Christian Cameron: Castillon: Tom Swan and the Head of St George Part One

‘A dagger?’ Swan asked. He wished he had something with which to bargain.

The Italian drew his dagger and started to clean his nails. He looked up. Their eyes met. ‘Why?’ he asked.

Swan shrugged. ‘Oh, as to that . . .’ he said.

The Italian laughed. ‘Tell me your name, English devil.’

Swan bowed in the saddle. ‘Thomas Swan, Esquire. Of London. And yours?’

The man smiled. ‘Alessandro di Brachio,’ he said. ‘Courtier.’ He smiled. ‘Formerly of Venice, and now of the world.’ It was a very unpleasant smile. He reached behind him into the leather roll behind his saddle and rooted about.

His hand emerged with a long, slim dagger. He held it out.

Swan reached for it.

The Italian whipped it away and tapped him on the head with the hilt. Swan reached for it and missed again. He almost fell out of his saddle.

Alessandro laughed. ‘We’ll see,’ he said, and put the long dagger back in his bedroll.

‘Bastard,’ Swan spat.

Alessandro nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said. When he grinned, his gold tooth caught the sun. ‘And you?’

It was such a good answer that Swan had to laugh. The Italian laughed back. ‘You are almost as fast as a Venetian,’ he said. ‘But not quite.’

The cardinal came out from under the portico. The abbott bowed, and all of the nuns came and kissed his ring, along with some of the monks.

It seemed incongruous that, under his robes, the man wore boots. With spurs. But he did, and he mounted his big warhorse easily.

‘Come,’ he said, and Alessandro prodded the convoy into motion – four wagons, a dozen soldiers, and an entourage of priests and servants.

Swan found himself riding with a pair of notaries, who conversed in Latin and ignored him. All they spoke of was church politics – and what a waste of time the attempt to negotiate with the English had been.

‘We thought we’d win,’ Swan said, as much to indicate that he knew what they were talking about as because he really wanted to contribute.

The nearer man all but fell off his pony. ‘You speak Latin?’ he asked.

‘Oh!’ Swan said. ‘I thought we were speaking English.’

The notary on his right rolled his eyes. ‘You are pleased to make light of us,’ he said.

Swan nodded. ‘Passes the time,’ he said.

‘Why are the English such barbarians, then?’ asked the first notary. ‘War, war and war. You kill your own kings and then come to France to kill theirs.’

‘Our king is the king of France,’ Swan said automatically.

‘An untenable position,’ said the right-hand notary. He held out his hand. ‘Giovanni Accudi.’ He grinned. ‘My grandfather was English,’ he said.

Swan took the offered hand.

The man on the other side of him relented. ‘Cesare di Brescia,’ he said. ‘I’m sure I had a grandfather,’ he mocked the other, and spat. ‘Who the devil knows who he was? The English probably killed him.’

Swan raised an eyebrow. ‘I’m sorry to see how unpopular the English are,’ he said. He didn’t sound contrite.

‘Violent people. A sword in every hand. Killers, every one of them.’ Giovanni nodded. ‘Like Florentines and Brescians.’

‘Like fucking Milanese,’ Cesare shot back.

‘Wine?’ Giovanni asked, and held out a glass flask.

Swan drank some. He tried not to be greedy. ‘Messire Accudi, I must tell you that yesterday I thought I was about to die without ever tasting wine again.’

Accudi nodded. ‘Welcome to life,’ he said. ‘Have another drink, but leave some for Cesare. He’s far more dangerous than I am.’

‘Fuck your mother,’ Di Brescia said, but he smiled. ‘Listen – Giovanni’s a gentleman . He doesn’t even need this work. I’m a simple working man. I actually read books for my degree.’

‘Then why don’t you know more?’ Accudi asked. ‘Give me the flask if you are going to talk. Damn you to hell – it’s empty, you sodomite.’

‘Are you two sure you’re not soldiers?’ Swan said.

‘Oh, no,’ Cesare choked out. He was laughing so hard he was having trouble staying on his horse. ‘We’re lawyers. Can’t you tell?’

The sun was past high in the sky and it was brutally hot. The horses were flagging. The notaries had run out of wine and were debating the role of the Trinity in a manner so blasphemous that Swan, who thought himself worldly and jaded, had to ride a little behind them in a vague superstitious belief that lightning from the sky would kill them all.

But when they’d stopped cursing God, he rode back up to them.

‘Why don’t we . . . stop at an inn?’ Swan asked.

‘An inn? Here? In France?’ Accudi laughed. ‘You English have burned them all.’

‘Fat lot you know,’ Swan said. ‘This is the Dordogne. This is English. Frenchmen burned all this.’

The Italians laughed. ‘It’s hard to tell you apart, it’s true.’

After a while longer, some of their soldiers left the convoy and rode ahead. When they crested the next ridge, he saw a town in the distance, fully walled. Closer, he saw the convoy’s horseman talking to a farmer by the road. He came and spoke to the cardinal, hat in hand, and kissed his ring. The gate to his walled farm opened, and they rode in.

Men came with water, and the horses drank noisily. Swan drank water, too.

He went over to the Fleming, and lifted his head.

The man looked at him, eyes open, and Swan felt the man’s body tense.

‘I’m a friend,’ he said. ‘My name is Thomas Swan. I claimed that you’re my servant.’ He spoke low and fast.

The Fleming moaned.

Alessandro appeared at his elbow. ‘He is awake, your servant?’ he asked. ‘Give him some water. Here. I put a little wine in it.’

Swan took the cup and put it to the Fleming’s lips. He drank greedily. And moaned again.

‘He is your master, this Englishman?’ the Italian asked the Fleming.

‘Uhh. Uhhh.’ The Fleming moaned. There was blood coming out of his side.

The Fleming met Swan’s eye, and just for a moment . . .

‘You’re drowning him,’ Swan snapped, trying to sound as authoritative as his father.

‘Master,’ muttered the Fleming.

Alessandro looked at Swan and raised an eyebrow. ‘Heh,’ he said.

The next evening they came down a ridge into Périgeux, passed the gates after a cursory inspection and a great deal of fawning, and made their way to the Abbey of Chancelade, as Swan heard said repeatedly. The town didn’t seem to boast an inn, but the abbey was huge – like a palace.

There were wagons parked all along one wall, and the stables were full. Swan ate with the notaries and poured watered wine into his ‘servant’. After some consideration, he went to the kitchens.

‘What do you want, shit-stain!’ bellowed a huge woman.

He bowed. ‘To be your lover, madame!’

She screeched. ‘You’d need a prick two feet long,’ she said. She eyed his stained braes. ‘And I don’t think you have one. Eh?’

‘Something tells me you are not a nun,’ Swan said.

‘Something tells me you are not a Gascon,’ the woman replied. She laughed. ‘Eh! Tilda! There’s an Englishman!’

A younger, horse-faced woman came out of the fireplace. ‘What do you want, then,’ she said in English.

Swan turned his charm on her. ‘Honey. A good-sized dollop, if you would be so kind.’ He bowed. ‘For medicine.’

‘Medicine, is it? And honey so dear.’ Tilda had an armload of firewood.

‘I could carry wood for you,’ he said.

Tilda nodded. ‘You can have your honey just for hearing the sound of English spoken. But I wouldn’t mind having you carry the wood.’

After he had carried enough to fill the kitchen’s giant maw of a fireplace many times over, she pointed to a stool. ‘Sit, brother,’ she said.