Fools' Gold Read online

  ‘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 friends. ‘Best get him home?’ he suggested mildly. ‘Nobody likes a bad loser.’

  ‘I should report her to the Doge!’ the man insisted, getting louder, his bell jingling as he nodded his head. ‘I have friends in the palace – I know several of the Council of Forty. I can write a denouncement and put it in the box as easily as the next good citizen. The city depends on honest traders! We don’t like cheats in Venice!’

  Freize rose to his feet and let the man see his height, his broad shoulders and his honest friendly face. Ishraq noticed the girl gather her money into a purse and tuck it under her robe, and the swift glance that passed between her and her accomplice in the crowd. Quietly, her partner moved so that he was between her and the disgruntled gambler. For a girl working as a gambler in the streets she looked surprisingly apprehensive at this minor trouble. Ishraq would have expected her to be accustomed to brawls.

  ‘It’s really nothing to do with us,’ Ishraq suggested quietly, putting a hand on the back of Freize’s jacket. ‘And we don’t want to draw attention to ourselves. Why don’t we just go now?’

  ‘I want my money back!’ the man said loudly, tossing the hem of his cape over his shoulder and stripping off his blue gauntlets as if he were readying himself for a fight. ‘I want it now.’

  The shill stepped forwards so that he was beside the girl, who bent down to smooth the sand out and kept her head low, almost crouching down, as Freize spoke to the angry man in blue.

  ‘Now you wait a moment,’ Freize said, completely ignoring Ishraq’s warning. ‘Did you bet that the pretty stone was under the cup?’

  ‘Yes!’ the man said. ‘Over and over.’

  ‘And were you wrong?’

  ‘Yes! Over and over!’

  ‘And did you put your money down?’

  ‘Six times!’

  ‘Six times,’ Freize marvelled. ‘Then I have good advice for a man as clever as you. Don’t waste your time here: go to the university!’

  Completely distracted, the man hesitated and then asked: ‘Why? What d’you mean?’

  Everyone waited for Freize’s answer, the shill standing protectively over the girl as she looked curiously upwards.

  ‘At the university, at Padua, they take students who study for years. And here, in one morning, you have taken six tries to discover that her hands are quicker than your eyes. See how slow you are to observe the obvious! Think how long you could study at Padua! It could be the occupation of a lifetime. You could become a philosopher.’

  There was a roar of laughter from the man’s friends, and they slapped him on the back and called him ‘Philosopher!’ and jostled him away. Ishraq watched them go and turned back to see the young woman was laying out the game again. The little quarrel had attracted more attention and this time there were more bets, on all three cups, so that she was forced to pay out to some players. She took some silver and handed over two quarter gold nobles and then packed up her cups and her ball and swept the white sand into the crevices of the paving stones to indicate that play was ended for the day.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said briefly to Freize and she fastened her little satchel.

  ‘Thank you for the game,’ Freize said. ‘I am new in town and it is a pleasure to see a pretty girl at her work. What’s your name, sweetheart?’

  ‘Jacinta,’ she said. ‘This is my father, Drago Nacari.’

  ‘A pleasure to meet you both,’ Freize said, pulling off his hat and smiling down at her as she rose to her feet and handed the heavy purse of money to her father.

  ‘Have you heard of a priest called Father Pietro?’ Ishraq asked her, recalling Freize to their task.

  She nodded. ‘Everyone knows him. He sits over there, at the corner of the bridge; he has a little desk and a great list of many, many names of people enslaved, poor souls. He