Fools' Gold (22 page)

‘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 of 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.’

‘I’ll stay at home,’ Isolde said rapidly, almost as if she wanted to avoid the confessional at church. Almost, as if she wanted to avoid Luca. ‘I’ll wait for you to return.’

‘You’ll wait for me?’ Luca said, so quietly that only she could hear him.

The glance she directed at him was very cool. ‘I only meant I would wait for Ishraq to come back with the gondola,’ she said with a sweet smile that told him nothing.

‘In the name of all the saints, what have I done? Have I offended her?’ Luca demanded of Ishraq as they sat side by side in the gondola double seat, Freize with his back to the prow was in the seat before them.

‘No, why?’ Ishraq asked blandly.

‘Because I thought . . . last night . . . she was so beautiful.’

‘At the party?’ Ishraq prompted him.

‘On our way there, yes. I thought that she was so light-hearted and so warm, she smiled at me and wished me good luck as we were in the gondola – and her eyes were shining through her blue mask and I thought that perhaps after the party we might meet . . . And then after the party I thought . . . and then today she hardly speaks to me.’

‘Lasses.’ Freize leaned forwards to make his own contribution to the low-voiced conversation. ‘Like the little donkey. Easily set on one course, hard to disturb once they have chosen their own wilful path.’

‘Oh nonsense!’ Luca said. To Ishraq he said more pressingly: ‘Has she said nothing about me? Did she say nothing to you about last night?’

‘About the party?’ Ishraq said again.

‘After the party?’ Luca hinted tentatively. ‘After . . . ?’

Ishraq shook her head, her face utterly blank. ‘She has said nothing, for there is nothing to say. It was an ordinary party and we came home early. We walked for a few minutes and then we went to bed. We had nothing to say.’ She paused, lowered her voice and looked directly at Luca. ‘And you had better say nothing too.’

He looked astounded. ‘I should say nothing?’

She looked at him and nodded her head. ‘Nothing.’

Left in the quiet house, Brother Peter had the breakfast things cleared and put his writing desk on the table to start the long task of preparing the coded report to the Lord of the Order, to tell him that the forgers had been discovered, that they would be reported to the authorities at once, and asking for instructions for their next mission. Their work would go on: the Lord would command them to go to another town, another city, to discover more signs of the unknown world, of the end of days.

They would go on, Brother Peter thought, a little wearied, on and on until the Second Coming, when they would at last understand all things, instead of as now – glimpsing uncertain truths. The world was going to end, that at least was certain, and it would happen soon: perhaps in this year, perhaps in this very month. A man in Holy Orders must keep watch, be ready, and his companions, his funny endearing travel companions, must be gathered in, supported, taken with him as they went together on their journey from now to death, from here to the end of everything.

Isolde went up the stairs to the girls’ floor and watched the house gondola with Luca, Ishraq and Freize pull out of the palace watergate and join the traffic on the Grand Canal. She put her hands to her lips and sent a kiss after the boat. But she made sure she was far back from the window so that even if Luca looked up, he would not see her.

Her attention was taken by another gondola that seemed to be coming directly to their house, and she went to the head of the stairs to listen. She could hear the housekeeper send the maid down to the watergate to greet the visitor, and then, looking down the well of the stairs, she saw a slim heavily ringed hand on the bannister coming up the stairs. ‘Lady Carintha,’ Isolde said with distaste.

For a moment she wondered if she could say that she was not at home, but the impossibility of getting Brother Peter to condone such a lie, or the housekeeper to make her excuses, convinced her that she would have to face her ladyship. She glanced around their room, straightened a chair, closed the doors to their bedrooms and seated herself, with as much dignity as she could manage, on the window seat.

The door opened. ‘Lady Carintha!’ the housekeeper exclaimed.

Isolde rose to her feet and curtseyed. ‘Your ladyship!’

‘My dear!’ the woman replied.

‘Please do sit.’ Isolde indicated the hard chair by the fireside, where a little blaze warmed the room, but Lady Carintha took the window seat, with the bright light behind her, and smiled, showing her sharp white teeth.

‘A glass of wine?’ Isolde offered, moving towards the sideboard. ‘Some cakes?’

Her ladyship nodded, and the half nobles in her ears winked and danced. Isolde noticed that now she had a necklace of big fat nobles wound around her white neck, the gold very bright against her pale skin, the weighty coins hanging heavily on the gold chain. Isolde poured the wine and handed Lady Carintha a plate of little cakes.

‘I must repay you for our gambling debts,’ Isolde said pleasantly. ‘You were so kind to lend us the money.’ She went into her bedroom and came out with a purse of gold coins. ‘I am grateful to you. And thank you so much for inviting us to your lovely party.’

‘Nobles?’ Lady Carintha asked, weighing the purse in her hand.

Isolde was glad that Ishraq had converted the rubies into nobles, and that she had these to repay Lady Carintha. ‘Of course,’ she said quietly.

‘Aha, then I will have made money!’ Lady Carintha said gleefully. ‘For they are worth more this morning than they were last night. I have stolen from you by just lending them to you for a night. You are repaying me with the same coins but they are of greater value. Isn’t it like magic?’

‘You’re very welcome to your profit,’ Isolde said through her gritted teeth. ‘Clearly, you are as skilled as any Venetian banker.’

‘Actually, you have another treasure that I want,’ Lady Carintha said sweetly.

Isolde’s expression was beautifully blank. ‘Surely, I can have nothing that your ladyship desires! Surely, you have only to ask your husband for anything that takes your fancy.’

Her ladyship laughed, throwing her head back and showing her long white throat and the twists of the laden gold chain. ‘My husband allows me some of my treats, but he can’t provide them all,’ she said meaningfully. ‘I am sure that you understand me?’

Isolde shook her head. ‘Alas, your ladyship. I have been brought up in the country. I am not accustomed to your city ways. I can’t imagine what agreement you have with your husband, except to honour and obey him.’

Her ladyship laughed shortly. ‘Then you are more of a novelty than I even thought!’ she said. ‘I will be plain with you then, country girl. If you want to walk about Venice as you were walking last night, or meet someone, or be absent from your house for a night, I will help you. You can say that you are visiting me, you can borrow my gondola, you can borrow my cape and my mask, even my gowns. If you concoct a story, you can rely on me to support it. You can say that you spent the night with me, and I will tell everyone that we sat up and played cards. You can lie your pretty head off and I will back you up, no questions asked. Whatever it is that you want to do, however . . . unusual. Do you see?’

‘I think I see,’ Isolde said. ‘You will cover up lies for me.’

‘Exactly!’ Lady Carintha smiled.

‘And if I wanted to lie, and go out of the house in secret then this would be very useful to me,’ Isolde said crushingly. ‘But since I don’t, it is largely irrelevant.’

‘I know what I know,’ Lady Carintha remarked.

‘That would be the very nature and essence of knowledge,’ Isolde replied smartly. ‘Everyone knows what they know.’

‘I know what I saw,’ her ladyship persisted.

‘You saw me, or perhaps Ishraq, go into our garden. Or perhaps we saw you go into our garden. Perhaps we would swear to it. What of it? Your ladyship, this is meaningless. You had better be plain. What do you want of me?’

‘I will tell you simply then, country girl. Tonight you will open your watergate to my gondola, you will lead me up the stairs to your brother’s room, you will let me out again at dawn. And you will say nothing of this to anyone, and even deny it, if you are ever asked.’ She put a hand on Isolde’s knee. ‘No one will ever ask,’ she promised. ‘I am always beautifully discreet.’

‘But what if my brother does not want you brought to his room?’ Isolde was a little breathless, she could feel her temper rising beyond her control. ‘What if he thinks you too old, or too well-worn? What if he does not desire you, and wishes you far away?’

Lady Carintha laughed and smoothed her blue gown over her hips, as if she were remembering Luca’s caress from last night. ‘He won’t be the first young man who has woken up to find me in his bed. He won’t be the first young man to be glad of it.’

‘He is not an ordinary young man,’ Isolde warned her. ‘He is not like any other young men that you have met before.’

‘I agree, he is quite extraordinarily handsome,’ Lady Carintha said. ‘And I have a quite extraordinary desire for him. I think I am going to have a quite extraordinary love affair.’

Isolde jumped to her feet, as if she could not sit still for a moment longer. ‘On my honour: you will not!’ she swore.

‘Why should you mind? If I help you in turn? Or if you don’t want an alibi for your own love affair, shall I help you meet young men? Or shall I just give you gifts?’ Her ladyship put her hand to the dancing coins in her ears. ‘D’you want these? You can have them! But be very sure that I am going to have your brother. I shall take him as if he were my toy, and I shall leave him besotted with me. That’s how it is. I shall leave him like an addict for a drug. He will spend the rest of his life longing for me. I shall teach him everything he needs to know about women, and he will never find a better lover than me. He will spend the rest of his life searching. I will have spoiled him for any ordinary woman.’