Christian Cameron: Tom Swan and the Head of St George Part Two: Venice

Cesare guffawed, and Swan boiled over. ‘Very funny, you bastards!’

Giannis put a hand on the Englishman’s arm. ‘Never, ever say that in Italian. It is a mortal insult. Swords in the moonlight. Yes? You understand?’ He grinned.

‘Fine. Let’s go to a pawnbroker’s. I’ll get a little cash, and then we’ll get some clothes. If you popinjays are then satisfied, we can go to dinner.’ He glared around at the two Italians and the Greek. They all smiled tolerantly back.

‘So young,’ Cesare said, and reached out to pinch his cheek. Swan’s hand whipped out and caught the Brescian’s. ‘And so touchy.’

The pawnbroker’s was nothing like a similar booth in Cheapside. First, the shop was in the front of a very old building of brick and stone near the ancient Forum. The street was broader than any street in London or Paris. The shop – if it was a shop – displayed few wares – a painting, some helmets of Milanese make, and a single, beautiful golden rose.

Swan looked hard at the rose. ‘Is that a papal rose?’ he asked.

Giovannni barely gave it a glance. ‘Yes. No doubt Frederico has a dozen of them. As soon as men get them they pawn them.’

Swan shook his head, shocked. ‘The highest award in Christendom?’

Cesare laughed and pounded his fist on the counter. ‘House!’ he called. ‘Customers!’

‘Hush,’ said Giovanni. ‘They’ll take us for peasants.’

A middle-aged man emerged from the back in the cap and gown of a rich merchant or a senior scholar – or perhaps a priest. ‘Ah – messires. A pleasure. I hope that you gentlemen had a pleasant trip north.’

‘Pleasant?’ Cesare said. ‘Frederico, you know better than that.’

The shop-owner, if he was such, shrugged expressively. ‘I hear things. The treaty died in a battle. Constantinople fell to the Turks.’ He shrugged again. ‘These are hard times. How may I help you gentlemen?’

‘My young friend has come into the possession . . . of items—’ Cesare smiled. ‘To be honest, I don’t know what he has. But I assured him that this house was the right house in which to sell them. Or leave them and borrow a little money.’

‘You may tell your friend to step in, then. Is he shy? Waiting in the street? Admiring antiquities in the Forum?’ The man in the cap walked out from behind his counter.

‘This young man right here,’ Giovanni said, pointing graciously to Swan with a sweep of his hand.

‘A servant? My dear friends, I do not lend money to servants.’ The man’s face closed. ‘Are you making game of me?’

Swan wavered between anger and amusement, but amusement won out. He bowed deeply. ‘Messire is mistaken if he thinks me a servant,’ he said. ‘Or perhaps not. I am, in fact, a poorly dressed Englishman. I serve God and my own interest – in that way I’m a servant.’

Frederico returned the bow. He smiled. ‘Ah! Your pardon, messire. A man can be judged only on clothes until he opens his mouth.’

‘And sometimes after,’ Swan said. ‘My clothes are against me, and it is to remedy this important shortcoming that I have come—’ He smiled and coughed. ‘Ahem.’

‘Just so!’ Frederico said.

‘Might we do this in private?’ Swan said.

The other three smiled and withdrew to the front step.

Swan opened his purse. ‘I have these,’ he said, withdrawing three ivory crucifixes. Each had the image of Christ in carefully carved and dyed ivory on a cross of ivory, about the size of a woman’s hand. All three were set in silver.

The banker – he was clearly no pawnbroker – put spectacles on his nose and bent over the ivories. ‘Not bad,’ he said. ‘Paris work. May I ask how you came to own them?’

Swan set his mouth, considered blank refusal, and then smiled. ‘Spoils of war,’ he said.

‘Ah!’ said the banker. ‘The owner is . . . dead?’

Swan was surprised by the direction of the conversation. ‘Yes,’ he lied.

‘Ah,’ the banker said. ‘Good. Do you wish a loan, or a sale?’

‘How much are we talking?’ Swan asked.

‘I never bargain,’ said the banker. He shrugged. ‘I never intended to be in this business and I despise haggling.’

Swan tried not to smile. In this case, he had heard it all before.

‘Twenty Venetian ducats for the good one, and ten each for the others,’ the banker said.

‘As a loan, you mean,’ Swan said.

‘No, that was my final price,’ said the banker.

Swan pursed his lips. ‘You know, my friends are in a hurry,’ he said. ‘But I am not in quite such a hurry as that.’ He picked them up and dropped them back in his wallet.

The banker plucked the spectacles off his nose. ‘What did you expect? A hundred ducats?’

‘More like four hundred,’ Swan said. He shrugged. ‘Good day.’

‘You’re mad!’ said the banker.

‘You mistook me for a servant, and then you mistook me for a mark.’ Swan smiled. ‘Would you like to start again?’

‘No,’ said the banker.

Now it was Swan’s turn to shrug. He walked out into the sunlight. ‘Take me where the man behind the counter knows what things are worth,’ he said loudly.

‘Don’t come into my shop again,’ said the banker, and the heavy door slammed shut.

‘He’s the best dealer in Rome,’ Cesare said.

Swan shook his head. ‘I’ve seen better dealers in a London thieves’ market,’ he said.

The third shop they visited was in the Jewish ghetto.

‘You are too picky. Are you sure these things are worth anything?’ Giovanni asked.

But the Jew was both friendlier and far more accommodating. Swan bowed deeply, was polite, and bargained only briefly. The Jew, Isaac, counted two hundred and fifty Venetian ducats into a bag. When he was done, Swan leaned over the counter. ‘Messire, I should very much like to learn Hebrew. And Arabic. I wonder if you know someone who might teach me.’

Isaac called for kahve. They were served the sweet stuff in tiny cups by a veiled woman and Swan felt as if he was living in a fantasy poem. After some sips, Isaac said, ‘You intend the priesthood?’

Swan shook his head. ‘No, my friend. I would like to travel. And to read scripture.’

Isaac nodded. ‘I will consider,’ he said. ‘I know a rabbi here who teaches foreigners. I could perhaps teach you Arabic. If not, I have a slave who might be of help.’

‘I would esteem it a favour,’ Swan said. He held out his hand.

Isaac took his hand. ‘Very few Christians clasp hands with Jews,’ he said.

Swan shrugged. ‘I’m told that Jesus’s mother, Mary, was a Jew,’ he said. He smiled to indicate that this wasn’t meant as an insult.

Isaac didn’t smile, but neither did he withdraw his hand. ‘Very few men think as you do,’ he said.

He walked out into the late afternoon sun to find three very disgruntled men waiting.

‘You had coffee with a Jew!’ Giannis spat.

Swan shrugged. He found that in Italy everyone shrugged as much as he did.

‘How much did you get?’ Cesare asked.

‘Enough. Let’s get some clothes,’ Swan said.

The clothing trade was one of the most prosperous and raucous in Rome. There was a market, where very pretty girls screamed prices at the tops of their lungs to lure male customers into their booths. It was early evening – the coolest part of the day – and the market was crowded. Most of the clients were religious – priests and monks who desired to have a second – or third – set of clothes in which to, as Cesare muttered, ‘have adventures’.

‘I don’t see any women’s clothes,’ Swan said.