Tom Swan and the Head of St. George Part Five: Rhodes

by Christian Cameron

  Swan leaned forward, slapped a hand on the table, and with the ease of long practice, slipped Drappierro’s purse off its hook while the man was watching his other hand. He withdrew his rings, took his helmet off the table, and bowed.

  ‘When you have negotiated a price and paid it, you may have these items, messire, and not until then. I collect for the Pope and several cardinals and the – ’ he hoped his hesitation didn’t show – ‘the Duke of Milan.’

  Drappierro shot to his feet and fetched his head a staggering blow against the deck beams. He fell, almost unconscious.

  Swan took the moment to sweep the rest of his acquisitions into a bag. He was tempted to empty the Genoese man’s purse, but he managed to resist. He tossed it on the table with a healthy clink and went on deck.

  The second leg of their voyage was far more comfortable than the first, mostly because Peter had arranged for deck space among the Burgundian archers, and Swan slept both warm and well between Antoine and Peter. Antoine was as welcome with the archers as Peter – even more so when he made them bread in a hastily rigged clay oven on an open beach not far from where the Persian fleet failed to defeat the Greek fleet at Artemesium. The Genoese ambassador had a stop to make on Naxos, and Swan again visited the market and bought coins and a dagger.

  A day out of Naxos, he was playing chess with the captain on the quarterdeck. The day was fine, and it seemed possible that spring was not so very far away. The Genoese ambassador came on deck, climbed the ladder to the quarterdeck as if he owned it, and stood watching the sea. He leaned on the rail and watched the game for a dozen moves.

  ‘I do want to buy those pieces,’ he said without preamble. ‘Cyriaco collected for me. He never charged me. I assumed you were working for him.’ The man’s voice was mild. ‘I apologise for my apparent theft.’

  Swan shot to his feet and swept his best bow. ‘I knew that a gentleman of your distinction would be under some misapprehension,’ he said.

  ‘How much for the helmet and the rings?’ Drappierro asked. Then, his expression slipping, he said, ‘You haven’t already sold them?’

  Swan wanted to laugh aloud. How did this man rise to greatness in Genoa? he asked himself. He wears his heart on his face! He rubbed his chin. ‘I’ll sell you both rings and the helmet for two hundred ducats, messire.’

  Drappierro nodded. ‘Done. See my chamberlain. See? I am not so unreasonable. When you have been paid, kindly bring them to me. Are we satisfied?’

  Swan nodded. ‘Completely so, messire.’ He tried not to roll his eyes.

  Drappierro’s chamberlain was a Phokaian Greek called Katzou. He shrugged at the news and opened a small chest and emptied it into Swan’s hat. He made no complaint, checked no document and asked for no validation, and Swan briefly considered a life of crime, but reminded himself that he would be trapped aboard the galley with his victims.

  He carried the antiquities to the main cabin, knocked and took them to Drappierro, who sat as he always did at the main table as if he, and not Fra Tommaso, was the captain of the vessel.

  ‘Ah!’ he said, looking up. His eyes held the kind of lust that Swan associated with old men and much younger women. He snatched the rings from Swan’s hand, looked at them for three deep breaths, and then took the helmet.

  Swan turned to go. At the rate of profit, a few more finds sold to Messire Drappierro would allow him to settle comfortably in Ancona and make babies with Violetta. He didn’t need the man to be polite – merely to pay.

  ‘Wait – Messire Suani.’ The Genoese ambassador raised his hand. ‘I am an abrupt man – I know it. But I see you have taste and some training – hence your friendship with Cyriaco. So – you saw the knight of the order at Monemvasia?’

  Drappierro’s abrupt conversational direction changes left Swan gasping like a fish. But he did his best, recovered and bowed.

  ‘Your Excellency no doubt refers to Fra Domenico?’ he asked.

  Drappierro waved. ‘That sounds right. A notorious pirate, albeit one who tends to favour my city.’

  Swan nodded carefully.

  ‘Young man, did you happen to note what the knight wore on his finger?’ asked Drappierro.

  Swan pursed his lips and decided on honesty. ‘A ring. Very early – possibly Hellenistic. The gem is a diamond.’

  Drappierro looked at him. It was the first time they had met eye to eye – Drappierro’s gaze burned like the look of a religious fanatic at devotions. ‘A diamond, you say?’ he said. ‘Why do you think so?’

  Swan eased himself into the cushioned seats against the stern windows. The winter sun reflected off the sea and on to the gleaming white ceiling of the cabin. The heavy deck beams were painted black and red in alternating succession, and the effect with the sun-dapple was stark and beautiful.

  Drappierro hadn’t invited him to sit, but Swan was not interested in standing like a servant for this man.

  ‘I’ve held it in my hand,’ Swan said.

  Drappierro leaned forward. ‘You have? Tell me of it in detail.’

  Swan smiled. ‘First, it is called “The Ring of the Conqueror”,’ he said. ‘It is Alexander’s signet ring.’

  Drappierro became so red in the face that Swan was afraid the man was going to have a seizure. ‘Messire? Do you need water?’

  Drappierro leaned back. ‘I have heard of this thing. How do you know it is the real ring?’

  Swan shrugged. ‘I do not know. But Fra Domenico believes it is, as did the Turkish corsair from whom he took it.’

  ‘By the saints – he had it from Khaireddin,’ Drappierro said. ‘It is the ring.’ His slightly mad eyes met Swan’s. ‘What’s carved in the jewel?’

  ‘Herakles,’ Swan said, in Greek. ‘His head, anyway!’

  Drappierro sighed. ‘Why didn’t I stop and look at it? Listen, Messire Suani. The Grand Turk wants that ring. Very badly. If I could give it to him, I could get any treaty I wanted. Perhaps even reclaim some of my losses from the infidel.’

  ‘Swan, messire. I am English.’ Swan nodded agreeably. ‘I suspect the knight would sell it – for a substantial sum. I heard him mention ten thousand ducats.’

  Drappierro frowned. ‘I will consider this. The man who brought me that ring would be … my friend.’ He settled his mad eyes on Swan. ‘In the East, my friends prosper. Cyriaco recommended you to me. See what you can do.’

  Swan decided that this had gone far enough – although he was intrigued. ‘I am merely a soldier of the order,’ he said.

  ‘Save it for the knights,’ Drappierro said. ‘I know what you are. I saw you take my purse.’ He smiled, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. ‘How about that wife of yours, in Ancona?’

  Swan had been caught in too many lies to fall easily for such stuff. ‘What’s that, messire? I’m afraid I do not understand.’

  ‘I think you understand me very well, Englishman. Fra Diablo will come out to Rhodos this summer. You get the ring, and bring it to me, and I will see to it that your fortune is made. Or – fail me, and see what happens.’

  ‘You want me to steal a valuable ring from a knight of my own order?’ Swan said, standing up carefully and raising his voice.

  Drappierro grew red in the face.

  Swan slipped out from behind the table. ‘I’ll pretend I never heard that,’ he said, with all the outraged innocence that a bastard son of a Southwark whore could learn to muster in a childhood spent in taverns, brothels and the English court. He stalked to the cabin door and slammed it on his way out.

  He went and finished his chess game. Fra Tommaso raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

  East of Delos, they finally paid the price of sailing in winter. The blow came off Africa, full of sand, and then, without warning, the wind shifted through half the compass and blew off Thrace, and came full of snow. The Burgundians laughed – at first. They helped clear the snow away, and the sailors laughed and played in it until it began to clog the rigging and all the blocks, and then the ropes began to freeze, and
darkness fell. The big lateen sail was shortened twice, and then taken in altogether, and they ran downwind towards Africa with the whole weight of the Thracian storm under their stern, and Tom Swan had his first experience of staying on deck and on duty until his knees wouldn’t hold him. For hours, he and the old knight were lashed to the tiller, a heavy linen tarpaulin impregnated with red lead and linseed oil wrapped around them with two old wool blankets, the whole thing flapping in the wind.

  The morning of the fourth day crept up on wolf’s feet, the grey enveloping the ship so slowly that they were shocked to find how much they could see before a long squall hit and blinded them again, and pushed the long, slim ship over on its beam ends for so long that Swan, standing in water and the whole weight of his body against the starboard rail, thought the ship was lost.

  They righted, the central deck full of water, and the oarsmen made a desperate attempt to bail. Men were soaked, and cold, and the wind was unrelenting.

  The old knight rose to the challenge, calling orders into the waist of the ship and being obeyed. As the wind slackened towards noon, he called for more sail, and they slanted away to the west.

  By nightfall, Antoine had a small fire going amid the stinking sand of the forward bilge, where galleys lit fires in times of dire need. The sand stank because in storms men feared to relieve themselves over the side, and did their business in the sand of the hold – despite a thousand orders to the contrary.

  But Antoine’s special talent was his ability to light a fire in any weather, and he added bits of wood salvaged from the storm – a broken chest, a fractured stool – to the firewood kept for just such moments. Then he produced a pair of copper pots and began to heat water, and served a hot concoction of malmsey wine, water, sugar and spices that raised spirits above the masthead. He went on making the concoction until the galley lumbered into Rhodos with two men dead of exposure and a badly sprung bow where the ship had hit a floating tree in the darkness of their last night. They were long since out of food, and the men were not exactly sober, but the ship glided down the long harbour, the oars frothed the water as they slowed, and Fra Tommaso, at the helm in person, put the ship alongside the quay as neatly as a whore hooking a customer at the fair.

  Every oarsman and every sailor bent and kissed the stones of the quay as they disembarked.

  Messire Drappierro stood on the quay in a dry wool gown and looked sour. ‘Now I’m days out of my way,’ he said. ‘I have no need to visit Rhodos.’

  Fra Tommaso was supervising the unloading of the corpses of the men who’d died at sea. He glanced at the Genoese. ‘You and your entourage are welcome to catch a different ship,’ he said quietly. ‘I warned Your Excellency when you came aboard that no ship of the order would be welcome in the Golden Horn.’

  ‘And I told you not to be an old woman.’ Drappierro curled his lip. ‘I can see to such things.’

  Fra Tommaso’s face remained unchanged. ‘Perhaps, but, as I am an old woman, it is not a risk I choose to run. There are two Genoese ships across the harbour. I’ll see to it that one of them takes you up the coast.’

  Drappierro shrugged. To Katzou, he said, ‘Find an inn. Get our kit unloaded.’ He looked at Swan. ‘Don’t forget the ring,’ he said.

  ‘He’s insane,’ Swan said after the ambassador was gone.

  The knight shook his head. ‘No. Merely full of a sense of his own power. Money and worldly power do this to men. They become … less than human. He cannot see a world beyond himself. It is sad – I knew him slightly as a younger man. He was a bold adventurer, a charming man. He made too much money, and now he sees himself …’ The knight caught himself.

  ‘By Saint John, young Englishman – that’s the effect that Drappierro has. I’m gossiping like a fishwife. He is what he is. Will you stay with my ship?’ he asked.

  Swan was watching Drappierro. Bessarion had ordered him to watch the Genoese and work with him, but Bessarion had also asked him to visit Rhodos and Chios and Lesvos.

  ‘Are you still bound for Chios?’ he asked.

  Fra Tommaso waved at a group of approaching knights. But he turned back to Swan. ‘I am. I may wait for the weather to break. Fancy a month on Rhodos?’

  Swan thought of Violetta. ‘Not really,’ he said. ‘Will it be relaxing?’

  After a month on Rhodos, Swan longed to return to sea. As a Donat, he rose every morning an hour before dawn, and walked out of the barracks with sixty other volunteers to exercise in the stone-flagged courtyard for an hour – lifting rocks and drawing bows and running like antic madmen. The first meal was dried bread and small beer, although Antoine could usually be counted on for an egg.

  Some days, Swan drew various duties, all of which involved being mounted in full armour – patrolling walls, riding abroad on the island, or sitting with the knight on duty as tolls were levied or visiting merchants questioned. Winter still had the Ionia in its grip, but the traffic was already moving – the small traders who hopped from island to island never ceased business, and a month before Greek Easter, the bigger boats were moving, as well, with wares from Egypt, Turkey and Palestine.

  The knights were not unnecessarily cruel to their Greek subjects, but neither were they the fatherly protectors that Bessarion imagined. The island’s Greek inhabitants paid a heavy tax for the ‘protection’ of the order – an order that they could not join. Swan, by virtue of his languages, was soon party to almost every property negotiation, and he saw the Greek gentry bridle at any suggestion that the knights should own more land. He heard the order referred to as ‘schismatics’ and ‘heretics’ by old women in the street. The island’s oldest icon sat in the hospitallers’ chapel where the natives could not revere it; the island’s cathedral church was Latin, not Greek.

  On the other hand, the population had schools and fresh water, and paid lower taxes than most of their cousins under Turkish rule. When Swan was off duty, drinking in the taverns, he heard older Greeks admit that business was good. But he saw the young French knights treat Greeks as if they were the enemy.

  The duty was not especially onerous, unless he had to spend two hours translating, but the ceaseless practice of arms was. Every day, with no exceptions, the knights, the Donats and all the mercenaries paraded at the castle, marched and formed into various formations, retreated and advanced, and then practised with weapons – one day, Swan cut at a pell with a short sword until he thought he’d been forgotten, over an hour, and his right shoulder hurt for days. Another time he was handed a poleaxe, a weapon he had never used, and instructed by a hectoring Neapolitan until he wanted to kill the patronising little bastard. A rail-thin Scottish knight instructed him at length about tilting and jousting. He hadn’t attempted to tilt since he was at court in England, but his riding skills had improved, and the Scotsman was a far better teacher than the Neapolitan.

  As February turned to March, Swan saw the Blessed Saint John taken down to the frame and retimbered, with new decking and more than half of her planks replaced with fresh wood that shone nearly white against the older wood, now nearly black. Fencing with sword and buckler against Fra Tommaso, Swan commented on how good the ship looked.

  ‘She’s always been a beauty,’ Fra Tommaso agreed, obviously pleased that Swan could see his ship’s superiority. ‘That floating log hulled us badly. We’re lucky we made it into port, and luckier still that Master Shipwright has timber this year.’ He nodded at the knights. ‘Either the Turks are coming here, or we’re going for them. This is more men than I’ve seen in this yard since …’ He looked about. ‘Ever,’ he grunted, and set himself to trying to smash the small shield out of Swan’s resisting hand.

  Daily practice had done much to allow Swan to distil some of the lessons he’d learned in unconnected pieces – from Messire Viladi, from Di Brachio, from the poem of Maestro Fiore he’d memorised. He’d learned a fair amount, but life on Rhodos allowed him to sort it out, practise it – and theorise.

  He began to see what Maestro Fiore meant wh
en he said that all things were the same in fighting, and that once you learned a set of techniques, it was ‘very, very easy’ to apply them to other weapons. This discovery came when, fencing with heavy blunted spears in full harness, he slapped his opponent’s spear-point to the earth and put his bated point into the other man’s visor hard enough to rock his head back. As his opponent was Fra Kenneth, the Scottish knight who taught him jousting – a veteran fighter with a vicious repertoire of elbows, knees, grapples and locks – Swan was proud of himself.

  He’d used the technique without thinking, imitating something he’d learned from Maestro Viladi with the sword. Over the next four days he earned a reputation as a canny spear fighter.

  Rhodos did have a few rewards to go with its litany of punishments. The order’s library was superb, and Swan sat and read medical texts and was praised for doing so. And he found that working in the hospital was almost pleasant. The building itself was big and airy and full of light, and the attitude of the serving brothers and sisters – and the rate of recovery of the patients, most of whom were foreign pilgrims – did a great deal to change Swan’s view of how medicine worked.

  And the food was plenteous and mostly very good. Swan ate as much as he was allowed, and his appetite grew with each day of exercise, until the older knights would sit and laugh to watch him work his way through a great dish of mutton with saffron rice and raisins, a local favourite.

  To his intense annoyance, he grew an inch in a sudden growth spurt, and his chest grew larger, so that his new, carefully fitted breast and back plate now fitted no better than his old one. He took it to the order’s armourer, who had a magnificent shop, and who refitted it to him in a day.

  He looked longingly at the nuns. Chastity wasn’t in him, and twice in a month he drew sharp penances for his confessions – but they didn’t turn their heads, even the young, pretty ones.

  The Blessed Saint John acquired her third and fourth coats of paint, and was declared ready for sea. After seventy days as a Donat, Swan had almost come to enjoy the life. He was certainly a better man-at-arms. He’d read some good books, seen some superb art, and by some alchemy he’d come to feel a part of the order, not just a wolf in another wolf’s clothing.