‘They boil forgers?’ the girl asked with a horrified shudder.
‘God knows what they do to them,’ Freize said to her. ‘But sweetheart, you don’t want to find out.’
Solemnly the alchemist nodded. ‘You are right to remind us that we are in danger. We will take the most precious things and leave tomorrow, at dawn.’
‘Better go tonight,’ Freize prompted him.
‘I am sorry for it,’ Luca said. ‘I see that you have been doing great work here. I should have loved to work with you. I should have been honoured to see the transformation from first matter to gold.’
The man shrugged. ‘We will have to start again. But this time we start with a proven recipe. Making gold is for the greedy criminals of this world. We wanted to make life itself. That is the point of alchemy, translation from the lesser to the greater till the purest point of all. Gold is nothing, life is the great secret.’
Luca shook his head at the waste of them packing their treasures and leaving when they were on the brink of discovery. ‘I wish to God you could tell me all that you know,’ he said.
‘Then we are equal, for I wish to God that you could tell me what you know, for I think you have it in you to be a great adept,’ the alchemist said gently. ‘Mortal born or changeling boy, you have the third eye.’
‘What?’ Freize asked. ‘What do you say he has got?’
Drago Nacari put his forefinger to the centre of his own forehead, between his eyebrows, and then pointed to Luca’s forehead. Luca flinched as if at a touch. ‘The third eye,’ Drago said. ‘The gaze that can see the unseen things. I think you are indeed of faerie blood – you are a changeling.’
‘We’ve got to go,’ Freize decided, disturbed by this talk about his friend. He got to his feet and took Jacinta’s hand and kissed it. ‘We’ll do what we can to prevent Brother Peter reporting you at once. But don’t you wait upon your going – pack up at once, for your own safety.’
She took his hand and put it to her cheek in a brief, warm gesture. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I will remember you as the sweetest thing in this extraordinary city. Truer than true gold itself, a finer thing than we could refine.’
He flushed like a boy, and turned to the alchemist and gave him an awkward nod. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘About the breaking and entering. Work, you understand.’
Drago Nacari nodded in return. ‘Sorry about the false coins,’ he said. ‘Work, you understand.’
Luca went to the doorway and bowed to them both. ‘I wish you the very best,’ he said. ‘And we will not report you till tomorrow, after dawn, at the earliest. You will have till then to get away.’
The young woman came after them, and slipped her slim hand into Freize’s pocket.
‘What’s this?’ he asked, pausing.
‘Your penny,’ she said softly. ‘I promised I would return it to you. It is as true as you.’ She raised her face to his and Freize bent down and kissed her warm lips. ‘Good luck follow you,’ she said. ‘Blessings be.’ She went back to stand beside Drago Nacari, beside their bench, in the noisome laboratory among the bubbling stills.
Freize looked back, to get a last sight of her, and thought that they were like a lost couple heroically going down on a little boat, sunk by their own determination, then he caught up with Ishraq and Luca as they went quietly out of the front door and closed it behind them.
The waves lapped at the stone quays as their gondola went down the small canals. ‘Drop me here,’ Luca said suddenly. ‘I want to see if Father Pietro is still at the Rialto Bridge.’
‘We’ll wait for you,’ Ishraq decided. The gondola took Luca to a set of stairs in the quayside and he ran lightly up and then crossed the square to where Father Pietro was seated, in his usual place, with his little table before him and his tragic roll of names unfurled.
‘Father Pietro, do you have news?’
The priest leaped to his feet and came to Luca with his hands held out. ‘Praise God!’ he said. ‘Praise God, I have news. My messenger saw Bayeed and was able to take a passage on a fast ship back to me with the greatest of news.’
‘My father? Gwilliam Vero?’
‘He is found. He is found, my son!’
A great darkness clouded Luca’s vision, he felt his head swirl. Out of the mist he felt the priest grab his arm, tap his cheek. ‘Luca? Luca Vero?’
‘I’m all right,’ Luca gasped. ‘I could not hear. I cannot believe what I heard! My father is alive? And can we ransom him?’
The priest beamed at him. ‘I didn’t know you had friends in high places. You should have told me that you had a great friend.’
‘I don’t,’ Luca stammered. ‘I have no great friend. I am all but friendless. Until this moment I was all but an orphan. I don’t know what you mean.’
‘A very great man had already sent a message to Bayeed, asking him if he had a Gwilliam Vero on board, telling him that he must release him to his son Luca, if requested. You know who did that?’
Luca started to shake his head. ‘I know no one except . . . the man who told me of you, he went by the name of Radu Bey.’
Father Pietro laughed delightedly. ‘Because that is his name. And a great name among the infidel. If you have his friendship then you are favoured by one of the greatest men in the Empire.’
‘I had no idea . . . I met him only once. I asked about my father and one of his slaves said he was with Bayeed. I had no idea he would think of me again. He showed no interest in me or my father, he didn’t seem to care at all. And he is the mortal enemy of my lord.’
‘Well, he’s no enemy of yours. He took an interest, and to great effect. Bayeed was ready for your request, he regarded it as a request from the sultan, Mehmet II himself, and he sends me this reply.’ The priest showed Luca a small piece of paper with a scrawl of black ink and a roughly stamped seal.
Gwilliam Vero, galley slave Five English nobles
Father Pietro frowned a little. ‘He’s kept his price at five English nobles, though their value has risen, and is still rising. That’ll cost you twelve ducats now. Last week it would have been ten.’
‘It’s all right,’ Luca said, still breathless with the news. ‘I have funds, I have nobles.’ He shook his head again. ‘I am stunned. I am dazzled.’ He drew a breath. ‘What do we do now? Do I go to fetch him?’
Father Pietro shook his head. ‘No, certainly not. You give me the money and I send it by my emissary to Bayeed. My man will leave tonight, pay over the money and receive the slave, your father. He’ll take him to an inn and get him a wash and some food, and some clean clothes. I find that all the men want to take a moment to return to life.’ He smiled. ‘It’s a shock you know, the rolling back of the rock from the tomb. A man needs to take a moment to come back to life. He has to learn what has happened during the passing of the years, he has to prepare himself for the world he left so long ago. It is different, you see. Sometimes a man will have losses to mourn. How long has your father been gone?’
‘Four years,’ Luca said. ‘That’s why I want to fetch him myself, at once.’
‘You only have to wait a little longer, my son. My messenger will bring your father to you.’
‘How long?’ Luca demanded impatiently.
‘If you give me the money, my agent can sail for Trieste at once. He’ll be there by tomorrow evening or at worst the next day, a day to ransom him, and get him fed and clothed, then two days’ journey home.’ The priest had been counting on his rosary beads, as an abacus. ‘Say five days in all. You will see him within the week.’
‘I’ll get the money,’ Luca swore, all thought of the alchemists driven from his mind. ‘I’ve got my gondola here. I’ll get the money to you.’
‘Before sundown. I will be here until dusk.’
‘At once! At once!’
Father Pietro nodded. ‘One moment, my son,’ he said gently. ‘I would bless you.’
Luca curbed his impatience and dropped to his knees.
With great gent
leness, the priest put his hand on the young man’s bowed head. ‘In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti.’
‘Amen,’ Luca replied fervently.
The priest kept his hand on Luca’s warm head, he imagined that he could almost feel the whirling thoughts swirling beneath his fingers. ‘Prepare yourself,’ he said gently. ‘You will find him much changed.’
Luca rose to his feet. ‘I will love him, and honour him, however he is,’ he promised.
The priest nodded. ‘He will have led a life of brutal cruelty, he will be scarred by it, outwardly on the skin of his back, in the brand on his face, and perhaps inwardly too. You must expect him to be different.’
‘But I am changed too,’ Luca explained. ‘He last saw me as a boy, a novice hoping to be a priest. Now I am a man. I have loved a woman, I have kept my love for her as a secret, I have seen some terrible things and looked at them and made a judgement. I am in the world and I am worldly. We will both see a great difference in each other. But I have never stopped loving him, and I know he would never have stopped loving me.’
The priest nodded. ‘So be it,’ he said gently. ‘And I shall pray that the love of a father for his son and the love of God helps you both in your reunion.’
‘Where shall I meet him?’ Luca demanded.
‘Meet me here again, at the Rialto, at Sext, in four days’ time, for news, and then you can come every day till he arrives,’ Father Pietro said.
‘I’ll be here,’ Luca promised. ‘Four days from now.’
Dazed, he walked away from the busy bridge and found his way to the waiting gondola. He shook his head to the questions of Ishraq and Freize. ‘My father is found,’ is all he said. ‘I am to send the money. He is to come home to me.’
Back at the house Brother Peter was waiting for them at the watergate stairs.
‘I have no idea what is going on,’ he complained. ‘That woman came, and she and Isolde had some kind of quarrel, a terrible fight, and now Isolde is locked in her room and won’t come out, nor speak to me, and she says she will never ever speak to Luca as long as she lives.’ He turned to Luca. ‘What have you done?’
The rush of crimson which rose from his white collar to his black hat betrayed him. ‘Nothing,’ he said, glancing guiltily at Ishraq. ‘I’ve done nothing.’
Ishraq stepped out of the gondola and went up the stone stairs, past the men’s floor to the upper floor, into the big room where the reflection of the water made rippled light on the ceiling, and tapped on the door to Isolde’s bedroom. She turned to see that Luca had followed her, his hat twisted in his hands, his young face wretched.
‘Isolde?’ she called. ‘Are you there?’
‘Yes,’ came the muffled monosyllable from inside.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘That woman was here and I punched her and she scratched my face, she pulled my hair and I pulled hers and we were like fishwives in the Rialto. I was not better than her. I was like a jealous . . . puttana. I demeaned myself!’
‘Why?’ Ishraq was finding it hard not to laugh.
‘Because she said . . . she said . . .’ Isolde choked on a sob.
‘Ah.’ Ishraq was moved at once. ‘Don’t cry. It doesn’t matter what she said.’
‘It does matter. She says that Luca made an assignation with her and that was why she came to the house last night, that he was going to lie with her in the garden. They had agreed to meet. He wanted her. And she ordered me to let her into the house tonight. She says that he wants her. She says that she will make him desire her. She says that she can drive him mad for her, that he will be her toy.’
‘I never!’ Luca exclaimed unconvincingly. He stepped towards the door, and rested his forehead lightly against the panel, as if he would feel Isolde’s cool hands on his face. ‘I never invited her,’ he said. ‘Not at all! Or at any rate, not exactly.’
‘Are you there too?’ Isolde exclaimed, from the other side of the door, her voice muffled by the wood as if she were leaning her lips to the panel, to be as close to him as she could.
‘I’m here. I’m here.’
‘Why? Why are you there?’
‘Because I cannot bear the thought of you being unhappy. And never because of me. Because I would do anything in the world to make you happy. I would give everything I own to prevent your distress. There is only one woman for me. There has only ever been one woman for me. There only ever will be one woman that I love.’
‘She said you were ready to fall in love with her.’
‘She lied.’
‘She said that she can make you fall in love with her.’
‘She cannot, I swear that she cannot.’
‘She said that you had agreed to lie with her after the party, that you had agreed to meet.’
He stammered. ‘I did agree. I was a fool, and she said… it doesn’t matter. But then in the garden I thought it was not her, but another. . . . Isolde . . . I don’t know what happened. I thought . . . I hoped . . . I was certain it was . . .’
‘Luca, I think she is a bad woman, a vile woman.’
‘Isolde, I am a man, I felt desire, I touched, I kissed . . . but it was dark, I didn’t know . . . all along I thought it was . . . I didn’t know it was her. I was half-drunk, I was thinking of . . .’
‘Don’t say. Don’t think. Don’t say what you thought. You can never say what you thought. You can never say who you thought you were with.’
‘I’ll say nothing,’ he swore, his hands flat against the door, his forehead pressed to the wood, his lips whispering so that only she could hear him.
‘No one will ever say who went into the garden last night,’ Ishraq said to him quietly. Luca turned to her and saw her dark gaze on him. He gasped as a thought struck him as powerful as a bolt of desire. ‘Ishraq? Was it you?’
‘We won’t even think about it,’ she said.
Silently, she gave him a little smile, turned away and crept down the stairs.
‘Ishraq?’ Isolde whispered.
‘She’s gone. She said nothing,’ Luca replied. ‘But I must know! Beloved . . .’
‘What? What did you call me?’
‘I called you beloved, for that is what you are to me. If you insist then I shall never speak of the night in the garden and the stranger who came to me. If you tell me it was a terrible mistake, then it was a terrible mistake. If you tell me it was a moment of love, out of time and out of place, never to be mentioned again, then I will believe that. If you tell me that it was a gift from another girl that I love almost as much as I love you, then I will keep that secret too. But if you tell me it was a dream, the most wonderful dream that I could have, then I will believe that. I am yours to command. It is a secret, even if I don’t know it. But I know that I love only you. Only you.’
There was a long silence from the other side of the door and then he heard the key turn in the lock and Isolde stood there, her hair tumbled down, her eyes red from crying.
‘Can you keep the secret and never even ask? Never know for sure? Can you never ask and live not knowing?’
‘I don’t know,’ Luca said honestly. ‘I dreamed I was with you, I longed to be with you, I had taken too much wine, I am so much in love with you that I thought I was with you. Can you tell me? Was I mistaken? Terribly mistaken? Or was I the happiest man in all of Venice?’
Slowly she shook her head. ‘I can never tell you,’ she said. ‘You will have to live with never knowing for sure.’
Strangely, he did not press her for an answer, it was as if he understood. Simply, he opened his arms to her and she stepped towards him and laid her head on his shoulder and her hot face against his shirt.
‘I will never ask,’ he said. ‘It was like a dream. A most wonderful dream of something that I did not dare to dream. It can stay as a dream. If you order it: I just had a most wonderful dream.’
Brother Peter and the two young women were waiting for Luca and Freize to come home in the gondola from the Rialto Bridge. Luc
a had dashed out of the house with a purse of gold nobles, a hurried kiss on Isolde’s hand, desperate to get the money to Father Pietro at once.
‘It is the money that Milord gave us to support our lie that we are traders,’ Brother Peter said anxiously, standing at the window and looking down at the busy canal. ‘It’s not for Luca to use to ransom his father.’
‘Milord must have known that Luca would use the money to save his father. And Luca might be lucky and earn it back with trades and gambling. Aren’t the nobles worth more today than when we first bought them?’
‘Usury,’ Brother Peter said depressingly. ‘He should not be making money by trading in a currency.’
‘He’s supposed to!’ Ishraq said impatiently. ‘Milord commanded it. He’s supposed to trade. And if he makes a profit on his cargo he can surely spend it as he likes!’
Brother Peter shook his head. ‘A good and careful servant would make the profit for the glory of God,’ he said. ‘And then give it all back to Milord. That is good stewardship. Think of the parable of the talents.’
‘But when Luca’s father comes home, that will be to the glory of God,’ Isolde remarked. ‘And the greatest joy that Luca could have. Surely, we must be glad for him?’
‘I cannot help but fear what he is becoming, when he rides around in a gondola like a young merchant prince.’ He glanced down at her. ‘I can’t help but fear for you too. Fighting with that woman like a fishwife. Your father did not raise you to behave like this, Lady Isolde.’
She nodded. ‘I’m ashamed of how I behaved,’ she said. ‘I am ashamed of more than you know, Brother Peter.’
‘Have you confessed?’ he asked her very quietly. Ishraq tactfully stepped to the back of the room and left Isolde to answer.
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