Swan made a devil’s-horn sign with his left hand and flashed it to Alessandro behind the Turk’s back.
Giannis grabbed his hand. In French, he said, ‘He’s the most powerful Turk on the Greek mainland. His father is Turahan Bey and he’s the Lord of Thrace.’
Swan was watching the young man he’d taken prisoner. Peter was standing by him, and the young man’s eyes were glued on the Turkish lord, who looked around, never quite seeing the prisoner.
Alessandro bowed. A servant presented a tray with a silver goblet full of cider. The Turk took it. He looked at Alessandro.
‘We must share, my lord, if you want me to try it first,’ Alessandro said, and Swan translated.
The Turk handed him the cup.
Alessandro drank and handed it back to him with a bow.
The Turk drained it. ‘Let me see this safe conduct,’ he said.
Swan, watching him like a hawk, saw his glance pass over the prisoner – pause, and move on.
It was like watching a boy trying not to look at a girl with bare legs or nice breasts.
Alessandro was looking at him. In Latin, he said, ‘All three galleys serve Dido of Carthage.’ He smiled.
The Turk turned to look at him.
‘The boy with Peter must be his son,’ Swan went on in Latin. ‘Look at him.’
Alessandro nodded. He gave that thin-lipped smile he adopted when he was going to do something nasty.
The bishop came on deck. He was a heavy man, and he made heavy work of crossing the deck from the coach. ‘Who is this infidel?’ he asked in Italian.
Omar Reis smiled. In Italian he said, ‘I might ask the same,’ and waved. ‘I will have to take this ship until all this is sorted out.’
Alessandro snapped his fingers and motioned to Peter. Peter put a dagger against the young man’s throat.
The bishop had a scroll in his hand, and Alessandro snatched it without a word of apology. ‘My lord, please allow me to offer our safe conduct, signed by the Sultan, Mehmet the Second of that glorious name, and issued to the Bishop of Ostia and his train, so long as they are transported by a Venetian ship. This is a Venetian ship. Venice is at peace with the Sultan, but if you attempt to impound us, I promise you three things; first, that you will die; second, that your son will die before your eyes; and third, that your ship will be as easily defeated as your two consorts have been. I’ll add a fourth, my lord – that Venice will go to war for us.’
Omar Reis didn’t show a shadow of fear. He smiled, and looked around. ‘Son? I have no son,’ he said. ‘Your threats are as empty as air. I have driven off your enemies. I am the Lord of Thrace – these waters are mine, under the Sultan, who’s slave I am. If you touch me, all of you will die, crucified after you have been degraded by my galley slaves. Ask your pet Greek what I do to my enemies.’ His smile deepened. ‘Come – you have made your threats, and I have made mine. I would like my food.’ He snapped his fingers, and an oarsman brought him the safe conduct. He read it as if they were of no further concern to him.
Swan thought it might be the finest performance of bravery he’d ever seen.
Omar Reis shrugged. ‘I do not read Latin,’ he said. ‘This might be the directions to a brothel.’ He was looking at Swan, who grinned. Alessandro couldn’t stop himself – he grinned too.
‘But I will issue you my own safe conduct. If you are a Venetian ship, why is your flag not flying?’ he asked. ‘The Lion of Saint Mark is sacrosanct in these waters.’ In fact, the red flag with the lion was flapping away a few paces behind the Turkish lord.
Giannis snorted.
Alessandro shrugged. ‘It must have been cut away in the fighting,’ he said. ‘Or perhaps it was difficult to see from the angle at which you approached.’
As the two galleys had both attacked from astern, this was preposterous. As everyone present knew.
Omar Reis nodded. ‘Is your uncle really the King of England?’
‘Great-uncle,’ Swan said. In Arabic, he said, ‘The boy is your son.’
Omar Reis met his eye. ‘Your Arabic is terrible,’ he said. He nodded very slightly.
‘Peter, let the young man go,’ Swan said.
There was a grunt, and Omar Reis’s eyes moved, just for an instant.
‘I will escort you to Constantinople,’ said the Turkish lord. He turned to Swan and bowed. ‘I thank you.’
Swan waved the Turkish lord on his way, just as he’d seen his father do a hundred times. ‘It is nothing,’ he said, in his most haughty voice.
When the Turks were gone over the side, Alessandro embraced him. ‘I think that one is on you,’ he said. ‘I owe you a fine cup of wine. And the Virgin a hundred candles of white wax.’
Giannis shook his hand. ‘You have matched wits with Satan’s own son,’ he said. ‘And the Virgin will do well from me, as well.’
The Golden Horn was perhaps the most magnificent sight that Swan had ever seen, and the towers and palaces of Byzantium – even six months after a brutal siege and sack – were the most splendid he could imagine. The tower of Galata on the Asian side was matched – or exceeded – by the golden onion domes of the great churches – some already converted to mosques. Two new minarets towered over the centre of the Palace of Blacharnae, and yet the great breaches blown in the walls by the Turkish cannon remained unrepaired.
The Turkish warships ‘escorted’ them all the way to the harbour mole for Galata. The fiction that the two ‘Smyrna’ galleys were somehow enemies of Omar Reis was thinly preserved – the two ships followed the Venetian at the distance of a few leagues, while the Turkish lord himself was always hull up, often broadside on a mere two hundred paces away.
For the last three days, they were on deck all the time – strings to bows, in harness. Swan had never worn armour four days running. The breast and back – slightly too tight – cut into him like a blade. He had constant diarrhoea, as did half the ship, and the wounds on his right leg bled yellow pus, and still he didn’t take off his armour.
The bishop’s doctor worked double tides. He proved an increasingly confident professional, and he seemed to grow in stature each day. By the time they sighted the tower of Galata, he seemed four inches taller, and six men owed him their lives.
Ser Marco was one of them. He was awake, and he screamed each day when his bandages were changed – Messer Claudio insisted on pouring vinegar on wounds. But aside from the screams, he seemed better.
They landed to a silent, hostile town. Most of the citizens were Genoese, and resented the handing-over of the town to Venice. Turkish soldiers still roamed the town.
‘It was bad here,’ Alessandro said, after he’d been ashore.
Swan had his armour off for the first time in four days. He had open sores despite his heavy leather and linen arming doublet, and a wound he’d missed altogether, a long cut that had somehow gone up under the skirts of his fauldand cut above his buttocks into the base of his back. It wasn’t bad, but it explained why he’d hurt so much.
He stank.
The pus kept coming out of his leg.
‘Fuck it,’ he said to Alessandro, and jumped into the sea.
The pain was intense, but he swam through it as the salt searched out every abrasion, every wound. It felt to him as if tiny doctors were cleaning him with tiny, sharp brushes. He swam and swam, until his arms wouldn’t support him, and then he climbed up the anchor cable, feeling curiously heavy.
Dr Claudio hauled him inboard. ‘You are the merest Empiric,’ he said. ‘You don’t know that salt water is good for wounds.’ He leaned over. ‘Let me look at your back.’
He scrubbed the wound with vinegar and then did something that hurt like fire. Swan screeched like a small girl who burns herself on a candle.
Claudio laughed. ‘Alum,’ he said. ‘Nothing cleans a wound like alum.’
The bishop disembarked and moved into a house in the town. Swan heard about his embassy from the doctor, who, as it proved, was much happier caring for the soldiers than being ignored by the churchman.
‘I was the tenth choice for the embassy,’ Claudio admitted. ‘He fancies himself a great man on an important mission, whereas the rest of us know that he’s the only man who’d take the job, and what he’s doing is a formality.’ The doctor shrugged. ‘He wanted a famous medico, and he got me.’
