Tom Swan and the Last Spartans 2

by Christian Cameron

  Swan made a reverence and didn’t fall over. Skanderbeg smiled. ‘You will come?’

  ‘May I have the other Turkish prisoner?’ Swan asked.

  Skanderbeg embraced Swan. ‘I give him back to you. Also, a new steel cap from Milan and a good Turkish sword. I must ride. Two of my best will ride with you until Belgrade, and if you want to find me, come back with them.’

  Swan followed the Albanian chieftain out of the pavilion. Alessandro was talking to a pair of ruffians who spoke good, if rather Neapolitan, Italian.

  ‘This is John, and this is Stephan. Both of them have been … hmm … with me for a long time.’ The two men bowed. Swan could not remember meeting two more dangerous-looking men. Both had fine lines like the cracks in an old icon radiating from their eyes and covering every part of their faces except their high cheekbones. Both wore kaftans and Turkish caps. They were short, grey-eyed, heavily muscled, and their eyes were like sword blades, devoid of any emotion.

  Swan took each of their hands in turn. ‘A pleasure to have you with me, gentlemen,’ he said.

  ‘Huh,’ said Stephan.

  ‘Sure,’ said John. He smiled. It was such a false smile that Swan almost reached for his dagger.

  The next morning, they left with the dawn. Slaves took down the tent and packed it on a mule while the furnishings went into a two-wheeled cart. A dozen soldiers as blank-eyed as John and Stephan guarded the little baggage train and watched the slaves as they went off to the south, while Swan and Alessandro and their party went due east along what appeared to be an old Roman road into the hills.

  ‘Does Umar speak Turkish?’ Swan asked.

  ‘He’s from Morocco,’ Bembo said with a smile. ‘So no.’

  Swan nodded and concentrated on riding. The movement of the horse made his head hurt. Everything made his head hurt.

  The Turkish prisoner rode with the two Albanians. From time to time the three men burst into raucous laughter.

  Bembo looked at them and shrugged.

  Swan nodded agreement.

  For three days, Swan was fully employed in staying in his saddle and not being a burden. The level of misery ebbed and flowed, but it was bad enough at the best of times, and the fact that his cautiously probing fingers found a soft spot in his head made him feel physically sick. Or rather, more sick.

  But as they entered Serbia and the ground got lower and broader, Swan’s head began to come up. He ate a large portion of the deer John felled with an arrow, and whole hours passed in which he could think and ride without too much attention.

  Every village they passed had tales of the plague, and some of them told of Turkish marauders in the countryside, and a day’s ride south of Belgrade a headman offered Swan money to be allowed to lynch his prisoner.

  On the next day they met a strong party of armed Serbs, a dozen knights and forty men-at-arms and mounted retainers, all in heavy maille without much plate and riding excellent horses. They welcomed Swan and glared with suspicion at the Albanians.

  ‘They are all Turks,’ one of the knights said. ‘Not a true Christian among them.’

  ‘Our prince is pulling all of us to the south,’ he said to Bembo when asked. ‘The plague is terrible. It is spreading to the villages. They say Hunyadi died of it.’ All the Serbs crossed themselves.

  Swan rode forward. In Latin he said, ‘Hunyadi is dead? You know this?’

  The knights looked at each other. ‘It is what everyone says,’ the leader acknowledged. ‘No one wants to face the plague. If you have any sense, you’ll turn your horse’s head and come with us.’

  ‘Who is fighting the Turks?’ Swan asked. ‘Where is the army?’

  ‘No one!’ The Serb laughed. ‘What’s the point? They lost their whole army at Belgrade. If Hunyadi is dead … there’s a whole different war to fight.’ He spat. ‘There is no army. Capistrano is going home to Germany. The crusaders are afraid of the plague and go with him.’

  All the Serbs nodded. ‘Now we can take back what Hunyadi stole,’ said one.

  Another man spoke in Serbian and Swan couldn’t understand, but there was immediate bickering.

  “Let’s go,’ Swan said.

  ‘You’ll be sorry if you go to Belgrade,’ the Serb said.

  ‘I’m sorry now,’ Swan answered. ‘If Hunyadi is dead …’

  ‘I have to go,’ Swan said. ‘It is my duty. Hunyadi is probably in the citadel. He may be alive. I have ten thousand ducats for him. We could change the course of the war.’

  Alessandro nodded. ‘We won’t change the war. War never changes,’ he said. ‘But I agree. I want to come. But let Clemente and Umar and Kendal stay away. The plague …’

  ‘Agreed,’ Swan said. ‘And the Albanians?’

  ‘A problem,’ Bembo admitted.

  ‘I expected to find the army here. I have a company of lances. Unless they are all dead, or left for Vienna.’ Swan shrugged. He was shrugging a great deal these days. His head hurt, but he didn’t care much. He found he didn’t particularly want to see Belgrade again.

  They rode north along the Danube, all the way to one of Hunyadi’s former camps, a dozen leagues. There Swan found some of László’s knights, led by Pongrácz Dengelegi, known to the Germans and Italians as Ser Pangratius. Pangratius agreed to take Swan’s men.

  ‘We hear nothing, except to avoid the plague. Everyone is in a panic.’ He frowned. ‘Hargotai is with László Hunyadi. If the old man is going, we’re in for a war with the king, at least. Count Cilli is gathering an army of mercenaries to come and take Belgrade from us.’

  ‘You mean, having cowered in Vienna while Hunyadi beat the Turks …’ Bembo cursed.

  Swan waved at the Venetian. ‘Lord Alessandro Bembo of Venice,’ he said grandly. ‘Here to see for himself.’

  Pangratius smiled grimly. ‘Well, if you go to Belgrade, you will most certainly see,’ he said.

  Belgrade was a ghost. A hideous, undead ghost. A shattered ruin of its proud past, towers splintered, walls breached, houses burned.

  In many places, the dead had not been buried – the Turkish dead. Dogs had eaten them, or wolves, or worse. The corpses were horrible, the worst Swan had ever seen, faces ripped away, eyeballs rotting, teeth showing in vicious grins of dead hate. They had lain in the sun for almost sixty days. The smell was abhorrent.

  The city itself was almost silent. In the upper town, a woman had died of the plague and lay in the street, her shoulders and neck covered in pustules. A man, perhaps a soldier, sat as if resting with his back against the wall of a shop, his body slouched forward. He did not move as their horses plodded by, and Swan could see the maggots writhing in his neck where the cowl of his hood had been ripped. His gorge rose.

  He’d started by telling Bembo of the events of the siege place by place, but by the time they’d entered the choked streets of the upper town, both men had linen over their mouths so that they would not breathe in the awful miasma, and Swan was done talking.

  The citadel was still untouched by Turkish guns, and inside the main gate there was discipline, although there was also plague, and the soldiers on duty at the gate kept their distance from Swan.

  They recognised him, however. And allowed both of the foreigners to pass.

  No one knew if Hunyadi was dead or alive, but he was reputed to be in the castle with both of his sons. Swan and Bembo left their horses in the courtyard, a courtyard that at the height of the siege had bustled with laundresses and soldiers and was now empty and silent. But as they entered the great yard, a dozen grooms began to lead warhorses out of the lower stables. Swan knew László Hunyadi’s horse immediately, having spent the summer looking at it.

  They passed two gates and found László Hunyadi with a dozen of his knights and household retainers. The younger Hunyadi did not hesitate to embrace Swan.

  ‘Your father?’ Swan asked.

  ‘Dead two weeks ago,’ László said. ‘I am keeping it secret until I can raise an army in the west country to face Cilli. I have to
go to parliament and answer charges levelled at my father – corruption charges. Cilli plans to take Belgrade behind me when I go.’ He smiled bitterly. ‘Actually, this is what the glorious Count Cilli intends to do to my father. I hope he does not yet know my father is dead.’

  ‘You will fight?’ Swan asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Hunyadi said. ‘I must go. My father is lying in state. That is, tomorrow they move his rotting corpse to the monastery, where they will bury it. If you wish to dare the plague …’ He pointed vaguely at the fortress chapel.

  The younger Hunyadi was not himself; grief-stricken, eyes red. But Swan understood he was riding north to the Hungarian Diet, and that he wouldn’t have another chance. ‘What of the Turks?’ he asked.

  Hunyadi paused for a moment. He looked at Mattias, who had come forward but had not embraced Swan. Now he did.

  Swan bowed.

  Mattias frowned. The boy said, ‘No one cares about fighting the Turks now. They will all come for us, for the spoils.’ He looked at Bembo.

  ‘Lord Bembo of Venice,’ Swan said.

  Alessandro bowed.

  The Hunyadi brothers returned dignified bows.

  ‘No one will fight the Turks now,’ Hunyadi said. ‘Maybe in a year or two.’

  ‘Where is my company?’ Swan asked.

  László Hunyadi nodded. ‘Ah – my pardon, Thomas. I am so distracted – of course. The Ban, my father, sent them south with my uncle Michael Szilágyi to harry the Turkish rearguard. That was almost three weeks ago. When he got sick.’

  ‘Ah,’ Swan said.

  ‘I can offer you a pass in Belgrade, and our hospitality, such as it is, but our horses are ready and we must ride. The Diet convenes in a week. Despot Đurađ Branković may let you pass and may not. He tried to prevent my uncle from mounting the pursuit.’ László shrugged. ‘He has his own troubles with the Sultan, and this victory will not save him.’

  Swan nodded.

  ‘Have you had reports?’ he asked.

  ‘Not since the third day after they marched. The Turks are in Edirne by now, long gone. I hope Michael Szilágyi is driving their barons out of southern Serbia.’ He shrugged. ‘But that’s not what I must deal with this autumn. My father’s body will be moved to our estates soon. He wanted to be buried at Gyulafehérvár. And I must go.’

  Swan bit his lip. He liked László. But he wasn’t giving Sforza’s money or the Senate’s money to support civil war in Hungary, even if the Hunyadis were spotless Christian knights. And he knew better.

  He bowed again. ‘Then I’ll be off to find my company,’ he said. ‘Here is the letter from the Pope to your father. Perhaps it will help with the king and Cilli.’

  Ser Hargotai waved, and gave them the only smile they received in the whole of the fortress. He paused as the other men started down towards the lower gates and their horses.

  ‘I hear you go to your company, Ser Thomas,’ he said.

  Swan nodded, watching the Hunyadis.

  ‘I wish I was coming with you. But I will follow my lord.’ He put a hand on Swan’s arm. ‘Good luck, my lord.’

  ‘And you,’ Swan said.

  And then, against his own judgement, he left Alessandro and went into the fortress chapel. A pair of monks stood vigil at the entrance, but the interior was empty. The chapel stank, and neither candles nor incense could disguise the stench.

  Swan knew from quite a distance that the Ban had died of plague. His features were bloated and the pustules had burst before he died; there were marks, and the skin on his face was mostly black. Swan continued walking forward, though, despite an inner voice demanding that he keep his distance. He made his way past the screen and right up to the altar. Hunyadi lay before it on a low table. He was wrapped in a simple linen sheet, and he was not in his armour.

  The ring of the Conqueror gleamed on his finger. The hand had swelled to horrible proportions, but the rings still gleamed there, and the diamond, by a trick of the light, caught the rays of the sun from the clerestory windows and shone like a miracle amid the rotting flesh.

  No one was watching him. Swan knelt.

  Perhaps it was revulsion at the rotting corpse, or merely at the robbery.

  But Swan left the ring. He looked at it for a while, and he thought various thoughts. ‘Let it be buried with you, then,’ he said aloud.

  He rose, knees aching, head spinning from kneeling too long, and made his way slowly down the nave of the chapel. Alessandro was there, leaning against a pillar, not so very far from the altar.

  ‘You didn’t need to come in,’ Swan said.

  Alessandro spread his arms. ‘You know what, Suane? When you charged into the Turks at the stream, I thought, Christ risen, this man is looking for death. And today …’ He frowned. ‘I made myself come in, because otherwise I might shun you until I know you don’t have the plague. But having come in and breathed this foetid air, I assume I am as much a fool as you. But at any rate, I won’t be afraid to ride next to you.’

  Swan looked back. ‘He was … a great man.’ He shook his head. ‘Perhaps a monster. But …’ Swan sighed. He shook his head again. ‘I liked him.’

  ‘The sons are fine, I agree. Often a sign that a man has some greatness,’ Bembo said. ‘Can we leave here?’

  ‘And never return,’ Swan agreed. ‘Sweet Lord, I pray.’

  They wasted a day and more, riding north to retrieve their men. Swan spent money he didn’t have to buy more horses; but horses were plentiful and there were very few people.

  Pangratius told them that Capistrano had the plague, too, and was at the Franciscan monastery of Ilok. ‘I have it on good report,’ Pangratius said. ‘A German ship that was there three days ago.’

  ‘Still here?’ Swan asked.

  ‘Yes. They have a cargo of wools and they’re going all the way south to sell them to the Romanians, or so the captain says.’

  Swan went and met the captain, and booked passage for all of them and their horses. The river ship was broad and flat, larger than the largest barge they’d used to fight. He felt aches in his neck and groin, which he had been told were the first signs of the plague, but he could find no sign of swelling.

  That night, in a borrowed wedge tent, he lay awake. From time to time he prayed. Twice he poked a finger into his own thigh to see if he could feel swelling.

  He awoke, and felt terrible. He spoke only to Alessandro, and retired to his white wedge of canvas, and sat staring at the wall.

  From time to time he slept. He was often dizzy.

  But the next day his head was better than it had been since he’d taken the blow, and there were still no swellings. Two Hungarians who had survived the plague already assured him that he was free of plague; one of them pinched his neck.

  ‘You’d know,’ he said with a grim laugh.

  He repeated the service for Alessandro, and pronounced them safe.

  ‘I could hold you twenty days,’ the man said. He shrugged. ‘But you don’t have it.’

  The Albanians were surprisingly unflustered by near-brushes with the plague, and even by travelling hundreds of miles out of their way, and the ship, the Queen of Heaven, sailed south on the Danube on an early October morning. By midday they were passing Belgrade, the fortress grim and broken on its rock, and Swan could feel his heartbeat increase as they came to the narrows where the battle of the boats had happened, and he told Bembo the story.

  And still neither of them showed any sign of the plague. They didn’t discuss it.

  The next day the ship passed the fortifications at Kovin. The place was empty; there were no boats and only a few peasants, who ran when the ship landed. Swan saw the ress on the bank where he had almost drowned. He wondered at his feeling of nostalgia. He thought of Sarka.

  Swan watched them run and shrugged.

  ‘I admit, I hoped my people would be here,’ he said.

  Bembo nodded. ‘How far are we going?’ he asked.

  Swan shook his head. ‘I wonder how far Hunyadi sent his
portion of the pursuit?’ he asked the sky. ‘I confess that I hadn’t ever considered the total absence of information.’

  Swan called all of them together, and when he laid out the problem, John and Stephan looked at each other and both of them nodded.

  John spoke up. ‘We will find your men,’ he said. ‘Have the ship put us on the other bank of the river, and we’ll ride.’

  ‘You know this country?’ Swan asked.

  ‘Serbia?’ John said with a smile that never came near his eyes. ‘I have ridden over it many times.’

  The next day they were dropped in Serbia, in a small town at the great bend of the Danube, and the governor glared at the Albanians and the Turkish prisoner. And at Swan.

  Swan was careful and polite, and Bembo played with his Venetian state papers until the man allowed them to pass.

  They availed themselves of an expensive inn, but when they were clear of the town next day, Swan shook his head. ‘I don’t think we should chance another Serbian town,’ he said.

  ‘It would appear that the Despot denied the crusaders passage,’ Bembo said. ‘I gather that what I’m seeing is the whole Christian alliance falling apart?’

  ‘As fast as Hunyadi’s body was rotting,’ Swan said bitterly. ‘I thought we won.’

  John the Albanian grunted.

  They rode for two days, camping, keeping a watch at night, and avoiding towns.

  ‘I keep waiting for the glory,’ Alessandro said. ‘The glory of war.’ He was digging a trench with a shovel – a latrine for their third camp. Swan had become cook. The Albanians virtually refused to do any work, but they were on guard at all times, often riding away and coming back hours later. Scouting, or so they said.

  Swan began to talk with Hassan, the Turk. Hassan was a gentleman from Anatolia; he was amused that he’d been told that Swan had fought against the Sultan, and he was amazed that he was still alive, and fairly grateful, or so Swan gauged after several conversations.

  ‘Why do you keep me alive?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t know yet,’ Swan said.