Christian Cameron: Tom Swan and the Head of St. George Part Six: Chios

‘That is what he will say,’ Domenico said. He looked at Swan. ‘Do not, I pray, reveal our views on him to anyone.’

Before the sun began to set, Swan was away, cantering up the long ridge behind the town, first through dense-set cobbled streets and then up a series of switchbacks until the good road became a cart track over rock. A great mountain appeared on their right after they crossed the ridge, and one of the men-at-arms — yet another Giannis — grinned and told Swan it was called Mount Olympos. Behind him, most of the Turkish fleet was rowing on the calm sea towards Chios, and he could see their vanguard in a narrow crescent followed by the main body.

He’d had time to make a fair copy of the spy’s report and to receive Tommaso’s promise that, regardless of the outcome of his mission, the report would find its way to Cardinal Bessarion. He had time to read the small parchment slip from Theodora, which said, in neat Latin, that she looked forward to their next meeting.

He’d also experienced a frisson of fear — and excitement — to find that one of the Turkish galleys was called The ship of the sister of Turahanoglu Omar Reis, benefactor of the poor. It had taken him long minutes to pick the Turkish out of the Greek letters, but when he had it …

He watched the Turkish fleet as if Auntie might come on deck and wave.

Swan’s easy Greek and charm made him many friends among the Stradiotes, and they were a cheerful party over the hills to Kalloni. They camped in a grove of enormous pines and firs that seemed to touch the stars above them, and the next morning Swan arose to sage tea and fresh pork cutlets purchased from a peasant. He curried his horse in the dawn and wondered why anyone would ever live anywhere but Greece.

‘What is it like — Scotland?’ asked Zambale.

Swan laughed. ‘I’ve never been there,’ he said.

‘But it is part of England?’ the Lord of Eressos asked.

Swan put his curry back in his saddle pack and shook his head. ‘Is Constantinople Turkish?’ he asked. ‘The Scots and the English are not friends. They merely occupy parts of the same island.’

Zambale laughed. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘This is what my father said. And yet — all his friends were English. He said that, out here, none of it mattered.’

Swan laughed too. ‘Perhaps in England, Greeks and Turks are friends,’ he said. ‘They would both miss the sun.’

Zambale was not amused.

The Lord of Eressos’s mood improved as they descended from the forests of the mountains to the plain of Kalloni. Seen from one of the last turns of the road, the bay was laid out like a rich man’s swimming pool in Italy — a perfect, azure blue, shaped like an enormous teardrop.

‘You like everything old,’ Hector Zambale said.

Swan nodded, drinking in the view. ‘I do,’ he admitted.

‘There are a pair of temples here that men say are among the finest in the world,’ Hector said. ‘They are certainly the finest on Lesvos.’

Swan sighed. He had begun to wonder whether life with the Order of St John was to be his bane. Once upon a time, he’d have ridden down to see the ruins — aye, and then found a ship for Italy.

Even as it was, a niggling little voice told him that he’d done his duty, in the main. He had no need to linger for a losing war. He had solid evidence of the traitor. Perhaps proof.

Except that, somewhere in the night watches, a sense of duty — a sense of belonging to the order — had crept up on him. It was not that he believed in the ideal of crusade, or had had a sudden conversion. Merely that he couldn’t bear to disappoint — or desert — men like Fra Tommaso. Or Fra Domenico. They trusted him.

He sighed again. ‘Let’s get to Chios,’ he said. ‘If we make it back here alive, I would like nothing better than to see your temples.’

Zambale nodded.

Kalloni proper was a small town built on the ruins of a city, and Swan gawked like a country boy in the big city until Zambale’s men had hired them a fishing boat. They caught the evening breeze out of the bay, the big lateen, as big as the rest of the boat, moving them swiftly over the dark blue water. They left Prince Dorino’s fleet behind them, securely beached. One pair of military galleys were rowing guard far out in the bay, which was itself like a small, calm sea.

Swan fell asleep, but he awoke as soon as they were out of the bay, passing below a pair of Byzantine towers at the bay entrance — an entrance so narrow that it could be held by a single ship.

‘Why is Kalloni not the most famous port in the world?’ Swan asked.

But the Lord of Eressos was not a sailor, and he merely shrugged.

The sea breeze caught them, and wafted them across the twenty miles of open sea to the north coast of Chios. The mountainous interior was always visible from the moment they left the Bay of Kalloni, the mountains rising like pale ghosts in the distance and becoming more and more solid as they raced across the moonlit water.

Swan wasn’t sure he’d ever seen anything more beautiful. And then he thought of Violetta, and of Theodora, and Khatun Bengul.

He smiled, and fell back asleep.

Dawn found them among the fishing fleet of one of the small towns on the north coast of Chios, and they crept along the coast. From time to time, with some smiles and gestures, the Lesbian crew put their nets over the side and fished, and all the while the Turkish fleet was in plain sight six miles away, with the coast of Asia as a backdrop.

‘Shall we land?’ Swan asked Zambale. ‘I suppose we could go cross-country.’

Zambale shrugged. ‘As long as you don’t mind taking until Easter,’ he said. ‘Easter next year,’ he added. ‘Trust these men.’

As the day wore on, they fished their way along the coast and then into the darker, windier water of the Asiatic strait. They never went right among the Turks, but they were seldom out of long gunshot.

Swan’s experience during the brief siege at Rhodos had changed his view of gonne powder and gonnes in general. At some point, he asked Zambale whether he’d shot a gonne.

The Genoese-Graeco-Scot smiled tolerantly. ‘I own a dozen,’ he said. ‘I have shot them all.’

He regaled Swan with a tale of shooting a wolf on the mainland at some great range. Zambale seemed locked in a competition to prove his worthiness to Swan, even as he sought to surpass him. Despite which, Swan was coming to like the man. He was eager to fight, and passionate in his convictions. And well read.

By noon, the two were stripped to the waist, fishing with the other men. Competing to haul the nets faster, to gut more fish.

A Turkish galley came very close to them, and shouted at them. The owner put the helm down and sat, rising and falling on the waves, but the Turks didn’t board or even harass them, although the archers aboard the galley had arrows on their bows as they passed. Swan noted the name of the ship and counted more than a hundred oarsmen. Everyone aboard held their breath, and then the Turk turned south and raced away like a great water insect racing across the surface.

As the sun began to set, the fishing fleet ran for home. By then, the fleets of a dozen seaside villages had mingled, and the owner of their boat, Giorgios, had spent the day moving from the southern fringe of one to the northern fringe of the next in small sprints and short rows, never raising his sail for more than a few minutes. By this time, the boat was full to the gunnels of fish — bream and snapper, beautiful fish.

As full darkness began to fall, the little boat began to run into the port of Chios with a handful of other boats. Giorgios leaned out and called to one of them.

‘Eh, Dmitry! Is that all you’ve got?’