most wonderful dream.’

  Brother Peter and the two young women were waiting for Luca and Freize to come home in the gondola from the Rialto Bridge. Luca had dashed out of the house with a purse of gold nobles, a hurried kiss on Isolde’s hand, desperate to get the money to Father Pietro at once.

  ‘It is the money that Milord gave us to support our lie that we are traders,’ Brother Peter said anxiously, standing at the window and looking down at the busy canal. ‘It’s not for Luca to use to ransom his father.’

  ‘Milord must have known that Luca would use the money to save his father. And Luca might be lucky and earn it back with trades and gambling. Aren’t the nobles worth more today than when we first bought them?’

  ‘Usury,’ Brother Peter said depressingly. ‘He should not be making money by trading in a currency.’

  ‘He’s supposed to!’ Ishraq said impatiently. ‘Milord commanded it. He’s supposed to trade. And if he makes a profit on his cargo he can surely spend it as he likes!’

  Brother Peter shook his head. ‘A good and careful servant would make the profit for the glory of God,’ he said. ‘And then give it all back to Milord. That is good stewardship. Think of the parable of the talents.’

  ‘But when Luca’s father comes home, that will be to the glory of God,’ Isolde remarked. ‘And the greatest joy that Luca could have. Surely, we must be glad for him?’

  ‘I cannot help but fear what he is becoming, when he rides around in a gondola like a young merchant prince.’ He glanced down at her. ‘I can’t help but fear for you too. Fighting with that woman like a fish wife. Your father did not raise you to behave like this, Lady Isolde.’

  She nodded. ‘I’m ashamed of how I behaved,’ she said. ‘I am ashamed of more than you know, Brother Peter.’

  ‘Have you confessed?’ he asked her very quietly. Ishraq tactfully stepped to the back of the room and left Isolde to answer.

  She shook her head. ‘I am too ashamed to confess.’

  ‘You were born and bred to be a lady,’ Brother Peter reminded her. ‘A lady with duties and obligations. It is your part in life to show self-control, good manners, self-discipline. You cannot be ruled by your heart in love, or by your temper and start fighting. You are meant to be better than this. Your father raised you for a great place in the world, not to be a silly girl with love affairs and fights.’

  She looked up at him. ‘I know this,’ she said. ‘But I am not in a world where I can behave well and people around me behave well. I am in a world of temptation and even anger. I want to be able to fight for myself. I want to be able to feel desire and act. I want to be able to defend myself against attack.’

  ‘A lady will find her defenders. The men around you will speak for you if needs be,’ Brother Peter assured her, not realising that he was recommending a view of women which had kept them powerless for centuries, and would lead them to be victims of male anger and male power forever.

  She bowed her head. ‘I will try,’ she said.

  At the back of the room, Ishraq, who disagreed with everything that Brother Peter had said, shook her head and could not stop herself making a little ‘tut’ noise of annoyance.

  ‘There they are now,’ Brother Peter remarked, seeing the boat swerve through the busy traffic on the canal.

  They heard Giuseppe call: ‘Gondola! Gondola! Gondola!’ in his bubbling cry as he turned the gondola across the bows of the other boats and steered it neatly into the house, and then they heard Luca and Freize, talking quietly as they came up the stairs and entered the dining room.

  ‘Is everything all right?’ Isolde asked Luca, going straight to his side as she saw his slight frown.

  He nodded. ‘We sent seven nobles in case he asked for more. It ought to be all right. It’s just that the nobles are soaring against every other sort of coin. The slaver will not know what their value is in Venice when he sells my father in Trieste. It’s going up so fast you have to be at the money changer’s table to see it change. It’s even going up against gold.’

  ‘How can a coin be more valuable than its ingredient?’ Ishraq asked. ‘How can a gold coin be more valuable than gold itself?’

  ‘Because people trust the gold noble even more than gold,’ Freize answered her. ‘There was a long queue before Israel, the money changer. People were changing solid gold into nobles because you can pay with a noble anywhere, and now it is worth more than its own weight. People are taking their gold jewellery, their wives’ necklaces, and exchanging them by weight for a gold noble, and then adding more to buy the coin. Buy a gold bar and it could be lead with a gold skin. You don’t know, you have to get it tested. Buy a gold necklace and you don’t know what you’re getting. But all the gold nobles are always good, and they’re all worth more today than they were yesterday.’

  The travellers exchanged an uncomfortable glance.

  ‘This is getting more and more serious,’ Brother Peter said. ‘People will be speculating in gold nobles but only we know where they came from. Only we know that some of them are not pure gold and have been made by alchemy!’

  He crossed the room and checked that no one was listening at the door and then gestured that they should all sit around the table. ‘We have to decide what to do. This situation is getting worse
and worse. I know you feel tenderness towards the alchemist and his daughter but we are bound to report them at once.’

  Luca paused for a moment, almost as if he was reminding himself that he was on a mission, and that he was the inquirer. Slowly, he took the chair at the head of the table. For the first time it was as if he was consulting Brother Peter as his clerk – but not as his mentor. ‘Wait. We have to think this through,’ he ruled. ‘Some things are clear. We can report to Milord, that we have completed our inquiries and we know what has happened here. The alchemist pair came with gold that they had obtained from their patron to trade on the market of Venice. They admit that they released many gold English nobles, but will not say whether this was alchemical gold from the great master John, Duke of Bedford, or whether it was true gold, earthly gold, from the mint that he controlled at Calais.’

  ‘Agreed,’ Brother Peter said. ‘And I have prepared the report in code, saying just this. It is ready to go once you have signed it.’

  ‘They also said that the world was round,’ Freize pointed out. ‘And the pretty girl said that she was an old lady. So it might be that they are just mad, poor things.’

  ‘Peace!’ Luca commanded him. ‘Most scholars believe that the world is round.’

  ‘They do?’ Freize was scandalised. ‘What about the other side?’

  ‘What other side?’

  ‘The underneath. If the world is round, then what about the underneath? The underneath of the ball? What’s it sitting on? That’s the question. Never mind rainbows! And what happens when you go round the middle? If you travelled to the underneath you would fall off.’ He put both hands to his head and gently pulled his own ears. ‘You would be upside down! It makes me dizzy just thinking about it.’

  ‘Never mind all that. They were talking about something else entirely different.’

  ‘Why were they talking about the world being round at all?’ Isolde asked, distracted from the most important issue by Freize’s confusion. She leaned forwards and gently took his hands from his ears. ‘Hush, Freize. Be calm. It’s no worse than thinking that if the world were flat, you could travel to the edge and fall off it.’