Tom Swan and the Head of St George Part Two: Venice (12 page)

Swan stopped in the narrow alley. ‘I know you mean well,’ he said, although he wasn’t sure of that at all. ‘But I am the lowest member of the embassage, and I have no idea what you are talking about. I am a mere soldier.’

Isaac frowned. ‘I am informed that you are, in fact, an agent of Cardinal Bessarion.’ He met Swan’s eye. ‘Are you here for the head of Saint George?’ he asked.

Swan felt as if he had no ground beneath his feet. He couldn’t decide how to answer this accusation. He wasn’t sure why it would be a bad thing to admit to such a status.

‘Messire, I am a poor man who performed an act of friendship for Rabbi Aaron, because he has been kind to me. He is my Hebrew teacher in Venice.’ He paused and looked at Isaac to see how this speech was going down.

‘You are the friend of young Idris, the Wolf of Thrace’s youngest son. You are, I understand, an English prince come to threaten a crusade against Islam.’ Isaac all but snarled.

Swan laughed. ‘I am no prince of England,’ he said.

Isaac smiled for the first time. It was a very small smile, but it changed his demeanour and made him seem very much less threatening. ‘For such a young man of no apparent power, you have quite a few rumours surrounding you,’ he said. ‘But Balthazar said I should help you. At the same time, there’s so much happening here that I’m not at all sure that I
can
help you.’ He paused. ‘The Turks are ripping the city apart for the head – or so they say. It may be a pretext. Some people say the head is in Athens, and some in Corinth, and some that it is already in Rome. Some say that the Christian princes have a great army, and are luring the Sultan to his doom.’

It was obvious he had something more to say, but they had arrived at Simon’s house. Isaac bowed. ‘I will attempt to see you again. Let me say, Englishman – if you need to reach me, ask any beggar to get a message to King David.’

He nodded and walked off down the alley.

Simon received him like a visiting prince, and gave him every centime of three hundred ducats in gold.

Since it was traditional to discount a bill the further it was from its origin, Swan bowed. ‘You are a true friend.’

‘You came well recommended, and in truth, sir, I will send this bill back to my brother to be changed.’ Simon smiled. ‘I assume that you will take a packet of letters back to him?’

‘Of course,’ Swan answered. ‘If we ever leave. The Sultan seems in no hurry to receive the Pope’s ambassador.’

‘A few more days. He is preparing his armament against the Morea. He wants the campaign to begin before he receives the bishop. It is, I’m afraid, the way of the Turkish mind – to deliver an affront to Christendom while receiving Christendom’s ambassador.’ Simon shrugged. ‘Is the ambassador a man of status? Is he intelligent?’

Swan was about to answer honestly when he perceived that perhaps Simon was compromised – or perhaps, living in Constantinople, his interests were very different from Swan’s.

The world was, indeed, a very complex place. And yet, at another remove, not so very different from the world of his mother’s inn. ‘He is a famous man, in Rome,’ Swan said. ‘As for his intelligence . . .’ He shrugged. ‘He’s never said four words to me.’

Lying was best done with a tinge of truth. Uncle Dick used to say that, and it always seemed appropriate.

Simon nodded. ‘A famous man, you say?’ he asked.

Swan shrugged. ‘Even in England, I had heard of him,’ he said. Well, that was a lie. But he’d heard of Ostia.

He took the money, bowed agreeably, and escaped as soon as he could, meeting Peter at the gate.

There was a new man near the gate, an Arab in a filthy robe, whose yellow complexion and turtle-like neck would not have recommended him anywhere. His nose was large and pockmarked. His eyes were piercing and far too intelligent for the mean clothes he wore. Swan marked him with a glance, and saw him again, six streets away, emerging from an alley.

Swan walked for an hour, and the yellow-faced man was always there – not every time he glanced, but often enough that, although Swan walked past the cardinal’s house, and noted it well, he didn’t pause. Peter looked at him, and he smiled. They didn’t ask directions – all those hours learning the streets with Rabbi Aaron had had their effect – and eventually they walked past another church, and Swan made a show of being bored. In truth, he was hot and tired – the Jewish quarter was a mile from the Venetian quarter, near the Philadephion at the foot of Third Hill. And Bessarion’s house was in the palace quarter, the oldest part of the city east of the Hippodrome by the Bucoleon Palace. The area was swarming with Turkish soldiers – filthy ghazis, magnificent cavalrymen, janissaries as proud as Lucifer, who were magnificently accoutred in mail, plate brigantines, yellow leather boots and tall felt hats, and yet reminded him of the English archers he’d served with in France.

The cardinal’s house was like a tall palazzo, the portico decorated with original Greek columns from one of the ancient temples, and the windows edged in marble. A man’s head was at one of the windows, but when Swan’s apparently casual glance swept the building a second time, the man’s head was gone.

They walked home.

The moment they turned south, the yellow-faced man was no longer with them. But now Swan saw the tall, thin man from the first days – first waiting ahead of them in the street by the Hippodrome, and then watching them pass, and finally, trailing along behind them all the way to the gates of the Venetian quarter.

He breathed a sigh of relief as they entered the Venetian area.

Peter looked at him. ‘Trouble?’ he asked.

‘We are in over our heads,’ Swan said.

‘More than usual?’ Peter asked.

‘I don’t even know what the game is, much less the stakes,’ Swan said. He told Peter the whole of it, down to Isaac’s comments.

Peter picked his teeth contemplatively. ‘It’s always better to be thought a prince than a beggar,’ he said.

Swan nodded. ‘I know.’

‘But you told him you were a mere soldier.’

Swan laughed. ‘If you were a visiting nobleman in disguise, what would you say?’ he asked.

Peter shook his head. ‘I’m better putting arrows in things,’ he said. ‘Intrigue makes my head hurt.’

Swan stood on the sea wall and looked across the Horn at Galata. ‘Somewhere in all of this is a way to make money,’ he said. ‘I just have to find the right string, and pull.’ He grinned at Peter. ‘I doubt it’s a bowstring.’

Peter shrugged, and continued picking his teeth. ‘Don’t go getting us killed,’ he said. ‘Master,’ he added, as an afterthought.

The next day, Idris sent a note inviting Swan to drink sherbet and ride.

Swan met the young Turkish aristocrat at the gate to the Venetian quarter. ‘No Frank can ride a horse in the city,’ Idris said, as if it was a matter of no moment. He leaned over and handed Swan a bag of carefully woven wool – the bag itself was beautiful. ‘Go and change,’ he said. Behind him were a dozen other Turks. ‘Friends. We’ll wait.’ He grinned.

Swan didn’t need to be told twice. He stepped back into the Venetian quarter and laid out the foreign garments – baggy trousers of cotton, a doublet very like a European doublet, but buttoned, not laced, and a middle-length coat like a jupon. He knew that this was called a
kaftan
, as he’d enquired. This one was of a rich blue wool, embroidered with flowers, and with buttons of solid silver, shaped like pomegranates. There was a felt skullcap and a turban.

Alessandro came in while he was changing. He wasn’t attempting to hide, and a number of them shared a room. Alessandro looked at him.

‘It is against the law for a European to dress as a Turk,’ he said.

‘Idris will see me out of any trouble with the law,’ Swan said.

Alessandro made a face. ‘You are the only one of us getting anything done,’ he admitted. ‘See if you can keep the costume when your outing is over.’ He pinned the skullcap against Swan’s head with a dextrous finger and began to wind his turban.

‘These were all the rage in Venice when I was a boy,’ he said.

The stirrups were short, the saddle virtually non-existent, and the other Turks laughed at his attempt to lengthen the leathers. A servant – a Turkish servant – slapped his hand away and motioned for him to mount, and he did, vaulting into the saddle because the stirrup was so high above him he couldn’t dream of getting a foot into it.

Once he was up, the servant tucked his booted feet into the very light stirrups.

Idris pulled up next to him. ‘I have ridden on one of your knight’s horses,’ he said. ‘It is like riding in a sedan chair. With us, you must actually ride the horse.’

Swan was not a great rider – life in London offered little scope for riding, and his periodic time with his father hadn’t offered him any more than a cursory education. The small saddle made him uncomfortable, and he almost missed the ride out of the city, he was so focused on staying on the horse. The Turks were all superb horsemen, and they galloped, cantered, walked and trotted, changing gaits to suit the length of the street and the thickness of the crowd.

On the other hand, the Arab mare he was riding was, without a doubt, the best horse anyone had ever put him up on. The horse was small by European standards – like a lady’s riding horse – but she seemed to carry him without effort, and she flowed along under his inexperienced seat without offering any protest. At one point, on a long straight stretch just before the Belgrade Gate, when the other young men were galloping and an old beggar stepped into the road, she pivoted neatly under him and then – it seemed to him – rolled her own hindquarters to keep him in the saddle.

By the time they had crossed the great walls, heading for the farm country to the west, he was in love, and although there was no one to tell him so, he was riding better than he’d ever ridden in his life. And enjoying it.

Idris was laughing with his friends, and servants met them – a pair of carts with a dozen hawks and two more young men. But after they had reined up and let the carts join them, Idris came back down the cavalcade to Swan. ‘Do you like her?’ he said, pointing with his jewelled crop at the mare.

‘I love her, Idris. She is . . . superb.’ Swan grinned.

Idris grinned back. ‘You English are so honest!’ he said. ‘You are like Turks. You think a thing – you say it. Venetians never tell me this horse is wonderful. They are always cautious.’ He looked at the horse. ‘To us, her colour is not so good. That golden coat – we call it yellow – is . . .’ He shrugged. ‘But she is among the smartest of my horses.’ He leaned over. ‘I beg you to accept her.’ He frowned. ‘Or anything else you see that you want.’

Swan laughed.
If only you knew
, he thought. ‘I love the kaftan,’ he said.

Idris nodded. ‘All that is yours. You cannot ride without it. Indeed, all of your guards know now that we are friends. If you are found in these clothes . . .’ He smiled again. ‘Call for me.’

‘You are very like a prince, I find,’ Swan said.

Idris shook his head. ‘Now you sound like a Venetian,’ he said. ‘Flatterer. Listen – of all my friends, none speaks Italian. So none of these men can speak with you, but all know that you saved my life.’ The other young men bowed from their saddles or saluted with their riding whips as they were introduced – a long string of Turkish names that even Swan had trouble understanding, much less remembering.

Swan’s training as a royal page came in handy. He understood – intimately – that Idris was the great man here, and that he couldn’t monopolise him. So he bowed to the various Suleymans, Murids and Bazayets, and smiled at all of them, and occupied himself riding.

Idris rode superbly, of course. He took a hawk on his wrist and offered another to Swan, who had to profess complete ignorance.

‘Another time I’ll teach you,’ he said. He looked grave. ‘See you at lunch.’

And he was off. He loosed his bird at a series of ground targets, and Swan felt this was vaguely at odds with English practice, but then the prince sent his largest bird into the air after something that was a speck above them, and then the whole cavalcade galloped away across the fields of the Greek farms that ringed the fallen city.

Swan reined his little mare in and stayed with the carts. He noted that the two men who’d joined with the carts – also obviously gentlemen, in that they had rich kaftans and jewels in their turbans – both stayed with the wagons. The nearer young man – a boy, really – flashed a smile at him, and he bowed in the saddle. His mare misinterpreted the shift in his weight forward and went directly to a gallop, stretching away over the fields to the south, towards the sea.

It might have been exhilarating, except that, at the very moment when the horse exploded into motion, Swan’s foot slipped out of his left stirrup. He sat down, hard, and tried with increasing panic to find the stirrup under his left foot. The little mare turned in a very tight circle to the left, and suddenly he hit the ground.

He lay there and his shoulder hurt. And he felt like a fool. His mare came and stood by him.

After a moment, he heard hoof-beats, and suddenly one of the boys was there. He dismounted from a dead gallop, actually running alongside his horse for two or three paces, and flung himself down by Swan.

‘Are you alive?’ the Turk asked in a lilting Italian.

Swan looked up into the Turk’s eyes.

Eyes with smudges of kohl around the thick lashes. Wide-set, deep brown eyes above a slender, arching nose and a heavy, sensual mouth.

‘You are
not
a boy,’ Swan said. ‘Oh, my neck hurts.’

She laughed good-naturedly. ‘How . . . kind of you to notice,’ she said. ‘Are you unbroken?’

He sat up.

The second
boy
was riding towards them. ‘It is – how do you Italians say this? A
polite fiction
that I am a boy today. Yes?’

Swan rotated his head from side to side. ‘A fiction I will endeavour to maintain, demoiselle,’ he said gallantly. Her very palpable presence at his side – her hand on his arm – reminded him that he hadn’t talked to a woman in two weeks. The siege had emptied the great city of women – there weren’t even prostitutes in the Venetian quarter.