Order of Darkness

by Philippa Gregory

  ‘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
ends. ‘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 comes after Sext. You will find him here after the clock has struck one.’ She gave them a little bow and walked away from them. Her father tipped his hat to them both and walked with her. Freize looked after her.

  ‘I think I am in love,’ he said.

  ‘I think you are hopelessly fickle,’ Ishraq said. ‘You swore a lifetime of service to Isolde, you insisted on a kiss from me, you flirted with the innkeeper’s wife in Piccolo, and now you are chasing after a girl who has done nothing but take money off you.’

  ‘But her hands!’ Freize exclaimed. ‘So fast! So light! Think, if you married her, of the cakes she would make! She must make fantastic pastries with hands as quick and light as that.’

  Ishraq giggled at the thought of Freize lusting after a young woman because he thought she would make a good pastry cook. ‘Shall we wait for Father Pietro?’

  Freize nodded, looking round. ‘While we’re waiting, we could change some coins. I have a handful of coins that I took from Milord’s funds. Luca has to study the gold coins here, the lord of his Order commanded him to look at the gold nobles. Shall we try that man, see if he has any English nobles?’

  They walked over to a long trestle table. Behind it, on a row of stools, sat the money changers. Each man had a small chalkboard beside him, and constantly wrote and rewrote the exchange rate of the coins he had to offer. One man was busier than all the others, he had a queue of men waiting to do business with him. As they watched, he altered his sign to read:

  Two Venetian Ducats for One Gold Noble of England.

  Ishraq nudged Freize. ‘He has them,’ she said quietly. ‘That moneylender. He has English gold nobles, and at a better rate than all the others.’

  Freize stepped up to the man, who was dressed all in black, except for a bright round yellow badge that he wore on his chest, his dark hair plaited away from his clean-shaven face, a small black cap, the kippah, on the back of his head, his fingers busy with a small worn abacus, two locked boxes on the table before him, a young man standing for protection behind him.

  ‘I’d like to change some money,’ Freize said politely.

  ‘Good day,’ the man replied. ‘Today, I am only offering English gold, English gold nobles. Their value at the moment is of two Venice ducats.’

  ‘Good day to you,’ Freize replied. ‘Is that good value? I am a stranger in the city.’

  ‘I am Israel, the Jew. I can promise that you will find no better price.’

  Freize took out his purse and emptied it onto the desk, then he went through all his pockets, of his breeches and his jacket, and even the band of his hat, producing coins from the most unexpected places, much like a conjuror.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Ishraq asked, amused.

  ‘Can’t be too careful,’ Freize said. ‘You steal my purse from me but – ecce! – half my fortune is in my hat.’

  The trader started to sort the copper from the silver, the bronze and the chips of metal, and weigh them.

  ‘Do you have much English gold?’ Freize said casually.

  ‘I buy only gold of the best quality,’ the man replied. ‘And last year these English nobles started to become available in great numbers. They are excellent quality, the best gold that can be got. They are as good as gold: the coin is pure gold, there is nothing added and nothing taken away.’

  He started to weigh the coins against tiny weights, the smallest the size of a grain of wheat, in a precisely balanced scale. ‘I see you are a traveller,’ the man remarked. ‘For here are coins from Rome and from Ravenna, and from the west of Italy too.’

  ‘I’m in the service of a lord from the west of Italy.’ Freize told the lie that they had agreed. It was coming more and more easily to him. ‘A young lord who wants to visit this city and try his hand at trade here. He has a share in a cargo in a ship which is coming in any day now.’

  ‘He could come to nowhere more prosperous. I wish him good fortune,’ the man said quietly. ‘Tell him to come to me for fair dealing in gold. Now,’ he paused and looked doubtfully at the scales. ‘I am sorry to have to tell you that some of your coins are not very good. Some of them have been clipped to make them into smaller coins, and some of them have been sh
aved and the value stolen from them.’

  Freize shrugged. ‘It’s the luck of the road. I trust you to deal fairly with me. Oh!’ he exclaimed. ‘I had forgotten.’ He leaned over the table and picked out one copper penny coin. ‘I should not have put this among the others,’ he said. ‘It’s my lucky penny. I don’t want to change it. I keep it for good fortune.’

  ‘Since when did you have a lucky penny?’ Ishraq asked him. ‘I thought you were just telling that girl a story. What’s so lucky about it?’

  ‘I had it in my pocket when I was snatched by the sea, and when everything else was washed from my pocket I still had this one penny,’ Freize said. ‘And do you see? It was minted by the Pope himself, in the Vatican, in the year of my birth. It’s practically an amulet. What could be luckier than that?’

  The merchant bowed slightly and put the rest of the copper coins in his set of scales, balanced a weight against them and showed Freize the result. ‘That’s your copper.’

  ‘No worse than I expected,’ Freize said cheerfully. ‘Try the silver.’

  ‘I can give you a half noble for it all,’ the trader said, weighing the handfuls of coins and chips of metal in his scales.

  ‘I’ll take it,’ Freize replied.

  The man tipped the copper coins into a little sack, and the silver into one of the boxes at his side. He opened the other box and, before Ishraq could glimpse more than the gleam of gold, took out an English half noble and handed it over to Freize.

  ‘You don’t weigh it?’ Ishraq asked him. ‘You trust the weight of the English noble?’

  He made a little bow to her. ‘This is why everyone wants the English noble coins. They are all, always, full weight.’