Order of Darkness Read online

  ‘Did you not think to inform us?’ was the question from the magistrate on the left.

  ‘We were going to inform you,’ Luca replied carefully. ‘As you see from our orders, we were commanded to inform you as soon as we had evidence to give to you. Indeed, we were on our way to inform you when our own palazzo was raided, and we were put under house arrest. Then we agreed that we should come and talk with you at dawn. But when our own servant was arrested by you this night, we had to come and disturb you – even though it was so late.’

  ‘Considerate,’ the third man said shortly. ‘Did you not think to inform us before you began your inquiry? When you arrived in our city looking for counterfeit gold? When you started questioning our merchants and deceiving our bankers? When you started buying counterfeit gold, trading in it, and profiting from the deception? Withholding information which would have affected the price?’

  ‘Of course not,’ Brother Peter said smoothly. ‘We were obeying the orders of the lord of our Order. We did not know what we might find. If we had found nothing, we would have been very wrong to disturb the confidence of your traders.’

  ‘They are disturbed now,’ the magistrate observed.

  ‘Unfortunately, yes.’

  ‘And what was your relationship with Drago Nacari the alchemist?’ the second magistrate asked ‘For we know he was an alchemist as well as a coiner.’

  ‘He consulted me about a manuscript that he had,’ Luca admitted. ‘He brought it to my house for me to read, and I returned it to him.’

  ‘And what did it say?’

  ‘I was not able to translate it. Not at all.’

  ‘And what was your impression of his work? When you went to his house?’

  ‘I did not see enough to be sure,’ Luca said. ‘He certainly had a lot of equipment, he had a number of pieces of work in progress. He had a forge and a vat of rotting matter. He said that it was his life’s work and he spoke of the philosophers’ stone. But I saw nothing of such importance that I would report to my lord or to you.’

  ‘Everyone speaks of the philosophers’ stone,’ the Council leader said dismissively.

  Another nodded. ‘It is irrelevant. He had no licence to practise here so he was a criminal on that count alone.’ He paused. ‘Was he trying to create a living thing?’

  Luca stifled a gasp with a little choke.

  Brother Peter stepped into the awkward silence. ‘How could he? Only God can give life.’

  Luca nodded. ‘Excuse me. No. I saw nothing but some dead and dried animals and insects.’

  The clerk took a meticulous note.

  ‘So to the most important accusation: that he was coining,’ the first magistrate moved on. ‘Did you see any evidence of his coining?’

  Luca nodded. ‘He, himself, showed me the moulds for the coins. He told me that the first coins had come from John, Duke of Bedford, that he had known him long ago in Paris. First he had the duke’s true coins and then here in Venice he made a batch of coins according to the duke’s recipe, and planned to pass them off as good, using the duke’s seal.’

  ‘And yet still, you did not report this to us?’ one of the men queried, his voice like ice. ‘Counterfeiting is a crime that strikes against the very heart of the Republic. Do you know what a run on a currency can do to traders in Venice?’

  Luca shook his head, thinking it wiser to stay silent.

  ‘Ruin them. Ruin us. Ruin the greatest city in the world. And you did not think to report it at once? This criminal confessed to you and you stood in his house and saw the evidence and you did not tell us?’

  ‘We were on our way,’ Luca said. ‘We were coming to you tomorrow morning. At dawn.’

  There was a terrible silence. Finally, the man at the centre of the three spoke. ‘Did he tell you how many chests of good coins he had released?’

  Luca said: ‘No.’

  ‘Did he tell you how many forged coins? The bleeding coins, the weeping coins? They are going bad all over the city tonight. People will be hammering on the shutters of the bankers’ houses, demanding their money back as soon as it is light. Nobody wants bloodstained coins. Nobody wants forgeries. How many are out there?’

  Brother Peter cleared his throat. ‘We were coming to you with the evidence against the forgers at dawn tomorrow. Of course we were going to report all that we knew as soon as we had evidence. We were prevented by the charges laid by Lady Carintha. But we don’t know how many coins.’

  ‘But you were able to send your servant out of the house though you were under arrest?’ one of the men said silkily. ‘In that gravest moment, you did not send him to us to warn us that the coins were melting and bleeding. In that crucial moment you sent him to them – to the alchemists. Why did you do that?’

  Luca opened his mouth to speak, found he had nothing to say, and closed it again.

  ‘Your own officer saw the coins bleed,’ Brother Peter said feebly. ‘He must have reported to you? He must have sent men to arrest the money changer and the counterfeiter?’

  The door to the right of them opened and Freize stood in the opening. His clothes were torn, and he had a black eye and a bruise on his forehead. Someone pushed him from behind, and he took a stumbling step into the room. Luca exclaimed and would have gone forwards, but Brother Peter put a firm hand on Luca’s shoulder and held him back.

  ‘Freize!’ Luca exclaimed.

  ‘I’m all right,’ he said. ‘Took a bit of a kicking, that’s all.’

  ‘He resisted arrest,’ the clerk said to the gentlemen at the table. ‘He’s nothing more than bruised. He has been held in the inquiry room since his arrest. He hasn’t been harmed.’

  ‘Did you send him, this servant of yours, to warn the forger? So that they could get away before our men arrested them?’ the head of the Council asked Luca directly, and at once all the clerks paused, their pens poised, ready to write the incriminating confession.

  ‘No! Of course not!’ Luca said quickly. He tried to smile reassuringly at Freize but found his mouth was too strained.

  ‘What did you send him for then? Why did he go?’

  ‘I went,’ Freize said suddenly. ‘I went of my own accord, to see the pretty lass.’

  All three heads of the magistrates turned to Freize. ‘You went to warn her?’ one of them asked him.

  Luca could see the trap that Freize was walking towards. ‘No!’ he said anxiously. ‘No he didn’t!’

  ‘I went to see her,’ Freize said. ‘My lord didn’t send me. I went of my own accord. I didn’t know they were going to be arrested, I didn’t know they had done anything wrong. I didn’t know anything about them at all really, all I knew was that I had taken a fancy to her. I thought I’d make a visit.’ Freize scrunched his battered face into an ingratiating grin.

  One of the clerks raised his head and remarked quietly to the leader of the magistrates, ‘He escaped from the palace after the guards had gone in. He must have known the alchemists would be arrested next. He took a rowing boat and went straight to them.’

  ‘They got away in the boat that you rowed to them,’ the second Council man said. ‘You helped them escape, even if you did not go to warn them.’

  ‘Oh for heaven’s sake! I asked him to go,’ Brother Peter said suddenly, very clearly and as if he were wearied beyond bearing. ‘He went at my request to collect some potion for me. I wanted the medicine before they were arrested. Nobody knew about it but me and the alchemist and then this . . . this dolt. If he had any sense, when he had seen your guards at the door he would have come away, but he pressed on, to get me my . . . er . . . potion. And so got himself arrested, injured, and exposed us to this difficulty and me to this terrible embarrassment.’

  Everyone looked from Brother Peter’s scarlet face to Freize, who kept his eyes on the floor and said nothing.

  ‘And now he’s lying to try to protect me from my embarrassment,’ Brother Peter said, torn between fury and shame. ‘Of course, it only makes it worse. Fool that he is. Th