Fools' Gold (Preview)

Chapter 3

First, as always, before they did anything else, Brother Peter, Luca and Isolde had to go to church and give thanks for their safe arrival. Ishraq and Freize, as an infidel and a servant, were excused.

‘Go to the Rialto,’ Luca ordered Freize. ‘See if they have heard of Father Pietro. I will come myself to speak with him later.’

Luca, Brother Peter and Isolde, with her hood pulled modestly forward, left the house by the little door onto the paved way beside the narrow canal and turned to their right to walk through the narrow alley to the Piazza San Marco where the great church bells echoed out, ring- ing for Terce, sending the pigeons soaring up into the cold blue sky, and the gorgeously costumed Venetians posed and paraded up to the very doors of the church itself.

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Ishraq and Freize closed the side door on their compan- ions and stood for a moment in the quiet hall.

‘May I show you the rooms?’ the housekeeper asked them, and led them up the wide flight of marble stairs to the first floor of the building where a large reception room overlooked the canal with huge double-height windows leading to a little balcony. The grand room was warm, a small fire burned in the grate and the sunshine poured in through the window. Leading off were three smaller rooms.

The housekeeper led them up again to the same layout of rooms on the upper floor. ‘We’ll take the top floor,’ Ishraq said. ‘You can have the first.’

‘And above you are the kitchens and the servants’ rooms,’ the housekeeper said, gesturing to the smaller stairs that went on up.

‘Kitchens in the attic?’ Freize asked.

‘To keep the house safe in case of fire,’ she said. ‘We Venetians are so afraid of fire, and we have no space to put the kitchens at a distance from the house on the ground floor. All the space on the ground floor is the courtyard and the garden, and at the front of the house the quay and the watergate.’

‘And are you the cook?’ Freize asked, thinking that he would be glad of a good lunch when the others came back from church.

She nodded.

‘We’ll go and run our errands and perhaps return to a large lunch?’ Freize hinted. ‘For we had a long cold night with nothing but some bread and a few eggs, and I, for one, would be glad to try the Venice specialities and your cooking.’

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She smiled. ‘I shall have it ready for you. Will you take the gondola?’

Freize and Ishraq exchanged a delighted grin. ‘Can we?’ Ishraq asked.

‘Of course,’ she replied. ‘It’s the only way to get around this city.’ She led the way down the marble stairs to the ground floor, to the waterside front of the house, and their own private quay, where their gondola rocked at its moor- ings. The housekeeper waved them down the final flight of stairs and indicated the manservant who came out of a doorway, wiping his mouth and pulling on his bright feath- ered cap.

‘Giuseppe,’ she said by way of introduction. ‘He will take you wherever you want to go, and wait and bring you home.’

The man pulled the boat close to the quay, and held out his hand to help Ishraq aboard. Freize stepped heavily after her and Ishraq cried out and then laughed as the boat rocked.

‘This is going to take some getting used to,’ Freize said. ‘I am missing Rufino already; how ever will he manage with- out me?’ He turned to the gondolier, Giuseppe. ‘Can you take us to the Rialto?’

‘Of course,’ the boatman said and loosened the tasselled tie that held the gondola prow against the wall of the house. He stepped onto the platform in the stern and with one skil- ful push of the single oar thrust them out of the house and into the teeming water traffic of the Grand Canal.