Fools' Gold Read online

  Luca pulled himself free, refusing to admit to any assignation, though his heart pounded at the thought of a dark blue dress and mask. ‘I’ll just walk around,’ he said, and stepped unsteadily ashore.

  With a shrug, Brother Peter ordered the gondolier to take him and Freize round by boat to the watergate and left Luca climbing the steps to the quayside.

  Isolde and Ishraq shrank back against the wall as Luca got to the top of the steps and turned and looked back over the Grand Canal, a big yellow moon high above, the bright stars shining in the darkness of the sky. He stood for some time, listening to the sounds of distant music and laughter.

  ‘And all in a moment I know that I love her,’ he said simply, speaking to himself but hearing the words fall into the quietness of the night and mingle with the lapping of the canal on the steps. ‘It’s extraordinary, but I know it. I love her.’

  He gave a quiet laugh. ‘I’m a fool,’ he said. ‘Half-promised as a priest, fully committed to the Order of Darkness, on a quest, and she is a lady of such high birth that I would not even have seen her if I had stayed as a novice in my monastery.’

  He fell silent. ‘But I have seen her,’ he said steadily. ‘And she has seen me. And tonight I understand for the first time what people mean by . . . this . . .’ he broke off and smiled again. ‘Love,’ he said. ‘What a fool I am! I love her. I have fallen in love. Coup de foudre. In love, in a moment.’

  He opened the door to the walled garden and let himself in. The girls heard his footsteps crunch the gravel and then silence as he threw himself onto the bench beneath the tree.

  On the shadowy quayside the girls stood in horrified silence.

  ‘Was he speaking of her?’ Ishraq said wonderingly. ‘Of Lady Carintha? Has she done what she said she would do? Seduced him, already, and in only one meeting?’

  Isolde turned, and Ishraq could see the shine of tears on her pale cheek beneath the dark blue mask. ‘He said that he fell in love tonight,’ she said, her voice low with misery. ‘Fell in love, coup de foudre, all in a moment, tonight. With a lady he would never have seen if he had stayed in the monastery. He’s in love with that woman. That painted—’ Isolde bit off her words as another gondola edged to the quayside stairs and Lady Carintha, in a cape and hood of deep blue, with an exquisite mask of navy feathers, snapped her fingers for the gondolier to help her step onto the stairs and up to the quayside.

  ‘She’s meeting him!’ Isolde exclaimed in an anguished whisper as she and Ishraq shrank deeper into the shadows. ‘She’s meeting him in our garden!’

  The two young women stood, pressed against the wall, hidden in the shadows while the big spring moon lit the quayside as brightly as day. Lady Carintha, with her back to them, took a tiny looking glass from the gold chain at her waist and scrutinised her dark blue mask, her smiling painted lips, her blue silk hood and cape. Her gaze went past her own reflection and she saw, in the mirror, the two girls, pressed back against the wall and broke into a quiet laugh.

  ‘The pretty virgins!’ she said. ‘Walking the streets. How quaint! And I am meeting a third pretty virgin! What a night for a debauch! Will you come with me?’

  Even Ishraq, usually so bold, was stunned into silence at the woman’s bawdiness. It was Isolde, with tears hidden by her mask who stepped forward and said: ‘You shall not meet him. I forbid it.’

  ‘And who are you to forbid or allow a grown man what he shall do?’ Lady Carintha asked, her voice filled with careless scorn. ‘He wants me. He’s waiting for me. And nothing will stop me going to him.’

  ‘He wants me too,’ Isolde said wildly. ‘He asked me to come to the garden. You can’t come in.’

  ‘His sister?’ Lady Carintha asked. ‘My! You are a stranger family than I thought.’

  ‘She means me,’ Ishraq intervened. ‘He asked her to bring me to him.’

  Lady Carintha put her hands on her hips and looked at the two younger women. ‘Well, what are we to do? For I won’t share him. And we can’t all go in together and let him choose. That would be to spoil him, and besides, I don’t take gambles like that. I’m not lining up against you two little lovelies.’

  ‘But you like to gamble,’ Ishraq pointed out. ‘Why don’t we gamble for him?’

  Lady Carintha gave a delighted laugh. ‘My dear, you are wilder than you appear. But I have no dice.’

  ‘We have nobles,’ Ishraq pointed out. ‘We could toss for him.’

  ‘How very appropriate,’ she said drily. ‘Who wins?’

  ‘We each toss a noble until there is an odd one out. That woman wins. She goes into the garden. She has time with Luca – whatever she does nobody ever knows – and we never speak of it,’ Ishraq ruled. ‘Do you agree?’

  ‘I agree,’ Isolde whispered.

  ‘Amen,’ Lady Carintha said blasphemously. ‘Why not?’

  Ishraq took the borrowed nobles from her pocket and gave Isolde one, and took another for herself. Lady Carintha already had hers in her hand.

  ‘Good luck!’ Lady Carintha said, smiling. ‘One, two three!’

  The three golden coins flicked into the air all together, turned and shone in the moonlight, then each woman caught her own as it fell, and slapped it on the back of her hand. They stretched out their hands each holding a hidden coin under the palm of the other hand. Slowly, one at a time, one after the other, they uncovered them.

  ‘Ship,’ said one, showing the engraved portrait of the king in his ship on one side of the coin.

  ‘Ship,’ said another, uncovering her coin.

  The two of them turned to the third as she raised her fingers and showed them the shining face of her coin.

  ‘Rose,’ she said, and without another word, turned to the door in the high wall, turned the heavy ring of the latch, and went quietly in.

  The light of the moon suddenly dimmed as a cloud crossed its broad yellow face. In the garden, Luca rose to his feet as very, very quietly, the garden gate opened and a masked figure stood underneath the arch. Luca stared, as if she were a vision, summoned up by his own whispered desire. ‘Is that you?’ he asked. ‘Is it really you?’

  Silently, she stretched out her hand to him. Silently, he stepped towards her. Luca drew her into the shade of the tree, pushing the door shut behind them. Gently he put his hand around her waist and held her to him, she turned up her face to him in the darkness, and he kissed her on the lips.

  She made no protest as he led her under the roof of the portico and they sat on the bench in the alcove. Willingly, she sat on his knee and wound her arms around his neck, rested her head on his shoulder and inhaled the warm male scent. Luca drew her closer, heard his own heart beating faster as he unlaced the back of her gown and found her skin, as smooth as a peach beneath the dark coloured silk. Only once did she resist him, when he went to untie her mask and put back the hood of her robe, and then she captured his hand to prevent him from unmasking her, and put it to her lips, which made him kiss her again, on her mouth, on her throat, on the warm hollow of her collar bones until he had spent the whole night in kissing her, the whole night in loving her, in learning every curve of her body, until the first light of dawn made the canal as dark as pewter, and the garden as pale as silver, and the birds started to sing and she rose up, gathered her shadowy cloak around her, pulled the hood to hide her hair, shading her face when he would have kept her and kissed her again, stepped silently out of the garden gate and disappeared into the Venice dawn.

  Next morning the five of them met for a late breakfast. Luca jumped to his feet to pull out a chair for Isolde and she thanked him with a small smile. He passed her the warm rolls, straight from the kitchen, and she took the bread basket with quiet thanks. Luca was like a man who had been staring at the sun, utterly dazzled, hardly knowing himself. Isolde was very quiet.

  Freize raised his eyebrows to Ishraq as if to ask her what was going on, but serenely she ignored him, her eyes turned down to her plate, smiling as if she had a secret joy. Finally, he could contain h