Christian Cameron - Tom Swan and the Head of St. George Part Four - Rome

‘More rags,’ he said to the cook. ‘All boiled. You understand?’

The cook nodded. ‘We keep boiled linen,’ she said.

‘Good. How deep is it? Did you see?’ Claudio asked Swan.

Violetta answered. ‘Not to the lung, master. It cut an artery — I have one end in my hand. That’s all.’

Without any more talk, Claudio cast a loop over the artery that Violetta produced, a very small twist of rawhide covered in blood, or so it appeared to Swan.

‘Amazing that something so small makes so much blood, eh?’ he said. ‘Demoiselle Aphrodite, you are a superb nurse. Much better than this big Englishman.’

‘I had lots of practice,’ the girl said.

‘Where?’ Claudio asked.

‘Milan,’ she said. ‘The army.’

‘That’s why you know to strip,’ Claudio said with satisfaction. ‘Soldiers must love it.’

She shrugged. ‘Clothes cost money,’ she said. ‘White linen is never the same after blood.’

The bell rang for matins, and she kissed his nose. ‘Shall we go and check on our patient?’ she asked.

He didn’t leap out of bed. Naked, in a closed bed with a beautiful woman in Roman winter, he was as warm as anyone in the city, but out beyond the bed curtains, the temperature was roughly the same as it was outside the palazzo. Instead, he reached out to the shelf overhead and grabbed a fur-lined robe that the house apparently provided for male guests. He got his feet into his shoes, which were disgusting with dried blood.

The two of them had washed in a basin of steaming hot water. Now it was dark red and very cold. The washing had very quickly escalated. Even now his loins stirred.

He walked along the corridor in the growing light and found her behind him, muffled in a massive over-robe of familiar-looking English wool.

He found himself holding her hand.

Violetta’s odd and beautiful eyes met his. ‘I like you,’ she said quickly, and kissed him on the corner of the mouth. Considering how widely both of their mouths had travelled, it was curious how intimate this little gesture was.

They walked into the receiving room. Di Brachio was in bed. He had Master Claudio on one side of him, and Madame Lucrescia herself on the other. He was breathing.

They tiptoed out again.

In bed, their warmth had not dissipated, and they lay together, just being warm, for long enough that hands began to wander.

Eventually, Swan rolled off her and pushed the hair out of her eyes. ‘When do the bailiffs come to throw me out? And when is the fencing lesson?’

She laughed. ‘I have days off,’ she said. ‘One a week, or six a month when my courses run.’

Swan had grown up in an inn. ‘Oh!’ he said, understanding. ‘Can you fence then?’

Violetta shrugged. ‘We’ll find out,’ she said.

Di Brachio was moved to the cardinal’s palazzo later that day. Swan had a word with the steward — a quiet word — about how he would feel if any harm came to the Venetian. Later that day, without any coordination, Giannis cornered the priest on much the same mission, as he reported, laughing, to Swan.

The Greeks desired to see Rome — Master Nikephorus from the standpoint of academic enquiry, and the others with the enthusiasm of visitors.

Two days later was one of Violetta’s days off, and he took her out with Di Brescia, Giannis, Irene and Andromache. The younger Apollinaris was in bed with a fever that didn’t promise well — Rome was notorious for such things — and Master Nikephorus was preparing to give a lecture on the head of St George and was practising his Latin and cursing all Franks.

‘You are all ignorant barbarians!’ he said to Swan, when Swan came to the suite allocated to the Greeks to collect his friends. The master was declaiming to an audience of two sleeping cats and three attractive young women.

‘The cardinal told him that his Latin pronunciation would be incomprehensible to the Italians,’ Irene said quietly.

‘I come from the city of New Rome, where the empire endured without change! Tribes of Goths and Lombards overran this worthless, ruined town while Constantinople had running water and a thousand poets and philosophers!’ The old man sputtered.

Giannis continued to watch the older scholar with something like worship, but Irene plucked at his kaftan. ‘Our Italians are going out — shopping,’ she said.

Irene and Violetta circled each other like swordsmen upon introduction. Irene threw back her head and Violetta stood taller and threw out her chest, and Swan had to fight the urge to laugh. It was cold in the cardinal’s garden and he realised that he had not thought this through well enough.

But half an hour of walking arm in arm with Irene and Andromache broke through Violetta’s reserve, and she became as animated as Swan had seen her, speaking her Milanese Italian quickly, laughing constantly, as she showed the two Greek girls the markets of Rome.

Swan’s errand was clothing, and he brought them to the used-clothing market.

Di Brescia laughed. ‘You are a Roman, now,’ he said.

Violetta was walking, cloaked, with a veil over her face, between two equally hidden Greek ladies. The clothing market was a masculine space — men changed their hose and codpieces at the tables — and there was some consternation.

The nearest girl — most tables were run by girls — turned to the veiled women. ‘You shouldn’t be here, and if you’re here on a wager, get lost. Not a place for nice girls, sweetie.’

Di Brescia bowed. ‘I will escort the demoiselles into the church,’ he said. ‘If you and Giannis wish to see to your sartorial splendours.’

All three veiled women were laughing as hard as women in veils could laugh with dignity as Di Brescia led them away across the square. Irene began to put on a show of offended modesty — she was, after all, an actress, thought Swan. Andromache and Violetta began to match her, and men in the market began to dress hurriedly, and to apologise under their breath. And curse.

The Englishman and the Greek went up an alley and found the shop — really a house with a table outside — where Swan had purchased his first suit. The old man laughed and took his hand.

‘By Saint Christopher, my boy — you are still alive! I must say I’m surprised.’

Swan opened the pilgrim’s scrip he’d carried through the whole walk and produced the suit of scarlet and the matching cloak. ‘Too small for me,’ he said ruefully.

The old man raised an eyebrow. ‘Yes — your shoulders are much bigger. And you are an inch taller. Well — I must say that you are the first customer to return this suit standing up,’ he said. ‘Look at this slash!’ he complained.

After some haggling and much poking through neatly piled clothes, Swan emerged with two good suits of brown wool; doublet, hose and gown all matching — almost clerical in their plainness, but the cloth was good and the stitching perfect.

‘A gentleman from the far north,’ the old man said, shaking his head. ‘Here one day, caught by footpads and killed. A pilgrim from Danemark.’

Swan also picked up a pair of silk hose, only slightly worn at the knees, and a not-quite-matching doublet in superb blue velvet with embroidery. It was the finest doublet he’d ever owned, and the knife-cut in the back went between the embroidered panels neatly and had been cunningly repaired. The bloodstain on the inside hadn’t reached the velvet.

‘I could have the lining unpicked and resewn if you’d rather,’ said the old man.

Giannis just rolled his eyes. He had a good leather jerkin, carefully tooled and sporting fine buttons like acorns, and he was uninterested in any colour beyond black.

The old man smiled. ‘Soldiers,’ he said. ‘Either they are popinjays, or they are not.’