Tom Swan and the Last Spartans - Part Five

by Christian Cameron

  Forty people saw all of that, he thought. Christ, I’m a fool. Now the whole plan is ruined.

  ‘So Forteguerri is working with the Spaniards,’ Bembo said. ‘And at worst, they know you are here.’ He shrugged. ‘They are already desperate men. Perhaps you will drive them over the edge of reason. Why on earth would Forteguerri, who works for Picclomini, help the Spaniards, and thus the Pope?’ he asked.

  Swan was still bitter. ‘I have no idea,’ he said. ‘I killed the Spaniard. Why does this make me feel better about the servant girl?’

  ‘Fallen humanity,’ Bembo said. ‘Original sin.’ He shrugged. ‘Have some apple tart.’

  The next morning, Giannis brought them word of a gang of Spaniards working their way through the city, questioning and beating.

  ‘They are looking for you,’ he said. He shrugged. ‘It is only a matter of time before they come here.’

  Swan looked at Bembo. ‘Spinelli’s place?’ he said.

  ‘I may choke on the irony,’ Bembo said. ‘Or I may not. Let’s go.’

  By evening they were ensconced in Spinelli’s barn. They spent a quiet night and a very boring morning. After Swan had searched the house for the third time, he opened the vellum he’d cut from Landi Gianetti’s saddle.

  ‘Remind me who Gianetti was?’ Bembo asked.

  Swan sat back against the barn wall. ‘Gianetti was Tommaso Spinelli’s agent in Rome,’ Swan said. ‘Antonelli ordered him brought in for questioning, but Antonelli’s thugs killed him; at least, that’s what I think happened. Gianetti is the only tie that binds all this horseshit together; he worked on the old Pope’s accounts for another banking house, before Spinelli ever came into the story.’

  He had another thought. ‘I wonder …’ he said.

  ‘Oh dear,’ Bembo said companionably.

  ‘Oh dear?’ Swan said.

  ‘Most of my most difficult hours have resulted from you having an idea. Also, I worry about Loredan, which has a touch of irony itself. He is a proud man. He will break too easily.’

  ‘I’m doing my best, here. By tomorrow, Lucrezia ought to know how to reach him.’ Swan sighed.

  Bembo nodded. He sat against the opposite wall. ‘Did I say I missed this?’ he wondered aloud.

  Swan was looking at the vellum. It was old without being ancient. On it were musical notes in brilliant red and black calligraphy. He whistled the notes, but no treasure fell from the sky.

  ‘Chant,’ Bembo said.

  ‘A penitential psalm,’ Swan said.

  ‘You expected a treasure map?’ Bembo asked.

  ‘Frankly, yes,’ Swan said, exasperated.

  Hours passed.

  ‘I thought Spinelli deeded this place to monks,’ Bembo remarked.

  Swan shrugged. ‘There’s litigation,’ he said. ‘It’s Rome.’

  Padraig brought them dinner; roast capon with saffron rice, from Bessarion’s kitchen. He was wearing a sword.

  Padraig was reserved. ‘The Spaniards came last night. Bessarion protested but they had an order from the Pope. Messire Giannis says to tell you that there were no men from Forteguerri, and that His Eminence says he does not believe that there is a connection.’

  Bembo was picking his teeth with his eating pricker. ‘One of Forteguerri’s men has sold out,’ he said. ‘But we have a perfect way of finding out.’

  ‘We do?’ Swan said.

  ‘I sent Cesare di Brescia to work for Forteguerri,’ Bembo said. He said it with the flourish of a man revealing a masterful hand of cards.

  Swan looked at him and smiled. ‘You really are the master,’ he said.

  Bembo blushed. Then he laughed. ‘Oh, the sweet praise of one’s peers. But yes. In this case, I played a card at random and it has returned as trump. Master Padraig, do you fancy being a spy?’

  ‘Nothing better,’ Padraig said. ‘As God is my witness, all I’ve ever wanted to be is a fuckin’ Judas, and I ha’ the red hair to go with it.’

  ‘I never know what he means,’ Bembo said.

  ‘He means yes,’ Swan said.

  Padraig went off to leave the signs for Cesare to see; typical tradecraft. Bembo followed him; they had no particular reason to distrust Padraig, but there was a great deal at stake and both men were cautious.

  When Bembo had not returned by the fall of darkness, Swan tried not to worry. Instead, he closed up the small barn and made his bed in total darkness, lay down, and failed to sleep. He thought about many ugly things, and his role in them, and when he did sleep, it was only to watch the drowning Turks and Christians in the sinking galley.

  He awoke and drew his sword to find the barn door opening.

  ‘Dannazione,’ said Bembo.

  Swan began to breathe again. ‘You took long enough!’

  Bembo laughed. ‘You were once jealous of my little circle of “friends”,’ he said. ‘One just tried to sell me to the Pope. Jesus, it’s bad out there.’

  ‘So they know we’re both here,’ Swan said.

  Bembo rustled in the darkness. Swan smelled a familiar scent.

  ‘You went to Lucrezia’s!’ he said.

  ‘I wanted news of Loredan and I got it. Unfortunately, one of my former friends saw me there.’ Bembo shrugged.

  ‘We should move,’ Swan said.

  ‘Do you have another bolthole in Rome?’ Bembo asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Swan said. ‘Let’s go.’

  They left through the culvert; smelly but very secret. Then they walked; Alessandro Bembo, noble of Venice, carrying a bundle of firewood that contained all their weapons, while Tommaso Suane, Knight of St Mark, carried a basket of small kindling and bark chips and their money. They didn’t have to pass a gate, but they did have to cross a bridge, and Swan baulked at the Pope’s bridge by the Castello. There were Spaniards at both ends of the bridge.

  ‘I’m not sure we’ll make it,’ he said.

  Bembo nodded. ‘Colonna,’ he said, and the two apparent woodcutters backtracked, going west into the suburbs and finally coming to the Colonna bridge over the Tiber. Dawn was breaking.

  The Colonna men-at-arms were alert and stood with drawn weapons. But they were alert for Spaniards, not woodcutters, and after some jokes and a very small bribe, they let the two men across into the old city. Swan led them by alleys to the walls of the Malatesta compound and then opened the small side porte that the Demoiselle Iso had first shown him.

  Bembo laughed softly. ‘The last time I went through this gate,’ he said, ‘Bessarion was going to be Pope and Malatesta had just guaranteed me Picclomini’s vote.’

  ‘And everyone still called you Di Bracchio,’ Swan said, swinging it open.

  The whole vast fortress was empty. Swan and Bembo camped in what had been the notary’s room, where he had sat and sealed his master’s correspondence. The furniture remained, including a trunk full of tapestries that were warm and free of rats or moths.

  ‘But we didn’t get Picclomini’s vote,’ Swan said suddenly into the darkness.

  ‘Exactly,’ Bembo said. ‘Picclomini owed Malatesta, but he let him swing on the vote and on a few other things. Picclomini is very good at the game; Malatesta has fallen, now, and he’ll never be powerful enough to exact revenge.’

  ‘You like him?’ Swan asked the darkness.

  He heard his friend chuckle. ‘Like and dislike don’t matter much for Malatesta,’ he said. ‘But the man is nowhere near as bad as he’s painted, and he was always a good friend to Bessarion; another follower of Plethon.’

  ‘What did you learn about Loredan?’ Swan asked.

  ‘Lucrezia has a man who is one of the jailers at San Angelo.’

  ‘Of course she does,’ Swan said.

  ‘Exactly,’ Bembo responded. ‘I spoke to him, friend to friend.’

  ‘Money?’ Swan asked.

  ‘And sex. Unimportant. By now, Loredan knows that help is no more than six days away.’ Bembo paused. ‘Knowing that is … everything.’

  ‘I know,’ said Swan, thinking
of Mistra.

  ‘Why do we do this?’ Bembo asked.

  ‘So many plots,’ Swan said.

  ‘Rome,’ Bembo said.

  Somewhere a street or two from the old Malatesta palace a young priest visited a woman. Perhaps she was his mother; perhaps he disgraced his vows. Regardless, she put his gown and hose to air on a line and Swan stole them in the first light of day. Then, dressed as a priest, he paid a link boy to run an errand to Bessarion’s palazzo; a note of a few words so that no more food would be sent to Spinelli’s. Swan did not tell the cardinal or Giannis Trapezitoi where he was.

  Swan returned to the Malatesta fortress with sweet rolls and small beer and some sausage, and the two famished men ate it all.

  ‘You make a very handsome priest,’ Bembo said.

  ‘I need to go and follow a lead,’ Swan said. ‘I need to know where Gianetti lived. And how he lived.’

  ‘I need to see Cesare,’ Bembo said. ‘And tomorrow both of us need to be at Lucrezia’s. Colonna, Orsini Primo, and Forteguerri.’

  ‘Damn,’ said Swan. ‘A day or two too early. Where is Umar?’

  Bembo sniffed the last sweet roll. ‘We cannot count on any of that. We have to be ready to act with what we have; Cesare, Giannis, the evidence in your hands.’

  ‘It’ll have a lot less blood if we can use …’

  Bembo shook his head. ‘There will be blood,’ he said.

  Swan walked north, towards St Maria Maggiore. He asked monks and wine-sellers until he was in the right street; a street he’d never seen before, of new houses built solidly of brick. Nice houses.

  He found Gianetti’s house easily enough, and he knocked at the door.

  A servant came, eyes downcast, and as Swan was dressed as a priest, called that ‘il padre’ was there on the step.

  Swan found himself introduced to a middle-aged woman.

  She smiled. ‘Father!’ she said. ‘Were you a friend of my husband’s?’

  She was perhaps forty-five and very well preserved; she wore unremitting black and looked well in it, and had the shoulders and carriage of a woman who rode.

  ‘I knew your husband slightly,’ he said. ‘He often handled my business for one cardinal or another.’

  She smiled. ‘I think that he and old Spinelli owned the whole college at one time or another,’ she said. ‘Will you take wine?’

  Swan was taking advantage of the time to look around. He hoped that he wasn’t too obvious but he didn’t really need to be too careful, either.

  Gianetti’s house was finer than Spinelli’s in Florence. It was full of beautiful things, from the open book of hours in the mullioned window to the lady herself, who wore black wool as fine as that of any bishop. There was wood panelling and good furniture of fruitwood and most of the panelling was carefully inlaid. Not one but three fine paintings occupied the walls; St Martin, St Thomas and a crucifixion.

  And the wine was quite good.

  ‘Can I help you in any way?’ Swan asked, to make conversation.

  ‘I would like to reclaim my husband’s horse and saddle,’ the woman said. ‘I love to ride, and Messire Spinelli apparently kept his horse.’

  Swan smiled. ‘I will ask Cardinal Picclomini,’ he said.

  ‘Ah,’ the lady said. ‘You serve the august Cardinal Aeneas?’

  Swan shrugged. ‘In my own poor way,’ he said.

  ‘My husband always hoped to be associated with him,’ the lady said.

  ‘You are Florentine?’ Swan asked.

  ‘Yes, Padre. And you? I cannot place your accent.’ She smiled.

  He smiled back. ‘Veronese,’ he said.

  ‘Forteguerri has a traitor. Cesare will expose him and gain the credit,’ Bembo said, rubbing his hands together. ‘Christ on the cross, this room is cold even in summer.’

  ‘Poor Picclomini,’ Swan said. ‘I planted a stable boy on him, you planted Cesare, and then, of course, the Pope owns one of his men-at-arms.’

  Bembo snorted. ‘Pride cometh before a fall,’ he said. ‘What of Gianetti?’

  Swan smiled. ‘He was married, if the woman in question was actually his wife. He has a house furnished like a Medici palace. Have we ever asked Lucrezia about Gianetti? My first thought looking at his wife was that she was one of Lucrezia’s women in retirement.’

  ‘So?’ Bembo asked. ‘Not so uncommon.’

  ‘Women out of that world cost contractual money.’ Swan shook his head. ‘I begin to fear I had all this backwards. Again. Gianetti knew where the old Pope’s money was. And he spent it, carefully. He didn’t live in a palace. He only had two horses; both excellent. But in the end, someone caught him.’

  ‘Antonelli,’ Bembo said.

  ‘Yes,’ Swan said. ‘But now I have to wonder if Lucrezia has been in on this from the very beginning.’

  Bembo fingered his beard. ‘I bought us clothes; nice clothes.’ He made a face. ‘I don’t see Lucrezia as a traitor,’ he admitted. ‘She could have sold me yesterday. She found someone to get a message to Loredan …’ He trailed off.

  ‘Or did she?’ Swan asked. ‘Look. Imagine that Donna Gianetti is a former employee of the good Donna Lucrezia. Damn; I should have stayed and watched her house.’

  ‘We cannot be seen,’ Bembo said.

  ‘Right. But imagine; Lucrezia could be the set-up agent all the way. She finds that Gianetti has too much money, she shops him to Antonelli; now we offer her money …’

  ‘Fuck,’ Bembo said, crude and to the point. ‘I don’t believe it.’

  ‘We can’t proceed,’ Swan insisted.

  ‘I agree,’ Bembo said. ‘But even my cynicism just received a jolt.’

  ‘I may be starting at shadows,’ Swan admitted.

  ‘If you are right, Loredan has no idea we are here,’ Bembo said.

  ‘If I am right, then Donna Gianetti has already told Lucrezia I went there,’ Swan said.

  ‘We’re in for a busy night,’ Bembo said. ‘Because now we need to go, in person, to Orsini Primo and to Colonna Uno and Picclomini. And tell them not to do anything on Lucrezia’s say-so, and not to visit her house.’

  ‘There’s a fine way to make ourselves popular,’ Swan said. ‘You go to Orsini and I go to Colonna.’

  ‘Agreed,’ Bembo said. ‘And Forteguerri …’

  Swan chewed silently on the thumb of a pair of stolen gloves. ‘This is a long shot,’ he said. ‘But … what if Forteguerri is working with Lucrezia?’

  Bembo froze as his busy mind ground through what he knew. ‘Possible,’ he said.

  ‘Let him go,’ Swan said. ‘Either way, he goes to Lucrezia’s often enough. Without the other two …’

  ‘Right,’ Bembo said. ‘Money?’

  ‘I have about forty ducats,’ Swan said.

  ‘Give me half,’ Bembo said. ‘Fallback?’

  ‘If we can’t meet tomorrow,’ Swan said, ‘then tell them to wait for an invitation from the Holy Father.’

  ‘What?’ Bembo asked.

  ‘Trust me,’ Swan said. He pulled on the sort of leather mask that thugs and lovers wore and went out into the street.

  The night stank. It was full summer; even the darkness in Rome was hot, and all the garbage stank. Dead people, dead cats, rats, uneaten food and manure of fifty species warred for his attention. The alley outside the old sally-porte stank of cat piss.

  Swan had a leather doublet and a short cloak and his own sword; he knew he looked like a bravo, but time was short.

  He was standing at the opening of the alley when Bembo emerged. Swan went back.

  ‘Call me a coward,’ he said. ‘But I think both of us should do both errands.’

  Bembo’s smile flashed in the darkness. ‘Two swords are better than one,’ he agreed.

  The streets were empty; the Spaniards had driven any normal traffic indoors. Most people only went out to get food or wine; no one went farther than the tavern on their street.

  The heat was stifling, and Swan loosened his collar and took off his
gloves.

  On a positive note, the Spaniards all had torches. They were easy to avoid because of the light, and although they tried to control all the city’s access points, they didn’t know the alleys or where men could hire a boat. Rome was a city that ran on secrets and an illicit sex trade; it was riddled with ways to pass unseen.

  They climbed and descended, bribed a boy to row them, and ended under a balcony of the Palazzo Colonna. The front gate was watched by a large gang of Spanish men-at-arms, two of them in armour.

  ‘Well, well,’ Swan said.

  ‘I know how to get in,’ Bembo said. He walked along the north side of the palazzo and threw stones at a window until the window opened and a male voice called. ‘Que?’

  ‘Di Bracchio,’ Bembo said softly.

  ‘Fuck me, you’re kidding,’ said the voice. ‘Back from the dead?’

  ‘Just Venice,’ Bembo said. ‘I need to see Uno. Life or death. No joke.’

  The man grunted and the window closed.

  ‘An agent?’ Swan asked.

  Bembo raised an eyebrow in the moonlit darkness.

  In a minute, they were standing before the cardinal-deacon. Both men had been disarmed.

  ‘So,’ the cardinal said. He sat comfortably in a loose robe at a table piled with food. A woman was holding a child a few chairs away.

  Swan took the lead. ‘My lord. Have you received word to meet me tomorrow?’

  Colonna frowned. ‘Yes,’ he said.

  ‘Please do not go,’ Swan said. ‘Please do not visit a certain house until this has all blown over.’ Swan glanced at the young woman with the child. ‘I have reason to doubt Donna Lucrezia. I may be wrong.’

  The young woman didn’t react to the name.

  Colonna smiled wolfishly. ‘I tell you what, Messire Suane. I will not tell my cousin Frederico that you think his wife, a Monferrat princess, might be a girl from Lucrezia’s, mmm?’

  Swan winced.

  Colonna Uno nodded. ‘What is this about?’ he asked. ‘Since we are, in fact, meeting.’

  ‘Eminence, Messire Antonelli is stealing money from the Church and from Messire Cosimo di Medici.’ Swan bowed his head.