Imitation and Alchemy: An Elemental Legacy Novella (9 page)

“Where are we going?” he shouted.

“Murano.”

“The island of glassblowers?”

“It’s not just glass. But the glass helps. Nobody notices his forges there.”

Forges. Of course. You couldn’t fake medieval coins with a regular art forger, you needed a metalsmith. Someone who could pour the metal and create the dies for the coins. You’d need an engraver too.

“Tenzin?” He switched to Mandarin. “Do you actually have these coins?”

“Of course. I’ve had them for around four hundred years. Took them from the Neapolitan treasury ages ago.”

“So you stole them?”

She shrugged. “Define
steal
.”

That sounded like a conversation he’d need more wine for. “The manual you took from Perugia. Was it for your forger’s benefit or yours?”

“Mine. Oscar has been doing this for a long time. I just wanted to check his work. Don’t mention the manual to him. He’d be offended.”

“Wouldn’t dare.”

The moon peeked from behind the clouds and lit up the lagoon. Ben tried not to notice how fast they were going since Claudio looked bored. This was clearly a familiar route for the young Venetian.

“The museum,” she said. “Did you go like I asked?”

“I did.”

“Several of Oscar’s copies are in there,” Tenzin said.

“So he’s good.”

“He’s the best.”

Ben could see tiny lights in the distance. The flat outline of Murano appeared in the sliver of moonlight. The small collection of islands had become the home of all Venetian glassmakers in the thirteenth century when they were forced off the main island by fears of fire. Since then, Murano had swelled and waned in power. Now it was part of Venice, but Ben knew at one time it had its own government. Even minted its own coinage.

“How old is Oscar?” he asked.

Tenzin shrugged. “Ask Oscar.”

Yeah, that was likely.

“I first heard of him in the seventeenth century,” Tenzin said. “He already had a very good reputation as a metalsmith. Water vampire, of course. Most Venetians are. He designed a piece of jewelry for me around the time I bought my house here. We’ve been… associates since then.”

“So he’s at least five hundred years old.”

“I’d estimate around six. He was young when I met him, but not that young.”

Ben nodded and tucked the information away. Venice in the seventeenth century would have been in decline as an economic and cultural power, but it was still plenty wealthy. Tenzin must have paid someone off handsomely to buy a home in San Marco.

“We’ll go to his workshop tonight so you can meet him. He told me the job is about half done. He’ll need another week at least before we can return the coins to Alfonso.”

“You mean give him the fakes?” He shook his head. “Do you really have the tarì? Or was this whole thing a ruse?”

“Would I lie to you? Of course I have them. How else could Oscar have reproduced them? I like them, and I don’t want to give them back. Why should I when I can hire Oscar to make some very nice fakes for Alfonso? I even found some North African gold to duplicate the originals.”

“Tenzin, that’s not the— Wait, you had a stash of North African gold just lying around?”

“Yes.”

He let out a slow breath. “Sometimes I want to be you when I grow up, then I think about your tenuous grasp on sanity and remind myself it wouldn’t be a good idea.”

She leaned her head back and closed her eyes. The wind whipped her hair around her head. She wasn’t wearing braids, so the mass of it rose like a black cloud behind her.

“Sanity,” she said, “is vastly overrated.”

“Is it really worth pissing off the Mad Duke to keep some old coins? Especially when Gio asked us to tread carefully in Naples? Are they worth
that
much money?”

“No.” She sat up and squinted. “That’s not the point.”

“What is the point?”

“They’re mine. I don’t give people things that are mine. Especially if I don’t like those people.”

“But you’ll go to all this trouble to forge duplicates for him?”

A smile quirked her lips. “I will enjoy his look of triumph when he holds the fakes. That will be very satisfying.”

“Because you’ll be laughing internally?”

“Yes.”

“You’re twisted, Tiny. So very twisted.”

“That’s what keeps me alive.” She leaned forward as the boat approached the islands. Instead of pulling into the main canal, Claudio turned northeast and headed along the outer edge of Murano, slowing to putter past tiny docks where local boats bobbed in the chop. He pulled up to an unmarked set of steps near a redbrick wall.

“Three a.m.?” Claudio asked.

“We’ll be here between three and four,” Tenzin said. “Is that enough time?”

“Of course.” Claudio grinned. “The boat can always go faster.”

“Don’t scare the boy. I can fly back if time gets short.”

Tenzin floated out of the boat and Ben leapt across to the closest dry step.
 

“Thanks, Claudio.”

“See you later,” the young man called in English.

Tenzin took Ben’s hand and led him down narrow pitch-black streets. Within minutes they were standing outside a small warehouse, its high windows glowing with a red-gold light.

Tenzin knocked once, then pushed the door open. They walked in to see a large, open workshop with a glowing-red forge at one end, racks of tools and equipment across the opposite wall, and a large worktable at the other. A worktable where a black-haired vampire held a woman sprawled. She was half-undressed and her hand clutched his long hair.

“Oscar!” Tenzin yelled.

The vampire’s head rose, blood dripping from his lips and his fangs bared.

“You’re late,” he growled. His hands still pinned the woman down, but she was struggling.

Ben’s lip curled and he reached for the knife at his waist. Tenzin put a hand out, halting him.

“I’m paying you to mint coins, not have sex with your engraver. Let Ruby go and show me what’s finished.”

Chapter Six

RUBY SMACKED OSCAR’S MASSIVE SHOULDER. “Let me up, you beast. And get your hands out of my knickers. You got no sense of propriety, you don’t. Sorry, Tenzin!”

Ben turned and faced the forge. “Maybe we should have waited for them to answer the door, huh, Tiny?”

“Why?”

“I forget I ask this of the woman who regularly climbs in my bed to stare at me while I sleep.”

“You make it sound creepy, when really I’m just impatient.”

Ruby continued to berate Oscar as she dressed. The old vampire muttered something under his breath and she quieted. Then he walked to the forge and waved them over.

“This gold,” he said, motioning to a small table. “It’s very soft.”

“It should be the same composition as the originals,” Tenzin said, picking up a button of gold from a shallow pan of sand where a row of buttons had been poured. She dropped it in the bucket nearby.

“It is,” Oscar said.

Ben couldn’t quite place Oscar’s accent. He didn’t sound or look Italian. Ben was guessing Spanish, but what would a Spanish glassmaker be doing in Murano? He had a large, smooth scar up the side of his neck, and his head was square as a block. Heavy black hair curtained a face that wasn’t handsome but might be called compelling.

Oscar took a pair of clippers and snipped at the row of gold buttons, trimming them into neat rounds as he dropped them in the water. “The softness of this particular alloy means we’ll have to do more deformation with the finished pieces than I originally planned.”

“You saw the originals I brought. I trust your skills.”

“I want some of the trimmings from the reproductions.”

Tenzin cocked her head and watched him work. “No.”

“I want them,” Oscar said, dropping the trimmed gold into a small crucible where he’d melt it down again to make more buttons. Ben could see another pan of sand with round indentations where the smith would pour the next batch of molten gold. “I’m willing to subtract the value out of my fee. I’ll even pay above market.”

Now Tenzin looked curious. “Why?”

“I want it for a project. That’s all you need to know,” Oscar said. “Can we work something out or not?”

Tenzin said, “Fine. I’ll talk to you about it when the coins are done.”

“Good.” He nodded toward Ruby and continued trimming. “She has the last two die sets done.”

“Excellent.”

Ben and Tenzin walked back to the worktable where Ruby was still tucking in her shirt. “Sorry about that, Tenzin.”

“Forget about it,” Tenzin said. “Ruby, Ben. Ben, Ruby.”

“Oh, oi,” Ruby said, dark brown eyes sparkling in her round face. She looked African, but every syllable she spoke screamed London. Ben liked her smile, even when he caught the edge of tiny fangs peeking from her lips. “Pleasure to meet you, Ben.”

Not a human. Interesting.

“Nice to meet you too.” He held out a hand and she took it immediately. Ben was guessing Ruby was fairly young. Her mannerisms and slang said newly turned, and her hair was cut in a stylish, short afro held back with a deep purple scarf.

“So you’re the engraver?” he asked.

“I am now!” She grinned. “Oscar taught me the engraving bit. I was an art student before… before.”

“She’s good,” Oscar growled across the room. “She’ll be better than me with practice.”

“And this was very good practice,” she said, pulling up the heavy metal dies with intricate carvings on the face. “Now keep in mind, the actual dies would have degraded over years of use, but we don’t have time for that. These are the new ones, but like the other two sets, Oscar’ll heat ’em and cool ’em a few times to soften up the edges before we strike the actual coins.”

Tenzin nodded as if that all made sense. Ben was quickly catching up.

The original coins were over eight hundred years old. They would be scarred and deformed from time. Though gold didn’t deteriorate like silver or bronze, some marks of age would be inevitable. The original coin dies used to strike them would have had variations too. So after producing the imitations, Ruby and Oscar were going to have to age them. Each coin would have to be just a little different, or the ruse would be obvious.

Ben picked up a die. Crude Arabic inscriptions around a central circle. “Are these supposed to be… What language is this?”

“The original Norman tarì were imitations of gold coins minted by Arab rulers,” Tenzin said. “So they had Arabic or Kufic inscriptions.”

“So the original tarì are copies of other coins?”

“In a sense,” Tenzin said. “They were made of gold and the size was convenient. That’s why they became popular for trading. Nobody much cared who struck them as long as their value held.”

“So… we’re making copies of coins that were already copies of other coins?” he asked.

Ruby laughed. “It’s all so delightfully twisted, ain’t it?”

Ben shook his head. “That somehow makes me feel better, but I’m not sure why. Ruby, this work looks amazing. I’m no coin expert, but you’re really talented.”

“Thank you very much, Ben.”

Tenzin was looking at each and every engraving. “I concur. This is excellent work. Oscar has taught you well.”

“Means a lot coming from you,” Ruby said. “Thanks. I have a batch just out of the tumbler if you’d like to see ’em. Haven’t been treated, but they’re softened up.”

Tenzin nodded. “Let’s see.”

Ruby took them to a round metal cylinder turned on an angle. “I’d use a proper tumbler for lapidary, but since we’re going for a mix of wear, we didn’t want anything too even. I mocked up this crude one with a hand turner, and we’ve been using all sorts of textures for grit. Sand. Polishing compound. Even rocks and metal bits. Small batches. Nothing too regular.” She opened the side door and pulled out a coin from the milky liquid within. “Take a look at that then.”

Tenzin held the coin in her palm, feeling the weight, then she flipped it end over end and caught it in the air. She held it up to the light and inspected it, then handed it to Ben and reached for another coin.

“It’s good,” she said. “The weight and wear look perfect. The client hasn’t seen the originals in at least four hundred years, so he’s not going to be crystal clear on what they look like. No photographic evidence exists, so we just have to get close.”

Ruby nodded. “That’s what Oscar said too. Mostly we wanted them to have the right wear.”

“And the patina?”

Ruby tilted her head toward Oscar. “He’s in charge of that. With the copper content of this alloy, I’m thinking liver of sulfur might be involved, but maybe waxes too. Not sure what he has in mind.”

“It will look authentic,” Oscar shouted. “How I make it that way is my business.”

“Fine,” Tenzin shouted back. “And you’re about half-done?” she asked Ruby.

The young vampire nodded. “Give us another week or so.”

Oscar yelled over the roar of the forge as he put another crucible in to heat. “Ruby will bring them to your house on Thursday night.”