Order of Darkness Read online

  He reached into the deep pocket of his coat and brought out a little piece of glass. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘They’re interested in light, just like you are. I stole this for you. Off Jacinta’s writing table.’

  ‘Stole!’ Brother Peter exclaimed.

  ‘Stole from a forger! Stole from a thief!’ Freize retorted. ‘So hardly stealing at all. But isn’t it the sort of thing you’re interested in? And she’s studying it too. She’s an Inquirer like you, she’s not a common criminal. She might know things you want to know. She shouldn’t be arrested.’

  He put it on the table and uncurled his fingers slowly so that they could see the little miracle that he had brought from the forger’s house. It was a long, triangular-shaped piece of perfectly clear glass. And as Freize put it on the breakfast table between Isolde and Ishraq, the sun, shining through the slats of the shutters, struck its sharp spine and surrounded the piece of glass in a perfect fan of rainbow colours, springing from the point of the glass.

  Luca sighed in intense pleasure, like a man seeing a miracle. ‘The glass turns the sunlight into a rainbow,’ he said. ‘Just like in the mausoleum. How does it do that?’

  He reached into his pocket and brought out the chipped piece of glass from Ravenna. Both of them, side by side, spread a fan of rainbow colours over the table. Ishraq reached forward and put her finger into the rainbow light. At once they could see the shadow of her finger, and the rainbow on her hand. She turned her hand over so that the colours spread from her fingers to her palm. ‘I am holding a rainbow,’ she said, her voice hushed with wonder. ‘I am holding a rainbow.’

  ‘How can such a thing be?’ Luca demanded, coming close and taking the glass piece to the window, looking through it to see it was quite clear. ‘How can a piece of glass turn sunshine into a rainbow arc? And why do the colours bend from the glass? Why don’t they come out straight?’

  ‘Why don’t you ask them?’ Freize suggested.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Why don’t you ask them to show you their work, or tell you about rainbows?’ Freize repeated. ‘He’s known as an alchemist, he’ll be used to people coming to him with questions. Why don’t you ask him about the rainbow in the tomb of Galla Placidia? See what we can learn from them before we report them? Surely we should know more about them. Surely you want to know why she has a glass that makes a rainbow?’

  ‘You’re sweet on the girl,’ Ishraq accused bluntly. ‘And you’re playing for time for them.’

  Freize turned to her with his comical dignity. ‘Actually, I have a great interest in the origin of rainbows,’ he said. ‘I don’t even know what girl you mean.’

  Isolde laughed and even Brother Peter raised his head at the clear joy in her voice. ‘Ah Freize, admit it! You have fallen in love in this city, where everyone seems to be in love.’

  ‘Everyone?’ Luca asked her pointedly, but she turned her head away from him with a little colour in her cheeks, and did not reply.

  Freize put his hand over his heart. ‘I tell no secrets,’ he said gallantly. ‘Perhaps she admires me? Perhaps not. I would not say a word to anyone, either way. But I still think you should talk to her and to her father before you hand them over to the Doge and his men. We need to know more of what they were doing in that strange secret room of theirs. And why can’t we warn them that the game is up and they should pack up their business and go away?’

  ‘They can hardly pack up and go on their way, and nothing more be said!’ Brother Peter exclaimed irritably. ‘They have swindled the merchants of the city of a fortune: making a market, profiteering in the gold nobles. They have cheated the nation of England of thousands of gold coins, perhaps hundreds of thousands, receiving the gold nobles stolen from them. We ourselves have bought gold nobles, giving good money in exchange for bad. This is a serious crime. They must be stopped. And anyway, Milord’s orders are clear: we must report them.’

  ‘But they’re not bad coins,’ Ishraq pointed out. ‘They’re growing in value every day. Everyone is making money. They have made no one poorer. Actually, everyone is getting richer. Us too. The Venetians themselves don’t want the coins questioned. We tested the nobles, ourselves, as Milord said that we should. The coins are good, as good as gold. And now they’re being exchanged for more than gold. The coins are better than gold.’

  ‘I’ll visit them,’ Luca decided. ‘I need to see their work. And we’ll ask them about it. And we’ll agree what to do.’

  ‘Milord has given orders,’ Brother Peter warned him. ‘He commanded us to find them and then report them. He didn’t say that we should understand why they are doing it, or their other work. His instructions were plain and simple: go to Venice, find the coins, find the suppliers, report them.’

  ‘He must be obeyed,’ Luca agreed. ‘And I don’t question our orders. We will report them as he commands. But not immediately. First, I will go and see them. I’ll take Freize and –’ he turned to Ishraq – ‘will you come too? And bring the manuscript page.’ He hesitated for a moment, clearly wondering if he could ask Isolde to come.

  ‘If Ishraq is to come she’ll have to be masked and hooded and travel from door to door by gondola,’ Brother Peter ruled. ‘And, in her absence, Lady Isolde will have to stay at home, or go to church.’

  ‘I’ll stay at home,’ Isolde said rapidly, almost as if she wanted to avoid the confessional at church. Almost, as if she wanted to avoid Luca. ‘I’ll wait for you to return.’

  ‘You’ll wait for me?’ Luca said, so quietly that only she could hear him.

  The glance she directed at him was very cool. ‘I only meant I would wait for Ishraq to come back with the gondola,’ she said with a sweet smile that told him nothing.

  ‘In the name of all the saints, what have I done? Have I offended her?’ Luca demanded of Ishraq as they sat side by side in the gondola double seat, Freize with his back to the prow was in the seat before them.

  ‘No, why?’ Ishraq asked blandly.

  ‘Because I thought . . . last night . . . she was so beautiful.’

  ‘At the party?’ Ishraq prompted him.

  ‘On our way there, yes. I thought that she was so lighthearted and so warm, she smiled at me and wished me good luck as we were in the gondola – and her eyes were shining through her blue mask and I thought that perhaps after the party we might meet . . . And then after the party, in the garden, I thought . . . and then today she hardly speaks to me.’

  ‘Lasses.’ Freize leaned forwards to make his own contribution to the low-voiced conversation. ‘Like the little donkey. Easily set on one course, hard to disturb once they have chosen their own wilful path.’

  ‘Oh nonsense!’ Luca said. To Ishraq he said more pressingly: ‘Has she said nothing about me? Did she say nothing to you about last night?’

  ‘About the party?’ Ishraq said again.

  ‘After the party?’ Luca hinted tentatively. ‘After . . . ?’

  Ishraq shook her head, her face utterly blank. ‘She has said nothing, for there is nothing to say. It was an ordinary party and we came home early. We walked for a few minutes and then we went to bed. We had nothing to say.’ She paused, lowered her voice and looked directly at Luca. ‘And you had better say nothing too.’

  He looked at her, searching for her meaning. ‘I should say nothing?’

  She looked at him and nodded her head. ‘Nothing.’

  Left in the quiet house, Brother Peter had the breakfast things cleared and put his writing desk on the table to start the long task of preparing the coded report to the Lord of the Order, to tell him that the forgers had been discovered, that they would be reported to the authorities at once, and asking for instructions for their next mission. Their work would go on: the Lord would command them to go to another town, another city, to discover more signs of the unknown world, of the end of days.

  They would go on, Brother Peter thought, a little wearied, on and on until the Second Coming, when they would at last understand all things, instead of as no