Tom Swan and the Head of St George Part Three: Constantinople

Nothing happened.

Head still covered, he tugged the rope.

It seemed to have caught.

Suddenly his whole plan for climbing out of the well seemed very, very foolish.

He climbed the rope anyway. He tied a second rope to the ladder, hoping it would break his fall.

And then he was in. He could smell old incense, and there was enough light in the sky to see that he was in a kitchen, and that someone had opened the grain pithoi set into the floor.

Enough light to see the row of palettes where people slept. Kitchen slaves, perhaps.

And enough light to see the sword, held at eye height, pointed at his face.

On the positive side, it was a European sword, and the man behind it looked Greek.

It’s not always easy to take note of a man’s appearance when he’s looking at you over a sword, but the Greek was very handsome, with a small pointed beard and moustache, excellent skin and a strong chin. He was heavily muscled, like an athlete or a rower.

‘I’m from Cardinal Bessarion,’ Swan said.

The young man – he was no older than Swan – breathed out. ‘Christos Anesti,’ he said. ‘Christ is Risen.’ He looked at Swan. ‘We’ve been waiting.’

Swan lost a few hundred heartbeats when he saw how precariously his grapnel had grabbed the very edge of the well cover. He vowed never, ever to do such a foolish thing again.

Peter came up the rope.

The young man’s name was Apollinaris. He spoke perfect Italian. ‘I work for the cardinal,’ he said proudly.

‘Are you his steward?’ Swan asked.

‘I’m a philosopher,’ the young man said. ‘Sometimes an actor.’ He frowned. ‘Sometimes I steal secrets. And I’m an astrologer. And a hermeticist.’

Swan looked the young man over. ‘Are you alone here?’

‘No,’ Apollinaris said. ‘My whole troupe is here.’

‘Troupe?’ Swan felt as if he was missing something.

‘We’re mimes. We perform mimes, and ancient plays.’ Apollinaris shook his head. ‘You are a barbarian, I see.’

Peter’s head emerged from the well.

‘This is Peter – my . . . friend. Peter, this young man is Apollinaris. He says he is . . .’ Swan hesitated. ‘A philosopher. And the leader of a troupe of actors.’

‘Good Christ,’ Peter said.

‘I’m not the leader,’ Apollinaris said. ‘Nikephorus is the leader.’

‘I see,’ Swan said. The young man was on edge, and Swan had the oddest feeling that the young man was an escaped lunatic. He seemed to bounce slightly on the balls of his feet, as if overfilled with spirit.

Apollinaris leaned over the well. ‘Did you really come from the sewers? I always meant to explore them.’

Swan shrugged. ‘Am I right in assuming you need to get – er – out of Constantinople?’ he asked.

Apollinaris nodded. ‘Cardinal Bessarion sent a coded message and said he was sending someone to pick us up,’ he said. He sagged. ‘But that was months ago.’

Swan delivered a long string of obscenities. Peter arched an eyebrow.

‘Of course he didn’t tell us. What else could His Eminence do? What you don’t know, you can’t reveal.’ The Fleming sounded vaguely envious.

‘Books, he said. Relics. The head of Saint George.’ Swan all but spat. ‘A troupe of actors.’

‘You know about the head?’ asked the young man. ‘We have it.’

Swan crossed himself, something he very rarely did. ‘You . . . have it?’

‘Yes. We stole it. From the Turks.’ Apollinaris seemed very matter-of-fact about the whole thing.

He led them down a hall, and up a servant’s stair. At the top, he knocked softly at a pair of double doors. They opened.

Inside stood an enormous man with a cocked crossbow, a normally sized older man with another, and two women with the muscles of dancers, wearing men’s clothing, and with Turkish bows.

‘They’re from Cardinal Bessarion,’ Apollinaris said.

The room had pigeonholes in the walls, from floor to fifteen-foot ceilings, and every pigeonhole was filled with scrolls. Scrolls lay on the floor, and more were in baskets by the chairs.

In the middle of the room was a vast table, and in the centre of the table sat a reliquary slightly smaller than a man’s helmet. It looked to be made of solid gold, studded with pearls, enamel work and jewels.

Swan took it all in.

The crossbows didn’t waver. ‘Prove it,’ said the big man, in Greek.

‘How?’ Swan asked.

The man looked confused.

‘Look, I’ve come a long way. I thought I was coming for some books, but it appears I’ve been sent to get you lot. I have an escape plan, and all I need is a boat. If you don’t want to come, that’s fine.’ The whole time Swan was speaking he was looking at the reliquary.

It was . . . incredible.

First, he wasn’t sure he’d ever seen so much gold in one place at one time.

Secondly, the workmanship was . . . exquisite. Divine. Amazing.

Thirdly, it was covered – almost vulgarly so – in jewels. Swan wasn’t a jeweller, but he was pretty sure he was looking at diamonds. And rubies.

Large ones.

One of the dancers stepped between him and the reliquary. ‘We stole it,’ she said. ‘It’s ours.’

Peter fell on his knees.

So did Swan. He couldn’t help himself. He was twenty years old, and he’d been a devout Christian for every minute of the time – his mother had seen to that. He didn’t make a conscious decision to kneel. He just did.

Apollinaris grinned.

‘It really is the head of Saint George,’ he said.

‘May I . . . touch it?’ Swan asked, filled with the same vague piety that infected him when he was around Cardinal Bessarion.

The woman smiled. ‘Yes. I suppose.’ She stepped back. ‘How are you getting us out of here?’

‘How long have you been here?’ Swan asked.

‘Since the siege.’ Apollinaris shrugged. ‘Eventually we’d have abandoned the head and left the city. There’s no getting it out.’

‘The Turks know it is missing. And they’ll stop at nothing to get it.’ This from the older man.

Swan felt foolish, but something made him approach the object on his knees. He shuffled along until he reached the low table, and he opened the reliquary – it had a magnificent door, like the door to a miniature cathedral.

Inside was a brown skull. A cross had been inlaid into the smooth bone of the forehead. Otherwise, it was just a skull, and a very old one.

‘They say that whoever has the head of Saint George cannot be harmed by monsters or demons, by weapons, even by torture,’ said the prettier of the two dancers. She bowed. ‘I’m Irene.’

‘And I’m Andromache,’ said the other. ‘We are acrobats. And actors.’

Swan smiled and stood. ‘You’re the old woman at the gate.’

She smiled back. ‘And you are the Turk.’

The giant bowed. ‘Constantios, at your service,’ he said, stiffly.

The older man bowed as well. ‘Nikephorus,’ he said. He smiled bitterly. ‘Nikephorus Dukas.’

Swan tore his eyes from the relic. ‘Of the noble Dukas family?’ he asked.

‘One small branch, devoted to learning. We cannot all be busy ruining the empire.’ He shrugged as if his words were of no account. Then he pointed at the skull. ‘Familiarity will make you more comfortable with it,’ he