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

Understanding hit Swan — a heraldic joke. The Lion of St Mark and Venice, the lamb of the Order of St John — and Genoa. He laughed as people do when they are late to a joke.

Bessarion winced. ‘Listen, my young thief,’ he said. ‘I need you to be able to reach certain people and act in certain ways. You have good manners and your Italian is virtually flawless.’

‘Your Eminence should try my Arabic or my Turkish!’ Swan bragged.

Bessarion smiled the smile of the older man recognising something he didn’t like in himself. ‘Yes, I’m sure,’ he said. ‘I’m sending you on a galley of the Order of Rhodos. You know them?’

Swan nodded. ‘The Knights of St John? They put on all the best plays in London. My mother says they are good to the poor.’ He smiled. ‘There were two of them at Madame Lucrescia’s a few nights ago.’

Bessarion nodded. ‘Yes — I imagine some of them are men like other men. I am arranging for you to be accepted as a Donat — a volunteer — with the order. This will allow you to serve on their galleys. Our Pope has just signed a bull stating that service on the order’s galleys will win remission of your sins.’

Swan nodded. ‘That’s … good,’ he said slowly.

Bessarion laughed out loud. He threw his head back and roared, and for a moment, with his long beard and bushy white eyebrows, he looked like the Silenus Satyr that Swan had seen in Florence. He laughed for several ticks of his enormous German clock.

‘My boy, there are few men in Christendom who need remission of their sins more than you do, and few with less interest. In a way, you are the perfect exemplar of — of …’ Bessarion shook his head.

‘Foolishness?’ Swan ventured.

‘Youth!’ Bessarion said. ‘Here’s a note for the prior — he’s the senior officer of the order in Rome. He’ll take your oath. Thomas, do me an enormous favour, and do not dishonour your oath to the order. For me.’

Swan put his hand on his heart. ‘I will be a faithful … er, Donat. Is that like being a knight?’

‘Very like,’ Bessarion said. ‘Men pay vast sums of money for the rank.’

Suddenly Swan was pleased. ‘Ah!’ he said. ‘I’ll do it as well as I can,’ he added earnestly. Suddenly, under his youthful show of indifference, he was afire. The Order of St John!

Bessarion handed him two scrolls. ‘These are your patents of nobility, and this is the Pope’s grant to you. The prior will want both of them. By Saint George, Thomas, I only wish I was going to be there to see you with the knights.’ He waved his hand. ‘Be off with you.’

Swan smiled winningly. ‘Eminence, you say I saved some good things. I brought other things back.’ He opened his sack and began to place objects on the cardinal’s desk.

Bessarion began looking at them impatiently, and muttered something about appointments. But the coin with Alexander’s head and ram’s horns arrested him — another with Medusa made him laugh aloud. The small seals with intricate scenes carved on them — one homoerotic and one heteroerotic — both made him laugh. The spearhead he put aside, and then held out the butt spike.

‘I suspect your military education is better than mine,’ he said.

Swan shook his head. ‘I don’t know the Greek word,’ he admitted. ‘But I think it went on the base of the spear.’

‘Beautiful — like a Greek column,’ said Bessarion, weighing it in his hand.

Swan laid out all his treasures. Bessarion nodded over all of them.

‘I will give them as gifts,’ he said. ‘The butt spike for Sforza of Mila, with the spearhead. They express the majesty of Greece. What is lost. And what can be regained. Well done.’

Swan hesitated. ‘I spent money on them,’ he said. ‘I intended … to sell them.’

Bessarion was looking at a small crystal seal with a tiny Eros masterfully carved into the face. ‘Of course you did, my young criminal. Unless you stole them.’

Swan raised his eyes to heaven. ‘I didn’t steal any of them,’ he said.

‘Then they didn’t cost you much,’ Bessarion answered him. ‘But do not think me ungrateful. I’ll get you some gold. Bring me more of this …’ He waved at his table. ‘Great men will put them in their cabinets and display them. We will have some measure of power by having these things.’ He shook his head ruefully. ‘In Constantinople, we had so much of this that these would have been like rubbish.’

‘I need a new sword,’ Swan said. ‘And a breastplate that fits me better.’

‘You should spend less on Demoiselle Violetta, then,’ Bessarion said. ‘Go and see Di Brachio. I’ll find you some money.’ He got up. ‘I will look at Father Ridolpho’s activities. But stealing from another member of this household will not happen again. No matter how much you dislike him. And you will only enjoy sinning with your friend outside my house. Those are my rules. Are they clear in your mind?’

Swan bowed his head. ‘Yes, Eminence.’

Bessarion opened his five-page wax tablet set and tapped his stylus against his forehead in mock consternation. ‘Now it is I who play the fool — I have not told you your mission.’

Swan was on his feet. ‘There’s more, besides fighting with the knights?’

‘My son, much as Christendom needs every warrior, I would not, in fact, send you to fight for the order if there was another ship that was sailing east in winter.’ Bessarion sat back down, and his chair creaked. ‘Listen,’ he said very quietly. ‘The reports coming in from the Siege of Constantinople and from every action of the Turk since then suggests to some that Christendom has a traitor. Many accuse Demetrios Paleologos of being this traitor — he has openly suggested that he might convert to Islam.’

‘He is the current ruler of Monemvasia,’ Swan said.

‘You have a gift for this world of intrigue. Yes. He is. I know him — indeed, I know every member of that handsome family. If he meant a general betrayal, he would not flout his coming conversion. Besides, his hatred of the Latins is well known. Neither the Genoese nor the Venetians trust him. He is not the traitor. The traitor is … effective. Someone we trust.’

Swan nodded.

‘The Genoese are sending a famous man — Francesco Drappierro — to be their ambassador in Constantinople. You understand that Genoa openly supported the Emperor in the last days of Constantinople — yes?’

‘Yes. And paid for it — they lost Pera across the straits and most of their city privileges. I saw that with my own eyes.’ Swan nodded.

‘Just so. Now Genoa is desperate. Loss of the alum mines in Phokaia would devastate the Genoese cloth trade — loss of their sugar plantations would cripple their banking, and loss of Lesvos and Chios — which belong to the Gattelussi — would end Genoa as an overseas empire, topple the balance of power in Italy, and incidentally rob Christendom of the second-most powerful military fleet in the Inner Sea.’ The cardinal steepled his fingers. ‘Some of us suspect that the collapse of Genoa would mean that France would invade. You understand?’

‘More importantly, the fleet most likely to help the Pope,’ Swan noted.

‘I am pleased that you have become so very … accurate in your views on Church politics,’ Bessarion said. ‘So Genoa is sending a very wealthy man — one who was friends with the Sultan’s father — to attempt to bring the Sultan to a more friendly state of mind. Genoa is fully aware that there is a traitor. Drappierro will be fully briefed. You will go with him and serve where you see fit — with the knights, or with Drappierro’s embassy. The Turks hate the knights — but respect them. They despise the Genoese, but use them.’ Bessarion spread his hands. ‘This is a very ticklish matter. I meant to send Di Brachio. Can you help me catch a traitor?’