Текст книги "Chios"
Автор книги: Christian Cameron
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It took him ten tries to light his char cloth. Auntie was a hundred yards away, coasting on the current.
He giggled.
He reached out and grabbed the anchor chain and pulled, so his boat began to float north along the side of the galley. Swan got this oars in the water, set the keg on the stern post and gave three long pulls so he was moving well – he was clumsy, using one hand to balance the barrel every other stroke, and the boat swung back and forth and bumped along the galley’s low sides.
A sailor – deck crew – looked out over the side, his head silhouetted against the moon.
Swan ignored him and touched the char cloth to the slow match. The fuse began to burn, a thin wisp of smoke rising in the still air.
Drappierro shouted, ‘Of course it’s the little bastard. He’s made the whole thing up – forged the letter! Listen, Pasha! He’s a thief and liar!’
‘There’s a man in a boat!’ shouted the sailor.
A hackbut appeared over the side, the torchlight sparkling on its polished barrel.
Swan had expected to have another minute to let the fuse burn. But his time was up – he could hear the gods telling him he was done.
Or just God.
He rose at his oars, plucked up the keg, and threw it with both hands as hard as he could into the air.
And then, without awaiting the result, he dived into the water.
And at the bottom of his dive, he swam down, even as he heard the bark of hackbuts above the water.
The dreams of death – Salim’s death – followed him in the water, but he out-swam them.
He swam until he could no longer hold his breath, and even then he moved his arms. It was suddenly light all around him.
All around him.
He was trying to rise when the fist of a giant slammed into the water above him, and he was forced out – and down. He swallowed water, but he was past his panic.
He coughed out the last of his air, utterly disoriented. Unable to choose which way led to the surface and air. The light dimmed – but fortuna showed him the glint of a glass bottle on the bottom of the harbour where some reckless sailor had dropped the precious thing – and suddenly his brain worked, and up and down were restored.
He gave a kick to the surface.
The Turkish flagship was on fire.
Swan laughed.
Swan swam into the town on the exuberance of success, and climbed the central pier unaided and undetected. The whole harbour was lit by the inferno of the galley burning in the middle of the channel, and by the time Swan was standing on the pier, two dozen alert deck crews had cut their cables and were rowing – weakly, because most of their oarsmen were ashore – rowing for safety. A galley is fifty metres of light, dry wood coated in pitch and fused in oiled linen and hemp and tarred rope – a firebomb waiting for a light – and no Turkish captain could afford a spark.
The Chians, quite naturally, thought it was an attack and sounded the alarm. Every soldier in the town went to the walls, seaside and landside. From the pier, Swan could see the Genoese and Portuguese gunners in the seaward bastions, their matches lit, watching the desperate movements of the Turkish crews. In the Turkish camp off to the north, the janissaries stood to arms and the drums beat.
A second Turkish galley caught fire.
The crew, less brave than the crew of the flagship, jumped for the safety of the water. The ship drifted on the current, and more and more galleys cut their cables or dropped their anchor chains.
Undermanned galleys began to drift within extreme range of the town’s guns. Unordered, the Portuguese master gunner ordered the seaward bastion to open fire.
Unnoticed, the author of the night’s excitement dragged himself under a fishing boat pulled well above the tideline on the town’s inner beach.
Despite the roar of the cannon and the flickering light, he was asleep before the third Turkish galley caught.
In the morning, a professional observer could make out four Turkish galleys burned to the waterline and then turned turtle, their buoyant timbers keeping the wrecks afloat, drifting with the obscene wetness of dead jellyfish. Two more had been captured when they drifted ashore, and another destroyed by gunfire.
Swan stood on the beach, drinking it all in, and then walked – naked – up into the town. He went to the house of the Latin bishop, and demanded clothing as a member of the order, and was clothed. Swan played the injured hero to perfection, and had the sympathy, first, of the bishop’s valet, and then of his housekeeper, and by the time he’d shared a plate of veal with the prelate, he had the bishop’s complete sympathy as well.
‘You are the young man who accused the president of the council of impiety,’ the bishop said, with a certain amusement. ‘I remember you.’
Swan bowed where he sat. ‘Yes, my lord.’
The bishop – a Genoese – sat back and played with his cup. ‘The president sees his duty differently than you or I,’ he said.
A young Greek appeared at the doorway to the room – once a woman’s solar, Swan thought – and when the bishop looked at him, he indicated a small piece of paper or parchment between his fingers.
‘Excuse me,’ the bishop said, with a civil inclination of his head. He accepted the message and read it. And smiled.
‘The Turkish fleet is reported to be abandoning their camp – their rowers are going aboard and they are burning all the supplies they moved ashore. Come, Master Swan.’
Swan followed the bishop – a big man who nonetheless appeared capable of rapid movement and decisive action. The diocesan palace was not a grand affair, but it did sport a fine old tower, and they ran up six flights of steps to the top.
From the top, they could see the straits full of Turkish shipping, and the far coast of Asia. To the south, at the base of the mountain, the Turkish camp looked like a nest of woodlice kicked by a child, and to the north, they could see the vanguard of the Turkish fleet already forming up. On the beaches south of the town, dozens of Turkish ships were landing stern first and taking aboard their full crews of oarsmen.
Almost at their feet, in the town’s main square, the president of the Mahona and a dozen Mahonesi were arguing with an armoured man, who was waving a sword like an actor in a St George play.
‘Young man, I do believe that God has answered our prayers.’ The bishop nodded and then grinned like a much younger and less dignified man.
Swan’s joy was tinged with anxiety for the young Lord of Eressos. ‘My particular friend Zambale …’
The bishop shook his head. ‘Why hold him, when the Turks are leaving? He was only taken up at the behest of that detestable apostate Drappierro.’ He shrugged. ‘There is half the Mahona. Let us go and address them.’
The bishop paused in his own yard only long enough for servants to drape the correct robe and place the correct mitre on his head – which they did as he walked through them. Swan received a scarlet surcoat – close inspection showed the white cross to have been hastily added to a churchman’s garment, but Swan was transformed from looking like an armed servant to a soldier-prince of the Church.
The bishop gathered a dozen retainers – men-at-arms and priests – and swept out of his gates into the square.
In the square, a crowd had gathered. There were twenty fully armoured men on horseback, and the captain of the town continued to argue with the Mahonesi, the face inside his armet red with exertion – and wrath.
But the appearance of the bishop – brilliant in his Easter robes, with a retinue behind him – silenced the square. The captain, a mercenary, knelt before the bishop and kissed his ring.
The president of the Mahona fiddled with his black cap nervously.
Then his eyes flickered over Swan and froze.
Swan offered him the smile that the lion has for the gazelle.
‘In the aftermath of such a brilliant stroke, surely we should be thanking God,’ said the bishop.
The captain bowed. ‘What we should be doing is attacking their rearguard and stinging the bastards so that they think twice about coming back.’ He looked at the president. ‘What we are doing is – nothing.’
‘More violence may only force the Turk into greater efforts!’ the president said. But he was looking at Swan, and sweating.
Swan didn’t push past the bishop. Life at his father’s episcopal court – and at Hampton and with Bessarion – had taught him a great deal about patience. And revenge.
Instead of acting prematurely, he watched the bishop. The man was almost a head taller than the president, and looked more like a man-at-arms than some of the men-at-arms. He spread his arms and gave an invocation, and then all the people in the square knelt and said three prayers.
And then the bishop glanced at Swan.
Swan stepped forward past the bishop, and placed himself in front of the president.
‘You have misplayed your hand, you know,’ Swan said pleasantly. ‘The Turks are beaten and they will run. They know the Allied fleet is on the way.’
‘There is no Allied fleet!’ the terrified man hissed.
Swan, who knew perfectly well that there was no Allied fleet, kept his composure. ‘You can’t imagine that the Turks are running from nothing?’ He smiled. ‘I call on you to release this sortie, to wreak the havoc on the infidel that is your duty – your duty!’ Swan bowed. ‘And please, release my friend the Lord of Eressos immediately.’ Swan leaned over and spoke very quietly. ‘I have your correspondence with Drappierro.’
Swan had also learned, in gutters and palaces, that sometimes a really big lie is better than any amount of truth.
The president turned a chalky white.
He stepped back as if struck – and raised a hand. But he was not utterly without cunning. ‘You will ride with the sortie, sir?' he said, his voice already rich with unction. ‘A man as full of knightly virtue as you!’
Swan laughed. He had laughed more in the last six hours …
‘I will ride with the sortie, unarmoured. I will go unto the battle front like Uriah, but I will not be touched.’ He grinned like a maniac at the president of the Mahona. And held up his left hand, where a brilliantly carved diamond glittered. ‘Because I am invincible,’ he said.
He bowed to the bishop, and one of the bishop’s servants ran for a horse.
What he got was a fine black churchman’s horse, a heavy beast that the bishop rode in parades and occasionally to falconry. But Swan didn’t care.
He vaulted into his saddle, and joined the captain of the town.
The mercenary was no older than Swan, and wore a fortune in armour. ‘Messire is a Knight of the Order?’ he asked. The bishop’s servants handed Swan gauntlets and a bevoir for his neck and a fine German sallet – none fit well, but all were far better than nothing. And a sword and a dagger.
‘I’m merely a volunteer,’ Swan admitted.
The young captain twirled his moustache. ‘Well, by Saint George, Messire has already won the day with the Mahona, so if Messire would do my little company the honour of carrying the standard of the town, perhaps we will show these worthy Turks that Italians have some skill in arms. Eh?’
Swan took the lance with the town’s small standard.
With mounted crossbowmen and every local gentleman who had a horse and arms, they mustered a hundred cavalry for the sortie.
The Turks were well prepared for such a move, and the captain, for all his youth, was too professional to waste men late in a victory, so the next hour was spent in a series of dashes from cover to cover, quite unlike Swan’s former notions of armoured combat on horseback before he came out to Rhodos. Under the captain’s shouted commands, they would ride at the beach, swerve in behind a hill, and their crossbowmen would snipe at the enemy rearguard from cover, while pages held their horses – and then, when the janissaries prepared a counter attack, the men-at-arms would sweep away.
It was exactly the sort of warfare that Swan had practised under the turcopilier of Rhodos.
By the time the sun was high in the sky, Swan, in almost no armour, had sweated through all his clothes, and the fully armoured men’s faces were as red as beets when they raised their visors or removed their armets or sallets.
There were fewer than a dozen Turkish ships left on the beach when the janissary commander made his lethal error. He had a great deal of beach to cover, and he elected to spread his men in open ranks – only two deep, and four paces between men.
The captain was eating an apple. He watched for a moment, and turned to Swan. ‘It is like the moment when she kisses you – you know what I mean, messire?’
Swan laughed. ‘Oh, I do,’ he said.
When they charged, the Turkish bows plucked men from saddles – or shot horses. But the Turks were too thinly distributed to stop the charge, and clearly had been misled as to their number – and in the time it takes a man to bleed out, the situation went from an organised retreat to a rout, and then the horsemen were in among the galleys, killing sailors, and after that, it was a massacre. The oarsmen were mostly slaves – and as soon as the horseman came down the beach, they screamed like ghazis and ripped at their captors with their bare hands.
It was too late to be decisive. Eight of the dozen galleys got off the beach, and there was little the horsemen could do to stop them. But four ships were taken. And when the Turks tried to come in with other ships and take them back, they were greeted by the Italian captain’s little surprise – a pair of guns on wheeled carriages.
The Turks ran for the open sea, and the garrison cheered from the walls.
When they returned through the sally port, the Lord of Eressos stood there in half-armour with a borrowed sword.
‘Damn you!’ he said. ‘I’ve missed everything!’
Swan slid from his borrowed horse. ‘I doubt it. I think this war will go on a long, long time.’
He introduced the captain of the town to his Lesbian friend, and the three of them, when the horses were curried and the weapons cleaned, proceeded to bathe – first in water, and later in adulation.
Late that night, Swan sat in a waterfront taverna, and gazed at the diamond on his finger.
‘Is that the jewel that the whoreson Drappierro wanted?’ The Lord of Eressos spread his hands.
Swan looked at him. ‘Where did you hear that?’ he asked, his head racing. Theodora said …
‘People talk.’ Zambale smiled, then shrugged. ‘I suppose one of the guards said something.’
Swan looked at him in wine-soaked puzzlement. ‘What would they know? Drappierro sent everyone out of the room.’
And then it hit him. Drappierro had spies everywhere – on Chios and Lesvos. Swan’s eyes locked with Zambale’s.
He regretted opening his mouth.
Zambale backed up a step and drew a dagger.
‘Son of a bitch,’ Swan said. He got his back to the wall and reached for his borrowed sword.
It wasn’t there, of course. It was leaning against the wall of the bishop’s palace.
‘You have to know everything, do you not, Englishman?’ Zambale flicked the dagger with easy competence between his hands.
The Italian captain took a sip of wine.
‘In this case,’ Swan said, ‘I can let it go. If you can.’
Zambale pursed his lips.
Swan didn’t relax – he was in one of the guards the order taught – but he raised a hand. ‘Zambale – I like you. Let it go. I don’t care. If you reported to Drappierro, or if you didn’t – I don’t care.’
‘Always the hero. With Prince Dorino, and now, here.’ Zambale’s face was twisted with rage – or grief. The dagger flicked into his right hand – point down.
‘Walk away,’ Swan said.
Almost as if the dagger was controlling the man, the right arm went up, and Zambale slammed the dagger at Swan overhand.
Swan took the weight of the blow with his open left hand – which then closed like a vice, thumb down, on Zambale’s wrist. He twisted, and Zambale’s face came so close that they were eye to eye, nose to nose, as Swan twisted the other man’s wrist on the blade of the dagger and stripped the weapon, which fell to the floor with a clatter.
He backed away, leaving the other man with nothing but a sore shoulder.
The Italian captain took another sip of wine.
The prostitutes and the wine-boys were watching intently.
Zambale sighed. He sank to one knee – and plucked up the dagger. ‘Fuck you,’ he said, in Italian.
The Italian captain drew his dagger and tossed it across the table to Swan, who caught it by the blade and flipped it into his hand.
‘Walk away,’ Swan said, again. ‘Whatever you think is worth this – manhood, honour, chivalry, money – it’s not worth it. All lies. Walk away.’
Zambale shouted incoherently and lunged, and Swan killed him.
‘Giovanni della Scalle,’ the Italian captain said, introducing himself. ‘You have killed before, I think.’
‘Many times,’ Swan said, in utter self-disgust. He drank down another cup of wine.
Della Scalle shook his head and made a wry face. ‘I think that you tried not to kill him. I did not really understand – I’m sorry, I didn’t know what was happening.’ His insincerity was as alarming as his initial reluctance – Swan thought that Della Scalle could have disarmed Zambale at any time.
Swan bowed and returned his cleaned dagger to the man. ‘Messire, I hope it is so, and you will pardon my cynicism, but it must be very convenient in certain quarters that Messire Drappierro’s friend here is … dead.’
Della Salle blinked, and his eyebrows rose. ‘Very convenient,’ he said. ‘I ought to arrest you, as duelling is illegal, but I find that you acted in self-defence, and I will so report it to the Mahona.’ He leaned forward. ‘I might have killed you, too. My employer would fancy that.’ He nodded.
‘I need to leave this place,’ Swan said.
Two days later, a fishing boat carrying the English squire doubled the long point guarding the Bay of Kalloni and turned into the channel itself on a favouring wind. As the arms of the land opened, Swan could see all the way down the great bay. He could see the pair of galleys on guard just a few bowshots into the bay, and behind them …
… behind them were forty galleys – some with the arms of the Gattelusi, and some with the arms of the order, and another dozen with the arms of Venice.
Swan watched them for hours as his fishing boat tacked down the bay, and twice, he wept.
Eventually, he found himself before Fra Tommaso in the great stern cabin of the Blessed Saint John.
Fra Tommaso sat quietly, hands crossed.
Swan stood in silence, too, after an initial bow.
Finally, Tommaso cleared his throat. ‘I’m glad you survived,’ he said.
Swan didn’t really trust himself to speak. He tried twice, and Fra Tommaso handed him a cup of sweet wine.
After he had taken a sip, he managed to begin. He wanted to be calm, and rational. And instead, all he could find was anger.
‘It was all a ruse!’ he said.
Fra Tommaso looked away. Swan had to admit to himself that the man was genuinely moved.
Swan shook his head. ‘Drappierro was not a spy,’ he said.
Fra Tommaso spread his hands. ‘That is between Messire Drappierro and God,’ he said. ‘But I think the truth is that he was a very good spy.’
‘Drappierro was playing the double agent, but all along he was helping to pin the Turkish fleet in place on pointless little sieges until you rallied the great powers.’ Swan pointed out of the beautifully glazed stern windows at the fleet arrayed behind them. ‘You have the ships for a battle. Odds of two to one are nothing to the order.’ He could not conceal his bitterness. ‘You must have been ready to pounce on their vanguard.’
‘Yes,’ the old man said. ‘When they separated half their fleet, we sent for the Venetians.’ He shrugged. ‘They came a day late – after the Turks scuttled away.’ Tommaso shook his head. ‘There will be no battle now. Would I be a foolish old man if I guessed that you started the fire on the Turkish flagship?’
Swan nodded.
Fra Tommaso hung his head. ‘Thy will be done,’ he said to the crucifix that hung on the cabin wall.
‘I also forged a letter from Fra Domenico ordering Drappierro to lure the Turks into pressing the siege of Chios until he could launch his counter-attack.’ Swan chewed and spat each word. ‘I hid it where the Turks were sure to find it after they captured me.’
Fra Tommaso nodded. ‘Brilliant,’ he said.
‘But Fra Domenico sent me for the opposite reason, did he not? The ring was the signal – the ring would tell Drappierro that all was well, and my presence was the guarantee to the Turks that all was exactly as Drappierro was telling them. It was double bluff, and I ruined it.’
Fra Tommaso looked up and met his eye. ‘We didn’t trust you.’ His eyes dropped. ‘It is God’s will.’ He shook his head. ‘We will never have another Christian fleet like this – not for a hundred years.’ But then he raised his eyes. ‘But you will recall that I never wanted this course of action. I am of the faction in the order that says that our duty is to the sick and the poor, and not to Genoa or Venice.’
Swan drew the ring of the conqueror from his finger and threw it on the table. ‘Here. Keep it.’ He turned to leave, and paused.
Fra Tommaso narrowed his eyes. He looked at it and sighed. ‘How did you preserve the ring?’ he asked.
Swan knew he was bragging. But he couldn’t help himself. ‘I had a copy made,’ he said. ‘I gave Drappierro the copy. It was dark.’ He placed his donat’s ring on the table next to the conqueror’s ring. ‘Neither of these will make anyone invincible,’ he said.
‘Drappierro is still alive,’ Fra Tommaso said. ‘Keep it. Fra Domenico gave it to you. You are angry – but this is God’s will. I do not pretend to understand to what end God works. Take the rings – both of them. And stop being a boy. Be a man. Yes, we used you. If we had ordered you to board a Turkish galley alone, you would have gone, and died. Yes?’
Swan thought for a moment, and then nodded. ‘Yes.’
Fra Tommaso met his eyes squarely. ‘You were expendable. If you succeeded too well …’ He shrugged. ‘At the very least, you saved the lives of hundreds of men who would, in this very hour, be locked in mortal combat – Christians and infidels.’ The old man shrugged. ‘But don’t play the injured innocent. It’s a dirty business. That is war.’
In the end, Swan took the rings, and a blessing.
Ancona, in late summer, bore no shadow of the conflict raging at the other end of the Mediterranean. The fishing fleet dotted the sea, and the great round ships and fast galleys of the merchants studded the wharves, and so great was the peace then reigning that Ancona had both Genoese and Venetian shipping in the harbour when Swan’s ship dropped anchor.
He ordered his armour and kit unloaded and left Peter to watch it while he ran up the streets of the town to his rented house. The smile on his face was so wide that other men and women smiled to see him, and men recognised him and called out, so he had to stop three times and be welcomed.
And then he was in his own street, and he went to the door and knocked.
After a few minutes, a cold hand seemed to grip his heart.
And when the bell rang the hour, his landlady came to her door. She looked frightened.
‘Where is my wife?’ he asked.
She put a hand to her mouth and slammed her door.
Before Swan could leave his landing, her servant brought him a sealed letter. He knew Violetta’s hand immediately.
He opened it in eager relief – in one minute, he’d feared plague, robbery, kidnapping, and Messire Drappierro’s assassins.
My dear Tommaso, it began.
He read a sentence or two, and then his eyes lost their ability to see and for a moment, the world went white.
He went to an inn and ordered wine.
When his head was better, he read:
My dear Tommaso,
I have left you, and taken all your money. I am truly sorry, but it is dull here, and my soul tells me you are dead. And if you are not – well, I enjoyed playing your wife, but I do not think either one of us meant it for ever, did we?
I will go to Milan with an old friend, and cause you no scandal. I will remember our Christmas with pleasure.
I found studying medicine dull. Only men could take the saving of lives and turn it into something dead. I spit on them.
If you come to Milan – well, do not expect to be my husband, or my pimp, and we will be friends.
Violetta
Swan read it six or seven times, and finally he raised his face at a startled servant girl and grinned.
‘Well, well,’ he said.
Later, he told the entire tale to Peter, who knew everything anyway, and to Antoine, who had spent four months cooking for strangers and was obviously happy to have escaped the Turks.
Peter shrugged with Dutch sangfroid.
Antoine smiled into his wine. ‘I liked her,’ he said. ‘But she was not anyone’s wife.’
Swan bowed to the truth of the statement and raised his cup. ‘To Violetta,’ he said.
The candlelight winked on Alexander’s ring.
And ten days later, Swan stood before Cardinal Bessarion, with Peter and Antoine at his shoulders. He’d been careful crossing Rome – but not too careful. He rather fancied a fight with the Orsini.
Bessarion embraced him and offered his ring for a kiss.
Swan handed the cardinal a thick packet of papers. ‘From your steward on Lesvos,’ he said.
Bessarion laughed. ‘I gather you return a Christian hero,’ he said.
‘Perhaps,’ Swan allowed. He raised a hand. ‘First – how is Di Brachio? And Giannis? And the rest – Cesare?’
The cardinal nodded. ‘Di Brachio is still recovering. He had more than a month with the fever. Messire Cesare is at the Curia even now. Giannis and his wife no longer live here, but remain in my employ.’ The cardinal reached across his desk and squeezed Swan’s hand. ‘By God, sir, it is good to have you back. I have a letter from the master of the order praising your work – and your courage.’ Bessarion raised an eyebrow. ‘I have a meeting in five minutes – tell me quickly and then take some weeks and write a full report. Did you catch the spy?’
Swan thought of Drappierro. And he thought of Prince Dorino, and his three traitors.
‘No,’ he said.
Bessarion shrugged. ‘It was a long shot at best.’ He rang the bell on his desk and rose. ‘You have a star from heaven on your finger.’
Swan drew it off and handed it to the cardinal. ‘I’m told it was the signet ring of the great Alexander.’
Bessarion slipped it on his finger. ‘We’ll dicker later. As usual, you have exceeded my expectations. Go and sin with your friends, and I’ll see you when I can make time for a cup of wine. Go – go – I don’t want the Pope’s French secretary to even know you exist.’
Swan slipped out the private door into the servants' corridor, and was enfolded in a deep embrace.
He looked into Di Brachio’s eyes. They were slightly too bright, as if fever had marked him – but he had weight on, and some muscles, and looked a little more alive than the last time Swan had seen him.
Alessandro grinned. ‘You English – everything loud, eh? Could you not have saved Chios quietly?’ He embraced the Englishman again.
Swan grinned back. ‘I missed you – and Giannis and Cesare – every day. I was … way over my head.’
‘Ah!’ Di Brachio said. ‘Welcome to the profession.’
And that night, they sat in a small, quiet inn north of the forum – all seven of them. Giovanni Acudi was brilliant in scarlet robes, and De Brescia looked more prosperous then Swan had ever seen him. Giannis and his new wife Irene sat hand in hand, almost uninterested in the others, and Peter sat with Di Brachio. The cardinal’s other Greeks were on a mission. It was not discussed.
He heard that De Brescia had been all the way to the Germanies and back, and that Acudi was trying a case against the Orsini and had to be protected by Giannis and thirty men. They drank, and drank, and went to vespers and returned and drank more.
‘What were you doing in Germany?’ Swan asked De Brescia, who laughed.
‘What indeed?’ the man answered. ‘I went to great conference – almost a parliament. Every ruler in Europe sent their representatives. They met to discuss a crusade, and I believe that I have never seen so many nobly born fools posture so ineptly. The Emperor sponsored the conference – although he does not want a crusade – and the English and French helped pay for it – although they hate each other worse than twenty Turks.’ He shrugged. ‘I was bribed every day.’ He snorted.
Giannis leaned forward. ‘Despite which, the Hungarians and the Germans may put something together.’ He put a finger to the side of his nose. ‘Do you know who this man is, called Hunyadi?’
Di Brachio smiled. ‘Fancy a visit to Romania?’ he asked, and everyone laughed except Peter and Swan, neither of whom understood.
Acudi drew on the table in wine. ‘Mehmet is going to try to take all the rest of the Empire,’ he said. ‘He has four armies preparing.’
‘And the Crusaders and their legate will rally to the Hungarians at Belgrade,’ Di Brachio said.
Swan shook his head. ‘I have a report to write,’ he said. But he laughed. And before the evening ended, they all drank to it.
‘To Belgrade!’ they all shouted.
