Castillon: Tom Swan and the Head of St George Part One

Swan looked up. ‘Why not?’

‘Easy to prove or disprove in Paris. If true – you are worth more, yes? If false—’ He shook his head.

‘Ah,’ Swan said. He bit his thread. ‘Peter says he knows this knife maker,’ he said, and drew the knife and handed it to the Italian soldier, who took it by the hilt and tossed it in his hand.

‘From the assassin, yes?’ he asked.

Swan nodded.

‘Hmm,’ Alessandro grunted. He hefted it. It was as long as a man’s forearm, elbow to the tips of his fingers, with a thumb-rest that doubled as a guard. Alessandro took out the bye knife—the small eating knife that rested in the scabbard. He nodded. ‘Nice work.’

‘Not as nice as the crossbow,’ Peter said.

Alessandro smiled out of the corner of his mouth.

The room was loud and growing louder, as the town’s four prostitutes had just come in, wearing red dresses and with flowers in their hair. They were particularly unappetising to Swan, but the rest of the men clapped and hooted.

Swan leaned closer to Alessandro. ‘I would like to propound a theory,’ he said.

The Venetian bit his lip, glanced around the room, and nodded. ‘Outside, I think.’

They didn’t exactly slip outside, as several men growled when they pushed by, but they made it into the stable yard. The merchant’s carts were lining the south wall, and the count’s carts lined the west wall.

‘Propound away, my young scapegrace,’ Alessandro said.

Swan glanced around. ‘You went to university, sir?’

Alessandro nodded. ‘Yes. Padova. With Messire Accudi, in fact.’

‘So you know that the very best kind of theory is that which can be tested?’ Swan asked.

Alessandro nodded. ‘Get on with it. You weary me with all this talk of school.’

Swan nodded. ‘The count is a fraud. He’s a brigand – a good actor, and possibly a genuine knight. He’s not after us – he’s after Merechault. We’ve become a nuisance by appearing with a dozen men-at-arms.’ They walked slowly along, arm in arm like two old friends.

‘Fascinating,’ Alessandro said. ‘And your proof?’

Swan stopped in front of one of the count’s wagons. Now that he knew the liveries, he knew that the count’s wagons were the three that were not marked. ‘If I take my knife and slit the tarpaulin, you’ll find nothing inside of any value,’ he said. ‘But here’s a lesser proof.’ He pointed at the merchant’s wagons. Two of the wagoners sat on the boxes, watching. ‘The count’s wagons are never guarded. Because all his men know there’s nothing in them.’

Alessandro grunted. He turned both of them back towards the inn. ‘It would help to explain something which has vexed me,’ he said.

Swan paused. ‘Yes?’

Alessandro shrugged. ‘I understand that there was a great deal of theft at the abbey. A priest lost his shirts. Other things went missing – Cesare said someone stole a rich monk’s riding gloves. The abbot tried to blame us, as foreigners. It made the cardinal angry.’

Swan set his face like stone.

‘I do not care – very much – what you might be. But if you are a thief – leave my boots and my sword and ride off into the night,’ said the Italian.

Swan took another step. ‘I’m no thief,’ he said. ‘I’m a gentleman and a soldier.’

‘Of course,’ Alessandro said. ‘Where did you get a pair of riding gloves?’

‘I found them in the road,’ Swan said. Their eyes met in the darkness and Swan didn’t flinch.

And in that moment, his plan crystallised.

After Alessandro went off, he had a brief conversation with the youngest of the prostitutes. He caught Alessandro watching him, and winked while he pressed money into the girl’s hand. ‘That much again when we’re done,’ he said.

After dinner, he played piquet with the lawyers for an hour. His luck was fair, and he ended the game a few silver sequins ahead of when he started. Most of the rest of the inn was in bed, and the men-at-arms had gone to the stables to sleep.

Swan walked out through the kitchen. There was one slattern watching the fire, a second washing cups, and a third providing personal services to one of the French merchant’s men – the whore he’d spoken to earlier. Swan walked past, and out through the kitchen door into the darkness of the yard.

The merchant’s wagons were unguarded. He walked all the way down the line of wagons and made himself walk all the way back to the kitchen.

He wasn’t challenged.

His heart beat like a drum in a dance, but he drew his new knife, stepped up to the last wagon in the row, and slit the tarpaulin across.

A quarter of an hour later, he met the whore in the portico of the church.

‘Why here?’ he asked.

She shrugged. ‘I do most of my fucking here,’ she said. ‘It’s dry.’

He handed her a whole silver ecu.

She laughed.

‘Now you run,’ he said. ‘If you are here to be found in the morning—’ He hardened his voice. ‘I’ll kill you. Myself.’

She laughed. ‘You ain’t the killing type, lad.’ She bit the coin. ‘I’m gone, now. I’ll find another town.’ She looked at him. ‘You’re a funny one, though. You didn’t steal anything.’

He grabbed her wrist.

‘Ouch! Listen! I was done fucking the archer and I watched you through the door. You moved things, but you didn’t take anything.’

He shrugged. He bent her arm back the way his uncles had taught him. ‘I can break your arm, and then cut your throat,’ he said.

He must have looked the part. She whimpered. He let go, and she ran.

He was careful. He went up and over the wall into the inn yard, waited until the wagon guard was looking elsewhere, and crept into the stable. His greatest fear was that Alessandro would be there waiting for him, but the capitano was not there. Swan got into his blankets.

Peter’s hand gripped his arm like a vice. He put his lips almost against Swan’s ear. Swan froze.

‘I owe you, but I won’t swing for you,’ he said.

Swan turned very slowly. He was so close that it made him uncomfortable. This was like whispering with a girl in the loft of his mother’s inn. His heart was hammering.

‘We won’t swing,’ he said.

Peter grunted.

Swan lay awake, trying to tell himself that his plan was foolproof, but now the whore and the Fleming could kill him, and he was still awake when the light showed through the roof and the cock crowed.

There was a scream and a roar of anger from the yard.

His heart beat double time, and he thought, I’m an idiot.

He’d just seen the flaw in his plan, and it was far too late to fix it.

Cardinal Bessarion listened to the angry remonstrances of the count and the endless gush of invective from the injured merchant for an hour. Eventually, he bowed to both men and left them, mounting his destrier and riding at the head of his own convoy, out of the inn yard and on to the road. He rode side by side with his captain for a mile.

Swan watched them from the middle of the convoy, where he rode with the lawyers, as the road was deemed safe enough without him. He managed a blank face – he made some Latin jokes that fell flat, and he tried to engage Giannis, who waved and rode away.

He was scared enough that every apparent slight seemed to him to show that everyone knew what he had done.

He saw Alessandro nod to the cardinal and ride back down the column, and he knew immediately that the capitano was coming for him.