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

‘You are very good,’ Swan said.

‘You are very kind,’ Claudio said. ‘Before I threw my little loop over Ser Marco’s artery, I had never – in a practical way – manipulated a human body. One that was alive, anyway.’

‘By God!’ Swan said.

‘Oh, I have experimented on myself,’ the little doctor said, as if that made it all better.

A Turkish boat came across and the embassy loaded up to move to Constantinople. Giannis came down to the ship and took Swan, Peter and the doctor and their gear to the Turkish boat, and they were rowed across the Horn – a curious and very exacting piece of small-boat handling, given the current. Giannis chatted with the boat’s crew in Greek.

‘What do they say?’ asked Alessandro.

‘That the taxes are lower,’ Giannis said. He was angry. ‘They are traitors.’

Swan shrugged. ‘I’m not sure they are,’ he said, thinking of the Gascons and the ‘Englishmen’ of the Dordogne. ‘People need peace in order to live.’

Giannis glared at him, and he hid his smile and watched the rapid current sweep them north towards the Euxine.

It took twenty days for the bishop to present his credentials. He was outraged by the wait.

Swan was in heaven, and would happily have had the embassy delayed another twenty days.

It was like a journey to some exotic dream, peopled by the best of classical antiquity and a thousand Sir Palomides, the Saracen knight of King Arthur’s court. The Greeks looked haunted, but shops were open. If there were gaps – enormous gaps, where fifty buildings had burned, where a whole square of shops had been looted and destroyed – there were also whole quarters that looked untouched by war. Many establishments smelled of fire, and in one small square, Swan could smell the unmistakable smell of human corpses rotting. The magnificent Hagia Sophia was a stable for the Sultan’s horses. Swan paid a ducat – a staggering sum – and was allowed to walk around. Earth had been put over the floors, and men on scaffolds were painting whitewash over the mosaics of gold and lapis and marble.

He kept his thoughts to himself.

At the great doors, he met a young man who bowed to the ground. ‘You are the English prince?’ he asked.

Swan was seldom confounded by his own tales, but this gave him pause for a moment – and then he recognised the young man. ‘Idris? Son of Omar Reis?’

The handsome young man bowed again. ‘The same. I . . . owe you my life.’

Swan returned the bow. ‘Well – it proved to be a fine decision on my part,’ he said. ‘I have a suspicion that if you’d been lying in a pool of your own blood, your father would have killed us all.’

Idris shrugged. ‘Perhaps. Truth to tell, I am not my father’s favourite.’ He shrugged again. Greeks and Turks had that shrug in common. ‘Come and have coffee. Tell me how I can be of service to you.’

‘How is your hand?’ Swan asked, all contrition.

Idris bowed. ‘I can still hold a sword,’ he said. ‘One small finger – a small price to pay for my life.’

As they walked across the great square, Swan reflected briefly on how narrowly he and this other man had come to one killing the other – and now, under a change of circumstance, they sat together drinking tiny thimbles of hot, sweet liquid and talking about language.

‘I have learned Turkish, of course, and Arabic. Italian. But the most beautiful is Persian. I write poetry in Persian.’ Idris stared off into space. ‘My father disapproves of my poetry writing. And my taste in friends,’ he added with the frank bitterness of the young. ‘I went to sea to prove to him that I am a man. He is such a barbarian, he thinks that the ability to ride a horse and fight with a sword defines you. But of course, I was captured.’

Swan flashed briefly on the fierce eyes – on the man parrying with his shield alone, after he’d been hit in the sword-arm. ‘I’ll be happy to testify to your bravery,’ Swan said. ‘May I have another?’

‘Effendi,’ murmured the Greek shopkeeper.

‘I owe you too much already. How can I repay you?’ asked the Turk.

Cash? A bloody great pile of ducats?

‘You could teach me Turkish,’ Swan said.

Idris made a face. ‘Perhaps,’ he said.

Next day, Swan took Peter as a guard and went to find the Jews.

They weren’t allowed to bear weapons openly, but both of them had daggers under their cloaks. Swan was sure he was followed every time they left the small inn where they were lodged in what had been the Venetian quarter. His experience in Venice had made him aware of people following him, but it was difficult here – every street was a sea of new faces; there were refugees and beggars on every corner. Still, he had an idea that the very tall, thin man he’d seen a few times was a shadow, and he tried various tricks – going down a very narrow alley he’d located in the old arcade of silversmiths, walking around by the old palace.

There was a Turkish guard on the gate of the Jewish ghetto. Swan took one look, scratched his chin, then walked back to the inn and sent a note by a beggar boy to Idris. Then he scribbled a note of his own and folded it inside Rabbi Aaron’s letter.

Idris was delighted to accompany them to the gate. He spoke a few words to the gate guard, and Swan guessed that he’d just been described as the Prince of England. He bowed, the gate guard bowed, and the three of them were allowed into the Jewish quarter.

There was damage, here – the synagogue had taken a cannonball, and Swan could see the glitter of magnificent mosaics inside. The three men stood at the entrance to the ghetto, and a pair of young men approached them.

Swan stepped forward, bowed, and asked for the house of Simon the merchant. ‘I have a letter from his brother in Venice,’ he said.

The two young men took him to Simon’s house. He was led inside, and servants bustled about. Simon was far more prosperous then his Venetian brother, the rabbi – he had a pair of Nubian slaves and half a dozen Slavic slaves, like the richest Venetians and Florentines. They were offered coffee, which was, apparently, to Turks what wine was to Italians.

Simon came, and Swan introduced himself and his two companions. He handed over the letter.

Simon bowed. ‘You will pardon me,’ he said. ‘With the siege, it is more than a year since I have heard from my brother.’ Swan saw him palm the inner note expertly and he relaxed. Simon left them for a few minutes, and they made stilted conversation and admired the calligraphy on scrolls around the walls, all of which Idris proclaimed to be Persian.

‘Except this one,’ he said, puzzling over one particularly odd scroll. The letters were both large and violent – square, almost. And yet oddly beautiful.

‘Chinese,’ said Simon, coming back into the room. ‘I thank you very much, Messer, for your kindness to an old Jew. May I be of service?’

Swan bowed. ‘I am interested in purchasing old manuscripts – old Greek manuscripts. I collect them,’ he said. ‘Your brother suggested you might help me.’ In Hebrew, he said, ‘Do you know the house in the note?’

Simon nodded. ‘I have sent a message,’ he said. ‘I expect he will come and fetch his package in person.’

‘I have it on me,’ Swan said. In Italian, he went on, ‘My poor Hebrew doesn’t go as far – could you direct me . . . to the . . .?’

Simon smiled. He waved a hand, and one of the servants led him to the neatest and sweetest-smelling jakes he’d ever seen. There was a basin of water and a basket of towels. Swan opened the basket of towels and put Balthazar’s package inside.

Then he racked his brain for the Hebrew word for ‘towel’.

Nothing came to mind. When Simon looked at him, he gave the man a small nod and mimed washing his hands.

Not even a blink of recognition.

He wasn’t going to discuss any more business with Idris present. So they spoke at random of a dozen things, asked after the family, and the business, as if he were truly an old family friend. He heard a stir in the doorway, and then there were bows.