Tom Swan and the Head of St George Part One: Castillon

by Cameron, Christian

  ‘Giannis, this is my man, Peter,’ Swan said.

  Giannis grinned. ‘Sure,’ he said.

  When the horses were curried and fed, Giannis unrolled his cloak. ‘I want to keep the crossbow,’ he said. He handed Swan a dark red leather belt with a red leather purse. It had nice buckles and a pair of cast decorations to weight the rain cover. It wasn’t fine like a nobleman’s purse, but it was good work. It also had a good, heavy knife – German work – with an eating knife and a pricker in the scabbard.

  ‘There’s his belt,’ Giannis said. ‘That’s a fine knife – I throw in the purse, as’ – he smiled his gap-toothed smile – ‘as you don’t seem to have a purse.’

  Swan looked at Peter. Peter walked over and lifted the crossbow.

  ‘That’s a nice piece,’ he said. The goat’s-foot lever was built into the stock. He ratcheted it back with an effort and a grunt of pain. ‘That cost—’ He looked at Swan. ‘Who was this man? That’s a fine knife. The crossbow and the knife are both Low German. I know the maker’s mark on that knife. He sells in Antwerp. It’s not the gear a brigand would have.’

  ‘He might if he just killed someone for it,’ Swan said.

  ‘You haf never been a brigand, haf you?’ Peter said in a matter-of-fact tone.

  Swan translated into Italian for Giannis.

  Giannis nodded. ‘He’s no fool, this man of yours,’ he said.

  ‘He owes you on this deal, even with the knife,’ Peter said.

  Swan turned on Giannis. ‘My man says you’re trying to cheat me,’ he said.

  Giannis shrugged. ‘Cheat is a harsh word,’ he said, smiling. ‘You are a rich boy. I am a poor man-at-arms. What will you do with the crossbow – hunt killer sparrows?’ He shrugged. ‘Listen – you did the work. I admit it. But I can’t afford even half this machine. I just want it.’

  Swan looked at Peter. ‘He wants it. He admits it’s worth more.’

  ‘Get him to buy our wine tonight and call it a deal,’ Peter said.

  ‘Listen,’ Swan said to Giannis. ‘I’m as poor as a slave right now. Buy our wine tonight at dinner, and I’ll take the dagger and purse and we’re even.’

  Giannis offered his hand and they shook.

  In the common room of the tavern, Swan sat on a trestle with his back against Peter’s and worked on the belt. The lawyers came in and waved, and he waved back, but they were forced by the flow of patrons to sit near the fire.

  He had to ask around to get a needle, heavy thread, some resin and some wax – but as he expected, a tavern was the place to buy all these small necessities, and for the first time in his life, he had cash, and a purse in which to put it. He tried not to keep drawing the heavy hunting knife and fondling it, but in truth, it was the finest thing he’d ever owned.

  Killing people and taking their goods was looking better and better.

  Alessandro came and stood over him while he cut off part of the belt, stripped its tip of some white metal and used the anvil in the barn to reset the rivets. Then he resewed the edge of the belt. Alessandro spent most of the time talking to Giannis, but when Swan returned from the barn a second time, he turned.

  ‘You seem to know your way around a needle,’ he said.

  Swan shrugged. ‘My master-at-arms said a gentleman who couldn’t sew was going to be very unhappy on campaign. When I was a royal page—’

  Alessandro shook his head. ‘Don’t claim you were a royal page.’

  Swan looked up. ‘Why not?’

  ‘Easy to prove or disprove in Paris. If true – you are worth more, yes? If false—’ He shook his head.

  ‘Ah,’ Swan said. He bit his thread. ‘Peter says he knows this knife maker,’ he said, and drew the knife and handed it to the Italian soldier, who took it by the hilt and tossed it in his hand.

  ‘From the assassin, yes?’ he asked.

  Swan nodded.

  ‘Hmm,’ Alessandro grunted. He hefted it. It was as long as a man’s forearm, elbow to the tips of his fingers, with a thumb-rest that doubled as a guard. Alessandro took out the bye knife—the small eating knife that rested in the scabbard. He nodded. ‘Nice work.’

  ‘Not as nice as the crossbow,’ Peter said.

  Alessandro smiled out of the corner of his mouth.

  The room was loud and growing louder, as the town’s four prostitutes had just come in, wearing red dresses and with flowers in their hair. They were particularly unappetising to Swan, but the rest of the men clapped and hooted.

  Swan leaned closer to Alessandro. ‘I would like to propound a theory,’ he said.

  The Venetian bit his lip, glanced around the room, and nodded. ‘Outside, I think.’

  They didn’t exactly slip outside, as several men growled when they pushed by, but they made it into the stable yard. The merchant’s carts were lining the south wall, and the count’s carts lined the west wall.

  ‘Propound away, my young scapegrace,’ Alessandro said.

  Swan glanced around. ‘You went to university, sir?’

  Alessandro nodded. ‘Yes. Padova. With Messire Accudi, in fact.’

  ‘So you know that the very best kind of theory is that which can be tested?’ Swan asked.

  Alessandro nodded. ‘Get on with it. You weary me with all this talk of school.’

  Swan nodded. ‘The count is a fraud. He’s a brigand – a good actor, and possibly a genuine knight. He’s not after us – he’s after Merechault. We’ve become a nuisance by appearing with a dozen men-at-arms.’ They walked slowly along, arm in arm like two old friends.

  ‘Fascinating,’ Alessandro said. ‘And your proof?’

  Swan stopped in front of one of the count’s wagons. Now that he knew the liveries, he knew that the count’s wagons were the three that were not marked. ‘If I take my knife and slit the tarpaulin, you’ll find nothing inside of any value,’ he said. ‘But here’s a lesser proof.’ He pointed at the merchant’s wagons. Two of the wagoners sat on the boxes, watching. ‘The count’s wagons are never guarded. Because all his men know there’s nothing in them.’

  Alessandro grunted. He turned both of them back towards the inn. ‘It would help to explain something which has vexed me,’ he said.

  Swan paused. ‘Yes?’

  Alessandro shrugged. ‘I understand that there was a great deal of theft at the abbey. A priest lost his shirts. Other things went missing – Cesare said someone stole a rich monk’s riding gloves. The abbot tried to blame us, as foreigners. It made the cardinal angry.’

  Swan set his face like stone.

  ‘I do not care – very much – what you might be. But if you are a thief – leave my boots and my sword and ride off into the night,’ said the Italian.

  Swan took another step. ‘I’m no thief,’ he said. ‘I’m a gentleman and a soldier.’

  ‘Of course,’ Alessandro said. ‘Where did you get a pair of riding gloves?’

  ‘I found them in the road,’ Swan said. Their eyes met in the darkness and Swan didn’t flinch.

  And in that moment, his plan crystallised.

  After Alessandro went off, he had a brief conversation with the youngest of the prostitutes. He caught Alessandro watching him, and winked while he pressed money into the girl’s hand. ‘That much again when we’re done,’ he said.

  After dinner, he played piquet with the lawyers for an hour. His luck was fair, and he ended the game a few silver sequins ahead of when he started. Most of the rest of the inn was in bed, and the men-at-arms had gone to the stables to sleep.

  Swan walked out through the kitchen. There was one slattern watching the fire, a second washing cups, and a third providing personal services to one of the French merchant’s men – the whore he’d spoken to earlier. Swan walked past, and out through the kitchen door into the darkness of the yard.

  The merchant’s wagons were unguarded. He walked all the way down the line of wagons and made himself walk all the way back to the kitchen.

  He wasn’t challenged.

  His h
eart beat like a drum in a dance, but he drew his new knife, stepped up to the last wagon in the row, and slit the tarpaulin across.

  A quarter of an hour later, he met the whore in the portico of the church.

  ‘Why here?’ he asked.

  She shrugged. ‘I do most of my fucking here,’ she said. ‘It’s dry.’

  He handed her a whole silver ecu.

  She laughed.

  ‘Now you run,’ he said. ‘If you are here to be found in the morning—’ He hardened his voice. ‘I’ll kill you. Myself.’

  She laughed. ‘You ain’t the killing type, lad.’ She bit the coin. ‘I’m gone, now. I’ll find another town.’ She looked at him. ‘You’re a funny one, though. You didn’t steal anything.’

  He grabbed her wrist.

  ‘Ouch! Listen! I was done fucking the archer and I watched you through the door. You moved things, but you didn’t take anything.’

  He shrugged. He bent her arm back the way his uncles had taught him. ‘I can break your arm, and then cut your throat,’ he said.

  He must have looked the part. She whimpered. He let go, and she ran.

  He was careful. He went up and over the wall into the inn yard, waited until the wagon guard was looking elsewhere, and crept into the stable. His greatest fear was that Alessandro would be there waiting for him, but the capitano was not there. Swan got into his blankets.

  Peter’s hand gripped his arm like a vice. He put his lips almost against Swan’s ear. Swan froze.

  ‘I owe you, but I won’t swing for you,’ he said.

  Swan turned very slowly. He was so close that it made him uncomfortable. This was like whispering with a girl in the loft of his mother’s inn. His heart was hammering.

  ‘We won’t swing,’ he said.

  Peter grunted.

  Swan lay awake, trying to tell himself that his plan was foolproof, but now the whore and the Fleming could kill him, and he was still awake when the light showed through the roof and the cock crowed.

  There was a scream and a roar of anger from the yard.

  His heart beat double time, and he thought, I’m an idiot.

  He’d just seen the flaw in his plan, and it was far too late to fix it.

  Cardinal Bessarion listened to the angry remonstrances of the count and the endless gush of invective from the injured merchant for an hour. Eventually, he bowed to both men and left them, mounting his destrier and riding at the head of his own convoy, out of the inn yard and on to the road. He rode side by side with his captain for a mile.

  Swan watched them from the middle of the convoy, where he rode with the lawyers, as the road was deemed safe enough without him. He managed a blank face – he made some Latin jokes that fell flat, and he tried to engage Giannis, who waved and rode away.

  He was scared enough that every apparent slight seemed to him to show that everyone knew what he had done.

  He saw Alessandro nod to the cardinal and ride back down the column, and he knew immediately that the capitano was coming for him.

  He straightened his back.

  The Italian turned his horse neatly, and waved. ‘The blessing of the day to you, Messire Swan. The cardinal begs the honour of your company.’

  Swan bowed in the saddle. ‘Nothing could give me greater pleasure than his company, unless possibly your own,’ he said in Italian.

  Cesare slapped him on the back. ‘The courtier’s motto! If you must rub your nose in a man’s arse, do it with elegance.’

  Swan flushed, and Cesare laughed.

  ‘Never mind him,’ said Alessandro.

  They rode along the column to the cardinal without another word.

  ‘Good morning, messire my prisoner,’ said the cardinal.

  Swan bowed, and accepted the proffered hand, kissed the ring.

  Bessarion smiled. ‘How did you do it?’ he asked.

  Swan realised that the Italian man-at-arms was very close to his back.

  ‘Listen,’ said Bessarion. ‘Alessandro thinks you did it, and I think you did it.’

  Alessandro leaned into his back. ‘If you did it without stealing – then you have done us a noble service. And it is an act of . . . let’s say an act of war. A feat of arms. Tell.’

  Swan hesitated.

  Because he had made a mistake, and once he told . . .

  The cardinal reached out and put a hand on his arm. ‘You took goods from the merchant’s wagons, and put them in the count’s empty wagons.’

  Swan looked back and forth between the two men.

  ‘If I were to say that I found the count’s wagons empty—’ he said.

  Alessandro laughed. ‘I thought so,’ he said, punching the air.

  Cardinal Bessarion frowned. ‘Messire Merechault claims that he is missing six bales of goods. As well as four pieces of carved ivory from a Parisian maker to be delivered in Burgundy.’

  Swan shrugged. He’d learned that shrug through hard practice. He could shrug like that even when his uncles were hitting him with a belt. ‘I imagine the count’s men have them,’ he said.

  Bessarion leaned over. ‘I would be very disappointed to find that anything else was true.’ He leaned back. ‘But I am in your debt, messire. The count will be tied up in law for a week. Even the merchant, I think, owes you some gratitude.’

  ‘It is a pity they can’t find the girl,’ Alessandro said.

  ‘Girl?’ the cardinal asked.

  ‘That sly rogue, the count – the supposed count – paid a whore to distract the night guard while his men stole from the wagons.’ Alessandro looked at Swan. Who shrugged. Again.

  ‘Or so says the night guard,’ Swan said. ‘Perhaps he was bribed.’

  Bessarion nodded. ‘What I cannot fathom,’ he said quietly, ‘is why the supposed count would be fool enough to put the goods in his own wagons under Merechault’s nose.’

  Swan writhed.

  Alessandro came to his rescue. ‘Par dieu, Eminence. He’s arrogant enough to haul empty wagons across four fords, as if we would never notice them. He thought he might get away with it. That’s all.’

  It occurred to Swan at that point that he was going to get away with it, and a feeling of joy flooded him, unmixed with any reserve whatsoever. No school prank, no petty thievery in Cheapside, would ever have the satisfaction of this – pulled off under the very eyes of the enemy.

  Bessarion nodded.

  Swan found that he liked these strange, foreign men, and he looked back and forth at them. After a few more paces, he said, ‘I must confess a thought I have had.’

  The cardinal bowed slightly. ‘I can provide absolution,’ he said.

  Swan tried to see a way to tell the truth without owning to his part in it. ‘If – someone – had – hmm. Put the count in this unenviable position,’ he said. ‘Ahem. If the count imagined that he had been slighted—’

  ‘Get on with it,’ muttered Alessandro.

  ‘What is to keep the count from revenge?’ he asked. ‘He must suspect – er – us.’

  Alessandro raised an eyebrow.

  Swan went on – he’d had all morning to think it through. ‘At some point, Merechault will call for the . . . I don’t know what they are called in France, but in London we’d call him the sheriff. And the count will find himself in a difficulty.’ He was speaking too fast.

  ‘He will, too,’ Alessandro said.

  ‘So he kills Merechault and sets fire to the inn and rides away to kill us,’ Swan finished. ‘As he has more men-at-arms than we do ourselves.’

  ‘Why kill us?’ the cardinal asked.

  Alessandro looked at the young Englishman. ‘Perhaps he doesn’t believe his own men were fools enough to place the bales of cloth in his wagons.’

  ‘Perhaps he can’t afford any witnesses,’ Swan said.

  ‘Perhaps he is so well born that he can weather any legal action,’ Alessandro said slowly.

  Bessarion raised a hand, looked Alessandro in the eye and said, ‘See to it.’

  Alessand
ro nodded, put a hand on Swan’s bridle and turned them out of the column. As he rode down the column, he gathered men – half his soldiers; Giannis, another Greek called Stefanos, a third called Giorgos, and two Italians, Ramone and Marcus.

  He turned to Swan. ‘You’re coming with me. You made this mess, you can help clean up.’ But despite his acerbic tone, he smiled and put an hand on Swan’s arm. ‘You did well enough.’ He shrugged. ‘I think you are too cautious. I think the so-called count will simply ride away.’

  Swan shook his head. ‘That was my mistake,’ he said.

  Alessandro made a face. ‘What mistake?’

  They were just passing a low bluff on their right, covered in big trees – oaks, and some beech. Alessandro was looking at it.

  ‘The first night I was with you at dinner, I saw him sitting with the merchant’s men, at a middle table. He was as angry as a mad dog.’ Swan was looking at the horizon.

  Alessandro shrugged. ‘So?’ He shaded his eyes with his hand to look at the trees.

  ‘He was angry he hadn’t been given a place at the high table,’ Swan said. ‘He really is a count.’

  Alessandro’s face went still, just for a moment. Then his eyelids came down a little. He turned away from the high woods.

  ‘Then we must, in fact, clean this up very carefully,’ he said quietly. ‘Is your servant an archer?’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘Do you even know?’

  ‘He’s a very good archer,’ Swan said, hoping it was true.

  ‘Good. I have a couple of English bows I bought at Castillon from the victors.’ He turned and beckoned to Peter, who rode out of the column.

  ‘We need to hurry,’ Swan said.

  He pointed at a column of smoke rising from the town on the next ridge, just three leagues away. ‘That’s the inn.’

  Alessandro nodded. ‘Right here will do,’ he said. He opened his purse and dumped it in the road – twenty silver ecus and some gold, glinting in the summer sun.

  The two wagons and twenty retainers rolled on sedately, unthreatened by the rising smoke behind them. At their head rode the cardinal, his red hat prominently displayed. The little convoy raised dust that could be seen from ridge to ridge, for several leagues.