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

by Christian Cameron

  Despite which, in an hour, they were dancing merrily. The main figure was a woman dancing between two men, and the men took turns with the woman – Swan smiled a little bitterly as he shared Violetta with the French soldier and later with the tallest of the Florentines, but the dancing was done with goodwill.

  The Florentine leaned against the wall – women were in short supply, which gave men a rest from time to time. ‘She’s a beauty, your girl,’ he said. ‘I haven’t had this good a time in a year. May I ask who you are?’

  Swan bowed. ‘Thomas Swan, equerry to Cardinal Bessarion.’

  The Florentine bowed. ‘Ah – we share a friend – Di Brachio of the Bembii of Venice. I am Giacomo Accucciulli.’

  Even more remarkably, the Florentine spoke excellent Greek. He admitted to Giannis that he’d been born there. The Greeks greeted him like a long-lost brother. The party grew warmer.

  The French soldier sat with Swan. So much wine had been drunk that Swan could scarcely see, and he was watching Violetta whirl and leap with the Florentine and with Di Brescia – the two best male dancers – without a qualm.

  ‘Come on, friend – you’re a soldier. You have soldier written all over you,’ the Frenchman said, his arm around Swan’s shoulder.

  Swan shrugged. ‘I’m …’ He struggled to define what it was he did. He laughed. ‘Well, I certainly saw some fighting last summer,’ he admitted.

  ‘I knew it!’ said the Frenchman.

  They sat watching Violetta as she turned, back straight, on her toes – even in a frumpy wool overdress and a heavy man’s shirt, the set of her head, the way her eyes touched Swan’s …

  Behind her, the main room’s door opened, and a wave of yellow and red washed into the room.

  As it was, the Orsini were immediately confronted by Violetta, and her beauty turned their heads for a count of three, before their captain pointed at Swan. ‘There he is!’ he shouted.

  By the count of three, Swan was standing erect with his sword in one hand and a heavy dagger in the other, and he was surprisingly sober when he came on guard. He turned his head once – looking for somewhere to run – but the construction of the place left him no options. The kitchen door was far across the room behind the table at which the Florentines had been sitting. The party was all intermingled now –

  Nor did the Orsini seem to have any target beyond Swan. The leaders – three men – ran across the open floor.

  The Frenchman seized the heavy table at which they’d been sitting and stood up – tipping the table up like a fortress wall. His left hand saved the pitcher of wine as the table fell with a crash.

  Swan had nowhere to retreat – the back wall was at his left shoulder.

  The lead Orsini thug tangled with the table. The second man leaped over it with an acrobatic jump, but Swan put his left-hand dagger into the man’s stomach and threw him into the wall behind him with a crash. The wall moved – plaster cracked, leaving the twigs and brush that had been used to set the mortar plain to see. The third man cut with a heavy sword at the Frenchman, who parried with the pitcher of wine – it shattered, and sticky, hot wine flew. Swan stabbed diagonally across the table into the exposed underarm of the red and yellow bruiser who was trying to hack the Frenchman down.

  The room was full of red and yellow.

  The man who’d lost his footing at the table had recovered, and Swan met his sword, mid-blade to mid-blade, over the table. Both men tried for the other’s blade, Swan with his dagger, the other man with a gloved hand – Swan tried and failed to land a pommel-punch, and the Orsini’s left hand punched his dagger arm hard enough to threaten his grasp of his weapon. He threw it with little force, but the quillons hit his assailant’s face and made him flinch, and Swan got his left hand on his own sword-blade and slammed the edge down on the man’s left hand where it had come to rest on the table, breaking all the other man’s fingers.

  The Orsini swordsman stumbled back, and Swan vaulted the table and made a fast cut to finish the fight, but the other man parried.

  Swan drove him back three steps, but each step took him deeper into the melee, and any thought of single combat vanished as a fist caught him in the thigh – an almost harmless blow that nonetheless awakened him to the fact that he was surrounded by enemies, most of whom had their own opponents but all of whom could potentially end his life.

  He caught a sword-blade intended for his head on his crossguard, trapped it with his left hand and slammed his whole hilt back down the line of the attack, making teeth fly. The grip on the enemy sword slackened, and he whirled, swinging the stolen sword by the blade and cutting deeply into his own left fingers. The hilt caught an unwary retainer in the back and shoulder. He rolled with the blow like a trained fighter, but not fast enough to avoid Di Brescia’s debilitating kick to the groin and follow-up blow to the head.

  Swan caught a new assailant’s attack in his peripheral vision and raised his sword, only to have it smashed by a chair – a heavy oak chair – which broke his beautiful blade and almost shattered his right arm. One leg caught him a glancing blow to his lip and ripped his face.

  Swan saw red, stepped into the open space created by the chair and caught the man’s dagger hand in his own bloody left – the chair-thrower tried to use his own left to drag Swan to the floor, but Swan passed under the blow as Di Brachio had taught him on board ship – slamming his elbow into the man’s throat in passing his own right arm across the Orsini’s body, turning the man unwillingly outward and away, and then throwing him over his own right leg – while maintaining control of the dagger hand, so the man’s shoulder separated with a loud pop, and he screamed like a woman in childbirth.

  Giannis had another man against the wall, and was slamming his head repeatedly against the tiles of the fireplace. There was a high-pitched shout of triumph, and another man fell heavily against Swan’s legs. Violetta stood triumphantly over her victim while Irene nursed her knuckles.

  ‘She parried and I thrust,’ Violetta said, breathing hard.

  Irene had a bad cut all the way down her hand and arm. She stared at it, and Andromache grabbed her. ‘Don’t pass out, you little fool!’ she shouted.

  Swan rotated, looking for a new adversary.

  The Florentines had taken the Orsini by surprise, and all three of them had downed a man, shattering the weight of their attack. Messire Accucciulli bowed like the dancer he was, and flourished his blade. ‘A perfect end to a perfect evening,’ he said.

  Di Brescia was looking at the men he’d downed with all the pride of middle-aged prowess, but he returned the bow. ‘Messire may well have saved us,’ he said.

  The Florentine shrugged. ‘A small return on your hospitality. Who would abandon a dance partner?’ He bowed to Violetta. ‘At your service, my lady, whoever you might be.’

  Swan was looking at Irene’s hand. The blade had crossed her guard and cut down between the knuckles, almost separating the web between the fingers – and had also scored high on the forearm near the elbow.

  Violetta helped Swan lower the Greek girl into a chair – the same chair that had done some damage to Swan’s face. ‘Look away,’ she said to Irene, who was white as a sheet and breathing very shallowly.

  She peeled the skin back from the edges of the wound for a moment and nodded. ‘Needle and thread?’ she asked.

  Giannis and the Frenchman were looting the fallen men of their purses.

  The Frenchman laughed. ‘By Saint Denis, I was out of money, and I only joined you lot to touch a woman for a change, and see here! Money from heaven.’

  Giannis gave him a look. The Frenchman raised both hands. ‘Share and share alike!’ he said with Gallish sincerity. ‘I swear! Brothers for ever! Or until we have to fight!’

  The Florentines watched the process with distaste. ‘What becomes of them, then?’ Accuicciulli asked Di Brescia.

  The Roman sneered. ‘Nothing good, but it won’t be at our hands. One dead – the rest are merely down, and this coward here’ – D
i Brescia had his foot on one man’s gut – ‘is merely shamming, waiting for us to leave.’

  ‘Do we hold the battlefield, or must we flee from their reinforcements?’ asked the Florentine. ‘I don’t know your Roman ways.’

  The innkeeper, of all people, had taken a heavy blow early in the fight, and sat by the upturned table, with his wife fussing over a new egg on his scalp. She looked up. ‘We don’t want any more trouble,’ she said. ‘My poor man – look at him!’

  ‘The watch won’t come,’ Di Brescia said. ‘If these were hard times, like a papal election, then both sides would send for more men and we’d have a battle. But in these decadent times …’ The older man shrugged. ‘Swan, you attract trouble like shit attracts flies, you know that, eh?’

  In the end, they all went back to the cardinal’s palazzo, moving carefully. Swan’s split lip, along with the bruise to his head, had swelled outrageously, making any kind of talking difficult, and his right eye was almost swollen shut. Violetta had sewn Irene’s hand, and the Greek acrobat stood the pain during the sewing, and got honey from the innkeeper’s wife to spread on the wound. Di Brescia and Giannis were virtually untouched. They embraced the Florentine with promises of future comradery and all of them wrapped themselves in cloaks and followed Giannis, who had volunteered to scout, out into the darkness.

  Swan realised that the Frenchman was with them.

  ‘Where are you going?’ he whispered. They were crossing the edge of the forum.

  ‘I need work,’ the man muttered. ‘My boss got the plague. You’re rich – hire me. I can fight.’

  Swan could barely talk, much less negotiate. ‘I’ll give you a place to sleep,’ he said. ‘That is the limit of my resources.’

  Bessarion had two stables, one for visitors and one for his own nags and some donkeys. Swan put the Frenchman in with the mules, and fetched him two good blankets from his own travelling gear.

  Violetta stood in the shadows. ‘I can’t go to your room,’ she said.

  Swan was in pain. ‘Why not?’ he asked.

  Di Brescia shook his head. ‘You won’t be caught,’ he said. ‘It’s as important to the cardinal’s reputation as to ours. Come on.’ He took them in through the kitchen, and the only servant awake was a small boy nodding by the great fireplace.

  They climbed the back stairs, up two flights, and crept along the barracks corridors to their rooms. Swan reached his with a sigh of relief, pulled the courtesan in behind him and shut the door. He kissed her in the darkness despite the pain.

  She put a hand behind his head. ‘You taste like blood,’ she said. She sounded happy.

  Later, in the darkness, she pushed him away. ‘Would you marry me?’ she asked.

  Swan couldn’t see her. He grunted, thinking the proposition over.

  ‘The fucking priests aren’t going to marry me, are they?’ she asked the darkness. ‘My mother said that you needed to find a soldier and stay with him. She did it for ten years, until the gentleman took a lance in the side down in Naples. He was good to us. I remember riding his horse.’ She wriggled. ‘You think I’m used goods. Can I tell you something whores know that virgins don’t?’

  ‘My mother was a whore,’ Swan said. His whole face hurt. His side hurt. But this was … interesting.

  She went on as if he hadn’t spoken. ‘It just doesn’t matter. Unless you let it matter. I could be a good wife. Did you just say your mother was a whore?’

  ‘She runs a tavern in London. Like that woman tonight, except there is no landlord. Just her brothers, who are a pair of …’ He couldn’t think of words to do justice to his uncles. ‘Bruisers. Thugs. Killers. But they were always good to me.’

  They lay in silence.

  ‘I like you,’ he said. ‘I’m not – exactly – the marrying type.’

  She laughed. ‘Well, neither am I. But I decided I’d ask you, as you are the only man I know that I like. Well – I like Giannis, now. Di Brescia – he wanted to peel my clothes off even while he teaches me to hold a sword.’

  Swan licked the inside of the big bruise on his cheek. ‘So did I,’ he said.

  ‘You’re not a hundred years old,’ she said. ‘Your body’s as good as mine.’

  Later, he said, ‘Damn it, maybe I should marry you.’

  Swan was summoned by the cardinal, and was left in no doubt of his failings. It was early, but he was already shaved, dressed and ready.

  Swan looked at his empty bed, considered his past and future, and made his decision. He picked up the bag of his treasures – the small items he’d purchased on his own account in Greece – and took them with him to the cardinal.

  Bessarion sat across his desk and steepled his fingers. ‘You threatened my steward, you created a riot in the forum where my name was mentioned, and you brought a notorious courtesan into my house. And no doubt fornicated with her.’ He sounded weary. ‘You look like an animal,’ he added.

  Swan was past anger. He’d been awakened early by Violetta – after almost no sleep – and his face was as big as a melon. His right eye was barely able to open and he looked like a puffy-faced Turk. She had dressed quickly, with almost no talk, and she hadn’t kissed him.

  He’d taken her out through the kitchen, of course. Except that the kitchen at dawn is a much busier place than the kitchen at the dark of the moon.

  ‘I feel that you are out of place in my household,’ Bessarion said.

  Swan thought furiously – much as he’d thought when Violetta proposed marriage. It wasn’t what you said – it was how you said it. Adults had been shouting at him for his various misdemeanours for most of his life. Reacting to the injustice of the situation was almost never the best tactic. He controlled his breathing.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he muttered.

  ‘No, you are not,’ Bessarion said. He raised his eyes, and they had a little sparkle to them. ‘She is quite remarkably beautiful,’ he said. He almost sounded wistful. ‘Listen, boy. I owe you a great deal. But this is an awful time for the Curia. The loss of Constantinople …’ He shrugged. ‘For me, it is liking losing my right hand. But even for the Latin curates, it is as if God has turned his back on us.’ He looked off into space beyond Swan’s head. ‘Perhaps he has, and this is the end of the Church. Di Brachio says that the Turk plans to conquer Italy.’

  Swan met his eyes. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘He thinks he is Alexander born again.’

  Bessarion smiled. ‘What a heretical notion for an Islamic man to hold,’ he said. ‘I wonder how I can use it against him?’ He looked at the ceiling. ‘Listen, boy. There is a galley at Ancona that is readying for sea – bound for Cos and Rhodos. You need to leave this town, and I am flush with money – I can afford to send you to buy books.’ He leaned back. ‘Mind you, I suspect that you, too, are flush with money. Mm?’

  ‘I made some money in Constantinople, Eminence,’ Swan replied.

  ‘The missing stones on the head, perhaps? Never mind. I’m giving the head to the Serenissima in return for their support for a crusade. They can replace the stones.’ Bessarion leaned forward. ‘I was thinking of other money.’

  ‘Father Ridolpho’s gold?’ Swan asked sweetly. ‘In French francs and Genoese gold mixed? Is that what we’re looking for?’

  Bessarion nodded. ‘So you admit it?’ he began loudly, and then paused. ‘French francs? That’s odd.’

  ‘I thought so, too,’ Swan said. He put the bag on the table – most of the bag. ‘I confess I spent some of it, but I promise it was in a good cause.’

  Bessarion sorted through the coins. ‘Sweet Saviour, but the French debase their coins.’

  Swan shrugged. ‘Eminence, I freely confess to you that I’d have spent more of them if anyone would take them.’

  Bessarion sat back again. ‘Englishman, you are incorrigible. You confess to stealing from my steward.’

  Swan smiled. ‘Eminence, he insulted Messire Di Brachio, accused the two of you of sodomy, and is obviously being paid to spy on you.’ Swan waved his han
d in dismissal – a gesture he’d learned from his father, closing the subject as unimportant. ‘May I hire another soldier? I have a Frenchman below who saved my life last night.’

  ‘That falls in with my wishes very well, my boy, as I cannot send Giannis with you – I need him with my Greeks. And Di Brachio is better, but he will not be sailing this week or next. Hire this Frenchman by all means.’ He was unrolling a scroll as he talked – a Greek play. ‘You saved some wonderful things. Go and save more.’

  ‘What of Monemvasia?’ Swan asked.

  ‘If I am Pope …’ Bessarion made a very Greek motion with his head – neither yea nor nay. ‘I would take the city for the Holy See. But others do not feel as I do, and Genoa and Venice are putting fingers into the pie. I will make sure that your galley touches there – you’ll want your man back.’

  ‘But the other men are Venetians …’ Swan rubbed his chin.

  ‘Leave them,’ Bessarion said. ‘Unless you can make the lion lie down with the lamb.’ He waited for Swan to understand and gave up with a shake of his head. ‘At any rate …’

  Understanding hit Swan – a heraldic joke. The Lion of St Mark and Venice, the lamb of the Order of St John – and Genoa. He laughed as people do when they are late to a joke.

  Bessarion winced. ‘Listen, my young thief,’ he said. ‘I need you to be able to reach certain people and act in certain ways. You have good manners and your Italian is virtually flawless.’

  ‘Your Eminence should try my Arabic or my Turkish!’ Swan bragged.

  Bessarion smiled the smile of the older man recognising something he didn’t like in himself. ‘Yes, I’m sure,’ he said. ‘I’m sending you on a galley of the Order of Rhodos. You know them?’

  Swan nodded. ‘The Knights of St John? They put on all the best plays in London. My mother says they are good to the poor.’ He smiled. ‘There were two of them at Madame Lucrescia’s a few nights ago.’