Tom Swan and the Siege of Belgrade: Part Two

by Christian Cameron

  Tom Swan and the Head of St George

  Volume Eight

  Christian Cameron

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Tom Swan and the Head of St George: Volume Eight

  Also by Christian Cameron

  Copyright

  Tom Swan and the Head of St George

  Volume Eight

  Passports got them through the town gates. An escort took them to the castle, and their letters got them through the castle gates and into the courtyard. Then Montorio met them, and they all embraced as men do who have shared a battle together.

  Since there was no shadow on the man, Swan felt more confident. He had worried about the Wolf since being assigned to come here, and now, looking at the blank walls and high towers, he couldn’t imagine how to find the damned ring, much less how to steal it.

  But his concern for the ring and his little plots was subsumed by his concern for his prize possession – a first-class warhorse. He let his stradiotes go off with a stable boy, and Peter gave a casual salute and followed a page to the barracks tower. Antoine lingered for a moment. ‘You good here, boss?’ he asked, his hand on his sword hilt.

  Swan felt a moment of intense warmth for both of them. They were good men. But he looked around at the stable and the men there. Not a weapon in sight. ‘Thanks – go and get dry,’ he said.

  The castle had a fine stable and its own master blacksmith, and the smith sent for a farrier, who shook his head and muttered – and reshoed his horse in less than an hour, a truly masterful job. While the stink of burned hoof still filled the air, Swan put a gold ducat on the farrier’s anvil and got smiles from all the craftsmen.

  ‘Not like some bastards we serve here,’ the farrier said. He grinned. ‘Saint Maurice bless you, Englishman!’ His Italian dialect was difficult for Swan, but not so difficult that he couldn’t understand it. He said something else that Swan didn’t catch, and ordered one of his boys to attend Swan. There was an interesting kerfuffle – one of those moments Swan watched for, professionally – as it became clear that the directions confused the boy and confused the master smith too. Another runner was sent to the great hall, came back and whispered to the smith.

  He raised an eyebrow. ‘Eh, messire,’ he said. ‘They send you to the barracks, not the hall.’ He shrugged, as if refusing to be involved in the obvious social slight.

  Swan took a breath to push his anger down. ‘Bah! As long as the bed is dry,’ he said. Showing that a slight touched you – that was what your enemies wanted.

  Swan followed the hunchbacked stable boy up a dozen curving flights of stairs to the tower that served as the barracks for the small army of retainers and mercenaries that Malatesta maintained. The tower had six floors and all six were packed to the rafters with men-at-arms in bunks and sitting at tables – gambling, praying, sleeping, fornicating – all of these activities in the stifling atmosphere of a closed drum tower. Swan chatted with the stable boy, who was silent like any adolescent for two flights of stairs and then finally laughed at Swan’s comments on the busy whores of the second deck.

  ‘They make much money here,’ the boy said. ‘And none of them will do me!’

  Swan coughed. ‘It will only stunt your growth. Maybe worse,’ he said, feeling a hypocrite.

  The boy stopped. ‘Stunt my growth?’ he blurted. He stood on the stairs, bent almost double, his back grotesquely out of balance.

  Swan laughed. ‘It was a stupid thing to say,’ he allowed. ‘I apologise.’

  The boy spat. ‘That was pretty,’ he said. ‘No gent ever apologised to me before.’

  Swan shrugged. ‘Maybe you need to be funny with them.’

  ‘Funny?’ the boy asked.

  ‘Try,’ Swan said. ‘I find women like humour in a man more than anything.’ He pointed up the steep steps. ‘Do the whores ever make it to the top?’ he asked.

  The boy laughed. ‘Their purses are full by the second deck,’ he said. Purses was a nice double entendre. Both men cackled their laughter.

  And Swan had recruited himself a low-level spy in the Rimini fortress.

  Just as junior men got the upper bunks, so the top floor held the least important men-at-arms – some Burgundians, some Englishmen and two Albanians.

  Peter was already stretched on a bunk, chatting in Dutch with a Burgundian in a scandalously short doublet and exaggerated hose. Antoine was laughing with a pair of French whores. They were talking about baking bread – perhaps as a metaphor and perhaps not.

  Peter sat up. ‘I think they mean to insult you,’ he said.

  Swan shrugged. ‘A bunk bed and a clean blanket?’ he said. ‘My ambitions are all satisfied.’

  Peter indicated the lower bunk of the bed nearest the stairhead. ‘Yours, my lord,’ he said.

  One of the English archers looked surly, and Swan could see that a drama had already played out – one of the English archers had given up his prize bed to Swan, the visiting knight.

  Swan shrugged at their bravado and their posturing. He surprised himself – he wasn’t interested in the offered quarrel, and he wondered whether he were losing his edge. ‘You a Londoner?’ he asked.

  The man was struck dumb by Swan’s English. Then he managed a smile – it spread over his face so slowly that it looked as if it might hurt. ‘No, milord. York, or near enow.’

  Swan extended a hand – the English way. ‘Tom Swan, of London. No milord required.’

  ‘Ralph Bigelow,’ the English archer said. ‘Hey, Harry! Come here! Another Englishman, eh?’ He allowed his smile to stay. ‘You look familiar to me, milord. That is, Messire Swan.’

  Swan’s status as an Englishman seemed to take away the sting of the loss of the best bed in the chamber, and the Englishmen sat together.

  Swan had met Englishmen – at sea in the Ionian, and as pilgrims in Rome – but the archers were like the men with whom he’d grown up, and their conversation quickly turned to home.

  ‘Going to shit,’ was the verdict of the master archer, Bigelow. The man was a veteran – had served in a dozen wars. ‘We’re losing all of France. And now we’re like to start killing each other.’ He shrugged. ‘When I’m home, I admit it doesn’t look so mad, but when you are in Italy, the quarrel—’

  ‘What quarrel?’ Swan asked.

  The Englishmen all seemed to answer at once. Apparently, there was a dispute over the succession of the king.

  Swan shrugged. He’d heard of it, but it sounded unlikely. Englishmen didn’t kill each other in civil wars – they let Frenchmen do that. ‘And what brings you gentlemen to sunny Italy?’ he asked.

  Bigelow laughed. ‘Money!’ he said. ‘Surely this is the richest place on earth! And the one with the least fighting.’

  ‘And warm all the year,’ a blond man with a wicked scar said. He grinned. The scar made him look like Satan, but his laugh was clear and kind enough.

  ‘You call this warm, Will?’ asked another.

  ‘Warmer than fucking Cumbria,’ the big blond said. ‘I’m Will Kendal.’

  ‘Sam Cressy,’ said the other. ‘Calais.’ His English had as much Dutch in it as Peter’s English.

  ‘Hugh Willoughby’ said the second blond boy. He was as tall as a mountain. ‘Kentishman.’

  ‘Harry Vintner. London.’ Vintner was old, and his nose said he spent far too much time on Italian wines, but he seemed to be Bigelow’s comrade. They sat together.

  Cards were produced, and in an hour Swan had arranged to lose a ducat in gold to each man. But he learned a great deal – that their pay was far in arrears, and that they didn’t particularly like their lord.
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  ‘’E’s a hard bastard,’ Bigelow said. ‘An’ no mistake.’

  Peter leaned over him at one point. ‘While we are talking about money, my pay is two months in arrears,’ he said, with a smile.

  Swan got up and went to his portmanteau on his bunk, and went through it – found his own money as opposed to the cardinal’s and took out a stack of gold coins – Roman, Venetian and Florentine.

  He tossed it to Peter. ‘Better?’ he asked.

  Peter flipped through the coins, bit one twice, and rubbed his thumb across another. ‘The byzant may not pass,’ he said. ‘Otherwise, my thanks, milord. Now we’re only a month in arrears.’

  ‘You must be the only servant in Europe who gets a master archer’s wages.’

  Peter grinned mirthlessly. ‘It’s what happens when you pay a master archer to be a servant.’ He made a face. ‘I know you English are all brothers, but this is a lot of money to show in a barracks.’

  Nonetheless, the show of gold had its effect on the Englishmen. Bigelow watched him carefully.

  Swan nodded and slipped most of the cardinal’s cash into the front of his doublet and laced it tight again. He was just straightening out his clothes and eyeing the two French women when a messenger boy appeared, panting, at the head of the stairs.

  ‘Messire Suane?’ the boy asked. He bowed low. ‘There has been some mistake, my lord, and I am asked to lead you to your room. In the hall.’

  Swan had a thousand doubts about his mission here – doubts about Bessarion’s relationship with the Wolf and his own with the Demoiselle Iso. They all came flooding back.

  On balance, the top of a tower full of Englishmen seemed perfect. ‘I’m completely satisfied here,’ Swan said.

  The boy bowed again. ‘My lord requires your presence,’ he squeaked.

  Swan shook his head. ‘Really? Or did he merely send you to fetch me to another room?’

  The boy shook his head rapidly. ‘I don’t know, milor’. I was summoned by the chamberlain and told to bring you.’

  Swan sat back. ‘I’m really very comfortable here,’ he said. He glanced at Bigelow.

  The English archer was shaking his head. ‘If our lord asks for you, you’d better go,’ he said quietly. ‘You don’t want to fuck wi’ he.’

  Swan sat up. ‘Must I?’ he asked. ‘The cards are warm and so am I. The wine’s good – no sooner will I get to the hall then I’ll discover that the lord meant only—’

  Bigelow looked pained. ‘You’d better go,’ he said. ‘And quickly.’

  Peter looked around at the Englishmen. ‘Vat is it?’ he asked.

  ‘The Lord of Rimini has a short way with guests, I’m thinking,’ Swan said. He rose and rehung his sword. The boy reached for the open portmanteau, but Swan shook his head. ‘I’ll just sleep here, eh? Lead on, lad.’ As he spoke, Swan looked at Peter, who nodded, and shifted to sit on Swan’s bunk, by the portmanteau.

  Then Swan went down three flights of stairs. His thighs burned just thinking about climbing all the way to the top of the tower again, and again he endured the curious and sometimes ill-meant stares of a hundred men-at-arms. But he caught sight of two of his Greeks wrestling on the third deck, and he paused and then stepped out on to the barracks floor.

  The boy squeaked behind him.

  Swan found Constantine through the fug and waved, and the stradiote came to him.

  ‘I have been summoned to the hall,’ Swan said. ‘You and your men settled comfortably?’

  ‘Like suitors in Odysseus’s hall,’ the Greek said, with a meaningful glance at the Italian men-at-arms.

  ‘That good, eh?’ Swan said. He schooled his face and made himself laugh. Then he smiled as wolfishly as he could manage at the men-at-arms standing around and passed back into the spiral stairs, and at the bottom across the stone-cobbled yard to the great hall.

  Like the the castello in Rome, the outside of the hall in Rimini was as Gothic as the interior was classical – tall columns stretched away into the darkness, and the entryway was flanked by statues, although there were full suits of armour across the hall.

  Closer, Swan realised that they were not suits of armour, but fully armed men, standing on either side of Malatesta’s dais. The Wolf himself sat on an ivory stool covered in a wolfskin, facing Swan.

  There were a dozen courtiers sitting at a long table below the dais, and four women were bowling small ivory balls on a carpet of silk – a fine Turkish prayer rug, in fact. Swan smiled to himself at how outraged his Moslem friends would have been.

  One of the ladies bowling was the Demoiselle Iso. She raised her head, and Swan’s determination never to speak to her again vanished in a haze of … of …

  ‘Messire Suane,’ called a servant, and heads turned throughout the hall.

  Swan walked to the foot of the dais and gave his best bow. As he began to raise his head, his attention was caught by a curio cabinet every bit as ornate – and large – as the one he’d seen in Rome.

  ‘We thought that you would attend us on arrival,’ Malatesta growled. ‘We were quite surprised to find you had to be summoned.’

  Swan bowed again. ‘Your Magnificence, all I can do is apologise. Our escort said nothing.’

  Malatesta’s eyes crossed with Montorio’s.

  The guard captain stammered. ‘My lord – I am at fault. That other matter—’

  Malatesta waved his hand. ‘Ah – let us speak no more about it, Messire Suane. I see that my people are at fault. And how do you find your lodgings?’

  Swan wasn’t sure what to make of this. He settled on honesty. ‘My lord, the company and the bed are fine,’ he said. ‘I confess the climb is a trifle wearing.’

  The Demoiselle Iso came and stood by her father. ‘I gave instructions that the cardinal’s men be lodged in the hall,’ she said.

  ‘I gave other instructions,’ Malatesta said. He smiled grimly at his daughter. ‘Fond as I am of Messire Suane, I don’t need him quite so close. Messire Suane, I have your letters from Cardinal Bessarion. You are here to pick up a few lances?’

  Swan bowed a third time. ‘I have that honour.’

  Malatesta raised an eyebrow. ‘How fortunate that I’m about to part company with a small condotta – just six lances. You may have them – if you can pay them.’

  Swan wondered why he was cursed to have to deal with this man. The whole affair sickened him, suddenly – Malatesta struck him as childish, pompous, perhaps even idle.

  But six lances was close to his number, and it appeared that he could take the path of least resistance. ‘I’d be most pleased to muster them,’ Swan said.

  The Wolf’s eyes glared down on him. ‘Are you suggesting that lances passing out of my service are anything less than perfectly fit for your master’s?’ he asked in his gravelly voice.

  Swan schooled his face. ‘Your Excellency is determined to see insult where none is intended,’ he began.

  Malatesta’s eyes narrowed. ‘Don’t tell me what I think!’ he snapped.

  God give me patience, Swan thought. ‘My duty to my master requires me to inspect any man who will serve him in arms,’ he said carefully.

  The Demoiselle Iso smiled at Swan. ‘My father is under a bad star and there are malign influences on him tonight,’ she said.

  Malatesta looked at Swan through slitted eyes. ‘Not so malign that I cannot see,’ he growled. ‘Your master, Bessarion, is trying to arrange that I be offered the command of a contingent marching to fight the Turks,’ he went on. He tapped the parchment with his finger. ‘What am I to think – the old Pope threatened me with excommunication, and the new Pope wants me to command an army.’

  Swan nodded. ‘My lord, you are known as the best soldier in Italy.’

  Malatesta leaned back and snapped his fingers, and a pair of wolves – tame wolves – came to his hands.

  Swan struggled to remain impassive.

  ‘I think we have spoken before about the value of your flattery,’ Malatesta said.

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sp; Swan shrugged with all the sprezzatura, the elegant indifference, that he could muster. ‘It is but the truth, my lord,’ he said.

  The Demoiselle Iso threw back her head and laughed. ‘By Zeus and all his thunder, this one is good at what he does!’

  Malatesta allowed a slow grin to cross his face, and for a moment Swan was reminded of Bigelow, the archer. ‘Are we negotiating, then? he asked.

  Swan shook his head. ‘My lord, while I am privy to His Eminence’s plans that you command the papal army, I have no powers to treat. I am bound for Vienna. I am allowed to explain …’ He shrugged and lowered his voice, as if giving away a great secret. It was a great secret, but one the cardinal wanted to become less secret, via the Wolf of Rimini.

  Malatesta threw himself to the back of his low throne of ivory.

  ‘Explain away, Englishman. You go to Vienna to say that the new Pope will stand by the agreement of the old one. That the Pope will appoint a special legate to oversee the collection of papal monies. Yes? And that money will go to pay for a mighty army and a fine fleet.’

  Swan wasn’t surprised that the Wolf already knew – but he pretended surprise. ‘Your Excellency is very well informed,’ he said.

  ‘That is my business,’ Malatesta said. ‘I have no idea whether I will accept or not – but I will vent no more ill-humour on you, Messire Suane. Is Maestro Alberti present?’

  Montorio bowed, and a tall, middle-aged man with regular features and the long robe of a man of business rose from the table.

  ‘Alberti, have you cast my horoscope?’ Malatesta asked.

  Alberti bowed. He had a face of great intelligence, and he looked a trifle pained. ‘I have Your Magnificence’s entire chart,’ he said.

  ‘When will this malignant period end?’ Maltesta asked.

  Alberti looked at Swan as if to question his presence. Indeed, Swan was stunned to have matters of astrological significance discussed in his presence. There was nothing more secret or more private among the great.

  Swan bowed. ‘I should remove myself.’

  The Demoiselle Iso appeared by his shoulder. ‘Alberti is the greatest fake since Hermogenes,’ she hissed. ‘A pedant, a petty tyrant and an erudite pretender.’