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

‘I shall have my collections more carefully watched,’ Prince Dorino said in his odd voice. This time, he was already at Swan’s elbow — just at hand. Swan hadn’t even heard him approach.

‘Although, to be sure, you have nowhere to hide anything that you lust after,’ Dorino said. He leered.

Swan winced. The slaves were looking away. ‘Your collections are the finest I’ve seen,’ he said.

Prince Dorino was already in a chiton and chlamys. The chiton looked a trifle odd on a man of fifty. On his shoulder burned an emerald as big as an acorn, pinning his cloak.

‘Oh, is it the collections that brought you so very early?’ Dorino said. ‘I rather fancied it might be my young cousin Theodora. Hmm?’

A year or two earlier, such a comment might have brought a stammering denial or a blush, but now Swan merely shrugged. ‘A magnificent figure, I agree.’

‘A magnificent figure! I shall tell her. Given your love of the classical, we’ll assume you know whereof you speak, young man. Have you met my daughter, Caterina?’

The young woman in question came closer. Dressed in a long sea-green linen chiton that revealed her arms and the points of her shoulders and hung to the floor, with a belt of pearls and more pearls in her shining black hair, she looked like a painting in the latest Italian style. ‘Goodness! So early!’ she said.

Swan knelt instead of bowing — as he was aware of the limitations of his own chiton from watching Prince Dorino. It hiked up at the back very easily. ‘You are like a vision of Apollo’s sister Artemis of the flowing hair, come to earth to visit us poor mortals.’

‘This is my friend Isabella,’ she said, turning to a dark redhead. That young woman was wearing a deeper green chiton with a peplos, but the sides of her chiton were very slightly open and Swan nearly expired of lust on the spot — though in fact he could see only a finger’s width of creamy flesh.

‘Had I known that such a handsome knight was already in attendance,’ Isabella said with a dimpled smile. ‘My brother thinks you are a dangerous menace to island society. So naturally, I like you.’

Swan went down on one knee again. He had never realised how much padding hose gave him until he had to place his bare knee on a marble floor. ‘Donna, I am your servant.’

‘Just don’t tell me I’m either Aphrodite or Artemis,’ she said. ‘I won’t have either.’ She smiled again, and Swan — unrepentant — stepped offline as if in a sword fight and had another look at her sides.

She raised an eyebrow.

Swan cocked his head to one side. ‘It would be a sin not to look, Despoina.’

It might have been a good line with some girls, but apparently not with Isabella Zambale. Two parties had arrived in the foyer and had been escorted to the hall, and she turned to greet them.

‘Women are odd about flattery,’ Prince Dorino said with a connoisseur’s air. ‘Very discriminating. The flattery has to be … accurate. Except with the easy ones, and then, who bothers?’

Swan re-evaluated his views of Prince Dorino.

‘My cousin was born to the Imperial Purple,’ the prince went on. ‘She cares no more for flattery than she does for religious dogma. It has been her place all her life to receive the plaudits of strangers.’

Swan was at a loss for what to say. ‘I … seek only to do her honour,’ he managed.

Prince Dorino looked at him as if he were a fool. ‘Oh, honour,’ he said. ‘I’m attempting to do you a favour, young man.’

Swan met the prince’s eyes. ‘Why?’ he asked.

The older man’s eyes passed over a huddle of women in the middle of the floor. They were newcomers, and their linen was nearly transparent. They were obviously a little uneasy with their clothing, and thus gathered in a very tight knot. A paean of giggles and protests emerged.

‘Perhaps you remind me so very much of myself at your age,’ the prince said.

Swan winced.

‘Did you see the English ship that made harbour tonight?’ the prince asked with a mercurial change. He took a golden cup of wine from a servitor.

‘No!’ Swan said. ‘Was it called Katherine Sturmy ?’

‘Yes,’ the prince said, bowing to a newcomer. ‘The English are everywhere. Is it a good place to live, England?’ he asked.

Swan thought for a moment. ‘Yes. Not as warm as here but … beautiful.’ A wave of homesickness assaulted him and just for a moment he thought of London — of fishing in the Lea and chasing girls over the fields at Lambeth, where the archbishop had his palace south of London and all the brothels were.

‘I suspect that my time here is nearly done,’ the prince said, looking at the assembly.

‘Do you believe the Turks will defeat us?’ Swan asked.

Prince Dorino smiled. ‘What a charming child you are, to be sure,’ he said. ‘The Turks? I mean my son Domenico, who will cheerfully murder me.’

‘Why?’ Swan asked. He could only picture Fra Domenico, who was, surely, too old to be this man’s son.

‘Wealth. Power. And to please the Turks.’ The prince shrugged. ‘Please — drink wine, dance, and if you can manage it, fornicate. These things will make you happier than listening to me.’

‘Would anything convince you to let your fleet cooperate with ours?’ Swan asked.

Dorino laughed. ‘Perhaps to save something from the wreckage — if I believed anything could be saved. My dear boy — this is the end. My world is ending whether I live or die. Christendom has failed.’

Dorino made Swan angry. Swan had few scruples of his own, but he didn’t preach defeatism and he couldn’t imagine that this rich man wouldn’t fight. ‘Why not fight because it is the right thing to do?’

Prince Dorino smiled. Shook his head. ‘Is it?’ he asked. ‘The Turks may be better men. Their government — even their religion — may be better.’

Swan met his eye. ‘Have you ever thought,’ he asked, playing his card as carefully as he could, ‘that there is a traitor, selling Christendom to the Turks?’

‘I think it often,’ Prince Dorino said.

Swan leaned forward. ‘Can you imagine who would do such a thing? Betray Christians to the Turk?’

Dorino laughed his high-pitched, woman’s laugh.

‘I don’t have to imagine. Through my correspondence I have traced three of them who sell us to the Turk every day! The Doge of Venice, the director of the Casa Saint Giorgio in Genoa, and the Pope. Traitors. Every one.’ Dorino made a moue. ‘That’s not who you are after. Eh?’

Swan shook his head. ‘I take your meaning.’

Prince Dorino laughed without mirth. ‘Yes — I think there is a traitor.’ He shrugged. ‘Whether he does more damage then the Pope …’

‘My cousin is a notorious atheist,’ Theodora said. She took the prince’s arm. She was wearing a double-folded chiton — nearly transparent linen, beautifully arranged, and two layers thick, so that sometimes, when she moved, it was modest, and other movements seemed to disclose …

Her skin really was the colour of amber and looked as if it was hot to the touch. Her lips were coral, and her eyes the same peculiar green, and for all her perfection of figure she had immense dignity. When she spoke, she spoke with the effect of careful deliberation.

Swan found that his mouth was hanging open.

‘I would send my fleet to sea to fight for this woman,’ Prince Dorino said. ‘The Sultan wants her.’

‘He has so many Greek ladies in his harem now — what is one more?’ she asked.

Swan clamped down on his intention to flatter. ‘Perhaps he is a collector,’ he said, instead.

Prince Dorino nodded. ‘That is well said,’ he murmured. ‘The young prince here was a great hero at Rhodos, one gathers.’