Tom Swan and the Head of St. George Part Five: Rhodes

by Christian Cameron

  ‘Cut at my head. A nice simple fendente.’ He raised his sword’s tip.

  Zambale didn’t like this, as it was not the game he’d imagined – so when he cut, he did it with a clumsy feint and a lot of force.

  Swan caught his blade with a high parry and held it well to the inside of his head – and then reached up and caught it with his hand. Very lightly, he tapped the big man on the head with his sword.

  ‘Well!’ Zambale said. ‘That’s a trick. It must be that new swords are lighter. You couldn’t do that against a heavy sword.’

  Swan didn’t feel like relenting. ‘It is easier with a heavy sword.’

  Zambale looked at his blade, which had several deep nicks, and frowned. ‘Hmmf,’ he said. ‘School tricks.’

  ‘I thought that you wanted to see what the Italian schools offered?’ Swan said.

  ‘I don’t need a lesson from you,’ Zambale said. ‘I know what works in a real fight.’

  Swan was old enough to know invincible ignorance when he saw it. ‘Well – a pleasant Saint George’s Day to you.’ He examined his blade and sheathed it.

  The stradiotes were paying off their wagers. The oarsmen clapped Swan on the back. There was some evident ill-feeling, and Swan was pretty sure he hadn’t done the cause of Christian unity any good.

  And he’d sweated through his doublet.

  Swan arrived at the citadel exactly as the hour of eight o’clock rang from the chapel. The knights had told him to be on time, and he had heeded them.

  There was no one in the hall but servants laying tables.

  The positive side of being the very first guest was that he had time to change into his costume. Servants took him to an old solar, where he changed. He stripped off his Italian clothes and played with the chiton for ten minutes until a bored slave approached him and offered, in a pantomime of gestures, to pin his chiton. When he was pinned and belted, and he’d played with the pleats – it was a surprisingly complex garment for its apparent simplicity – he tied his sandals, and pinned his beautiful cloak over his shoulder, and wished for a mirror.

  Instead, he put his Italian clothes in a neat pile and went out into the hall.

  There was still no one there. If it hadn’t been for the boards newly laid and the smell of a feast in preparation, he would have worried that he had the wrong day.

  He began to wander the hall. There were cabinets – three of them. Each filled with delightful antiquities. There was an entire lacquered tray of ancient coins – some of the finest that Swan had ever seen, including a great many from Samothrace, and more with dolphins and beautifully realised women – Swan found one big silver coin breathtaking.

  ‘I shall have my collections more carefully watched,’ Prince Dorino said in his odd voice. This time, he was already at Swan’s elbow – just at hand. Swan hadn’t even heard him approach.

  ‘Although, to be sure, you have nowhere to hide anything that you lust after,’ Dorino said. He leered.

  Swan winced. The slaves were looking away. ‘Your collections are the finest I’ve seen,’ he said.

  Prince Dorino was already in a chiton and chlamys. The chiton looked a trifle odd on a man of fifty. On his shoulder burned an emerald as big as an acorn, pinning his cloak.

  ‘Oh, is it the collections that brought you so very early?’ Dorino said. ‘I rather fancied it might be my young cousin Theodora. Hmm?’

  A year or two earlier, such a comment might have brought a stammering denial or a blush, but now Swan merely shrugged. ‘A magnificent figure, I agree.’

  ‘A magnificent figure! I shall tell her. Given your love of the classical, we’ll assume you know whereof you speak, young man. Have you met my daughter, Caterina?’

  The young woman in question came closer. Dressed in a long sea-green linen chiton that revealed her arms and the points of her shoulders and hung to the floor, with a belt of pearls and more pearls in her shining black hair, she looked like a painting in the latest Italian style. ‘Goodness! So early!’ she said.

  Swan knelt instead of bowing – as he was aware of the limitations of his own chiton from watching Prince Dorino. It hiked up at the back very easily. ‘You are like a vision of Apollo’s sister Artemis of the flowing hair, come to earth to visit us poor mortals.’

  ‘This is my friend Isabella,’ she said, turning to a dark redhead. That young woman was wearing a deeper green chiton with a peplos, but the sides of her chiton were very slightly open and Swan nearly expired of lust on the spot – though in fact he could see only a finger’s width of creamy flesh.

  ‘Had I known that such a handsome knight was already in attendance,’ Isabella said with a dimpled smile. ‘My brother thinks you are a dangerous menace to island society. So naturally, I like you.’

  Swan went down on one knee again. He had never realised how much padding hose gave him until he had to place his bare knee on a marble floor. ‘Donna, I am your servant.’

  ‘Just don’t tell me I’m either Aphrodite or Artemis,’ she said. ‘I won’t have either.’ She smiled again, and Swan – unrepentant – stepped offline as if in a sword fight and had another look at her sides.

  She raised an eyebrow.

  Swan cocked his head to one side. ‘It would be a sin not to look, Despoina.’

  It might have been a good line with some girls, but apparently not with Isabella Zambale. Two parties had arrived in the foyer and had been escorted to the hall, and she turned to greet them.

  ‘Women are odd about flattery,’ Prince Dorino said with a connoisseur’s air. ‘Very discriminating. The flattery has to be … accurate. Except with the easy ones, and then, who bothers?’

  Swan re-evaluated his views of Prince Dorino.

  ‘My cousin was born to the Imperial Purple,’ the prince went on. ‘She cares no more for flattery than she does for religious dogma. It has been her place all her life to receive the plaudits of strangers.’

  Swan was at a loss for what to say. ‘I … seek only to do her honour,’ he managed.

  Prince Dorino looked at him as if he were a fool. ‘Oh, honour,’ he said. ‘I’m attempting to do you a favour, young man.’

  Swan met the prince’s eyes. ‘Why?’ he asked.

  The older man’s eyes passed over a huddle of women in the middle of the floor. They were newcomers, and their linen was nearly transparent. They were obviously a little uneasy with their clothing, and thus gathered in a very tight knot. A paean of giggles and protests emerged.

  ‘Perhaps you remind me so very much of myself at your age,’ the prince said.

  Swan winced.

  ‘Did you see the English ship that made harbour tonight?’ the prince asked with a mercurial change. He took a golden cup of wine from a servitor.

  ‘No!’ Swan said. ‘Was it called Katherine Sturmy?’

  ‘Yes,’ the prince said, bowing to a newcomer. ‘The English are everywhere. Is it a good place to live, England?’ he asked.

  Swan thought for a moment. ‘Yes. Not as warm as here but … beautiful.’ A wave of homesickness assaulted him and just for a moment he thought of London – of fishing in the Lea and chasing girls over the fields at Lambeth, where the archbishop had his palace south of London and all the brothels were.

  ‘I suspect that my time here is nearly done,’ the prince said, looking at the assembly.

  ‘Do you believe the Turks will defeat us?’ Swan asked.

  Prince Dorino smiled. ‘What a charming child you are, to be sure,’ he said. ‘The Turks? I mean my son Domenico, who will cheerfully murder me.’

  ‘Why?’ Swan asked. He could only picture Fra Domenico, who was, surely, too old to be this man’s son.

  ‘Wealth. Power. And to please the Turks.’ The prince shrugged. ‘Please – drink wine, dance, and if you can manage it, fornicate. These things will make you happier than listening to me.’

  ‘Would anything convince you to let your fleet cooperate with ours?’ Swan asked.

  Dorino laughed. ‘Perhaps to s
ave something from the wreckage – if I believed anything could be saved. My dear boy – this is the end. My world is ending whether I live or die. Christendom has failed.’

  Dorino made Swan angry. Swan had few scruples of his own, but he didn’t preach defeatism and he couldn’t imagine that this rich man wouldn’t fight. ‘Why not fight because it is the right thing to do?’

  Prince Dorino smiled. Shook his head. ‘Is it?’ he asked. ‘The Turks may be better men. Their government – even their religion – may be better.’

  Swan met his eye. ‘Have you ever thought,’ he asked, playing his card as carefully as he could, ‘that there is a traitor, selling Christendom to the Turks?’

  ‘I think it often,’ Prince Dorino said.

  Swan leaned forward. ‘Can you imagine who would do such a thing? Betray Christians to the Turk?’

  Dorino laughed his high-pitched, woman’s laugh.

  ‘I don’t have to imagine. Through my correspondence I have traced three of them who sell us to the Turk every day! The Doge of Venice, the director of the Casa Saint Giorgio in Genoa, and the Pope. Traitors. Every one.’ Dorino made a moue. ‘That’s not who you are after. Eh?’

  Swan shook his head. ‘I take your meaning.’

  Prince Dorino laughed without mirth. ‘Yes – I think there is a traitor.’ He shrugged. ‘Whether he does more damage then the Pope …’

  ‘My cousin is a notorious atheist,’ Theodora said. She took the prince’s arm. She was wearing a double-folded chiton – nearly transparent linen, beautifully arranged, and two layers thick, so that sometimes, when she moved, it was modest, and other movements seemed to disclose …

  Her skin really was the colour of amber and looked as if it was hot to the touch. Her lips were coral, and her eyes the same peculiar green, and for all her perfection of figure she had immense dignity. When she spoke, she spoke with the effect of careful deliberation.

  Swan found that his mouth was hanging open.

  ‘I would send my fleet to sea to fight for this woman,’ Prince Dorino said. ‘The Sultan wants her.’

  ‘He has so many Greek ladies in his harem now – what is one more?’ she asked.

  Swan clamped down on his intention to flatter. ‘Perhaps he is a collector,’ he said, instead.

  Prince Dorino nodded. ‘That is well said,’ he murmured. ‘The young prince here was a great hero at Rhodos, one gathers.’

  The princess cast down her eyes and smiled politely.

  ‘He killed ten Turks.’ Dorino’s voice became like that of an oracle. Swan felt a chill run down his back. ‘Isn’t that splendid, Theodora?’

  ‘You must be a very great man of arms,’ Theodora said. The compliment bored her – he could see her thoughts going elsewhere.

  ‘But has anyone asked how the Turks knew to get in under the city in the first place?’ Dorino asked.

  Swan scowled. ‘The slaves told them,’ he said.

  ‘Really?’ Prince Dorino said. ‘Didn’t the Turks arrive and camp simply to hide their intentions? Didn’t they know before they even landed?’

  Swan had clenched his teeth. He gestured agreement.

  Swan hoped that the prince would leave them alone, but the fete had reached a size that made it worthwhile to start the dancing, and Caterina could be seen going from person to person – the musicians struck up a ‘German’ dance from Milan, and Swan knew it. The Prima Figlia Guglielmino. Two couples danced it as a group of four – very stately, very intimate.

  Swan, in his usual way, chose to chance everything on one hazard.

  ‘May I ask you to dance?’ Swan said. The slightly amused look in her green eyes made him feel like a man who was in a game in which he couldn’t even afford the stake, much less a wager.

  ‘Well,’ the princess said. ‘As you are a prince – although of two generations of bastardy, I hear tell – and I am a princess, it seems to me that no one is more suitable to ask. So yes, you may.’

  It took Swan a moment to work through her beautiful Greek and realise that she had not said yes.

  ‘Your Grace, would you do me the immense honour of dancing?’ he asked. For the first time in many months, he blessed his father, the cardinal, for enough formal training to play this game at all.

  She looked away. If it was meant to be flirtatious, it was the clumsiest flirtation Swan had ever seen. That seemed unlikely. Then she smiled.

  ‘Is it an immense honour?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes,’ he said into her eyes.

  She sighed. ‘I doubt I’ll find anyone more suitable. May I share a commonplace with you, your grace?’

  ‘Please do,’ Swan said, inwardly cursing the vaccuousness of his expression.

  ‘Sometimes, it is tiresome ot be a beautiful princess,’ she said, and allowed him to lead her to the floor with a subtle inclination of her head.

  The other couple in his set proved to be the Lady Caterina and the Lord of Eressos. They swept away into the dance, which was, to Swan, a rigorous exercise in etiquette and memorisation. He knew the dance well enough – a few steps in, he was assured that he knew it, and that Zambale knew it, too.

  But the women really knew it. The men walked their stately half-circles and the tempo changed, and Theodora, who was the lead woman, performed her movimento, and Swan wanted to cry out at the beauty of her movement – her body, the simple linen – Caterina echoed the movement, and for one measure the two women were hand to hand and eye to eye, and if Swan had been a painter, he would have painted that moment.

  And then the women fled, and the men pursued – all to the usual conclusion, except that Swan, on the last place change, took the princess at exactly the same moment that the Graeco-Scot took Caterina – by the waist, raising them and spinning to set them in their places, as if they had been in a Moresca. It suited the music – the women flushed and smiled, and the audience were thunderous in their applause.

  ‘Hah! Couldn’t have been prettier if we’d planned it,’ Zambale said.

  As he was disposed to be courteous, and as the princess had vanished in a crowd of popularity, Swan walked with the Lord of Eressos to the table set with wines and a slave poured him a glass.

  ‘Do you feel a fool in these clothes?’ Zambale asked.

  Swan shrugged. ‘Yes and no. For those of us with muscles to show …’ He left the rest of the comment unspoken. Zambale looked the part of Hector and had no shortage of musculature on display, and women of all ages watched him as they might watch a favourite pony every time he moved.

  Zambale nodded. He paused, as if confused, and then said, hurriedly, ‘Would you take me as a volunteer? On your galley?’

  Swan frowned. ‘Surely you have duties here?’

  Zambale shrugged. ‘No. That is, yes, but I … Dorino is not going to do anything. I want to do something.’

  Swan had a certain sympathy for Dorino’s point of view, the more he considered it. The Turks seemed remarkably benevolent – united, just and strong, they contrasted with the Christian states and their petty princes and Church feuds. Simultaneously, he identified with the crusaders and the Knights of St John – England, good King Richard and the evil Saracens were all part of his childhood.

  And it was good to do something.

  ‘I’m sure we can find you a place,’ he said.

  ‘I want to see a real fight,’ Zambale insisted.

  ‘You could have my place,’ Swan said. It didn’t sound as light hearted as he’d meant it. Swan had found that there were some limits on courage. He’d begun to fear that some day he might just run out.

  Swan danced seven times. He was in demand – as Theodora’s first partner, as an Englishman, and as a novelty. He danced with Caterina, to Prince Dorino’s delight, and he danced with Isabella, with her brother on her other side, a Bereguardo Novo that seemed to go on for ever and in which he was frustratingly close to the princess and never close enough.

  Later, wine was served from the magnificent ancient krater that sat in the foyer on a
plinth, and Swan hurried to drink twice-watered wine from Candia – and to be the first to bring a small cup to the princess, who took it without comment, a slightly bored flick of her eyes his only reward. He wondered what he had done wrong.

  And then Caterina clapped her hands – very like Violetta for a moment – and called all the women her own age together, matrons and unmarried girls too. Swan turned and caught Theodora’s eye on him. Nor did her eyes leave his, once they’d met. So he winked.

  She smiled.

  She took a step towards him, and he towards her, almost as if they were dancing.

  Caterina beckoned to her, and she walked – gracefully – across the marble floor and took her friend’s hand.

  ‘She’s been married,’ Zambale said. ‘Looks like that, and the Emperor’s daughter – there’s talk she’s to be given to the Grand Turk as a bribe. Or married to the Prince of Persia. Uzun Hasan. You know the White Sheep?’

  Swan had never heard of Uzun Hasan, or the White Sheep Turkomans. Zambale was happy to inform him. Swan spent the brief political lesson with his eyes on the most beautiful thing in the room.

  And when the women had discussed the possibilities of the last dance, it was decided that they would perform a Verzeppe, a fast, violent dance like a skirmish where three men danced with two women.

  He found that his group of three men was himself, Zambale and Prince Dorino, the latter with his cloak cast aside. They danced with Caterina and Theodora. There were four more sets, and all the tables had to be cleared. And the dance was so new that they walked through it four times, with a level of informality that seemed at odds with earlier parts of the fete. But a great deal of wine had been drunk – and faces were flushed. Two men had attacked each other with their fists and been removed; several couples were sufficiently engaged in amorous behaviour that the bishop had taken his entourage and left.

  Swan had never been to such a fine party.

  The dance itself was like a fight. It was fast – it required coordination, and the fastest element required one of the men to weave his way through the ladies as they turned – this could be balletic or ballistic, depending on the man’s agility and skill. But the opportunities for eye contact and interaction were endless – each man had a moment with the two women in every figure.