Tom Swan and the Siege of Belgrade: Part Three

by Christian Cameron

  Di Bracchio shrugged. ‘Not always. Pater thought he’d get a legitimate heir on his wife, for a while – and then later, she made a great show of hating me.’ He smiled. ‘We became friends in the end,’ he said.

  They walked down the magnificent main hall. Tapestries covered the walls, the floor was a puzzle of parquetry in multi-hued marble, and there were swords and stands of armour, and a dozen liveried servants bowed them to the steps.

  The layout was almost identical to that of the Corner Palazzo, and the cortile steps gave Swan a moment of recollection, and then they emerged into the great rooms of the main floor.

  Di Bracchio led him to an older man, who wore a long velvet gown with a hundred gold buttons. He wore a small cap of black silk and might have been a rich notary. He had wide-set eyes and a strong, beaked nose. Swan would have known him anywhere as Alessandro’s father. He bowed as low as he would have for the Pope, the King of England or a beautiful woman.

  The don of the Bembo clan returned his bow. ‘Ser Suane,’ he said. ‘Or perhaps not quite yet, eh? Messire Suane, then. You are a true friend of this house, and our doors will always be open to you. Please – never even consider staying in some dreadful inn. A room will be readied for you on the Canal – your own balcony, space for your servants.’

  Swan was unprepared for the rush of admiration, and he flushed with embarrassment, but the lady of the house came forward with a rustle of silk. She was a strong-faced woman of sixty or so, and she accepted his bow graciously. Swan knew that he was, indeed, being treated as family – the women of the noble class were almost never introduced to strangers.

  ‘The boy is embarrassed, Cosimo,’ she said. ‘Come, let us all sit. There are many good things to come.’ She gestured graciously at Alessandro. ‘I would once have cursed you for bringing him back to us,’ she admitted. ‘I feel differently now, and you have my thanks, Messire Suane. And again my thanks – for Giovanna.’

  Swan’s confusion must have shown on his face, but Alessandro tucked his arm into Swan’s. ‘Giovanna came here with a scalp wound – your word, I understand. Now she’s indispensable to my stepmother, and I suspect she’s going to be offered a post.’

  ‘Niccolo the innkeeper will kill me,’ Swan said.

  Alessandro showed some of his former humor. ‘I suspect there is a line of people to kill you,’ he said.

  The conversation was careful and a little stilted – there were several other family members, as well as two older men from other families. Swan was seated with an empty chair on his right and with Pietro di Dandalo on his left. The padrone of the Dandalo spoke seldom, and tended to snap, but he made humorous asides to Swan that showed him human.

  ‘We’re all here offering our daughters,’ he joked. ‘It’s like Helen of Troy in reverse.’

  Just before dinner, the family’s women joined the men at table – a very special occasion. There were no daughters, but the padrone’s two sisters joined their husbands, and a veiled woman came and sat by Swan.

  ‘Signora Sophia,’ he said, rising.

  She nodded without speaking and curtsied gravely to the assembled company.

  Swan leaned forward to talk to her, and she leaned back. Alessandro, moving about, bowing and exchanging witticisms with his father’s friends, paused and put a gentle hand on his shoulder.

  ‘You don’t speak to women at dinner,’ he said. ‘It’s not done, no matter how much you fancy them.’

  Swan rolled his eyes.

  After the second course was eaten and removed, Bembo primo rose and delivered a fine Latin oration on the virtues of family. Then he raised a scroll, and even the most garrulous guest fell silent.

  ‘This document, signed by the Ten and the Senate, confirms my decision to make my son Alessandro my legitimate heir,’ he said. ‘As of this day, he is Alessandro Bembo, and his name will go into the Golden Book.’

  The guests rose and applauded. One by one, all the adult male guests rose and embraced Alessandro. He struggled to look enthusiastic.

  Eventually it was Swan’s turn. Swan went and embraced his friend. Alessandro managed a grin, but Swan was shocked to see tears at the corners of his eyes.

  ‘It is all I ever wanted,’ he said. ‘Christ – now I think of all I’m giving up.’

  Swan laughed. ‘You will be one of the richest and most powerful men in the world,’ he said.

  Alessandro nodded. ‘Exactly!’

  Swan left his friend to be the centre of attention, and wandered around the main floor. The house was beautiful, and the coffered ceiling was better than anything Swan had ever seen in England or France. A young man he didn’t know stopped him to admire his clothes.

  Swan began to feel he had made a good choice in tailor.

  A servant brought him wine, and he discovered the family library. He was used to Bessarion’s library, but this one was almost as good – there were a dozen books in Greek and two in Hebrew.

  He looked up to find the veiled figure standing at the other end of the library table. He rose and bowed.

  In a very low voice, Signora Sophia said, ‘I wanted to thank you. I think you saved us.’

  Swan shook his head. ‘Signora, you saved us.’ He struggled to explain. ‘I had no idea what was going on. Your note …’ He had to settle for a smile. ‘It was the most important clue.’

  ‘I note that it didn’t bring you rushing to my side,’ she said.

  ‘I had a busy day.’ Swan bowed. ‘An extraordinary day. What will you do now?’

  She shook her head. ‘I do not want to go back to Rimini – but nor will I be false to the boy.’

  ‘Do you have family here?’ Swan asked.

  She didn’t answer. Instead, she backed away a step. ‘I didn’t mean to say so much,’ she said.

  Swan followed her. It was like fencing – she sought to open the distance, so he closed it with a long gliding step.

  She turned away.

  He caught the corner of her veil and raised it. She met his eyes.

  Her sculpted lips were set in a fine oval face. It wasn’t a beautiful face, but there was beauty in it, and her eyes …

  Swan leaned forward and put his lips on hers.

  She slapped him with the whole weight of her arm and shoulder. She had slapped a few children. His head snapped back and he almost lost his balance.

  ‘Must you?’ she spat. ‘Is that the only way you communicate with women?’

  Swan tried not to rub his face. ‘I …’ he said, and thought better of it.

  She was breathing quickly. ‘Do you want to know what it is like to be a penniless noblewoman?’ she asked. ‘I’m always about one kiss from destruction. Malatesta hunted me like I was an animal.’ She met his eyes, her veil up. ‘I evaded him. You think I will fall into your arms?’

  Swan gave in to the urge to rub his jaw. But when he met her eye again, he couldn’t help but smile.

  She laughed in spite of herself. ‘I can’t remember another man laughing,’ she said.

  ‘Good God, does this happen often?’ Swan asked.

  ‘Too often,’ she answered. She shook her right hand. ‘That was too hard.’

  They looked at each other.

  ‘But I like you,’ Swan said.

  She smiled and her eyes dropped. ‘If you mean that,’ she said softly, ‘you’ll have to go about it the old way, and my only interest is marriage.’

  Swan reached out and caught her right hand. He moved to her left slightly as he did so, just in case she wanted to hit him again. Then he kissed her hand.

  And backed out of range, as if an opponent was cutting at his leg.

  She paused. She had a fine smile on her beautiful lips. Then she pulled down her veil.

  ‘That was acceptable,’ she said.

  She walked out of the room with her back very straight.

  The next day, Swan, with a recovering Ser Columbino, and Messire Alessandro di Bembo and Ser Zane and Petr and a dozen others – including Lorenzo Loredan – gath
ered on the steps of St Mark’s. The Doge was absent – the triumph of the capture of his own son could not have been anything but painful, and some whispered that he had supported his son throughout the affair.

  There was an outside altar and a high dais, and one by one men were called forward and applauded. Coleoni himself stood on the dais, accepting the plaudits of the crowd. Swan had never met him, but the man was very impressive in person, and he had an excellent speaking voice.

  ‘Do you know that one of the first Captains of Venice was English?’ Loredan was just at his elbow. ‘Ser William Gold. A brilliant soldier. His sons and daughters stayed to be Venetians.’

  Alessandro’s patent of nobility was read aloud, and he was rewarded for ‘service to the Republic’. He received thunderous applause. Loredan smiled. ‘Perhaps we will be friends again,’ he said.

  And then a voice summoned Tommaso Suane to the dais, and he walked up the steps. Coleoni looked at him and gave a slight nod.

  A member of the Senate read from a scroll that described some of Swan’s deeds of arms against the Turks ‘in the service of the Most Serene Republic’. He heard himself described in the most outrageous and heroic terms, and the crowd roared its appreciation.

  Loredan had mounted the dais, carrying a heavy sword with a gold hilt. Coleoni took the sword from him.

  ‘It will be easier if you kneel,’ the great condottiere said.

  Swan found himself on his knees.

  With a fine flourish, Coleoni raised the sword high in the air.

  ‘In the absence of the Doge,’ he roared, ‘I, Bartalomeo Coleoni, Captain-General of Venice, do strike you and make you a Cavaliere of the Noble Order of San Marco.’

  The sword dipped and struck Swan on the shoulder, and then rose to strike him again.

  ‘Rise, Ser Tommaso,’ Coleoni said.

  ‘Ser Tommaso!’ Clemente called.

  ‘By the wounds of our saviour, he’s going to be insufferable,’ Alessandro said.

  Petr was beaming. He leaned forward and gave Swan a huge bear hug. ‘By God, boy,’ he said.

  Ser Columbino embraced him, and so did a number of Venetians – Marco Corner of the Cornari, for example. His uncle’s treason had made him a much richer young man.

  When most of Venice had congratulated him, Swan applauded Ser Zane’s citizenship and was pleased to receive a scroll giving him a small pension from the Senate. It was the first permanent income he’d ever had.

  And when he looked up from the scroll, he saw a tall, heavy-jawed man – dignified and older – in long black robes with an eight-pointed star on his shoulder. Swan didn’t know him, but he didn’t know many knights of the Order.

  ‘Sir William Ashton,’ the man said, and bowed. ‘I am – at least temporarily – the English ambassador to the Republic. May I offer my own – and your country’s – congratulations?’

  Swan returned his bow. ‘Thanks, my lord.’

  Ashton smiled. ‘I’m really a poor excuse for an ambassador – I’m merely en route to Rhodes and the Queen asked me to send her respects to the Pope and the Republic. And she sent a donation for the crusade.’

  ‘God save the Queen,’ Swan said. ‘Please take my respects to the Grand Master.’ He allowed his ring to show, and Ashton smiled.

  ‘Ah! I had heard you were a volunteer. I’m so pleased. Consider coming to my house for dinner. I’m here until the fleet sails with your friend Lord Bembo.’

  Swan turned to Alessandro. ‘Lord Bembo? He’ll be insufferable.’

  Four days – the purchase of wagons, and horses and food. Swan had got a secret purse from the Ten, and he spent it all. With it, he ransomed Di Vecchio and his surviving men-at-arms. Malatesta had, of course, disowned their actions, and claimed that they had betrayed him. Venice didn’t want them – but the Serene Republic didn’t feel they could be executed.

  So Swan was allowed to ransom them all, and their armour. To take them to fight the Turks.

  Peter shook his head. ‘They will have every reason to love you,’ he said.

  So in the end, they looked much like the column that had left Rimini as they formed up in the narrow streets of Mestre. It was spring, and heading for summer, but there was still snow on the peaks ahead, by Aviano and points north. The latest reports from Balthazar said that the Sultan had left a third of his army at Constantinople, fearing the Venetian fleet – but the rest had marched, with more than a hundred cannon and eighty thousand men. For Belgrade.

  Swan looked at the towering barrier of the Alps – and the beautiful fields of new grass and sprouting grain. The Veneto was green with spring and dotted with flowers.

  Loredan and Bembo had accompanied them on the transports from Venice – mostly to make sure that the former Maletesti were safely away. Swan embraced his friend, and bowed to Loredan. Horses shifted in the column. Ser Columbino’s men chatted, and the Greeks laughed. The former Maletesti were grimly silent.

  ‘I’ll take care of the little governess,’ Alessandro said. ‘She gave Marco Cornari a black eye.’

  Swan flushed.

  ‘She gave me something to give you,’ Alessandro said. He made a show of patting his doublet. ‘I’ve left it in Venice. Well – you can collect it another time, eh?’

  ‘You bastard,’ Swan said.

  ‘Not any more!’ Alessandro said. ‘I am no longer a bastard. And you are a knight. Evil prospers, and good is not rewarded.’ He grinned. ‘It must be this rag,’ he allowed, and held something out.

  Swan snapped it out of his hand before Alessandro could tease him further.

  Loredan waved. ‘Good luck,’ he said. ‘If you tire of fighting Turks, I’m sure I could employ you.’

  Swan nodded. He didn’t think he’d enjoy working for Loredan. He rode to the head of the column.

  ‘Everyone ready?’ he called. He took a moment to use his eating knife and pop the seal on the signora’s parchment package. Inside was a neatly folded piece of silk, which, to his intense delight and embarrassment, proved to be a small pennon with his new Venetian arms on it. Petr mounted it on a lance that fitted it perfectly. He was grinning – he had known all about it.

  ‘Don’t forget to read the note,’ he said.

  The pennon fluttered bravely next to Bessarion’s arms.

  ‘On to Vienna,’ Swan said.

  Also by Christian Cameron

  Tom Swan and the Head of St George

  Volume One: Castillon

  Volume Two: Venice

  Volume Three: Constantinople

  Volume Four: Rome

  Volume Five: Rhodes

  Volume Six: Chios

  Volume Seven

  Volume Eight

  The Tyrant Series

  Tyrant

  Tyrant: Storm of Arrows

  Tyrant: Funeral Games

  Tyrant: King of the Bosporus

  Tyrant: Destroyer of Cities

  Tyrant: Force of Kings

  The Killer of Men Series

  Killer of Men

  Marathon

  Poseidon’s Spear

  Other Novels

  Washington and Caesar

  God of War

  The Ill-Made Knight

  Copyright

  An Orion eBook

  First published in Great Britain in 2014 by Orion Books

  This eBook first published in 2014 by Orion Books

  Copyright © Christian Cameron 2014

  Sword image used with permission www.albion-swords.com

  The moral right of Christian Cameron to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the copyright, designs and patents act 1988.

  All characters and events in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circ
ulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN: 978 1 4091 4870 8

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