Her left hand went around his neck and stroked down – shoulder blade, spine – one nail just scratching along the lines and troughs of his muscles.
Her tongue brushed his.
Her right hand . . .
Voices in the courtyard. She stood up and pulled him to his feet. Flowers of pain blossomed at his ankles and ran down – and up – and he stumbled and fell, despite her grip on him.
But he got a foot under himself. Pushed to his feet.
Grabbed her, pulled her to him, and kissed her. He put his right hand on her left breast, through her robe felt the nipple, and she moaned.
‘Khatun Bengül?’ called a voice in the courtyard. She stiffened.
‘Don’t forget me,’ Swan said. He tried to find something from the Greek poets – something to say – but his brain was on fire with lust and his legs were afire with pain.
‘Khatun Bengül?’ came Omar Reis’s voice.
‘We’re dead,’ Khatun Bengül said. She was clearly shocked to her core. ‘It should be my brother out there.’
‘Window?’ Swan asked.
‘There are no windows in a virgin’s rooms – none that face out.’ She reached for him. ‘We are going to die.’
Swan had the oddest feeling – that this had happened before. Perhaps it had.
Of course, it might be that a doting father would kill only the lover – the foreign lover.
Whose death would nicely suit the political situation, discrediting the embassy.
Christ, I’ve been had at every level. Auntie wasn’t going to sell me to the Armenians. Auntie was going to play the outraged sister and pass me to the Wolf of Thrace.
‘Windows into the yard?’ he asked.
She pointed mutely at the ornate curtained frame visible through her chamber door. It let directly on to the courtyard. He went to it as swiftly as his feet allowed and peered through the curtain. He could see Idris, six feet away, with a sword, and a trio of Turks – hard men with lined faces and curved swords.
‘Khatun Bengül? I’m coming in,’ her father said. ‘My sister is very angry.’
Khatun Bengül was petrified. She wasn’t playacting. She was literally unable to move. ‘I’ll be stoned to death,’ she sobbed. ‘I never thought father would come back. He said . . .’
He looked around. She had her own apartment with her own slaves and servants – six rooms, all of which opened off a single door to the second-floor balconies that lined the arched colonnades of the courtyard. Bedroom, sitting room, clothes room – he was stumbling from room to room, now – slaves, pretending to be asleep, a small workroom with steps going down.
‘That’s the first place they’ll look!’ she cried. ‘The kitchen!’
‘Go and talk to your father,’ he said. He put an arm around her waist and kissed her. ‘We won’t die.’ He let go, and ran down the steps, his unwanted erection bouncing along like an extra limb.
The outer door of the apartment opened. ‘Khatun Bengül!’ roared Omar Reis.
Swan came to the bottom of the steps. There wasn’t even a separate window to the courtyard. He’d have taken his chances with that – but he was in a stone chamber lined with shelves. A pantry.
There were two curtained doorways.
‘If he’s here, he’s a dead man,’ Omar Reis said. ‘Auntie says you have polluted yourself.’
There was something in Omar Reis’s manner – even through his terror, Swan realised that the Turk knew. He knew – everything.
I’ve been had.
Curiously, the knowledge that the Turkish lord had set him up – probably set him up to be caught with the auntie – wheels within wheels – stiffened his spine. He grew calm.
If I get through this alive, I’m going to get that bastard.
He heard the sound of soft Turkish boots on the stone steps.
Two doors.
He slipped through the nearest.
It was dark. He tried to feel his way – silently – around, hoping against hope that there was a trunk, a barrel, anything to give him a chance. He began to consider fighting.
Naked, against a professional.
He stubbed his toe. Hard.
Fell against cool stone, and smelled . . .
Water.
A well cover.
Open. Why not? It was indoors.
Turkish voices. Ten feet away. Two of them.
He jumped into the well.
If you ever want to understand the true meaning of fear, jump into a deep hole in total darkness and test your feelings as you fall.
Swan fell.
His right shoulder impacted heavily on something that hurt him, and then he was in water – deep, cold water. He struck it badly, and it knocked the wind out of him, and he went too deep, sputtering. It was all he could do not to breathe.
He didn’t know which way the surface was. He didn’t know if he had enough air in his lungs to allow him to float.
He was losing it.
A great bubble escaped him – a gob of air lost. It rippled past his face . . .
I’m upside down. Bubbles rise.
He reversed himself, let out another tiny bubble of air, and swam – a panicked, wild, thrashing swim.
But his head broke the surface.
And smacked into something stone, in pitch darkness.
He took three breaths. Then he had to swim, and his fingers hit stone over his head. When he tried a shallower stroke, he hit his head again.
It finally came through.
I’m going to die here. I’m in a well.
He took another breath, and reached up. He ran his fingers across the stone, using his buoyancy to press him against the ceiling. I fell from somewhere, damn it. Somewhere within a few feet was an opening.
He scraped an elbow, bumped his shoulder, and the feeling of the air on his face changed.
His head bobbed free.
There was something under his left hand, and he held it – an edge. For a very long time, he simply clung to the edge, resting. Breathing.
It was a ledge. It was quite wide, and under only a few inches of water.
He reached up as far as he could reach, and there was no ceiling.
He got a knee up on the ledge. It seemed the hardest thing he’d ever done.
He half lay on the underwater ledge for many, many breaths.
Then he got the other leg up. He knelt.
The drug had finally worn off, he was pleased to note.
He crouched on the ledge. He wasn’t dead, but that was about all he could say. He was now bitterly cold and very tired. It was completely dark. Utterly dark.
How, exactly, do I get myself into these things?
He began to explore, cautiously. His rational mind said that he would be weaker later.
His questing arms found a column. He put his back against it and stood cautiously, waiting for the feeling of stone against his head all the way, but when he was standing tall, he felt as if there was still a great deal of space above him.
There was another ledge above the one he was on. It was six feet above him, and he only found it because his hands were feeling for the ceiling. He got his fingers over the edge, and then his hands, and then his arms.
He didn’t make a conscious decision. He jumped, pushed with his arms, and he was lying on cool, dry stone. He instantly revised his chances of survival. This was . . . intentional. This shelf – it was like . . .
A path.
He crawled six feet and felt the drop just in time. The shelf ended abruptly. It fell away to the water.
Swan knew that, at this point, if he went back to the water, he’d die. He was just barely managing to keep the panic in check, but under the clarity of his thinking was an abyss of pain and fear. He was close to losing it. The thought I’m going to die alone in the dark was fully formed and very close.
He turned, with infinite patience, and crawled very slowly back the way he’d come. He knew he was on ‘new ground’ when he came to rock with no
water on it. He crawled.
And crawled.
After ten minutes, he knew that he was going – somewhere.
Further, it occurred to him that the air was fresh.
I’m not in a well, he thought. Or rather, hoped.
At the next column, he pulled himself into a crouch, and then sat with his back against the pillar. After a while, his back warmed the pillar. He wrapped his arms around himself and shivered.
He tried to think of Khatun Bengül’s body. Of her lips. Or Violante’s or Tilda’s.
But the darkness was all around him, and he was cold, and it is very hard to be brave in the dark, alone, when you are cold and wet.
But he must have slept.
Because he woke.
And there was . . . light.
Not much light. But after hours of complete darkness, it might have been direct sunlight.
He wasn’t in a well – he was in some sort of underground canal. The canal had a ledge underwater – probably for workmen to stand on while they cleared obstructions and pollutions. Above that was a walkway, on which he’d crawled. He looked back. He could see the end, about forty feet behind him.
He’d crawled forty feet.
He sighed.
He looked down into the water. It was only about six feet deep.
It had a current.
And a few yards away, it flowed out from under an arch. So he’d . . . swum? Been floated? Under that arch.
Somewhere, there would be an entrance. If workmen came here . . .
He got to his feet. His arms were covered in bruises, and he had tender places on his head. His hands looked as if he’d been in a fight.
He started walking.
After what had to have been a mile – an incredible distance underground – there were steps, and then . . .
The tunnel split. The water came down a small waterfall – he flashed on the blood running down the steps, and suddenly he thought, Why did Khatun Bengül kill to get me?
None of it made any sense.
Or rather, it all made a scary kind of sense. Like the sorts of dramas that had played out at England’s royal court.
He turned right, because he had a feeling about how the canal ran. He’d read his classics. The water must come from an aqueduct. That meant – since water flowed downhill – that he was now going east, towards the Venetian quarter.
He had begun to look at every light-hole. They were evenly spaced, for the most part – twenty feet or more over his head. As he walked, he began to make a plan. After a while, he laughed aloud, because if he was planning, then his brain was working, and he didn’t think he was going to die, which was funny, because he was still alone and naked and cold.
But an hour later, he climbed through a set of obstructions into brighter light. He could see people – he’d been hearing them for half an hour. The sides of the cistern had long since collapsed, and become a public fountain, and on one side, a pair of small boys bathed while on the other, their mothers filled jars.
They were Greek women. He could hear them speaking Greek.
He moved carefully behind a pillar.
‘Despoina,’ he called out. ‘I need help, in the name of Christ.’
The two women drawing water startled like deer. They both looked around.
‘I’ve escaped from the Turk. I’m naked, and I need clothes. I promise I can pay. Please help me,’ he said in what he hoped was his most complacent and charming Greek.
The nearer of the two women made a motion with her hand to the other.
‘Show yourself, heretic,’ she said.
He called out, ‘I’m naked.’
‘All the better,’ she said, drawing a knife from her gown. ‘Let me see you,’ she ordered.
Swan emerged from the columns.
She laughed. ‘A Frank! Truly, you are not lying.’ She spat. ‘Why should I save you? You Franks are worse than the Turks.’
‘Money? Save me, and I will pay.’ Swan backed away.
She looked around. ‘Truly? You will pay? So will the Turks, I would guess. Eh?’ she asked, and waved the knife at him.
The other woman laughed. ‘He is young, and handsome.’ She made an obscene gesture. ‘And naked.’
Half an hour later, he was at the gates of the Venetian quarter, dressed as a Greek woman. Silently, head averted, he handed a folded note to the janissary, who passed it in to the Venetian guard.
Alessandro appeared. ‘I’ll answer for this woman,’ he said coolly.
The janissary saluted and smirked, and Swan followed his capitano.
‘Where the fuck have you been?’ Alessandro said.
‘I was set up. I survived.’ He shook his head. ‘I escaped.’
‘How do you come to be dressed . . . like a woman? Like a Greek woman?’ Alessandro asked.
‘It’s complicated,’ Swan said.
Alessandro stopped and shocked him by embracing him. ‘Well done,’ he said.
‘What – well done for not getting killed?’ Swan asked.
‘Given the way things are going, not getting killed gets a pass,’ Alessandro said.
After a lot of sleep, he sat with a cup of wine in Alessandro’s room. ‘This is how I see it,’ he said. ‘Omar Reis planned to use me. His sister planned to use me and sell me, but Omar Reis always intended to make an unpleasant incident of the whole thing. And kill me.’
Alessandro fingered his beard.
‘Had I been caught – red handed, so to speak—’
‘The Sultan might have refused the embassy, or merely used it as a pretext to keep us waiting.’ Alessandro shrugged. ‘As if he needs a pretext.’ The Venetian leaned forward. ‘I should send you across to Galata before the Turks send for you.’
Swan looked out into the sunlight. Warm and dry, with wine in him, the whole thing was beginning to seem more like an adventure. ‘I don’t think Omar Reis can admit I was in his house.’
‘He must know. He knows you weren’t here. His janissaries must tell him of every movement here.’
‘Yes – but can he admit that I penetrated his sanctum,’ Swan enjoyed his double entendre, ‘and lived to tell of it?’
Alessandro fingered his beard.
‘What if I never returned?’ Swan asked.
‘What?’ Alessandro said.
‘All the janissary knows is that you brought in a Greek whore.’ Swan finished his wine. ‘I think I’ve thought this through. Give me Peter and some money. I’m going to disappear. And I’m going to get the cardinal’s library out of his house, and maybe some other things.’ He nodded to himself. ‘I may even manage to get these things shipped over to Galata.’
Alessandro nodded. ‘You think you can use the sewers to get into his house.’
Swan was crestfallen that the Venetian saw so quickly through his plan. ‘Yes.’
Alessandro nodded. ‘This is an excellent plan,’ he said. ‘Let me give you a word of advice.’
Swan nodded.
‘Do not – I beg leave to repeat myself – do not seek to avenge yourself on Omar Reis.’ Alessandro rose and poured more wine. ‘We have our date. The Sultan will receive the papal ambassador in three days’ time. We are to leave the city immediately after.’ Alessandro handed him wine. ‘Whatever you do, you must be back in three days. And no revenge. Understood?’
Swan nodded. ‘Of course not. That would be stupid.’
An hour later, he had exchanged notes with Simon. Several hours later, a Greek wine merchant came into the Venetian quarter, and sold Candian wine to the Venetians by the hogshead from two wagons. A servant jumped down from the rear wagon and found Alessandro, and gave him a package.
Alessandro handed it over to Swan. It contained a set of directions and a full set of clothes – ragged, Greek clothes. Swan shook his head. ‘When do I get to dress well?’ he asked, and became a ragged Greek veteran, a penniless beggar. Peter became another such.
Alessandro shook his head. ‘Your whole plan depends on this Jew.’
‘Yes and no,’ Swan said. ‘I have something for him, as well.’ Then he and Peter went into the shadow of the gate.
Together, they waited their moment, and while the Greek wine merchant’s wagons stopped by the janissary, they slipped out.
The two of them moved carefully. Peter was too tall to avoid notice, but Swan needed him.
He almost laughed aloud when a pair of Greeks stopped and gave them alms.
‘At least you fought,’ said the elder. He clasped Peter’s hand.
‘He’s lost his voice,’ Swan said. ‘We fought, and we’ll keep fighting.’
The two men looked both pleased – and guilty. They handed over more coins and walked away quickly.
Peter shook his head. ‘They’re afraid,’ he said, in French.
Swan followed the route as laid down by Simon. He assumed that Simon was having them watched, checking to see that they were alone. He hoped so.
After walking over half the city, they came down Third Hill on a steep street. As they descended, a heavy grain wagon pulled across the narrow street. A pair of men jumped down.
They had crossbows.
‘Get on,’ said the one who looked as if someone had burned his face off.
The second man stood well clear of them. A small boy in the back of the wagon lifted the edge of a tarpaulin and they slipped in under the load of hay. It was stifling hot, and Swan immediately had to sneeze.
‘I don’t like this,’ said Peter.
The wagon rattled and clanked over the streets. It had no suspension, and Swan’s head cracked against the bottom several times before he found a better way to lie. He sneezed and sneezed, and one of the guards ordered him to be quiet.
Peter put a linen coif – none too clean – over his mouth. ‘We’re passing a guard post,’ he hissed.
Swan managed to keep his sneezes to himself for a hundred long heartbeats, and then the wagon was moving again.
Moments later, the top was stripped back, and Simon was standing with six armed men.
‘What have you done?’ he asked. But he seemed more amused than anything. ‘You promised me a secret and a profit in your note,’ he said.
Swan sneezed.
Later, dressed in an ornate robe and curly slippers, Swan leaned back on comfortable cushions.
‘So you are an agent of the cardinal,’ Simon said.
Tom Swan and the Head of St George Part Three: Constantinople tsathosg-3 Page 2