Tom Swan and the Siege of Belgrade: Volume Six
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Hunyadi tugged at his beard. ‘Can you command a ship?’ he asked.
Swan thought this the oddest of questions, based on the distance to the sea. But when confronted with opportunity, Swan had the habit of grasping it with both hands. ‘Yes,’ he said.
Hunyadi looked at him doubtfully. ‘You are younger than my son,’ he said. ‘I thought you were some English princeling. We have had such, from France and Burgundy. We even have a few of our own.’ He leaned back. ‘Can you build a ship?’ he asked.
‘B-build a ship?’ Swan asked. He had never met a man who challenged him so quickly. He suspected that one of the Order’s true mariners like Fra Tommaso, or a Venetian like Ser Marco, would have little trouble ordering the construction of a ship.
László spoke for the first time. ‘Father Pietro says you are very capable. We have some men who build fishing boats and no more. The rumour is that the Sultan has brought war galleys – twenty of them – all the way up the great river, and hundreds of other ships. He will isolate Belgrade from the river just as he uses his great guns to bombard us.’
Hunyadi’s eyes bored into Swan’s. ‘Can you oversee our boatbuilding?’ he asked.
Swan’s mind raced. ‘No,’ he said finally. It had taken him ten heartbeats to reach this staggering conclusion, but all he could see was the failure of the whole crusade as he built boats which sank.
Hunyadi leaned forward. ‘Think again, Ser Suane.’
László nodded. ‘We are a nation of horsemen,’ he said. ‘Half your men are Venetians.’
‘Venetian mercenaries,’ Swan said. Good Christ, is war all like this? An endless set of impossible tasks and endless stress and demands? I want to go back to Rome. A little desperately, Swan spread his hands on the table. ‘None of my men – almost none, anyway – are actually Venetians. Venetians stay in Venice.’
Hunyadi rose. ‘Then you will have to do it,’ he said. ‘I am, I confess, a little happier that you can tell me that you do not want this role. You have a little of the mountebank about you.’ He shrugged. ‘Don’t be offended.’
‘I’m not,’ Swan said.
‘But the good Father Pietro says you are the man for the boats,’ László said.
Mattias spoke up for the first time. ‘You won the cavalry fight,’ he said. ‘Pater says you are lucky.’
Swan considered noting that Pater also said that Italians were bad at war, but he bit his tongue in time. He rose and bowed. ‘You say there are local boatbuilders?’ he asked hopefully.
‘Peasants,’ Hunyadi said.
Swan nodded. ‘When shall I start?’ he asked.
‘A week ago?’ László asked.
Swan walked down to where the eight Hungarian men were sawing planks at the saw pit, leaving Clemente at a safe distance. There was, he noted, a superb pile of wood. He didn’t know much about wood, but he had spent months in Venice, knew the arsenal intimately, and Ser Marco had, in fact, taught him a thing or two.
There were miles of beautiful, clear fir and some good oak in neat piles. A Venetian shipwright would have wept to have so much good wood.
Swan went and stood by the saw pit. ‘Who is in charge, please?’ he asked.
A tall, thin, ascetic man clambered out of the pit, his clothes covered in sawdust.
‘I am George,’ he said. ‘This is my son Radi and my useless other son John.’ He spoke in heavily accented Hungarian. He smiled at Swan. ‘And these other men are Serbs – I call this fellow little George and this one Nicolai.’
Little George was easily one of the biggest men Swan had ever seen. He had evasive eyes and he cringed when Swan offered his hand.
Nicolai accepted Swan’s hand. ‘We are Serbs,’ he said. ‘But Branković sent us here to help.’ He shrugged. ‘Who are you?’
Swan bowed to them as if they were pashas or cardinals. ‘Ser Thomas Swan, knight of Venice and donat of the Order,’ he said smoothly. He was wearing an old sleeveless doublet and hose that had seen better days, and only the brooch in his cap and his ring – and the heavy dagger at his hip – might have revealed him as a man of property.
Little George cringed again.
Nicolai and George exchanged a look.
Swan nodded. ‘Gentlemen, I have commanded a galley in combat,’ he said. It was a lie, but not so very far from the truth. ‘I do not know much about building boats, but the Ban has placed me in command of the boatbuilding.’
George nodded. The other men looked at their feet.
‘Sit,’ Swan said. ‘Tell me what we are doing – what you have started, and what needs to be done.’
The men all looked at each other.
Swan’s Hungarian was not up to seduction or coercion. He waved to Clemente and summoned him.
‘Get me László Hunyadi if he is at leisure,’ he said. ‘If not, Šárka.’ He had a thought. ‘No – make it Šárka. Also, tell Ser Columbino to muster the company for drill.’
Clemente bowed.
‘Show me the boats we have,’ Swan said to George. The man nodded. His smiles were gone, replaced by a stone-faced reserve.
But all of the boatmen became more animated as they went over the boats. There were almost thirty of them, some pulled ashore, some being repaired, and a dozen floating at moorings. Most were six- or eight-oared barges – the middle size had flat bottoms and were built of oak. There were several big barges, rounder bottomed, with nicer lines, like the best class of Thames boat, and twelve oars a side.
Even Little George became animated when describing the largest of the river barges, which he and his sons had built.
Swan had them haul the big barge ashore. It was forty four feet long, broad in the beam, and it took all eleven of them to get it up the bank on rollers. Swan was covered in sweat by the time they were done, but he had their attention, and in fact four or five of them jabbered at him at the same time, using their hands as they explained some point of construction.
Šárka laughed. The sound of a woman’s laughter cut them like a whip, and all the men fell silent.
Swan was walking around the big barge.
It was a very substantial vessel.
All the men were looking at Šárka.
Swan nodded to her. ‘My Hungarian is not up to this,’ he said. ‘First, tell them that I need to know what their programme is – what they have planned. How many men they have to work, and how many they need. And you need to promise them that I am not punishing anyone.’
Šárka turned to the men, and her demeanour changed like that of an actor. She smiled, her voice became higher in pitch, and she giggled as if she was thirteen years old.
She was not a hard, unmatronly army woman. She became before his eyes a flirtatious, buoyant girl.
The boatbuilders all spoke at once. But George shouted them down – Swan understood that part, and made a note of the word ‘kuss!’, which obviously meant ‘Shut up!’, and then he began to speak emphatically. At first he spoke to Šárka, but after a few minutes, as she began to repeat his words, George turned and addressed Swan directly.
‘He says all they can do with so few men is repair the boats they have. He says, the Ban of Hungary, Lord Hunyadi, ordered him to build war galleys, but he says he has never even seen one. And that Little George’s barge is the biggest boat any of them have ever built. And that without more saws – at least – and two more pits – they cannot even repair the boats they have.’
Her face returned to its usual hard caution when she faced him. ‘That is the jist,’ she said.
Swan looked at the big barge and tried to place it next to a gallia sotil in his mind.
A fighting galley – an ordinary galley – was three times the size of the barge, with complicated outriggers to support the oars and a ton of cordage and masts and sails. And guns. The latest galleys …
‘So we need two more saw pits and two more big saws, and a lot of manpower.’ Swan looked at her. ‘Ask him if we could build thirty of these, with the bows done differently.’
The man was fawning and angry at the same time.
Swan grinned. ‘Tell him there’s nothing wrong with his bow. It’s a beautiful boat, and it reminds me of home,’ he said. ‘But I’m going to put guns in the bows.’
‘Christ and the saints, it will sink,’ George said.
Swan shook his head. ‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘But we will overcome that with ballast and men.’
‘What of the war galleys?’ George asked. He was looking at Nicolai.
‘You do not know how to build them,’ Swan said. ‘Neither do I. I might manage one, in time,’ he added grandly.
He was quite sure that Šárka said something more humble. But he grinned at them anyway.
‘How many of these can we build in, say, a week?’ he asked, slapping the heavy oak.
Nicolai spat in a contemplative manner, and looked at George. ‘Three?’ he said tentatively. ‘If we had another ten men?’
Swan shook his head. ‘I want thirty,’ he said. ‘And the first one may be a waste of time. We have to guess on the bow.’
‘Thirty?’ Nicolai gaped.
George didn’t. He frowned. ‘I would need fifteen saws and saw pits. They could begin making boards and frames under Little George while I rebuilt the bow to Your Excellency’s satisfaction. Nicolai should run the saw pits. The other skilled men would work with me.’
He had the vision. Swan was impressed. To Šárka he said, ‘These men are not peasants. They are proper artisans.’
She shrugged. ‘They are terrified of the Ban. Less afraid of you. Me – I am a woman and they …’ She gave him her false smile. ‘They do not work with women.’
Swan nodded. ‘So few men do,’ he said. ‘Their loss. Right,’ he said. ‘Finish whatever you were doing. The new work starts after midday.’
George nodded. The others shrugged.
Swan bowed and went towards his own section of camp.
Swan was in shirtsleeves, but he rode his warhorse and he saw the company formed. He had Columbino wheel the flanks in until they were formed in a box, facing him. Swan inspected them – mostly the horses. They looked good – far better than he’d have expected after a fight.
‘Gentlemen,’ he said in his fluent Tuscan Italian. ‘I noted one or two little deficiencies yesterday that could have led to our immediate destruction. You may have noticed that the first dismount at the causeway looked as if it was performed by cats and field mice; indeed, I’ve seen beggars steal food with more order.’ He nodded, and allowed Ataelus to walk a few paces. ‘And then there was the matter of wheeling through a quarter of a circle. Gentlemen, I ask you. Is this your idea of military proficiency? Are you not Italians? The heirs of Caesar and also Sforza?’
‘Fuck Sforza!’ shouted a man-at-arms from Vicenza, Giovanni Testudo.
‘Silence!’ Swan snapped in his best deep voice. The Order taught you how to do this – how to shock a man with sound. ‘I am mild because you won yesterday. But in fact, had the Turks not been badly led, we might all be dead. Understand?’
The older men looked sheepish. Or even nodded.
Swan looked them over. ‘I am pleased by your turnout. Yesterday will earn every man double pay. Earn it today with a little practice. But before I release you, I need you to pay attention. Listen!’
He looked around the ranks.
‘Anyone here a carpenter? Or worked for a carpenter?’ he asked.
No one moved.
‘I have no time for your playacting at being great nobles and fine gentlemen,’ he called. ‘The crusade is at a crisis. I need carpenters and men who can use a hammer or a saw. Speak up!’
Three pages and a very hesitant squire raised their hands. Swan trotted to the squire – Cesare di Trova. ‘You and the pages,’ he said. ‘Fall out. Wait for me.’
The squire looked as if he already regretted his lapse of judgement.
But he turned his horse and rode clear of the square.
Swan raised his voice. ‘Anyone ever built a boat?’ he asked.
Ser Niccolo Zane’s page was a mere sixteen years old, but he had ridden with Grazias the day before and survived. He had a very pretty crossbow on his saddle and his horse was better than most. If anyone looked the part of a gentleman, it was he.
But after exchanging a word with the Stone Barn, he inclined his head.
‘Capitano, my father builds boats in the lagoon,’ he said.
Swan rode over to him. ‘Can you get dirty and work?’ he asked.
‘Try me, Capitano,’ he responded.
Swan nodded. ‘Go with Cesare, then,’ he said.
The German crusaders also produced Heinrich, a fifteen-year-old carpenter’s apprentice. He was big, blond and unenthusiastic about being a carpenter again. Swan sent him to Cesare.
Six men was a start.
Ser Columbino called him aside. ‘It is you who should lead the company,’ he said.
Swan frowned. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘But I’m building boats.’
‘Building boats?’ Columbino asked.
‘Don’t ask,’ Swan said.
It took him an hour to get to see Hunyadi again. Now that the sun was high, his full panoply of courtiers was present. Swan tried to be patient, and was aware that better clothes would have saved time. But he was stubborn, and the idea, in this heat, of changing to a suit of Venetian wool so that he could attend the Ban – all so that he could change back to go to the saw pit – seemed absurd.
Finally – with many a backward glare from men who had waited longer – Swan was ushered into the tent.
‘How can my lord help you?’ a chamberlain asked in an officious voice.
‘My lord Ban,’ Swan began.
Hunyadi’s head shot around. ‘Suane!’ he said. ‘How long have you waited?’
‘An hour,’ Swan said with a bow.
‘Fuck your mother!’ spat Hunyadi. ‘This man is to have the right of instant admittance,’ he said.
Swan bowed.
Hunyadi bowed. ‘Now,’ he said.
‘I need – first, I need at least ten pit saws. If we can’t make them, we need to send a wagon to the city for them. Second, I need as many men as you can spare. Surely there are strong men who built this fortress.’
‘Most of them have gone home to harvest their grain before the Turks come, or they will starve to death this winter,’ Hunyadi said.
‘I need a hundred strong men. More would be better. And my company produced half a dozen trained men. Surely the other companies …’
Hunyadi shook his head. ‘Hungary is not like Italy, my friend. Men who fight here have no other skills. They are born to it.’ He frowned. ‘It might be better if we had some cities to produce such men as your command – skilled men. But every skilled man in Hungary performs that skill. Only warriors fight.’
Swan sighed. ‘Then I need strong backs,’ he said.
Hunyadi nodded. He was already impatient – ready to move on to the next crisis. ‘So you can build me galleys?’ he said.
‘No,’ Swan replied. ‘I will build you a fleet of river barges.’
‘We will all die for nothing. Do not waste my time.’ Hunyadi snapped his fingers.
‘There are no shipwrights here,’ Swan said. Another man was pushing into the tent behind him. ‘Dammit, Lord! Listen to me!’
Hunyadi stood up. ‘No one speaks to me like that. Return when you can—’
Swan was smaller than Hunyadi. ‘Will you let me speak?’ he asked. ‘You asked me to take this job because I had fought the Turks at sea! Will you listen?’
Hunyadi’s eyes narrowed, his head bent forward and his weight changed as if he was ready to fight. ‘Speak,’ he said.
‘I think – I think I can put a gun in the bow of the big river barges – a falconet at least, and maybe a falcon. If that works, I can g
ive you a fleet of gunboats that will be more than a match for Turkish galleys.’ Swan found that he was breathing hard, as if he’d run a race or fought a duel.
Hunyadi sighed, and sat back down.
‘With galleys, we can impress our own men – that we are not beaten.’ Hunyadi shook his head. ‘I don’t know whether this notion of yours will work, but it will not impress anyone.’
Swan knelt. ‘Lord,’ he said quietly. ‘If we build a galley – we will have one. A war galley – even a little ordinary – will eat every worker in this camp, and still won’t have proper sails and masts, and I don’t think we even have the people to make oars that long. You must believe me – I know the craft. But big barges – these men can build them. They are tough and hard to sink, and they can carry a gun. We will not have to train oarsmen – almost any man can handle a barge oar. Please, my lord.’
‘How many?’ Hunyadi asked.
‘I want thirty,’ Swan said. ‘At least ten.’
‘Christ. Ten?’ Hunyadi sighed. ‘The Turks will have a dozen great galleys.’
Swan shrugged. ‘I can’t change that,’ he said. ‘How soon?’ he asked.
‘Four or five days,’ Hunyadi said heavily.
Swan whistled. ‘Well,’ he said with mock cheer. ‘That will be a challenge.’
Two days passed, and no boats had been built. Grazias was gone; László Hunyadi rode to Barcsa opposite Belgrade and returned with a dozen pit saws – and an army of peasants.
Swan was out on the river in the newly rebuilt river barge. She was now a little over fifty feet long, and her bow had been rebuilt to sport an inelegant, flat foredeck heavily reinforced with oak posts. She had an odd, piebald look, with new, golden wood forward and older grey wood aft.
But she floated, Swan’s first worry, and he had the oarsmen – all his craftsmen, Italian and German and Hungarian and Serb all together, as rowers. Ladislav and five of his Bohemians were in the bows with the company’s falconet, her long barrel well out over the water past the blunt bow.
She moved well. Swan was head down in the bow, watching the seams, which were leaking water, when Marco, the Venetian lad, called out to him.