Christian Cameron - Tom Swan and the Head of St George Part Three - Constantinople

The crowd was led by priests – at least a dozen of them. Giannis went forward to negotiate, and was hit with a paving stone. Luckily, the stone hit the peak of his helmet, but the message was clear, and his shouts in Greek were ignored.

‘The Turks have set this up beautifully,’ Alessandro said. ‘We will be murdered by a Greek crowd. Or we kill our way through a Greek crowd. Either way, the Sultan wins.’

The bishop emerged from his escort. He wasn’t a tall man, just middle height, with mouse-brown hair and a weak chin. But he took his bishop’s crozier back from a terrified sailor. His hands shook. But he set his face.

‘I forbid you to kill them,’ he said.

‘Excellency,’ said Alessandro. He bowed his head.

The bishop threw his outer robe around his shoulders and put his mitre on his head, and began to walk towards the crowd.

A young man threw a paving stone too big for him. It didn’t come close to the bishop, but it started a horde of small boys throwing clods of earth. The bishop kept walking across the rubble.

In some ways, it was the bravest thing Swan had ever seen. Nothing in the bishop’s previous behaviour had led him to expect this – but in his heart, he was impressed.

He thought of profit, and loss, and all the effort he’d put into his plan, and he shook his head once, and said, ‘Fuck,’ very clearly, in English.

Then he put the small girl down, and took his helmet, a fine Milanese armet, out from under his arm. His arm was cramping. He opened the visor, dropped the falling buff, and peeled back the hinged cheek plates.

Inside lay the fantastical jewelled reliquary of the head of St George. He held it high above his head, and followed the bishop.

The head, and the children, got them through the crowd alive, unharmed and unblooded.

One of the priests offered to guide them, and the party began to work their way south and east through the suburbs – mostly abandoned, with groups of occupied houses like tiny villages set among the crumbling ruins of others abandoned a few months, a few years or a few centuries before.

As soon as they entered the narrow streets, they lost sight of the mounted Turks, and everything else except the sun in the sky overhead.

They moved as fast as the bishop and the children would allow them to move. The men took turns carrying the children, and no one – not even Alessandro – proposed that the children be left.

Up Fifth Hill, and down again, with a quick glimpse of the Golden Horn off to the east, shining in the sun. Across at Galata, three low vessels were laid out on the quays, ready for sea.

Alessandro pointed to them. ‘That’s our ride home, my friends,’ he said, and the men responded with another burst of speed.

Down Fifth Hill on the eastern flank, into the dense slum at its base and up along the ridge that held both Fifth and Fourth Hill, headed almost due east. They took a looping series of alleys, and the priest apologised for the state of the streets.

Giannis kissed the man’s ring. ‘We would be dead without you, Father,’ he said.

‘See that your heretics save the head,’ he responded. ‘I need no other reward. Keep it from the filthy Turks, and perhaps some day it will return to us.’

High on the northern flank of Fourth Hill, Swan stopped the priest.

‘I want to get into the cisterns,’ he said.

The priest looked startled, although whether at his Greek or his knowledge of the cisterns Swan didn’t know.

‘I can see an aqueduct from here,’ Swan insisted.

The priest paused. ‘Yes,’ he admitted. ‘I can take you there. You know the sewers?’

Swan shrugged. ‘I think so,’ he said.

The priest nodded. ‘Few do. Most of them are thieves.’

The aqueduct ran above ground, well over their heads, but it gave Swan hope. He stowed the head again, in his armet, after the priest touched it, venerated it, and prayed.

Then they set off under the aqueduct, leaving the priest behind. Everyone was flagging. And the sun was headed for the horizon.

The Turks were fanning out. From the flank of Fourth Hill, it was easy to see that they had not found the embassy where they expected, and now the regiment of cavalry was breaking up.

‘Now is not the time to fail,’ Swan called. ‘Come on!’

The ground under the aqueduct was rocky, but there was an obvious walkway, and they jogged along, armour creaking and clanking as they went. The youngest Venetian cut away his tassets. They all drank water and ran again.

Down the ridge. Twice they had to detour around arms of the city, new or old, that had grown in under the aqueduct, and then they were north and west of the market, and Swan muttered a prayer of gratitude to God.

He knew where he was.

‘Almost there!’ he said. He pointed down into the market below them, where a ruined fountain had collapsed into the underground sewer.

Alessandro took him aside. ‘We’re spent. Is it true? We are almost to your underground palaces?’

‘Half a mile. Less. Please, everyone. We are almost safe.’

Alessandro stopped them, gathered them in a tight group, and they walked on, breathing hard – down the last slopes of the steep ridge, and into the back of a dense residential quarter, with houses packed tight – some abandoned and some very much inhabited. Greeks watched them with sullen indifference.

A group of young men began to shadow them.

And then, as they turned north to pick up the street that Swan knew led to the market, he saw Yellow Face at the same moment that the spy saw him.

The tall man turned, hiked up his kaftan and ran.

‘Kill him,’ Swan shouted at the marine, but none of them had a shaft on his bow, and Yellow Face was gone before they were ready to loose.

Alessandro looked at him, a question in his eyes and the set of his mouth.

‘A spy. For the Turks, I think. Perhaps for Omar Reis. Either way, they’ll be on us in a few heartbeats.’

‘Let’s run, then,’ said Alessandro, and suited action to word.

‘If they see us go into the sewers . . .’ Swan said. But he followed the capitano , and they all ran off down the street.

The bishop tripped and fell.

One of the sailors paused.

Swan tried to make himself run on, but he didn’t. He ran back and helped the sailor get the bishop to his feet. The man was bleeding from an abrasion on his chin.

‘Take this,’ Swan said, and handed his helmet to the sailor. He lifted the bishop, threw him over his shoulders, and staggered towards the market, now in sight.

A clod of earth hit the sailor. And he stumbled.

Swan thought, Why am I saving the bishop?

He staggered on.

A clod of earth hit him.

A young Greek man ran out into the street and yelled ‘Death to the heretics!’ in Greek, and another clod of earth hit – this time striking the bishop on his shoulders.

The weight of his armour and the weight of the bishop – thankfully, not the largest ecclesiastical size of bishop, but not a slim man – was cutting through his burst of spirit.

The oldest of the Venetian marines – the one that the others called ‘The Spaniard’ – turned, paused, and came back towards Swan. Without a word, he took the bishop’s legs, and they staggered on together, the sailor staying with them, eyes glazed with fear. He didn’t have a weapon.

Since no one came to drive them off, the Greek youths grew bolder, and there were stones mixed in with the clods of earth. They rang off Swan’s backplate and his arm harnesses.

Swan’s whole world narrowed to the effort of staggering, off balance, along the time-worn street towards the distant market. It didn’t seem to grow any closer.