and in clear sight of a pair of galleys.
‘Arms!’ ordered the captain, and he put the ship about. ‘Nothing to worry about yet, friends. We are at peace.’
Peace or not, the ship’s archers were in the bow and stern in a hundred heartbeats, and the men-at-arms had their armour on deck in the grilling sun.
The Turkish galleys paced them. By the time Swan was armed, there was a galley on either side, a few hundred paces away, matching them oar for oar. The Englishman walked to the side, trying his arm harnesses, feeling his stomach press against his ribs.
Peter was leaning nonchalantly against the ship’s side, bending one of the archer’s bows. His own was strung, and he had twenty arrows stuck point up through his belt. He grinned at his master.
‘Look at this bow,’ he said. ‘It’s Turkish!’
The Italian archer nodded. ‘Horn, and sinew,’ he said.
‘As heavy as my bow,’ Peter said. ‘I would like very much to try it, when we are ashore.’
‘Perhaps we could have a little contest,’ said the Italian. ‘If we aren’t taken and enslaved in the next five minutes, of course.’ Swan admired the archer’s sangfroid – the Italians had various words for it, and Swan’s favourite was
The ship’s trumpeter sounded a long note, and the drummer beat ‘To Arms’. Swan saw Alessandro beckoning. ‘He wants us all in the stern,’ Alessandro said.
Ser Marco had his eyes on the island to port. ‘I am gong to bear up and leave the island on our port side,’ he said. ‘It’s good sailing anyway, but it will force them to commit. If they want to continue flanking us, that bastard there will have to row across the wind.’ The farther Turk had a striped sail as big as a ship.
He gave the order, the timoneer repeated his orders, and the Venetian galley spun in the water and went due east.
The captain watched the Turks for a minute. ‘Very well. They’re coming for us,’ he said.
Swan didn’t see whatever it was that gave the captain this information, but his stomach flipped over again.
Alessandro nodded. He drew his long sword.
One of the ship’s men-at-arms turned to Swan. ‘Would you like a spear?’ he asked.
‘Of all things,’ Swan answered. He took a light partisan and a rotella, a steel shield a little more than two feet across and slightly convex. He strapped it on his arm, tried it, and heard a shout.
The farther Turk had turned and was coming straight for them.
The captain held up a hand. ‘Archers – whenever you have the range.’
Peter lofted the first shaft. He shot high, and the arrow went on the wind and vanished.
The Italian archer said something to Peter that made the Fleming laugh, and his bow came up and he loosed at a much lower angle. His arrow fell into the sea just short of the Turkish galley.
A dozen arrows rose out of the Turk and fell well short of their ship.
‘Wind in their teeth,’ Alessandro said.
Swan didn’t like the feeling – the slow creep of fear. He remembered it from the first hours at Castillon, when they overran the French archers on the road and then waited, and marched, and listened to the officers dicker. He wanted to get it over with. It was very different from a street fight, or the duel.
One of the Venetian archers called something, and all of the ship’s archers drew together and loosed, their arrows vanishing into the onrushing ship’s hull. Peter drew, loosed, and watched his arrow. Shook his head.
Swan turned to see the other Turkish galley. It stood off and seemed content to let its consort do the dirty work.
Peter looked at the Italian. ‘Ask him how he aims when the two hulls come together so fast.’
The Italian shrugged. ‘Like this!’ he said, and drew, and loosed. His shaft fell like a thunderbolt into the group on the command deck of the enemy ship. It was a spectacular shot, more than a hundred paces.
Peter grinned and loosed.
His arrow fell into the same group.
The Italian laughed, loosed, and then slapped the Fleming on the shoulder.
Turkish arrows were beginning to find marks among the Venetian oarsmen. A man on the second oar from the bow gave a cry, thrashed, wrecking his oar’s timing, and then slumped over the shaft, and two of the deck crewmen pulled him off his bench.
The Venetian galley had just one oar deck. There were three men on each oar, on long benches set at a definite angle to the centreline of the hull. The ram was above the waterline forward, and above the ram was a small bow where the marines waited. Swan headed there, aware as only a classicist could be that galley warfare had hardly changed in two thousand years.
A Turkish arrow got past his round shield and hit the top of his helmet, making his ears ring.
He got his shield up and an arrow struck the steel face and ricocheted off it, hit the bulkhead and came back, broken. The arrowhead – twice deflected – scored a deep gash in the top of his thigh, narrowly missing his testicles, and he winced.
He found himself behind Alessandro. The Italian had excellent armour, all Milanese, all matching – a small fortune in steel. He had to admit to himself that it was comforting to have a highly trained friend in head-to-toe steel between himself and the enemy.
Spent arrows rattled around the marine box. The Venetian archers were loosing so fast that it looked as if lines of arrows connected the two vessels.
The Turk was coming up from abeam, and then the Venetian captain changed course. He turned to starboard, so that he and the Turk were on parallel courses – and then he had his starboard oars retract as far as they could while the port oars drove on. The Venetian ship turned so suddenly that everyone aboard was thrown to starboard.
The Venetian archers, obviously forewarned, poured shafts into the waist of the Turkish ship, and the Venetian’s cathead caught the Turkish outrigger a hard blow. It wasn’t like a ram attack, but oars splintered, and the Venetians seemed to be winning the archery exchange.
Giannis was quite coolly cocking his crossbow and sending shaft after carefully aimed shaft into the enemy’s boarders.
And then the Turkish galley was falling away behind them, oars damaged, and with her waist a bloody chaos of arrow-shot men. For a few seconds, the Venetians had been at point-blank range, just a few paces away and eight feet higher in the water. A dozen of them had loosed perhaps six shafts each, and the result was that the Turkish ship, although undefeated – yet – was crippled. So many men were wounded that as she sagged away, blood ran from her scuppers – as if the ship herself was bleeding.
The Venetian galley settled on a new course and carried on, the sailors mending cut lines and trying to replace one oar that had been broken in the collision and wounded all three of its oarsmen.
Swan could hear his breath inside the confines of his burgonet. His hand found the catch and he got his visor open.
One of the Venetian men-at-arms slammed it shut just as another volley of arrows caught them.
He glanced to port. The other Turk was coming for them.
‘Mary, Mother of God, stand with us in our hour of need,’ said the Venetian who had closed his faceplate. He turned and saw a third Turkish galley emerging from behind a rocky islet on the coast of Samos.
‘Amen,’ said Swan.
Arrows fell like hail, and Swan was hit repeatedly – twice on his helmet, at least twice on his shield, and one that went between his foot and his boot sole, penetrating the boot on both sides and barely cutting his foot.
‘You have the luck of the devil,’ said one of the Venetians. He grinned inside his barbute, and in that moment took an arrow under his arm and fell to the deck, dead.
Alessandro turned. He looked behind them for a long time. ‘They’re going to ram us in the stern and board,’ he said. ‘Follow me.’
Swan didn’t ask questions. He ran the length of the ship through the arrow storm with the Italian, one stride behind. The Turkish galley was a horse length from the stern, bearing down on them, and the arrows were as thick
