Tom Swan and the Head of St George: Part Seven

by Christian Cameron

  Her skin was lush – so soft over the rawhide hardness of her muscles that he couldn’t stop touching her. Hair – lips – nipples …

  Dawn. And then the growing light. If the Demoiselle Iso had a shred of shyness, he couldn’t find it. He looked as hard as ever a man can look.

  Swan had lost track of how many times he’d managed to make love. It was past a matter for bragging, and now seemed perhaps too painful to contemplate again, until her ivory breast ran up his side and her hand …

  The church bells began to ring. The first bells were far away – far enough, in fact, to be St Peter’s. They rang six or seven peals as he brought her to a louder place, and then more bells began to join them – bells from out beyond the walls, and the heavy bells from St Anastasia closer to hand, and finally the thunder of St Cesaro’s own bells almost by his ear.

  Her back arched like a cat’s, lifting Swan clear of the bed, and she screamed.

  And then she smiled. She rolled away, and sat up on the edge of the bed, wiping herself with his shirt.

  ‘I think we have a Pope,’ she said.

  She would not have him again. He pleaded when she was half dressed – first he joked, and then he grew insistent. She would have none of him. She laughed, pushed him away, and put a finger on his mouth.

  ‘You are mine,’ she said with a cruel smile. ‘Not vice versa.’

  She got into her half-armour and let herself out.

  Swan fell into a long-delayed sleep.

  He awoke to find that his head was clear, his shoulder hurt like hell, and he felt … unclean.

  His mouth was like burned parchment.

  What had she done in the cardinal’s study?

  Peter woke him for vespers. ‘Good Christ, Messire Tommaso,’ he said. ‘You smell like woman.’ He laughed. ‘Where did you find one?’

  Swan made a face.

  ‘The cardinal returns to us. Of course, you have missed much of the work, cleaning up the mess. Bah! I will send Antoine with a bath. I would not let the cardinal smell you, just now.’

  Ten minutes later, Alessandro came and leaned in the doorway while two pages – pretty young men who, ten days before, had never done any work in their lives – hauled a full hip bath into the hall. The water was so hot it steamed in the spring air.

  ‘By the gaping wounds of … Tommaso, you smell as if you had fallen into a whore’s cunny and bathed there.’ Alessandro laughed. And frowned. ‘Look at his back!’ he said to one of the pages, who blushed.

  ‘In the fire …’ the page said.

  ‘Yes – a succubus crawled into his breastplate in the midst of the fire,’ Di Bracchio said. ‘Where is she?’

  Swan intended to tell Di Bracchio. But he heard his voice say, ‘Who? What she?’

  Di Bracchio chuckled. ‘Have it your way,’ he said. ‘So long as the cat doesn’t kindle.’ He slapped Swan’s good shoulder. ‘I’m glad to see you aren’t worse. Claudio put enough opium in you to sedate a horse. If you can manage it, the cardinal will be here in an hour. The cardinals have, bless us all, selected a Pope.’

  ‘The bells woke me,’ Swan said.

  ‘Exactly. I gather this means our danger is over.’

  ‘Who is the Pope?’ Swan asked.

  Alessandro shrugged. ‘Some Spaniard. He’s a Borgia. They say he’s so old that he’ll be dead before he puts the crown of Saint Peter on his head.’ He poured water over Swan’s shoulder. ‘That’s better. Oh, the stink! Now we can go back to fighting the Turks. You know that Giannis and Irene were in the Morea?’

  Swan shook his head, plunged it under water, and tried to get clean.

  Cardinal Bessarion congratulated them on the defence of his house, and thanked each of them for their roles – Giannis, Alessandro, Swan and Cesare. He thanked Father Simon for his work with the notaries and for taking over his duties for Easter. He had with him a tall young man with a distinctive, taut, ambitious face, clean shaven and tonsured. Something about him had the assurance of the great noble, but he wore a simple robe.

  The cardinal flung himself into his favourite chair. And grimaced at the shattered windows. ‘It might have been worse,’ he said. ‘Very much worse.’ He smiled at them all. ‘After all, they might have made me Pope, and then where would our peace and contentment be?’

  Alessandro shook his head. ‘Eminence, we tried.’

  Bessarion smiled, tired and sombre but still amused by life. ‘You tried too hard! On the third round I had nine votes! One more and I would have been pontiff!’ He laughed on and on. ‘And Messire Swan brought us the Emperor’s agreement to releasing funds for the crusade. Tell me!’

  Swan had to cast his mind back to remember – the negotiations in Vienna seemed very long ago. He shook his head. ‘Eminence, the legate in Vienna, using the information you provided him about – ahem – the chancellor, was able to convince the Emperor that despite his hatred for the King of Hungary, he should release the funds he had raised for the crusade.’

  ‘Bravo!’ Bessarion said.

  ‘In return, he demands … pardon me, Eminence …’

  The cardinal bowed his head. ‘I am but a servant of the Church, and he is Emperor,’ Bessarion allowed.

  ‘It is in the treaty I brought. The Emperor requires that the Pope appoint a special body of inspectors to regulate the money collected in the empire.’ Swan took a deep breath. ‘He wants it to go to a commander called Hunyadi Giannis, and not to the King of Hungary.’

  Alessandro nodded. ‘Hunyadi is a great captain,’ he said. ‘Maybe the greatest in the world. I have met him.’

  Swan nodded. ‘I heard about him a thousand times a day in Vienna. But the Emperor believes – nay, fears – that Mehmet is not merely marching for Belgrade but for Vienna. So he also demands that the Pope promise that any army raised here will fall back on Vienna when Belgrade is lost.’

  Bessarion had steepled his fingers. ‘Hunyadi is the man to hold Belgrade.’ He made a face. ‘The Emperor fears him as much as he hates the King of Hungary – the boy was his ward. It’s all tedious – why must men be such fools?’ He looked at Giannis, who rose.

  ‘I went to Mistra, and to Monemvasia. I saw the despot Thomas, who declares himself your undying ally. He also threatened to convert to Islam if we don’t send him soldiers.’ Giannis looked around. ‘Irene is writing our report fair, but in short – the Morea can be held. But only if we are quick. The Pope will need a fleet and an army. And Eminence, the word in Morea is that Mehmet’s eyes are on Belgrade. That he thinks Hungary is the last state in Christendom with the strength to oppose him.’

  Bessarion nodded. ‘That only means that Mehmet knows as little of Europe as we know of Asia,’ he said.

  Father Simon took a careful breath. ‘And this new Pope? Will he … support you in Greece?’

  Bessarion spread his hands. ‘He will call himself Calixtus III,’ the Greek cardinal said. ‘He is, if anything, more dedicated to crusade than I. He has sworn to build a papal fleet. He told me thirty galleys.’ Bessarion’s eyes went to Swan – who was now their naval expert.

  Swan nodded. ‘Thirty galleys would, if well led, hold the balance of power in the Ionian,’ he said. Then he grinned. He couldn’t help himself. ‘In my opinion,’ he added impishly. ‘Based on my years at sea.’

  Alessandro laughed.

  The cardinal shook his head. ‘I wish that I felt more like laughing, my friends. We are on the brink of destruction. The Orsini killed Maestro Nikephorous – a loss as great, I think, as a whole library of Greek books. And my friend. After Plethon, the greatest Greek scholar of this era.’

  Just for a moment, the great man’s eyes wandered, and Swan got a taste through the windows of his dark eyes of the weight that Bessarion carried.

  Bessarion went on. ‘But personal losses are less than Christendom’s losses. Here at this desk, we are at the heart of a conspiracy. We – the men in this room, and a handful of others – we conspire to save the Church, and the West. From the barbaria
ns.’ He frowned. ‘We are failing.’ He looked around. ‘The fact that my naval expert is an arrogant twenty-four-year-old who stinks like a courtesan is only a minor matter of dark humour and no more.’

  He looked at Swan, who gulped.

  ‘You made me a certain agreement, Messire Swan,’ he said.

  Swan had trouble meeting his eye.

  Bessarion looked away. He looked at Giannis. ‘The worst of it is that every report suggests that the Morea would accept us,’ he said. ‘With troops and money and ships, we could make Greece the property of the Church. We could save them from the Turk.’ He shrugged. ‘Perhaps even get the Latins to accept the correct date for Easter,’ he said, with a smile.

  Giannis met his smile and Alessandro winced.

  ‘But we lack the resources,’ Bessarion said. ‘And my sense is that if Belgrade falls, we will lose Hungary and the empire.’

  Giannis was still standing. He leaned over his master. ‘You would let Morea fall?’ he asked.

  ‘To save Belgrade?’ Bessarion asked. ‘Let us hope it doesn’t come to that.’ He stood. ‘But I think we will have to give our support to Hunyadi in the next year. If the Pope can raise a fleet, than at least the Morea will see something.’ Bessarion smiled at Swan. ‘You did brilliantly with the treaty. God willing, the Emperor’s money will give Hunyadi that army that his own king withholds.’ He sighed. ‘With the Emperor’s money we’ll send the ring.’

  He frowned and reached into a drawer in his desk. His fingers searched – and searched. He wrenched the drawer all the way open.

  Then he stood back, obviously disquieted. He went along the glass cases that stood – many broken – at the south windows, and then he went to his curio cabinet. Framed in the ruins of his collection, he turned.

  ‘The ring of the conqueror,’ he said. ‘It’s gone.’

  Before Swan had blinked his eyes, he knew who had it.

  Bessarion shook his head. ‘It must have been done by someone inside the household.’

  Swan shook his head involuntarily, and everyone looked at him.

  He swallowed. ‘There were a dozen strangers in the house – more. The Greeks, the Malatesta men-at-arms …’

  Bessarion sighed. ‘I was going to send it to Hunyadi.’ He looked at them under his heavy brows, ran two long fingers through his beard, and shrugged. ‘Alas. We will be very busy as soon as we have the new Pope settled. If anyone has a notion how to find the ring, I’d like to hear it.’ He glanced at them. ‘Let us not allow this theft to darken my thanks. And let me introduce Father della Rovere. He will be my confessor – and one of us.’

  Della Rovere bowed, and all of them returned his bow. His face took on an expression of pleasure, but it was so conscious that it was like watching a mime. ‘I hope to serve you all,’ he said.

  The other men murmured pleasantries, and the meeting broke up. Swan tried to outwait Alessandro, but failed – and slipped out.

  Rome was not so very big. He took a horse and rode to the Malatesta castello.

  The guards at the gate informed him that Malatesta, his daughter Iso, Captain Montorio and fifty lances had ridden for Rimini that very morning.

  Swan bowed to fate and returned south to the Palazzo Bessarion. There he joined a cue of retainers and clerks waiting for the great man’s attention. The cardinal had been gone from his household for ten days, and the ensuing chaos might take twenty days to unravel, and Swan spent a miserable hour cooling his heels in a hard chair in the anteroom.

  Before Bessarion had time for him, Alessandro came by. ‘So – this is where you are hiding – in plain sight,’ Alessandro said. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. ‘Come,’ he said.

  Swan followed the older man down the stairs and into an empty clerk’s hole. Alessandro sat at the tiny desk and put his booted feet on it. Swan leaned against the wall.

  ‘Where is it?’ Alessandro asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Swan said miserably.

  ‘But you have an idea,’ Alessandro said.

  ‘Perhaps,’ Swan said. ‘Look, I found it in the first place. I’ll get it back.’

  Alessandro met his eye. His lips were a thin line, and he rocked back and forth, as if restraining himself. ‘Who was the whore?’ he asked.

  Swan frowned and looked away.

  ‘You had a woman. You promised His Eminence, and then you brought in a woman.’

  Swan’s nostrils flared, and he considered a hundred crushing replies.

  Di Bracchio followed his thoughts. He shook his head. ‘My morals or lack thereof are not a concern. If I choose my own entertainments, I neither flout them before the cardinal, nor do they interfere in our politics nor steal our jewels.’ He swept his legs off the desk and leaned forward. ‘Yours do.’

  Swan hated him, just then.

  ‘A girl from Madame Lucretia’s?’ Alessandro asked.

  ‘No!’ Swan spat. ‘I didn’t invite her. I didn’t procure her.’

  ‘She just fell under your cock,’ Alessandro said with mock sympathy.

  ‘Yes!’ Swan snapped.

  They stared at each other.

  ‘One of the Greek girls?’ Di Bracchio asked. ‘You must tell me. This is not a matter for pride.’

  ‘I can fix this,’ Swan insisted.

  Alessandro leaned well forward and caught Swan’s doublet in his hand. ‘Listen to me, my young English stalwart. You are a fine young man, a good blade. The cardinal loves you. I love you, God save us. But this is serious. Treason and death are serious. I know you. I know that when a girl pulls her shift over her head, you stop thinking. Now – tell – me – her – name.’

  Swan looked at the floor. He wished very hard that he might sink into it, or become one of the spring songbirds audible outside. ‘The Demoiselle Iso,’ he said very quietly. ‘She apparently came in with the Malatesta men-at-arms.’

  Alessandro let his breath out slowly and audibly. ‘Jesus wept,’ he said.

  Swan found that he was crying. ‘She was waiting in my room,’ he said.

  Alessandro shook his head. ‘And you thought she went to all that effort to fuck you?’ he asked in disbelief.

  Swan wriggled. ‘I know now that she was merely making time until dawn. Because she’d stolen the ring. I knew her father wanted it, but I hadn’t put the two together.’

  Alessandro fingered his beard. ‘I want you to—’

  ‘I went there as soon as the cardinal let us go,’ Swan said. ‘Iso and Montorio and Malatesta left earlier today, for Rimini.’

  Alessandro frowned. ‘I did warn you about her, did I not?’ he asked. ‘I know that these warnings are wasted – Christ on the cross, my father tried to warn me many times and I never listened, by the wounds of blessed Catherine. But I tried. Didn’t I?’

  Swan stared at the pattern on the floor.

  Alessandro stood up. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Can you get it back?’

  ‘Yes,’ Swan said.

  ‘How, exactly?’ Di Bracchio asked.

  Swan shrugged. ‘I’ll steal it back,’ he said.

  ‘From Rimini?’ Di Bracchio asked.

  ‘I suppose. I don’t have a plan at all.’ Swan took a deep breath. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  Di Bracchio shrugged. ‘And well you might be. But it’s only a ring. And you found it, as you say. Did Bessarion pay you for it?’

  Swan’s mercenary nature was suddenly kindled. ‘No!’ he said.

  Di Bracchio smiled cruelly. For a moment, he looked a little like the Demoiselle Iso – the same skin, the same smile. ‘Then I suppose it is yours,’ he said. ‘You must never allow someone inside again, Messire Swan. Not into his house, and not into your heart. Love and passion are not for us.’

  Swan had nothing to say.

  Di Bracchio nodded. ‘Go and tell the cardinal. Tell him everything. Then let us go and drown our sorrows.’

  Swan waited another interminable hour for the cardinal. When he was admitted, he found the great man writing, and Della Rovere at h
is elbow, also writing.

  Della Rovere looked up. ‘Speak!’ he said.

  Swan wanted to be anywhere else. He stood, silent and afraid.

  Bessarion’s bearded face rose and the cardinal’s heavy dark eyes met his own.

  ‘Ah – Della Rovere, this is Messire Suane, one of my confidants. He may have something private to disclose.’ He waved at the door. ‘It is late – go and fetch yourself a cup of wine, and if perhaps you find a second, bring me one, as well.’

  Swan expected Della Rovere to bridle at being treated as a servant, but the young nobleman rose and bowed. ‘Yes, Eminence,’ he said graciously. He even smiled at Swan.

  Bessarion wrote for another hundred heartbeats. The breeze came in through the shattered windows, and birds were active in the near-darkness. Otherwise, the city was so quiet that Swan could hear the scratching of the cardinal’s pen on the parchment he was using.

  Finally he looked up. ‘Yes?’ he said.

  Swan bit the bullet. ‘It is my fault your ring was stolen,’ he said.

  Bessarion smiled. ‘This I have already surmised. Do you know who has it?’ he asked.

  Swan drew a breath to tell the tale – but he hadn’t been asked. ‘Yes, Eminence,’ he said.

  ‘Well then?’ Bessarion asked.

  ‘My lord, I believe Sigismondo Malatesta has the ring.’ Swan sat forward. His body was all but quivering.

  Bessarion looked at him for twenty heartbeats or so. ‘Interesting,’ he said. ‘Do you know that Malatesta is generally accounted an enemy of the Church and the Pope?’

  Swan bowed his head. ‘I do now,’ he said.

  Bessarion sighed. ‘Well. Messire Di Bracchio seemed content to employ Malatesta’s soldiers. I am very curious as to Malatesta’s next move. Will he stay with the new Pope or jump to Venice? And you have somehow allowed him to possess the ring. Let me add that Lord Malatesta is very much his own man. He loves Milan and makes war on her; he flirts with Venice and makes war on her; he has been the captain of a papal army, a papal steward and a papal gonfalonier, and he yet makes war on the Pope.’ Bessarion nodded. ‘A very dangerous man indeed, although I happen to enjoy his company, and he is very well educated. Like you.’