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

They laughed, and some men cried, and Swan looked down and began to push the spent arrows out of the ruin of his once beautiful breastplate. Such was the spirit of battle and the joy of survival that he had four of them out of his cuirass before he realised that the sixth wasn’t in his fauld. It was below his fauld.

He’d never felt the arrow. But when he saw it, he saw the blood, and suddenly the pain of it hit him.

He sat abruptly.

Peter gave him a long look, and shook his head. ‘Sweet Christ,’ he said. ‘That’s a bad one.’

Swan opened his eyes. He was on a bed — a very comfortable bed — and the sun poured in on him from a pair of arched windows at the end of the bay. The walls were white, and the sheets were white linen.

In a single breath, it all came back to him — the ship fight, the water gate, the cisterns and sewers, Khatun Bengul. Omar Reis.

He looked down, and moved his leg, and it was still there.

A middle-aged man with ginger hair shot with grey, a short, pointed beard and a black skullcap came down the line of beds. He had a set of wax tablets in his hand and wore long brown robes. He paused at the only other occupied bed, leaned far over, so that his black-capped head vanished from view — and Swan heard a murmur.

When he rose from the bedside, Swan saw the eight-pointed star on his breast. He looked at Swan, met his eye and smiled.

‘Master Claudio!’ he called softly. ‘Your patient is awake.’

He’s a knight of St John. A Hospitaller. Where the hell am I?

Master Claudio emerged from the arched door at the far end of the bay with a tall clay bottle and a cup on a tray. His gown had wide sleeves, and as he moved they seemed to flap, enhancing the impression he gave of a small and angry bird of prey.

‘Look at you!’ Claudio said. His acerbic tone could not mask his obvious joy. ‘I think you are going to live, and by the Virgin, messire, I intend to exhibit you in every classroom in Padua. I will be the most famous doctor in Europe!’

‘Really?’ Swan felt good — tired, but good. He didn’t feel as if death had brushed him.

‘You took an arrow in the groin. Don’t worry — your penis is intact, as are your testicles. The arrow was three fingers higher. You ought to be dead. But by St Martin — I got it out without touching the artery, and you must have Lucifer’s very own luck, because you should have died screaming of infection five days ago. Or died silently in a massive fever, burning as if the sun god himself wanted to take you.’

The Knight Hospitaller came over. Swan couldn’t help but notice that the man was wearing full-length boots under his long scholar’s gown. He had blood under his nails.

‘He really is going to live,’ the knight said in northern Italian. ‘You owe some thanks to God, young man. If this is not a miracle, it comes very close to one.’ The knight inclined his head. ‘Turkish arrows are often poisoned, as well.’ He pointed at the wound in the younger man’s groin.

Swan looked down at his wound and got the choking feeling he associated with injury — his breathing grew instantly shallower, and his vision began to tunnel. He could taste salt.

The Hospitaller held a basin for him. ‘It’s healing, mon brave ,’ he said, his voice kind.

Swan’s hands were shaking. He looked away, and then the gravity of his wound really hit him. ‘Fuck,’ he said quietly. ‘Apologies, Sir Knight.’

‘You may call me brother. I am Fra Domenico Angelo.’ He bowed. ‘I gather you are the young man who has saved the head of St George.’ He put his hand on Swan’s head. Swan felt the ring on his scalp. ‘The blessings of our Lord and Saviour be upon you and remain with you. Amen.’

He walked back along the ward, spurs ringing faintly against the floorboards, while Swan contemplated the magnificent diamond he’d just glimpsed on the knight’s hand.

A jewel like that cried out to be taken.

‘Where are we, Master Claudio?’ Swan asked.

‘Monemvasia, in the Morea,’ Claudio said. ‘We had twenty men wounded, and we needed a hospital or all of you were going to die.’ He pointed down the ward at the other beds. ‘The other men are Genoese. They had a little Turkish problem, too.’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘Our galleys are lying together in the port, and we are not good bedfellows, eh?’

Swan tried to sit up, and discovered his wound was still capable of inflicting horrifying levels of pain. ‘Sweet Jesu!’ he moaned.

Claudio nodded and poured a clay cup full of medicine. ‘Just so. Drink this.’ He smiled, looking more than ever like an angry sparrowhawk.

‘Not bad,’ Swan said as he finished his tot.

‘Opium,’ Claudio said. ‘Everyone likes it.’

Swan was two weeks in Monemvasia, and during those two weeks, the Sultan’s armies swept through Greece, taking three of the great Frankish castles.

Swan heard it all from the serving brothers. The Hospitaller brothers were, most of them, former mercenaries who had learned the rudiments of nursing in the service of the order. The eldest, Sam Totten, was English.

‘We’ll have this ward full of men in no time, mark my word,’ he said. ‘Fucking Greeks. Useless sods if you ask me. More interested in fighting among themselves than fighting the Turks.’

‘Unlike the well-unified Italians, you mean,’ Swan said. He was playing piquet with the older man. He looked at his cards again, shook his head in weary resignation, and said, ‘I have a few friends who are stradiotes . I think they’d tell you that the empire was worse than the Turks. And they might debate the point about being bad soldiers.’

‘Oh, by St George, young master, their soldiers is good enough — hard as nails. It’s their fucking-pardon-my-expression noblemen and churchmen. They fought among themselves until the Turks ate them. And now they’ll take this place and Mistra and then — pfft. All gone. By your leave. Sixty-eight points.’ He showed his cards.

Swan shook his head. ‘Thirty-one points, so I’m doubled. I hate this game.’

The older man stood up. ‘This place could hold a long time, but it will need an ally. Venice — the Pope, mayhap.’

Swan sat up carefully, using his elbows and not his stomach muscles. ‘I thought this place belonged to Venice.’

The monk shook his head and sat back on his stool. ‘The Despot took it from the Prince of Achaia — oh, years ago. Before ever I came out to Hellas. Agincourt year, or even before. Now, if the local men are lucky, Venice will take it back.’ He looked up. ‘See what I mean? The Despot spent his treasure taking this place, instead of fighting the Turks.’

They heard booted footsteps and spurs, and the older serving brother leaped to his feet and cleared the tray with the cards. He dumped it into a sack and put the sack smoothly under Swan’s mattress. He seemed very practised at this movement.

‘Lucky for all of us that Fra Diablo wears spurs, even in the hospital,’ the monk added. ‘Like a bell on a cat.’

‘Fra Diablo?’ asked Swan.

The older Englishman winked. ‘Can I get you aught else, Master Swan?’

‘A really beautiful girl who will do all the work?’ Swan asked wistfully.

Totten didn’t even laugh. He wrinkled his brow and walked off as the knight strode on to the ward with Di Brachio in tow.

‘Our prize patient,’ said the knight. ‘Touched by God. Messire Swan, this gentleman has come to see you. I hope he is an agreeable visitor, as I have a small item of business to discuss with the two of you.’

Swan saw the ring, collet turned in to hide the stone. Even as he glanced at it, he noticed the knight twirl it with his thumb, and the stone shone for a moment and then vanished again.