Tom Swan and the Last Spartans - Part Five

by Christian Cameron

  She laughed and took the letter. She tapped it on her hand. ‘Hardly a surprise, since all my family are Accaiaoulos on my father’s side,’ she said. ‘But I believe that I can draw a compliment from your observation, if I am clever; either I resemble a woman of half my age, or your lady-love is a terrible old woman for you.’ She smiled brilliantly, and Swan had the disconcerting idea that he was face to face with his intended bride in her fortieth year, and the feeling was so powerful that he turned his head, trying to imagine what he would be like at forty-five.

  ‘My love …’ Swan began, and found he had no words to describe Sophia that would do justice to her.

  The Princess Zaccaria smiled again. ‘How pleasant to see a young man actually in love,’ she said. ‘Like a story. Please give me a moment with my friend.’ She opened the heavy letter, and there passed a curious half-hour which Swan was to remember later as very pleasant; wine was brought to him, and the walls had pictures as good as those in an Italian palace, and he walked among them, patted an old deer hound, and glanced through a magnificent old Frankish book of hours while Catherine Zaccaria read her friend’s letter, complete with chuckles, grunts of astonishment and peels of girlish giggles.

  She looked up. ‘Apparently I am not the first woman to see in you a knight from an old romance,’ she said with a half-smile. ‘My Caterina was most taken with you.’ Her eyes narrowed slightly. ‘Caterina tells me many things, but I must seize on one for my husband. This Cardinal Trevisan; he has directly collected the tithes from the Florentine banks wherever he has touched. Do you know this?’

  Swan thought that over for a moment. ‘I do not think I knew that, Your Grace,’ he said. ‘I wish I had.’

  Princess Zaccaria glanced at a ledger by her prie-dieu. ‘My lord refused to allow the cardinal’s people to take the gold,’ she said. ‘Later, we found that six thousand florins had been taken against our orders. Do you think that you could obtain redress for us?’

  Swan shook his head; it was not the interview he’d expected, but an ugly resurfacing of the whole Spinelli business that he wanted dead and buried.

  Or did he?

  ‘It was your money?’ Swan asked.

  Zaccaria shrugged beautifully. ‘Arguably it was the Holy Father’s money,’ she said. ‘But as you know, out here, gold is precious and reserves are few. That money had two or three owners. I am frank with you, you see. I suppose you will be family. Sophia. Of Florence. With a brother, perhaps?’

  ‘Yes, Your Grace. About my age or a little older.’

  ‘Antonio’s children, no doubt. Second cousins.’ She smiled her brilliant smile and looked, for a moment, just like Sophia, and Swan’s heart stopped. ‘Poor as a church mouse?’ the princess asked.

  ‘Yes, Your Grace.’

  The princess nodded. ‘And you will live in Venice?’ she asked.

  ‘That is our plan. If she will have me,’ Swan said.

  ‘I expect I will need friends in Venice soon,’ the princess said. She went to a coffer and opened it with a key from her bosom and lifted out a ring. ‘Give this to your bride from her great-aunt,’ she said.

  It was a fine ruby; big and red, well set in red gold. ‘It was Nerio Accaiaoulo’s,’ she said. ‘He gave it to a lady and it recently came back to me. Give it to your lady that it may stay in her family, with my blessings.’ She smiled, and Swan kissed her hand.

  ‘Is it possible,’ Swan asked, greatly daring, ‘that when Trevisan demanded the gold, he sent a note?’

  Princess Zaccaria met his eyes directly; it was like a little shock. ‘Let me ask my man of business,’ she said. ‘If it can be found, shall I send it to you?’

  Swan bowed. ‘If I can arrange the correct meeting,’ he said, ‘it is unlikely, of course, but possible, that the money could be returned.’

  She smiled bitterly. ‘Tell the Holy Father that when he took the gold from us, he killed us. That his fleet is useless unless we can defend ourselves; borrow money, raise crops, fortify, and train. He took all that. Ask him why.’

  ‘I do not think the Holy Father was involved directly,’ Swan said softly.

  ‘Of course not,’ Princess Zaccaria said with withering contempt. ‘They never are.’

  That night, a messenger came aboard, forcing the guards to stand upright and pretend to be sober. He gave Swan a small packet, carefully folded and sealed with the private seal of the Princess Zaccaria. It was contained in a cover sealed by the chamberlain, who wished him fair winds and included a small scroll of Latin jokes, many very dirty, that purported to by the poet Lucian.

  Swan showed it to Bembo.

  Bembo nodded. ‘When Florentines bribe you, they do it beautifully,’ he said.

  Swan shrugged. ‘I would have done it anyway,’ he said. ‘In fact, now I know how to do it.’

  Bembo held up a hand. ‘I do not want to know,’ he said. ‘Do I?’

  ‘Let’s say I knew enough to bring down a very powerful man …’ Swan said.

  ‘Let’s say you knew enough to get yourself killed,’ Bembo said. ‘We’re going to drink wine in Venice, my brother. We are going to grow old with nothing worse than quarrels over lovers and complaints about vintages. We have killed, we have rolled in their shit; Orsini and Colonna, Medici and Malatesta. You can bring one of them down? Who cares? More of them will spring from the ground; tyrants are cheaper than dragon’s teeth in the markets of Italy. Walk away.’

  Swan leaned back. His shoulder felt terrible; his whole body was still pockmarked with bruises from the fighting at Mytilene. So were his dreams.

  ‘Yes,’ he said fervently. Almost, he flipped the note, the hastily scribbled note ordering the removal of a fortune in gold from the coffers of the Medici factor, over the side. It was only a few words, and unsealed; not binding in a court.

  But it was signed ‘Antonelli’.

  It dangled on Swan’s fingertips for a long heartbeat, prevented only by his faint perspiration from fluttering over the side, and then he closed his sword hand like the striking viper he was, and thrust the crinkled vellum into the breast of his shirt. ‘I’ll keep this as insurance,’ he said.

  They paused at Corfu for water. Swan stayed aboard, because he was met by a letter from Sophia, and he lay on the deck and read it a dozen times. Bembo left him after some mockery, and Swan read it, folded it around Antonelli’s note, and then had himself rowed ashore to carouse with his men, as the rest of the company had already been transferred here by the Venetian Senate and would now board two round ships for the Lagoon and the short trip home.

  He was sitting in a waterfront tavern with all the world before him, marriage and fame, and a comfortable middle age, when Alessandro Bembo came into the taverna looking as if he’d seen a ghost.

  ‘What is it?’ Swan asked.

  Bembo looked everywhere in a single panicked glance. ‘Not here,’ he said. He dragged Swan out into the night.

  ‘Loredan is arrested in Rome,’ he said.

  Swan was full of good wine and camaraderie and he was slow. ‘What?’ he asked.

  ‘Loredan, our friend, has been arrested by the Pope, and may already have been tortured.’ Bembo was recovering, but his voice was as bitter as aloes. ‘Back to the cesspool, my friend. The Holy Father’s minions are desperate, and they have decided to fight to the last ditch.’

  Swan leaned suddenly against a building, uncaring if it had been used as a pissing post. ‘Fuck,’ he said.

  ‘Exactly,’ Bembo said.

  Swan straightened. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘For once, I know what to do.’

  Drunkenly, in the dark, he outlined his plan to Bembo.

  And when he was done, Bembo spat.

  ‘All or nothing?’ he asked. ‘I like it.’ He reached out for Swan’s shoulder. ‘If we do this, I want an agreement before we start. No mercy. No softness. These are bad, stupid men. Promise me; we leave no hostage and no loose end. We finish them, and go home, or die trying.’

  Swan managed to laugh. ‘What an
excellent time to be at peace with the Orsini,’ he said.

  Bembo managed a laugh too. ‘You have the luck of the devil, but Fortuna is a fickle bitch. Imagine; you and I are going to Rome to rescue Loredan from the Pope, who hired us. With the Medici and the Orsini as allies.’

  Swan stood straight. ‘The cesspool.’

  That night, with little sobriety, Swan penned letters. He wrote four full pages to Sophia, with a proposal that he prayed to God she would accept. He wrote another, in a very different tone, to Cosimo di Medici via Spinelli; brief, concise and servile, with a list of names and dates. A third went to Sforza in Milan, in the same tone; almost the same note, word for word, except with different details.

  He wrote out a fourth while it was fresh in his mind. He directed it to Cardinal Aeneas Picclomini, and he folded it neatly and put it in his own purse. The note for Sophia di Accaiaoulo went to Umar, who Alessandro proposed to send into Venice with the ship. Umar would have the easiest time reaching his target and the most difficult mission thereafter; he seemed delighted by the challenge. Swan sent Kendal with the notes for Sforza and Di Medici; his former archer, bearing his signet ring, would carry weight in Milan and would be known to Spinelli and probably to Medici, saving time. Kendal would have the most difficult time reaching his targets and the most dangerous route; he was also the young man Swan thought most able to kill anyone who stood in his way.

  Clemente was disappointed not to be sent, and said so. ‘I can do anything Umar can do, and better,’ he said, pettishly.

  ‘You would not, for example, be instantly admitted to the Ca’Bembo,’ Swan said mildly. ‘Come, Clemente. We will spill rivers of blood in Rome. You will be a hero or dead. And, quite frankly, only you can make a rendezvous with a certain urchin who now holds the horses for gentlemen at the Picclomini palace.’

  ‘Ah, messire remembers me, then?’ Clemente said, flushing.

  ‘Clemente, you are now my archer. No longer my servant; I have young Padraig for that. For what it is worth, you will be my archer …’ Swan smiled. ‘We may all be taken and killed. This is a mission that passes beyond “delicate” and enters into “desperate”.’

  Bembo, silent until then, chuckled. ‘But not “futile” or “suicidal”.’

  Swan shrugged.

  Bembo put a hand on Clemente’s shoulder. ‘We hold many cards. The only worry is that our adversaries will overturn the table.’

  Clemente put a hand on his sword. ‘I swear on my mother … on Peter’s soul. I am with you.’

  ‘Ah, youth,’ Bembo said. ‘We accept.’

  ‘Now Padraig,’ Swan said. ‘Send him in.’

  Padraig, the young Irishman rescued from the Turkish galleys, was of an indeterminate age between fifteen and twenty-five. He was handsome, with dark red-brown hair and a full beard. He’d been ill used; had lice and crusty old sores from having been forced to wear an iron collar, but seemed to show no ill-effects. His smile was broad, his laugh deep.

  Swan wasn’t fooled, but neither did he think it his job to strip men of their armour in public.

  ‘Padraig, Messire Bembo and I are going on a bit of an adventure,’ he said in Italian. Padraig’s English was terrible. He spoke excellent gutter Turkish and passable gutter Italian and Leinster Gaelic, a language utterly beyond Swan’s ken. His Latin was excellent, however.

  ‘Sure,’ Padraig said.

  ‘We’re … hmmm. Very likely to be killed.’

  ‘Or taken and tortured,’ Bembo said.

  ‘Then killed,’ Swan said cheerfully.

  Padraig shrugged. ‘Sure,’ he said.

  Swan smiled. ‘So I will release you here in Corfu with a month’s wages,’ he said.

  Padraig shook his head. ‘Why, lord?’ he asked. ‘Ha’ I fucked something up?’

  Swan wrinkled his nose, possibly because he’d managed to acquire a sunburn. ‘No,’ he said. ‘You are an excellent servant.’

  Padraig nodded. ‘Then what?’ he asked.

  ‘You could die,’ Swan said.

  Padraig nodded thoughtfully. ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘So there’s a bonus?’

  Bembo laughed. ‘And you can kill,’ he asked. ‘Can’t you?’

  ‘Try me,’ Padraig said.

  Last, Swan sent for Columbino and Di Silva, who were awake.

  ‘Gentlemen, I must leave you,’ Swan said. ‘I may never come back. The matter is personal. Messire Columbino, here is your commission from me to command the compagnia; forever, or until I return. Venice will purchase the entire service if you are willing.’

  Columbino flushed with pleasure and then made a gesture of extreme distaste. ‘I am not a great supporter of Venice,’ he said.

  ‘Just so. If I do not return in three months, you are capitano.’ Swan smiled. ‘I have one stipulation; that is, when Umar brings a certain lady to Grazias, that he and all the stradiotes are to be released to escort her where she sees fit.’

  ‘Donna Sophia?’ Columbino asked.

  ‘Assuredly not,’ Swan said. ‘A Greek lady. I will say no more.’

  Columbino had grown to manhood with matters of state. ‘I understand.’

  Di Silva frowned. ‘I for one do not understand,’ he said.

  Swan shrugged. ‘A personal matter.’

  Di Silva picked his teeth in a contemplative, Portuguese way. ‘I am at your service,’ he said. ‘In every way, my blade is at your back.’

  Swan grinned. ‘Not this time,’ he said.

  Columbino rose and bowed. ‘I have loved serving under you, Ser Suane. I hope you return.’ He left with the grace of a man who knows when another man is plotting.

  Not Di Silva. When Columbino left, Di Silva put both hands on the heavy table and leaned across it. ‘I fucking insist,’ he said.

  Swan grinned again. He and Bembo exchanged a glance.

  ‘Useless to tell you it’s likely to end in humiliation and death?’ Bembo asked.

  Di Silva shrugged.

  ‘Come with Grazias, then,’ Swan said. ‘You’ll be in time for the party.’

  ‘Delighted,’ Di Silva said. He bowed and left them.

  When he was gone, Bembo shook his head in apparent delight.

  ‘Two Englishman, a Portuguese, some Greeks, an Irishman, a Venetian, a deformed cripple and an infidel,’ he said. ‘Against the greatest power on earth.’

  ‘Nah,’ Swan said. ‘We’re not against the Sultan. We’re only going against the Pope.’

  Bembo laughed and laughed, and his laugh rang across the waters of Corfu harbour and out into the night.

  Swan and Padraig were both capable of sailing an open boat, and they bought a fine little fishing smack off the beach at Corfu the next morning and sailed west into the fading darkness, with the sun rising like an orb of glory behind them. The sun rose on a clear blue sky, and the Adriatic was like a child’s pond, and for several hours Swan and Padraig rowed, while Bembo made small talk and then read in the bow.

  But before the sun was halfway through the sky, a breeze came up, and they set their little sail.

  ‘Do ye believe in God or no, lord?’ Padraig asked as they handled the sail.

  ‘More and more I do, Padraig,’ Swan admitted. ‘I want to,’ he said.

  Padraig nodded. ‘Well, lord, the Christ has always been right with me. So I’ll say ye straight; that breeze is right over the starboard quarter, the best breeze we could want for Italy.’ The Irishman shrugged.

  ‘You are suggesting the hand of God?’ Swan asked.

  Padraig nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said.

  Swan looked at his new servant’s face; the heavy-fleshed face of a bruiser with the eyes of a Dominican set in it. The man was bright; perhaps even brilliant. Or mad as an inmate of Bedlam.

  Swan was uncomfortable with the idea of the hand of God. ‘We are going to save a friend,’ he said.

  ‘God loves nothing better,’ Padraig said, as if he was the very voice of the Deity. ‘And by that way, I’d be that in debt to yer lordship if you would see
your way to getting me a sword an’ a dagger.’

  ‘By God,’ Swan said, laughing. ‘You change tack faster than this little boat. Very well, Master Padraig. In Ancona we’ll fetch you a sword.’

  They sighted Bari on the first evening, a perfect crossing, and then proceeded to enjoy five days sailing up the Adriatic, coasting along Italy, landing in fishing towns and buying food every night. They were careful; Clemente did all the buying, and if they aroused suspicion, no one acted against them, although they had an unpleasant hour when they were intercepted by a Ragusan galliot and searched. There was a moment when Tom thought they might all be killed, and then the Ragusan captain was leaning over the side, telling them where to pick up lobsters.

  ‘It amuses me, in a dark way, that one squall, an angry Ragusan, and we’re dead,’ Bembo said quietly. ‘And Loredan is tortured to death, and the Pope gets away with the whole thing.’

  ‘God’s will,’ Padraig said. It was impossible to retain the appearance of servility in an open boat for five days, and all of them had dispensed with even the outward appearance of class distinction.

  ‘God’s will that Loredan be tortured?’ Bembo asked.

  Padraig shrugged. ‘How can I know what God wills, or why?’ he asked.

  ‘What about free will?’ Swan asked.

  ‘Ah, now you have me,’ Padraig answered. They were rowing at the time, trying to get clear of the Ragusan before he changed his mind and came after them again. They hadn’t opened the false-bottomed water cask wherein Swan and Bembo had stashed all their jewels, and they hadn’t found the swords remarkable.

  Fortuna.

  ‘I have you?’ Swan asked, as he pulled.

  ‘Well, I canna ken the mind o’ God, so I ha’ no real notion o’ what he does wi’ free will.’ Padraig shrugged. ‘But I think it works like this; I know full well that Messire Bembo here is too faine a gentleman to row. It’ll never foukin’ occur to he to pull an oar. So while ye and me pull all the way to foukin’ Italy, Bembo retains his free will. At any moment he might offer to row. But we know he won’t. See?’