Tom Swan and the Head of St. George Part Five: Rhodes (2 page)

‘Find us a place to drink, or we’ll ride off and leave you,’ the Fleming said.

Swan indicated his escort. ‘My men need a place to drink.’ He frowned. ‘They don’t share my enthusiasm for the past.’

The priest nodded with complete understanding. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘My wife neither.’

Back aboard ship, Swan lost no time in laying his prizes out on the table in the main cabin. He had a small blank book he’d acquired in Ancona, and he began to make notes of the things he bought.

Fra Tommaso appeared at the door. ‘Our guest is returning,’ he said. ‘What on earth is that?’

Swan shrugged. ‘A marble phallus. A man’s penis. No idea what it was for.’

The old knight shook his head. But he picked up an ornate helmet with cheek plates that still moved on their hinges and put it on his head. It sat on his wool cap.

‘Good vision,’ he said. ‘How old is this?’

Swan shrugged again. But he was happy to have the knight’s interest, and he stood up, cracking his head on the deck beams and subsiding while the knight laughed.

‘Some day, I’ll make a sailor of you,’ he said.

‘I think it’s from before Christ. Before Rome. There was a great battle at Marathon that set Athens on her road to greatness – at least, that’s what Herodotus says. I went there. I bought the helmet from the priest.’

‘I like it,’ said the knight. ‘The time of Troy!’

Swan smiled. ‘Near enough,’ he said. He’d learned that, like convincing adults of his innocence, teaching people about the complications of history was largely a waste of his time.

Drappierro poked his head in through the door. ‘Gentlemen,’ he said in his deadpan voice, and then he saw the helmet. ‘But it is magnificent!’ he exclaimed.

Fra Tommaso handed it to him silently, and the man all but glowed. He ran his fingers over the fine web of embossed olive leaves and lions at the brow. ‘Please allow me to buy this from you,’ Drappierro said. Then he looked at the table. His fingers darted out and grabbed the matching seal rings.

‘Where did you find these?’ he asked.

Swan sat back comfortably. ‘I spent three days searching for them, messire.’

Drappierro looked at him, eyes narrowed. ‘Where?’ he asked.

Swan had played cards long enough to keep his face blank. ‘Near Athens,’ he said.

‘I’ll take them – and the helmet. What’s this?’ he said, putting a hand on the phallus and then pulling it away as if burned. ‘Obscene! And the rest of this is junk.’

He began to admire the seals. Then he dropped them in his purse.

Swan thought,
And they call me a thief!
‘Messire needs to purchase them if he desires them so strongly.’

Drappierro flicked his fingers. ‘Talk to my staff. I do not deal in domestic matters.’

Swan leaned forward, slapped a hand on the table, and with the ease of long practice, slipped Drappierro’s purse off its hook while the man was watching his other hand. He withdrew his rings, took his helmet off the table, and bowed.

‘When you have negotiated a price and paid it, you may have these items, messire, and not until then. I collect for the Pope and several cardinals and the – ’ he hoped his hesitation didn’t show – ‘the Duke of Milan.’

Drappierro shot to his feet and fetched his head a staggering blow against the deck beams. He fell, almost unconscious.

Swan took the moment to sweep the rest of his acquisitions into a bag. He was tempted to empty the Genoese man’s purse, but he managed to resist. He tossed it on the table with a healthy clink and went on deck.

The second leg of their voyage was far more comfortable than the first, mostly because Peter had arranged for deck space among the Burgundian archers, and Swan slept both warm and well between Antoine and Peter. Antoine was as welcome with the archers as Peter – even more so when he made them bread in a hastily rigged clay oven on an open beach not far from where the Persian fleet failed to defeat the Greek fleet at Artemesium. The Genoese ambassador had a stop to make on Naxos, and Swan again visited the market and bought coins and a dagger.

A day out of Naxos, he was playing chess with the captain on the quarterdeck. The day was fine, and it seemed possible that spring was not so very far away. The Genoese ambassador came on deck, climbed the ladder to the quarterdeck as if he owned it, and stood watching the sea. He leaned on the rail and watched the game for a dozen moves.

‘I do want to buy those pieces,’ he said without preamble. ‘Cyriaco collected for me. He never charged me. I assumed you were working for him.’ The man’s voice was mild. ‘I apologise for my apparent theft.’

Swan shot to his feet and swept his best bow. ‘I knew that a gentleman of your distinction would be under some misapprehension,’ he said.

‘How much for the helmet and the rings?’ Drappierro asked. Then, his expression slipping, he said, ‘You haven’t already sold them?’

Swan wanted to laugh aloud.
How did this man rise to greatness in Genoa?
he asked himself.
He wears his heart on his face!
He rubbed his chin. ‘I’ll sell you both rings and the helmet for two hundred ducats, messire.’

Drappierro nodded. ‘Done. See my chamberlain. See? I am not so unreasonable. When you have been paid, kindly bring them to me. Are we satisfied?’

Swan nodded. ‘Completely so, messire.’ He tried not to roll his eyes.

Drappierro’s chamberlain was a Phokaian Greek called Katzou. He shrugged at the news and opened a small chest and emptied it into Swan’s hat. He made no complaint, checked no document and asked for no validation, and Swan briefly considered a life of crime, but reminded himself that he would be trapped aboard the galley with his victims.

He carried the antiquities to the main cabin, knocked and took them to Drappierro, who sat as he always did at the main table as if he, and not Fra Tommaso, was the captain of the vessel.

‘Ah!’ he said, looking up. His eyes held the kind of lust that Swan associated with old men and much younger women. He snatched the rings from Swan’s hand, looked at them for three deep breaths, and then took the helmet.

Swan turned to go. At the rate of profit, a few more finds sold to Messire Drappierro would allow him to settle comfortably in Ancona and make babies with Violetta. He didn’t need the man to be polite – merely to pay.

‘Wait – Messire Suani.’ The Genoese ambassador raised his hand. ‘I am an abrupt man – I know it. But I see you have taste and some training – hence your friendship with Cyriaco. So – you saw the knight of the order at Monemvasia?’

Drappierro’s abrupt conversational direction changes left Swan gasping like a fish. But he did his best, recovered and bowed.

‘Your Excellency no doubt refers to Fra Domenico?’ he asked.

Drappierro waved. ‘That sounds right. A notorious pirate, albeit one who tends to favour my city.’

Swan nodded carefully.

‘Young man, did you happen to note what the knight wore on his finger?’ asked Drappierro.

Swan pursed his lips and decided on honesty. ‘A ring. Very early – possibly Hellenistic. The gem is a diamond.’

Drappierro looked at him. It was the first time they had met eye to eye – Drappierro’s gaze burned like the look of a religious fanatic at devotions. ‘A diamond, you say?’ he said. ‘Why do you think so?’

Swan eased himself into the cushioned seats against the stern windows. The winter sun reflected off the sea and on to the gleaming white ceiling of the cabin. The heavy deck beams were painted black and red in alternating succession, and the effect with the sun-dapple was stark and beautiful.

Drappierro hadn’t invited him to sit, but Swan was not interested in standing like a servant for this man.

‘I’ve held it in my hand,’ Swan said.

Drappierro leaned forward. ‘You have? Tell me of it in detail.’

Swan smiled. ‘First, it is called “The Ring of the Conqueror”,’ he said. ‘It is Alexander’s signet ring.’

Drappierro became so red in the face that Swan was afraid the man was going to have a seizure. ‘Messire? Do you need water?’

Drappierro leaned back. ‘I have heard of this thing. How do you know it is the real ring?’

Swan shrugged. ‘I do not know. But Fra Domenico believes it is, as did the Turkish corsair from whom he took it.’

‘By the saints – he had it from Khaireddin,’ Drappierro said. ‘It
is
the ring.’ His slightly mad eyes met Swan’s. ‘What’s carved in the jewel?’

‘Herakles,’ Swan said, in Greek. ‘His head, anyway!’

Drappierro sighed. ‘Why didn’t I stop and look at it? Listen, Messire Suani. The Grand Turk wants that ring. Very badly. If I could give it to him, I could get any treaty I wanted. Perhaps even reclaim some of my losses from the infidel.’

‘Swan, messire. I am English.’ Swan nodded agreeably. ‘I suspect the knight would sell it – for a substantial sum. I heard him mention ten thousand ducats.’

Drappierro frowned. ‘I will consider this. The man who brought me that ring would be … my friend.’ He settled his mad eyes on Swan. ‘In the East, my friends prosper. Cyriaco recommended you to me. See what you can do.’

Swan decided that this had gone far enough – although he was intrigued. ‘I am merely a soldier of the order,’ he said.

‘Save it for the knights,’ Drappierro said. ‘I know what you are. I saw you take my purse.’ He smiled, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. ‘How about that wife of yours, in Ancona?’

Swan had been caught in too many lies to fall easily for such stuff. ‘What’s that, messire? I’m afraid I do not understand.’

‘I think you understand me very well, Englishman. Fra Diablo will come out to Rhodos this summer. You get the ring, and bring it to me, and I will see to it that your fortune is made. Or – fail me, and see what happens.’

‘You want me to steal a valuable ring from a knight of my own order?’ Swan said, standing up carefully and raising his voice.

Drappierro grew red in the face.

Swan slipped out from behind the table. ‘I’ll pretend I never heard that,’ he said, with all the outraged innocence that a bastard son of a Southwark whore could learn to muster in a childhood spent in taverns, brothels and the English court. He stalked to the cabin door and slammed it on his way out.

He went and finished his chess game. Fra Tommaso raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

East of Delos, they finally paid the price of sailing in winter. The blow came off Africa, full of sand, and then, without warning, the wind shifted through half the compass and blew off Thrace, and came full of snow. The Burgundians laughed – at first. They helped clear the snow away, and the sailors laughed and played in it until it began to clog the rigging and all the blocks, and then the ropes began to freeze, and darkness fell. The big lateen sail was shortened twice, and then taken in altogether, and they ran downwind towards Africa with the whole weight of the Thracian storm under their stern, and Tom Swan had his first experience of staying on deck and on duty until his knees wouldn’t hold him. For hours, he and the old knight were lashed to the tiller, a heavy linen tarpaulin impregnated with red lead and linseed oil wrapped around them with two old wool blankets, the whole thing flapping in the wind.

The morning of the fourth day crept up on wolf’s feet, the grey enveloping the ship so slowly that they were shocked to find how much they could see before a long squall hit and blinded them again, and pushed the long, slim ship over on its beam ends for so long that Swan, standing in water and the whole weight of his body against the starboard rail, thought the ship was lost.

They righted, the central deck full of water, and the oarsmen made a desperate attempt to bail. Men were soaked, and cold, and the wind was unrelenting.

The old knight rose to the challenge, calling orders into the waist of the ship and being obeyed. As the wind slackened towards noon, he called for more sail, and they slanted away to the west.

By nightfall, Antoine had a small fire going amid the stinking sand of the forward bilge, where galleys lit fires in times of dire need. The sand stank because in storms men feared to relieve themselves over the side, and did their business in the sand of the hold – despite a thousand orders to the contrary.

But Antoine’s special talent was his ability to light a fire in any weather, and he added bits of wood salvaged from the storm – a broken chest, a fractured stool – to the firewood kept for just such moments. Then he produced a pair of copper pots and began to heat water, and served a hot concoction of malmsey wine, water, sugar and spices that raised spirits above the masthead. He went on making the concoction until the galley lumbered into Rhodos with two men dead of exposure and a badly sprung bow where the ship had hit a floating tree in the darkness of their last night. They were long since out of food, and the men were not exactly sober, but the ship glided down the long harbour, the oars frothed the water as they slowed, and Fra Tommaso, at the helm in person, put the ship alongside the quay as neatly as a whore hooking a customer at the fair.

Every oarsman and every sailor bent and kissed the stones of the quay as they disembarked.

Messire Drappierro stood on the quay in a dry wool gown and looked sour. ‘Now I’m days out of my way,’ he said. ‘I have no need to visit Rhodos.’

Fra Tommaso was supervising the unloading of the corpses of the men who’d died at sea. He glanced at the Genoese. ‘You and your entourage are welcome to catch a different ship,’ he said quietly. ‘I warned Your Excellency when you came aboard that no ship of the order would be welcome in the Golden Horn.’

‘And I told you not to be an old woman.’ Drappierro curled his lip. ‘I can see to such things.’

Fra Tommaso’s face remained unchanged. ‘Perhaps, but, as I am an old woman, it is not a risk I choose to run. There are two Genoese ships across the harbour. I’ll see to it that one of them takes you up the coast.’

Drappierro shrugged. To Katzou, he said, ‘Find an inn. Get our kit unloaded.’ He looked at Swan. ‘Don’t forget the ring,’ he said.

‘He’s insane,’ Swan said after the ambassador was gone.

The knight shook his head. ‘No. Merely full of a sense of his own power. Money and worldly power do this to men. They become … less than human. He cannot see a world beyond himself. It is sad – I knew him slightly as a younger man. He was a bold adventurer, a charming man. He made too much money, and now he sees himself …’ The knight caught himself.