Order Of Darkness - Fools' Gold Part 20

'I have little experience with women,' Brother Peter said, his voice a thread, his eyes on the floor. 'Almost none. But I imagined she would want a man who could . . . who would . . . I feared that if she were to look kindly on me I would not be man enough for her.'

One of the magistrates cleared his throat. 'Understandable,' he said shortly.

'I was a fool,' Brother Peter admitted. 'And a sinful fool. But G.o.d spared me the worst of it, for the foolish servant I sent to get the love potion was caught while he was carrying out my sinful errand. And besides, Lady Carintha has turned against all of us. She'll never look at me again.'

'But you knew they were coiners?' one man persisted.

Brother Peter dropped to one knee and rested his forehead against the table. 'That's the worst of it. That's why I sent Freize then. I knew they were the coiners of the false coins, and that once you had found the money changer Israel you would find them. I wanted my love potion before they were arrested. That's why I ordered Freize to go at once, although I knew it was dangerous for him to be found with them. I put him at risk for my own selfish . . . l.u.s.t.'

The gentleman rounded on Freize. 'Is that what you were doing there?'

Freize gulped. 'Yes, just as my lord says.'

'Why didn't you tell us at once?'

'Discreet,' Freize said. 'Lamentably discreet. Against my own interests sometimes.'

The three magistrates put their heads together in a swift exchange of words. 'Release him,' the leader of the Council said. 'No charge.'

He rose to his feet. 'If we catch Drago Nacari and his accomplice the young woman then they will be charged as coiners and counterfeiters and you will have to give evidence against them,' he ruled.

'We will,' Brother Peter promised.

'In the meantime, we have serious work to do. We are going to have to release reserves of gold to the banks. Everyone is selling gold n.o.bles and everyone wants pure gold instead. The price of n.o.bles is falling to that of piccoli. Our citizens and our traders will lose fortunes in the first hour that they open for business. And now the Ottoman Empire is refusing to take any English coins at all good as well as bad. We are having to make good what those wicked coiners have done. It will cost us a fortune.'

'I am very sorry that we did not catch them earlier,' Luca said. 'It was our intention, it was our mission.'

The Council nodded. 'Then you have miserably failed in your mission,' the leader said icily. 'You can tell the lord of your Order that you are incompetent and a danger to yourselves and others. And you,' he turned to Brother Peter, 'you failed in your vows. You will no doubt confess and serve a hard penance. You seem to be shamed and you should be ashamed. We are very displeased with all three of you; but there are no legal charges as yet. It seems that you are fools but not criminals. You are incompetent idiots but not wicked.'

'Thank you,' Luca muttered. Brother Peter was too shamed to speak.

'Go then,' the Council leader said, and Luca, Brother Peter and Freize bowed in the contemptuous silence and turned and filed from the room Not a word pa.s.sed between them as they crossed the broad quay from the front door of the ducal palace and got into the rocking gondola. Freize gripped Luca's hand as Luca helped him into the boat, but the two young men said nothing.

Brother Peter drew up the hood of his robe and sat hunched, in the prow of the boat, his back to the other men as they paddled swiftly down the ca.n.a.l, turned in the palazzo watergate and Giuseppe brought the gondola to the quayside.

The guard had already gone from the watergate and there was no soldier on the street door. Luca called up to the girls' level: 'Isolde! Ishraq! We're back!' and heard the girls cross the floor above and come down the stairs as they went into the dining room.

The two girls came in and looked at the three silent men, at Freize's bruised face and Brother Peter's dark expression. Isolde closed the door behind them. 'What has happened?' she asked fearfully.

Luca shook his head. 'I swear that I don't know,' he said. He glanced uncertainly at Brother Peter. 'Perhaps we should never speak of it,' he said carefully.

Brother Peter rounded on him, exploding with rage. 'Fool!' he said. 'Call yourself an inquirer? And you could not see a lie as wide as that d.a.m.ned ca.n.a.l and twice as deep?'

Isolde recoiled in shock at Brother Peter's rage but Freize went towards him and bowed, with his hand on his heart. 'I thank you,' he said. 'It was the last thing that I expected you to say. I could do nothing but stare like a dolt.'

'Indeed, I was certain that you would play the part of a dolt very well,' Brother Peter said nastily.

Isolde took Freize's hand and turned him towards the candlelight to look at his damaged face. 'They hurt you?' she said quietly. Gently she touched his cheek. 'Oh Freize! Did they beat you?'

'Not much,' Freize said. 'But Brother Peter here saved me from hanging.'

'Saved you?' Luca asked, still shaken by Brother Peter's abuse.

'Of course,' Brother Peter said roundly. 'Did you really think that I was in the least attracted to that well-hung limb of Satan? Did you really think that I would send an idiot like Freize to a crook like Drago Nacari for a love potion? Do you think that I am a fool like Freize? Like you? To lose my head for a pretty face? And that one not so pretty anyway?'

Luca shook his head, slowly understanding. 'I believed you when you spoke before the Council,' he said. 'Call me a fool, but I believed every word that you said.'

'Then you had better learn the skill to look into men's hearts even when they are lying,' Brother Peter said. 'For you cannot be an inquirer if you can be fooled by a charade like that.'

'You lied to save Freize?' Isolde asked, grasping the main essential. 'You pretended that you had sent him to the Nacaris for a love potion?' Her voice quavered on a laugh and she tried to keep her face straight, but failed. 'You confessed to l.u.s.t, Brother Peter? And to needing a love potion?'

Brother Peter would not speak while Ishraq collapsed into giggles. Isolde started to laugh too and Luca gritted his teeth to stop himself from joining them. But Brother Peter and Freize were still grave.

'You laid down your reputation for my safety,' Freize said to him. 'I thank you. I owe you my life.'

Brother Peter nodded.

'You made a great sacrifice for Freize,' Isolde said, recovering from her laughter as she understood the importance of what Brother Peter had done. 'You made yourself look like a fool for him. That's a great thing for you, Brother Peter. That is a great gift you have given for Freize.'

'And you told a lie,' Ishraq wondered.

'I was not on oath, they did not ask me in the name of G.o.d,' Brother Peter specified. 'And they were quick to believe that a thin old clerk would dabble in such rubbish for l.u.s.t 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 walked to San Marco, with their purse of gold n.o.bles 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 n.o.bles. 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 the money changers were absent from their stalls. n.o.body 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 n.o.bles now. You can change them tomorrow. There is no need to press, there is no need to panic.'

'Tomorrow the value of the English n.o.bles 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 n.o.bles! 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 n.o.bles 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 n.o.ble, 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 n.o.bles was gone, had gone overnight. Each English n.o.ble 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 n.o.bles, trading in good gold, other currencies and even goods, were staring at ruin.

'So they think that between the good n.o.bles and the bad only a ninth of the coins will be found to be real gold?' Luca whispered to Brother Peter.

'They have to buy back the English n.o.bles one way or another, they have to set a rate or n.o.body 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 ca.n.a.l, 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 n.o.ble doubled in price overnight were the chimera.'

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 pa.s.sing 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 n.o.bles. We sent the money in English n.o.bles 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. Certainly they won't hear that the currency has failed till hours from now. 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 n.o.bles 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 n.o.bles.

His young face was gaunt with shock. 'Brother Peter, we put all of Milord's fortune into the n.o.bles. We are ruined too. 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.

They got home to find Freize and the girls sitting before a simple meal of soup and bread. 'The market is almost closed,' Isolde said. 'The stallholders will only accept silver and the price of everything is sky-high.'

Ishraq looked ill with shock. 'They won't take English n.o.bles, not even if you weigh them against gold in front of them, on the spice scales,' she said. 'Even if they can see that the n.o.bles are solid gold they won't trade with them. You can't even buy vegetables with them. They say that n.o.body knows what they are worth, and now they are saying they are unlucky coins. n.o.body can tell a coin that bleeds from one that is good. n.o.body wants anything. I sold Isolde's mother's rubies for dross.'

Isolde put her hand on Ishraq's shoulder. 'Don't blame yourself,' she said quietly. 'We're no worse off than everyone else in Venice.'

'Everyone else who was greedy enough to try to trade in coins,' Ishraq said bitterly. 'I kept those jewels safe through a flood, through a robbery and through the criminals of the nunnery. And then I robbed you myself.'

'Enough,' Brother Peter said quietly. 'You have done no worse than the great men of business. We'll see what gold you can get for the coins tomorrow, when the Doge releases his treasure. You can go out early. Freize can take you to the money changers.'

Ishraq nodded, her face still downcast. 'We know what we'll get,' she said miserably. 'One ducat to three n.o.bles. And I sold the rubies when it was almost the other way round.'

'We have work to do,' Brother Peter said to Luca.

'What?' Luca said. He found he was exhausted, sick with worry about the ransom for his father. He could not even bring himself to remind Ishraq that he shared her failure. Actually, he had been more foolish than her, trading in Milord's fortune for English n.o.bles, trying to buy his father's freedom in forged currency, ruining himself and betraying his father.

'We have to write to Milord,' Brother Peter ruled. 'We'll have to tell him what has happened here. And I will have to put it into code before you sign it. We should get the report sent today. Better that he hears from us than from someone else in Venice.'

'Who reports to him from Venice?' Freize asked, looking up from his bowl of soup.

'I don't know,' Brother Peter replied. 'But someone will.'

Luca sat at the table and drew the ink and pen and paper close. 'I hardly know where to begin,' he said.

'From the end of the last report. We had told him that we had located the forgers and were going to report them,' Brother Peter reminded him.'He is bound to be very displeased that we did not report them.'

'We found the counterfeiters but we let them go.' Luca listed their mistakes. 'We put all of Milord's fortune into English n.o.bles and they are now worth only a tiny part of their former price. We have lost him a fortune.'

'And by letting the counterfeiters go and the currency fail we have ruined many good men and destroyed confidence in Venice,' Brother Peter added. 'I have never been involved in such a disastrous inquiry before.'

'What does he do, when he is displeased?' Luca asked nervously.

Brother Peter shrugged. 'I don't know. I've never failed so badly. I've never been with an inquirer who failed to report a crime, who a.s.sociated with the criminals and who disobeyed orders.'

There was a terrible silence. 'I am sorry,' Luca said awkwardly. 'I am sorry for failing the Order, and him, and you.'

To his surprise, Brother Peter raised his head and gave Luca one of his rare smiles. 'You need not apologise to me,' he said. 'You pursued the truth as you always do steadily and persistently, with flashes of quite remarkable insight. But the truth is that speculation and profiteering and trade is a rotten business, and it falls in on itself like a rotten apple, eaten out by maggots. Milord knows this as well as you and I. He sent us into a city of vanities and we have seen its ugly side. We have done nothing wrong ourselves, but we have followed his orders in a sinful world. If we had reported the coiners earlier they still might have got away. It was Ishraq and Freize who helped them escape not us who belong to the Order. And even if we could have stopped them earlier, we would have been too late they had already released the bad coins into the market by the time we knew.'

'I thank you,' Luca said awkwardly. 'You are generous to overlook my mistakes. You wanted to report the forgers earlier, and you were right. We should have done that. And I thank you for saving Freize.'

Brother Peter turned his head away. 'We won't talk of that,' he said. 'We won't put that in the report.'

Next day Isolde was waiting for Luca in the dining room when he came down to breakfast. 'I couldn't sleep for thinking about your father,' she said. 'I have been praying that they ransomed him before they had the news about the n.o.bles.'

Luca's handsome young face was drawn. 'I couldn't sleep either,' he said. 'And we will have to wait until s.e.xt to see Father Pietro, if he comes today. He may not come at all.'

'Let's go to church and pray,' she said. 'And then we could walk to the Rialto. May I come with you?'