Will Whitaker - The King’s Diamond

In the days that followed I counted out my own modest savings and changed them into bills, while Christian Breakespere and even William Marshe volunteered small loans of their own. I made a last effort to discover the mistress’s name, going round all my trade connections and pressing Uncle Bennet to use his wiles at Court. But to no purpose. It was galling: without that knowledge my whole venture was at risk. I considered putting off my departure. But I had waited far too long already; if I was to have any chance of success I must sail now, even in my ignorance. I was convinced the mistress’s name would not stay secret long. I begged Uncle Bennet to discover it, and write to me as soon as possible. He nodded his bald head in assent.

‘Well, well, I will do all I can. And in return you must promise to send me news of Italy: her politics and the progress of the wars. Send me rumours, send me secrets. I have a particular reason for asking this of you, my Richard. See that you do not fail me, and I shall do my best for you in return.’

On the night before I was due to sail I folded my various bills of exchange inside my casket and nestled it down next to my skin. My great venture was about to begin.

My enterprise is slow and late in coming,

My hope unsure, while my desire mounts and grows;

To abandon or pursue, alike I grudge.

PETRARCH, CANZONIERE

A month later I stepped up on to the great wooden bridge that spans the Grand Canal in Venice. I was swelling with pride and excitement. Crowds pressed round me, noblemen with their servants, girls selling nuts and oranges, and merchants of every nation, Venetians and Turks, Jews and Greeks. Beside me trudged my servant, burly Martin Deller. He was the last person I would have chosen to accompany me. Many was the time in my childhood he had caught me in the forbidden depths of the warehouse, and dragged me out by one ear. But, ‘No servant, no thousand marks’: those were the Widow’s terms, and she insisted on the right to choose. He called me ‘master’ now, he wore a dagger at his side as well as an oak cudgel nine inches long, with a leather wrist strap at one end and some lead shot hammered into the other for weight. He was here to serve me and guard my goods: or so I was supposed to believe.

‘Master,’ he whispered, ‘do you think this is wise? Carrying so much coin?’

I paused at the highest point of the bridge and glanced at him in irritation. We had just come from the Fontego dei Tedeschi, the Exchange House of the Germans, a vast building of white stone with jagged crenellations like some Saracen fortress that rose five storeys high out of the water of the Grand Canal. Here, in the office of the agent of Anton Fugger, banker to emperors and popes, I had presented my mother’s bill and asked for a quarter of my sum in gold, and the rest in smaller bills of exchange. The agent unlocked one of the chests that stood against the wall and lifted out a large canvas bag. From this he scooped out gold, and gold, and more gold. It thrilled me to see those shimmering stacks of ducats, which the clerk marshalled into ranks, counted and then counted again: thirty stacks and more, of twenty ducats apiece, like the towers of a golden city. Seven hundred and seventeen coins in all, stamped on one side with Saint Mark and the Doge, and Christ seated in His glory on the other. I had the coins gathered into a leather purse, which I fastened to my belt beside my dagger. It was a fair burden: nearly four pounds’ weight of gold.

‘We shall not be carrying this for long, my Martin. We are about to begin to spend.’ Before us lay the Rialto: the richest two hundred yards of ground in the world. It formed an island, with the Grand Canal wrapping itself round it, north, east and south, while lesser canals cut it off to the west. All along its waterfronts vessels were constantly landing, a fresh one putting in just as soon as the last had discharged its cargo. Behind the canal, the Rialto’s lanes and squares were filled with myriad warehouses and shops, the fonteghi and botteghe, where you could buy anything that grows or is fashioned under the sun. I saw rich tapestries and carpets, ostrich eggs garnished in gold and coral, and backgammon tables inlaid with jasper and chalcedony and ivory, carved with heads and heraldic shields. There were painted playing cards crusted with gold leaf, and the most wondrous printed books with woodcuts on almost every page, for the best books in the world are Venetian; and of course all manner of marvels woven out of the gold thread which goes by the name of Venice gold. I could have filled the Rose seven times over with treasures.

I strode forward, down off the bridge, and at once caught sight of a goldsmith’s shop. It had as its sign a gold chain painted on a board, and several steps led down to its door from the street. I leapt down those steps and pushed open the door. For many a night I had dreamt of this, and I was here at last. But, as I stood in the dappled light that glimmered in through a barred window from the canal outside and looked round, I was puzzled. On the shelves of the shop were gold chains: nothing but slender gold chains, of a wonderful fineness, some enamelled, others set with pearls, others bearing the repeated SS of the spiritus sanctus. I questioned the jeweller as he came out from behind his workbench. It was then that I learnt the vast scale of the trade in Venice. There was no Goldsmiths’ Row as in London, with its fourteen shops, each one selling a little of everything. The goldsmiths of Venice were divided into twelve separate guilds, each encompassing dozens of craftsmen and shops. The establishment I had stepped into was of the branch that dealt only in catenelle d’oro: small gold chains. There were other shops for basins and chalices in silver, others for gold and silver cutlery; there was another guild for trinkets, another for the larger gold chains as opposed to the smaller, another for filigree and one for the setting of jewels; another for embossing and engraving and work with the chisel and stamps; there was even a guild all of its own for buttons made of fine gold wire. And that was not to mention the diamanteri: the jewellers, who are themselves split in two: those who trade in diamonds, and those who sell gems of colour. There was even a guild for sellers of imitation jewels and false pearls. ‘Then finally,’ the shopman went on, ‘there are those who carve rock crystal, and those who specialise in faceting, or casting gold in moulds of clay, with or without the use of clamps.’

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