Tom Swan and the Last Spartans 1

by Christian Cameron

  Swan was still digesting the news that his father had been to Bohemia. As a crusader.

  Fighting Ladislav and Šárka.

  Somehow, that was … disgusting. Or at least disturbing.

  Swan shook his head. ‘I see.’

  ‘I doubt it. Eugenios inherited all the problems of a doubly divided church; the Council of Basel wanted to muzzle the popes, and much of the Marches and Romagna had been taken by various warlords. Whatever his failings, he left a great deal of money and a larger … base for taxation. But there are those who say that he left more, much more. And that certain of the Florentine banks simply … kept it.’

  ‘Ah!’ Swan said. ‘Spinelli?’

  Bessarion gave him the look that was saved for fools. ‘Spinelli was in nappies. Not quite. He must have been young. But he made his own fortune. Most of it in Spain. Later.’

  Swan looked at Giannis, who was doing an excellent job of pretending not to be present.

  ‘Medici?’ he asked … quietly.

  Bessarion spread his hands. ‘Who knows?’ he said. ‘I can’t even remember who was running the Curia’s finances then.’

  Swan ran a hand over his beard and looked out of the window.

  Bessarion sat forward. ‘Despite all of this, or because of it, you must attend to the Pope’s orders. You cannot refuse them. I ask you this myself.’

  Swan pursed his lips. The anger was still there. ‘Master,’ he said, a word he had only ever said to Bessarion. ‘Master, do you want me to find Spinelli?’

  ‘Yes. That first. Let the rest go one step at a time.’ Bessarion spoke very quietly.

  Swan nodded. ‘You are done employing me directly?’ he asked.

  Bessarion looked him in the eye, man to man. ‘If you refuse the Pope’s orders, you cannot work for me, Ser Thomas.’

  Loredan was looking better by the moment.

  Bessarion clasped his hands. ‘I will beg, if that pleases you, Ser Thomas. But I will not be at war with the Holy Father over you.’ He leaned forward. ‘But the Holy Father is beginning to consider a … Greek policy. I would expect you to go from Hungary perhaps directly to Greece. To Mistra, in fact.’

  Giannis made a noise.

  ‘That’s where Plethon taught,’ Swan said.

  Bessarion smiled warmly. ‘Ah, you would have loved him, Englishman. Such a mind; such a sense of humour. He made that court come alive. And so much learning in one man! Listen, you all honour me, but I am but a shadow of my master.’

  ‘He was a great heretic,’ Giannis said.

  ‘I will say nothing of his beliefs,’ Bessarion said mildly.

  Giannis stroked his beard.

  ‘I would love to go to Mistra,’ Swan said. ‘It is the ancient Sparta, is it not?’

  Bessarion laughed. ‘Yes. But no. Mistra is a mountain that towers over the plain of ancient Lacedaemon. But very close. They are the last Spartans there. Or so Plethon called us.’

  Swan was lost in a dream of Sparta for a moment. ‘And you say if I do this for the Holy Father, you’ll send me to Mistra?’ he asked.

  ‘Or he will himself,’ Bessarion said.

  Swan took a very deep breath. He looked at Giannis. ‘Will you help me find Spinelli?’ he asked.

  Giannis shrugged. ‘Like a Greek in a city of heretics,’ he said.

  ‘Where is Antoine?’ Swan asked.

  Bessarion made shooing motions with his hands, as if driving chickens off a patch of farmyard.

  Swan bowed and followed Giannis out of the door.

  The Greek man led him all the way to the top floor of the stable, which was now an office and a small armoury. ‘I have Antoine cooking for the Orsini,’ he said.

  ‘Ah, bast!’ Swan swore, having picked up the habit of using this word recently. It was amazing how good a new swear word seemed on the tongue. ‘Cesare di Brescia?’

  ‘Newly wed. Actually working in the Curia as a notary. No longer on our payroll.’ The Greek soldier shrugged. ‘I mean he is, but officially he is in the Papal Familia, and I have orders not to touch him.’

  ‘Ah,’ Swan said.

  ‘Thomas!’ Giannis said.

  Swan bowed, gloves to chest. ‘Giannis, I will be discretion itself. This is what I do.’

  ‘I thought you killed Turks. That’s what everyone says now.’ The former stradiote grinned. ‘Listen. I will say nothing. Except that despite being newly wed, Cesare still visits a certain house kept by a certain woman.’

  ‘I am trying to decide what I think about Cesare being married,’ Swan said.

  Giannis shrugged. ‘It is some arranged thing,’ he allowed. ‘I understand the bride is a child, and Messire di Brescia does not touch her.’

  ‘You do know everything.’

  ‘Mmm. Messire di Brescia is a special case.’ Giannis’s shrug held a warning, and Swan was not fool enough to ignore it.

  On his way to Donna Lucrezia’s, Swan was almost robbed. His assailant was very competent and a little over ten years old. Swan missed the cutting of his purse and was just fast enough to kick the child in the back, knocking him flat in the dusty street.

  Swan stood on the child’s outstretched arm long enough to retrieve his purse. Then, as he noted that the child was very young and a girl, he began to feel some pangs of conscience.

  ‘Get off my arm, you fucker,’ spat the urchin.

  Swan raised his foot and the girl was gone before he could speak again.

  As a child, Swan had fished for trout on his father’s estates with a dozen other boys, and he remembered putting the small fry back into the river and how fast they vanished even in shallow water. The girl was like that. He was just considering her, and how glad he was he hadn’t hurt her, when he realised with a horrifying jolt that the Sultan’s diamond was in his purse.

  Swan’s swearing was not limited to ‘bast’. He stood in the street, a few houses from the square of San Maria Maggiore, and swore. Passers-by glanced at him. One soldier smiled in appreciation.

  Swan finally shut his mouth and walked the rest of the way to Rome’s official den of iniquity.

  The place made him nostalgic, which he knew was foolish and even false. Except that the last time he’d been here, he’d been with all his friends, and Peter, too. Peter was dead, and everyone was getting married.

  Later, he told himself that it was the near-theft of his diamond that made him so stupid.

  The man at the door didn’t know him.

  ‘I’m sorry? Purpose of your visit?’ the man asked, standing outside the main doors at the top of the long steps.

  Swan glanced at him. ‘Really?’ he asked.

  The man grew less polite. ‘We do not let just anyone in.’

  Swan wondered whether he had spent too much time in Hungary. His immediate instinct was to fling the man down the steps. But this was Rome.

  He smiled. ‘I wish to enter,’ he said.

  ‘Purpose?’ the man asked officially.

  ‘Entry,’ Swan said. ‘I wish to go in. I wish to penetrate. To know.’

  The man was big – bigger than Swan. He was now growing angry. He could tell he was being mocked, but he did not get the allusions.

  Swan shook his head. ‘Tell me, is Donna at home?’

  The man took a step back. ‘Who wants to know?’ he asked.

  Swan really wanted to punch him. Mostly for pretending to be tough. ‘Tell her there is an Englishman on her steps, and he wants a mere glimpse of her.’

  The man knocked at the big red doors. They opened, and the man whispered to someone inside.

  A priest came up the steps, bowed to Swan, and murmured to the man. He was conducted inside.

  Swan nodded. ‘There is a password,’ he said.

  The man looked elsewhere, studiously ignoring Swan.

  It was hot, and Swan was beginning to sweat through his second shirt of the day, and he was annoyed. Luckily for everyone, the door opened, and a very slim, very young girl peeped out.

  ‘I am to take the
Englishman to Donna,’ she said in an absurdly small voice.

  Swan followed her into the cool interior. The place had changed. All the erotic paintings were gone, replaced by simple, repetitive patterns in stucco. The colours were muted and staid. The furniture was now plain, the cushions mostly Turkish.

  There was not a woman in sight, and as Swan passed through what had once been the waiting room, a pair of priests were debating the canonisation of a woman who, from their comments, was clearly French.

  ‘Some trull who wears armour – the whore,’ said the nearer man in Italian as Swan swept by, following the slight figure of the girl.

  Another door opened, and then a tapestry was pushed aside.

  Swan found himself in a very small chamber, richly appointed. Everything seemed to be red.

  Donna was unchanged, he was happy to note. She sat in a chair only slightly smaller than the Pope’s unofficial throne. She looked up, and smiled.

  ‘You took Violetta,’ she said.

  Swan bowed as the relevance of her comment struck him. I have been stupid. ‘I did, Donna. The more fool me.’

  She had been writing, and now she looked up and laughed. ‘I had forgotten you. Now I remember. You look quite fine. You have come up in the world?’

  Swan shrugged. But Donna could discover anything she wanted in a few minutes, at least in Rome. ‘I am a knight of Venice,’ he said.

  ‘Goodness,’ she said. ‘Do not tell me that you are the hero of Belgrade?’

  Swan might have blushed.

  She rose. She was perhaps thirty-five years old. She was both beautiful and bold, and her face was very expressive. Swan suspected she was a consummate actress, but she came around her writing table and threw her arms around him. It did not seem like acting.

  ‘A cynic would say that the victory at Belgrade brought me a good deal of business,’ she said. ‘But by God, I’m a Christian too.’ She snapped her fingers and a man appeared. He put a seat behind Swan and he sat.

  She went back to her writing desk. ‘I meant to sell you to the Orsini for stealing my Violetta. She was worth a great deal of money. Still is.’

  Swan raised an eyebrow. ‘She paid off her contract,’ he said.

  ‘No,’ Donna said. ‘She did not. You stole her.’ She smiled brilliantly. Her near-perfect teeth gleamed, and her smile was almost winsome.

  Something cold pricked the side of Swan’s head.

  ‘I lied,’ she said. ‘I had not forgotten you.’

  Swan’s heart began to race.

  ‘Her contract was worth five hundred ducats to me.’ Donna raised an eyebrow.

  Swan was perspiring freely. Unlike some men, he took women seriously. He was aware that Donna Lucrezia had killed people, and more often caused people to be killed. He was also aware that she had not a single protector but a web of protections – blackmails, and old customers who could insulate her against almost anything.

  The worst thing was that he’d forgotten that he had, in her eyes, stolen from her. Violetta had been a highly paid courtesan, one of the best earners in the house. Swan had abducted her.

  ‘On the one hand, no one knows you took her. Even I. And I do not know where she is, and neither does anyone else.’ Donna made a moue. ‘So I am not humiliated or made to look weak, which I detest. And you are Cesare’s friend, and he has done me many services.’ She leaned back. ‘On the other hand, you stole from me. You have been a guest here, and you stole.’

  The cold bite at his temple was a crossbow bolt. The crossbow itself was not very big, but the hand holding it was.

  Swan took a deep breath. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

  She frowned. ‘That’s all?’ she asked.

  Swan didn’t shrug. That seemed like a bad idea. But he tried to look earnest. ‘I did steal Violetta. Later, she stole herself and all my money. A good deal more than five hundred ducats.’

  ‘Later?’ Donna asked.

  Swan explained that they had lived together as a married couple, and then that he had sailed away in a galley and left her, and returned from the wars to find her gone with all his money. He tried to make it sound funny.

  When he was done, there was only silence.

  Christ, do I beg? She could do it. I’d be dead.

  Better here than skinned alive by Omar Reis.

  His hands were shaking.

  Christ, how could I have forgotten?

  She shrugged. Waved her hand, and the cold feeling vanished. Swan turned his head, but there was nothing there but a tapestry.

  ‘So,’ she said. ‘You owe me five hundred ducats.’

  Swan considered this for as long as it took his heart to beat fifty or sixty times, very fast.

  ‘Very well,’ he said, as calmly as he could manage.

  ‘Piccolomini likes athletic men,’ she said. She leaned back. Her hand began to toy with a book behind her head. ‘You could earn a few ducats each time.’ She snorted.

  Swan was very careful in his reaction. He knew he was being tested. He suspected that disgust was not the correct response. ‘I have a few scars,’ he said apologetically.

  ‘And too much hair,’ she allowed. ‘So why don’t you just arrange to pay me in gold, as soon as is convenient?’

  The threat was there. It hadn’t been voiced, but it was there, and it was ugly and very successful.

  ‘Perhaps tomorrow?’ he suggested.

  ‘Excellent. Now, I don’t believe that you came here to pay your debt, however honourable you have become. What brought you here?’ She was again a flirtatious woman who found him very attractive, or so her face said.

  Swan’s hands were still shaking.

  But …

  ‘Do you know Thomas Spinelli?’ he asked.

  ‘Papal banker, member of the Famiglia, Florentine, fabulously wealthy? He never honoured us with a visit. I hear he’s left Rome.’ She raised both eyebrows. ‘I could learn where he went, I suspect. Pay me tomorrow and I might throw in the information for nothing.’ She smiled. ‘And are you looking for Cesare? Or a little entertainment? Or both?’

  ‘I would be delighted to find Cesare, and I’m sorry to say that I’ve just had a bit of a fright and I’m not sure I’d be a good companion for any woman just now.’ He batted his eyelashes.

  She laughed. ‘Damn me. You remind me of someone.’ Her laugh was almost raucous, and it went on a bit. ‘Vitelleschi, that’s who.’

  ‘Who was he?’ Swan asked.

  ‘Cardinal Vitelleschi?’ she asked. ‘Sweet Virgin Mother, the terror of Rome. The old Pope’s general and enforcer. Trevisan replaced him … you must know of him.’

  ‘A customer?’ Swan said.

  She looked at him. ‘Not of this house. I was quite young at the time.’ She shrugged. A look of obvious repugnance crossed her face. ‘He was a bastard. But he was funny, and he seldom lost his nerve.’ She nodded. ‘You even look like him. It’s all in the nose. Now, away with you. Pay me tomorrow and we will both be happy.’

  Swan rose, fought the weakness in his knees, and managed a good bow. ‘I thank you for my life,’ he said.

  She nodded pleasantly. ‘It is odd, to me, that you are enough of a fool to walk in here, forgetting that you had done me an injury, and yet enough of a gentleman to own that I could kill you.’ She shrugged. ‘Don’t forget to come back.’

  ‘Nothing could keep me away.’

  ‘Little Maria will take you to Cesare. He’s playing cards.’ She nodded.

  Swan plucked up his gloves. ‘The decor has changed.’

  ‘Fashions change,’ she said. ‘Callixtus threatened me with closure.’ She shrugged. ‘I had to borrow a lot of money to redecorate,’ she added. ‘I hope you like it.’

  Ten minutes later, Swan was with Di Brescia, looking at the new decorations – episcopal red hangings in silk and velvet, and a tapestry from Flanders that was virtually monastic in its dullness and heavy decoration. The northerner sat in a low-backed chair at a heavy, round table, and the cards in his hand w
eren’t very good. That is, the cards themselves were beautifully painted, but Swan could see that he didn’t have much and was bluffing. Swan made quite a show of looking at the cards and beaming with pleasure, and then they kissed on both cheeks and Swan glanced at the other man’s cards, which were very strong.

  The other man was tall even sitting down, and wore a very good deerskin doublet and wool hose with boots that laced to the doublet. The silk edging on the deerskin was worth twenty ducats.

  ‘Please be seated,’ the other man said.

  Swan looked around, but there was not another seat.

  ‘Niccolo Forteguerri,’ Cesare said, looking over his cards. ‘A friend of Cardinal Piccolomini. He smiled with much of his old humour. ‘Friend in this case the way we are friends of our dear Bessarion.’ It sounded like a warning.

  Swan bowed. ‘You are a soldier, sir?’ he asked.

  Forteguerri looked up and smiled carefully. He was older than either of them, his beard almost grey, but he was fit and his eyes danced. ‘Hmm. I play at one, sometimes. Also courier, spy, diplomat …’ He shrugged. ‘Really, I trained in canon law. And now I spend too much time on the cannons.’

  His witticism was funny enough, although the author looked pained. ‘All right, that was weak. Are you the Englishman, Suane?’

  ‘I am,’ Swan said.

  ‘Ah. The Divine Alberti hates you, and speaks of you often. Not in a way I would recommend.’ Forteguerri smiled again, more to himself than to them. He hid his eyes with his hand. ‘Cesare, I believe I have better cards than you. But I dislike that bitch Fortuna, and I admit I’m tired. So if I offer to turn these over, will you buy the wine?’

  Cesare frowned. He sat back, looking intently at his cards.

  Swan thought he was overplaying. He gave the canon lawyer a small smile, as if in approval.

  Then Cesare threw his hands in the air and tossed his cards, face down, on the discards.

  The other lawyer put a hand on the cards.

  Cesare put his hand gently atop the tall man’s hand. ‘I would rather you did not look. That is for another game, when you have paid to see them.’

  Forteguerri raised an eyebrow. ‘So you were bluffing.’