Christian Cameron - Tom Swan and the Head of St. George Part Five - Rhodes

Swan looked down and found he was standing on a mosaic floor — a mosaic of a man and a woman, done in stones so small that the woman’s made-up eyes had six or seven tones to them.

Something like a groan escaped Swan.

Fra Domenico laughed. ‘It is the earthly paradise,’ he said.

Fra Tommaso was less inclined to be lyrical. ‘Is there a major-domo?’ he asked the two slaves who’d ushered them in.

‘I like to greet my guests in person,’ came a voice. It was an odd, androgynous voice — the voice of a mature woman, or perhaps an old man, or a very young one. The Italian was without accent — neither Roman nor Milanese nor Venetian nor Genoese. Merely — Italian.

Swan looked around. There were two African slaves by the door, and another pair of matching Bulgarian slaves standing by what appeared to be the main archway into the living quarters.

He looked up.

A storey above him, a magnificent silver lamp seemed to float in the air, the twenty wicks giving a golden light. Each wick emerged from the head of a beast, and all of the beasts were joined to a central body that twisted as if in mortal combat. The whole lamp was silver, and the chain that vanished overhead into the murk of the tower’s interior was silver.

And on the other side of the lamp, there was a small balcony — an interior balcony. On it stood a man dressed in traditional Byzantine robes, with a small purple-red hat adorned with pearls. He had a mature face — Swan thought he was in his fifties — with wide-set, liquid eyes and the long, straight nose of the Byzantine emperors.

Fra Domenico bowed. ‘Prince Dorino,’ he said.

Fra Tommaso shook his head softly, but said nothing.

The prince leaned over his balcony. ‘You admire my lamp, young man?’ His soft, womanly voice was disconcerting. It floated on the air and played tricks and made Swan unsure about who had spoken. It was like some mummer’s trick at a fair by the Thames.

‘I think it is remarkable,’ Swan said. ‘Is it … Roman?’

Prince Dorino laughed softly. ‘Roman? Psst — that for Rome,’ he said, and snapped his fingers. ‘Rome was a nation of barbarians who could do nothing but copy. It is Greek, young man. Everything worth having was made by the Greeks.’ He smiled. ‘Come — the advantage in height is too overwhelming. Come upstairs — my cousin is here and we are all learning our parts for the fete tomorrow.’

The two Slavs bowed and escorted the three men, in their plain clerical brown, past a magnificent tapestry of men hunting a rhinoceros; to a set of stairs broad enough to drive a wagon up to the top, curving like a snail’s shell, in pale marble. The stairs were flanked by fluted columns. Swan reached out and touched one. He looked at the base and saw that it was ancient — looked up at the capital and saw a design he didn’t know at all.

‘It is Aeolian,’ said a woman’s voice, quite near at hand.

Swan realized that he was standing with his mouth half-open, gaping like a fish. He was at the base of the steps. A woman clad in a chiton, with the peplos folded down for modesty, stepped out from behind the pillar. She had skin the colour of newly finished oak, and black hair that fell in ten thousand curls, and the most astonishing green eyes flecked in gold, like emeralds set in rings. She looked so very like an ancient statue sprung to life that Swan lost his ability to speak for a moment. Then he bowed, as deeply as if to a cardinal. When he raised his head, she was gone.

Swan stood like a statue himself for a moment, and then raced up the steps after the sound of the knights.

At the top of the great steps, an arch twenty feet tall opened into a great hall. The hall itself spoke with many voices — there were heads of animals, including a pair of lions; there were weapons, from a magnificent bronze sword whose green patina was glossy with preservation to a new steel arming sword with an elaborate hilt in the latest style — armour hung on the walls, and from the rafters high above, and spears were crossed all the way down one side. But the tapestries all had classical subjects — Swan didn’t think he had ever been in a hall so lacking in Christian decoration.

There were long tables down the centre of the hall, with a mixture of benches and tables. A pair of musicians in typical Italian court clothes played pavanes and German dances that Violetta would have recognised and Swan did not, but the sound of the lutes made him smile. At a table, six women — each prettier than the next — wove garlands of flowers from baskets of cut blossoms. At the end of the hall, Prince Dorino sat in state, with a pair of knights and a tall, elderly man in plain black clothes.

The Bulgarians escorted them the length of the hall and bowed. Swan bowed. The two hospitaller knights merely inclined their heads.

‘Prince Dorino,’ Fra Domenico said in greeting.

‘My dearest pirate,’ returned the prince in his rich and dulcet voice. The prince extended a hand. ‘This is my admiral, Lord Zacharie. And the captain of my little army — the lord of Eressos. Who is your young man?’

‘An English volunteer, Prince. Master Tommaso Suani, of London. The grandson of the great English Duke of Lancaster, John of Gaunt.’ Fra Domenico smiled.

‘An English prince? As a volunteer? That seems promising, to me. Will your cousins bring us a crusade to rescue us from the Turk?’ Prince Dorino seemed to find the whole idea comic.

Fra Tommaso put a hand on his sword-hilt. ‘Is it nothing to you that a Turkish fleet is at sea?’

‘Ah — my old friend Ser Tommaso. Are you indignant? Listen, my friend. The Turks will come for my paradise soon enough. Why borrow the trouble?’ Dorino laughed. The men around him did not. They remained almost immobile.

The prince looked at Swan. ‘Speak,’ he commanded. ‘Where is your crusade?’

Swan stood straighter. ‘My lord, I am all there is likely to be from England. Englishmen don’t like to go abroad unless they are paid.’

The Lord of Eressos smiled.

‘Your Italian is impeccable, for an Englishman,’ the prince conceded. ‘Are these seven ships all you have?’ he snapped.

Fra Domenico bowed. ‘They are, my lord.’

The man in black clothes smoothed his moustache and glanced at the Lord of Eressos.

Prince Dorino sat back. ‘We have another dozen galleys,’ he said.

‘Where are they?’ demanded Fra Tommaso.

There was a silken rustle near at hand, and Swan turned his head to see the classical Greek maiden, now dressed as a modern Genoese maiden, come in, her silk skirts stiff with embroidery.

She raised her eyes — and her glance caught Swan’s.

In a fight — a real fight — there is a moment in a hard attack, or a heavy parry, where the blades meet edge to edge. And the two sharp edges bite into one another. The two lock — steel cutting steel. Just for a moment.

She moved on down the hall and Swan’s heart raced.

Prince Dorino laughed. ‘Master Suani! You are blushing. Has my cousin moved you more than my lamp?’ He laughed his high-pitched laugh. And turned, his expression changing as quickly as his head moved, to frown at Fra Tommaso. ‘My ships are safe in the Bay of Kalloni — where yours would be safer, as well. You know that I had the whole squadron of Genoa in my harbour? Yes? And the cowards turned their back on the foe and ran. All the way to Genoa, I have little doubt.’

Fra Tommaso pursed his lips. ‘With a dozen ships we might have enough power to take the Turkish vanguard, if we could separate them from their fleet.’

Prince Dorino made a motion of dismissal with his hand. ‘Out of the question. I will not risk my fleet in some desperate measure against the Turks. I am negotiating with them even now. And — incidentally — the Genoese captain who was with you has just slipped his moorings and is headed back to sea. To Genoa, I’m sure.’