Tom Swan and the Last Spartans - Part Three

by Christian Cameron

  With a screen of stradiotes in front and a reserve of English archers behind, the little column moved through the last of the day. Before full darkness fell they were in sight of the sea; to the north, a broad lagoon opened, and lights sparkled in the town below them.

  ‘Surely the gates will close at dark,’ Swan said.

  Grazias shrugged a very Greek shrug. ‘How can I tell what an Illyrian might do?’ he asked, philosophically.

  Dmitri laughed. ‘To close the gate, someone would have to give an order, and someone else obey it,’ he said, and Other Dmitri laughed, too.

  Swan frowned. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘We can only try.’

  The military column halted. Already it was almost full dark; the track was empty. Sheep rattled their bells on a nearby hillside.

  In fact they made better time than he had expected, rolling down the last ridge and into the agricultural land at the edge of the hills. The road was no better, a series of mud holes that even five days of dry weather could not improve.

  Swan had to dismount from his wagon, and he and Clemente had to haul together at the back of the cart to keep it from slipping into the ruts. It was a hard pull, and despite the cool evening, Swan sweated through his shirt, and he could smell the former occupant.

  And something was crawling up his neck. He got the louse, and with the instinct of a London boyhood crushed it between his thumbnail and finger and flicked it aside.

  ‘Why are we doing this?’ Clemente asked.

  Because I made a poor decision, Swan thought. ‘Glory,’ he said out loud.

  ‘Oh,’ Clemente said, deflated. ‘I thought that there was money.’

  There was no one on duty at the gate, but then the gate and the attendant barrier were a formality; next to the gate, someone had blown a twenty-pace-long breech in the town’s curtain wall, and the breech was so old that grass had grown between the collapsed stones. The two wagons passed under the Italianate arch of the old gate, where the Lion of St Mark had been defaced by the Turks, and passed into the town unchallenged.

  Swan was instantly at a loss, because, in effect, there was no gate to seize. Young Marco looked at him. ‘Now what, Illustrious?’

  Ben Nettle laughed. ‘Fuck,’ he said, and spat.

  Swan looked up at the two towers; one empty, one with lights winking.

  ‘Fire arrow,’ he said. That was the signal that the gate was theirs.

  Nettle grunted. There passed a long interval while nightfall deepened and none of them could get char to light, and finally Swan walked across the gate-square to where a small tavern operated for travellers and used the doorpost lantern, an enormous brass monster that had once decorated the stern of a galley, and lit the arrow himself.

  Nettle shrugged, raised his bow, and loosed the arrow into the air.

  ‘Now we go for the citadel,’ Swan said.

  Clemente gave him a look. ‘I knew you’d say that,’ he said in mock disgust. Or perhaps it was real disgust.

  Either way, the six of them plodded on. Swan thought it would have completed his day if they’d become lost in the winding streets of the lower town, but in fact the Turks had thoughtfully knocked down a dozen houses to clear the gate of the inner tower, and create a sort of practice ground for archery, and even in the early twilight of November Swan could make out the inner gate.

  There were two guards. They looked as Albanian as anyone else, and Swan realised, with a sinking feeling, that he really should have come as a Turkish officer, a role he could play a good deal better than that of a local farmer.

  One of the gate guards called out with a croak like a raven.

  Stephan yawned. Suddenly the boy, who was both small and silent, became an actor. He spoke up, his thin voice echoing off the tower.

  The two men came towards the wagon.

  Stephan backed away from them, and said, ‘I think we have to kill them.’

  Swan never did find out what had been said. His steel rondel dagger went into the nearest man; a neat murder, as the man never had a chance to defend himself and may never even have felt the blow. Swan drew his long sword from under the canvas …

  The man nearer the gate grunted as Marco’s arming sword went into his gut, but the luck of the fickle goddess Fortuna kept him from crying out.

  Two hundred paces away, there was shouting in the gate and the sound of horses’ hooves.

  ‘Here they come,’ Swan said, and ran for the door of the tower.

  ‘Fuck,’ Ben Nettle said, again.

  Swan ran up the stone ramp to the gate. The doors were open, pinned back with iron pins, and inside, the portcullis was up. There was more shouting from the lower gate, and a voice in Turkish, well up the tower, shouted something.

  Swan emerged into a courtyard. Night was falling; there were no torches in the courtyard, and he saw only a pale blue by an inner door, the door to the tower itself.

  Behind him, Marco loosed a bolt from his latchet, and the blur was hit, fell, and gave a long, piercing shriek.

  High up in the tower, someone came to the right conclusion. ‘Saltiri Altinda!’ cried a voice, and then roared a command, and Swan was off, leaping over the man with Marco’s bolt in his back even as the dying man’s fingers scrabbled for a purchase on life and the stones of the steps.

  Swan went up the steps two at a time, and killed a man stringing his bow in the guardroom at the top. His Albanian clothes gave a second man pause, but he waited one moment too long and Nettle’s arrow went through his maille shirt and came out his back and he fell on the rush matting that protected the wood floor. Swan was trying to get over the chests on the barracks room floor.

  The door at the far end opened and there, wearing a look of complete astonishment, was a red-haired Turk with a sabre in his hand and otherwise naked.

  He leapt at Swan and cut with his sabre.

  Swan parried with his sword and it broke in his hand, leaving him with about a foot of steel and a cross-guard.

  Swan pushed forward, closing as fast as he could with the naked man. The sabre cut at him and he parried some of it on his guard. The rest left a red crease on his shoulder and left forearm, and then he was in close.

  The Turk had stepped forward into his blow, and they crashed, knee to knee, and pain washed through Swan, but his pommel lashed out and he punched the Turk in the shoulder even as he grabbed the man with his left hand and kicked his ankle out from under him with a sweep of his right foot that broke the Turk’s leg with an audible crack. The Turk screamed and went down, his sabre clattering. Swan knelt on the man’s sword arm, intending to finish him, but the Turk was in obvious agony and there were no more enemies coming at him.

  ‘Illustrious?’ Marco asked, from far away.

  Swan turned his head and became aware that blood was coursing down his left side where the sabre had cut him; a perfect sheet of blood.

  ‘Christ,’ he said, and went into the darkness.

  Swan came to consciousness with the horse doctor’s cardamom-laced breath in his face, and he flinched, and the pain that hit him was as white as lightning in the dark.

  ‘Hold him!’ someone called.

  He thrashed; he was in chains, and the pain was the whole horizon of his being, and he thought, Torture. And terror shot through him.

  ‘Almost done,’ the horse doctor said gently. ‘Hold him tight, messires.’

  A jabbing pain, and someone screaming.

  Swan swam to the surface and had no way to measure time. There was sun on a frescoed wall; the fresco was in patterns, discs of fading orange, a pattern of diamonds in lapis blue, and Imperial eagles in black. It seemed very important to Swan that some of the eagles appeared different from others, and he allowed himself to believe that each was in a minutely different posture, as if stopped in the action of spreading his wings, and he was suddenly watching them all in motion …

  And then he saw Clemente. It was as if he had been upside down and now was right side up; he saw Clemente and the world shifted; he k
new who he was, and the eagles lost their overwhelming importance, their central focus, and he took a breath.

  ‘Clemente?’ he asked.

  ‘Ah, bene!’ said Clemente and took his hand. ‘Ah, messire!

  Swan didn’t want to turn his head, but many things were crystal clear. ‘Have I lost my arm?’ he asked.

  Clemente shook his head. ‘No!’ he said. ‘At least, not yet. I will get the dottore.’

  ‘How long have I been here?’ Swan asked.

  Clemente counted. ‘Nine days since we took this place,’ he said. ‘Only three since you stopped bleeding.’

  Swan felt exhausted and yet everything had a clarity that he did not really want to explore; he felt that he was light and could understand profound things that were hidden in everything. ‘Am I drugged?’ he asked.

  ‘Only opium,’ Clemente said.

  An hour later, Ser Columbino and Di Silva were with him, drinking wine from heavy silver cups and dressed in long wool gowns like prosperous men.

  Columbino leaned back. ‘We took the town with little enough trouble; you killed or captured the only actual Turks, and the rest of the garrison surrendered immediately. We have the Turkish captain who flayed your shoulder, if you want him.’ He smiled evilly. ‘I sent Grazias north to Korratas to find the Venetians and hopefully to find Messire Bembo. Yesterday a priest came from Scanderberg to demand that we hand the town to him.’ He shrugged in a particularly Siennese manner. ‘So I am very happy you are awake.’

  ‘Losses?’ Swan asked.

  ‘You,’ Di Silva said. ‘May I say, capitano, that it is time you carried a white wand in your hand and gave orders, and perhaps spent a little less time charging about? By the Risen Christ, Ser Tommaso, our good dottore says that had the sabre passed even a little closer to your neck, we’d have lost you.’

  Swan moved his neck only slightly and felt the pain and lack of muscle control. His bladder spasmed. He was afraid of his wound, which he knew was a mistake.

  ‘What do you gentlemen propose we do about Scanderberg?’ Swan asked. Opium was not really good for decision-making.

  Di Silva shrugged. ‘No idea,’ he said.

  Columbino gave his peer what might have passed for a glare. ‘We took the town. We are not under contract to anyone but the Ban of Hungary, I believe. That means that the town must be offered first to László Hunyadi, who cannot hold it. And then to either the Albanians or the Venetians.’ He shrugged. ‘Whoever can pay more.’

  Swan grunted. ‘How is the compagnia?’ he asked.

  Di Silva laughed. ‘Excellent!’ he said. ‘All the Albanians here speak Italian, and the Turks did nothing to make themselves popular. Our men comport themselves like lambs. Voracious lambs, I confess, but not yet rapacious ones. We ordered a head tax on the town as ransom, and I have it in silver; so the town is not to be disturbed.’

  ‘More than two hundred soldiers will disturb a town,’ Swan said.

  ‘Just so,’ Columbino said.

  ‘Can we winter here?’ Swan asked.

  Di Silva shook his head. ‘Insufficient food, unless we were victualled by the Venetians.’

  Columbino looked out of the trellised window. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I think that if we were careful, we could get through with our horses.’

  ‘That’s enough for today,’ the doctor said. Crespi did not put on airs; he simply bowed and insisted that the two officers leave Swan alone.

  ‘How bad is it?’ Swan asked.

  The doctor shrugged. ‘It is not good. I am not a trained doctor, for people, but muscle structure is muscle structure. It will be months before you have the full use of your left arm and shoulder; you will need special exercises, and that is if it does not become infected.’ He shrugged. ‘Listen, capitano. You lost almost all your blood; maybe you had a tablespoon or two left in you. And that sabre was clean, but the floor you fell on was not. None of the muscles were actually severed; I put some stiches in the way I would in a horse.’ He shrugged. ‘With horses, I boil the thread and wax it; I did the same with you. We will see. But I will tell you; if you become infected, you are a dead man, and no art of mine will help you. So my first interest is to keep you clean.’

  ‘Aristotle says …’ Swan began.

  Crespi raised a hand to silence his captain. ‘I have never read Aristotle,’ he said. ‘But what other men tell me suggests that he knew nothing about healing. I am not a trained doctor; I only know what works on horses … and sometimes on pigs.’

  Swan sat back. ‘Which am I?’

  Crespi shrugged. ‘I find you more like a pig. Honestly, there’s an Arab doctor among the prisoners; a doctor and a religious man of some sort. Please replace me if you like. My wife says I’m crazy.’

  Swan smiled. ‘Let’s hear from this Arab doctor, eh?’ he said.

  The Arab doctor was from Tunis. He was terrified of Swan; Swan allowed the man to be terrified. He sniffed the wound, and had a long conversation – in Italian – with Crespi.

  ‘He wants to know if the prisoners could have better food, and perhaps access to the mosque,’ Crespi said.

  ‘You speak Arabic?’ Swan asked.

  Crespi shrugged. ‘All the good veterinary texts are in Arabic,’ he said. ‘In Naples there are many who speak Arabic.’

  ‘What does he say about me?’ Swan asked, hoping that he was keeping the whine from his voice.

  Crespi smiled a very false smile. ‘Nothing much.’

  ‘Tell me,’ Swan said. ‘I wish to know.’

  ‘He says you are dead as soon as the wound becomes infected. He is afraid that he will be executed, and he wants you to know that you were dead anyway.’ Crespi shrugged, and Swan felt his stomach drop away as if he were falling from a great height. ‘Listen, capitano; it is no different from what I said. Let me try and keep you from this infection. Perhaps we will. He has no more to suggest, except to say that I was a fool to sew your muscles. And perhaps I was. And he says that I will have you addicted to opium, and I think I may, but that’s too bad. You need it.’

  Swan nodded. ‘I have had opium before.’

  ‘Ah, worse and worse,’ Crespi said.

  Opium or no, Swan had terrible trouble sleeping. Mostly, he thought about being dead. And the state of his soul. And some other things.

  Like Violetta’s body.

  The new day brought new tidings. Swan woke late, to find Crespi mixing drugs at his bedside. The Neopolitan nodded. ‘Good morning,’ he said.

  Swan tried not to stretch. His neck hurt in a new way; he immediately feared infection.

  ‘Messire Grazias has returned and begs to see you,’ Crespi said. ‘I told them I’d tell you when you woke.’

  ‘Is my neck infected?’ Swan asked.

  Crespi put his fingers on the neck above the bandages. ‘No, praise God. Not yet, anyway.’

  ‘You are sure?’ Swan asked.

  ‘Sure?’ Crespi shrugged. ‘By the Virgin, Messire! I am not even sure with horses.’

  Swan lay back. Everything itched; everything hurt under the itching, and the itching seemed to multiply the pain, and his muscles were curiously sore.

  ‘Messire Orietto wishes to know if you’d like the Turkish captain killed; perhaps hanged or even flayed,’ Crespi said.

  Swan frowned ‘Bast!’ he grunted. ‘No. Not flayed or roasted or anything.’

  Crespi brightened considerably. ‘Ah,’ he said.

  ‘Ah what?’ Swan asked.

  Crespi shrugged again. ‘It is only …’ he began, and then grunted again.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Wounds make men afraid. Men who are afraid can do evil things.’ Crespi looked at Swan.

  ‘You think I am afraid?’ Swan asked.

  ‘Every moment you are awake,’ Crespi said brutally.

  ‘Too fucking true, my friend,’ Swan said.

  ‘You are an odd one,’ Crespi said. ‘For a gentleman, you are like a normal person.’

  Swan sighed.

 
‘I’ll get Messire Grazias,’ Crespi said. He ducked out through the low door and returned in an instant with Grazias.

  ‘Stand there against the wall, messire,’ he said. ‘Do not, I pray, get closer to my patient.’

  Grazias raised a Greek eyebrow but was otherwise unimpressed. ‘My lord,’ he said.

  Swan smiled. ‘What have you found?’ he asked.

  ‘I found Messire Bembo with four ships,’ Grazias said, his face breaking into a big smile. ‘And Messire Loredan as well. They are north of us on the coast and will be here in two days.’

  ‘Now God be praised,’ Swan said. He crossed himself. It felt odd, but the gesture was genuine.

  Loredan seemed unchanged; it might have been ten hours since they last met; the same unstained black velvet doublet, the same hose, the same expression. Alessandro tried to hide his deep concern in a broad smile, but he had obviously talked to Crespi; he was worried, and his voice was high.

  ‘Will you sell me the town?’ Loredan asked.

  ‘And how are you, my lord?’ Swan said with a certain sarcasm.

  ‘Come, Tommaso; we know one another. You are badly wounded; we are allowed only a little time by your horse-leech. First things first.’ Loredan nodded. ‘Bembo can take care of the personal. I am merely a servant of the Serenissima.’

  Swan took a deep breath. ‘I will have to consult my officers,’ he said. ‘What do you offer?’

  Loredan glanced at Bembo. ‘The contents of our ships; everything you ordered. Passage to the Morea for your compagnia.’

  Swan frowned. ‘You can’t have known we’d taken this little gem, Messire. That means you were bringing me these things anyway.’

  Loredan nodded. ‘And you are a knight of Saint Mark,’ he said, his hands spread wide as if in apology.

  ‘So I am, and I never forget it. But I am not under contract to Venice, and in fact Venice is not, just at this moment, at war with the Grand Turk. Eh?’ Swan said.