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

And then there were the ships.

A young Thomas Swan had leaned in the doorway of the Swan inn and watched the ships sail by, row by, be towed by. He’d waved at sailors and dreamed of adventure. He’d served sailors in his mother’s inn.

Every street in Venice had ships at the end of it. The great thoroughfares ran to wharves and warehouses, and the smaller streets were canals. The very smallest alleys were paved. There were bridges, and you had to take a boat to get anywhere.

Just like London.

Like London, but richer. The great of Venice were rich to a degree that made London look a little tawdry, but other elements were similar. Alessandro’s family – the Bembii – were ancient aristocrats and merchants, with relatives who ranged from members of the inner council to penniless scavengers in the streets. They sent their sons to sea to serve in the navy, or to learn the ropes on a merchantman, and the great round ships filled the harbours and every wharf and strand, and down towards the Arsenal there were galleys and professional rowers, rough, lower-class men who didn’t get out of the street for any man and wore swords like nobles and were sometimes the police and sometimes the rioters. And there were the Arsenali, the men who worked in the great military buildings – again, often foreigners or new citizens, but afraid of no one, wearing swords in public.

They were like Englishmen, and Swan felt at home. He prowled the city – alone, or with either Cesare or Giannis or Alessandro or all three, from St Mark’s to the Arsenal. He learned the way to the Jewish ghetto, and made friends there.

His last day in Rome, against the cardinal’s express instructions, he’d crept out of the palazzo and visited Isaac. He’d deposited his new hundred ducats and left Isaac’s house with a letter to a Jew of Venice, with an enclosed letter of credit and a short missive in Hebrew.

So early in his visit to Venice, he left Cesare and Giannis drinking in a foreigner’s tavern and caught a boat across the lagoon to the Iudica , as the locals called it. It had its own gate and a watch.

The young man at the gate didn’t look like a Jew. He didn’t have a beard, and he didn’t have a cap, and he wasn’t wearing a long gown. He leaned against the gate with the negligent hostility of any young man, and he wore a sword, which Swan knew was against the law.

‘Stop,’ he said, when Swan approached the gate. ‘State your business.’

Swan bowed. ‘I have a letter for Aaron Benomye, from Isaac Gold of Rome.’

The young man brightened. ‘Really?’ he asked. ‘May I see?’ He was considerably more polite. Swan warmed to him.

‘Here,’ he said.

The young man glanced at the cover and tapped the envelope of parchment against his thumb. ‘The rabbi may still be with his family,’ he said. He rang a small iron bell, and another surly young man appeared.

‘I’m going to take this foreigner to Rabbi Aaron,’ he said.

And off they went, through a jumble of alleys – dry alleys. The Jews didn’t have to use boats to get around.

They went past a synagogue, and up a set of steps to a private house that didn’t seem to be on any street – it was between one and another. This, too, was like London. The young man knocked, and the door opened a crack. He spoke in low tones, and handed in the letter.

He lounged against the building. Another young man passed, and they engaged in a display of male bravado that would not have been out of place among the toughs of Rome. In his new-found maturity, Swan smiled.

The door opened. A narrow-faced man in a long beard and a long gown was standing in the entrance.

Swan bowed.

‘This is Rabbi Aaron,’ said the young man. He made a sign with his hands and bowed, and walked away.

‘Please be welcome in my house,’ Rabbi Aaron said. ‘I do not lend money,’ he added, somewhat severely.

Swan was startled. ‘Of course not!’ he said.

Rabbi Aaron smiled thinly. ‘I feel I must say it. Why do you want to learn Hebrew and Arabic?’

‘I wish to travel to the East,’ Swan said. ‘As for Hebrew – it is the language of scripture.’

‘Hmm,’ said the rabbi. ‘Yes and no. Greek is the language of much of your scripture. Hebrew – hmm. But yes, it is a useful language for a theologian. No one speaks it – in Jerusalem, for example.’

‘I memorised the alphabet on the road,’ Swan said.

Rabbi Aaron heard him out, and nodded. ‘Very well – you are serious. I will be pleased to have you as a student. How often?’

‘Every day?’ Swan suggested.

The rabbi smiled. ‘So young. Twenty ducats a month.’

Swan bowed and paid in advance.

Time in Venice flew by.

Swan went to the Jewish ghetto every day. After a week, the gatekeepers let him pass without comment. After two weeks, old women began to nod to him as he passed. Hebrew kept him busy inside his head, and Arabic threw him.

He spent long hours lying on his narrow bed in his inn, staring at the crazed cracks in the plaster of the ceiling and chanting verb endings to himself.

Every evening, he would meet Alessandro, and sometimes the other men, in his tavern’s main room. Alessandro was increasingly restless at the delay.

Early in the third week, Alessandro appeared at Swan’s door in the early afternoon. Swan was fully dressed, sitting at a table – a very small table – writing by the light of an open window.

Alessandro leaned over him and watched his pen move. ‘Arabic,’ he said.

Swan nodded.

‘You make a face like a fish when you concentrate,’ Alessandro said.

‘Uh?’ Swan said.

‘I need you for a duel,’ Alessandro said.

‘A duel?’ Swan asked.

‘One of my idiot cousins made a stupid remark in public and now I have to fight,’ said the Venetian.

Swan shrugged. ‘Do I have to fight?’

‘Possibly.’ Alessandro shrugged. ‘I’m sorry. And I meant to give you lessons, but my time is not my own.’

‘When?’ Swan asked, reviewing his list of nouns.

‘Now?’ Alessandro said. The man was so seldom at a loss that Swan took a moment to recognise what was happening. ‘Are you in trouble, my friend?’

Alessandro blushed. ‘Yes. But think nothing of it.’

Swan had been working in his second-best shirt. He wiped his fingers idly on it and made a face when he saw how much ink he’d smeared. He found the inn’s towel and wiped his hands on that, instead, but the damage was done. He pulled on his dull black doublet, and laced it. The black doublet and hose were worn by virtually every young man in Venice, regardless of class. The slightly fashionable Florentine cut of Swan’s actually added to his anonymity.

‘Don’t wear your sword,’ Alessandro said. ‘You aren’t a citizen.’ He held his hands wide. ‘Carry it. With the belt wrapped around it.’

‘Do I get a buckler?’ Swan asked.

‘Of course!’ Alessandro said.

Swan perched a small hat with an enormous ostrich plume and a small jewel on his head. Foreigners were not allowed to wear jewels on clothes, but hats weren’t included in the sumptuary law. The jewel was glass.

Peter was sitting in the kitchen, drinking wine and helping prepare food. He was very popular in the inn.

‘I’m going to fight a duel,’ Swan called.

Peter waved. ‘If you kill the fellow, take his money. Do you need me?’ he asked.

Swan looked at Alessandro, who gave a minute shake of his head. ‘Three in a boat,’ he said with a shrug.

They walked down to the Grand Canal, caught a boat on the steps by St Mark’s, and were rowed across the lagoon, past Murano, to a small island with a monastery.

As they approached, Alessandro began to fidget.

‘Care to tell me what happened?’ Swan asked.