Текст книги "Venice"

Автор книги: Christian Cameron

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‘Donna, you honour us too much,’ he said.

‘So much that you can’t get your arse off your chair, you fat peasant?’ the woman said. Her accent was charming – the educated Tuscan Italian that Swan was already learning was the sign of breeding. But her words were foul.

Cesare grinned. ‘Not so fat as it could cover yours, Donna.’

She threw back her head and laughed, and her laugh was as beautiful as her body.

Just for a moment, she reminded Swan of Tilda. They were of an age – thirty-five, he guessed – quite ancient. And yet – both of them laughed loud in a way that young women seemed scared to do.

She turned to Giannis. ‘Can you even afford to drink my wine, heretic?’

Giannis nodded, clearly nervous.

‘Was your mother a tyrant, you poor man,’ she said, running a finger under his chin. ‘Do women terrify you?’ She laughed. ‘Come, I have a new German girl from the other side of the Alps. The two of you can be scared together. Come.’ She turned to Cesare. ‘He’s a hardened killer, is he not?’

Cesare nodded, obviously filling his eyes with her. ‘Yes, Donna. A hard man. A soldier.’

‘And yet his hand is trembling even now.’ She turned her brilliant gaze – and her perfect teeth – on the Greek. She had his hand, held high, as if they were dancers in a pavane.

When she had led him away, Swan was a trifle disappointed. She’d looked at him a dozen times – assessed him from the shoes on his feet to the hair curling atop his head. But not a word.

Cesare read his mind. ‘Not for you, young man. She’d eat you. And take all your money.’ He laughed.

‘Who for, then?’

‘Rumour is she’s the darling of one of the Spanish cardinals and that he’s very jealous.’ Cesare shook his head. ‘Trust a Spaniard to love a whore and be jealous. A nation – no, a race – looking for a fight.’

Swan watched her walk back towards them. She favoured him with a brilliant smile. He rose again from his seat, feeling very young.

Cesare caught one of her hands. ‘I have something for you,’ he said.

‘Who is this boy? Surely he’s not old enough to have hair on his parts.’ She leaned so close to Swan he thought she was going to kiss him. Then she moved away smoothly, and laughed.

She looked at Cesare, who handed her a scroll.

She blushed. ‘For me?’ she asked. ‘Oh, my heart. Someone give me a knife.’

The redhead reached up – showing a wonderful length of leg – and drew a tiny knife from under her kirtle. She handed it to Donna with a bow, and Donna used it to open the seal on the parchment.

She read, her colour high.

Her chin rose – a hand twitched.

‘Cesare,’ she said. She snapped her fingers. ‘Come – I have something I need to show you.’

Cesare bowed over her hand. ‘Always at your service,’ he said, and followed her.

Swan watched him go, trying to be amused at her contempt for him – deeply resentful, really.

‘I’m called Maria,’ said the redhead. She made a nice courtesy. She raised an eyebrow. ‘He won’t be back.’

Swan felt like the boy he’d just been called. ‘He – I – she—’ He shrugged.

‘Do you know any dances?’ she asked. ‘I love to dance.’

He shook his head. ‘I don’t really know a great many dances,’ he said, and then, after a pause, he settled on complete honesty. ‘I know the May dance, as we dance it in London. That’s all. In London, while girls dance, men learn to fight.’

She smiled. ‘Would you like to learn?’

He rose to his feet. ‘I would like it above all things,’ he said.

She smiled. ‘Your Italian is very good, for a barbarian.’

Later, after they had made love, he rolled over to her. ‘I have never done that – in a bed,’ he said. ‘It’s so – comfortable.’

She laughed, and hit him with a pillow.

He tried to fight her off and found her astonishingly strong – and fast. And agile.

When he finally pinned her arms – after some tickling – he leaned over her. ‘You would make a superb swordsman. Woman.’ He kissed her.

She used the kiss to get a hand free and thrust a knee between his legs and rolled them both over. ‘Teach me,’ she breathed at him. Her hair was all around him, and her breasts trailed across the top of his chest.

‘Now?’ he asked, mockingly, and she giggled.

There was a knock at the door.

She bounced off the bed. ‘Are you married?’ she asked.

He reached for the knife in his clothes. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Yes?’ he asked.

‘Open the door, messire. We need to have a chat,’ said a voice.

‘Violetta,’ said the young woman.

‘You said Maria,’ Swan said.

She shrugged. ‘We’re all Maria to new customers,’ she admitted.

‘I was busy dancing,’ he said. ‘I’m Thomas. The man at the door is my . . . capitano.’

‘Just so long as he isn’t your lover.’ She grinned. ‘I mean it about the sword. I would love to learn.’ She wriggled into her shift, and opened a closet door.

‘Do I—’ He was trying to get his shirt on. ‘Pay? You?’

She laughed. ‘Silly boy. The bed costs fifty ducats. My kisses are free.’ She gave him one, and vanished into the cupboard.

Alessandro opened the door. Swan had his braes on, and was trying to get his hose over them. The Italian laughed. ‘Listen – you are in a bordello. No one expects you to be dressed.’ But the capitano was fully dressed, and had his sword on his belt and another in his hand, scabbarded. He tossed it on the bed. ‘You left this at the palazzo.’

‘Thanks for bringing it,’ Swan said. ‘I . . . didn’t need it.’

‘You may yet make an Italian,’ Alessandro said. ‘But there are twenty men in Orsini colours in the street. They mean to kill you and Cesare and Giannis.’ He shrugged. ‘The cardinal sent me to see to it you came home without a fight.’ He looked around the room. ‘Can you pay for this?’

Thomas nodded.

‘Sold the ivories?’ the capitano said.

Thomas nodded and then caught himself.

‘I knew you had them. Listen, boy. You killed a man today – a bad man, I have no doubt. But the way I hear it, all you had to do was walk away, and instead you called him out and killed him.’

Swan was prepared to bridle, but he admired Alessandro, and something in the man’s tone held . . . not so much censure, as weariness. ‘So?’

‘That’s the wrong path,’ Alessandro said. ‘I know this – eh? You kill a man – and it hurts. Yes? Kill another, it’s not so bad. Kill a third, and you think – hey, I’m invincible, and I can do this for ever. I’ll be glorious, rich and famous.’ Alessandro met his eye. ‘Eh?’

‘He was mocking us!’

‘Was he? And did it hurt you?’ Alessandro shook his head. ‘If you do this – the next man, or the next, will kill you.’ He shook his head. ‘I will endeavour to teach you the rudiments of defence. You are fast – I’ve seen you. And you know a little—’

Swan drew himself up. It is hard to be proud and haughty without clothes, but he tried. ‘I’m the best blade in London,’ he said. He felt like a fool as soon as he said the words – which weren’t true anyway.

‘I’m not the best blade in Rome,’ Alessandro said, and suddenly his sword was in his hand, pointed at Swan’s throat. ‘It’s behind you, on the bed. Think you can get to it and draw it before I run you through?’

Swan was frozen. ‘No,’ he said.

‘I’m not the best blade in Rome, and I can run you through on every pass – even if you could draw your sword. You stamp your foot whenever you attack. You hold up your left hand as if you have a buckler in it. You don’t know how to roll your wrist with an opponent’s cut. You are good enough to bully peasants but not good enough to fight a trained man. Do you believe me?’

Swan hung his head. ‘Yes.’

‘Excellent. Then you will dress and follow me, we’ll fetch our friends and leave through the cellars. Be sure and pay your bills. The ladies here know everyone. Do not, I pray you, offend them.’

The exit through the cellars was not as dramatic as Swan had expected, and in an hour they were at home in the palazzo.

‘The cardinal will see you in the morning,’ Alessandro said. ‘Expect to be leaving.’

Peter woke him with a cup of beer and a piece of dry bread.

‘You sold the ivories,’ said the Fleming.

Swan shook his head. ‘Why does everyone know what I do?’ he asked.

‘You are young? We find you interesting?’ Peter shrugged. ‘I’d like to be paid. I would like new clothes, and a nice ride on a young filly. Eh?’

Swan went to his purse, opened it, and counted out fifty ducats.

Peter grinned. ‘There’s a day’s pay.’

Swan shook his head. ‘A year’s pay.’

Peter nodded. ‘A year for an archer. One night for a girl at Madonna Lucrescia’s.’

‘I doubt the girl sees much of it,’ Swan said.

Peter pocketed the money. ‘I’ll consider this a payment against my wages.’

Swan drank off his small beer. ‘I’d like to be paid,’ he said.

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.

Alessandro shook his head. ‘It is difficult to explain. It is an old matter.’

The six men were approaching.

‘Let me get this right. They outnumber us three to one, but I’m not to kill any of them.’

‘Yes. Do not draw your sword. They must make the first move.’ Alessandro was calmer now.

‘We wouldn’t want to have any advantages, would we?’ Swan said. He unrolled his sword belt and buckled his sword on. He swung his hips to make sure of the hang of the scabbard.

When the six men were ten yards away, they stopped.

‘Is this your butt-boy?’ shouted one.

All of them were younger than Alessandro. They were eighteen or nineteen. They were well dressed in loud colours, and they all had swords of extraordinary length, with complex hilts – curved knuckle-bows and finger rings in the latest fashion.

Alessandro seemed unable to speak. So Swan swaggered forward. ‘Each of us will fight one of you at a time. Who’s first?’

‘No—’ said Alessandro.

One of the young men shook his head. ‘I don’t—’

Swan drew his sword. ‘Coward,’ he said. This to the man who’d called him a butt-boy in his odd Venetian accent. ‘Poltroon, liar, fool, cuckold. Draw.’

Alessandro was stepping up behind him. ‘You are supposed to—’

Swan took another step forward. His sword was out, his buckler was on his hand, and he was in his favourite stance – sword under the buckler, pointed up at his opponent’s throat.

The Venetian seemed confounded by his advance. ‘What are the rest of you doing!’ he yelled at his friends. He didn’t draw, and Swan feinted and smacked him in the side with the flat of his sword and then stepped with one leg past him and threw him to the ground with his buckler arm while the young man felt his side to see if he was cut.

The other five were stepping back, and Swan put his sword-point on the fallen man’s sternum. ‘Why, exactly, can’t I kill him?’

‘He hasn’t drawn his sword yet!’ Alessandro said.

‘Oh,’ said Swan. He grinned down at the Venetian youth. ‘My apologies, messire. Please get up.’ He stepped back and saluted.

Alessandro turned as the young man scrambled to his friends. ‘You have rattled them. That was . . . well done.’

‘Bembo!’ shouted another. His voice rose too much. ‘Bembo, don’t hide behind your foreign assassin. You are here to fight me.’

Alessandro bowed.

‘Oh, it’s a duel?’ Swan said. He walked forward again, and had the pleasure of seeing the whole crowd of them take a step back. ‘It looked to me as if the six of you planned to murder him. Which one of you is the injured party?’

Alessandro sniggered. ‘He is the challenger.’

‘Is this the ground?’ Swan said, trying to remember everything he’d ever heard about duelling. It wasn’t very common in London. Street fights and tavern brawls, yes. Formal duels . . .

But he’d read a book . . .

‘Right here is good enough for me,’ said Alessandro. The seagrass was short and thick. The ground was flat, if a little damp.

‘Very well. You others, stand over here with me. Alessandro, this is your ground. Messire – I don’t know your name.’

‘What? How can you not know my name. Don’t you know who I am?’ the young duellist asked.

‘If you have to ask that . . .’ Swan said. ‘Never mind. Stand here.’

‘Jacopo Foscari!’

‘Splendid, Messire Foscari. Please stand here.’

‘My father is Francesco Foscari! The Doge!’

‘If you insist, although, to be fair, I should tell you that your father probably doesn’t approve of duelling.’ Swan bowed. ‘I read a pamphlet about it. Messire Foscari, who is your secondo?’

None of the other five volunteered.

‘I can fight him if he wants, or we can all watch from a safe distance.’

No one moved.

‘Very well. Let me see the swords.’ He was acting – enjoying himself. The young men were all too scared to interfere, and he knew – in his heart – that as long as he could continue his patter, he’d rule them, the way the snake charmer rules the snake.

Foscari’s sword was a handspan longer than Alessandro’s.

‘I am content,’ Alessandro said.

Swan had no idea what he was supposed to do, so he shrugged. ‘Very well. On your guards, then.’

Alessandro drew. He had a buckler, and he flipped a casual salute, and then cut at the face of his buckler, tapped it with his pommel and took up a guard.

Foscari did almost the same, moving with dancing steps.

The two men began to circle.

Foscari took a long, gliding step and cut from a high guard at Alessandro’s buckler. Alessandro collected the heavy blow on his sword and drove it into the ground with a counter-cut, and he stepped forward with his left foot and cut with the back edge of his sword, and Foscari sprang back, dropping his sword and swearing. He had a long line of blood on his forearm.

‘Fuck you, cocksucker.’ Foscari turned to his friends. ‘Get him.’

‘Uh-uh.’ Swan had his sword in hand. He’d never put it away. He stood between the five men and the action. ‘Fair play and all that.’

One of them – a blond man with a fuzzy blond mustache – reached for his sword.

Swan’s buckler licked out and caught him in the arm with a sharp crack. He swore.

Foscari realised that his friends weren’t coming to his aid, and he picked up the sword. ‘Your turn will come, Bembo.’

Swan continued to smile at the five young men. ‘If any of you would like to fight me,’ he said, suggestively, ‘I am completely at your service – now, or at any hour you would prefer.’

‘You are scum,’ ventured the one he’d thrown to the ground.

‘Alessandro? Can I challenge him?’ Swan asked.

‘No,’ Alessandro laughed. ‘That would be foolish.’

‘So I’m scum,’ Swan agreed. ‘And you are a coward, a poltroon, a cuckold, a fool, and a . . . damn. What was the other? Liar. Can we agree on this?’

The young man flushed bright red.

‘Bastard?’ Swan ventured.

The red on the man’s cheeks grew brighter.

‘Stop!’ Alessandro said. He was suddenly at Swan’s shoulder. ‘I order you.’

Swan smiled innocently at his victim. ‘Well,’ he said.

‘I will have you killed,’ the young man said.

Swan nodded. ‘That only proves the coward part,’ he said. ‘The liar, the fool and the poltroon are yet unproven. The cuckold—’

‘Thomas!’ Alessandro said.

Swan realised that he had enjoyed himself. He bowed. ‘At your service, gentlemen,’ he said.

He backed away, and walked to the boat.

One of the youths threw a clod of mud. It missed, and Swan smiled. ‘Boys,’ he said.

Alessandro shrugged. ‘We lived,’ he said. ‘They’re about a year younger than you.’

‘Care to tell me what that was about?’ Swan asked.

Alessandro looked at him for a long minute. ‘No,’ he said. ‘But I think I should teach you to fence.’

The duel made him a three-day-wonder at the tavern. People knew about it before he got back. Joanna, the tavern slut, threw him admiring glances, and young men swaggered more when they were close to him.

Cesare sat with him drinking wine, a few nights later. ‘You’ll get yourself killed,’ he said.

Swan made a face. ‘Maybe,’ he said.

Cesare laughed, and so did Giannis. ‘You are young, and think you will live for ever,’ Giannis said.

‘Yes,’ admitted Swan.

Cesare leaned forward. ‘You weren’t like this in France,’ he said.

Swan sat back. ‘It is hard to explain,’ he said. ‘I see the fear in their eyes – and it makes me . . . an animal.’

Giannis nodded. ‘I know it,’ he said.

‘And they were all rich boys. I grew up hating rich boys. When I was a royal page—’ He paused.

Cesare shrugged. ‘Tell us how you became a royal page.’

Swan held out his cup. ‘If this avatar of Aphrodite come to earth will refill my wine cup, I will tell everything.’

‘How’s your money holding out?’ asked Cesare in Latin.

‘Well enough. Why?’ Swan answered.

‘We’re here at least two more weeks. And I’d like to play cards.’ Cesare smiled at the serving girl, whose pockmarked face was not quite that of an avatar of Aphrodite. But she smiled well enough, and poured them wine from a pitcher.