Tom Swan and the Head of St George Part Two: Venice (6 page)

Swan laughed. But it hit him in the gut. ‘Are the Orsini looking for me?’

The rabbi nodded. ‘That’s my understanding. Listen – you are doing me a favour, carrying my letters east. I shall do one for you in return and introduce you to a man. He is the one who told me about your . . . problem. Yes? He may ask you for a favour. I recommend you do it. He is powerful – in a different way to the Foscari.’

Swan had grown to manhood in an inn on the wharves of London. He thought he had a shrewd notion of the kind of man they were discussing. ‘Thanks,’ he said.

‘Now,’ the rabbi said. ‘Let’s go back to work.’

‘May I ask you one more thing?’ Swan asked.

‘Yes.’

‘I’m hoping to purchase books. Ancient Greek books. In Constantinople.’ He tried to frame his question. ‘Can your . . . people help me?’

‘Books? Greek books?’ Rabbi Aaron looked off into his study. ‘You should go and look at the monasteries on the mainland. Each of them has a fine collection. Now let’s look at how we say “thank you”.’ Rabbi Aaron nodded. ‘Because if you plan to deal with
my people
, you may find it a useful phrase.’

The next morning, as he left his lodging, Swan turned to flirt – somewhat automatically, it’s true – with Joanna, the slut of the place. She was washing the floor, but she managed to wash it with energy, grace and a remarkable length of bare leg that deserved a glance and a word.

She blew him a kiss. Swan didn’t particularly want her, but was as delighted as any young man would be by the invitation. But as he turned back to the street, he caught a glimpse of a man in an ill-fitting black doublet. The man had missed a lacing hole – so his too-small doublet was bunched to one side.

There was something about his glance that made Swan note him. Then he set off for the Rialto and then, in the afternoon, the Jewish quarter.

There was a small, dark man hovering by the gate to the ghetto. Conscious of the rabbi’s warning, Swan was wary of the man, but the man met his eye and bowed. ‘You are the English foreigner?’ he said.

‘Yes,’ Swan said. He was late – he was falling in love with fencing, and in addition to lessons from Alessandro, he was talking lessons from Messire Viladi, whose fame was that he was a pupil of the great Fiore, and had, in his youth, fought a famous chivalric deed of arms with Galeazzo of Mantova. But all the time the sword was cutting into his time to do Arabic . . .

‘I am Balthazar,’ said the little man. ‘I arrange loans.’ He raised his hands. ‘My apologies. Rabbi Aaron said I must approach you directly. I have a . . . package. For Constantinople.’ He smiled thinly. ‘And I believe Rabbi Aaron passed on my . . . warning.’

Swan shook his head. ‘I don’t have a ship or an itinerary,’ he said. He returned the man’s bow with a deeper bow. ‘But I appreciate the warning, messire.’

He paused. Balthazar smiled. ‘Pardon me, but you do have a ship. You will leave on the Venetian state galley
Nike
, at the end of next week. The papal ambassador will be the Bishop of Ostia.’ The man smiled shyly. ‘I collect such useless facts,’ he said, turning his head aside, as if ashamed.

But Swan stopped dead. ‘How do you know that?’

The man smiled slyly. ‘I have friends. Clients. Men who need a favour or a loan.’ He extended a hand.

Swan took it. ‘If you are correct, than I will do your favour.’

Balthazar smiled and bowed. ‘I have something you might like. To trade.’ He nodded. ‘I have heard you are a man of blood.’

Swan laughed, and two grandmothers across the street glared at him.

After he was done with Rabbi Aaron, one of the rabbi’s sons walked him to the pawnbroker’s. Balthazar greeted him and served him wine, and two servants brought in a wicker basket.

Swan wondered how important the package was, that this man with a house full of servants and a silver candlestick on every table should have come to meet him in person.

‘A man left this with me,’ Balthazar said. ‘He won’t ever be coming back.’

The wicker basket proved to hold a fine breast and backplate, a matching helmet – an armet in the new style – with plate arms and beautiful Milanese gauntlets.

‘It is very fine,’ said Swan, aware he was being bribed.

‘Try it on,’ said the Jew.

‘I’d need an arming doublet,’ Swan said, but it was a quibble.

When he left England to be a soldier, he’d had a breastplate, an old chain shirt that had belonged to Uncle Dick, and a pair of mitten gauntlets from a bygone age with a new sallet from Germany that his father had provided, albeit unwittingly. The French looters had all that.

Every item in the basket was better than any of the items he’d owned in England. There were marks on the gauntlets – they’d been worn. One deep dent atop the left pauldron. Not a mark on the breastplate.

‘But armour has to fit,’ he said.

The Jew steepled his hands – he looked exactly like Cardinal Bessarion for a moment. ‘So I understand,’ he said.

The arms were heavier than he had imagined and wearing them felt odd. The breast and backplate were too tight. It took one of Balthazar’s sons and both his daughters to get the breast and back closed on his waist.

On the other hand, once it was on, it felt fine.

The gauntlets were very fine. The helmet and attached gorget went on well, but helmets tended to fit from man to man.

Balthazar’s daughter Sarah clapped her hands. ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘A knight!’

Balthazar glared at her, and she pulled her veil over her face and vanished up the stairs.

‘If there was somewhere to lace the arms,’ his son said. ‘I’ve seen it done,’ he went on. ‘I love to watch them arm the knights for jousting.’

Swan laughed. ‘If I ever joust, I’ll call for you,’ he said.

After he had it all off, he said, ‘That’s worth a fortune. What do you want me to carry?’

The Jew nodded. ‘Not to me, it isn’t. I want you to carry two letters, and a single packet, which I will provide on the day you sail. That’s all you need to know.’

‘The Rabbi Aaron knows of this?’ Swan asked.

‘No,’ Balthazar said. ‘This is between us.’

‘And I get the armour?’ Swan asked.

‘No,’ Balthazar said. ‘You get the armour regardless. I mean what I say, Englishman. It is useless to us here, and no Jew should have taken it in pawn. But I’m pleased it fits you. What you get from me is contact with my friends in the Golden Horn. The rabbi says you are a good student and a good friend to the Jews. Jews need friends.’

Swan sipped the wine, which was splendid. ‘And if I cut open your package and sell the contents?’ he said.

Balthazar made a face. ‘No Jew in the world will ever do business with you,’ he said. He laughed. ‘Eh – listen to me! What a lie. There’s always a Jew to eat another Jew. But no Jew in Venice will do business with you. And – it wouldn’t do you any good.’ He laughed. ‘And don’t you have enough enemies?’

Swan nodded. ‘I will need to ship some things out of Constantinople,’ he said.

Balthazar nodded.

‘I think I would like very much to be your friend,’ Swan said. ‘If only for your magnificent present and your splendid wine, and your very pretty daughter, I would value you.’

‘Our family was exiled from England two hundred years ago, after our women were humiliated in public, the men beaten, and all our property seized,’ Balthazar said. ‘Why are you . . . a friend? Of Jews?’

Swan shrugged. ‘I’ve never really thought about it.’

Balthazar shrugged back. ‘Perhaps for the best.’

At the door, Balthazar’s son Solomon stopped him. ‘What would you charge to teach me to fence?’ he asked.

Swan had some idea that this might be illegal. But so was gambling. And prostitution. And smuggling.

‘Do you have a pair of swords? Safed swords?’ Swan asked.

Solomon shook his head.

‘We’d need a pair. They would have to be kept somewhere, yes? Illegal for you to own, I think?’ He looked around. ‘Or for me to bring to the ghetto.’

Solomon put a hand on his shoulder. ‘But you . . . would.’

Swan shrugged. ‘Yes. I’m not that good – I’m taking lessons myself.’

Solomon smiled. They were the same age. Solomon looked so different he might have been an alien – different clothes, different face, different manner. But there was something – a piratical gleam – that made Swan take to him instantly.

‘We need a place – somewhere we can both get to. With the equipment, and no nosy neighbours.’

‘In Venice?’ Solomon shook his head. ‘Let me see. It is a foolish thing. I have always wanted to do this. I saw you – you aren’t like my father’s bravos.’ He shrugged. ‘And the rabbi said you were a good man, for a Christian.’

Swan bowed deeply. ‘Your servant. Send me a message.’ He frowned. ‘I leave in a week.’

Solomon’s face fell.

Swan smiled. ‘Listen – your father must have a way of moving things in and out of the ghetto. Get a pair of swords, and I’ll give you a first lesson in the garden.’

Solomon smiled. ‘Thanks. My father may see this as a Christian’s attempt to entrap him.’

Swan shrugged. ‘Your servant,’ he said.

Walking along the wharf, looking for a boat, he couldn’t quite see why he’d liked the young Jew so much. It was like seeing a girl – he didn’t want to follow
that
thought too closely.

A boatman waved, and poled in. As Swan stepped into his boat, he saw the ill-laced doublet standing behind a pile of barrels. He saw the man only for a second, but it was enough.

He forced himself to smile and make a remark to his boatman.

He sat in the cupola at the back of the boat, and managed – without too much effort – to sneak a look behind him.

Another boat was leaving the pier. Was the black doublet in it? He wasn’t on the wharf.

Swan wasn’t armed beyond an eating knife. Venice had laws about such things.

Alessandro, despite his murmurings about being ‘disinherited’, was living at his father’s palazzo on the Grand Canal. Swan didn’t know exactly how to approach him. He got out of his boat on the Rialto and walked along the waterfront, enjoying the great cogs, the nefs and the galleys that stretched away like an aquatic forest to the south.

He walked into an alley after the first bridge, and walked up the street quickly to a small bakery that Cesare liked. He turned in the door. The whole shop was the size of a lady’s wardrobe. There was just room for a customer or two to stand – then the counter, piled high with bread, and behind it, the ovens. It was hot.

He bought a sweet roll. The
very
pretty girl behind the counter called them Hungarian. The girl almost distracted him from his intention, but he managed to be in the doorway lingering and munching when the black doublet went past him. Swan glanced back at the girl – Cesare’s interest revealed, although the Hungarian roll was miraculous – but she didn’t spare him so much as a look, and he stepped out into the alley, leaped over the very narrow canal, and ran along the walkway behind St Mark’s into the square.

Black Doublet walked into the square and then began to search. He stopped and cursed.

It was as good as anything the travelling mimes could produce. The man was truly angry, and he walked around the square, and then back along the wharf. Swan followed him warily. This was something he’d done often enough in London, as a youth. For various purposes.

The man walked up an alley and came back down and almost caught Swan flat footed, but a stack of cloth bales saved him, and the man had no notion of being followed himself.

He went up the next alley, saw the bakery, and stopped. Ran a hand through his thinning hair and stepped on to the portal. He said something. Nodded, and smiled – a terrible grin.

When he emerged, he was moving quickly. Swan assumed he’d realised that Swan had stopped, and was now giving up. He walked west, through St Mark’s Square, over the bridges. It would have been faster for him to take a boat, but he didn’t – he was cheap.

As darkness began to fall, he went into a maze of alleys behind the Grand Canal palazzi. After one turn and an ill look from a man who seemed as dangerous as Swan’s quarry, Swan gave up and walked back to the canal, catching a boat in the last rays of the sun.

There was a magnificent palazzo dominating the canal just there. On a hunch, Swan pointed at it. ‘Who’s is that?’

The boatman looked at him as if sorry for his provincial ways. ‘Where are you from? Naples?’ he asked, as if this was the worst insult a man could be offered.

Swan laughed. ‘Yes, Naples,’ he said.

The boatman smiled, seeing that his passenger wasn’t a complete fool. ‘That’s the Palazzo Foscari,’ he said.

The next morning, Swan met Alessandro for a lesson. They were swaggering swords in a dry alley behind the inn. The watch had come and gone.

‘We’re to travel on a state galley,’ Swan said.

Alessandro had taught him six positions. The positions were called ‘gardes’. His feet had to go . . . just so. His arms and his head also.

It was very different from standing in the inn yard of the Swan with one uncle swinging at him while the other drank and made comments.

‘
Look – if he covers his head, what can you hit? His legs, boyo! Cut at his legs. High, low. Left, right
.’

In fact the instructions often ended in the same place, but approached the subject from different angles. It was remarkably like learning a language from a new instructor. One started with verbs, another with nouns. Swordsmanship had a grammar, and Alessandro insisted that he learn it properly.

‘Do not just cut at my buckler!’ Alessandro said. ‘Have I not told you ten times to make a
provocazione
!’

‘Cutting at your buckler
is
my
provocazione
.’ Swan stepped back.

‘No! No, it is not! If you make such a move, it is an attack. It uses your effort, and now I will get to respond. Look!’ The Venetian came on garde – not, in fact, a garde that he’d taught to Swan yet.

Swan got his sword and his buckler up, and the swords crossed at the tips.

‘Look!’ Alessandro said, and he stepped forward powerfully, his sword now crossed almost to the hilt with Swan’s. Swan pushed the sword away, and as he pushed, Alessandro’s weapon vanished under his and was at his throat, instead.