Tom Swan and the Siege of Belgrade: Part Three

by Christian Cameron

  Swan exhaled slowly. In Rome, his plain wool clothes were a virtual badge of respectability and his donat’s ring a guarantee of his gentle birth. In Venice, he looked like a servant.

  ‘How much?’ he asked rudely.

  ‘Mmmm,’ the man said. ‘You bring the cloth? Fifteen ducats and embroidery. I make nothing on the embroidery, you understand.’

  Swan doubted that. He didn’t like the man, and thought it might be better if he just walked away, but Venice was a maze, he didn’t know it, and last night had convinced him he needed clothes.

  ‘Is there somewhere near by where I can obtain cloth?’ he asked.

  ‘My brother-in-law is just near by,’ the tailor said with a slight smile. ‘I’ll send a boy to fetch some cloth, and perhaps you’ll share a cup of hippocras?’

  Swan shrugged. ‘I never drink before I fence,’ he said.

  He looked up at a sudden roar and the tailor winced. ‘Young Jacopo is always up there for some time, Messire Inglese. He isn’t trying to learn, he’s trying to defeat the maestro.’

  Swan nodded. Many nobly born swordsmen suffered from the illusion that they were almost as good as their instructors. Swan had had such foolishness beaten out of him by two ruthless uncles.

  So he sat in the tailor’s tiny courtyard and drank apple juice while a barefoot boy brought folded cloths – a dark, rich green-black velvet, a bright scarlet wool, a blinding piece of off-white velvet that perfectly matched another beautiful piece of thick, rich wool.

  The dark green velvet would be wearable in Rome. ‘How much? With a cloak?’ he asked.

  The boy looked at the tailor, who made a face and waggled his grey hair back and forth a few times. ‘I’ll send to Antonio. Red and white and green – a pretty combination.’

  Swan had his doubts – it seemed loud to him. ‘Surely there is enough cloth here for two suits.’

  The tailor brightened up. ‘Yes – I’m sure there is.’

  Another climax of fencing – stamping, a shout, the clash of blades.

  The boy went back and forth twice. The tailor had changed sides – now he saw Swan as a real customer, and he wanted Swan’s business, he was negotiating for the cloth.

  Messire Jacopo came down the narrow stairs in a rush, glared at Swan and hurried to the counter. He stripped out of his plain brown hose and tossed them aside and then carefully donned the magnificent, pearl-decorated black ones.

  Swan recognised him as Jacopo Foscari. But Foscari didn’t really see him, or perhaps simply didn’t care. He rolled up his brown hose and put on a huge cloak, despite the rainless day, and rushed out into the street, still holding his sword.

  Messire Viladi came down next. He was a thin man, not quite middle aged, with a fine physique fully on display as he was wearing nothing but hose.

  ‘You have a customer,’ he said apologetically, withdrawing instantly. ‘Could you send your boy with some well water?’

  Then he paused. ‘Eh!’ he said around the door. ‘Is that Messire Suane?’

  The fencing master came in and the two men embraced. ‘And how is Messire di Bracchio?’ Viladi asked.

  Swan laughed. ‘He is here in town,’ he said.

  ‘Send him here and I will teach him something new. And you – are you so good you don’t need me? Now that you are famous.’ Viladi waggled a finger.

  ‘Signore is famous?’ the tailor asked.

  ‘Messire Swan is a famous soldier from England,’ Viladi said with a wink.

  ‘Maestro, I came for a lesson, but you were busy,’ Swan said.

  Viladi raised an eyebrow. ‘For that much money, I would teach Satan. Although, to be fair, Satan would probably be a better pupil. That man is a disgrace.’ Viladi shrugged. ‘You have come to me for a lesson? I am at liberty.’

  Swan was able to settle with the tailor for fifty-five ducats all in, sewn and finished and with some pretty gilt buttons that another customer had abandoned thrown in and ‘a little embroidery’ by the good Donna Esperanza.

  ‘When?’ Swan asked as the man made him strip to be measured. Messer Viladi immediately pounced on the rest of his apple juice.

  The man made another measurement, this one deeply personal.

  ‘Tomorrow night,’ the tailor said, to Swan’s shock.

  ‘Trade is down and the Turks are pulling our empire apart,’ Viladi said. ‘No one has money for clothes. Or swords.’

  Swan told himself that it was all in the line of duty to appear in a manner that didn’t embarrass his master.

  He spent a pleasant hour with Viladi, practising rising cuts from two low guards. He’d seen the guards before, but not the cuts, and the maestro enlightened him, first teaching him the guards, then a set of defences.

  ‘Are these yours, Maestro?’ Swan asked at the end.

  Viladi thought he meant the heavy fencing swords – a pair of arming swords with bated points and dull edges. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I had them made in Bologna by a man who specialises in such stuff.’

  ‘I meant the rising cut.’ Swan smiled. ‘Although I can see the point of using dull swords for a bout.’

  ‘I lose fewer students,’ Viladi mocked. ‘No, the rising cuts are Spanish. I picked them up off a soldier – a man going off to fight the Turks. I liked them. But I use them differently.’

  Swan made the hand motion again. ‘If I have time I’ll come back tomorrow,’ he said.

  Viladi nodded. ‘Bring Alessandro,’ he said.

  Swan paid and went down the steps, where the tailor favoured him with a bow.

  ‘Messire’s suit is cut,’ he said. He pointed to bits of cloth in neat stacks on his counter. He and his wife and two daughters were all sitting cross-legged in the sunny front window.

  As Swan went out, they began a complex word game. Swan went into the street trying to think of an Italian word beginning with ‘c’ for something that could eat an eel …

  He was a street away when he heard a shout. His head was elsewhere and he knew almost no one in Venice, and he wasn’t being careful.

  But he did put a hand on his sword as he turned. The sword wasn’t worn openly – it was under his cloak. He looked back and saw Black Doublet.

  The shout had come because another man had run into Black Doublet. They were grappling.

  Swan stepped around a corner and ran lightly along the edge of a narrow canal. He cursed his own foolishness and came to the end of his path – really just a set of doorways with small landings in front of them – and jumped. He managed to clear the canal, but his sword smacked heavily against the stone of the canal’s edge.

  Swan looked back and saw Black Doublet round the last corner. Swan stayed down.

  That was too close, he thought. Black Doublet had been almost an arm’s length away. With malice clearly intended.

  After lying still for fifty heartbeats, Swan rose and slipped as quietly as he could along the far side of the canal. He reached the corner and froze.

  Black Doublet was twenty feet away, talking to two men and gesturing.

  Swan turned, and there was a boat. He didn’t hesitate – such moments often had a poetry of their own – he stepped off the stone pier and into the boat without saluting the boatman and dropped into the bottom.

  The boatman seemed entirely unconcerned, as if this sort of thing happened every day. ‘Your Worship is having a good day, I hope?’ he asked.

  Swan laughed. ‘I am now,’ he said. ‘The Jewish ghetto.’

  ‘With pleasure, my lord,’ the boatman sang out.

  Rabbi Aaron received Swan a little like the prodigal son. ‘I see you found what paper and pen are for,’ he said.

  Swan bowed. ‘Teacher, I am sorry. The last time I was in Venice—’

  Aaron frowned. ‘Times were … difficult. Our friends in Constantinople …’ The Rabbi looked at the ceiling, or perhaps heaven. ‘We do not always see eye to eye.’

  But you turned me away, Swan thought. It didn’t seem to be something on which to dwell.


  ‘Are you done with Arabic and Hebrew?’ the rabbi asked.

  ‘Oh, no,’ Swan said. ‘I try to keep up my Arabic – in Rome I have a Koran. Hebrew is harder – none of the Jews in Rome will sell any Hebrew text.’

  ‘I would hope not,’ the rabbi said. ‘However, perhaps I can leave you something to copy. If you give me your word that it will come back to me or some other teacher when you … die.’ He shrugged. ‘My pardon, Messire Swan, but you seem more likely to die than many men.’

  Swan spent a pleasant hour copying Hebrew. Copying manuscripts was a task that always pleased him – it helped him to be familiar with the text, and the careful penmanship was like medicine for his over-busy mind.

  When his hours were up, he rose and made his bow. ‘I would like to return tomorrow,’ he said.

  Aaron nodded happily. ‘Yes, yes. Come again. It is good to have you back.’ He made a motion with his hand. ‘There is a young man waiting outside. I believe one of my co-religionists needs a moment of your time.’ Rabbi Aaron looked at Swan’s work. ‘Truly, you have a fine hand. Most of my students could not copy so well.’

  ‘Perhaps I should be a Jew.’ Swan laughed.

  Rabbi Aaron looked at him – first with anger, and then, after hesitation, with something like amusement. ‘If your Council of Ten or the Inquisition heard you make that joke, I could be killed. It is death for a Jew to suggest conversion to a Christian. Even here.’

  Swan frowned. ‘In Rome there are priests of the Church who flaunt their belief in the ancient Greek gods,’ he said.

  Rabbi Aaron shrugged. ‘They are not Jews,’ he said.

  Swan went out into the near-darkness expecting Balthazar and was delighted to find his son, Solomon.

  The two young men embraced, and Swan thought that it was good that few men actually liked him – a Jew, a fencing master, and a Venetian sodomite.

  ‘My father wants to see you,’ Solomon said.

  ‘Your father’s contacts almost got me killed in Constantinople,’ Swan replied. ‘But that’s as may be. Of course. And perhaps – if you like – we could fence.’

  Solomon smiled. ‘Of course, I’d like to,’ he said. ‘Although I will confess to you, my first Christian friend, that since you left I have had lessons with Maestro Viladi.’ They walked back through the narrow streets, almost to the ghetto gate, and then turned left to Balthazar’s house.

  Swan bowed to the master of the house, who was dressed, for once, like a Jew in a long gown and a round hat. He, too, embraced Swan. ‘I am sorry for my refusal to see you last time,’ he said. ‘I received … a wrong impression from friends in Constantinople.’ He motioned, and another man came in, wearing a Turkish kaftan.

  It was Isaac.

  Swan bowed warily.

  Isaac returned his bow. ‘You left me an empty house,’ he said. ‘And quite a puzzle.’

  Swan smiled. ‘You were going to sell me to the Sultan,’ he said.

  Isaac smiled and nodded. ‘But I told you I would sell you. In fact, I didn’t sell you for half a day.’ He made a complex gesture with his eyebrows. ‘Look – you are here and I am here.’

  Swan nodded. ‘Yes. It is true.’

  Balthazar nodded. ‘Good. Messire Swan, I have some books I think your master would like to buy. I’ll have them brought – ten manuscript scrolls. All Greek. One on magic, one on astronomy, the rest are miscellanies.’

  Swan spent half an hour leafing carefully through them.

  While he read Greek and made notes, Balthazar poured the bitter Turkish beverage, qua’veh. Swan drank it – he’d had it in Constantinople, and he knew it came from Yemen.

  ‘No trade now, if Venice actually enters this foolish war,’ Isaac said.

  Swan went on reading.

  ‘The Conqueror – Mehmet – will defeat Serbia this year. Hungary next year.’ Isaac smiled. ‘I know this is not what you wish to hear, but you should be warned. Balthazar made me promise to tell you. The Sultan is going to Belgrade and Serbia in person – with twenty thousand janissaries and all his guard spahis.’ He shrugged.

  Swan drank the bitter stuff and glanced at a manuscript by a Byzantine emperor on making war. He took in the fact that there was a chapter on hiring and paying spies, and smiled.

  ‘He can be beaten,’ Swan said.

  ‘Not by Venice or Hungary,’ Isaac said.

  ‘Perhaps,’ Swan responded politely.

  ‘More immediately,’ Balthazar said, ‘the Orsini have offered a shocking sum of money for your head, here in Venice. You arrived quite publicly. You’re lucky to be alive.’

  Swan shook his head. ‘I’m the next thing to an ambassador,’ he said. ‘They can’t—’

  ‘They can,’ Balthazar said. ‘Remember I said – almost two years ago – that the Orsini had paid men to come here, and they had leagued with the Foscari?’

  Swan made a face. ‘I remember all this a little,’ he said.

  Isaac laughed. ‘You lead a life of such desperation that you can forget who is trying to kill you?’

  ‘But Foscari is the Doge!’ Swan said.

  Balthazar steepled his fingers the way Bessarion sometimes did. ‘Not the Doge. His son. Jacopo is …’ He looked away. ‘An odd boy. Some people say he is trying to sell Venice to the Turks.’

  ‘What?’ Swan asked. ‘His father is Doge!’

  ‘Just so,’ Balthazar said. ‘It is very odd.’

  Isaac didn’t look as if it was very odd.

  Swan had a thought, and tried not to let it show on his face.

  Balthazar leaned forward. ‘I pay my debts. I sent you to Constantinople and you did my errand there. And my people betrayed you. Now I’m in a very difficult place, and not – not – of my choosing!’

  He looked at Isaac, and Isaac shrugged. ‘Times are changing,’ Isaac said enigmatically.

  ‘It has come to my attention,’ Balthazar said … and hesitated.

  Isaac made a motion with his hand. Balthazar looked at him. Swan put a hand under his cloak to make sure his sword was there.

  ‘It has come to my attention that … certain elements …’ Balthazar looked at Isaac. ‘Serve the Foscari interest. And they … intend to kill you.’ Balthazar shrugged. ‘And buy control of your company of lances.’

  ‘Why?’ Swan asked. But he already knew why. He could suddenly see it all.

  He was in the middle of Loredan’s thrice-damned conspiracy.

  ‘They plan to use my soldiers to grab control of the city?’ Swan asked.

  Isaac looked at his brother with something approaching hate.

  Balthazar nodded.

  Swan sat back carefully, kicking his sword blade around so that he could kill a man off the draw. ‘That is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,’ he said.

  Isaac’s face gave everything away. He stood up.

  Swan shook his head. ‘I am most thankful for the tip that I’m to get a blade in my back. But you must tell your certain elements that if I die, my lances still belong to Bessarion. Indeed, they want the contract with Bessarion far more than they want to escort me to Vienna. They are scarcely for hire. There are other men right here in Venice who would take command of them instantly.’ Swan was unwilling to name Alessandro. If the Foscari didn’t know him … but of course they did. Swan remembered the duel with the Foscari boy. And then he thought, Sweet Christ, what if all this was a set-up to get me to bring soldiers into Venice? ‘And I’d add,’ he said, seeing that his words were having no effect, ‘I’d add that my lances – all my people – are watched very carefully by the Ten.’

  ‘Impossible!’ Isaac said.

  Balthazar glared at his brother. ‘Just as I thought,’ he said.

  Isaac’s face was working with emotion. ‘We have …’ He paused.

  ‘I will not see Messire Swan touched,’ Balthazar said.

  Isaac turned and strode out of the room.

  Balthazar shook his head. ‘No fencing lesson today, I fear. Solomon will walk you to the gate.’ H
e looked at Swan. ‘Whatever you caught of that – I am not involved. But my brother is.’

  Swan knew that he had been close there – close to being sacrificed. Balthazar was afraid of whatever his brother was involved in – perhaps was using Swan as a lever to move his brother. And Swan knew that if he had to, Balthazar would have him killed to save his brother.

  Swan bowed to Balthazar. ‘I hope I can be welcome again,’ he said. ‘If I can frustrate this without harming your brother—’

  ‘You would be my favourite Christian,’ Balthazar said. ‘My brother will be gone soon. The sooner, the better!’ he added angrily.

  On the way to the gate, Swan turned to Solomon. ‘You fence with Master Viladi?’ he asked.

  Solomon nodded.

  ‘You carry notes there for your uncle?’ Swan asked.

  Solomon looked at him.

  Swan made a motion of a sword going across his throat. ‘Don’t. I say this to save you.’

  Because what Swan had realised in a flash of insight was that the hose on the tailor’s counter belonged to the angry man coming down the steps of the maestro’s apartment, and that man was Jacopo Foscari. Foscari – Rabbi Aaron said he was trying to betray Venice to the Turks. Loredan had been watching him. Isaac had come from Constantinople – where he served the Sultan. With an offer?

  Solomon fenced with the same master as Foscari. Sultan to Isaac, Isaac to Solomon, Solomon to Foscari.

  Q.E.D.

  Swan was as cautious as a hunting cat as he went to fetch a boat back to St Mark’s. And in his head were two thoughts – one, that there were very efficient men trying to kill him, and he needed to avoid them. And the other, that if Loredan was as good as he seemed, he would have had Swan followed. And that by now, Swan must seem to be already part of the conspiracy. Or even, at the centre of it.

  Swan had a boat ride across the Grand Canal in which to consider his options.

  ‘Take me to the Arsenal,’ he said.

  The boatman grunted – the rain was returning, and with it, wind – but he turned the little boat and started back, passing the Rialto bridge.

  Swan blessed the fortune by which he had come out with his sword and his purse – and almost all his money.