Текст книги "Constantinople"

Автор книги: Christian Cameron

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‘Are we going armed?’ Swan asked.

‘And armoured. We are the bodyguard he is allowed in his letters.’ He crossed his arms. ‘Best we get some sleep.’

‘Yes,’ Swan said.

An hour later, he was making his way along the underground sewers, his oil lamp making a tiny glow in the immense darkness of the caverns under the silent city.

Every step he took was foolish. He was afraid, and yet elated.

And a fool.

He had no need to try this. He was attempting to navigate the sewers at night, without anyone to help him. That was foolish. If he fell and so much as twisted an ankle, his entire enterprise would fail.

He kept walking.

I don’t’ need to do this, he told himself again.

But he kept walking.

He thought it must be midnight when he arrived at the ladder, just where he had left it. It took him some minutes to raise it alone, and he made considerable noise. Eventually, he got the base firmly seated on the walkway and the top inside the wellhead.

Khatun Bengül’s wellhead.

Then he paused, one foot on a rung of the ladder.

So – I made it here. I have the ladder up. I can walk away. This is . . . insane.

He found that he was climbing the ladder.

He shook his head. At himself.

Two rungs from the top, he rested his back against the well’s wall – probably just where his shoulder had struck in falling, he thought. Shook his head.

Insane.

He took the coil of rope off his shoulder and secured the grapnel.

I’m sure I swore yesterday never to do this again.

What if there are people in the kitchen?

Smiling at his own foolishness, he tossed the grapnel straight up.

He did cover his head.

Which was good, as it fell back with a lot of noise.

He sighed. Paid out one more coil of rope, took the grapnel by the stock, and threw.

He heard it hit. Outside the well. He pulled, and it came quite easily – he pulled it in very slowly, dragging it across the stones of her kitchen. And it caught. He pulled again, and it stayed tight.

Caught on some tiny projection? Or on the cross-beam?

He went up, putting as little weight on the grapnel as possible – his back against one wall of the well, feet against the opposite wall, walking up as he’d seen the acrobat girl do earlier.

She was nice. She was pretty. Why am I doing this?

Up and up.

At the top, he stopped to listen. The cover still wasn’t on the well. His back and sides hurt, and his neck . . .

He went over the edge.

Screaming eunuchs didn’t kill him, so he decided after a few moments that he was still safe.

He paused at the curtain to the stairwell.

Now, I can slip down the rope and go. I did it. I entered her apartment undetected. No need to go any farther.

His soft leather boots made no sound on the steps as he climbed.

He paused at the curtained doorway to the slave quarters, and listened. Her slaves were silent. Several were snoring.

He stopped outside the cedar and silver door. It was just as he remembered it.

If she screams, I’m dead.

This is foolish.

In fact, this gives foolish a whole new perspective.

He put a hand on her door. It was locked.

A German lock.

England had German locks.

It took him longer than he expected to open it. He had to find the tool in his belt purse, and it took him far too long to realise that the local workmen had installed the lock upside down.

Click.

I could just let this go.

Don’t try for revenge on Omar Reis.

He opened the door, very, very slowly.

He had to fight the sudden feeling that it was all a trap. The wave of paranoia came, and went, and he could smell the fear he had exuded.

He slid into the room. Closed the door with infinite patience.

He could hear her breathing. It was soft, and regular.

He went to her bedside.

And put a hand on her mouth, thinking, It is now officially too late to back out.

‘Hello,’ he said. ‘Remember me?’

She hesitated – and then threw her arms around his neck.

Then he put his mouth over her mouth.

‘No!’ she said, and pinned his legs with her own. She was very strong.

There was one lamp lit, and she was magnificent.

‘No,’ she said. She smiled. ‘Don’t be angry. It is . . . a matter of life and death.’ She leaned over him and licked his lips. ‘Listen, I’ve read books. There are a thousand other things we can do.’

Apparently, there were.

He kissed her at the wellhead, and the whole process began again. He’d meant it to be a kiss goodbye. It didn’t have that effect.

But eventually, she let him go down the rope Or rather, he forced himself out of her arms against his own will.

She dropped the grapnel to him after he was on the ladder. And blew him a kiss.

At the base of the ladder, he could still see her light. He felt an intense temptation to climb right back up, but there had been a change in the air of her apartments. And slaves rise early.

He could smell her on his skin – smell her perfume, which seemed to be in every fold of linen and silk in her room, and on every part of her body – rose and lavender and an Eastern scent he didn’t know. And her own scent – musky and heady. And strong.

He smelled her on his hands, and smiled, and then, after wrapping his clothes in a leather sack that would be waterproof for some minutes, he leaped into the water.

He swam downstream in the cistern, under the arch of the great wall, and again he found that darkness and deep water combined to panic him even when he knew that there was an opening at the far end. He emerged and pulled himself out on to the walkway – stronger this time – and, sack on shoulder, walked all the way to the end of the main cistern.

He dressed quietly, surprised to find that the scent of rose and lavender still clung to him, and climbed out of the cistern by the access doors. He crossed the main square, walked partway down the hill, and entered the next system. It was very dark, and when he saw the small fire that the acrobats had burning, he was very happy.

He approached as quietly as he could. But he was fifty feet from the fire when a someone spoke.

‘Don’t move,’ Peter said.

‘It’s only me,’ Swan said.

‘Don’t make too much noise,’ Peter insisted. ‘It took me a long time to get them to sleep.’

Swan walked carefully along the cistern’s shelf to the fire – really, just a small pile of charcoal that had been laid on the stone and lit. But it was warm, and he realised that he was cold.

‘We have wine,’ Peter said.

Andromache appeared beside the fire and smiled at him. She had Peter’s soldier’s cloak around her shoulders.

Swan accepted a cup of wine. ‘All is well?’

Peter shrugged and smiled a secretive smile. ‘I just spent a day underground with a troupe of actors who can’t stop talking.’ He glanced at Andromache. ‘Mind you, there are compensations.’

Swan finished his wine. ‘Tonight,’ he said. ‘Watch for us from the water gate. If you don’t see the Venetian galley—’

‘Yes?’ Peter asked. ‘Yes, what exactly do I do if there’s no ship?’

‘Switch roles and get them to take you out of the city,’ Swan said. ‘Save what you can.’

‘That’s how it is?’ Peter asked. ‘By the way, you know you smell like a Spanish whore.’

‘I lack your experience with Spanish whores,’ Swan said. ‘What do they smell like?’

‘Attar of roses and old sweat,’ Peter said.

The sun was rising when he slipped over the wall into the inn yard. He heard a woman’s voice from the stable, and he smiled, and went into the kitchen, where shocked servants scurried to get out of his way.

An hour later – face and hands washed, in best clothing, neat, and dead tired – he stood in his armour in the atrium waiting for the rest of the embassy.

Alessandro came down with Giannis and Cesare.

Cesare embraced him, then held him at arm’s length. ‘You look like hell,’ he said.

Giannis shook his head. ‘You smell like . . .’ He made a face. ‘Perfume.’

‘Christ on the cross, he does.’ Alessandro laughed. ‘I thought you were going to bed, scapegrace.’

Swan forced a grin. ‘There was a bed involved,’ he said.

The three men roared.

They carried their helmets under their arms, rather than wear them, as Swan had hoped, and he carried his through the streets. He wondered why he’d bothered to wash. It was four miles to the palace of the Sultan, and even in the early morning, it was a walk intended to discomfort and annoy.

As they walked, Alessandro drifted back from the bishop. ‘I have taken some precautions,’ he said.

Swan could barely remain awake. ‘Yes?’

‘I think it possible that the Sultan could . . . decide – to dispense with us.’ He shrugged.

‘You mean, kill us,’ Swan said.

Cesare started.

‘Yes. If so, it won’t happen at the palace. It will be a street attack.’ Alessandro was watching the buildings. ‘So we will not return along these streets.’

‘The palace is too public?’ Swan asked.

‘I have to hope so. If he chooses to kill us in the palace . . .’ Alessandro glanced over his shoulder.

Swan followed his eye. He hadn’t seen Yellow Face in days, and there he was.

‘Why, though?’ Swan asked.

Alessandro shrugged. ‘As a message? Because the bishop will annoy him? Because he’s ready for war with Venice anyway?’ Alessandro shook his head. ‘Your Jew friend – Isaac – sent me a warning.’

Swan tried to imagine some higher order of plot where Isaac would send them a false warning. He shook his head – fatigue was not helping him think. ‘I would listen to Isaac,’ he said carefully.

‘Listen, sleepy-head! Damn you, you English pup, I need you, and you smell like a French whore and look like a three-day drunk! Now that I have your attention – how far north do the sewers come?’

‘Christ – sorry, Alessandro. I haven’t come this far north. And I haven’t been in – or out – north of the market by the Venetian quarter.’

Alessandro shook his head. ‘Damn it to hell.’

The Palace of Blacharnae was at the north-east corner of the city. It had suffered substantial damage during the siege, but its woods and fountains appealed to the Sultan and he had taken it for his residence, although rumour said he usually lived in a great palace of tents on the plain just beyond.

The entrance hall was grander in every way than any similar hall in England, even the Guildhall in London. The square of St Mark’s in Venice had something of the majesty, but the apparently infinite vista of mosaics stretching away from the viewer struck Swan with wonder. And it was old. Swan couldn’t tell how old, but he was awestruck. A thousand years old?

The only man who seemed unaffected was the bishop, who led them into the great hall without looking to the right or left, up or down. Neither the mosaic ceilings nor the marble floor seemed to interest him.

The hall was lined by armoured sipahis, who leaned indolently on their lances and did not speak. The great doors at the far end of the hall were closed.

Swan stood still. There were six Christian men-at-arms, counting Cesare; and four more Venetian marines. They stood, five a side, flanking the embassy – the bishop, two interpreters, and four sailors with the gifts.

They stood. And stood.

So did the sipahis.

Sweat ran down Swan’s neck, gathered momentum in the middle of his back, and rolled all the way down to the top of his buttocks under his arming coat. The arming coat began to grow alarmingly heavy and wet. The weight of his harness seemed to grow. He could even feel – feel viscerally – the weight of the sword at his hip.

He flexed his knees.

He had too much time to think. Time to consider the troupe in the cisterns; time to consider the flaws in his plans.

Time to consider Khatun Bengül. Time to think about the risk he’d run. And why.

Revenge.

The joke was on him. He couldn’t get her out of his head, and he had gone to lie with her to revenge himself on her father. A petty, wicked sin.

Where did that thought come from?

‘I’m too fucking old for this,’ muttered Cesare, immediately behind him.

Alessandro was a statue of steel.

The bishop began to complain. At first, his complaints were aimed at members of his own staff. Then he walked over to one of the silent sipahis.

‘I demand to see the Sultan!’ he shouted, spittle flying.

The man ignored him.

‘Immediately!’ shrieked the outraged prelate. ‘I have waited nineteen days to deliver a letter and some presents!’

The sipahi might have been carved of leather. His aged face had vertical lines etched by sun and weather, and the man might have been a hundred years old, yet he stood in chain and plate, his pointed helmet a magnificent display of blue and gold, his scimitar hilt made of jade.

Swan looked him over and thought, There’s a killer.

‘I demand to see the Sultan immediately!’ shouted the bishop.

Very softly, Cesare said, ‘If we kill him ourselves, do you think the Sultan will let us go?’

And the great doors opened.

The bishop, caught a hundred feet from his entourage, scurried back, his heavy garments making the noise of a woman’s skirts as he crossed the marble floor.

No one watched him, because Sultan Mehmet II entered – led by fifty Royal Sipahis, followed by his personal bodyguard, surrounded by his advisers and friends. Every man was dressed in silk; every soldier’s armour was engraved with verses of the Holy Koran, inlaid in gold, blued like the sky. The courtiers had jewels in their turbans the size of bird’s eggs. Their robes were woven in complex patterns, and yet the whole made one pattern around the central figure of the Sultan as if a single intelligence had chosen all their clothes.

Swan bet that someone had.

Omar Reis was standing at the Sultan’s right hand.

The Sultan settled on to his throne, and Omar Reis was allowed a stool at his feet. The other courtiers bowed – some actually lay flat on their face before the sultan.

Alessandro said – quietly – ‘Kneel.’

All of the men-at-arms sank to one knee.

The bishop hissed, ‘On your feet! We do not kneel to some infidel warlord!’

None of the men-at-arms moved until the Turks began to move at the word of a chamberlain, who thumped the floor with his baton.

The bishop looked close to apoplexy.

The chamberlain began to speak. He spoke in Turkish, and another chamberlain spoke in Persian. One of the embassy’s interpreters began to speak.

‘It is a recitation of the Sultan’s titles and names. Allah’s servant, flower of felicity, lord of Rum and Antioch . . .’ The titles went on and on – some religious, some military, some tribal.

Swan went back to thinking about Khatun Bengül. Her hair – the scent of her. The scent was with him yet. He smiled.

‘Conquerer of Constantinople, Lord of Greece. He bids us welcome.’

Mehmet was young – of middle height, and quite handsome, perhaps twenty-one or twenty-two years of age. He had large eyes that sparkled with intelligence, and the shoulders and arms of a swordsman. Yet he sat in quiet repose with a dignity often missing in young men, especially fighters.

Swan found him the most impressive monarch he’d met. On the other hand, Mehmet II had only Henry VI of England as a rival in that regard, and the comparison wasn’t even fair. It was like comparing a magnificent stallion with a small and rather shy donkey.

‘The Sultan greets you and asks if your lodging was to your satisfaction. Are you well fed? Has your stay in his new capital been pleasant?’ asked the interpreter.

Swan realised the there were Europeans standing among the Turkish courtiers. He didn’t know them well, but there was the Venetian senior merchant, and there was a Florentine who Alessandro had pointed out, the chief factor of the Florentine merchants.

They were standing with the Sultan.

Swan looked at Alessandro, caught his eye, and gave the slightest nod in the direction of the Venetian.

Alessandro allowed the slightest smile to cross his face. And gave his own minute nod.

So Alessandro had pulled strings to get Venice to send a representative, which made it almost impossible that they would all be murdered.

The bishop bowed – it was the closest thing to a social concession Swan had seen the man make. He spoke very quietly to the interpreter, who himself bowed.

He spoke in Turkish for what seemed to Swan to be a very long time.

He became aware that Omar Reis was watching him. The man had a slight smile on his face.

Swan smiled back. It wasn’t the wisest choice, but Swan couldn’t stop the smile.

It became a grin.

Omar Reis’s smile faltered.

The introductory oration ran to its final stanzas – in Persian.

‘That’s my bit,’ said Cesare.

At the poety, Mehmet sat forward.

The bishop, who had been toying with his magnificent crystal crozier, suddenly looked up.

Mehmet smiled. He leaned over and whispered something to the Florentine, who nodded and walked across the hall to the embassy, even as the chamberlain answered the embassy and the translator began to say:

‘The Sultan is delighted to accept the plaudits of his cousin, the Pope . . .’

The Turkish answer ground on – a little more pointed than the papal oration, in that it suggested that Christians had always been the aggressors and Islam, and Allah’s servant Mehmet and his father Murad, were but innocent servants of Allah’s will.

The Florentine stopped and bowed. ‘The Sultan wishes to know who among the embassy composed the poem at the end?’

Before he could be stopped, Cesare bowed. ‘I had that honour.’

‘You write in Persian?’ asked the Florentine.

‘I write in Latin. I found a translator.’ He bowed.

The Florentine returned his bow.

The Pope’s gift was a bridle – a magnificent piece of horse tack, decorated in gold, with medallions of the finest Italian work, buckles in blued steel and gold, dyed a deep red.

The Sultan looked at it, smiled, leaned over to Omar Reis and made some remark which caused all the men around him to laugh.

Their interpreters paled. The nearer said, ‘The sultan says the Pope takes me for a horse.’

The bishop went forward with the second gift, a cabinet such as Italian noblemen used to display their jewels and their antiquities – a magnificent piece of vulgarity, with a hundred drawers of exotic woods and mirrored backs, gold and silver wire inlay, marble terraces . . .

Like a palace, reproduced as a piece of furniture.

The Sultan didn’t even look at it, or the bishop. He had started to chat with the men closest to him. The bishop stood by the Pope’s great gift and time ticked by – literally, as there was a German clock in the centre of the cabinet. It was wound, and set, the machine ticking away.

Swan found it fascinating. A machine. A machine that could measure time.

Eventually the Sultan was interested, too, and when one of his confidants stopped talking, he rose suddenly, walked down from the dais, and stood by the cabinet. With the help of the Venetian factor, he opened the clock and looked at the mechanism. Then he shrugged, and said something in Turkish to Omar Reis, who grinned – or rather, showed his teeth.

The interpreter closest to Swan gulped audibly. ‘He says, first he takes me for a horse, and now, for a woman.’

Omar Reis passed within a few feet of Swan. He turned to grin his feral grin, and his nose wrinkled slightly.

Swan saw him pause in his progress across the floor.

He looked back – not a long look, but a mere flick of the eyes.

Swan would have sworn that the Wolf of Thrace’s eyes glowed. Swan had never had such a look of poisonous hatred directed at him in all his life.

Uh-oh.

Cesare, behind him, said, ‘Boy? What have you done?’

Alessandro looked at him.

I smell of Khatun Bengül’s perfume. Swan’s vision tunnelled, and for a moment, he thought he was going to faint. Or worse.

I’m an idiot.

Mehmet spoke quietly, his words clear in the silent hall.

The bishop bowed and extended a hand with the Pope’s letter.

The chamberlain took it. Without any grand display, he managed to give the impression that he was handling a small sack of human excrement. He deposited the letter with a lower functionary, who scurried away.

Mehmet nodded.

‘The Sultan would like to grant you a boon in return for your magnificent presents,’ said the interpreter. ‘He says that he has a surfeit of Christian slaves – so many that their value is plummeting throughout his empire. He is about to launch a great military campaign to crush rebels against his rule – and he says this will only result in still more Christian slaves.’

The bishop narrowed his eyes.

Most of the embassy were holding their breath.

‘The Sultan has arranged for some slaves to be waiting for you outside. In recognition of the Pope’s magnificent presents, he is willing to allow you to free five.’

Every Turk in the hall laughed.

The laughter was spontaneous and unforced, and even the Venetian and the Florentine felt it.

Mehmet smiled benevolently at them.

Omar Reis looked at Swan.

It took an effort of will for Swan to keep his hand off his sword-hilt.

The Turks left the hall faster than they had entered. The sipahis remained, standing nonchalantly around the perimeter, yet unmoving as carved stone.

Alessandro looked around. ‘Whatever is waiting for us outside, it will be humiliating and cruel. And outside the gates may be worse. Your Excellency, I propose that you choose the first five slaves we see – so that we may lose no time. Harden your heart and let us move.’

The bishop nodded.

‘Let me also recommend that all three of you gentlemen strip your robes and hand them to our sailors.’ He nodded to the bishop. ‘Your Excellency, I can protect you better if you are not a slow, stiff, obvious target.’

The elder of the two interpreters said, ‘You are making a mistake. If the Turks can pretend they didn’t recognise him—’

Alessandro shrugged. ‘I know that argument. I have my own.’ They had arrived at the great entrance doors. ‘Ready, Excellency?’

The bishop was so pale he might have been a corpse. ‘Do you really think that . . .’

Alessandro nodded. ‘Yes. We will be attacked. Probably by an angry, anti-Christian mob, in the street.’

The bishop’s hands trembled. ‘God’s will be done,’ he said.

The doors opened.

The great courtyard of the palace was full – full to bursting. Swan thought at first glance that there must be two thousand men and women there. Maybe twice as many.

They were, for the most part, naked, or wore a single garment. Old and young, they shared deeply lined, exhausted faces and scars. They had been deprived even of hope. They stood, abject. Families huddled together, or perhaps they were just loose associations of men and women formed in bondage.

A voice from one of the palace towers called out in Greek. ‘Christians! Your bishop will now select five of you to be freed. Present yourselves to him!’

Alessandro eyed the crowd.

Swan said, ‘We’ll never get through.’

Alessandro smiled. ‘Oh yes we will.’ He looked around one more time. The great gates on the far side of the courtyard were opening.

He looked tired, and his mouth was set very hard.

The slaves began to shuffle towards them. The press was instantly very thick, and Swan stumbled back.

‘Tell them they are all free, and should go through the gate.’ Alessandro spoke quietly, and every word sounded as if it was forced out of him.

‘There will be a stampede!’ Swan said.

‘Yes,’ Alessandro said. ‘Do it.’

The bishop was hanging on Alessandro’s arm. The Venetian marines were stringing their bows.

In Greek, Swan roared, ‘All of you are free! The bishop says so! Go – quickly! Out the gates! Go!’

The slaves stopped pressing in.

There was a moment . . .

Then there was a roar, or rather, a deep murmur, as the slaves began to comprehend what had been said. At the back of the crowd, slaves were running for the gate.

Archers began to loose shafts at them from the towers. And then the screams began.

‘Forward!’ roared Alessandro. ‘Cut your way through if you must.’

Swan still had his helmet under his arm. Now it seemed like a foolish liability. He wasn’t going to put it on his head.

He drew his sword.

The bishop had stopped. He was trying to shepherd five slaves. He touched them, grabbed their hands . . .

One of them took a Turkish arrow in the gut. The man sat abruptly, legs spread, the arrow sticking out of his back. He fell forward a little, and blood ran out of his mouth, but he didn’t scream. He just looked . . . surprised.

The bishop began to weep.

He was holding the hand of a little girl, and trying to drag her along, and a woman – her mother? – followed them, reaching for the girl.

An arrow struck her, and she fell.

Swan swept the little girl up and held her in his helmet arm, and ran for the gate.

No arrows touched him.

The bishop grabbed another child and dragged him along behind. The child screamed. The child’s father called ‘Run, run!’ in Greek.

Looking back from the gate, Swan could see very few bodies, and a great deal of screaming panic.

They ran through the gate, and out into the main thoroughfare of the northern part of the city – almost like a country road, so far from the inhabited core.

But there was no Turkish ambush. A dozen mounted Turks were quietly rounding up the slaves, but they offered no violence to the embassy. They did smile, and laugh, and point.

Alessandro didn’t stop moving. ‘This way,’ he called, and they were off, across a rubble-strewn field where once there had been a set of noblemen’s houses. The child sitting on Swan’s arm seemed to weigh ten stone, and he cursed the useless helmet. He was breathing like a bellows.

The mounted Turks watched them go, laughing and calling things.

They went almost a quarter-mile across the rubble, down old streets with no buildings left on either side, and through a great field that looked as if it had been recently burned.

A great semicircle of churches, their gold or bronze domes rising above buildings, tenements and rubble, marked the edge of the inhabited city, still another quarter of a mile away. To the north, behind them, a column of mounted Turks trotted out of the Blacharnae Palace.

‘We’ve come away with nine slaves,’ Alessandro said. He motioned for them to stop, and everyone – armoured or not – stood, virtually unable to speak, breathing like so many armourer’s bellows.

‘If I escape this, I will burn a hundred candles of white wax on the altar of Saint Mark,’ panted one of the young Venetian men-at-arms.

Cesare simply leaned over and threw up. He did it neatly, wih the economy of the heavy drinker, and then he spat.

Swan had a water bottle, and he passed it to his friend, who raised it in a mock toast. ‘When I die, see that Donna Lucrescia has all my love, and give my money to the poor.’ He stood bent over, and his breaths came in great gasps.

Alessandro was watching the Turks to the north. Ahead of them, at the edge of the suburbs, there was a low roar like distant surf.

Alessandro rubbed his chin. ‘I’m going to assume, for the sake of speed, that you ignored my advice and took some petty revenge on Omar Reis.’

Swan looked at the Turks. ‘I—’

Alessandro raised a hand, forestalling argument. ‘I have misspent my life, wasted my patronage, squandered my father’s money, and lived a life steeped in sin. Despite which, I’m not sure I ever managed to be so complete a dangerous, ignorant fool as you.’ He shrugged. ‘Although I admit that you perform these little miracles of idiocy with a certain sprezzatura.’

‘What did you do?’ gasped Cesare. ‘Sleep with his wife?’

‘Daughter,’ said Swan, with some pride mixed with regret.

Cesare laughed. ‘I’m so glad I’m about to die in a great crusade – a true reflection of the state of the faith, by God! We are not a handful of Christians standing against the horses of Islam! We’re a dozen dupes of Thomas Swan’s love affair!’ He laughed.

‘He wasn’t going to let us go,’ Swan argued. There was a whine in his voice.

‘He might have,’ Alessandro said. ‘He might not have. I’m sure you made the Sultan’s choice easier.’ He spat. Pointed with the dagger in his right fist. ‘See the crowd?’ he said.

Cesare shook his head. ‘They look like Greeks.’

‘They are Greeks,’ Alessandro said. ‘The Turks have raised the city against us.’

‘But they’re Christians!’ said one of the Venetians.

Swan looked at the bishop. ‘We represent the Pope,’ he said bitterly. ‘Most of the Greeks hate the Pope worse than the Sultan.’ He glared at Alessandro. ‘You can’t pin that one on me. That crowd was fanned to flames before . . .’

Alessandro smiled his hard, killing smile. ‘I agree. There is plenty of blame to go around.’ He bit his lip. ‘How far to the first cistern?’

Swan shrugged. ‘A mile, at least. There’s an aqueduct above the Plataea, so there must be an entrance there.’

Giannis was talking quickly to one of the freed slaves, a woman of forty. He was begging her to precede them and proclaim to the crowd that the bishop had saved her. He promised her a place aboard their ship.

She stared at him, blank eyed.

When they rose to their feet, she just sat, head down.

So they went towards the crowd with only eight slave children as their protection.

The crowd was led by priests – at least a dozen of them. Giannis went forward to negotiate, and was hit with a paving stone. Luckily, the stone hit the peak of his helmet, but the message was clear, and his shouts in Greek were ignored.

‘The Turks have set this up beautifully,’ Alessandro said. ‘We will be murdered by a Greek crowd. Or we kill our way through a Greek crowd. Either way, the Sultan wins.’

The bishop emerged from his escort. He wasn’t a tall man, just middle height, with mouse-brown hair and a weak chin. But he took his bishop’s crozier back from a terrified sailor. His hands shook. But he set his face.

‘I forbid you to kill them,’ he said.

‘Excellency,’ said Alessandro. He bowed his head.

The bishop threw his outer robe around his shoulders and put his mitre on his head, and began to walk towards the crowd.

A young man threw a paving stone too big for him. It didn’t come close to the bishop, but it started a horde of small boys throwing clods of earth. The bishop kept walking across the rubble.

In some ways, it was the bravest thing Swan had ever seen. Nothing in the bishop’s previous behaviour had led him to expect this – but in his heart, he was impressed.

He thought of profit, and loss, and all the effort he’d put into his plan, and he shook his head once, and said, ‘Fuck,’ very clearly, in English.

Then he put the small girl down, and took his helmet, a fine Milanese armet, out from under his arm. His arm was cramping. He opened the visor, dropped the falling buff, and peeled back the hinged cheek plates.