Текст книги "Rome"
Автор книги: Christian Cameron
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Swan nodded and sat up a little more. ‘It’s true,’ he said.
‘There’s not much here,’ said the priest. ‘Too many Italians have rifled our libraries. But – have you visited any of the islands? Lesvos? Chios? They might have good libraries.’ He fingered his beads. ‘I went to school on Lesvos. I could write a letter to my abbot. If you will give me your promise to try and make your Latin Pope accept this town. And arm it.’
Swan shrugged. ‘I would anyway,’ he said, with uncharacteristic candour.
Fra Domenica brought him wine. ‘I gather Father Giorgios was here,’ he said. ‘Some say he is a spy for the Paleologi. Others say other things.’
Swan was unable to take his eyes off the knight’s ring ‘Is that … Roman?’ he asked.
Fra Domenico smiled. ‘Greek. They say. I had it off Khaireddin, the corsair. He claimed it belonged to Alexander the Great.’ The knight held it out – then changed his mind and took it off his finger. Swan held it in his palm. ‘Quartz?’ he asked.
‘Diamond,’ said the knight.
‘By the virgin, messire, this ring is worth—’
The knight shrugged. ‘A few thousand ducats, perhaps. I will turn it into money when I must.’ He leaned forward. ‘I’m told that the cardinal loves such baubles.’
Swan looked away. ‘He loves the ancient world,’ he said. ‘I think he’d be more taken with a lost book about Alexander than the conqueror’s ring.’ He tried to hide his acquisitiveness and said, ‘But he loves a fine present …’
The knight nodded. ‘It has hermetical powers,’ he said. ‘Listen, young man. I’m a man of the sea and a man of God, and I’m not a man of this town. Eh?’
‘It’s not worth the ring, to you,’ Swan said.
The knight laughed. ‘I feel as if I’m talking to a theologian.’ He shrugged. ‘But no. It is a sin, no doubt, but I love the ring.’
Swan weighed it in his hand, considering how he might steal it. Then he handed it back. ‘A magnificent thing,’ he said. ‘Thanks for letting me feel it.’
‘You saved the head of St George from the infidel!’ Fra Domenico said. ‘I would do a few favours for you.’
Swan went down to the lower ward and divided the ducats with Peter, who was showing every sign of recovering despite arrow wounds that still leaked.
Peter counted the coins and nodded. ‘I’d like to say if had vorse voundz,’ he said. ‘But I haf not. Almost a hundred ducats, master. Two days’ pay.’ He smiled.
The fiction that he made fifty ducats a day had once infuriated Swan, but now he took it in his stride. ‘I’m only three hundred days in arrears, now,’ he said.
‘Pah, you haf come round to my way of tinkink at last.’ Peter grinned. ‘I am not likink that you leaf me here.’
Swan smiled. ‘I’m fairly sure I’ll be back,’ he said. ‘Equally sure this town can use a master archer.’
Peter’s grin vanished. ‘You vill safe my wages by leafing me to die in the siege?’
Swan nodded. ‘That’s my plan, yes.’
‘Best come back and get me, or I vill haunt you, yess?’ Peter’s wound made his accent harsher. He had lost weight and his cheekbones looked sharp enough to cut butter. His long mouth was pale – almost grey.
Swan embraced him and got his kit aboard the galley in time to watch the oarsmen come aboard. They were beyond dissipated – most of them had spent their advance on pay, and a few had sold their arms. One remarkable man seemed to have no clothes at all except his rain shirt of tar-daubed linen, which he wore with the regal dignity of a man who was very, very drunk.
Once again, Swan had to remark on the many similarities between Englishmen and Venetians.
Di Brachio came and leant on the rail of the command deck next to him. ‘So, Messire Swan – where is the head of St George?’
Swan all but jumped out of his skin.
Di Brachio laughed aloud. ‘I have it. Or rather, Master Nikephorus has it, although there was almost an incident – the town’s fathers did not want to let it go, and we had to convince them that if it stayed here, we would not look favourably on their letter to Venice and the Pope.’ Di Brachio turned, set his back against the rail, and stretched like a long-limbed cat. ‘So how much did they bribe you to carry the letter?’
‘Three hundred ducats,’ Swan said.
Di Brachio whistled between his teeth. ‘Why you? Why not me?’
Swan grunted as he moved his weight off the rail – his stomach muscles were weak – and reached into the leather sack which the knights had given him to carry his laundered clothes. ‘Here’s yours,’ he said. ‘I split with Peter.’
Di Brachio weighed the small purse in his hand. Then he dropped it into the front of his doublet. ‘You really are an honourable thief, Master Swan.’
Swan shrugged. ‘I’m not well enough connected to do them their favour without you. But won’t Venice take this place back like a shot?’
Ser Marco came up the ladder to the command deck like a much younger man. The oarsmen were still coming aboard in a noisy mob – offering not a hint of the disciplined machine they could become. But Ser Marco had clearly heard part of the exchange.
‘It depends,’ he said. He and Di Brachio exchanged a glance. ‘They should, but it may not be in any faction’s interest to take this city and garrison it. Since the fashion for malmsey wine changed, and the sugar trade moved, this city isn’t as important as it once was. A year-round garrison and twenty thousand in wall repair? Venice is a business, Messire Swan, not an empire.’ He shrugged.
Di Brachio nodded. ‘And – if I may, Ser Marco – it depends on the relations between the Serenissima and the Despots. There are two Greek rulers here, Master Swan – Demetrios, who favours alliance with the Turks, and Thomas, who seems to be willing to fight. They mirror two factions in Venice, eh?’
‘And in Genoa, I’ll wager,’ said Swan. ‘No wonder the Turks push us around.’
They sailed up the Adriatic without incident, pausing to take water or eat a meal in Ragusa and the other Venetian possessions on the Dalmatian coast. They crossed the sea to drop the bishop and his retinue, including the now much esteemed Master Claudio and Swan’s friend, the notary turned man-at-arms, Cesare de Brescia, at Ancona on the east coast of Italy proper. But two weeks later, they raised the lagoon, and the sailors and unengaged oarsmen danced on the catwalk above the rowers’ deck and all the men gave three sharp cheers.
Ser Marco leaned on the rails, whistling through the gap in his front teeth. ‘I will miss them,’ he said. ‘This is one of the best crews I have ever had – three fights, and they are made. The lubbers who joined us are right sailormen, and the good men are better yet.’ He grinned. ‘If I had ever been tempted to turn pirate, it would be now – with a ship as good as this one, and this crew, I could make a fortune.’
Di Brachio bowed. ‘Messire, you have a fortune.’
‘And this is no doubt why I return my ship to the arsenal and my beautiful crew to the stews and brothels. But it is a waste, and the next capitano will not be able to get just the same crew in just the same ship.’ He shrugged. ‘Listen – Di Brachio – you are a good man. Why not give up your little ways and settle down? You could command a galley. I have written you a very strong commendation to the Ten.’ He rubbed his chin. ‘Why don’t you just call yourself Bembo? Your father accepts you – in public. He has no other son.’
Di Brachio shrugged. ‘The Ten do not love me,’ he said. ‘My father, bless his soul of iron, is still undecided.’
Ser Marco spat. ‘When it comes to killing men in Outremer, you’ll find that the Ten care very much less about your personal habits,’ he said. ‘Marry a girl and make some heirs, and you can do as you please. Surely your father has said all this to you.’
Di Brachio shrugged again. ‘I am not yet ready for this surrender,’ he said. ‘I am like a citadel that, having survived a nasty siege, is not anxious to join the new peace. And what of the poor girl?’
Ser Marco looked offended. ‘What of her? Girls are girls. They know the game.’
Di Brachio shook his head. ‘Messire, you are the finest commander under whom I have shipped, but on this, we do not agree.’
Ser Marco embraced him. ‘Well, you are a fine soldier, and I’m sure we don’t like other things, too.’
Later, after the ship had docked right against the quay in St Mark’s Square and Ser Marco had returned his banner to the church and ordered the rowers to begin the last leg of the journey round to the arsenal, he also embraced Swan.
‘Try and keep Master Di Brachio alive,’ he said. ‘He might grow to be a great man – and a great Venetian.’ The knight shrugged. ‘If he survives long enough. You are a good man, Master Swan. I believe I owe you my life, and I remain at your service.’
Di Brachio went ashore to see his father, and Swan stood alone on the dock, his spirits oppressed. Many of the arsenali had pressed him to come and drink, but he knew that as a ‘gentleman’ he would only slow them. The archers were men he liked – he’d played dice and piquet with them, and the Spaniard, now much recovered, was a well-lettered man whose friendship he was happy to have.
But the archers had left the ship in St Mark’s Square, and were probably already drunk. The other men-at-arms were Venetian gentlemen, and their families had met them at the arsenal.
He saw the unloading of the wicker baskets carrying his armour, and the second basket with all the scrolls that he and Peter had rescued. Then he arranged a boat for all the mimes, and, aided by Giannis, still recovering, and Irene, he got them and their various treasures aboard and rowed across to the western part of the city.
The old whore was still on duty at the end of the warehouses. He waved, and she grinned, and he felt a fool, but the familiar sights were cheering and he had an odd feeling of isolation, as if he was wrapped in a carpet. Giannis and Irene kissed and cosseted each other at every turn, and Nikephorus was sunk in a study, and Swan missed Di Brachio and missed Peter.
The boat landed them near his old inn. He paid the boatman to stay.
‘Giannis – wait here,’ he told the soldier, and the other man nodded. His whole attention was on the girl.
Swan ran up the ladder, found that his sea legs were still strong on him, and rolled down the street for some paces before he recovered the ability to walk. But he got to the inn without being robbed, and established that they could lodge six foreigners and their belongings.
‘Where’s Joan?’ Swan asked the innkeeper.
‘Bah! She ran off with a sailor,’ the innkeeper said. ‘I have another slut if you feel the itch.’
Swan made a face and returned to the boat, and got his party of Greeks ashore and to the inn. He shared a room with Nikephorus, and he went to bed early after two cups of horrible wine. He lay listening to Irene giggle and groan and make sweet little shrieks, and tried to decide why he might be jealous. He wasn’t jealous of the woman, or the man. Merely their satisfaction in each other.
In the morning, he left the Greeks to their own devices – Greeks in Venice had many friends – and had himself rowed to the Jewish quarter after an injunction that the head must be guarded at all times. He arranged to see Rabbi Aaron.
None of the men at the gates were his friends. He felt as if he’d died and gone to a place like Venice, but populated with shadows of the men he’d seen before, and he all but growled at the young Jews, and they bridled.
Rabbi Aaron greeted him soberly, and Swan handed over a thick packet of letters from Constantinople.
Aaron bowed stiffly. ‘My thanks, and that of my house,’ he said.
Swan’s sense of dislocation was increased by Aaron’s distance. ‘Rabbi?’ he enquired.
‘I have another student to whom I must attend,’ Aaron said, and bowed again.
Swan knew he was dismissed, and withdrew, feeling as hurt as if he’d received a sword thrust.
The next week in Venice was one of the longest of Swan’s life. The strangest premonitions ruled him, and he found himself looking at the head six times a day – at one point, on his way across the lagoon to see Di Brachio, he was so pierced with worry about the head that he ordered his gondolier to turn the boat and row him back to the steps nearest his inn. Notes to Di Brachio brought no response, and the Greeks were constantly busy with their own friends – Venice was full of Greek exiles.
But on Friday Di Brachio sent him a note; that night he dined with Di Brachio’s father, who was effusive in his praise, and the next morning they prepared a convoy of horses and a cart to take the Greeks and all of their belongings to Rome. The next two days passed in a pleasant whirl of near-military preparations, and on Monday, they rode for Rome, with two carts, all of the Greeks, two French merchants and a priest and six soldiers provided by Messire Bembo. Despite the season, they made good time, and passed the length of the Romagnol with no more trouble than they travelled the Veneto – although the tolls were higher and the local soldiers looked like criminals dressed in armour. They climbed into the hills, drank thin red wine that never seemed to warm them, and endured three straight nights in hostels built to accommodate pilgrims, where they endured fleas of a number and viciousness unlike anything they had encountered. The Greeks went and stayed in the stable, and Andromache reproved Swan.
‘You rescued us from the Turks so that we could be eaten by your ferocious heretic insects! Are you sure this isn’t hell? It’s cold, and the bugs …’ She shook her head.
The third night, Di Brachio returned from a long ride ahead to report that all four inns were full to the rafters.
Swan shrugged. ‘In England, sometimes a gentleman will rent a barn,’ he said.
Di Brachio nodded. He was biting the leather of his riding glove, trying to get it off. ‘Yes, it is much the same with us,’ he said. He pointed his chin at the distant towers of a small castle. ‘Go ask them. Be English and noble – everyone here likes that.’
Swan’s cloak and gloves were soaked through with icy rain, and he could see that Master Nikephorus’s lips were blue, so he cantered his rented horse across the fields to the castle, which, close up, proved to be very small. But they had a small stone barn, and the very cautious owner, who conducted his entire negotiation from behind a cocked crossbow, agreed to rent them the barn for five ducats – an outrageous price. But some hours later, when they sat in the firelit dark with good food – brought by the cautious lord’s servants – and good wine, the ducats seemed well spent.
Di Brachio was in no hurry to make his blankets, and he and Swan sat up, listening to the others snore.
Swan told his mentor the tale of the rabbi’s stiffness, and Di Brachio shrugged elaborately, palms up. ‘Listen – you stole the head of Saint George and twisted the Sultan’s tail,’ he said. ‘You think this will have no consequence? Are you an idiot? Jews were probably arrested – mayhap Solomon himself was arrested.’
Swan froze.
‘Your friend Omar Reis will not lightly accept a defeat, Messire Swan. Men will die. Others will be tortured. The price of your little escapade …’ He shrugged. ‘Bessarion may be none too pleased with us.’
Swan shook his head. ‘Why – damn it! I did everything he asked!’
Di Brachio lay back in the straw. ‘Yes – well. Goodnight, English. And don’t forget the Orsini, tomorrow. They have long memories – eh? And long knives.’
Swan was embarrassed to admit he’d forgotten all about them.
There were no red and yellow Orsini liveries in evidence as they entered Rome, and they crossed the city – a city that seemed empty after the crowds of Venice. They rode across the forum and Swan watched footpads fade into the ruins like beetles at the first sign of the cook entering the kitchen. He fondled his sword and kept his eyes moving.
But if other places seemed odd, Bessarion’s shabby palace was like home. The servants welcomed them, and the great man himself came down to the tiny yard to watch the unloading of the carts – to embrace each one of the Greek mimes, and to chatter with them in Greek. When he came to Di Brachio, he buried the Venetian in an enormous embrace, a bear hug.
‘You lived, young pup,’ he said with enormous affection, and Di Brachio returned the embrace.
Swan stood with an armload of scrolls. Bessarion met his glance over Di Brachio’s shoulder and winked, and Swan felt something give way in his chest. He’d been holding his breath. Rabbi Aaron’s dismissal had hurt.
He guided the cardinal through the scrolls he’d rescued, and he gave credit in double handfuls to the others – to Giannis, to Peter, to the archers on the ship. Di Brachio shrugged and disclaimed all responsibility.
‘The English did it all,’ he said. ‘None of the rest of us could even leave the quarter. He and his man did the work.’
Bessarion blessed every one of them in the yard, even though they all had to move carefully because the pair of two-wheeled carts filled the whole space. He helped carry scrolls up into his library, where he saw to their installation in his own network of pigeonholes.
‘This one for the Pope,’ he said. ‘This one – the Cicero – for my friend Aneas Piccolomini. A great man in the Church. And a great lover of Cicero.’
He flirted with Irene and Andromache, chatted amicably with Giannis, and repeatedly wrung Nikephorus’s hands, but when he’d seen his fellow Greeks situated in comfortable rooms, he finally took Swan and Di Brachio to his inner sanctum and closed the door.
‘Well,’ he said. He sat back on an old leather chair from the last century and put his booted feet up on his great work table. ‘The bishop has sung your praises and Master Swan’s to the Pope and to the College of Cardinals. But I can’t help but think that the head of Saint George might have been …’ He shrugged. ‘Better left at the bottom of the sewers, perhaps?’ He looked at Di Brachio. ‘Ten Jews have been executed – crucified. And forty Greeks. Mehmed II has forbidden the Pisans or the Florentines to maintain posts in the city, and he’s made other threats.’
Di Brachio shrugged. ‘We didn’t steal the head, Excellency. Your servants did that.’ He glanced at Swan. ‘Servants you didn’t see fit to mention to us.’
Bessarion shrugged. ‘I can’t …’ he began. Then he shrugged. ‘Gentlemen, I owe you some apology, and yet, I cannot let you – even you, Alessandro – know all my little secrets.’ He glowered at Swan. ‘And you, my lying Englishman. I gather that it is to you I owe the head’s recovery – and the chaos in Christian affairs in Constantinople!’
But his tone was more jesting than solemn or admonitory, and Swan failed to hide his grin of triumph.
‘There are interests in this town that received a sharp rap on the knuckles owing to your actions. But – you were there and I was not, and on balance, you have saved some wonderful books, and brought back some people I value strongly – the insides of Master Nikephorus’s head hold more books than my library, if I can find a scribe to write for him – and the head will buy me a great deal of influence somewhere.’
‘You won’t keep it?’ asked Swan, suddenly and unaccountably devastated.
Di Brachio nodded to his master. ‘Eminence, you really must see this thing to believe it.’
Bessarion raised an eyebrow. ‘Gentlemen, I am a Greek, and a man of God. I have every faith that the head of Saint George is a wonderful relic.’ He steepled his fingers. ‘Anything you’d care to report to me?’ he asked.
Di Brachio looked out of the small window by his shoulder at the wintry remnants of a Roman garden. ‘We touched at Monemvasia while English here was wounded,’ he said. ‘The Hospitaller officer there wants the Pope to take the town, or the even the Venetians.’ Di Brachio produced the letter.
‘We were paid three hundred ducats to carry this message,’ Swan added. ‘I had to leave my man there. I’d like … to go back. And retrieve him. If time allows.’
Bessarion leaned back and stared at his star-studded ceiling while he played with his beard. ‘Monemvasia. The property of the Despot, I think. Demetrios.’ He shook his head. ‘There are rumours that Demetrios is threatening to turn to al-Islam.’ He sat up. ‘The Turks are readying a fleet for Lesvos and Chios.’
‘A priest in Monemvasia said to me that the monasteries on Lesvos and Chios might have old books,’ Swan said.
Bessarion nodded. ‘Very likely. People on the islands are very rich, and well educated. The Genoese took Lesvos in – bah, I can’t remember. A hundred years before I was born, or more. Chios the same.’ He put his chin in his hand. ‘If Genoa puts a fleet to sea to save Chios …’
Di Brachio smiled bitterly. ‘Then Venice will help Turkey. They are like bad brothers – you know.’
Bessarion nodded. ‘We Christians are our own enemies. Orthodox against Catholic – Genoese against Venetian, French against English.’
Swan laughed. ‘With due respect, Eminence, the Turks are no lovers of the Mamluks, nor the Mamelukes of the Turks, nor the various mainland Turks of each other. I heard much about this in Constantinople.’
Bessarion nodded. ‘Perhaps this is just the Tower of Babel playing out among men,’ he agreed. ‘In the meantime, I’d like to see the islands saved. I have had it in my mind to send one or both of you to the Knights Hospitaller. But only if the Pope is willing to take action.’
‘Can the islands be held against the Turks?’ Swan asked.
Bessarion watched the rain for a moment. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Which is why you must buy every manuscript there that you can find.’ He nodded to Di Brachio. ‘You have had a hard journey and you will want to rest. But if the Pope will send a deputation to the knights – will you go?’
Di Brachio smiled. ‘I’d be delighted.’ His grin grew lopsided. ‘My father will be delighted, as well. What an odd occurrence.’ He leaned forward, rose to his feet. ‘Not until spring, I assume?’
Bessarion sighed. ‘It could come sooner,’ he said. ‘The knights sail in all weathers.’ He looked at the two young men. ‘It is said in the College of Cardinals that Mehmet II plans to destroy all the learning of the ancient world and replace it with the Koran. That he means to conquer the whole world.’
It occurred to Swan that this was not the place for him to declare his almost absolute admiration for the Turks – their manliness, their horses, their swords and their war machines and their poetry. But the picture of Mehmet II destroying manuscripts seemed a little extreme. ‘The Grand Turk reveres learning,’ he said.
Bessarion’s baleful glare fell on him squarely. Swan liked his employer, and he’d heard many foolish things about Christians while he was with Turks. He nodded. ‘But of course, he is the merest infidel,’ he added piously.
Bessarion’s basilisk stare faded into a pleasant smile. ‘Excellent. Get some rest – well-earned rest – from your Herculean labours. There is a new steward about the place – Father Ridolpho. A protégé of the Cardinal of Avignon.’ His eyes crossed Di Brachio’s, and some message passed. ‘He is very’ – here the cardinal gave the slightest sniff, as if he detected an unpleasant odour – ‘very careful with money.’ He scribbled a note and handed it to Di Brachio.
‘Do not, I beg you, bait our employer,’ Di Brachio said. ‘You and I know that Mehmet has every intention of conquering the world. This Bessarion needs to know. You and I know that Mehmet the Second, may his name be blessed, is a far, far more moral ruler than most of the perverted creatures who inhabit the College of Cardinals. We do not say this out loud. Mm?’
Swan nodded in humility. ‘I’ll watch my tongue next time,’ he said.
Di Brachio laughed. ‘No, you won’t. But never mind. I have a note in my hand that authorises the steward to pay us. I can see, with nothing more than a glance about this palazzo, that the good cardinal is in funds – look, those silver ewers were in pawn when we were here before. Eh? So we’ll be paid.’
He suited action to word, walking down to the offices on the first floor, where Swan had rarely been. A dozen clerks, some in holy orders and some just ink-stained young men, sat at desks like oar benches, writing furiously. The steward of the household was a middle-aged priest, tall, with chiselled features and a strong build, and he took the note from the cardinal and nodded.
‘Ah – you are the famous young Messer Swan,’ he said in Genoese Italian. He frowned. ‘I understand that after your last escapade, half my clerks were lamed by the Orsini, who chased them through the streets every day for a month.’
Swan tried to look apologetic.
The priest bit his thumbnail. ‘Household servants are paid on Thursday next.’ He made a note and smiled at Di Brachio. ‘Please return then,’ he said. He countersigned a ledger in red ink, and turned to the tall desk that dominated the room. He sat on a high stool and resumed writing.
Swan looked at Di Brachio, who had turned bright red. The Venetian cleared his throat.
‘You expected something more?’ asked the priest.
‘I am no man’s servant,’ Di Brachio said.
The priest shrugged. ‘Take it up with His Eminence, then,’ he said. ‘You thugs give us a bad name. I’m cutting expenses. Twenty-five ducats for each of you? My clerks can live a year on that much money.’
Swan thought, in the privacy of his head, that he had once been able to live five years on so much money.
Di Brachio pursed his lips. He drew his sword, and the clerks riffled like fowls in a farmyard. But he didn’t threaten. He simply threw the notched blade down on the work table.
‘See the blade?’ he said. ‘Ruined – fighting Turks. I can’t buy a new blade for twenty-five ducats.’
The priest shrugged. ‘That is between you and the cardinal,’ he said, and his voice had some of the whine of a cat’s. ‘I gather you are very … close.’
Di Brachio grew still for a moment. Then he picked up his sword. ‘Have you ever seen the bodies they pull out of the Tiber after three days?’ he said quietly, and the priest stepped back. Swan thought of Ser Marco’s admonition and moved between them. Besides, when the good father had opened a drawer to fetch out the ledger with its red-inked entries, Swan had seen a great deal of gold sitting in a bag.
‘Ah, Father, we have been too long on a ship. You are only doing your duty.’ He bowed, his right hand searching behind him, hidden, he hoped, in the folds of his cloak. His hand closed on the bag, and he bowed again. ‘I, for one, would be happy to take my twenty-five ducats and rejoice in them.’
The priest rubbed his wrists with his thumbs and wished for God to strike them dead, but after long seconds of inaction, he opened a small box on his tall desk and began to count out ducats.
Di Brachio followed him, holding his notched sword. ‘I wonder sometimes, Father,’ he said quietly.
The priest looked up.
‘I wonder if killing a priest feels any different from killing a Turk or a footpad,’ he said. ‘I am not a servant, nor am I a thug, nor can you make your puerile assertions about my relationship with the cardinal without immediate consequence. Do you understand me, Padre?’
The priest drew himself up. ‘You wouldn’t dare,’ he said, but his voice indicated how unsure he was.
Di Brachio nodded. ‘Sometimes, men make mistakes about where they are powerful, and where they are weak. A few months ago, I foolishly acted as if I had power in Venice, and I was lucky not to be killed. But here in this house, Father, you are to me like a louse between my fingers.’ Di Brachio’s voice hissed slightly, and he placed the point of his sword against the priest’s belly. ‘If I did have a special relationship with His Eminence, what kind of fool would you be to twit me with it?’
The other clerks were frozen. Two of them tried to slip past Swan up the stairs, and he dissuaded them with a single roll of his shoulders.
‘You thought you could insult me to my face. There, now you know you are wrong. Here’s a choice, priest. Understand your place, and we can yet be friends. Or – try and take some action against me, and see. See what happens, my friend.’ The Venetian swished his blade through the air and lightly swatted the priest on the arse.
Swan would have laughed, except that he thought that Di Brachio was being foolish. It never ceased to amaze him how often the older man accused him of foolish behaviour, only to indulge in his own.
The priest finished counting out the money, his fingers trembling slightly, and Di Brachio stood like a predator denied his prey and glared at Swan, who had dropped the bag into the top of his right boot and then had to walk very carefully not to lose it.
‘You may,’ hissed the priest, ‘find that I, too, have friends.’
‘Friends? A creature like you?’ Di Brachio mocked.
Together they climbed the stairs from the clerks’ level to the main floor, and when they’d reached their rooms, Swan drew Di Brachio into his, opened the bag, and dumped it on the bed.
‘Greedy bastard,’ Swan said.
Di Brachio looked at the gold – almost a hundred French francs – and laughed. ‘You just stole money from your own employer,’ he said.
Swan shrugged. ‘It was right there,’ he said. ‘It’s the Church’s money – and thus it belongs to every Christian. You and I are Christians, and more than that, we just fought for the faith. These are our legitimate wages.’
‘By God, Swan, now I know your father really was a cardinal,’ Di Brachio said. He sat on Swan’s bed and counted the coins into two piles. ‘Di Brescia is about somewhere. Shall we find the lawyers and go out?’
‘Madame Lucrescia’s?’ asked Swan.
‘Violetta – if she is even still there – will cost you every ducat in that sack,’ said the Venetian.
Swan smiled. ‘As for that – I’ll wager she’s a Christian, too.’
‘Eh, dog-face, stop pushing your nose between her tits and listen to me,’ Giovanni Accudi insisted. He’d missed his friends very much, and was determined, as he put it, to drink every cup of wine he’d missed in six long months. He was drunk, and very happy to have Swan back, and intensely interested in explaining to Swan the ramifications of the fall of Constantinople in terms of trade.
Swan’s attention was elsewhere because his evening had been made at the very outset when, at the very door of Madame Lucrescia’s, Violetta had wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him. He might know, inside his heart, that she was a courtesan – a whore – and that this greeting might be lavished on every paying customer, or perhaps just one an evening, but he treated her joy as real and she, in turn, lavished more of it on him, climbing on his lap at the first opportunity and glaring at Madame Lucrescia herself when she came to ask the blonde girl to use some discretion.
