Fools' Gold Read online

  ‘I’ll buy your bleeding nobles from you,’ Luca offered. ‘If you will take the low price that Venice has set. At least I can take them off your hands.’

  ‘No,’ Ishraq said, forestalling Isolde, who was eager to accept. She turned to her friend. ‘It was my mistake to try to make money on this market, but if we sell the nobles at this rate then we have lost your mother’s rubies forever. Let’s hold on to them, bad as they are, and see what happens. Luca’s lord must be planning something. He must have some reason to want to buy nobles.’

  ‘Nothing can happen!’ Isolde said irritably. ‘You traded my mother’s jewels for fools’ gold. We have to pay the price.’

  ‘But Milord is doing something else,’ Ishraq said cautiously. ‘He’s buying false coins.’

  ‘But you don’t know what for? You don’t know why?’

  ‘I don’t,’ Ishraq said. ‘But I know he’s no fool. I’ll keep our English nobles until he sells his.’

  ‘When we could have gold instead?’ Isolde said regretfully, gesturing to Luca’s handful of gold rings.

  ‘If you won’t take this then I have to go to the Rialto and buy dross,’ Luca said. ‘I wish we could write to Milord to make sure it is what he wants. I wish we knew what he plans. For this is madness: throwing good money after bad.’

  When the gondola came back for Luca and the two young women, they were ready to go to the Rialto, with their gold and silver coins in their purses and pockets, and the rings on their fingers. The bridge was busy again – the news that the exchange rate for the gold nobles had been fixed by the Doge himself had made people confident enough to open their shops. Only the money changers were still missing, and where Israel had sat there was an obscene scrawl on his board and, in spiky thick letters, the word: Arrestare

  Luca went at once to the mooring post at the foot of the bridge and started forwards when he saw the priest, bending over his little writing table.‘Father Pietro!’

  Slowly, the old priest turned to look at the young man and, at the sorrow in his lined face, Luca did not need to ask more.

  ‘The nobles failed,’ the priest said quietly. ‘Bayeed is not in Trieste; he came to Venice yesterday for repairs to his ship and moored near to the Arsenale. My messenger found him there. So he knew all about the failure of the coins as soon as we did. The nobles bled when he tipped them out of the purse, and then he heard the Doge announce that the whole Ottoman Empire believes that it has been cheated. He thinks that Venice tried to cheat his empire, and that you tried to cheat him. He called me a cheat also. I am sorry, my son.’

  ‘He is here?’ Luca could hardly believe that his father was in the same city, just one mile away, in the dockyard where the galleys were built. ‘Then I can go to him. I have some gold, I can promise more . . . I can explain!’

  Father Pietro nodded. ‘We will try again, in a month or so. When Bayeed’s anger has abated.’

  ‘But he cannot be angry with us . . . we have all been cheated!’

  Father Pietro shook his head, tears filling his eyes, turning his head away from Luca.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Ishraq quietly, coming up behind Luca and sensing the older man’s distress. ‘What is it, Father?’

  Blindly, he reached out to her and she took his hand on her shoulder, as if to support him ‘Wait a moment,’ she said to Luca, who was breathlessly impatient. ‘Wait, let the Father speak.’

  The old man raised his head. ‘Forgive me. This has been a blow. This has been a terrible blow. Last year the Ottoman Empire took tribute and traded in pure gold and the best of coins. As they always do. Sometimes they take goods, of course, always they take young boys to serve in their armies. This is how it is. This is how the Christian lands suffer for their defeat by the infidel. This is how the Christian rulers pay for peace: they have to pay tribute in gold and in children. This is our suffering, this is our Stations of the Cross.’ He paused.

  ‘This year, before tribute time, they let it be known that they would take gold or the English nobles. Then, as the English nobles went up in value, they said they would only take the coins. Everyone works to pay the tribute, the whole country has to pay the tax to give to the Ottoman overlords. They took goods also, and the young men, but this year they only wanted the gold coins. They loved the gold coins, the English nobles.’

  ‘And what happened?’ Luca asked, unable to contain himself any longer. ‘When did they find out?’

  ‘The coins bled,’ the old man said simply. ‘Bled like the wounds of Our Lord. Bled into the hands of the murderous infidel. And they swore that they had been cheated. They think they have been cheated by us. They think we gave them false coins on purpose, that we thought the coins would not break down and bleed until they had taken the tribute home and spread them throughout their country, destroying trust in every village market throughout their infidel empire. And so they are angry – beyond anger – and they are sending back the bleeding coins and demanding gold. Every country that has to pay tribute has to find the money all over again, and this time, send gold, only solid gold. It is a terrible burden. It is a terrible price to pay.’

  He bowed his head and wiped his eyes on the sleeve of his gown. ‘We cannot pay it,’ he said simply. ‘And so they will take the children. Our children. When we cannot pay the money they will take many, many children into slavery to serve as their soldiers. We will lose our children from their nurseries and their souls from salvation. God help us,’ he whispered. ‘God help us all. People will starve to death to get this tax together. Half of Greece will be ruined and hundreds, thousands, of innocent children will be taken from their mothers into slavery. All of the Christian lands conquered by the infidel will be crucified all over again.’

  ‘And my father?’ Luca breathed.

  Father Pietro rubbed his face with his hands. ‘He will remain enslaved,’ he said shortly. ‘Along with the half a dozen other men who expected their freedom today or tomorrow. Yours was not the only ransom we paid. Bayeed has sent back the false coins and will set sail tonight cursing us for cheats. He accuses us of double dealing, my reputation as an agent for enslaved men is destroyed. My years of service are made worthless. My name is shamed.’

  He took a breath, trying to steady himself ‘We will try again, my son, we will try again. We will find our courage, and I will rebuild my reputation and we will try again. But your father will not be free this month, nor the next.’

  ‘But I sent the money.’ Luca could hardly speak. ‘I sent the money in good faith.’

  ‘And Bayeed would have released your father in good faith. But you sent counterfeit coins, my son. You sent fools’ gold, and Bayeed is no fool.’

  Luca turned away like a man stunned, as Brother Peter and Freize came up to the little group. ‘Give me the purse,’ Brother Peter said shortly. ‘There is a bank here that will give me counterfeit coins for Milord’s gold or silver, they will take coppers – whatever we have.’

  Wordlessly, Luca held out the purse.

  ‘You are buying the counterfeit coins?’ the priest asked in utter amazement. ‘The bleeding nobles?’

  Brother Peter hushed him, and nodded. ‘I should not have spoken aloud. I beg you not to repeat it.’

  ‘But why, my son?’ Father Pietro said quietly, putting a hand on Brother Peter’s arm as he took the purse from Luca and the girls pulled the rings off their fingers. ‘Why would you buy false coins?’

  ‘Because I am ordered to do so,’ Brother Peter said shortly. ‘God knows, I take no pleasure in it and it makes no sense to me.’

  Father Pietro turned to Luca but the young man was silent, and stood as if he were dreaming. Ishraq and Isolde stood on either side of him, and when he did not move, took his arms and guided him, like a fever patient, back to the gondola. They helped him down the steps and waited with him in the boat until Brother Peter and Freize joined them.

  ‘They will keep the coins at the bank for me until we are ready to leave this accursed city,’ Brother Peter