Order Of Darkness - Fools' Gold Part 2

Luca, whose father and mother had been captured by an Ottoman slaving galley when he was just a boy, went white and gripped the rail for support. 'We can't allow this,' he said to Freize. 'I can't allow it. We can't let this happen.'

But Freize was watching Isolde, who had suddenly halted at the news that Ishraq would not be with her. 'No. She comes with me,' she said. 'We are never separated.'

The man shook his head. 'My orders are clear. She is to be sold to the Ottomans.'

'Be ready,' Freize whispered to Luca. 'I don't think she'll stand for that.'

Isolde had reached the front of the ship. Stowed at her feet was an axe kept for emergencies if a sail came down in a storm or if fishing nets had to be cut free. She did not even glance at it as she stepped up on the tightly knotted anchor rope, so that she could look down over the rail at the man who had come for her. 'Sir, I have money,' she pleaded. 'Whatever my brother is paying you I will match, if you will just go back to him and say that you could not find us. Your men too can have a fee if you will just go away.'

He spread his hands. 'My Lady, I am your brother's loyal servant. I have promised to take you back to him and sell her into slavery. Come down, or I will come and get you both, and your friends will suffer.'

She bit her lip. 'Please. Take me, and leave my friend. You can tell the lord my brother that you could not find her.'

Wordlessly, he shook his head. 'Come,' he said bluntly. 'Both of you. At once.'

'I don't want any fighting,' she said desperately. 'I don't want anyone hurt for me.'

'Then come now,' he said simply. 'For we will take you one way or another. I am ordered to take you dead or alive.'

Freize saw her shoulders set with her resolve, but all she said was: 'Very well. I'll throw my things down first.'

The commander nodded and put a hand on the grappling iron rope and drew his galley closer to their gently bobbing ship. Isolde leaned over the rail, holding the heavy saddlebag. 'Come closer,' she said. 'I don't want to lose my things.'

He laughed at the acquisitive nature of all women that Isolde should be such a fool as to be still thinking of dresses while being kidnapped! and hauled the galley in even closer. The moment that it was directly under the prow of the ship Isolde dropped the saddlebag down to him. He caught it in his arms, and staggered back slightly at the weight of it, and at the same time she s.n.a.t.c.hed up the hatchet and, with three or four quick, frenzied blows, hacked through the rope which held the heavy ship's anchor against the side of the boat.

Solid hammered iron, it plunged downwards, monstrously heavy and crashed straight through the galley's light wood deck, and straight through the bottom of the galley, smashing an enormous hole and breaking the sides of the craft so the water rushed in from the bottom and from the sides.

In a second Ishraq had jumped to be at her side, and had thrown her knife straight into the man's face. He took the blade in his mouth and screamed as blood gushed out. Luca, Freize, and Brother Peter took the grappling irons and flung them onto the heads of the rowers below them, as water poured into the galley and the waves engulfed the ship.

'Hoist the sail!' Luca yelled, but already the boatman and his lad were hauling on the ropes and the sail bellied, flapped and then filled with the light wind and the ship started to move away from the sinking galley. Some of the rowers were in the water already, thrashing about and shouting for help.

'Go back!' Isolde shouted. 'We can't leave them to drown.'

'We can,' Ishraq said fiercely. 'They would have killed us.'

There were some wooden battens at the front of the boat. Isolde ran to them and started to haul on them. Freize went to help her, lifted them to the rail and pushed them into the water to serve as life rafts. 'Someone will pick them up,' he a.s.sured her. 'There are ships up and down this coast all the time and it will soon be light.'

Her eyes were filled with tears, she was white with distress. 'That man! The knife in his face!'

'He would have sold me into slavery!' Ishraq shouted at her angrily. 'He was taking you back to your brother! What did you want to happen?'

'You could have killed him!'

'I don't care! I won't care! You're a fool to worry about him.'

Isolde turned, shaking, to Brother Peter. 'It is a sin, isn't it, to kill a man, whatever the circ.u.mstances?'

'It is,' he allowed. 'But Ishraq was defending herself . . . '

'I don't care!' Ishraq repeated. 'I think you are mad to even think about him. He was your enemy. He was going to take you back to your brother. He was going to sell me into slavery. He would have killed us both. Of course I would defend myself. But if I had wanted to kill him, I would have put the knife through his eye and he would be dead now, instead of just missing his teeth.'

Isolde looked back. Some of the crew had clambered back aboard the wreckage of their boat. The commander, his face still red with blood, was hanging on to the battens that she and Freize had thrown into the water.

'The main thing is that you saved yourself and Ishraq,' Luca said to her. 'And they'll have to report back to your brother, so you should be safe for a while. Ishraq was wonderful, and so were you. Don't regret being brave, Isolde. You saved all of us.'

She laughed shakily. 'I don't know how I thought of it!'

Ishraq hugged her tightly. 'You were brilliant,' she said warmly. 'I had no idea what you were doing. It was perfect.'

'It just came to me. When they said they would take you.'

'You would have gone with them rather than fight?'

Isolde nodded. 'But I couldn't let you be taken. Not into slavery.'

'It was the right thing to do,' Luca ruled, glancing at Brother Peter, who nodded in agreement.

'A just cause,' he said thoughtfully.

'And your knife throw!' Luca turned to Ishraq. 'Where did you ever learn to throw like that?'

'My mother was determined I should know how to defend myself,' Ishraq smiled. 'She taught me how to throw a knife, and Isolde's father the Lord of Lucretili sent me to the masters in Spain to learn fighting skills. I learned it at the same time as my archery and other things.'

'We should give thanks for our escape,' Brother Peter said, holding the crucifix that he always wore on a rope at his waist. 'You two did very well. You were very quick, and very brave.' He turned to Isolde. 'I am sorry I could not lie for you.'

She nodded. 'I understand, of course.'

'And you will need to confess, Brother Luca,' Peter said gently to the younger man. 'As soon as we get to Venice. You denied your oath to the Church, you told a string of untruths and-' he broke off, 'you kissed her.'

'It was just to make the lie convincing,' Isolde defended Luca.

'He was tremendously convincing,' Freize said admiringly, with a wink at Ishraq. 'You would almost have thought that he wanted to kiss her. I almost thought that he enjoyed kissing her. Thought that she kissed him back. Completely fooled me.'

'Well, I shall give thanks for our safety,' the older man said and went a little way from them and got down on his knees to pray. Freize went down the ship to speak to the boatman at the rudder. Ishraq turned away.

'It was not just to make the lie convincing,' Luca admitted very quietly to Isolde. 'I felt . . .' he broke off. He did not have words for how he had felt when she had been pressed against him and his mouth had been on hers.

She said nothing, she just looked at him. He was fascinated by the ribbon which tied her cape at her throat. He could see it fluttering slightly with the rapid pulse at her neck.

'It can never happen again,' Luca said. 'I am going to complete my novitiate and make my vows as a priest, and you are a lady of great wealth and position. If you can raise your army and win back your castle and your lands you will marry a great lord, perhaps a prince.'

She nodded, her eyes never leaving his face.

'For a moment back then, I wished it was true, and that we had married,' Luca confessed with a shy laugh. 'Wedded and bedded, as the man said. But I know that's impossible.'

'It is impossible,' she agreed. 'It is quite impossible.'

Some hours after, the sky slowly grew bright and the five travellers got up from where they had been sitting at the back of the boat and went to the prow to look east where the rising sun was turning the wispy clouds pink and gold with the dawn light. From the back of the boat the boatman called to them that they were entering the Lagoon of Venice, G.o.d be praised that they were safe at last after such a night, and at once they felt the movement of the ship quieten as the waves stilled. This inland sea, sheltered by the ring of outer islands, was as calm as a gently moving lake, so shallow in some parts that they could see the nets of fishermen pinned just beneath the surface of the water, but deep channels wound around the islands, sometimes marked by a single rough post thrust into the lagoon bed.

Ishraq and Isolde gripped each other's hands as their little ship found its way through a dozen, a hundred little islands, some no bigger than a single house and a garden, with a wherry or a small sailing boat bobbing at the quay. Some of the smaller islands were little forests and mudflats, occupied only by wading birds, some looked like solitary farms with one farmhouse and outbuildings with roofs thatched with reeds, the fields taking up all the s.p.a.ce on the island. The bigger islands were bustling with people, ships loading and unloading at the stone quays, the chimneys of low houses bursting with dark smoke, and they could glimpse the red shine of furnaces inside the sheds.

'Gla.s.sworks,' the boatman explained. 'They're not allowed to make gla.s.s in the city because of the danger of fire. They're terrified of fire, the Venetians. They have nowhere to run.'

As they drew closer to the city, the islands became more built-up, bordered by stone quays, some with stone steps down to the water, the bigger ones with paved streets and some with little bridges linking them, one to another. Every house was surrounded by a garden, sometimes an orchard. Every big house stood behind high stone walls, so that the travellers could just see the tops of the leafless wintry trees and hear the birdsong from the gardens.

'This is the Grand Ca.n.a.l now,' the boatman said as the boat went slowly up the wide, sinuous stretch of water. 'Like the main road, like the biggest high street of the city. The biggest high street in the world.'

The bigger houses were built directly onto the ca.n.a.l, some of them with great front doors that opened straight onto the water, some of them had a gate at the front of the house to allow a boat to float directly into the house as if the river were a welcome guest.

As Isolde watched, one of these water doors opened and a gondola came out, sleek as a black fish, with the brightly dressed gondolier standing in the stern and rowing with his single oar as the gentleman sat in the middle of the boat, a black cape around his shoulders and an embroidered hat on his head, his face hidden by a beautifully decorated mask which revealed only his smiling mouth.

'Oh! Look!' she exclaimed. 'What a beautiful little boat, and see how it came out of the house?'

'Called a gondola,' the boatman explained. 'The Venetians have them like land dwellers have a litter or a cart to get about. Every big house has a watergate so that their gondola can come and go.'

Isolde could not take her eyes from the beautiful craft, and the gentleman nodded his head and raised a gloved hand to her as he swept by.

'Carnival,' Brother Peter said quietly as he saw the magnificently coloured waistcoat under the gentleman's dark cape and the brilliantly coloured mask that covered his face. 'We could not have come to the city at a worse time.'

'What's so bad about the carnival?' Ishraq asked curiously, looking after the black gondola and the handsome masked man.

'It is twenty days of indulgence and sin before Lent,' Brother Peter replied. 'Carnevale as they call it, is a byword for the worst behaviour. If we were enquiring into sin we would have nothing to do but to point at every pa.s.ser-by. The city is famous for vice. We will have to stay indoors as much as possible, and avoid the endless drinking and promenading and dancing. And worse.'

'But what a grand house!' Isolde exclaimed. 'Like a palace! Did you see inside? The stone stairs coming down to his own private quay? And the torches inside the building?'

'Look!' Ishraq pointed ahead of them. There were more houses directly on the water's edge, most of them standing on little islands completely surrounded by water, the islands connected with thin, arching wooden bridges. On the left side the travellers could see the spires of churches beyond the waterfront houses, and at every second or third house they could see a narrow dark ca.n.a.l winding its way deeper into the heart of the city, and smaller ca.n.a.ls branching from it, each one crowded with gondolas and working boats, every quay busy with people, half of them dressed in fantastic costumes, the women tottering on impossibly high shoes, some of them so tall that they had a maidservant to walk beside them for support.

'What are they wearing on their feet? They're like stilts!' Ishraq exclaimed.

'They are called chopines,' Brother Peter said. 'They keep the ladies' gowns and feet clear of the water when the streets are flooded.' He looked consideringly at the women, who could not stand unsupported but looked magnificent, tall as giantesses, in their beautiful billowing long gowns. 'The Holy Church approves of them,' he said.

'I would have thought you would have called them a ridiculous vanity?' Ishraq asked curiously.

'Since they prevent dancing, and women cannot walk about on their own while wearing them, they are a great discouragement to sin,' Brother Peter replied. 'That's a great advantage.'

'It is as everyone said, the city is built on the water,' Isolde said wonderingly. 'The houses stand side by side like boats moored closely in a port.'

'I've never seen anything like it. How will the horses get about?' Freize asked.

'The boatman will take them a little out of the city, after he has set us down,' Brother Peter told him. 'When we need them, we'll take a boat to get to them. There are no horses in Venice, everyone goes everywhere by boat.'

'The goods for market?' Freize asked.

'Come in by boat and are loaded and unloaded at the quayside.'

'The inns?'

'Take travellers who leave and arrive by boat. They have no stable yards.'

'The priests who attend the churches?'

'Come and go by boat. Every church has its own stone quayside.'

'Aha, and so how do they get the stone for building?' Freize demanded, as if he was finally about to catch Brother Peter in a travellers' tale.

'They have great barges that bring in the stone,' Brother Peter replied. 'Everything comes by boat, I tell you. They even have great barges that bring in the drinking water.'

This was too much for Freize. 'Now I know you are deceiving me,' he said. 'The one thing this city does not lack is water! They must be born with webbed feet, these Venetians.'

'They are a strange and unique people,' Brother Peter conceded. 'They govern themselves without a king, they have no roads, no highways, they are the wealthiest city in Christendom, they live on the sea and by the sea. They are expanding constantly, and their only G.o.d is trade; but they have built the most beautiful churches on every ca.n.a.l and decorated them with the most inspiring holy pictures. Every church is a treasure house of sacred art. Yet they act as if they are as far from G.o.d as they are from the mainland and there is no way to get to Him but a voyage.'

Now they were approaching the heart of the city. The broad ca.n.a.l on either side was walled with white Istrian stone to make a continuous quay, occasionally pierced by a tributary ca.n.a.l winding deeper inside the city. Many of the smaller inner ca.n.a.ls were crossed by little wooden bridges, a few were crossed by steeply stepped bridges of white stone. The ferry was losing the cold breeze and so the boatman took down the sails and set to row, he took an oar on one side, and his lad heaved on the other. They wound their way through the constant river traffic of gondolas going swiftly through the water with loud warning cries from the gondoliers in the sterns of 'Gondola! Gondola! Gondola!'

The ca.n.a.l was crowded with fishing ships, the flat-bottomed barges for carrying heavy goods, the ferry boats heaving with poorer people, and criss-crossing through the traffic going from one side to the other were public gondolas for hire. To the two young women who had been raised in a small country castle it was impossibly busy and glamorous, they looked from right to left and could not believe what they were seeing. Every gondola carried pa.s.sengers, heavily cloaked with their faces hidden by carnival masks. The women wore masks adorned with dyed plumes of feathers, the eyeholes slit like the eyes of a cat, a brightly coloured hood covering their hair, a bejewelled fan hiding their smiling lips. Even more intriguing were the gondolas where the little cabin in the middle of the slim ship had the doors resolutely shut on hidden lovers, and the gondolier was rowing slowly, impa.s.sive in the stern. Sometimes a second gondola followed the first with musicians playing lingering love songs, for the entertainment of the secret couple.

'Sin, everywhere,' Brother Peter said, averting his gaze.

'There's only one bridge across the Grand Ca.n.a.l,' the boatman told them. 'Everywhere else you have to take a boat to cross. It's a good city to be a ferryman. And this is it, the only bridge: the Rialto.'

It was a high wooden bridge, many feet above the ca.n.a.l, arching up so steeply that even masted ships could pa.s.s easily beneath it, rising up from both sides of the ca.n.a.l almost like a pinnacle, crowded with people, laden with little stalls and shops. There was a constant stream of pedestrians walking up the stairs on one side and down the other, pausing to shop, stopping to buy, leaning on the high parapet to watch the ships go underneath, arguing the prices, changing their money. The whole bridge was a shimmer of colour and noise.

The square of San Giacomo, just beside the bridge, was lined with the tall houses of the merchants. All the nations of Christendom, and many of the infidel, were shown by their own flag and the national costume of the men doing business at the windows and doorway. Next to them stood the great houses of the Venetian banking families, the front doors standing open for business, absurdly costumed people coming and going, trading and buying in all seriousness, though dressed as if they were strolling players, with great plumed hats on their heads and bright jewelled masks on their faces.

In the square itself the bankers and gold merchants had their tables laid out all around the colonnade, one to every arch, and were trading in coin, promises and precious metals. When money was changing hands the masks were laid aside, as each client wanted to look his banker in the eye. Among them were Ottoman traders, their brightly coloured turbans and gorgeous robes as beautiful as any costume. Venice had all but captured the trade of the Ottoman Empire and the wealth of the East flowed into Europe across the Venice traders' tables. There was no other route to the East, there was no easy navigable way to Russia. Venice was at the very centre of world trade and the riches of east and west, north and south poured into it from every side.

'The Rialto,' Luca reminded Freize. 'This is where that infidel, Radu Bey, said that there was a priest, Father Pietro, who ransoms Christian slaves from the galleys of the Ottomans. This is it, this is the bridge, this is where he said. Perhaps Father Pietro is here now, perhaps I will be able to ransom my father and mother.'

'We'll come out as soon as we are settled in our house,' Freize promised him. 'But Sparrow, you will remember that the Ottoman gentleman, Radu Bey, seems to be the sworn enemy of the lord who commands your Order, and he, himself, did not exactly inspire me with trust.'

Luca laughed. 'I know. You do right to warn me. But Freize, you know I would take advice from the devil himself if I thought I could get my father and mother back home. Just to see them again! Just to know they were alive.'

Freize put his hand on his friend's shoulder. 'I know,' he said. 'And they will have missed you too they have missed your growing up. If we can find them and buy them out of slavery it will be a great thing. I am just saying don't get your hopes up too high. They were captured by the Ottoman slavers and it was an Ottoman general who told us that we might buy them back. Just because he was well-read and spoke fair to you does not make him a friend.'

'Ishraq liked him too, and she's a good judge of character,' Luca objected.

A shadow crossed Freize's honest face. 'Ishraq liked him better than she liked the lord of your Order,' he told Luca. 'I wouldn't trust her judgement with the foreign lord myself. I don't know what game he was playing with her when he spoke to her in Arabic that only she could understand. Come to that, I don't know what game she was playing when she swore to me that he said nothing.'

'And here is your palazzo,' the boatman remarked. 'Ca' de Longhi, just west of the Piazza San Marco, very nice.'

'A palace?' Isolde exclaimed. 'We have hired a palace?'

'All the grand houses on the ca.n.a.l are palaces, though they are all called Casa only the Doge's house is called a palace,' the boatman explained. 'And the reason for that, is that they are each and every one of them, the most beautiful palaces ever built in the world.'

'And do princes live here?' Ishraq asked. 'In all these palaces?'

'Better than princes,' he smiled at her. 'Richer than princes, and greater than kings. The merchants of Venice live here and you will find no greater power in this city or in all of Italy!'

He steered towards the little quayside at the side of the house, leaned hard on the rudder and brought the boat alongside with a gentle b.u.mp. He looked up at the beautiful frescoes on either side of the great water door, and all around the house, and then at Luca with a new level of respect. 'You are welcome, your grace,' he said, suddenly adjusting his view of the handsome young merchant who must surely command the fortune of a prince if he could afford such a palace to rent.