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

Cesare laughed. ‘You only live the one time,’ he said.

‘Cardinal Orsini’s whore,’ Giovanni said over his shoulder.

Giovanni had made a serious mistake. He thought that the Englishman was still at his left shoulder, but Swan had been separated in the push of the crowd as the woman passed them, and his comment was delivered, not to Swan, but to a liveried retainer. A man in Orsini livery.

The Orsini man’s fist lashed out, and Giovanni folded like a stool over the punch, a great whoof coming out of him. He fell, and another man in the Orsini red and yellow kicked him savagely.

There was a scream from a woman in the crowd, and some excitement. Cesare caught a blow on his shoulder and slammed both fists together into one of Giovanni’s assailants, who went down as if hit with an axe.

Swan saw the glint of a blade. He wasn’t wearing his sword. Few men did in Rome, at least before dark, and never to mass. But he had his knife.

The red and yellow livery was suddenly everywhere. Cesare caught one of them up and threw him bodily into two more.

The first tough who had hit Giovanni had a dagger in his fist. So did the man kicking him.

The first man saw Swan put a hand on his dagger. He changed direction, came at the Englishman, and his left hand shot out and took Swan by the throat.

Swan wrapped the offending arm with his own and broke the man’s arm in a lock. The snap of the bone was audible across the church. He twisted the broken arm and the man screamed.

Swan let him go. He drew his knife and the second man backed away from Giovanni. They eyed each other for a long heartbeat, and then the Orsini man put his dagger away and bent to pick up the man with the broken arm.

‘I am Adolfo,’ he said. ‘You will be hearing from us. You work for that schismatic Greek, yes?’

Swan smiled. ‘You serve that whore Orsini, yes?’

Adolfo stiffened.

‘Best run away,’ Swan said. He was enjoying this.

Cesare caught his arm. ‘Leave it alone. This is all a misunderstanding.’ He turned to Adolfo. ‘He’s a foreigner.’

Adolfo’s eyes sparkled. He had his dagger out again, and the church was empty. Even the priests and acolytes were gone. ‘Even if he kissed my feet, I would not forgive him.’

Perhaps it was the scarlet clothes. ‘It’s true, I misunderstood,’ Swan said. ‘My Italian is not so good. I did not mean that Cardinal Orsini was a whore. I mean you are a whore, you catamite bastard.’

The Roman leaped.

Swan didn’t move.

His arm shot out, and there followed a series of blows so fast that the bystanders couldn’t follow them.

Swan took a blow in the gut that wrenched him back against the temple wall. But the wall at his back steadied him, and he got a knee up in time to stop the blow to his groin. Then he and the Orsini thug had each other by the dagger wrists. The Roman was smaller than Swan, and Swan tried twice to head-butt the man—both blows were partly avoided, but the second gave him a fleeting advantage in balance.

He threw his adversary over his extended hip—but the other man held onto his shoulders like a leech, and down they both went onto the hard marble floor. Swan lost track of the Orsini’s knife hand and flinched just as the man’s fist crashed into his temple.

They rolled apart—the Roman had lost his knife and Swan, stunned, got to one knee. The Roman went for his knife. Swan hooked his leg. He traded balance for aggression—desperate—and fell heavily atop the man.

The Orsini wasn’t moving.

There was blood running out of his mouth.

Swan looked at his dagger sticking out of the dying man’s guts. Giannis had his knife out. ‘Are you insane?’ he asked in a conversational tone.

‘He attacked Giovanni,’ Swan answered. He wiped his mouth. He couldn’t breathe. In truth, he wasn’t sure what had made him so high handed.

‘He drew first,’ Cesare said.

The Orsini retainers were gathering. Cesare got an arm under Giovanni’s arm. ‘Can you move fast?’ he asked Swan.

‘By St. George,’ Swan answered. He spat some blood. And the four of them ran.

Giovanni was in bad shape, and by the time they reached the palazzo, he was slumped between Swan and Cesare. He stopped in the courtyard to go to the jakes, and scared himself by pissing blood.

‘That bastard kicked him in the back, over and over,’ Swan said. He was bouncing with the spirit of the combat.

‘Giovanni said something very stupid,’ Cesare said wearily.

Giannis shrugged. ‘Does this mean no dinner?’

‘The Orsinis will be out in every street,’ Cesare said.

Giannis smiled and held his hands wide. ‘I’ll wear a sword, then,’ he said. He turned to Swan. ‘Are you insane?’ He clapped the younger man on the back. ‘It was beautiful. He never expected it. Hah! “ I mean you are a whore, you catamite bastard .”’ He laughed a long, loud laugh. ‘Let me buy you dinner. You won’t live long, but you’ll be famous.’

Dinner was uneventful and delicious. After dinner they walked to a certain house in the very richest portion of town. Groups of young men with torches went by, laughing and singing, and once they were crowded off the street by a big group, but none of the torches or the fops or the roving swordsmen were Orsinis.

The sun had set, and the night was dark. Madonna Lucrescia’s house was an old palazzo, very much in the Gothic style of two hundred years before. But inside – it was a perfumed garden. The walls were decorated in paintings on stucco. The subjects were amorous – and very, very straightforward.

Cesare smiled. ‘I’ve heard she allows the better artists a straightforward trade,’ he said.

Giannis grinned. ‘If only I had such a talent.’

The women who adorned the rooms appeared perfectly modest, if perhaps a little open. There was dancing, and men played at cards while women watched. A woman worked a loom in one room. In another two women played the lute while a third danced and a crowd of men watched.

An African appeared at Swan’s elbow with a tray. On the tray were three glasses – fine Venetian glass.

‘What does this cost ?’ Swan asked.

‘No one knows. No one knows from whence Madonna gets her fortune.’ Cesare shrugged. ‘Nothing in Rome is as it seems, my young friend. This woman – like our master – deals first and foremost in information.’

‘If the Orsini are so dangerous,’ Swan said. He paused. ‘Why the gallantry with the mistress?’

Cesare smiled. ‘Because I am a large man nearly twice your age, you imagine I cannot be in love, or be gallant,’ he said.

Swan had never imagined the Italian as a lover – or as a man of daring. He bowed. ‘I will endeavour to think differently of you, my friend.’

‘You are such a serious child,’ Cesare said. ‘In my youth, I was a poet, and I was going to be a second Dante. In middle age, I’m a notary for an out-of-favour cardinal in the Curia in Rome.’ The lawyer took a long drink of wine. ‘Let me tell you something about age, my young friend. When you are thirty-five, you still have the eighteen-year-old inside you. You are the same man – you just weigh more.’ He laughed. ‘But since Donna Esperanza is not immediately available to me, I will go and light my candle with one of these delicious young things. You know what we call this house?’

Swan smiled. ‘No,’ he said. A stunning redhead was looking at him from under her lashes. His head knew her interest to be simulated, but his body reacted instantly to her lowered gaze.

‘We call it “The Well of Sanctity”,’ the Brescian said. ‘Because the whole Curia and every priest in Rome drinks here.’

‘Some call them the papal bankers,’ Giannis said. ‘Because the Curia come here to make their deposits.’