Tom Swan and the Head of St George Part Two: Venice

The sun was grilling him. His slightly too-tight breast and back armour was biting into his hip and the base of his waist, and the pain was growing, running slowly up his side.

The bishop was there. ‘I must shrive him,’ he said, and pushed against Swan’s back. ‘Out of my way.’

The doctor looked up. ‘Back off,’ he said, his voice full of authority.

Bravo, little man.

‘You—’ sputtered the Bishop of Ostia.

‘Off the deck, Your Grace,’ Alessandro said.

‘Ser Marco is my—’

‘Clear the deck, Your Grace. The Turks are coming aboard.’ Alessandro’s voice was low and gentle.

The bishop turned and fled.

An Arsenali brought vinegar. Peter leaned over, a threaded needle in his hand. ‘Heavy linen cord. I waxed it,’ he said in his Flemish-accented English.

Swan translated but the doctor had already snatched the needle. He nodded at Peter and turned to Swan.

‘This is what we’re going to try,’ he said. ‘You hold on. As hard as ever you can. I will open the skin a little more, catch the end of the artery – I hope – in this loop.’ He’d made a loop like a horse breaker’s lasso. ‘I pull tight. You keep holding. Let me pass seven loops around the artery and put the needle through and tie off. Then you let go. Any time before – pfft. He’s dead. Yes? Are you ready?’

Swan knew that it was foolish to feel that the pain in his hip was important when they were trying to save the captain’s life – but he muttered, ‘Hurry, then!’

The doctor took a deep breath. He was praying.

This is a man with a genuine courage, Swan thought. The Turkish galley was towering over them. The oarsmen were silent. Twenty heads leaned into the circle to watch the doctor work.

‘I need light,’ he said.

Men made room.

The doctor’s hands moved. He slashed the skin. Blood flowed. He folded a flap back, and his left hand went in, the loop trailed in the blood. The blood spread over Swan’s hands, and he felt the artery under his forefinger begin to slip.

The loop missed. Swan couldn’t really see – he couldn’t get his head at the right angle, and his armet suddenly weighed a ton, and there was sweat flowing over his eyebrows and he couldn’t move. He grunted – it was not exactly pain, but it was a lot of minor discomforts piled one on another.

‘Fuck!’ said the doctor. ‘Tell the Dutchman to prepare me another loop.’

Swan said, ‘Peter—!’ but the Fleming understood enough.

‘Here! I’ve made three.’

The doctor muttered – something about the white of the waxed thread his only hope.

Something happening aft.

‘Got it,’ said the little doctor. ‘Got it! Hold hard!’

But the artery was slipping. It felt like a snake, a hard worm under Swan’s finger, and he brought his thumb down alongside the finger.

‘One. Two,’ the doctor counted. ‘Three!’

He paused. There were a series of rapid motions – the Turkish ship was doing something, the sailors were moving, the doctor thrust the needle hard – hard enough to make the muscles stand out on his neck.

‘Five,’ he said. ‘Six. Seven. Second stitch. Third stitch.’ The man looked triumphant – like a man who had won a serious fight, or won a fortune on the turn of a card. He radiated joy.

He looked over at Swan. Took Peter’s third loop, and took a deep breath. ‘Let go,’ he said. ‘Slowly.’

Swan found it hard to let go. His thumb and forefinger were stuck together with blood and pain.

‘Swan!’ Alessandro shouted.

He got to his feet. His knees and stomach muscles didn’t want to hold him up.

The doctor raised his face. ‘It’s holding,’ he said. He was staring into the blood and flesh.

Swan stumbled.

The Turkish ship, oars folded in like a bird’s wings, lay alongside. A man in a magnificent turban with a jewel holding an ostrich plume was standing at the base of the aft mast, hands on hips. He roared something.

Alessandro turned to Swan. ‘Do you understand him?’

Swan leaned out on to the oar box, put his bloody hand to his mouth, and called ‘Shukraan! ’ Thanks!

The man at the mast grinned. ‘May I come aboard, Frank?’ he called, in Arabic. From his accent, it wasn’t his first language.

‘May we speak Greek?’ Swan shouted back, and the Turkish officer waved. Without any further ceremony, he swung out on the spar of his lateen and landed accurately on the deck by Swan’s feet.

The Turk was taller than Swan by a head, with a magnificent beard as good as Rabbi Aaron’s, heavy chested, with a long, curved nose and heavy black brows. On the Turkish ship, a row of marines were pointing hand cannons over the rail, and two officers were screaming at each other.

Giannis snarled. ‘I know this one,’ he said.

The Turk inclined his head. He was more like a king than anyone that Swan had ever met – certainly far more like his idea of a king than Henry VI of England.

‘Omar Reis,’ spat Giannis. ‘Christ the Saviour.’

The Turk smiled, showing a mouthful of teeth. He wore a silk robe worth a thousand ducats and a gold-hilted sword worth as much again. The emerald in his turban was worth another thousand. At least. ‘The Greeks call me Omar Reis. I am Turahanoglu Omar Reis. You are in some small difficulty,’ he said. He was looking around.

Alessandro’s Greek wasn’t up to the exchange. Swan translated, and then said, ‘No difficulty, my lord. Just some pest control.’

Omar Reis smiled again. ‘Yes. I see that some of the rats had teeth.’

‘And blood. Quite a bit of blood. May we offer you a cup of fresh apple cider, my lord?’ Swan was quite sure there was cider somewhere in the bishop’s gear.

‘You are very kind,’ said the Turkish lord.

The wounded groaned, and the ships made all the small sounds of ships at sea, but otherwise there was complete silence on both ships. An oarsman went below for cider.

‘We have a safe conduct,’ Alessandro said. ‘And an ambassador from the Pope to the Sultan.’

Swan nodded and repeated Alessandro’s statement. ‘This is our captain, Alessandro of the illustrious family of the Bembii of Venice,’ he added.

The Turk inclined his head very slightly. Alessandro matched his inclination to the degree.

‘And you, Bloody Hand?’ asked the Turk. ‘I cannot place your accent.’

‘I’m an Englishman,’ Swan said. Some devil made him add, ‘My great-uncle is the King of England.’

Omar Reis had begun to step past him, but he paused. ‘Really?’ he asked. ‘King Henry has no brothers.’

‘John of Gaunt was my grandfather,’ Swan said. This Turk seemed to know quite a bit about England.

The Turk scratched below his beard at the base of his neck. ‘I see,’ he said. He bowed his head – just a little. ‘How may we be of service?’

Alessandro was glaring at him, but he folded up the glare and put it away before the Turk could see it.

Giannis said – in French – ‘He’s looking us over to see if he wants to take us.’

Alessandro nodded.

On the Turkish galley, the slow-match for the hand cannons burned, and minute whorls of smoke rose from the marines’ hands and curled away into the sun.

Swan was working through the problem in his head. Fighting didn’t promote careful planning, but now that he was no longer holding a man who was bleeding to death or fighting for his life, certain thoughts started to percolate through his mind.

First, that Omar Reis had to have known that the other two galleys were there. After all, the third galley had emerged from behind an island. The two ‘Smyrna’ galleys had been out in the current – but they must have rowed hard to get there and hold their stations.

The captain would have known all this.