sound upon silent feet.
The passage took me down and down, the stone underfoot becoming more and more slimy and slippery with moisture with every step I took. Presently the narrow tunnel ballooned into a cave, and the amber glow grew stronger. I knew the party were in the great rocky chamber I approached, for I could hear the voices of the archduke and my mother, booming through the cave. I clambered high upon an outcrop of stones, peeped over the lip of the rocks, and could see everything; all the players were there, in a circle of torchlight having a conference. I felt as if I watched a play. My mother, alive and well, was speaking, and her voice echoed from the stones.
“Archduke. May I present the best that the Zecca can offer. Signor da Mosto, our assayer.” A dour fellow in a black-and-white cloak, with a soft square black felt four-cornered hat, stepped forward. “Signor Mantovano, our ironsmith.” A squat fellow with the filthiest hands I’ve ever seen. “Signor Contino, our silversmith.” Ah! The lecherous fellow from the carriage train. “And Signor Sarpi, our moneyer.” Signor Sarpi was a giant of a man, wearing naught but breeches and a wide wrestler’s belt, and brandishing a hammer. I no longer feared for my mother with such a fellow at her command. “And when I say that they are the best that the Zecca can offer, then you know I am telling you that they are the best anywhere, for you do not need me to tell you that the Zecca of Venice is the finest mint to be found anywhere on this earth.” I heard the civic pride in her voice but was no nearer divining her meaning. What did this strange collection of men do? Why were they so important that they traveled with her in the Mocenigo carriage? Two of them had a noble stamp, but the other two looked like peasants.
“Signor Mantovano, the cast, please.” My mother held out her hand and the fellow named as an ironsmith dropped a heavy object into her hand—heavy by the way that her palm dropped. The thing divided into two. “The seal,” she commanded.
“May I see?” The archduke stepped into the light. After a moment he said, “A very striking design. A trifle aggrandizing, but we know the tastes of our friend. And the themes are most apt. Let us see the blank.” The silversmith stepped forth with a round silver disk that winked in the torchlight.
Then it was the assayer’s turn. He stepped forth with a pair of delicate scales, two little brass pans suspended from a copper bar, all on a fine golden chain. He neatly dropped a lead ingot into one pan, the disk into another. “One hundred and twenty-four,” he announced. “I declare this a silver angel.”
“Well, then,” said the archduke, rubbing his hands like a child at Christmastide. “Let us strike one. Signor?” he addressed the moneyer. The silversmith took the cast and placed the blank disk upon it, put the other half of the die on top, and stood back. “We are witnessing history,” pronounced the archduke, just as the moneyer swung his hammer and fetched the top of the die an almighty thwack.
History was not quite ready to be witnessed, for the burly moneyer, clearly put off his stroke by the archduke’s awesome pronouncement, misstruck; the disk sheared off into the dark, whistling past my ear. They all looked in my direction and I ducked as fast as I could. As I hid, the truth was revealed; for at my feet was a silver coin, lying where it had fallen. The angel had flown to me. I had time to put the thing in my sleeve before I stood once more.
There was an uncomfortable shuffling of feet when I looked back, and the archduke had raised an eyebrow at my mother.
“I’m sorry, Dogaressa,” mumbled the giant. “ ‘Tis the light. I do not habitually strike by torch.”
“Do it better,” spat my mother, and I know she would have slapped him had he not been so large. “Your guild’s reputation is at stake, and Venice’s too.”
This time the strike was true, and the sound rang out like a bell. The first angel had been struck, and was lifted from the stamp and handed to the archduke.
He turned it in his hand. “Very fine,” he said. “I will keep this upon account, to show to the emperor.” He handed it to his servant before my