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

by Christian Cameron

  Swan found that he was … himself. Except that his hands were shaking so hard that he could not hold the railing for the stairs.

  ‘Take him back into the air,’ Tommaso said.

  Swan closed his eyes and swallowed bile. ‘No,’ he gasped. ‘I’ll go down.’

  He made a foot reach down, and then another, and then another. It seemed like a hundred steps down into the earth, and he could feel the weight of the tons of rock over his head, a palpable force pressing down on him. He was sweating as if he were fighting in armour.

  But he made it to the sandy floor of the cave. And the cave wasn’t dark at all. It was lit by a hundred candles, and the smell of incense drowned the smell of blood that stuck in his nose the way dog shit can stick to your throat.

  The priest was Greek. But for once, that didn’t seem to matter. He smiled, said a few words, and gave the two knights communion. They knelt to take it and muttered Latin invocations.

  Despite his spinning head – as much to control it as anything – Swan took the bread and murmured, ‘πατήρ μου δίδωσιν ὑμῖν τὸν ἄρτον ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ.’

  The priest raised a clerical eyebrow. And gave the host to Peter.

  A hundred heartbeats later, he was out under the stars with the two knights. He took in great gasps if air as if he’d been unable to breathe.

  ‘You’ll want to bathe before we go to the palace,’ Fra Domenico said, more kindly than Swan had ever seen him. The man’s ring glittered with an inner light as he gestured. ‘There’s a bath just there, where the street rises in front of the gates. Hurry.’

  Swan was beginning to get his bearings. ‘How ancient was that … chapel?’

  Tommaso shrugged. ‘From pagan times, no doubt – but no less holy for that.’

  Fra Domenico shook his head. ‘No – our young hero is smitten by the ancient world. Aren’t you, lad? Nymphs and satyrs and priestesses.’

  ‘I should like to see the temples at Kalloni.’ For the first time in two weeks, he thought of Cardinal Bessarion. ‘And my master, Cardinal Bessarion, had a mission for me – at Kalloni.’

  ‘Go and bathe,’ Fra Tommaso said, a little impatiently. ‘We’ll clean our throats with some good red wine. I want to render unto Caesar, and visit my friends here.’

  The baths were packed with sailors and oarsmen, but Swan’s status as a Donat and his fame from the fight under the walls won him a spot in the bath almost immediately. Men moved aside – men bowed.

  There is something very odd about accepting praise, or even courtesy, while naked. Swan felt shy – he certainly didn’t enjoy the attention as he might have on another occasion.

  He didn’t pay enough heed to the men ahead of him, and hopped down into the first bath.

  And shrieked.

  All around him, oarsmen and sailors cursed – and laughed.

  ‘First time, my lord?’ asked an oarsman with the body of Herakles. The man had more muscles on his abdomen than Swan would have thought possible. The water was so hot that Swan was afraid that his testicles might burn off.

  ‘Yes,’ he said through gritted teeth.

  ‘Lower yourself,’ said another man. ‘Slowly. Don’t fight it. Relaxes the muscles.’

  They all looked like Herakles. And they were all grinning.

  ‘Cup of wine or two, hot bath, a girl on your lap, and the world is a fine place,’ agreed the deep-voiced figure of Poseidon just by him.

  It was dark, and hot – but the water was so hot that it steadied him, and he didn’t have to be afraid. And he was … touched by the respect of the oarsmen. When he got out, another man led him to the cold water, and he swam a little.

  A small boy offered him a cup of wine from a tray.

  The sailor put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Not unless you want to buy the boy, too, mate,’ he said. And grinned. ‘Custom of the house.’

  Swan smiled at the boy and shook his head – and made his way to the dry room where he had shed his clothes. He felt so very clean that the clothes he’d been wearing now seemed filthy. He opened his portmanteau and dressed in his second best – brown cloth – too warm for spring in Greece but clean and neat. He paid an old woman a few bronze sequins to do his hair and he sat on the porch of the bath with a cup of wine while the two knights talked to the Greek priest from the cave in the outdoor wine shop under the eaves.

  ‘A person might think you were a pretty girl and not a knight of Christ at all,’ Fra Tommaso said. ‘Although, I confess that, having met your wife, her standards might have – hmm – rubbed off?’ He laughed.

  ‘His wife?’ Fra Domenico asked.

  ‘A very beautiful woman,’ Fra Tommaso said.

  Fra Domenico smiled – a private smile, as if something he’d understood had been confirmed. ‘Have you any children, my son?’ he asked.

  ‘Perhaps we will, with God’s help,’ Swan said, and just for a moment, he saw her naked in his mind’s eye.

  ‘Children are the greatest blessing of marriage,’ Fra Domenico said.

  I’m receiving marriage counselling from the most notorious pirate in the Inner Sea, thought Swan. He paid a small tip to the old Greek woman, who smiled toothlessly and patted him.

  ‘Adonis is prepared to grace us with his company,’ Fra Tommaso said.

  Peter nodded from the porch of the baths. ‘I’ll just be making my way down to the waterfront,’ he said. ‘If you happen to kill anyone, be sure and take their purses – eh, my lord?’

  Swan took this as a cue and delved into his own purse for a handful of ducats.

  ‘Any left for your own girl?’ Peter asked quietly.

  Swan shrugged. He felt clean. He was almost out of money and, as usual, ready to face the world one desperate crisis at a time.

  The palace of the Gattelusi appeared small enough from the outside. Located securely on the highest point of the acropolis inside the fortress, it was itself a citadel, with its own walls and its own chapel. The interior of the great fortress was not flat – rather, it rose constantly from the three successive gates, past the church, to the citadel. In the gatehouse and again on the walls of the citadel, the arms of the Gattelusi were carved into the stone – over and over – alongside the great double-headed eagle of the Paleologi. To the left and right, on one of the great towers of the citadel, there were – Swan stopped walking and fell behind Fra Tommaso – warriors. And men fighting animals.

  Fra Domenico turned. ‘Master Swan!’ he called out.

  Swan heard him, in a distant way. He was transfixed.

  Fra Domenico walked back down the hill. And looked up. The last rays of the spring sun put a ruddy light over the high tower and placed the figures in high relief.

  ‘Gladiators, Fra Domenico!’ Swan said in wonder. ‘Roman gladiators on Lesvos.’

  The knight put a hand on Swan’s shoulder. ‘Come on, my young classicist. Let us meet the owners. Perhaps they’ll give you one.’ He smiled at the older knight. ‘We are leading this young man into temptation!’ He waved at the palace. ‘In there is one of the finest collections of antiquities you will ever see.’

  The last rays of the sun made the diamond on his finger glow like something magical.

  The palace of the Gattelusi was as opulent as any palace in Rome – decorated in the most modern classical style, with the signal difference that many of the statues were not copies, but the real thing. A magnificent figure of a nude woman stood in the entry hall – modestly covering herself, eyes cast down, she arrested the viewer instantly. Behind her was a painted frieze in the classical style – paint on stucco – depicting dancing nymphs and satyrs. On the plinth to the left of the statue stood a single immense urn – a krater in ancient Greek red-figure ware, with a scene of Penelope weaving at her loom in the foreground, Odysseus leaning on his spear. Lest there be any doubt, their names were written in the ancient letters.

  Swan looked down and found he was standing on a mosaic floor – a mosaic of a man and a woman, done i
n stones so small that the woman’s made-up eyes had six or seven tones to them.

  Something like a groan escaped Swan.

  Fra Domenico laughed. ‘It is the earthly paradise,’ he said.

  Fra Tommaso was less inclined to be lyrical. ‘Is there a major-domo?’ he asked the two slaves who’d ushered them in.

  ‘I like to greet my guests in person,’ came a voice. It was an odd, androgynous voice – the voice of a mature woman, or perhaps an old man, or a very young one. The Italian was without accent – neither Roman nor Milanese nor Venetian nor Genoese. Merely – Italian.

  Swan looked around. There were two African slaves by the door, and another pair of matching Bulgarian slaves standing by what appeared to be the main archway into the living quarters.

  He looked up.

  A storey above him, a magnificent silver lamp seemed to float in the air, the twenty wicks giving a golden light. Each wick emerged from the head of a beast, and all of the beasts were joined to a central body that twisted as if in mortal combat. The whole lamp was silver, and the chain that vanished overhead into the murk of the tower’s interior was silver.

  And on the other side of the lamp, there was a small balcony – an interior balcony. On it stood a man dressed in traditional Byzantine robes, with a small purple-red hat adorned with pearls. He had a mature face – Swan thought he was in his fifties – with wide-set, liquid eyes and the long, straight nose of the Byzantine emperors.

  Fra Domenico bowed. ‘Prince Dorino,’ he said.

  Fra Tommaso shook his head softly, but said nothing.

  The prince leaned over his balcony. ‘You admire my lamp, young man?’ His soft, womanly voice was disconcerting. It floated on the air and played tricks and made Swan unsure about who had spoken. It was like some mummer’s trick at a fair by the Thames.

  ‘I think it is remarkable,’ Swan said. ‘Is it … Roman?’

  Prince Dorino laughed softly. ‘Roman? Psst – that for Rome,’ he said, and snapped his fingers. ‘Rome was a nation of barbarians who could do nothing but copy. It is Greek, young man. Everything worth having was made by the Greeks.’ He smiled. ‘Come – the advantage in height is too overwhelming. Come upstairs – my cousin is here and we are all learning our parts for the fete tomorrow.’

  The two Slavs bowed and escorted the three men, in their plain clerical brown, past a magnificent tapestry of men hunting a rhinoceros; to a set of stairs broad enough to drive a wagon up to the top, curving like a snail’s shell, in pale marble. The stairs were flanked by fluted columns. Swan reached out and touched one. He looked at the base and saw that it was ancient – looked up at the capital and saw a design he didn’t know at all.

  ‘It is Aeolian,’ said a woman’s voice, quite near at hand.

  Swan realized that he was standing with his mouth half-open, gaping like a fish. He was at the base of the steps. A woman clad in a chiton, with the peplos folded down for modesty, stepped out from behind the pillar. She had skin the colour of newly finished oak, and black hair that fell in ten thousand curls, and the most astonishing green eyes flecked in gold, like emeralds set in rings. She looked so very like an ancient statue sprung to life that Swan lost his ability to speak for a moment. Then he bowed, as deeply as if to a cardinal. When he raised his head, she was gone.

  Swan stood like a statue himself for a moment, and then raced up the steps after the sound of the knights.

  At the top of the great steps, an arch twenty feet tall opened into a great hall. The hall itself spoke with many voices – there were heads of animals, including a pair of lions; there were weapons, from a magnificent bronze sword whose green patina was glossy with preservation to a new steel arming sword with an elaborate hilt in the latest style – armour hung on the walls, and from the rafters high above, and spears were crossed all the way down one side. But the tapestries all had classical subjects – Swan didn’t think he had ever been in a hall so lacking in Christian decoration.

  There were long tables down the centre of the hall, with a mixture of benches and tables. A pair of musicians in typical Italian court clothes played pavanes and German dances that Violetta would have recognised and Swan did not, but the sound of the lutes made him smile. At a table, six women – each prettier than the next – wove garlands of flowers from baskets of cut blossoms. At the end of the hall, Prince Dorino sat in state, with a pair of knights and a tall, elderly man in plain black clothes.

  The Bulgarians escorted them the length of the hall and bowed. Swan bowed. The two hospitaller knights merely inclined their heads.

  ‘Prince Dorino,’ Fra Domenico said in greeting.

  ‘My dearest pirate,’ returned the prince in his rich and dulcet voice. The prince extended a hand. ‘This is my admiral, Lord Zacharie. And the captain of my little army – the lord of Eressos. Who is your young man?’

  ‘An English volunteer, Prince. Master Tommaso Suani, of London. The grandson of the great English Duke of Lancaster, John of Gaunt.’ Fra Domenico smiled.

  ‘An English prince? As a volunteer? That seems promising, to me. Will your cousins bring us a crusade to rescue us from the Turk?’ Prince Dorino seemed to find the whole idea comic.

  Fra Tommaso put a hand on his sword-hilt. ‘Is it nothing to you that a Turkish fleet is at sea?’

  ‘Ah – my old friend Ser Tommaso. Are you indignant? Listen, my friend. The Turks will come for my paradise soon enough. Why borrow the trouble?’ Dorino laughed. The men around him did not. They remained almost immobile.

  The prince looked at Swan. ‘Speak,’ he commanded. ‘Where is your crusade?’

  Swan stood straighter. ‘My lord, I am all there is likely to be from England. Englishmen don’t like to go abroad unless they are paid.’

  The Lord of Eressos smiled.

  ‘Your Italian is impeccable, for an Englishman,’ the prince conceded. ‘Are these seven ships all you have?’ he snapped.

  Fra Domenico bowed. ‘They are, my lord.’

  The man in black clothes smoothed his moustache and glanced at the Lord of Eressos.

  Prince Dorino sat back. ‘We have another dozen galleys,’ he said.

  ‘Where are they?’ demanded Fra Tommaso.

  There was a silken rustle near at hand, and Swan turned his head to see the classical Greek maiden, now dressed as a modern Genoese maiden, come in, her silk skirts stiff with embroidery.

  She raised her eyes – and her glance caught Swan’s.

  In a fight – a real fight – there is a moment in a hard attack, or a heavy parry, where the blades meet edge to edge. And the two sharp edges bite into one another. The two lock – steel cutting steel. Just for a moment.

  She moved on down the hall and Swan’s heart raced.

  Prince Dorino laughed. ‘Master Suani! You are blushing. Has my cousin moved you more than my lamp?’ He laughed his high-pitched laugh. And turned, his expression changing as quickly as his head moved, to frown at Fra Tommaso. ‘My ships are safe in the Bay of Kalloni – where yours would be safer, as well. You know that I had the whole squadron of Genoa in my harbour? Yes? And the cowards turned their back on the foe and ran. All the way to Genoa, I have little doubt.’

  Fra Tommaso pursed his lips. ‘With a dozen ships we might have enough power to take the Turkish vanguard, if we could separate them from their fleet.’

  Prince Dorino made a motion of dismissal with his hand. ‘Out of the question. I will not risk my fleet in some desperate measure against the Turks. I am negotiating with them even now. And – incidentally – the Genoese captain who was with you has just slipped his moorings and is headed back to sea. To Genoa, I’m sure.’

  Fra Tommaso set his mouth and didn’t utter a curse. Fra Domenico shrugged. ‘No great loss. In a galley fight, one only wants ships that have the stomach to stay until the end.’

  Prince Dorino made a moue. ‘Have you suggested to these other gentlemen that the surest way to slow the Turk is to attack his shipping?’ He smiled, his lips thin as sword-edg
es. ‘Of course you have. You are a pirate for God, yes?’ He laughed.

  Fra Tommaso’s face was red. ‘We are accomplishing nothing here,’ he said. ‘We should go.’

  Prince Dorino nodded. ‘I will not loan you my fleet to make war on the Turks and bring the fighting to my own shores,’ he said. ‘I will allow you to take on water and food in my ports. The Bay of Kalloni is virtually impregnable, and from there you can cover the whole north coast of Chios.’

  ‘I need no lessons in strategy from you, my lord,’ Fra Tommaso said.

  Prince Dorino sat back again. ‘Do you not? Very well.’

  Fra Domenico glared at his partner and bowed – again – to the prince. ‘May we have two days to rest our rowers and dry our hulls, my lord?’

  ‘How graciously asked,’ Dorino said. ‘Of course. And tomorrow, we have a small festivity to celebrate the end of Lent. We will have a play – an ancient Greek play. And music and dancing.’

  ‘None of those vanities will appeal to us,’ said Fra Tommaso.

  Swan’s heart fell.

  ‘Perhaps this fine young English prince will come and represent you,’ Prince Dorino said. ‘I fancy him. I suspect he’d make a fine ancient Greek warrior – Achilles, perhaps, or Aeneas.’

  Swan smiled and bowed. ‘I would be delighted, my prince,’ he said. ‘But Aeneas, surely, was a Trojan?’

  ‘So you are literate, young man? Come, then, and leave your nursemaids to their wine and their priests. My young cousin will speak briefly to you on the matter of dress. We all dress as Greeks. It is my will.’ He waved dismissively.

  The Lord of Eressos followed them down the hall and bowed deeply to the beautiful ancient Greek maiden. ‘Princess, this is the noble Lord Tommaso Suani of England.’ He bowed and indicated Swan.

  Swan bowed – again.

  Fra Tommaso laughed, but kept quiet otherwise.

  The other women gathered around Swan, as if examining him for flaws. Each of them dropped a curtsy to the knights.