Tom Swan and the Head of St George Part Two: Venice (4 page)

Peter nodded. ‘You should kill more people, then. I hear you put a knife in someone’s hired bravo yesterday – did you get his purse?’

‘No,’ Swan said, sullenly.

‘Really, master. If you are going to kill people, kindly take their money.’

The cardinal was waiting in his library.

The cardinal’s library was the largest single room in the palazzo. It was at the front of the house, and was decorated and arranged like an ancient Greek andron, with couches, side tables and a wall of holes for scrolls. There were more scrolls on the massive tables that filled the ends of the room, and one end had shelves for the newer-style folio books.

Two tall windows illuminated every corner of the room with Mediterranean sun.

Cardinal Bessarion looked up from a scroll. ‘You look . . . prosperous,’ he said.

Swan bowed.

‘Can you buy a horse?’ the cardinal asked, in Greek.

‘Yes. Or rent one,’ Swan answered in the same language.

The cardinal sat back and made a steeple of his fingers. ‘You have a problem, and I have a problem,’ he said. ‘I know you are brave, and I know you are ferociously intelligent. But – are you loyal? And can I trust you at all?’ He waved to a chair – a new copy of an ancient Greek chair. ‘Sit.’

‘Yes, you can trust me, Eminence.’

‘Really? Even though you lied to me about your birth, your value as a prisoner, your status – and then stole from an abbey and stole from our companions on the road? Even though you come to me still smelling faintly of sin? Where, may I add, Alessandro found you, but did not breathe a word. I have other sources.’

Swan took a breath – started to gather a hot reply in his mouth, and then overcame it. He hung his head. ‘You can trust me, Eminence.’

‘Yesterday you killed a man. Tell me why.’ The cardinal sat back, hands together, like one of the examiners at the grammar school where a young Thomas Swan had endured many horrid hours.

He took another breath and released it. ‘He hurt Giovanni. He might have hurt him worse. He was . . . contemptuous of us. He needed a lesson.’

‘You sound shockingly like an Italian, young man. Listen. The Orsini have been Roman senators since . . . well, since Rome had an army and a Senate and no Pope. They have the sort of wealth and power that other men don’t even dream exists. If Bartolomeo – the old man – orders you killed, he can hire a man to do it who will kill you here, in my house. Or out on the street. Or in the lovely Violetta’s bed. I can buy peace, but it will be expensive.’ He leaned forward. ‘You must pick your fights.’

Swan, who had never been very good at picking his fights, sat with his eyes down.

The cardinal nodded. ‘I need money,’ he said suddenly. ‘I imagine you would not be averse to some?’

This abrupt change of direction left Swan feeling naked. ‘Yes. No.’ He looked around. ‘What?’

The cardinal laughed and rang a bell. Alessandro came in with Giannis.

‘I would like to send the three of you to Greece. To Constantinople, to be precise. I would like you to go to my former house and retrieve . . . things. I won’t endanger you more than this – go to my house, and retrieve what you find there. And get the – hmm – objects on a ship, and bring them here.’

Giannis pursed his lips. ‘The Holy City has fallen, my prince.’

Alessandro sucked a tooth and winced. ‘Ottoman Constantinople.’ He looked at the cardinal. ‘Not easy.’

Bessarion nodded slowly. ‘There’s a letter – from the Pope – to the Sultan. An official letter. One of the bishops will carry it.’ He shrugged. ‘I refused the duty. But I offered to provide the escort.’

‘How soon?’ Swan asked.

‘A week, at least. Perhaps more.’ He looked at Alessandro.

The Italian shook his head. ‘Messire Swan should leave Rome. Will we go by ship?’

‘Of course. From Ancona or Genoa.’ The cardinal fidgeted with his cross.

‘Not Venice?’

‘Possibly Venice! Why do you ask?’ The cardinal looked at him.

‘We could send them ahead to arrange lodgings and so on. Our business for you is secret, yes?’ Alessandro leaned forward.

‘Yes. I see.’ Bessarion leaned back. ‘Venice.’

Alessandro nodded. ‘I will miss you, Eminence. But the Orsini will not look for this young fool in Venice, and I will enjoy seeing my family.’ He grinned. ‘Even if they may not enjoy seeing me.’

The cardinal reached into his table drawer and pulled out a box. ‘I have heard that it takes money to make money,’ he said. ‘I have a hundred ducats for each of you, and Alessandro will have another three hundred on account. Any bank will make it good.’ He looked at Swan. ‘The very best thing to bring out of Greece right now is books.’

Swan nodded. His heart was afire with the excitement of the trip – the adventure. ‘Books,’ he said.

‘Books,’ said Cardinal Bessarion. ‘Ancient Greek
books
.’ He smiled. ‘If you can’t find books, find relics. Preferably famous ones, and preferably real ones.’ He looked at Alessandro. ‘There is a rumour that the head of Saint George is no longer in Hagia Sophia,’ he said.

Giannis crossed himself. ‘Someone saved it?’

‘Someone stole it,’ Bessarion said. ‘See if you can . . . recover it.’

Alessandro fingered his beard. ‘The head of Saint George,’ he whispered. He sounded . . . awestruck.

Venice was – perhaps – the most wonderful place that Thomas Swan had ever been. Even
more
wonderful then Rome.

First, it was like a floating city. Men said Venice was wedded to the sea. Those men weren’t Englishmen, because they said it with disdain, or wonder. Swan had grown up with the sea, in the form of the Thames, at his bedside and his front door, and something about Venice made him feel very comfortable.

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.

Alessandro shook his head. ‘A matter of honour. But I fear my enemy has brought too many men, and intends a murder.’

As the boat edged up on the island, Swan could see six men standing by the monastery wall.

Swan felt his pulse increase. ‘Three each,’ he said.

Alessandro looked at him. ‘You cannot kill any of these men,’ he said. ‘You would be imprisoned or killed. Their fathers are very important men.’

‘So is your father,’ Swan said.

‘My father is going to disown me,’ Alessandro said, and the keel of the boat touched the muddy shore.

He jumped ashore, and looked back. ‘Perhaps you should go back to your inn,’ he said, and pushed the boat off the strand. The six men were coming. ‘I’m sorry, Thomas. I didn’t think it would be this bad.’

Swan ran down the gunwale, as he’d learned to do on London wherries, and leapt ashore. He grinned. ‘What did you do?’ he asked.