Fools' Gold Read online

  ‘Why would you do that?’ the officer queried. Lady Carintha stood dumb, clearly overwhelmed by Isolde’s grandeur.

  Isolde answered the officer, completely ignoring the woman. ‘My brother has usurped my place at the castle,’ she said. ‘He is passing himself off as the new Lord of Lucretili. I don’t want him to know that I am going to seek help against him from my godfather’s son. That is why we are travelling through Venice. That is why we assumed different names.’

  ‘And who is your godfather’s son, Milady?’ the officer asked deferentially.

  ‘He is Count Vlad Tepes the Third, of Wallachia,’ Isolde said proudly.

  The officer and all the guards pulled off their hats at the mention of one of the greatest commanders on the frontiers of Christendom, a man who had defended his country of Wallachia from the unstoppable Ottoman army, been driven out, and would, without a doubt, conquer it again. ‘You are the great count’s god-daughter?’ the officer confirmed.

  ‘I am,’ Isolde said. ‘So you see, I am a woman of some importance.’ She took another step into the centre of the room and looked Lady Carintha up and down with an expression of utter contempt. ‘This woman is a bawd,’ she said simply. ‘She keeps a disorderly house where there is gambling and prostitutes. She boasts of her own immorality and she quarrelled with me only when I refused to join in her lascivious ways.’

  Slowly, Lady Carintha’s husband detached himself from her gripping hand and turned to look at her.

  ‘I imagine it is well known to everyone but you, Sir,’ Isolde said gently to him. ‘Your wife is little more than a common whore. She has quarrelled with me because I would not let her into this house at night and lead her to the room of this young man of my household, whose spiritual well-being is my responsibility. She wanted to lie with him, she offered to buy time with him by giving me jewellery or an alibi for my own absences, or introduce me to a lover. She said she would make him into her toy, she would have him for Carnevale and then give him up for Lent.’

  Brother Peter crossed himself at the description of sin. Luca could not take his eyes off Isolde, fighting for their safety.

  ‘She’s lying,’ Lady Carintha spat.

  ‘When I treated these offers with contempt, this woman attacked me,’ Isolde said steadily.

  Lady Carintha crossed the room and stood, her hands on her hips, glaring at Isolde. ‘I will slap your face again,’ she said. ‘Shut up. Or you will be sorry.’

  ‘I am sorry that I have to speak like this at all,’ Isolde said glacially, one glance at Brother Peter as if she was remembering his claim that a lady should not fight for herself. ‘A lady does not tell such shameful secrets, a lady does not soil her mouth with such words. But sometimes, a lady has to defend herself, and her reputation. I will not be bullied by this old streetwalker. I will not be scratched and pinched by such a she-wolf.’ She smoothed back the veil which flowed from her headdress and showed the officer the scratch marks on her cheeks. ‘This is what she did to me this very afternoon for refusing her disgusting offers. I will not be assaulted in my own home. And you should not work at her bidding. Any denunciation from such as her means nothing.’

  ‘Absolutely not!’ he said, quite convinced. ‘My lord?’ He turned to Lady Carintha’s husband. ‘Will you take the woman home? We cannot accept her denunciation of this family when she clearly has a private quarrel with them. And this lady,’ he bowed towards Isolde, who stood like a queen, ‘this lady is above question.’

  ‘And she receives forged coins,’ Isolde added quietly. ‘And gambles with them.’

  ‘We’ll go,’ Lady Carintha’s husband decided. To Isolde he bowed very low. ‘I am very sorry that such a misunderstanding should have come about,’ he said. ‘Just a misunderstanding. No need to take it further? I would not want our name mentioned to the count, your kinsman. I would not have such a great man thinking badly of me. I am so sorry that we have offended, inadvertently offended . . . ’

  Isolde inclined her head very grandly. ‘You may go.’

  The officer turned to Brother Peter and Luca. ‘I apologise,’ he said. ‘Of course, no arrest. You are free to come and go as you please.’

  He bowed very low to Isolde, who stood very still while he ordered the men from the room, and they waited until they heard the clatter of their boots on the stairs and then the bang of the outer door.

  There was a sudden total silence. Isolde turned and looked at Brother Peter as if she expected him to criticise her for being too bold. Brother Peter was silent, amazed at this newly powerful version of the girl he had seen before as a victim of her circumstances: clinging to a roof in a flood, or weeping for the loss of her father.

  ‘I will defend myself,’ she said flatly. ‘Against her, or against anyone. From now on, I am going to fight for my rights.’

  Freize rowed in determined silence, heaving the little boat through the water, until Ishraq, hunched in the prow, shivering a little in her dripping gown, looked behind and said: ‘Nobody’s following.’

  He paused then, and stripped off his thick fustian jacket. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘Put this round your shoulders.’

  Almost she refused, but then she took it and hugged it to her.

  ‘You look like a drowned rat,’ Freize said with a smile, and set to the oars again.

  She made no reply.

  ‘A sodden vole,’ Freize offered.

  She turned her head away.

  ‘It was a hell of a dive,’ he said honestly. ‘Brave.’

  Ishraq, like a champion of the games receiving the laurel crown, bent her head, just a little. ‘I’m cold,’ she admitted, ‘and I hit the water with a terrible blow. I knocked the air out of myself.’

  ‘You hurt?’ he asked.

  He saw her indomitable smile. ‘Not too bad.’

  They found their way through the network of little canals towards the Jewish quarter of the city, and rowed slowly along the outside of the steep ghetto wall, until Ishraq said: ‘That must be it. That must be their watergate. It’s on the corner.’

  The alchemists had no gondola, and their gate was closed, the two halves of wrought metal bolted together. Ishraq was about to pull the bell chain which hung beside the gates when Freize raised his hand for her to wait, and said: ‘Listen!’

  They could hear the noise of someone pounding on the outer door to the street, they could hear someone shout: ‘Open in the name of the law! In the name of the Doge: open this door!’

  ‘We’re too late,’ Freize said shortly. ‘They must have got to the money changer, and he must have told them that he got the coins from here.’

  Ishraq listened to the loud hammering. ‘The guard isn’t in yet,’ she said. ‘We might be able to get them away . . . ’

  Without another word, Freize rowed the boat towards the gate and Ishraq leaned over the prow and struggled to push the heavy bolt upwards. But whenever she pushed against the gate, the boat bobbed away. Finally, in frustration she stepped out of the boat altogether and, clinging to the wrought iron of the gate, her bare feet flexed on the trellis work, she used all her strength to push the bolt upwards. Stretching between the stationary gate, and the one which was opening, she kicked off from the anchored gate and swung, slowly inwards, dangling over the cold waters.

  Freize brought the boat up against the opening gate and Ishraq stepped back into the prow and then turned as he took the little boat against the internal quay. She jumped ashore and took the rope, tying it to the ring in the wall.

  Now they could hear the noise more clearly, the hammering on the door echoing through the stone storeroom and through the wooden hatch to where they stood on the quay.

  ‘Sounds like a raid,’ Freize said. ‘Ten men? Maybe eight?’

  Cautiously, he tried the hatch which led from the quay to the storeroom. It opened a crack and Freize looked in.

  ‘They’ve bolted the door to the street,’ he said. ‘But I can hear the Doge’s men are breaking it down now.’ Freize pulled the