Fools' Gold (4 page)

Luca raised his head. ‘There,’ he said, a little breathlessly, when he finally let her go. ‘As you see. I do not hesitate to kiss my bride. We are husband and wife, she is my chattel now. Her brother has lost all his rights over her. She belongs to me.’

Freize nodded sagely. ‘A wife must go with her husband. His rights come first.’

Brother Peter’s face was frozen with horror at the lies spilling out of Luca’s mouth but he said nothing.

The Lucretili man turned to him. ‘Am I supposed to believe this? What about you, Priest? Are you going to tell me you are married to the other one? Are you going to kiss her to prove it?’

‘No,’ Brother Peter said shortly. ‘I live inside my vows.’

‘But these two are truly husband and wife? In the sight of God?’

Brother Peter opened his mouth. A little swell rocked the boat and he put his hand on the rail to steady himself.

‘You are their witness before God,’ the man reminded him. ‘I conjure you, in His name, to tell me the truth.’

Brother Peter gulped.

‘On your oath as a priest,’ the man reminded him. ‘The truth, in the sight of God.’

Brother Peter turned to Isolde as she stood, her arm still around Luca’s waist. ‘I am sorry,’ he said, his voice very low. ‘Very sorry. But I can’t lie on God’s name. I cannot do it.’

She nodded. ‘I understand,’ she said quietly and moved away from Luca as he let her go.

‘He doesn’t have to say anything,’ Ishraq spoke up. ‘I will bear witness.’

The man shrugged. ‘Your word means nothing. You are an infidel, and a slave and a woman. Your words are like birdsong in the morning. Too loud, and completely meaningless. Now,’ he turned his attention briskly to Luca. ‘Send both of the women over the side of the ship or I will order my men to board your craft and we will take them by force.’

Luca looked down; there were about a dozen men in the galley, fully armed. He glanced at Freize, who stoically hefted his cudgel. Clearly, they could fight; but the odds were heavily against them. They were certain to lose.

The commander turned to the boatman, who was grimly listening in the stern of the boat. ‘You are carrying stolen goods: these two women belong to the Lord of Lucretili. If I have to, I will board your ship to take them, and there may be damage to your ship or danger to you. Or you can give them up to me and there will be no trouble.’

‘I took them in good faith as passengers,’ the boatman shouted back. ‘If they are yours, they can go with you. I’m not responsible for them.’

‘There’s no point fighting,’ Isolde said very low to Luca. ‘It’s hopeless. Don’t try anything. I’ll give myself up.’

Before he could protest, she called down to the man in the galley below: ‘Do you give your word that you will take us safely to my brother?’

He nodded. ‘I am commanded not to harm you in any way.’

She made up her mind. ‘Get our things,’ she said over her shoulder to Ishraq, who quickly went to the cabin and came out with their two saddlebags, tucking Freize’s knife out of sight, into the rope at her belt.

‘And what is to happen to me?’ Isolde demanded. She beckoned Ishraq to go with her as she went to the prow of the boat. The commander gestured to Luca and Freize that they should haul his boat alongside, so that the young women could climb down over the rail and into the waiting galley.

‘Your brother believes that you are trying to get to the Count of Wallachia for his help. He thinks you will try to get an army to come against him and claim your home. So he’s going to marry you to a French count who will take you away and keep you in his castle.’

‘And what about me?’ Ishraq asked, as Luca, Freize and Peter each took a grappling iron and, pulling on the ropes, walked the galley to the prow of the boat.

‘You, I have to sell to the Ottomans as a slave, in Venice,’ the man said. ‘I am sorry. Those are my orders.’

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 snatched 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 assured 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 circumstances?’

‘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, God 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 space 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.