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

Fra Tommaso raised an eyebrow. ‘I brought the men, but the word in Ancona is that the Grand Turk will try for Rhodos in the spring, and we’ll all be called home.’

‘That’s the word here, too,’ Domenico said. ‘I’ll be ready — nor will the soldiers go to waste.’

Swan stood by while Drappiero, the Genoese merchant-and ambassador-was introduced. He was respectful and courteous to Fra Domenico. Swan saw the Genoese notice the knight’s ring, too. The man started. His head turned as if he might say something, and then his jaw snapped shut.

That night he ate good white bread and beef, and drank good wine in the hospitaller preceptory behind the hospital. He sat with Fra Domenico and Fra Tommaso, and Peter waited on him. The Genoese party went straight to an inn.

After dinner, the two older men went off to the hospital and left him with Peter, who embraced him for perhaps the third time.

‘I might haf to tink differnt of you,’ he said. ‘You were commink back for me.’

Peter led him out into the town, which was a quarter the size of Ancona. They met Brother Totten, who rolled his serving brother’s gown up and stowed it in a wooden box by the gate.

‘You are allowed out?’ Swan asked.

The old Englishman laughed. ‘It’s no crime to the order if I have a drink,’ he said. ‘There’s sins in Monemvasia, but not so many we need to watch ourselves so hard.’

Swan introduced Antoine, and the four men played cards in a small room above an open yard where wine was served to men — and only men.

Peter nodded across his cards. ‘One hears you are married,’ he said.

Swan nodded. ‘Not really. But I might. I … love her.’

Peter made a non-committal noise and took a toothpick out of his eating-knife sheath. ‘Twenty-four points,’ he said.

Swan paid up with an ill grace. ‘Now you are better than me, too!’ he complained after losing three times.

‘You haf only yourself to blame,’ Peter said. ‘You left me here with Messire Totten.’

Totten had been talking with the taverna keeper, but he leaned over and broke into a great smile. ‘Let me lighten your load,’ he said. ‘I’ll buy a pitcher of wine, and you can try and find Lady Fortuna.’ He shuffled the cards carefully and took a seat. ‘Who’s the rich bastard on your galley?’

Swan scratched under his chin. ‘Francesco Drappierro. Richer than Croesus. No sense of humour at all. I hope he gets his pocket picked.’

Totten shrugged. ‘My friend in the taverna says he just asked the innkeeper for a Turkish girl.’ He shrugged again. ‘No Turkish girls here.’

The words ‘Turkish girl’ conjured such an image that Swan flushed, but he fought the image down and went back to the cards.

‘Speaking of Turks,’ Swan said. ‘No attacks?’

Totten shook his head. ‘There was fighting in the north, near Corinth. And the Albanians are threatening to revolt — again. You know the Katakuzenos family?’

Swan shook his head. ‘Should I?’ he asked wearily. It was like learning to navigate.

‘They were the lords of the Morea — oh, a hundred years ago. Not long after Agincourt, they … well, some of them died, they lost some battles, and the family ceased to be as important and the Paleologi took the whole Morea.’ Totten’s shrug indicated that this was an extremely truncated version of a longer story. ‘But — for various reasons — the Vlachs and the Albanians prefer the Katakuzenoi to the Paleologi.’

Swan leaned back. ‘You’re making this up.’

Totten laughed. ‘You asked! This is why no one crusades in Greece. Too many sides.’

Swan nodded. ‘Which side is the right side?’ he asked.

Totten shrugged. ‘No one here is much better than anyone else,’ he said. ‘At any rate, there was a battle a month ago — the Albanians lost to Thomas Palaeologos, who had Turks in his army, even though he hates them.’

‘Really, it’s just like Italy,’ Swan said.

‘Or France,’ admitted Antoine.

‘Or Flanders,’ said Peter bitterly.

‘It would never happen in England, thank God and Saint George,’ said Totten. ‘Nothing wrecks a country like a long civil war.’

Later they played with some of the Burgundian archers bound for Kos, and Peter arranged himself and Antoine a comfortable berth. Comfortable compared to lying on a bare deck, at any rate.

The weather turned for the worse, and they were nine days in Monemvasia. Swan grew tired of the wine, and found chastity a heavier burden in a town with dozens of young women than it had been at sea. And his bond with Violetta notwithstanding, he dreamed of Khatun Bengul almost every night, to his own mortification.

However, two sunny days and certain astrological signs that the captain understood had them at sea on the tenth day. They ran down the Aegean, touched at Hermione for wood and water, then across the great bay to Attica, visible all day as they sailed without touching an oar. They were in Athens for two days while Francesco Drappierro visited the Duke of Athens on his acropolis. Swan wandered through the wreckage of the lower town and purchased more than a dozen items from hawkers on the waterfront in Piraeus, including a matched pair of heavy gold rings with seals. He purchased coins, more weapons green with verdigris and a helmet — the best one he could find.

When Drappierro delayed another day, Swan rented a horse and rode north with Antoine and Peter for company. The farmland to the north and east of Athens was excellent, and there was a neat patchwork of hedged fields — wheat and barley ready for the late harvest. It made Swan a little homesick for England.

They crossed the plain and then, in a single long afternoon, climbed the great ridge that dominated the coast and came scrambling down to the small fishing village on the far side.

‘We came to see this?’ Peter said. ‘Are there girls?’

Swan rode along the beach and through the olive trees for several miles. Eventually he saw a Greek priest. The man seemed in no hurry to speak to a Frank, but Swan spoke passable Greek and the man smiled under his heavy beard.

‘I thought you might be another Florentine overseer,’ he said. ‘They sell these lands so fast — the Italians, I mean. How can I help you?’

Swan nodded. ‘Is this Marathon?’ he asked.

The priest nodded soberly. ‘Ah — a scholar. Come with me.’ He fetched a mule tied to a post outside a farmhouse, and led them down the plain.

‘See the little hill, like a pot turned upside down?’ the priest said, and after a moment Swan could see it.

‘My house is just the other side,’ the priest said. ‘But I think the little hill is the tomb. Where the Athenians buried their dead.’

Peter rolled his eyes as Swan reacted with passionate enthusiasm. They rode down the valley, chattering — Swan trying to understand the rapid Greek, the priest trying to be plain spoken.

‘Find us a place to drink, or we’ll ride off and leave you,’ the Fleming said.

Swan indicated his escort. ‘My men need a place to drink.’ He frowned. ‘They don’t share my enthusiasm for the past.’

The priest nodded with complete understanding. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘My wife neither.’

Back aboard ship, Swan lost no time in laying his prizes out on the table in the main cabin. He had a small blank book he’d acquired in Ancona, and he began to make notes of the things he bought.

Fra Tommaso appeared at the door. ‘Our guest is returning,’ he said. ‘What on earth is that?’

Swan shrugged. ‘A marble phallus. A man’s penis. No idea what it was for.’

The old knight shook his head. But he picked up an ornate helmet with cheek plates that still moved on their hinges and put it on his head. It sat on his wool cap.