Tom Swan and the Head of St. George Part Four: Rome tsathosg-4

by Christian Cameron

  The Knight Hospitaller came over. Swan couldn’t help but notice that the man was wearing full-length boots under his long scholar’s gown. He had blood under his nails.

  ‘He really is going to live,’ the knight said in northern Italian. ‘You owe some thanks to God, young man. If this is not a miracle, it comes very close to one.’ The knight inclined his head. ‘Turkish arrows are often poisoned, as well.’ He pointed at the wound in the younger man’s groin.

  Swan looked down at his wound and got the choking feeling he associated with injury — his breathing grew instantly shallower, and his vision began to tunnel. He could taste salt.

  The Hospitaller held a basin for him. ‘It’s healing, mon brave,’ he said, his voice kind.

  Swan’s hands were shaking. He looked away, and then the gravity of his wound really hit him. ‘Fuck,’ he said quietly. ‘Apologies, Sir Knight.’

  ‘You may call me brother. I am Fra Domenico Angelo.’ He bowed. ‘I gather you are the young man who has saved the head of St George.’ He put his hand on Swan’s head. Swan felt the ring on his scalp. ‘The blessings of our Lord and Saviour be upon you and remain with you. Amen.’

  He walked back along the ward, spurs ringing faintly against the floorboards, while Swan contemplated the magnificent diamond he’d just glimpsed on the knight’s hand.

  A jewel like that cried out to be taken.

  ‘Where are we, Master Claudio?’ Swan asked.

  ‘Monemvasia, in the Morea,’ Claudio said. ‘We had twenty men wounded, and we needed a hospital or all of you were going to die.’ He pointed down the ward at the other beds. ‘The other men are Genoese. They had a little Turkish problem, too.’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘Our galleys are lying together in the port, and we are not good bedfellows, eh?’

  Swan tried to sit up, and discovered his wound was still capable of inflicting horrifying levels of pain. ‘Sweet Jesu!’ he moaned.

  Claudio nodded and poured a clay cup full of medicine. ‘Just so. Drink this.’ He smiled, looking more than ever like an angry sparrowhawk.

  ‘Not bad,’ Swan said as he finished his tot.

  ‘Opium,’ Claudio said. ‘Everyone likes it.’

  Swan was two weeks in Monemvasia, and during those two weeks, the Sultan’s armies swept through Greece, taking three of the great Frankish castles.

  Swan heard it all from the serving brothers. The Hospitaller brothers were, most of them, former mercenaries who had learned the rudiments of nursing in the service of the order. The eldest, Sam Totten, was English.

  ‘We’ll have this ward full of men in no time, mark my word,’ he said. ‘Fucking Greeks. Useless sods if you ask me. More interested in fighting among themselves than fighting the Turks.’

  ‘Unlike the well-unified Italians, you mean,’ Swan said. He was playing piquet with the older man. He looked at his cards again, shook his head in weary resignation, and said, ‘I have a few friends who are stradiotes. I think they’d tell you that the empire was worse than the Turks. And they might debate the point about being bad soldiers.’

  ‘Oh, by St George, young master, their soldiers is good enough — hard as nails. It’s their fucking-pardon-my-expression noblemen and churchmen. They fought among themselves until the Turks ate them. And now they’ll take this place and Mistra and then — pfft. All gone. By your leave. Sixty-eight points.’ He showed his cards.

  Swan shook his head. ‘Thirty-one points, so I’m doubled. I hate this game.’

  The older man stood up. ‘This place could hold a long time, but it will need an ally. Venice — the Pope, mayhap.’

  Swan sat up carefully, using his elbows and not his stomach muscles. ‘I thought this place belonged to Venice.’

  The monk shook his head and sat back on his stool. ‘The Despot took it from the Prince of Achaia — oh, years ago. Before ever I came out to Hellas. Agincourt year, or even before. Now, if the local men are lucky, Venice will take it back.’ He looked up. ‘See what I mean? The Despot spent his treasure taking this place, instead of fighting the Turks.’

  They heard booted footsteps and spurs, and the older serving brother leaped to his feet and cleared the tray with the cards. He dumped it into a sack and put the sack smoothly under Swan’s mattress. He seemed very practised at this movement.

  ‘Lucky for all of us that Fra Diablo wears spurs, even in the hospital,’ the monk added. ‘Like a bell on a cat.’

  ‘Fra Diablo?’ asked Swan.

  The older Englishman winked. ‘Can I get you aught else, Master Swan?’

  ‘A really beautiful girl who will do all the work?’ Swan asked wistfully.

  Totten didn’t even laugh. He wrinkled his brow and walked off as the knight strode on to the ward with Di Brachio in tow.

  ‘Our prize patient,’ said the knight. ‘Touched by God. Messire Swan, this gentleman has come to see you. I hope he is an agreeable visitor, as I have a small item of business to discuss with the two of you.’

  Swan saw the ring, collet turned in to hide the stone. Even as he glanced at it, he noticed the knight twirl it with his thumb, and the stone shone for a moment and then vanished again.

  That thing is very, very big.

  Di Brachio took Swan’s hand and pressed it. ‘I want you to know that when I was told you were going to die, I was, perhaps, going to shed a tear.’ He leaned over and kissed Swan on both cheeks. ‘But as you plan to live, I suppose you’ll eventually replace my boots.’

  Swan laughed, and his gut hurt.

  ‘How is everyone?’ he asked.

  ‘Di Brescia got through without a touch. Giannis got an ugly wound — an arrow that ran right up his left arm under the skin. Looks terrible, but seems not to trouble him much. Only one man died — Giovanni, the archer.’ He grinned. ‘The pretty actress asks for you every day. Don’t get your hopes up — I think she’s changed horses for Giannis.’ He shrugged. ‘Peter is in another ward — he took three hits and he’s slower to recover than you.’

  ‘Sweet Christ,’ Swan said.

  Di Brachio nodded. ‘I’ve never seen a shot stour like it.’ He shook his head. ‘Arrows fell like snow.’ He sighed. ‘And you, scapegrace? Are you planning to live to make more trouble for me?’

  Swan met his eye. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

  Di Brachio shook his head. ‘Don’t be. This one isn’t on your head, my friend. Or rather, it is on the head, not on you. The head of St George. The news that we have it is everywhere — the oarsmen blabbed. Right now, the head is in the Hospitaller chapel, and even the Greeks are coming to venerate it — there’s a line outside. The Sultan has ordered us taken. There’s an army coming under Omar Reis to lay siege to this place.’

  Fra Domenico waited patiently, his hands folded inside his robe.

  Di Brachio got off the bed and smoothed the counterpane with his hand. ‘My apologies, Sir Knight. You wanted to speak to us?’

  ‘I expect the army was coming here anyway,’ the knight said. ‘The Sultan didn’t plan to let this town stand. He intends to take all the Morea. And then the Balkans. And then Italy.’

  ‘Italy?’ the two men said together.

  ‘He intends to conquer the world, like his hero, Alexander,’ Fra Domenico said. ‘It is along these lines I wished to speak to you two worthy gentlemen in private. I do not command this town. Indeed, it is something of a miracle that I am allowed to maintain a Latin chapel and a hospital within the walls.’

  Di Brachio smiled mirthlessly. ‘Messire is too modest.’

  Fra Domenico raised his eyebrows.

  Di Brachio shrugged. ‘Are you not the captain known as Fra Diablo? The most notorious pirate in the Aegean? Hero of Genoa, the curse of Venice?’

  Fra Domenico sighed. He tugged his beard, and for a moment he was a frightening figure — Swan saw him unhooded, so to speak, and then he veiled his eyes and shook his head. ‘I do not answer to that name, and I attack only enemies of the faith. Venice makes up names for me because I am not their friend whe
n they ally themselves with enemies of the faith.’ He all but spat. ‘And you, of course, are of the Bembii, are you not?’

  Di Brachio spread his arms. ‘Alas, I am, although depending on how the wind blows across St Mark’s Square, my father may have disowned me.’

  The knight sat on the next bed and sighed. ‘Venice and Genoa — our infighting was the death of Constantinople.’

  ‘That’s a merry tune for you to play,’ Di Brachio said, curling his lip. ‘I hear that Genoa-’

  ‘I don’t serve Genoa,’ the knight said. ‘I serve God. That said — what I hear — from my friends,’ said the knight, ‘is that both of you serve Cardinal Bessarion.’

  Swan looked at Di Brachio, who let his lashes drop over his eyes.

  ‘The Greek mimes say it openly,’ the knight added quietly. ‘I’m afraid they are so delighted to be out of the city that they talk too much.’

  Di Brachio’s expression grew pained. ‘It is possible I have some passing acquaintance with His Eminence,’ he admitted.

  ‘This city needs a patron,’ the knight said. ‘We cannot hold it. I have three knights and twenty brother sergeants and as many mercenaries — and we are all supposed to work the hospital. The new rumour that I hear is that the two Paleolog brothers have had a disagreement — about resistance to the Grand Turk. The local gentlemen and their stradiotes might number sixty good fighting men. We need a professional garrison. We need twenty thousand ducats’ worth of repairs to the walls and we need these things immediately.’ He paused. ‘If I get you a letter from the leaders of this city, can you see to it that it goes to the right recipients in Rome?’

  Di Brachio’s face registered something between a frown and a sneer. ‘A knight of the powerful order of St John can certainly get a letter to Rome.’ He looked at the ring on the knight’s finger. ‘A man who wears a ring like that can find twenty thousand ducats.’

  The knight wrinkled his lips. ‘We need help now. If you can get that help from the Signori, even better.’ The knight leaned forward.

  Di Brachio leaned forward too. ‘Perhaps if you had not been quite so busy using this port as a haven to prey on Venetian shipping …’ He shrugged. ‘Listen, messire — are you proposing to sell this town from under the Despot?’

  The two men stared at each other. Neither budged — they were nose to nose.

  Swan cleared his throat. ‘Perhaps I could broach the matter with the cardinal,’ he said.

  Both men turned to look at him.

  Swan smiled. ‘My wound hurts. Perhaps I might rest?’

  Di Brachio’s look promised him the torments of hell, but Swan rarely cared about long-term consequence. He lay down and rolled over, facing the wall.

  Di Brachio leaned over him and whispered ‘You bastard’ in his ear.

  Darkness fell, and Swan was awake, plotting. He had the outline of a plan, and wondered to himself what a city — a city with its own international wine trade, perhaps a little past its prime — was worth. In ducats.

  There was movement at the end of the ward.

  Swan grew very still.

  Something pale and graceful was coming down the ward — moving with a sort of effortless inhumanity, like-

  The hackles stood up on Swan’s neck for a moment, and then he smelled attar of roses and a little healthy human sweat. He took his hand off the ear-dagger under his bolster, and lay back.

  ‘I gather I have to do all the work,’ she said. She sounded young, and pretty — and the truth was, he wasn’t ever going to know. It was very dark, and all he saw was the gleam of her naked back in a ray of moonlight as she pulled the shift over her head.

  She didn’t linger, and she expected to be paid, and nonetheless, he felt much better. Perhaps because everything worked. Perhaps-

  He made her laugh, and he kissed her before she took his silver and left.

  On balance, he decided she was beautiful.

  They sailed for Venice two days later, leaving a half-score of men in the beds of the infirmary, but not Swan. Ser Marco ordered them to sea as soon as he caught the rumour of a powerful Turkish squadron up the coast towards Hermione. Fra Domenico seconded his efforts to get to sea.

  A deputation of the towns merchants and nobles visited Ser Marco with a set of scrolls for the Pope and for the Doge of Venice.

  Swan had his own scroll, from the town’s ruler. It was brought to him by a Greek priest whom he had seen on the wards as he recovered. The man gave him the letter with a bag of Venetian ducats.

  ‘You are English?’ he asked.

  Swan smiled. ‘Yes, Pater,’ he answered, in Greek.

  ‘My grandmother remembered when there were Englishmen here. And an English church. But that was long ago.’ He nodded. ‘Men say you search for old scrolls and books, Englishman.’

  Swan nodded and sat up a little more. ‘It’s true,’ he said.

  ‘There’s not much here,’ said the priest. ‘Too many Italians have rifled our libraries. But — have you visited any of the islands? Lesvos? Chios? They might have good libraries.’ He fingered his beads. ‘I went to school on Lesvos. I could write a letter to my abbot. If you will give me your promise to try and make your Latin Pope accept this town. And arm it.’

  Swan shrugged. ‘I would anyway,’ he said, with uncharacteristic candour.

  Fra Domenica brought him wine. ‘I gather Father Giorgios was here,’ he said. ‘Some say he is a spy for the Paleologi. Others say other things.’

  Swan was unable to take his eyes off the knight’s ring ‘Is that … Roman?’ he asked.

  Fra Domenico smiled. ‘Greek. They say. I had it off Khaireddin, the corsair. He claimed it belonged to Alexander the Great.’ The knight held it out — then changed his mind and took it off his finger. Swan held it in his palm. ‘Quartz?’ he asked.

  ‘Diamond,’ said the knight.

  ‘By the virgin, messire, this ring is worth-’

  The knight shrugged. ‘A few thousand ducats, perhaps. I will turn it into money when I must.’ He leaned forward. ‘I’m told that the cardinal loves such baubles.’

  Swan looked away. ‘He loves the ancient world,’ he said. ‘I think he’d be more taken with a lost book about Alexander than the conqueror’s ring.’ He tried to hide his acquisitiveness and said, ‘But he loves a fine present …’

  The knight nodded. ‘It has hermetical powers,’ he said. ‘Listen, young man. I’m a man of the sea and a man of God, and I’m not a man of this town. Eh?’

  ‘It’s not worth the ring, to you,’ Swan said.

  The knight laughed. ‘I feel as if I’m talking to a theologian.’ He shrugged. ‘But no. It is a sin, no doubt, but I love the ring.’

  Swan weighed it in his hand, considering how he might steal it. Then he handed it back. ‘A magnificent thing,’ he said. ‘Thanks for letting me feel it.’

  ‘You saved the head of St George from the infidel!’ Fra Domenico said. ‘I would do a few favours for you.’

  Swan went down to the lower ward and divided the ducats with Peter, who was showing every sign of recovering despite arrow wounds that still leaked.

  Peter counted the coins and nodded. ‘I’d like to say if had vorse voundz,’ he said. ‘But I haf not. Almost a hundred ducats, master. Two days’ pay.’ He smiled.

  The fiction that he made fifty ducats a day had once infuriated Swan, but now he took it in his stride. ‘I’m only three hundred days in arrears, now,’ he said.

  ‘Pah, you haf come round to my way of tinkink at last.’ Peter grinned. ‘I am not likink that you leaf me here.’

  Swan smiled. ‘I’m fairly sure I’ll be back,’ he said. ‘Equally sure this town can use a master archer.’

  Peter’s grin vanished. ‘You vill safe my wages by leafing me to die in the siege?’

  Swan nodded. ‘That’s my plan, yes.’

  ‘Best come back and get me, or I vill haunt you, yess?’ Peter’s wound made his accent harsher. He had lost weight and his cheekbones looked sharp eno
ugh to cut butter. His long mouth was pale — almost grey.

  Swan embraced him and got his kit aboard the galley in time to watch the oarsmen come aboard. They were beyond dissipated — most of them had spent their advance on pay, and a few had sold their arms. One remarkable man seemed to have no clothes at all except his rain shirt of tar-daubed linen, which he wore with the regal dignity of a man who was very, very drunk.

  Once again, Swan had to remark on the many similarities between Englishmen and Venetians.

  Di Brachio came and leant on the rail of the command deck next to him. ‘So, Messire Swan — where is the head of St George?’

  Swan all but jumped out of his skin.

  Di Brachio laughed aloud. ‘I have it. Or rather, Master Nikephorus has it, although there was almost an incident — the town’s fathers did not want to let it go, and we had to convince them that if it stayed here, we would not look favourably on their letter to Venice and the Pope.’ Di Brachio turned, set his back against the rail, and stretched like a long-limbed cat. ‘So how much did they bribe you to carry the letter?’

  ‘Three hundred ducats,’ Swan said.

  Di Brachio whistled between his teeth. ‘Why you? Why not me?’

  Swan grunted as he moved his weight off the rail — his stomach muscles were weak — and reached into the leather sack which the knights had given him to carry his laundered clothes. ‘Here’s yours,’ he said. ‘I split with Peter.’

  Di Brachio weighed the small purse in his hand. Then he dropped it into the front of his doublet. ‘You really are an honourable thief, Master Swan.’

  Swan shrugged. ‘I’m not well enough connected to do them their favour without you. But won’t Venice take this place back like a shot?’

  Ser Marco came up the ladder to the command deck like a much younger man. The oarsmen were still coming aboard in a noisy mob — offering not a hint of the disciplined machine they could become. But Ser Marco had clearly heard part of the exchange.