Fools' Gold Read online

  ‘Fall off it?’ he repeated, horrified. ‘There is an edge?’

  ‘We were talking about rainbows,’ Luca explained briefly to Isolde.

  ‘Actually, that’s no comfort,’ Freize said quietly to Isolde. ‘Actually, it’s worse. Falling off the edge? Saints save us!’

  ‘But, to our business with them,’ Luca said, interrupting the digression. ‘They say that after some weeks of trading the Bedford gold they started to make gold nobles of their own, with the Duke of Bedford’s own recipe. And then they released these gold nobles on the market with the others. So we can be sure that there is already a mixture of good English gold nobles and alchemy gold nobles coming onto the market together.’

  ‘Can you tell one from another?’ Brother Peter asked. ‘Or are they all equally good?”

  ‘I think people may be able to do so,’ Ishraq replied, worried. ‘They seemed to suggest that their own gold, made from silver and base metal, needed another stage of refining. They said they needed more time.’

  ‘Lady Carintha had new gold nobles in a necklace,’ Isolde offered. ‘They looked as good as the others. If they were alchemy gold, you couldn’t tell by looking.’

  ‘But their main work, their greatest work, was not the gold, they said, but life,’ Freize said. ‘They said that. Didn’t they?’

  ‘They did,’ Luca confirmed. ‘They were very clear that the making of gold was a lesser art, one for greedy men. Their principal ambition was to make, not the philosophers’ stone that can turn everything into gold, but the philosophers’ elixir – to make life itself.’

  ‘They have a powerful number of dead animals,’ Freize pointed out. ‘In all those jars. And for people making life they have a terrible stink of death in their storeroom.’

  ‘The young woman said that she was an old woman,’ Ishraq told Brother Peter. ‘She said she was not as she seemed. She said that she was an old woman in a young woman’s body, and that she and the man she calls her father had worked together for many many years.’

  There was a little silence.

  ‘But they said many things that cannot be true,’ Freize reminded them. ‘I don’t even want to think about it.’

  ‘We have to report them,’ Brother Peter said heavily. ‘I see that they are philosophers, and their work is perhaps valuable, but Milord was clear that we had to find the counterfeiters, and this pair have admitted to making coins. He said that we must report them – and we have to do so.’

  ‘Give them the rest of today to pack up and go and we will report them after dawn tomorrow,’ Luca ruled.

  ‘Milord said . . . ’

  ‘Milord wanted Radu Bey dead,’ Ishraq cut in scornfully. ‘He accused him of being an assassin. Milord only told Luca that it was possible to buy his father’s freedom months after he first met him. He said nothing before Luca knew it already. He could have told Luca how to free his father when they first met, but he did not bother to do so. Milord gives orders but they are not always to our good. Milord can wait a day.’

  There was a sharp indrawn breath from Brother Peter. ‘You are disrespectful,’ he reproved her. ‘Milord never ceases in the work of the Order. Night and day he serves God and the Holy Father. He fights the powers of darkness and the infidel in this world and the other. I am sworn to the Order and so is Luca Vero. Milord is the commander of our Order and we have to obey him. We are sworn to him.’

  ‘But I am not!’ Ishraq insisted. ‘Don’t look so shocked, I am not suggesting that we disobey him. I don’t oppose him. Brother Peter, I don’t oppose your mission, I don’t even argue with you about how you think women should behave, and I have served you well over the last few days. All I say is that we should do as Luca thinks and report the alchemists tomorrow at dawn. It’s what we promised them.’

  ‘I think so too,’ Isolde agreed, exchanging a quick hidden glance with Luca, as if they had made a promise and would always be a partnership. ‘Tomorrow, as Luca says.’

  ‘Tomorrow,’ Freize said. ‘That’s fair enough.’

  Brother Peter looked from one determined young face to another. ‘Very well,’ he said with a sigh. ‘So be it. But tomorrow at dawn.’

  He rose from the table and walked to the door, stiffly dignified, when there was a sudden tolling of the bell in the watergate and a sound of men, a whole brigade of men, running up the marble stairs, their boots hammering on the stone. The door banged open, was held open by the forerunners of the Doge’s guard, who poured into the room followed by an officer, beautifully dressed, holding a silver handgun, cocked and ready to fire. ‘You’re under arrest,’ he said abruptly.

  Luca’s chair crashed to the floor, as he pushed it back and jumped before Isolde to shield her. ‘What charge?’

  ‘We’ve done nothing!’ Brother Peter exclaimed, falling back from the door as the man rushed into the room.

  Behind the men, the ashen face of the housekeeper peered in, and behind her, gleaming with triumph, came Lady Carintha, dressed in scarlet, with her husband in tow.

  ‘This is a private matter,’ Luca said as soon as he saw her. He turned to the officer. ‘Commander, there is nothing to investigate, no crime here. There has been a misunderstanding between myself and the lady, an unfortunate quarrel between neighbours.’ He crossed the room at once, and bowed low and took her hand. ‘I am sorry if I offended you,’ he said. ‘I meant no insult.’ He bowed to her husband. ‘An honour to meet you again, Sir.’

  ‘He’s no trader,’ she said bluntly to the Doge’s officer, completely ignoring Luca. ‘And I doubt that they are brothers. She is certainly not his sister, and God knows who the Arab slave is. Is she their dancing girl? Is she in his harem? Is she their household witch?’

  Amazingly, Ishraq did not fire up to defend herself against the insults, but meekly bowed her head and went quietly to the door. ‘Excuse me,’ she said.

  ‘Where’s she going?’ Lady Carintha snapped.

  ‘To my room,’ Ishraq said, her eyes modestly turned down. ‘I am kept in seclusion. I cannot be in this roomful of men.’

  ‘Oh, of course.’ The officer waved her away, as she drew the veil of her headdress across her face and the soldiers stepped back to let her go past.

  ‘That’s a lie!’ Lady Carintha exclaimed. ‘She’s not in seclusion, at all. She’s a bold-faced slut. If you let her go, she’ll be running away!’

  ‘No one to leave the house!’ the officer ordered Ishraq. ‘You may only go to your room.’

  Ishraq bowed very humbly, and went up the stairs to her room.

  ‘Put a man on her door,’ the officer ordered and one of the soldiers followed her at a respectful distance.

  ‘My dear,’ Lady Carintha’s husband said quietly. ‘We can leave the officer to make his inquiry. Now that you have done such good work of denouncing them.’

  ‘They’re forgers,’ Lady Carintha said to the officer. ‘Look what she gave me.’

  She threw onto the table the purse that Isolde had given her to repay the gambling debts. ‘False gold,’ Lady Carintha accused. ‘Counterfeit coins. Counterfeit English nobles as well, which is worse. Arrest them.’

  Isolde was ready to brazen it out. ‘There’s nothing wrong with the gold,’ she claimed. ‘And if there is, I had it in good faith. I bought these nobles in Venice thinking they were good. I would not have paid someone like you in a false coin. I would not have done anything that might cause you to return here!’

  ‘I don’t come for pleasure, be sure of that!’ the woman snapped. She turned to her husband. ‘See how she speaks to me! Who would ever be fooled into thinking she was raised as a young lady? She’s as fake as the coins in the purse.’

  ‘Lady Carintha . . .’ Luca said quietly. ‘Let us discuss this as friends. There is no need for ill feeling.’

  ‘We are honest merchants, a family of honest merchants.’ Brother Peter repeated the lie with so little conviction that it was as bad as confession.

  ‘Arrest them!’ Lady Carintha demande
d.

  ‘Shall I fetch our travelling papers?’ Freize asked the officer. ‘Our letters of introduction? You will see we have a sponsor, a very important man.’

  The guardsman nodded. Freize went to the door.

  ‘Look at the coins!’ Lady Carintha shouted. ‘Never mind his letters. He can forge letters as well as coins, I daresay.’ She thrust her hand into the purse, and they saw her beautiful face change, the anger was suddenly wiped from her features as she froze, and then her face contorted with a sort of horror.

  She pulled her hand out of the purse and they saw her fingers were sticky with some red liquid, almost like blood. ‘My God,’ she exclaimed in disgust. ‘Look at my hand! The coins are bleeding. They are so false they are bleeding like the wounds of murdered men.’

  She turned to show her hand to her husband and he recoiled from her – she was so horrific with her fingers reddened as if she had dipped them in an open wound. Every man in the room flinched from her as if she were oozing blood like a murdered corpse.

  She felt a strange sensation on her neck, like a crawling insect, and put her clean hand to her ear. The gold noble earrings were dripping blood onto her neck. The gold noble necklace was making a trail of red at her throat as if someone had taken a knife and sliced into her.

  ‘Clean me!’ she said, her voice shaking. ‘Get it off me.’

  Nobody could bear to step towards her, nobody could bring themselves to touch her. They could only watch in terrified fascination as the gold noble earrings drip-dripped blood down her white neck and stained the low-cut lace at the top of her gown.

  ‘Get it off me!’ she screamed, her fingers slipping at the intricate clasp of the necklace, unable to grip for the red liquid. ‘It’s burning me! It’s scalding my skin! Get it off me!’

  Her husband forced himself to step forwards to help, gritting his teeth against his distaste. The officer drew his dagger and put the blade of his stiletto under the clasp of the necklace, careful not to touch the oozing coins.

  ‘Cut it off!’ Lady Carintha screamed. ‘It doesn’t matter that it’s gold. Get it off me! It’s bleeding on me! It’s burning! It’s burning my skin!’

  Her husband held the necklace away from the nape of her neck as the young officer pulled upwards and away with his knife. His knife was as red as if he had stabbed her in the heart, and the necklace pulled against her neck and made her shriek before it clattered to the ground, smearing scarlet on the marble floors as if a murder had been done in the horrified room.

  There was a sudden black flash of something going past the window, but only Luca, facing in that direction, saw that it was Ishraq, pointed like a spear in a long fearless swallow dive, from her high bedroom window into the canal.

  ‘What the hell was that?’ demanded the officer of the guard, pushing past Lady Carintha to look out of the window. ‘I saw something go by . . . ’

  ‘Nothing,’ Luca said at once. ‘A cormorant perhaps.’ Luca looked down with him. In the canal they could see a circle of bubbles but nothing else.

  ‘A murdered body bleeds when the murderer comes near!’ Lady Carintha declaimed, pushing herself forward, scrubbing with a cloth at her reddened neck. ‘These coins are bleeding because they are in the house of the counterfeiters!’

  ‘I’m going to have to search your property,’ the officer said, turning from the window to Brother Peter.

  Luca was still looking out at the Grand Canal. After what felt like a long, long time he saw Ishraq’s dark head, wet as a seal, emerging from the water. Someone pulled her on board a rowing boat and she crouched in the prow, but they did not return to the house. The boatman leaned over his oars and rowed as hard as he could down the canal, before anyone from the palazzo could raise the alarm or come after them. They were out of sight in a moment. Luca guessed Freize was at the oars and Ishraq was urging him on to warn the alchemists.

  ‘What was that?’ The officer returned to look out with Luca. ‘Looked like something was thrown from an upper window.’

  ‘I’ll go and see,’ Isolde volunteered. ‘My servant may have dropped something.’

  ‘You’d better not have thrown away any evidence,’ the officer warned. ‘We can drag the canal, you know.’

  ‘Of course not!’ Isolde said.

  Before anyone could stop her, she pushed past Lady Carintha and ran up the stairs to her room. They heard her slam the door and turn the key in the lock as Lady Carintha poked the bleeding necklace with the toe of her satin shoes and said, her voice shaking: ‘False coins, false hearts. Bleeding coins are a sign of guilt. These are wicked people. You must arrest them all. Especially the young women. They must be put to the question. They must be taken to the Doge’s Palace, and held in his prisons.’

  ‘Where did you get this purse from?’ The officer spilled the bloodstained coins onto the dinner table, they smeared their sticky redness in a pool.

  Brother Peter exchanged one brief look with Luca.

  ‘I can find out,’ the officer said. ‘I only have to ask in the Rialto and someone will tell me. But it would be better for you if you were to answer me now.’

  Luca nodded. Clearly, they would have to tell the truth. ‘We got our nobles from the money changer Israel,’ he said. ‘But I am certain that he thought that they were good. We certainly thought they were good. It was a simple transaction between two honest parties.’

  The officer turned his head and spoke briefly to one of his men. At once he left the room and they could hear him running down the stairs.

  ‘I am arresting you on suspicion,’ the officer said.

  ‘Of what?’ Luca said. ‘We may have received forged nobles, but so has Lady Carintha. Where did she get her necklace from? It was not from us! We are buyers of coins, not counterfeiters. You can search the house.’

  ‘We know Lady Carintha, she is a Venetian born and bred, and her husband is a great trader in this city, his name is in the Gold Book. He is on the Council. You, on the other hand, have just arrived and everything about you is strange. Lady Carintha says you are not what you seem, you have been arranging to buy a fortune in gold from one money changer, you speak of a ship that has yet to come in, you are often seen with Father Pietro and you seem to be favoured by one of the greatest enemies of Christendom.’

  Luca raised his eyebrows at the extent of the officer’s knowledge. ‘You have been watching me?’

  ‘Of course. We watch all strangers. Venice is filled with spies. There is a Bocca di Leone for denouncing the guilty in every square. And you have great wealth and dubious friends. You have been under suspicion from the moment you arrived.’

  ‘He is not a dubious friend. Radu Bey was a chance acquaintance, who chose to help me trace my father who was captured as a slave of the Ottomans. The city of Venice itself trades with the Ottoman Empire. The Doge himself trades with Radu Bey.’

  ‘But the Doge does not use counterfeit coins,’ the man returned.

  ‘He does,’ Lady Carintha said spitefully, pulling her earrings out of her ears and throwing them down on the table with a shudder. They sat in a little pool of redness, oozing wetly. ‘He almost certainly does. His hands will be bloody too.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Since this family arrived, everyone in Venice has gone mad for the English gold. Ask my husband. The price has soared. No doubt the Doge has bought them, no doubt he has sold them on. Perhaps his hands are dirty too. Perhaps we are all going to be ruined.’ She rubbed her stained hands against the skirts of her gown and shuddered. ‘What is this?’

  ‘It looks like a sort of rust,’ Luca said. ‘Perhaps the metals are breaking down, and rusting away.’

  She looked at him and her beautiful face was twisted with jealousy and spite. ‘Rusting gold?’ she said. ‘Against the laws of nature. You and that sister of yours? Unnatural too. As unnatural as forgery. As false as counterfeit coin.’

  ‘What are you suggesting?’ the officer asked her. ‘Are you saying they are sinners as well as criminals
?’

  ‘God knows what they are guilty of,’ Lady Carintha swore. ‘You should take them in at once. He is false as the most beautiful gold coin, and she passes for a lady but fights like a cat. Who knows what they have done together?’

  ‘My dear . . .’ her husband interpolated.

  ‘I want to go home.’ Lady Carintha suddenly became soft and tearful. She turned to her husband. ‘We have done our duty here. I can’t bear it here with these bloodstained coins in this house of wicked strangers.’

  Solemnly, he nodded. ‘Do your duty for the Doge and the Republic,’ he said pompously to the officer. ‘The survival of the greatest city in the world depends on our wealth and our trustworthiness. This family – if they are truly a family and not a counterfeiting ring in disguise – have challenged both. They must be destroyed before they destroy us! Arrest them at once and take them before the Council of Ten!’

  The two of them were too powerful to be denied. The officer looked from Luca to the stained gold nobles scattered over the table. ‘I am arresting you on suspicion of counterfeiting coins, trading in false gold with a Jew, and incestuous relations with your sister,’ he said. ‘You will have to come with me. In fact, I am arresting you all.’

  Brother Peter put his hand over his eyes and made a little noise like a low sigh, but at that moment, the door opened and Isolde came into the room. She was transformed. She was wearing her blonde hair piled high on her head and a tall scarlet pointed headdress on top of it that made her look six feet tall. She was wearing one of her most beautiful Venetian-made gowns in a deep crimson, the slashed sleeves showing white silk underneath. She stood very tall and very proudly. Beside her Lady Carintha looked old and tawdry with her dirty neck and her bloodstained ears.

  ‘This has gone far enough,’ Isolde ruled. ‘It must stop now.’ At her tone of command the officer hesitated, and Lady Carintha’s husband made a half bow, halted by a sharp hidden pinch from his wife.

  ‘I am Lady Isolde of Lucretili,’ Isolde said directly to the officer. ‘This is my mother’s signet ring. You can see our family crest. I am travelling with my servant and companion Ishraq, and with this escort: my tutor Brother Peter, a man of unquestioned probity, his scholar Luca Vero and our manservant and general factotum. We decided to pass as a noble family interested in trade in order to travel without being known and for my personal safety.’