Order of Darkness Read online

  ‘And you told a lie,’ Ishraq wondered.

  ‘I was not on oath, they did not ask me in the name of God,’ Brother Peter specified. ‘And they were quick to believe that a thin old clerk would dabble in such rubbish for lust of a well-used Venetian matron. I would have hoped that Luca might have thought better of me – but apparently not.’

  ‘I am sorry,’ Luca apologised awkwardly. ‘I should have guessed at once, but I was overwhelmed . . . and I couldn’t think.’

  Brother Peter sighed as if they were all of them, equally unbearable. ‘We’ll say no more about it,’ he said stiffly, and left the room.

  ‘He is remarkable,’ Isolde said as the door closed on him.

  ‘Saints witness it – he was impressive,’ Luca agreed with her. ‘He was completely convincing.’

  ‘He admires me,’ Freize said confidentially to Ishraq. ‘He finds it hard to admit, being a man who thinks very highly of himself – but he thinks very highly of me. This is the proof of it.’ He paused. ‘And I think very well of him,’ he said with the air of a man giving credit where it was due.

  Venice was seized with panic the next day as soon as the banks opened their doors and the traders set up their stalls. Ishraq and Isolde hurried to San Marco, with their purse of gold nobles, hoping that they might find someone who would change it into ducats, even into silver, but found all the money changers closed. The church itself was crowded with people on their knees praying for their fortunes, terrified of poverty, terrified that they would be stuck with the worthless gold nobles. The gold coins were sticky with a red rust like blood in every other purse.

  Luca, Freize and Brother Peter went to the Rialto by gondola and found the shops were closed and shuttered and all the money changers were absent from their stalls. Nobody wanted anything but true tested gold, and there was no gold to be had.

  The great banking houses on San Giacomo Square had only one shutter open at each entrance and they were changing gold for limited numbers of coins, so much for each customer, refusing anything which was stained or wet, desperately afraid that their own reserves would run out.

  ‘I have gold, I have plenty of gold,’ Luca heard one of the clerks say at the window. ‘There is no need to fear. My lord has gone to fetch more from his country estate. He will be back tomorrow. The bank is good. You need not change all your nobles now. You can change them tomorrow. There is no need to press, there is no need to panic.’

  ‘Tomorrow the value of the English nobles will be as nothing!’ the man shouted back at him, and the crowd behind him elbowed each other out of the way and shouted for their turn. ‘Even worse than now!’

  ‘I will pay tomorrow,’ the clerk insisted. ‘You don’t have to change them today.’

  ‘Now!’ the people shouted. ‘Now! Take the English nobles! You were quick enough to sell them! Now buy them back.’

  A band of the Doge’s guards came swiftly in a galley, trumpet blowing, and marched up the steps into the square. The officer unfurled a proclamation.

  ‘Citizens! You are to disperse!’ he shouted. ‘The Doge himself promises that there is enough gold. He himself will lend gold to the bankers. Your coins will be exchanged for gold. We will bring the gold from the Doge’s treasure stores this afternoon. Disperse now, and go back to your homes. This unrest is bad for everyone.’

  ‘The rate!’ someone yelled at him. ‘It’s no good to me that the banks have gold tomorrow if they won’t buy the nobles at today’s rate. What’s the rate?’

  The officer swallowed. ‘The rate has been set,’ he said. ‘The rate has been set.’

  ‘At what?’ someone shouted.

  He showed them the sealed proclamation, holding it high above his head so that it fluttered in the light spring wind. ‘The Doge himself has set the rate that he will pay to all Venetian citizens. He will pay a third of a ducat for every English noble, and so will all the Venetian banks,’ he said.

  The crowd was suddenly silent, as if at news of a death. Then there was a long slow groan as if everyone was suddenly sick to the belly. It was a moan as everyone in the crowd realised that the fortune they had made in speculating in the English nobles was gone, had gone overnight. Each English noble was now valued at a third of a ducat, though it had been three ducats only yesterday. The merchants who had bought hundreds of English nobles, selling their gold, other currencies and even goods, were staring at ruin.

  ‘The Doge has gold enough to do this?’ Luca asked.

  ‘They have to buy back the English nobles one way or another, they have to set a rate or nobody will trade at all. The people will bring down the banks with their demands for gold. This crowd isn’t far from riot.’

  ‘This is terrible,’ Luca said.

  Brother Peter looked at him. ‘This is the value of reputation,’ he said. ‘You saw Lady Isolde defend her reputation. You saw me devalue my reputation yesterday.’ He looked at the crowd which was dwindling as the merchants went into their houses, slamming the doors, and the smaller traders walked to stand beside the canal, stunned with shock, trying to face their own ruin in the sparkling surface of the bright waters. ‘This is how the market works,’ he said. ‘Great gains always mean great losses later, and then probably gains again. This is usury. This is why a good man does not play the market. It always brings wealth to a few but poverty to many.’

  He grabbed Luca’s shoulder and turned him to face the deserted square and a man sobbing with his mouth open wide, drooling with grief and horror. ‘Look and understand. This is not what happens when the market goes wrong: this is what happens when the market works. Sudden profit followed by sudden ruin: this is what is supposed to happen. This is the real world. The days when a noble doubled in price overnight were the chimera. The profit is the fantastic dream. The loss is the reality.’

  Luca nodded, then his face suddenly clouded. ‘The ransom!’ he gasped. He turned on his heel and hurried to the Rialto Bridge where Father Pietro usually set up his stall. The low post that he used as a stool was empty, half the stalls on the Rialto Bridge were closed. It was as if everyone was afraid to spend money in any currency.

  ‘Have you seen Father Pietro today?’ Luca asked a woman as she was passing by.

  Silently, she shook her head and went on.

  ‘Have you seen Father Pietro?’ Luca asked a merchant.

  He ducked away from the question as if an answer would be too costly.

  ‘We’ll come back later,’ Brother Peter ruled. ‘See if he is here later.’

  ‘It’s the ransom for my father,’ Luca said, trying to escape the feeling of growing dread. ‘They wanted to be paid in English nobles. We sent the money in English nobles as they asked.’

  ‘When did the messenger leave?’ Brother Peter asked.

  ‘Yesterday,’ Luca said blankly. ‘Before dusk.’

  ‘Then perhaps he has kept ahead of the news, and is even now paying the slave owner and your father is safe in his keeping. The messenger is ahead of it. The news has to get from Venice. They might have done the trade already and your father might be safe right now.’

  ‘I should send pure gold, in case the nobles bleed.’ Luca took a step forwards to the bank and then fell back, realising that he could not even obtain gold, the banks did not have it; and that he had nothing to buy gold but the dishonoured English nobles.

  His young face was gaunt with shock. ‘Brother Peter, we put all of Milord’s fortune into the nobles. We are ruined with everyone else. We have lost all of Milord’s money and I cannot buy gold to free my father!’

  Brother Peter’s face was sternly grave. ‘We gambled, and we have lost,’ he said. ‘We pretended we were wealthy and now we are poor.’

  ‘I’ll have to wait,’ Luca said aloud to himself. ‘I’ll have to wait. I can’t see what else to do. I swore I would free my father and now . . . I’ll have to wait. Perhaps . . . but I’ll have to wait. There’s nothing else to do.’

  ‘Pray,’ Brother Peter advised him.

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