The King's Diamond (11 page)

One morning, when I had not been asleep more than a couple of hours, I was woken by Martin shaking my arm. At his side I recognised the water-carrier's boy.

‘Come at once,' he whispered to me, ‘and you will see something to interest you.'

I grabbed my purse of gold. In a few moments we were out in the early dawn twilight. The shadows were thick in the narrow lanes, and we followed the boy with his lantern like a will o' the wisp. We ducked through an archway and down to the canal, where the old water-carrier was waiting in his boat.

‘So there is a ship,' I prompted, as the boy began rowing us out past the fish market in the direction of the Grand Canal.

‘There is a ship,' the old man confirmed. ‘The master of it is in debt, and he wishes to sell some of his goods at once, before his creditors hear of his arrival, and before the officers of the Customs
come out to search. He has already parted with certain rolls of silk: dark work, without lights.'

‘And from where has this ship come?' I asked.

The old man turned back to me, and I saw in his eyes for a moment the excitement that all Venetians feel at the mention of the East. ‘From Egypt.'

We were drawing away from the city, out into the Lagoon. The early morning mist lay in swirls over the water. Rising from it was a ship: a great ship of good tonnage, with a high, gilded stern and the figure of a triton at her bow. It had rained in the night, and her sails were spread in the slack air to dry. We had perhaps an hour's grace before her arrival was known. To come aboard before the officers of the Dogana was a crime of seriousness. I must finish whatever business waited for me on board, and get away with dispatch.

I climbed the ladder, and clasped the hand of the ship's master, a bearded Neapolitan with a scar running down one cheek. He nodded and led me astern into the great cabin. I saw Martin come in after me and look round with a scowl, his hand on the hilt of his dagger. Only now did I realise how imprudent I had been. We were at their mercy out here, in the morning mist, unknown to anyone. And they knew that we carried gold. Robbery and murder would be easy. I jumped as the master shut the door behind me. But then he walked over to a table spread with a white cloth beneath a hanging lantern, and nudged towards me a leather pouch. I sat down and tipped out a scatter of stones.

I thrilled to see them tumble out in front of me. There were fifteen or so of them, all uncut, some larger, some smaller. The light in here was poor, and in the morning's hurry I had forgotten my scales. This would be a stern test: I was about to find out whether I had profited from my hours in the shops on Cheapside; whether my eyes and ears had been open, or whether, as the goldsmiths say of a stone that is dull and admits no light, I had been deaf and blind. I held the first stone up to the lanternlight. It had a pallid yellow gleam like a young
oakleaf, and yet it was oddly darkened; whichever way I held it, it refused to shine. In its depths were flecks of gold. I was almost sure this was a chrysoprase, of India. This kind of stone must be cut with care, most commonly into a six-sided figure; too often even this fails, and it appears dull, blunt, quenched of all its fire. Only time would tell. If I was right, this stone could be nursed into a surprising and uncommon glory.

I put it down, forcing myself to seem unconcerned. The captain was stooping over me. ‘Well? Come, you must be quick.'

I turned to another of the stones. This one, grey-green and lumpish, sat against the cloth as dark as a common pebble. As I held it up to the lantern its gloom deepened; but then it must have caught the tiniest gleam, and it erupted suddenly into life. A shaft of pure forest-green shot out of it, leaving the heart of the stone still a mystery. I stood for a long time, gazing, turning the stone in my fingers, entirely forgetting where I was. A stone of this depth must, I thought, be an emerald of Persia. You might gaze on it every day of your life, and never understand it. There was no question it was a stone worthy of a king.

Just then one of the sailors burst in at the door and said something to the captain in a rapid Neapolitan dialect which I did not catch. The captain hurried to the window, and swore. Martin peered out beside him.

‘It's the Customs officers, master. We're in trouble.'

I looked round. Through the stern windows a boat could be seen, pulling out from the city through the clearing mist. It was being rowed by several men, and from the bold streak of its wake it must be closing on us fast. I turned back to the stones.

‘Master! Please! We must go!'

I picked up a white stone of the soft colour of skimmed milk. A sapphire, not a doubt. And I saw a scatter of Oriental amethysts, and several large garnets of a good red flame. I longed to gaze inside each one. But the danger now was pressing. I looked up at the captain, who kept his hard eyes fixed on me.

‘So?' he demanded. ‘What will you offer?'

I stretched, as if there were all the time in the world.

‘Difficult to set a price,' I said, ‘without scales, and in this light. If you would bring your stones ashore to the Rialto, perhaps this afternoon?'

‘By Christ,' the ship's master growled, ‘I will sell these stones here or not at all. A thousand: and then I want you off my ship. Or are you asking to have your throat cut?'

Three or four sailors had come in through the open door, and were murmuring together, and pointing out through the window at the rapidly approaching boat. I saw they had knives at their belts.

‘You are too late for that,' I told him. ‘Our bodies would be found, and you would be hanged at the columns of Saint Mark's.' I considered rapidly. This purchase would be a throw of the dice. The emerald was worth two hundred ducats or more: if it could be made to shine. The sapphire, I thought, a hundred. The amethysts: I could not say if they were perfect; if so, perhaps the same again. The chrysoprase might be worth much, or little or nothing.

‘Five hundred.'

‘Master, please!' Martin shook my arm. ‘There is a law against even being here. Leave them! If we are found here with gold, and these stones!'

The captain rested his fists on the table. ‘Eight hundred.'

Another face appeared at the door: it was the water-carrier's boy. ‘My grandfather says we are leaving.'

I stood up, and tossed Martin my purse. ‘Martin, count out six hundred ducats. Sir,' I said, turning to the captain, ‘I regret we cannot continue our discussion further.'

Martin tipped out a shower of gold. He sorted the coins rapidly into mounds of twenty ducats apiece, which he pushed across the table to the captain. I swept the gems back into their pouch, picked up the purse and dropped the company a bow as Martin and the boy rushed for the door. The captain was cursing and muttering,
mounding the pile of coins together. ‘A bag for this gold! Get it hidden! And you, get off my ship!'

I turned and ran out on deck. Martin was already disappearing down the ladder. The ship had fortunately swung round at anchor, so that the side we had boarded by was hidden from the city. I climbed down, and the boy shoved off with an oar and pulled away into the mist. There was not a breath of wind. The sun was rising, an orange fireball hanging over the city. The boatload of Customs officers was heading for the great ship, not expecting to see anything else. There were six men at the oars, and a man in a feathered hat kneeling up at the bows with one hand on his sword. Suddenly there was a shout across the water, and I saw his arm stretch out. The boat changed its course and began bearing down on us.

‘Faster, Zuane,' the old man urged. The boy let his oars splash in the water in his panic. With a growl, Martin pushed him aside and took them from him. His strokes were strong, and we heard the water streaming past beneath us. The mist curled round and about, folding us in blank whiteness one moment and revealing many furlongs of calm, open water the next. Each time the mist cleared, the Customs boat was nearer. I pictured myself now losing everything I had, and being thrown into a Venetian prison, where the fevers breed and condemn you to a death as certain as hanging.

‘Look!'

The boy was pointing ahead. I turned, and saw another boat through the mist, its single sail furled on its yard, moving slowly across our bows.

Martin turned his head, and paused at his oars. ‘God damn them, now we're finished.'

‘No,' said the old man. ‘Row! Keep rowing!'

Martin pulled away into a fresh bank of mist. When we came out of it I saw another boat, and another.

‘Thank God and Saint Nicholas for the fishing fleet,' said the old water-carrier. ‘Turn and follow them.'

Martin did. We could still see the officers behind us, skimming in among the boats. We were in the midst of them. There were the larger round-bottomed
marciliane
with masts, but also a good many rowing skiffs the same size as ours. When I looked back next our pursuers were hanging at their oars, scanning among the boats, unsure.

‘Hah!' crowed Martin. ‘Let the whoresons puzzle that out!'

‘Quiet,' I whispered. ‘Sound travels. Just follow those boats.'

We were approaching the edge of the city. You could see the wharves and warehouses, and the towers of the churches rising behind. We slipped in between the houses after a line of fishing boats, down the Rio di San Girolamo. This way led us under the frowning walls of the Ghetto, where the guards in their boats were rowing home after their night's work protecting Christendom from the inmates. One of these boats came abreast of us, a stern officer in feathered hat and black doublet in the prow. He doffed his hat and bowed. I returned the courtesy. Then we turned south, down the Grand Canal, and put in along with the horde of other vessels all landing their night's catch at the fish market, on the north shore of the Rialto. Here no one spared us a glance. We were clear: and our escape had saved the Neapolitans as well. No one could prove we had been anything more than a fishing boat, passing too close to a great ship in the mist.

I stepped ashore at last and gave the water-carriers three ducats, and another three to Martin. He rubbed the coins in his hands, and cast a sideways glance at my purse, into which I had hastily dropped the pouch of jewels.

‘I hope, master, you know what you have done.'

We walked swiftly back up from the fish market, with the rising sun glinting on paving stones still wet from the night's rain. Maids were coming out of the houses to dip their pails in the wells; handcarts rumbled past, carrying goods to or from the markets. When we got back to the barber's house I locked myself in my bedchamber and told Martin to guard the door with his life. I would be a man in torment until I had opened that pouch again and gauged just what I had bought. I peeled the bed back to its sheet and spread out my hoard.

First I lifted up the emerald and peered at it through my perspective glass, a disc a couple of inches across that had the wonderful property of magnifying any object held just beyond it. As I turned it, the stone allowed me yet another glimpse into its wondrous secrets, and then again it went dark. I put it on the scales. It weighed four and a half carats, just under a scruple: an impressive weight. I still believed this was a stone among thousands; its worth in the end might be three hundred ducats or more. But it would take a masterhand to cut and mount it so that the ordinary eye could see its beauty. I put it down and turned to the others. The chrysoprase too would reward me, but would require skill. The amethysts were a mixed bunch.
Some were dull and pale as crystal; others were too dark, like heavy wine. But between the two extremes were a few that were pure peach-blossom, and another one or two, sky-blue, that flashed with a pale flame. Amethysts of this kind come from the mines of India. They are prized highly, and are worth nearly as much as diamonds. The white sapphire pleased me, and so did most of the garnets. I parted the stones into two piles: those fit for a king, and those not. I took the rejects to one of the underground goldsmiths' shops and sold them for eighty ducats. It was a beginning: but I could not stop there.

I went that morning to the tailor's, and found that my new clothes were ready. I dressed myself in all my finery: my black doublet, the silken hose and silver-edged cloak, and my new velvet hat with the ostrich feathers. Then I took possession of my sword. It was a beautiful piece of steel, with a large cross hilt and curved guard over it. The blade slid with a satisfying swish into its scabbard. With this strapped to my side, tugging at me with its unfamiliar weight, I felt myself beginning to be a gentleman. When night fell I set off with Martin for the Bridge of Nipples.

When I stepped inside the room with the four daybeds I bowed just so, with a backward swish of my cloak, holding my sword hilt in my left hand, while I doffed my hat with the right.

‘Most noble ladies,' I said, ‘will you do me the honour of accompanying me to a casin?'

The four replied with Ahhs of appreciation. I straightened up, gratified, and presented them with some trinkets I had bought earlier.

‘Such the fine gentleman,' Armida laughed, unstopping a bottle of scent.

‘But is he ready?' said Dardania.

‘He is ready,' said Ippolita with decision. ‘But only one of us can take him.'

Ippolita prepared herself. She dressed with care in a gown of yellow satin, with sleeves of green velvet embroidered with Venice gold. Armida braided her hair, and Dardania brought out a gold
chain with a large, green jasper set as a pendant, and fastened it round her throat. Ippolita stood before me with poise and restraint, and yet with that
leggiadria
, the grace and lightness, that Venetians so prize. She was no courtesan, but a lady.

She led me out into the street and down to the bridge, where a gondola was waiting. The water swirled past, and I saw from the curtained window that we made several turns into other narrow canals. In a few minutes we bumped against a pier. There were twenty or so gondolas tied up here, many with silver or gold trim and coats of arms blazoned on their cabins, and servants or slaves squatting in their sterns. Behind the pier was a yellow stuccoed building with Moorish arched windows. From inside came the sound of music, and loud voices and laughter. We climbed the stairs to a door guarded by a pair of strongly built servants wearing swords and daggers. I gave them each a supercilious nod, twitched back my cloak to show my bulging purse, and we were through.

We were in a long sala, filled with richly dressed men and women. Some were walking up and down, arm in arm, talking and laughing. But most were sitting at tables over cards, silently intent, then bursting out in sudden shouts of triumph or despair. At one end stood a group of musicians, two playing shawms with their flared mouths in the air, one holding a violin low over his chest, another beating on a drum. Silk hangings, blue and white, shimmered from the walls. From the whole room came a drench of sweat, mingled with ambergris and musk.

Ippolita touched my arm and pointed. ‘Over there. That is Giacomo da Crema: the man who gave me my pearls.'

We moved through the crowd until we stood behind one of the tables. Three men were sitting at it, each holding cards. In front of them were piles of ducats, which they tossed into a heap in the middle. The cards were objects of wonder themselves. They were exquisitely painted and gilt, and had on them coins and swords, knights and ladies. I understood nothing of their play.

‘The game is primiera,' whispered Ippolita. ‘Watch.' The men, I took it, were staking gold on the quality of the cards in their hands, which they were continually rejecting in dissatisfaction and exchanging for others, and throwing in fresh gold from their store. Da Crema was sweating. When one of the others called, ‘Go!' and laid down five cards each bristling with swords, da Crema burst out ‘The Devil!' and threw his away. The winner leant forward with a burst of taunting laughter and pulled in the pile of gold. The third man dealt a fresh round. I watched in fascination. The thought of staking gold in this fashion horrified me, yet drew me with a powerful attraction. I swore I would never give in to it. My venture was too much of a gamble already.

Da Crema lost again, and the last of his gold was gone. With a trembling hand he reached inside his doublet, pulled out a small purse, and tipped out on the table a scatter of ten or eleven small, blue stones. The other men blinked, and I leant forward to see. They were sapphires: rough, clouded things for the most part that would need severe trimming and discarding, like half-rotten pears. But I liked their colour. It was the pure blue of a summer sky: the most prized shade in a sapphire, and not often to be seen.

One of the other men scoffed. ‘These! What are these? Well, play with them then, if you must. A ducat apiece.'

I dropped my purse on the table, so that it fell with a heavy clink. ‘I will buy them. Five ducats each.' Da Crema looked up at me like a man saved from hanging. I counted him out fifty-five ducats, and pocketed the stones. Well pleased, I led my Ippolita to a long table where couples were sitting down to a banquet of roast pigeons and Tuscan wine. The wine and my success made me feel amorous, and I was running my hand along Ippolita's leg and trying to persuade her into a balcony or a sideroom, when da Crema came up to us, tossing a large purse of coins in the air and laughing.

‘You have brought me Fortune, my friend,' he said, sitting down. ‘I desire better acquaintance with you.'

Ippolita gave me a warning look, but I rose and bowed. ‘Richard Dansey. Of London.'

He looked at me narrowly, and then at Ippolita, whom he plainly recognised. ‘But I do not think you are a noble.'

I bowed again. ‘Merely a lover of life, and beauty, and precious stones.'

He laughed and clapped me on the back. ‘If that is the case, follow me.'

He led us back down to the quay, to a gondola with a silver dolphin on its door. He stooped into the cabin and called out to the Moorish gondolier, ‘Home.'

Ippolita and I followed in ours. As we skimmed down a wider canal the moon came out and shone like quicksilver on the water. The great bell of Saint Mark's struck two in the morning. We put in at last at a row of pilings before a square-set palazzo on the east bank of the Grand Canal. Lights glimmered from its traceried windows. A servant came to meet us with a lighted candelabrum and led us up a broad staircase, through the echoing vastness of a large sala, to an intimate study. Its walls were inlaid with many-coloured marble, against which were set clocks, pictures, statues and books in gilt bindings. But there were many gaps on the shelves. The place had an air of sadness. Da Crema told his servant to lift down a leather-covered box, which he opened.

As the lid came back, a glow of flame leapt from the box. Inside was a ruby: a great ruby, uncut, and of the flattened shape that is the most prized in that variety of stone. It was pale at its extremity but a dark violet within, like the heart of a deeply banked fire. It had depth and it had mystery. I believed it must be from Serendip, that island kingdom of treasures south of India that is also known as Zeilan. It must have weighed a full two scruples, that is, twelve carats or a twelfth of an ounce. I would have killed to possess it.

‘My father,' said da Crema, ‘collected such things. He would never have his stones set. He said he wanted to see them in their virgin
purity. Poor, poor Papa. His stones make me so sad.' He gestured to the servant. ‘You! Wine!'

I was gazing still on the ruby.

‘Papa was our ambassador to the court of the Grand Turk in Constantinople. It would have made you swoon to see the treasures he brought back. Now most of them are gone. When he died, he made me swear I would never let these last stones see the inside of a shop. But I find I have a need for funds. And you: you are not a shopman.'

I met his eye. ‘Indeed I am not.'

The servant came back with the wine and silver goblets, which he set out on a table inlaid with precious woods.

‘Well then,' went on da Crema, ‘would you care to see more?'

 

That night, in addition to the ruby, I came away with an emerald of a vivid meadow green. I judged it was of the kind known from ancient times as Scythian, from the land of the Cossacks: the rarest and finest, and most dangerous to mine. I also acquired a small collection of jacinths. These were angry gems that flamed red out of a glare of yellow; from these stones, so Scripture says, will be fashioned the armour of the horsemen of the Apocalypse, who will destroy a third of all men. The ruby alone cost me three hundred ducats: and worth it. I thought back to that first ruby that had tempted me so sorely: a beautiful, obvious, shopman's stone at two thousand, that would have put an end to any further buying. How well I had done to wait. I could imagine myself at last kneeling before the King with these; having men of rank raise their eyebrows in surprise, and turn their heads and murmur when I passed; making women like Hannah Cage breathe quicker when they saw me. Da Crema embraced me as we parted. With the bag of gold I had given him in one hand, he hurried back into his gondola. As we pushed off over the black water I heard him call to his slave, ‘What are you waiting for? Back to the casin!'

In the closed cabin of our own gondola, Ippolita lifted one eyebrow. ‘And now? Are you pleased?' I had a twinge of sadness, I admit, as I thought of da Crema and his addiction, and the easy way he would lose my gold. But I had my stones, and a bewitching woman was smiling at me from the purple velvet cushion across the tiny cabin. I sprang across to her, making the boat rock. While the gondola glided on, at last we had the sport I had been longing for. I left her at her door, five ducats richer, and walked home across the Rialto.

It was too late to sleep. As dawn rose over the city I opened up my casket and lifted out the stones, turning them over in the clear, pale light to catch their every aspect, greeting the fresh arrivals, and probing the old ones for new discoveries and new approaches into their secrets. But the question of their treatment tormented me. To cut and set them worthily would be a labour of Hercules.

Night after night I returned to the casin. Ippolita often accompanied me, and more than once she left in the company of someone else, some young noble with his gold chain round his neck and his six or seven lackeys at his heels. I smarted at this, but I was not such a fool as to part with the vast sums of gold it would require to make Ippolita all my own. She had her plans, and I had mine. And so I let Giacomo da Crema slip his arm through mine and lead me from one casin to the next, silk-draped halls by shadowed canals thronged with gondolas. The same mad hilarity reigned in all these places, the same air of mingled triumph and misery. Da Crema introduced me as Milor de li Diamanti, the great English aristocrat. While he played I glided from table to table, summoned back when da Crema fell into difficulties by his cries of ‘Milor, Milor! Price me this topaz!' Every man and woman there was loaded with precious stones. I watched for my chances, and when luck ran against them, and the fine ladies tearfully began unclasping emerald earrings, or taking ropes of pearls from their hair, I struck. Many of these trinkets were of no use to me, and I sold them to the goldsmiths for a profit. But I acquired a
handful of gleaming cats' eyes, and a pleasing addition to my amethysts, each exquisite of its own kind.

 

One night towards the end of October, when a chill wind was whining in from the sea, I was hurrying home along one of the many narrow lanes of the Carampane when I felt a hand suddenly grab me and swing me back into a dark opening. I tried to reach for my sword, but a foot landed in my stomach and I fell back, to be caught and pinioned by another man, gasping for breath. Martin, I saw, was struggling against another two of them. His lantern, rolling where he had dropped it, darted its light over the paving stones. A fifth man approached me, black-cloaked and hooded, and in his hand was a dagger.

‘The Englishman who buys jewels,' he sneered. ‘They say you carry all your wealth on your person. Is that true?'

‘Who would be such a fool?' I snarled. The casket pressed into my chest. I was sweating. In only a few moments, when they searched me, I would lose everything. I gave another kick and tried to get my arms free, but they gripped me tight. Martin, I noticed, was lying back in the two men's arms, slack and heavy. He appeared to have given up completely.