Fools' Gold Read online

  ‘Aha, and so how do they get the stone for building?’ Freize demanded, as if he was finally about to catch Brother Peter in a travellers’ tale.

  ‘They have great barges that bring in the stone,’ Brother Peter replied. ‘Everything comes by boat, I tell you. They even have great barges that bring in the drinking water.’

  This was too much for Freize. ‘Now I know you are deceiving me,’ he said. ‘The one thing this city does not lack is water! They must be born with webbed feet, these Venetians.’

  ‘They are a strange and unique people,’ Brother Peter conceded. ‘They govern themselves without a king, they have no roads, no highways, they are the wealthiest city in Christendom, they live on the sea and by the sea. They are expanding constantly, and their only god is trade; but they have built the most beautiful churches on every canal and decorated them with the most inspiring holy pictures. Every church is a treasure house of sacred art. Yet they act as if they are as far from God as they are from the mainland and there is no way to get to Him but a voyage.’

  Now they were approaching the heart of the city. The broad canal on either side was walled with white Istrian stone to make a continuous quay, occasionally pierced by a tributary canal winding deeper inside the city. Many of the smaller inner canals were crossed by little wooden bridges, a few were crossed by steeply stepped bridges of white stone. The ferry was losing the cold breeze and so the boatman took down the sails and set to row, he took an oar on one side, and his lad heaved on the other. They wound their way through the constant river traffic of gondolas going swiftly through the water with loud warning cries from the gondoliers in the sterns of ‘Gondola! Gondola! Gondola!’

  The canal was crowded with fishing ships, the flat-bottomed barges for carrying heavy goods, the ferry boats heaving with poorer people, and criss-crossing through the traffic going from one side to the other were public gondolas for hire. To the two young women who had been raised in a small country castle it was impossibly busy and glamorous, they looked from right to left and could not believe what they were seeing. Every gondola carried passengers, heavily cloaked with their faces hidden by carnival masks. The women wore masks adorned with dyed plumes of feathers, the eyeholes slit like the eyes of a cat, a brightly coloured hood covering their hair, a bejewelled fan hiding their smiling lips. Even more intriguing were the gondolas where the little cabin in the middle of the slim ship had the doors resolutely shut on hidden lovers, and the gondolier was rowing slowly, impassive in the stern. Sometimes a second gondola followed the first with musicians playing lingering love songs, for the entertainment of the secret couple.

  ‘Sin, everywhere,’ Brother Peter said, averting his gaze.

  ‘There’s only one bridge across the Grand Canal,’ the boatman told them. ‘Everywhere else you have to take a boat to cross. It’s a good city to be a ferryman. And this is it, the only bridge: the Rialto.’

  It was a high wooden bridge, many feet above the canal, arching up so steeply that even masted ships could pass easily beneath it, rising up from both sides of the canal almost like a pinnacle, crowded with people, laden with little stalls and shops. There was a constant stream of pedestrians walking up the stairs on one side and down the other, pausing to shop, stopping to buy, leaning on the high parapet to watch the ships go underneath, arguing the prices, changing their money. The whole bridge was a shimmer of colour and noise.

  The square of San Giacomo, just beside the bridge, was lined with the tall houses of the merchants. All the nations of Christendom, and many of the infidel, were shown by their own flag and the national costume of the men doing business at the windows and doorway. Next to them stood the great houses of the Venetian banking families, the front doors standing open for business, absurdly costumed people coming and going, trading and buying in all seriousness, though dressed as if they were strolling players, with great plumed hats on their heads and bright jewelled masks on their faces.

  In the square itself the bankers and gold merchants had their tables laid out all around the colonnade, one to every arch, and were trading in coin, promises and precious metals. When money was changing hands the masks were laid aside, as each client wanted to look his banker in the eye. Among them were Ottoman traders, their brightly coloured turbans and gorgeous robes as beautiful as any costume. Venice had all but captured the trade of the Ottoman Empire and the wealth of the East flowed into Europe across the Venice traders’ tables. There was no other route to the East, there was no easy navigable way to Russia. Venice was at the very centre of world trade and the riches of east and west, north and south poured into it from every side.

  ‘The Rialto,’ Luca reminded Freize. ‘This is where that infidel, Radu Bey, said that there was a priest, Father Pietro, who ransoms Christian slaves from the galleys of the Ottomans. This is it, this is the bridge, this is where he said. Perhaps Father Pietro is here now, perhaps I will be able to ransom my father and mother.’

  ‘We’ll come out as soon as we are settled in our house,’ Freize promised him. ‘But Sparrow, you will remember that the Ottoman gentleman, Radu Bey, seems to be the sworn enemy of the lord who commands your Order, and he, himself, did not exactly inspire me with trust.’

  Luca laughed. ‘I know. You do right to warn me. But Freize, you know I would take advice from the devil himself if I thought I could get my father and mother back home. Just to see them again! Just to know they were alive.’

  Freize put his hand on his friend’s shoulder. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘And they will have missed you too – they have missed your growing up. If we can find them and buy them out of slavery it will be a great thing. I am just saying – don’t get your hopes up too high. They were captured by the Ottoman slavers and it was an Ottoman general who told us that we might buy them back. Just because he was well-read and spoke fair to you does not make him a friend.’

  ‘Ishraq liked him too, and she’s a good judge of character,’ Luca objected.

  A shadow crossed Freize’s honest face. ‘Ishraq liked him better than she liked the lord of your Order,’ he told Luca. ‘I wouldn’t trust her judgement with the foreign lord myself. I don’t know what game he was playing with her when he spoke to her in Arabic that only she could understand. Come to that, I don’t know what game she was playing when she swore to me that he said nothing.’

  ‘And here is your palazzo,’ the boatman remarked. ‘Ca’ de Longhi, just west of the Piazza San Marco, very nice.’

  ‘A palace?’ Isolde exclaimed. ‘We have hired a palace?’

  ‘All the grand houses on the canal are palaces, though they are all called Casa – only the Doge’s house is called a palace,’ the boatman explained. ‘And the reason for that, is that they are each and every one of them, the most beautiful palaces ever built in the world.’

  ‘And do princes live here?’ Ishraq asked. ‘In all these palaces?’

  ‘Better than princes,’ he smiled at her. ‘Richer than princes, and greater than kings. The merchants of Venice live here and you will find no greater power in this city or in all of Italy!’

  He steered towards the little quayside at the side of the house, leaned hard on the rudder and brought the boat alongside with a gentle bump. He looked up at the beautiful frescoes on either side of the great water door, and all around the house, and then at Luca with a new level of respect. ‘You are welcome, your grace,’ he said, suddenly adjusting his view of the handsome young merchant who must surely command the fortune of a prince if he could afford such a palace to rent.

  Freize saw the calculating look and nudged the boatman gently. ‘We’ll pay double for the trouble and danger,’ he said shortly. ‘And you’ll oblige us by keeping the story of the galley to yourself.’

  ‘Of course, sir,’ the boatman said, accepting a heavy purse of coins. He jumped nimbly onto the broad steps, tied the boat fore and aft and put out his hand to help the ladies on shore.

  Glancing at each other, very conscious that they were playing a part, Ishr