Order of Darkness Read online

  ‘We’ll have to ask someone,’ Ishraq said, quite dazzled by this, the busiest trading centre in the world. ‘He could be next to us, and we wouldn’t know it. He could be two steps away and we would hardly spot him. I’ve never been in such a crowd, I’ve never seen so many people all at once. Not even in Spain!’

  ‘Like hell,’ Freize said matter-of-fact. ‘Bound to be crowded.’

  Ishraq laughed and turned away from the river to look for someone, a priest or a monk or a friar that she could ask, then she saw the gambler.

  The girl had laid out her game on the stone floor of the square, covering one of the white marble slabs with sand, to make a little area where the play could take place. The crowd had gathered around her, three deep. It was the ancient game of cups and ball: Ishraq had seen it played in Spain, and had been told it came from ancient Egypt; she had even seen it at Lucretili Castle when she was a little girl and a troubadour had taken her pocket money off her with the simple trick.

  It was three downturned cups with a little ball hidden underneath one of them. The game player moved the cups at dazzling speed, then sat back and invited the onlookers to put down their coins before the cup where they had last seen the ball.

  It was the simplest game in the world since everyone knew where the ball was, everyone had watched as the cup was moved. Then the player lifted the cups and voila! The ball was not under the one that the crowd had picked. The player lifted another cup and it was under the second one. The player picked up the pennies of the bet, showed the empty cups, showed the little ball – but in this case it was a most beautiful translucent glass marble – put the ball under the cup again, bade the onlookers to watch carefully, and moved the cups around, two or three times, at first very slowly, and then a dozen moves, very fast.

  What attracted Ishraq to this game was the game player. She was a girl of about eighteen years old, dressed in a brown gown with a modest hood; her pale intent face was downturned to her work but when she looked up she had dark eyes and a bright smile. She sat back on her heels when she had moved the cups and looked up at the crowd around her with an air of absolute trustworthiness. ‘My lords, ladies, gentlemen . . .’ she said sweetly. ‘Will you bet?’

  Nobody looking at her could think for one moment that she had managed some sleight of hand. Not while they were all watching, not in broad daylight. The ball must be where she put it first: under the cup on the right which she had slid to the left, swirled to the centre, back to the right, then there had been some moving of the other cups as a rather obvious diversion, before she had finally moved it again to the centre.

  ‘It’s in the middle,’ Freize whispered in Ishraq’s ear.

  ‘I’ll bet you that it isn’t,’ Ishraq said. ‘I was following it, but I lost it.’

  ‘I watched it all the while! It’s plumb in the middle!’ Freize fumbled with coins and put down a piccoli – a silver penny.

  The girl waited for a moment until everyone had put down their bets, most of them, like Freize, favouring the central cup. Then she upturned the cup and showed it: empty. She scooped up all the coins that the gamblers had put down on the stone before the empty cup, and put them in the pocket of her apron, and then showed them the empty cup on the left, and then finally the glass marble beneath the right-hand cup. Nobody had guessed correctly. With a merry smile which encouraged them to try their luck again, she smoothed the sand with her hand, placed the marble under the left-hand cup and swirled the cups around once more.

  Ishraq was not watching the cups this time, but observing an older man who was moving among the crowd, standing close to the group of gamblers. He looked like a betting man himself, his gaze was bright and avid, his hat pulled low over his face, his smile pleasant. But he was watching the crowd, not the fast-moving hands of the girl.

  ‘That’s the shill,’ Ishraq said to Freize.

  ‘The what?’

  ‘The shill – her partner. He might distract the crowd at the exact moment that she makes the switch, so that they don’t see where the cup has gone. But I think she’s too good for that. She doesn’t need anyone to distract the gamblers, so all he has to do is watch the crowd and prepare for trouble. Certainly he’ll take the money when she has finished and walk her home.’

  Freize hardly glanced up, he was so fixed on the game. ‘This time, I’m certain, I know where the marble is.’

  Ishraq laughed and cuffed his bent head. ‘You will lose your money,’ she predicted. ‘This girl is very good. She has very quick hands and excellent poise. She looks at her calmest when her hands are going fastest. And she smiles like an honest child.’

  Freize pushed Ishraq’s hand away, confident of his own skill. He put down a second piccoli before the cup on the left and was rewarded with a little gleam from the girl in the brown gown. She lifted the cups. The marble was under the right-hand cup.

  ‘Well I—’ Freize exclaimed.

  Ishraq’s dark eyes smiled at him over her veil. ‘How much money do you have?’ she asked. ‘For they will happily take it all day, if you are fool enough to put it down.’

  ‘I saw it, I am sure!’ Freize exclaimed. ‘I was completely sure! It was like magic!’

  The girl in brown glanced up and winked at him.

  ‘It’s a clever game, and you are a clever player,’ Freize said to her. ‘Do you ever lose?’

  ‘Of course,’ she replied with a slight Parisian accent. ‘But mostly, I win. It’s a simple game, good for amusement and for a few pence.’

  ‘More than a few pence,’ Ishraq observed to herself, looking at the pile of small silver coins that the girl scooped up.

  ‘Will you try your luck again?’ the girl invited Freize.

  ‘I will!’ Freize declared. ‘But I cannot bet my lucky penny.’

  With great care he took a penny from the breast pocket of his jacket, kissed it, and put it back. The girl laughed at him, her brown eyes twinkling.

  ‘I hope it works for you this time,’ she said. ‘For it has not done much for you so far.’

  ‘It will,’ he promised her. ‘And this time, I shan’t take my eyes off you!’

  She smiled and showed him the three empty cups. Freize squatted down so that he was opposite her and nodded as she put the marble on the ground and then the central cup on top of it. Watching carefully, he saw she slid it to the right, and then round to the extreme left, she hopped another cup around it and then she took it back out to the left again. There was a dizzying swirl of cups as she slid one and then another and then she was still.

  ‘Which one?’ she challenged him.

  Freize tipped all the small coins from his purse into his hand and put them down before the cup on the left. All the men around him, who had been watching, put their coins down too.

  With a little laugh the young woman lifted the left-hand cup. It was empty. She lifted the middle cup, and there was the shining marble stone.

  Freize laughed and shook his head. ‘It’s a good game and you outwitted me completely,’ he admitted.

  ‘It’s a cheat!’ someone said in a hard voice behind him. ‘I have put down the best part of a silver lira and watched for half an hour and I can’t see how it’s done.’

  ‘That’s what makes it a good game,’ Freize said to him smiling. ‘If you could see how it was done it would be a trick for children. But she’s a bonny lass with the quickest hands I’ve ever seen. I couldn’t see how it was done and I practically had my nose in the cups.’

  ‘It’s a cheat, and she should be thrown out of the city as a trickster,’ the man said harshly. He looked like a sulky fool in his masquing costume of bright blue, with a dancing cap on his head and a dangling bell which tinkled as he thrust his face forwards. ‘And you’re probably part of the gang.’

  ‘The gang?’ Freize repeated slowly. ‘What gang would this be?’

  ‘The gang who are using her to cheat good citizens out of their hard-earned money!’

  Freize looked past the angry man to his fri