Fools' Gold Read Online Free PDF

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.
    ‘Glassworks,’ the boatman explained. ‘They’re not allowed to make glass 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