Tom Swan and the Head of St. George Part Six: Chios

Mytilini, Lesvos

It was the English ship that had brought the warning and sounded the alarm.

By the time the sun was high in the sky, Tom Swan had worked himself into a state of exhaustion. Working side by side with all the oarsmen, the mercenaries, the sailors and a hundred Greek fishermen, he’d helped to haul all five of the order’s galleys up the beach on rollers, and then, one by one, to haul the town’s fishing boats ashore.

The only ship still lying in the harbour was the very ship that had warned them. The Katherine Sturmy, an English vessel whose owner and captain were working stripped to the waist, at his side, was a round ship — her stern castle was almost fifty feet above the water, and her cavernous holds made her too big to beach in a crisis.

Out beyond the new-built breakwater in carefully dressed stone lay the reason for the near-panicked movement of the hulls — a two-hundred-ship Turkish fleet lying easily at anchor on a sea so calm that the west wind scarcely riffled it.

Swan paused and put a hand to the middle of his back like a much older man.

Richard Sturmy laughed. In English, he said, ‘I used to complain about the prices on Turkey goods — carpets and the like.’ He shook his head ruefully. ‘If I live to light a candle in St Magnus Martyr by the Bridge at home, I’ll never speak ill of the Turkey merchants again. These are the most violent folk in the world.’

Swan had to laugh. ‘The French say that of us!’ he managed.

But Sturmy saw nothing funny in it. ‘What do you expect from your Frenchmen?’ he said. ‘Sweet Christ, I was a fool to allow the goodwife to convince me to bring her on this fool expedition. And my daughter — by Saint George, Sir Knight, I fear for them more than for myself. Hannah is but twelve.’ His voice wavered. Sturmy was a strong man — but not in the face of the level of calamity facing him.

Down the beach, Swan could see Fra Tommaso giving orders to a dozen Burgundian archers, but the Turkish fleet, despite its vast size, was making no motion of immediate attack. Swan bowed to the English party. ‘I must see if my lord has further orders,’ he said. ‘It is very possible that the Turk will pass us by and your ship will be safer here than most places.’

‘Except that this place is ruled by the fucking — pardon me — Genoese, who are allies of the frog-eating French and hate us,’ said the mate of the Katherine Sturmy, who was called — with rare appropriateness — John Shipman.

Swan grinned. ‘I can’t drive away the Turks, Master Shipman,’ he said. ‘But I think I can promise that Prince Dorino will honour your firman and your letter from the Council of Genoa. He is …’ Swan paused, trying to imagine how to describe the Prince of Lesvos, who was old and not old, clever, witty, dangerous, effeminate and masculine, aesthetic and vicious. And very hard to describe. ‘He is a fair man,’ Swan said.

Master Shipman shrugged. ‘Gentle is as gentle does, eh? But I’d be most grateful, and so would my owner, if you was to put in a good word for us.’

Swan bowed, and then ran, half naked, up the beach.

Fra Tommaso and Fra Domenico stood side by side, watching the Turks. Fra Domenico managed a brief smile at Swan as he ran up.

‘Ah, the energy of youth,’ Domenico said. ‘Or perhaps you were snug in bed when the alarm rang?’

‘Someone’s bed,’ Fra Tommaso said. But his look was mild. ‘These English sailors are good men.’

Swan bowed. ‘The English are afraid that their cargo will be seized,’ he said. ‘And afraid of the Turks, as well.’

Fra Tommaso narrowed his eyes. ‘I’ll see to that. They’ve earned their keep with their warnings to us and their hard work.’

Fra Domenico waved at the Turks, the ring he wore flashing in the sun like a weapon. ‘Young man, can you swim?’

Swan’s heart sank. ‘Yes,’ he admitted.

‘Well?’ Domenico asked.

‘Well enough,’ Swan said. Well enough to bathe in the Thames in February when the ice is running, he thought.

Domenico looked at Tommaso. Then, as if they had but one mind, the two knights turned and looked at Swan.

Swan quailed and wondered which of his sins had been discovered. The illicit cargo of mastic?

‘He wants you to try something insanely brave,’ Fra Tommaso said. He shrugged. Swan didn’t like the look Fra Tommaso gave his fellow knight. It held … reproof.

Fra Domenico’s eyes sparkled like his ring. ‘It is not so insane,’ he said. ‘I want you to cross the island, get a fishing boat from Kalloni and land on Chios. You’ll have to swim to get into the city. With a message.’ He grinned. ‘Twice, if my little plan works out.’

Swan sighed. He heard a voice say ‘I’ll do it!’ with reckless enthusiasm.

It took a moment to realise that the voice had been his own.

Fra Tommaso pursed his lips. ‘The Turks may sail away tomorrow …’

‘In which case, we will not risk Master Swan,’ Domenico said. ‘But they have stolen a march on us, and a dozen galleys can hold us pinned to this beach, and the Pasha knows that as well as you and I.’

‘How will a message help Chios? If the truth is that we are blockaded here?’ Swan managed.

Domenico smiled. ‘Truth? Who said anything about the truth?’ He looked at his left hand, and put his right on his sword hilt. ‘Quid est veritas? Pilate was right.’

‘He wants you to tell Chios that the Genoese Grand Fleet is at sea,’ Tommaso said. He glared at Fra Diablo. ‘You sail perilously close to blasphemy.’ To Swan he said, ‘Do not take any foolish risks. Don’t get captured.’

‘Better yet, get captured and tell the Turks,’ Domenico said. He shrugged. ‘I am what I am.’

Bathed and dressed, Swan drank three cups of watered wine and walked down into the town. Many shops were closed, and the market was shuttered, but the silversmith was sitting in the spring sun with a wine cup between his hands.

Swan sat down. ‘My apologies, Kyrie. My day has been rather spoiled by the advent of the Turks.’

The silversmith laughed. ‘In this, Frank, you are forgiven. I saw you working on the beach — indeed, you helped haul one of my brother-in-law’s boats up.’ He looked out to sea. ‘My brother-in-law has another boat around the headland at Thermi.’

Swan leaned forward. ‘What I need is a guide …’ He paused. ‘I’m sorry? Why does it matter that your brother-in-law has another boat?’

The silversmith smiled. ‘Before dawn, my brother-in-law was among the Turks, selling sardines and lobster.’ His eyebrows shot up and a frown flickered — a complex Mediterranean facial expression the registered mock surprise that such a thing could even happen.

Swan nodded. ‘Ahh,’ he said.

‘Maestro Cyriaco paid me silver for such news,’ the silversmith said.

Swan nodded. ‘I can only make you promises. I brought no silver.’

The smith frowned. He looked away, as if Swan had embarrassed him.

Swan leaned forward. ‘I will pay. In a matter of hours.’

The silversmith was obviously offended.

‘I recognise that you do this mostly out of a desire to be a patriot,’ Swan said. He phrased it as carefully as he could, watching the man’s face.

Immediately. the other man smiled. ‘I do not like to talk about money,’ he said. ‘I do this for the love of my island and hatred of the Turk — understand?’

‘Of course,’ Swan said.

The silversmith handed over two sheets of good Egyptian paper. ‘Ship names and crews. A few officers’ names, and some important personages aboard. He sold to six ships and ended aboard Omar Reis Pasha’s flagship. He will sell more tonight. And the Turks will summon the town to surrender, and the island. What do you think?’ the man asked suddenly.

At the mention of Omar Reis, Swan stiffened. He felt his heartbeat increase. He looked out to sea with studied calm and scratched the base of his chin. ‘Dorino will never surrender,’ he said, wondering whether that was, in fact, the way the prince would behave. Wondering whether he was the silversmith’s only customer for information. ‘The information is … excellent.’ His eye caught a name, and he translated it several times in his head, sounding it out. ‘Is this an Italian name?’ he asked.

The silversmith frowned. ‘Draviero,’ he said with his Ionian pronunciation.

Swan looked at him. ‘There is an Italian gentleman with the Turkish fleet?’

The smith nodded. ‘The gentleman was rude to my brother-in-law while his steward bought lobsters through a stern window. And he demanded that my brother-in-law tell no one.’ The man smiled at the naive ways of the world.

Swan smiled. And had the glimmering of an idea, even while he tried to imagine how and why the Genoese ambassador was aboard a Turkish warship. ‘A captive?’

The silversmith nodded, obviously delighted at Swan’s delight.

Swan looked at the table a moment. ‘I need a guide to Kalloni tomorrow. And I wonder …’ Swan was trying to find a way to flatter the man, to engage his interest. ‘I wonder if you would make me a piece of jewellery?’

The smith nodded. ‘Business is not so heavy,’ he admitted.

Swan sketched what he wanted.

The jeweller frowned. ‘The stone engraving is beyond me,’ he said. He flicked his front teeth with his thumbnail. ‘In silver, you say?’

‘Gold plated,’ Swan said.

‘Oh.’ The man shrugged. ‘Silver gilt. Costume stuff.’

Swan shrugged in turn.

The jeweller looked about. ‘I will ask around. The head of Herakles in a clear crystal? It is not impossible to find such a thing.’ He flicked his teeth. ‘I’m thinking a hundred ducats here.’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘I know where there is a head of Athena in a crystal. Roman, I think.’

Swan rose and bowed. ‘For a hundred ducats I could buy half this town,’ he said. But then he shrugged. ‘Athena is too feminine. But if there is nothing else …’ He felt foolish, spending money on such a tenuous plan. On the other hand, it provided him with a painless way to repay his informant. He sat back. ‘I might find that much money,’ he admitted.

‘I have a boy who will guide you to Kalloni,’ the silversmith conceded. ‘He can show you the ruins as well.’

Swan’s intention was to make an excuse to return to the palazzo, but by the time he reached the hostel where the knights were staying, the Lord of Eressos had joined them — a Graeco-Scot lord, at home in Greek or Italian or slightly accented English or perfect church Latin. Zambale bowed to Swan.

‘The English prince. Madama Theodora sends her best wishes and a small token.’ He handed Swan a small envelope.

Swan bowed and looked at Fra Tommaso.

The older knight nodded. ‘The Lord of Eressos has offered to be your companion — all the way to Chios. He wishes to serve us as a volunteer.’

Swan bowed again. ‘I will be at your service,’ he said. ‘As soon as I pay my respects-’

Fra Domenico failed to hide a sneer. ‘No need, my boy. I’m sure that Prince Dorino understands the press of our business.’

Swan had an answer ready. ‘Sir — I understand, but I promised the English owner to represent him to the prince.’

‘And Madama Theodora, as well, no doubt,’ Fra Tommaso said. ‘Please allow me to protect you from yourself. There is no wind and likely to be none tomorrow, either. Please go and warn Chios, and put some heart into them.’

Swan cursed inwardly with a boy’s peevishness. At that moment, he hated the Turks for interrupting his lovemaking and the order for their own share in his endless chastity.

But he knew his duty. He bowed. ‘My lords,’ he said. He flicked his eyes at the Lord of Eressos.

Fra Domenico caught his gesture.

‘My lord, if you have any arrangements to make, I’ll ask you to set off after nones,’ he said.

The Lord of Eressos bowed deeply. He grinned with a minimum of offence at Swan. ‘You can ride?’

‘Slowly,’ Swan allowed.

Zambale laughed. ‘I’ll have a dozen men-at-arms and spare horses,’ he said. ‘I have friends in Kalloni with boats.’ He made a Greek gesture with his arms and thumbs. ‘Who knows? If God wills it so, perhaps we will not swim.’

Swan nodded. ‘One hour,’ he said.

Zambale bowed in all directions and left the inn.

Domenico waited until they could hear Zambale’s voice in the yard. ‘Well, lad?’ he asked.

Silently, Swan handed over the sheets of paper with the silversmith’s careful Greek letters nearly covering both.

Domenico’s Greek was apparently very good. His eyes moved rapidly, even while Fra Tommaso was sounding out ship’s names in Turkish.

‘Where did you get this?’ he asked Swan. He raised his eyes, and they met Swan’s.

Swan swallowed. It was not a tone he’d heard before from the pirate. It cut like a sharp sword.

Swan shrugged. ‘I have friends,’ he tried.

Domenico’s expression didn’t change. ‘I’m sure you know a great variety of attractive young women in every port, and it wouldn’t surprise me if you’d bedded three or even four since you arrived. This is a well-penned report by a professional, who notes even the number of archers on the Turkish galleys.’

Swan wanted to hold the other man’s gaze, but he couldn’t. Domenico had an almost magical ferocity that wilted him.

I did think about this before handing over the report, he thought.

Fra Tommaso was still sounding out the names. He looked at Domenico. ‘You must know he works for Bessarion,’ he said quietly.

Domenico nodded. ‘I want to hear him say it,’ he said.

Swan looked at them both.

Domenico raised an eyebrow. ‘Well?’

Swan took a deep breath. ‘I collect information,’ he said.

‘And antiquities?’ Tommaso said. ‘For Cardinal Bessarion?’

Swan sighed. ‘If I were to concede that something of the sort was true, I would still insist that what I do is of no danger to the order and in this case is actually to the order’s benefit.’

Domenico whistled. ‘I thought you were a spy — but then you fought so well.’

Tommaso threw his hands in the air. ‘Why do we care? I like the boy. He’s got moments of honesty and honour to him, and otherwise he’s a poor sinner like the rest of us. Angelo, you cannot imagine he’s going to sell you to the Turks.’

Fra Domenico looked at Swan. ‘Someone is selling us to the Turks,’ he said. ‘Men would kill for this list,’ he went on. ‘You know why?’

Better to be hanged as a lion than hanged as a lamb, Swan thought. He met Domenico’s glittering eyes.

‘It all but proves who is the traitor,’ he said.

Domenico tugged his beard and looked out to sea. ‘So,’ he said. ‘You know there is a traitor?’

Swan drew himself up. ‘Cardinal Bessarion sent me on this trip to identify the traitor. He must have known already.’

Fra Tommaso pointed at the Turkish fleet. ‘Everyone in the eastern Mediterranean knows who the traitor has to be,’ he said. ‘It is not so much about catching him. He’s more powerful than …’ Tommaso hesitated, apparently searching for a metaphor. ‘The Pope,’ he managed. ‘It is a dirty business. And no one should jump to conclusions.’

Domenico looked at Fra Tommaso. His smile was so enigmatic that Swan, who prided himself on such expressions, could not read it. ‘No. I disagree. This is proof.’ He didn’t sound accusing. He sounded … ironic.

Swan leaned forward. ‘Perhaps he is there negotiating with the Turks about Chios.’

‘That is what he will say,’ Domenico said. He looked at Swan. ‘Do not, I pray, reveal our views on him to anyone.’

Before the sun began to set, Swan was away, cantering up the long ridge behind the town, first through dense-set cobbled streets and then up a series of switchbacks until the good road became a cart track over rock. A great mountain appeared on their right after they crossed the ridge, and one of the men-at-arms — yet another Giannis — grinned and told Swan it was called Mount Olympos. Behind him, most of the Turkish fleet was rowing on the calm sea towards Chios, and he could see their vanguard in a narrow crescent followed by the main body.

He’d had time to make a fair copy of the spy’s report and to receive Tommaso’s promise that, regardless of the outcome of his mission, the report would find its way to Cardinal Bessarion. He had time to read the small parchment slip from Theodora, which said, in neat Latin, that she looked forward to their next meeting.

He’d also experienced a frisson of fear — and excitement — to find that one of the Turkish galleys was called The ship of the sister of Turahanoglu Omar Reis, benefactor of the poor. It had taken him long minutes to pick the Turkish out of the Greek letters, but when he had it …

He watched the Turkish fleet as if Auntie might come on deck and wave.

Swan’s easy Greek and charm made him many friends among the Stradiotes, and they were a cheerful party over the hills to Kalloni. They camped in a grove of enormous pines and firs that seemed to touch the stars above them, and the next morning Swan arose to sage tea and fresh pork cutlets purchased from a peasant. He curried his horse in the dawn and wondered why anyone would ever live anywhere but Greece.

‘What is it like — Scotland?’ asked Zambale.

Swan laughed. ‘I’ve never been there,’ he said.

‘But it is part of England?’ the Lord of Eressos asked.

Swan put his curry back in his saddle pack and shook his head. ‘Is Constantinople Turkish?’ he asked. ‘The Scots and the English are not friends. They merely occupy parts of the same island.’

Zambale laughed. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘This is what my father said. And yet — all his friends were English. He said that, out here, none of it mattered.’

Swan laughed too. ‘Perhaps in England, Greeks and Turks are friends,’ he said. ‘They would both miss the sun.’

Zambale was not amused.

The Lord of Eressos’s mood improved as they descended from the forests of the mountains to the plain of Kalloni. Seen from one of the last turns of the road, the bay was laid out like a rich man’s swimming pool in Italy — a perfect, azure blue, shaped like an enormous teardrop.

‘You like everything old,’ Hector Zambale said.

Swan nodded, drinking in the view. ‘I do,’ he admitted.

‘There are a pair of temples here that men say are among the finest in the world,’ Hector said. ‘They are certainly the finest on Lesvos.’

Swan sighed. He had begun to wonder whether life with the Order of St John was to be his bane. Once upon a time, he’d have ridden down to see the ruins — aye, and then found a ship for Italy.

Even as it was, a niggling little voice told him that he’d done his duty, in the main. He had no need to linger for a losing war. He had solid evidence of the traitor. Perhaps proof.

Except that, somewhere in the night watches, a sense of duty — a sense of belonging to the order — had crept up on him. It was not that he believed in the ideal of crusade, or had had a sudden conversion. Merely that he couldn’t bear to disappoint — or desert — men like Fra Tommaso. Or Fra Domenico. They trusted him.

He sighed again. ‘Let’s get to Chios,’ he said. ‘If we make it back here alive, I would like nothing better than to see your temples.’

Zambale nodded.

Kalloni proper was a small town built on the ruins of a city, and Swan gawked like a country boy in the big city until Zambale’s men had hired them a fishing boat. They caught the evening breeze out of the bay, the big lateen, as big as the rest of the boat, moving them swiftly over the dark blue water. They left Prince Dorino’s fleet behind them, securely beached. One pair of military galleys were rowing guard far out in the bay, which was itself like a small, calm sea.

Swan fell asleep, but he awoke as soon as they were out of the bay, passing below a pair of Byzantine towers at the bay entrance — an entrance so narrow that it could be held by a single ship.

‘Why is Kalloni not the most famous port in the world?’ Swan asked.

But the Lord of Eressos was not a sailor, and he merely shrugged.

The sea breeze caught them, and wafted them across the twenty miles of open sea to the north coast of Chios. The mountainous interior was always visible from the moment they left the Bay of Kalloni, the mountains rising like pale ghosts in the distance and becoming more and more solid as they raced across the moonlit water.

Swan wasn’t sure he’d ever seen anything more beautiful. And then he thought of Violetta, and of Theodora, and Khatun Bengul.

He smiled, and fell back asleep.

Dawn found them among the fishing fleet of one of the small towns on the north coast of Chios, and they crept along the coast. From time to time, with some smiles and gestures, the Lesbian crew put their nets over the side and fished, and all the while the Turkish fleet was in plain sight six miles away, with the coast of Asia as a backdrop.

‘Shall we land?’ Swan asked Zambale. ‘I suppose we could go cross-country.’

Zambale shrugged. ‘As long as you don’t mind taking until Easter,’ he said. ‘Easter next year,’ he added. ‘Trust these men.’

As the day wore on, they fished their way along the coast and then into the darker, windier water of the Asiatic strait. They never went right among the Turks, but they were seldom out of long gunshot.

Swan’s experience during the brief siege at Rhodos had changed his view of gonne powder and gonnes in general. At some point, he asked Zambale whether he’d shot a gonne.

The Genoese-Graeco-Scot smiled tolerantly. ‘I own a dozen,’ he said. ‘I have shot them all.’

He regaled Swan with a tale of shooting a wolf on the mainland at some great range. Zambale seemed locked in a competition to prove his worthiness to Swan, even as he sought to surpass him. Despite which, Swan was coming to like the man. He was eager to fight, and passionate in his convictions. And well read.

By noon, the two were stripped to the waist, fishing with the other men. Competing to haul the nets faster, to gut more fish.

A Turkish galley came very close to them, and shouted at them. The owner put the helm down and sat, rising and falling on the waves, but the Turks didn’t board or even harass them, although the archers aboard the galley had arrows on their bows as they passed. Swan noted the name of the ship and counted more than a hundred oarsmen. Everyone aboard held their breath, and then the Turk turned south and raced away like a great water insect racing across the surface.

As the sun began to set, the fishing fleet ran for home. By then, the fleets of a dozen seaside villages had mingled, and the owner of their boat, Giorgios, had spent the day moving from the southern fringe of one to the northern fringe of the next in small sprints and short rows, never raising his sail for more than a few minutes. By this time, the boat was full to the gunnels of fish — bream and snapper, beautiful fish.

As full darkness began to fall, the little boat began to run into the port of Chios with a handful of other boats. Giorgios leaned out and called to one of them.

‘Eh, Dmitry! Is that all you’ve got?’

The local man held up a great red snapper, almost three feet long, and Giorgios slapped his thigh and men cheered. This was done under the gonnes of the Turkish flagship, and Swan felt that they had to look — at least to the Turks — like local chain men. He watched the magnificent gilded stern of the Turkish flagship carefully, and was sure — chillingly sure — that he could see Omar Reis, thumbs hooked in his sash, on the command deck.

And the flagship was not the last obstacle. Despite a day’s careful work, there were still half a dozen more Turkish ships between them and the town, and it became clear that the fishing smack would have to pass right among them.

The owner came forward, hat in hand. He bowed to the Lord of Eressos, and to Swan.

‘I will run straight in, if the excellencies order me,’ he said.

Zambale nodded.

Swan sensed the man had more to say. He returned the man’s bow. ‘Do you have an alternative?’

The owner made a particularly Greek motion with his hand. ‘The prince has paid handsomely for this trip — my wife will not be poor whether I return or not.’ He scratched his white hair. And grinned. ‘But I confess that I would prefer to share the money with her rather than leaving her to enjoy widowhood without my nagging. So — if the excellencies will permit it — I would like to go straight to the Turks here and offer to sell our catch.’

Zambale blinked. ‘Sounds risky,’ he said. He grinned. ‘What a story to tell!’

In Greek, Swan said, ‘I think Despotes Dimitrios is telling us that it is less risky.’

The fisherman scratched his head again. And nodded. ‘It might help if we all muttered a prayer,’ he said.

They pulled alongside a Turkish galley in the very last light. They were challenged before they were within a boat’s length, but there were dozens of Greek slaves aboard, anxious to translate for their new masters, and in moments, fish were going up the side.

Swan himself was putting fish in sacks — already cleaned. He stank of fish guts. He heard a shout, and an angry exchange, and turned to find a pair of barefoot janissaries standing amid the dead fish. Without further ado, they began ramming pikes into the piles of fish.

‘They’re spoiling my catch, the pagan fucks!’ roared the owner. His genuine outrage carried conviction, but didn’t stop the janissaries, and even as he went on, another pair of Turks dropped into the fishing boat and grabbed Zambale. They pinned his arms and stripped him before he could react.

In Greek, a voice shouted, ‘Tell the fisherman to shut up or I’ll have his son gutted.’

Swan looked up. There was a scimitar at his own throat, and in a moment men had his arms and there was no chance to resist.

Swan tried not to panic. If the Turks found Zambale’s sword, or his own …

It was dark, and he thanked God. The Turkish captain leaned out over the side and roared. ‘We will pay for his entire cargo. Tell him. Also tell him that if we find gunpowder in his boat, we’ll crucify every man aboard. Eh?’ Reis laughed. But when the original two janissaries were satisfied, the nearer snapped his fingers and the two by the stern let Zambale go. One Turk even patted him on the head. The two men who had Swan smiled, and one gave him a slight inclination of the head, as if to say ‘no hard feelings’.

A purse of silver coins was thrown into the boat.

The tallest janissary shook his head. In Turkish, he said, ‘No wonder the Sultan is always victorious,’ he said. ‘These Greeks would sell their own brothers to us.’ He laughed and climbed the side of his galley, and the Turkish deck crew poled them off.

Swan wanted to throw up — or sit down and hang his head — but instead, he joined the crew in waving at the Turks, poling off, and getting the lateen set.

In an hour, they were alongside the great pier of Chios, standing on the wharves, stinking of fish.

Zambale grinned. He seemed to know his way around. ‘Come,’ he said. ‘We’ll go to the Mahona.’

‘The who?’ Swan asked.

‘The council of merchants that rules the island.’ Zambale was impatient.

Swan was not. He walked up the street to the main square, with Zambale protesting, and knocked at the oaken gates of the island’s Latin bishop.

‘This is a waste of time,’ Zambale grumbled.

Swan stank of fish and his clothes were ruined, but he whispered a short message to a servant and the man bowed. The bishop — a tall, heavy man with fierce brown eyes, more like a soldier than priest — greeted them in Genoese Italian. Swan took a minute to explain their errand.

The bishop nodded. He listened intently, and didn’t interrupt. When Swan was done, he folded his hands. ‘We must go to the Mahona,’ he said.

Zambale’s face showed his thoughts.

The bishop raised an eyebrow. ‘I will see that the garrison and other parts of my flock know that rescue is at hand,’ he said. ‘I am glad you approached me, young man. Do you wish to bathe? You both reek.’

Swan bowed. ‘We should make haste,’ he said.

The bishop made a face. ‘They won’t be kind,’ he said.

Swan laughed. ‘What can they do to us?’ he asked.

Before the church struck the hour, they were before the Mahona.

Chios was not held as a feudal fief, like Lesvos. It was, instead, the ‘property’ of a Genoese consortium that included the Bank of St George and a dozen other concerns, including the great landowners of the island. Swan knew a little about their politics from Cardinal Bessarion, and enough about the two islands to know that the lords of Lesvos had proved as adept at making money and far better at defence than the merchants of Chios.

‘Speak, young man,’ said a black-clad Genoese. He wore a chain of office and spoke with more icy disdain than Prince Dorino had ever evinced. He held a pomander ball very close to his nose.

Swan bowed. It is very difficult for a young man to appear to best advantage in hose stained with fish guts and a Greek peasant’s tunic with the sweat of several men on it, but Swan managed a fine bow despite all.

‘My lords, I am here on behalf of the Knights of the Order of St John and the Allies.’ He paused, hoping he’d startled them.

‘It’s a Turkish trick. They are impostors,’ said an older voice — querulous and high pitched. ‘And they smell,’ he added, as if that was all the argument necessary.

Swan removed the donat’s ring from his finger and handed it to the President of the Council — at the same time realising that the ring would have been his death sentence had the janissaries looked him over carefully.

It was examined — handed from one to another.

The Lord of Eressos lost patience. ‘We’re not trying to sell you bad wool, you ungrateful usurers!’ he snapped.

Just for a moment, Swan admired the other young man’s genuine contempt.

Every black-capped head came up together, and forty old men glared at Hector Zambale.

‘We are not used to being addressed in such a way,’ snapped the president.

‘It will seem as mild as a whore’s kiss when you pull an oar for the Sultan,’ Zambale shot back. ‘I am the Lord of Eressos of Lesvos, as at least one of you bastards knows perfectly well.’ He stared at one of the younger black-caps, who wilted.

Swan’s estimation of Zambale’s skills went up another notch.

The president turned to the younger man. ‘Is this true?’ he asked.

The man bowed his head. ‘Yes, messire.’

The president shook his head. And looked at Swan. ‘We have been summoned to surrender the island by no less a pirate then Omar Reis, who raped his way across Thrace last year.’

Swan nodded. ‘I know him,’ he said with airy confidence. ‘I have bested him ere this.’

Now it was Zambale’s turn to look at Swan with admiration.

Swan shrugged in false modesty. It was, after all, the only kind of modesty the Genoese seemed to understand. ‘With the Catholic fleet, we can defeat Omar Reis — indeed, it is my lord’s intention to trap him here.’

‘Christ on the cross, boy! Trap him somewhere else!’ The president’s fist crashed down on his heavy imported desk, and men flinched. Swan could smell more than fish — he could smell their fear on the cool spring night. ‘Who is your lord?’

Swan bowed again. ‘Fra Angelo Domenico is the admiral,’ he said.

‘Sweet Saviour preserve us! We’re caught between Fra Diablo and Satan!’ shouted a merchant.

‘Has not the Genoese Grand Fleet … already departed these waters?’ the president asked.

Zambale stepped forward. ‘A feint,’ he said.

‘We will appear great fools if we surrender the island and the Turks are defeated,’ said an old man.

The president shook his head. ‘The Turks will not be defeated. There is no fleet.’

‘These young men risked their lives. You think they would do that for a ruse?’ asked another.

Swan was getting a solid notion of who belonged to which faction, just from body language. The richest men seemed inclined to surrender. The middling men seemed inclined to fight.

He also had the oddest idea — that Zambale and the president of the Mahona knew each other. And were shamming enmity. It made no sense, but he could not shake it.

Swan spread his hands. ‘You know that in Thrace, Omar Reis promised lenient terms to the merchant class.’ He smiled. ‘After they surrendered the towns, he had the older men crucified and their families sold into slavery.’ It wasn’t quite true. But his words had the desired effect.

The president rose. ‘You are a pair of liars, messires. The Turks keep their promises. It is the Grand Master who is the father of lies.’

Swan bit his lip. He didn’t, at some rarefied level, care much if the Turks took all the Genoese islands in the eastern Mediterranean, but at another level it stuck in his craw that forty rich men were prepared to sell their religion and their peasants to the Turks to maintain control of their precious money. And the street imp — the son of a Southwark whore — couldn’t resist twisting their noses.

So he shrugged. ‘I have delivered my message. If you are so craven and so greedy that you intend to surrender your possessions without a fight, I swear to you, messires, that should the Christian fleet triumph, I’ll make sure that every one of you loses everything — as traitors to the religion, and heretics.’

It was well said — calm, arrogant, and contemptuous. Swan was quite proud of himself. Even the president paled.

And then he ordered his men-at-arms to throw them into a dungeon.

‘What in the name of heaven possessed you to say such a thing?’ Zambale asked. ‘Now they’ll never let us go!’ But the big man sat back and laughed. ‘I liked it, though.’

Swan drank some water that had seen wine once. ‘You weren’t so gentle with them yourself,’ he said.

Zambale shrugged and stretched himself. The straw was clean. ‘I loathe them and all they stand for. Still — if they have us killed here, it’s not the glorious end I was looking for.’

Swan spoke from recent conversion. ‘Death,’ he said, ‘is pretty much the same whether in the heat of battle or in bed of old age.’

Zambale chuckled. ‘Make that up yourself?’ he asked. ‘So — Englishman — what brings you here?’

Swan liked Zambale despite the bad beginning they had made, but he was still … suspicious. So he didn’t depart from his story — he described being penniless but noble, and applying to become a donat of the order. Zambale listened impatiently.

‘You do not look at women like a priest,’ Zambale said.

Swan smiled. ‘I am not a priest.’

‘You never mention the saints. I’ve hardly seen you pray. Come — for whom do you really work?’

Swan smiled. ‘I am as you see — a donat of the order.’

Zambale lay back. ‘Have it as you will.’

The next morning — they had to guess as they had no access to the outdoors — a pair of black-capped magistrates came and sat outside their iron-barred cell.

‘How far away is the allied fleet?’ one asked.

Swan affected disdain. ‘Why tell you? You’ll pass it to your friends, the Turks.’

The two magistrates looked at each other.

One man said, ‘It is possible that the council may elect to defend the island.’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘But our information is that the order has only five galleys, all blockaded in Mytilini.’

Zambale nodded. ‘That much is true.’ He shrugged.

‘They seem confident,’ said one magistrate.

‘What do you know of the composition of the Turkish fleet?’ asked the other.

Swan managed a smile. ‘A great deal. But you can see them from your walls.’

‘Tell him!’ said the first magistrate.

‘They are ignorant boys!’ spat the other.

The two men glared at each other.

Swan lay back on the straw as if uninterested. It was one of the finest acts of his life. But his brain was working at fever pitch. It occurred to him that he needed to know how they already knew where the order’s galleys were.

Apparently Zambale’s brain was also working feverishly. ‘Have the Turks sent their terms?’ he asked.

The older magistrate nodded. ‘Yes, young man.’

‘They are not what we were promised,’ said the other, somewhat ingenuously.

The older man glared at his compatriot.

Swan regarded them from his straw and wondered whether he was infested with fleas and lice yet. He already itched. He stank of fear and fish and sweat.

The two men asked a few more questions. Neither Zambale nor Swan offered any information about the location of the Christian fleet. Eventually, the two men left.

‘They’re fishing,’ Zambale said.

‘They’re desperate,’ Swan said. ‘Last night they weren’t desperate. How bad are the Turkish terms?’

‘What is it about the composition of the Turkish fleet?’ Zambale asked. ‘Perhaps the Turks have heavy gonnes?’

Swan lay back and tried to think.

Time passed. They were brought good bread and strong, if young, wine, and some fish. They ate it all.

Swan was growing to like Zambale a good deal. In prison, the younger man didn’t posture and his desire to prove Swan his inferior had vanished, to be replaced by an easy raillery and a certain amount of teamwork.

Zambale shrugged after dinner. ‘I’ll get out,’ he said. ‘I’m rich, and I have things these pigs want. I’ll have you out of here like a pretty girl gets out of a convent.’

Swan nodded. ‘If the order arranges a release for me, I’ll get you out, as well,’ he said.

Like boys on an outing, they swore.

Later, a pair of heavily armoured soldiers came. They had short spears, Milanese breast and back plates and full arm armour and helmets.

‘Uh-oh,’ Swan muttered.

A third man — the man who delivered food — opened the door. In Greek, he said, ‘Only the man calling himself the Lord of Eressos, please. Or they will be very rough.’

Zambale rose. He looked at Swan and shrugged. ‘If you find they killed me, get my cousins to bury me.’

Swan bowed. ‘I’ll do it myself,’ he said.

Zambale clasped his hand. He didn’t say any more. He looked at the two soldiers with a contempt that Swan wished he could emulate, and was marched away.

Almost a quarter of an hour elapsed before a tall African in impeccable Italian clothes slipped into the antechamber of the cell, outside the bars.

Swan’s whole body clenched.

The man bowed, in the Moslem way. ‘Master Suani?’ he asked.

One of Auntie’s Africans. She had four or five — he could remember them. Not the steward — Swan had seen him killed. But the other man had been present — he racked his brain. Swan didn’t know the man’s name, but he thought that he knew his face.

‘You have the advantage of me,’ Swan said in Arabic.

‘My mistress is even now bargaining for your life with her brother,’ the tall African said. He grinned. ‘I left Master Drappierro questioning your accomplice. Do you know that the gentlemen who hold this town have sold you-’

Another voice cut across the African’s. ‘Not so fast, Mustafa.’ Messire Drappierro appeared out of the gloom, flanked by another pair of guards.

Swan’s brain raced along a dozen channels at once.

Drappierro turned. ‘Everyone out. You too, Mustafa.’ He gave orders in his usual tone of absolute power. The soldiers walked off without a murmur. Mustafa raised an eyebrow and then bowed towards Swan.

‘I promise you, you will prefer my mistress to anything this man offers,’ he said.

When Mustafa was gone, Drappierro came and sat by the bars of Swan’s cell. ‘Where is the ring?’ he asked abruptly.

Swan was ready. From the moment he saw Drappierro, he had decided that it was all about the ring — that Drappierro’s lust for antiquities was such that it was the lever that could move him. The question reinforced his guess.

‘I have it,’ Swan said.

Drappierro leapt to his feet. ‘Give it to me!’ he said.

Swan laughed. It sounded a little forced, to him — not his best bluff. He was, in truth, completely terrified.

‘You don’t think I’d have it here?’ he said.

Drappierro glared at him. ‘God knows you have had plenty of opportunity to get it,’ he said. ‘I’ve been waiting for you to bring it to me.’

Swan sat down. ‘It is in Mytilini,’ he said.

‘Where?’ Drappierro asked. ‘I have people there — I’ll have it fetched.’

‘And you’ll sell me to Auntie,’ Swan replied.

Drappierro leaned closer. ‘My dear boy,’ he said. ‘I don’t need to sell you to Auntie — although I doubt anyone’s ever called her that in the course of her illustrious life. Do you know why she is here? It is curiously apropos. Hamza Beg is the commander of this fleet — but the command should have been Omar Reis’s. He sails in the second rank — but his sister is here for the Sultan. She is Mehmed’s eye. Hamza Beg has failed at Rhodos and failed at Kos and now, if he hesitates here, Master Swan, she will be rid of him and her brother will be the most powerful soldier in the empire. Those are Turkish politics. Omar Reis is my friend. Not yours, I think. You may trust him to kill you in a most imaginative way if he catches you. Imagine your death throes while you chew on your severed penis. One of a hundred hideous humiliations that the fertile mind of the Moslem has concocted.’ Drappierro allowed himself the flicker of a smile.

‘I’m pretty sure they do the same in Florence,’ Swan said, just to swallow his terror. ‘And the Allied fleet will come-’

Drappierro sat up angrily. ‘What a foolish lie,’ he said. ‘The Genoese Grand Fleet is long gone. You know how I know? I ordered them myself.’ He looked at Swan and shook his head, as if disappointed. ‘Listen, Master Swan. You are a promising young man. You seem to have real taste and you seem to have a ready wit. I need you — in fact, I need a dozen like you. I intend to run most of the Mediterranean over the next decade.’ His smile flickered again. ‘This is a very difficult game, and I don’t expect you know a third of it. So please, leave the thinking to me.’

‘Planning to overthrow the Grand Turk?’ Swan asked.

Drappierro smiled gently. ‘No, my dear. Much the opposite. Don’t you think that Christianity — inasmuch as there ever was an organised Christianity — is done? The Turks are the new power, and they will rein supreme. The fall of Constantinople signals the new era.’ He spread his hands. ‘You think me a traitor? The traitors are those who want to provoke a bloodbath that we cannot win. Or take another view — the traitors are the kings of England, Scotland, France, Castile and the Emperor, who will not leave their squabbles to make a real effort to defeat the Turk. Even if they did, I expect they’d fail. But they won’t even try. The West is done.’ He smiled again. ‘Don’t you think?’

Swan thought that he had a point. But he also thought that he sounded like an insufferable prick busy convincing himself.

Swan — ever a man for the main chance — was puzzled to find that he couldn’t stomach this, of all treasons. What an odd cause to choose for dying, he thought.

He cringed at the image of a tortured death.

‘I have the ring,’ he said.

Drappierro shocked him. ‘Then I’ll send you for it, of course,’ the Genoese ambassador said. ‘And that surprises you. Really, my boy, you must school your face better than that.’ Drappierro stood up. ‘Be back in four days, or I’ll kill Zambale. If you aren’t back in a week I’ll send word to have your so-called wife murdered. It won’t be pretty, even if she is a whore who opens and shuts to order — understand me, Master Swan? You have palpable hostages to fortune and I can strike at them all. Even your friends in Rome. Messire Di Brachio is recovering — did you know that? Are you two lovers?’

Swan was shaking.

Drappierro lowered his voice. ‘Really, Master Swan. Do not be a fool. If you return with the ring, I can arrange your escape. From Auntie and from Omar Reis. Neither cares so very much, eh? Bring me the ring, and I will be your friend. Need I say more?’

Swan took a steadying breath and wished he were Zambale. ‘I need more than four days,’ he said. ‘The knights won’t let me go so easily.’

‘Oh, but they will. I thought you were so intelligent,’ Drappierro said lazily. ‘And by the way, you have just betrayed that the other boy’s life matters to you.’ He made a head motion, barely distinguishable. ‘Very well. Seven days. And then I send for both of them to die.’

Swan couldn’t help himself. ‘I could leave Zambale to die and beat your messenger to my wife,’ he said.

Drappierro nodded. ‘You could,’ he said. He smiled with a smugness that was impossible not to hate. ‘But you won’t.’

Utterly in charge of the situation and everything around him, Messire Drappierro rose, and gave Swan a civil bow. ‘I’ll see you in a week, then,’ he said. He walked out through the open oak doors. He looked back and paused. ‘I own … a great deal of Mytilini. And most of the people in it. Don’t imagine you can deceive me. I’ll be watching through other eyes. Eyes that, if you stand with me, you can help me to command.’ He smiled. ‘I don’t want you to make a mistake and try to resist because you hate me, Master Swan. That wastes my time and your life.’ He nodded. ‘Get the ring. Nothing else matters.’

Swan let out a breath and realised he’d been holding it a long time. Drappiero’s footsteps rang on the stone, and then the man was gone.

Swan didn’t think he’d ever hated anyone so much in his entire life.

Moments later, armoured men came and unlocked his cell. ‘You are free to go,’ one said in Burgundian French.

Swan received his sword and his purse — empty — and was escorted to the port, where the same fishing boat was waiting, surrounded by soldiers.

They sailed out unmolested, in a way that suggested that every Turkish ship knew exactly who they were.

Giorgios, the fisherman, spat angrily over the side. ‘Maybe death would have been better,’ he said. ‘I have smuggled on these coasts for twenty years, and now every man in Chios and all the Turks have me marked.’

Swan was trying to feel free and breathe easily, but he watched every glance from the fishermen and wondered which one of them was in Drappierro’s pay.

It took them less than a day to sail back to Kalloni, and Swan lost precious hours dickering with a Kalloni bureaucrat for the loan of a horse. He signed a document he didn’t read, in the name of the Sovereign Order, used the Lord of Eressos’s name as often as he dared, and finally rode a small horse — but a good one — up over the ridges towards Mytilini. He alternated canters and walks, and every hour he walked beside the horse.

He lost the road with Mount Olympos visible against the moon and stars, and wound up in a deep valley with a Roman aqueduct. He spent half the night sorting out this error and reached the road by a farm track just after dawn. He was exhausted and angry, and he crested the great ridge above Mytilini only to find two bearded men with halberds blocking his way.

‘All your money, and the horse and the boots, my lord,’ said the nearer man. He grinned.

His brother — the resemblance was plain — grinned too.

A twitch in the gloom, and Swan saw a third man with a heavy crossbow, fully spanned.

Swan had no idea how well trained his horse was, but he knew they’d kill him either way.

He leaned forward, put his right spur firmly against his horse’s right side, and got his right hand on his sword hilt — and drew. The sword went straight forward as the horse turned, and his cut took the older brother’s eyes and cut through the bridge of his nose.

The man screamed and fell forward, and Swan wasn’t there as the crossbow bolt ripped through the air. The horse turned with its back feet, pivoting on its forefeet, and Swan was almost under the saddle he was bent so low. As the second man came in reach, Swan began to rise in the stirrups, and he cut at the pole arm’s haft — three strong cuts, one, two, three — to keep the man off him, and then his horse was galloping down the road, throwing sparks in the early morning gloom.

Swan looked back once, to see the two surviving bandits crouched over the blinded man.

He stopped to clean his sword and found the blade bent from his heavy hacking at the pole arm haft — worse, there was a deep chip in the blade where he’d cut into the iron on the haft.

He cursed. He had loved that sword. Showy as it was, he’d bought it with Violetta.

He rode into Mytilini after Latin matins, and found the knights of the order in church. He knelt and prayed, and followed Fra Tommaso out into the sunlight.

‘You smell a treat,’ Tommaso said. He embraced the younger man. ‘You survived.’

Swan looked away. When he looked back, all of his choices were made, and his plans laid. ‘Very well. Sirs, I am a spy for Bessarion. I will tell you everything. The men of Chios are in the process of selling the town to the Turks. I was sent — ’ He paused and looked at Fra Domenico. ‘I was sent to get your ring, which the traitor Drappierro wants. If I do not get it — he kills Zambale and …’ Swan looked at the two knights. ‘And my wife. So he claims. As far as I can see, he’s running both sides of the negotiations at Chios, and the Turks dance to his tune.’ He shrugged. ‘He wants me to abandon Bessarion and work for him.’

Domenico smiled at Tommaso, who frowned. Domenico stripped the ring off his finger and put it in Swan’s hand. ‘Take it, then. Go buy the young lord’s freedom. He is, as I understand it, a volunteer of my order.’ The man that all Christians called ‘Fra Diablo’ gave a laugh that would have chilled a murderer. ‘Listen, Master Swan — never let a material object own you. I won it at cards. Take it.’ He smiled. ‘And think — when you have a chance — of the difference between men like us and Drappierro.’

Swan all but fell on his face. ‘You mean it?’ he asked.

Domenico laughed. ‘Now — can you fight? Your return will fill a very useful place.’ He gave the Englishman a hard smile. ‘I will choose to trust you. If you fail us — God’s curse on you.’

Sunset.

Swan was beyond exhaustion — a little light headed, his hands shaking. He wore the red coat with a white cross of a full knight of the order, and he stood on the command deck of the Katherine Sturmy, which towered over the other ships pulling off the beach as a castle towers over a host of infantry.

He’d had a busy day. Out into the town, meeting the silversmith and the wine seller, up to the palace to find a sword, three meetings with the captains to plan Fra Domenico’s mad attack …

And no visit with Theodora. He’d smelled her perfume while he chatted with Prince Dorino.

In the end, Dorino had offered all the help he could have dreamt of, including the fine German long sword that hung heavily at his side.

The prince had smiled. ‘It’s not what you came for,’ he said. ‘But unlike my fair cousin, it may save your life.’

Swan smiled as he thought of Prince Dorino.

All five galleys were forming inside the breakwater, and there was nothing that the Turks could do without risking the fire of the great castle. But they were forming halfway across the strait, a dozen black hulls in the failing light.

Richard Sturmy was also wearing the habit of the order, and he had good armour — half-armour — which shone as red as his coat in the red sunset.

‘I feel like a great man,’ the Englishman admitted. ‘Always wanted to be a knight. Whew! Look at me. Katherine — I wish she could see me!’

Goodwife Sturmy and her daughter were safe in the castle. The great merchant ship with her high sides and bluff bows for fighting the northern Atlantic had unloaded most of her remaining cargo of lead and all her new alum and was now mounting a pair of Prince Dorino’s cannon, and her waist was full of his mercenaries. The fighting tower forward was fully mounted, and from it floated the banner of the order.

A dozen knights appeared to grace her decks.

Indeed, every one of the galleys appeared to be full of knights, their red and white glowing in the red sun. One of the tallest knights was Peter the Dutchman, bow laid aside on the deck and wearing German half-armour from the Mytilini armoury. Few men so looked the part, and he rested on a poleaxe as tall as he was as if to the manor born.

‘You take a great risk,’ Swan said.

Sturmy shrugged, and Master Shipman grunted an order to an English sailor at the helm, and the man steered small and watched for the opening in the breakwater — orders were shouted from the forecastle, because with fighting castles mounted, it was very difficult for the helmsman to see forward, even leaning well out.

Sturmy watched it all and grinned. ‘If this works, I’ll be away in the morning and scot free all the way to Venice. It this fails …’ He shrugged. ‘By Saint George, Master Swan, I don’t think there’s a ship in these waters that can do my Katherine a hurt. Perhap with cannon — infernal engines. But only if they take me by surprise or there’s no wind.’

‘Flagship says to proceed to sea,’ called Shipman’s son Nicholas. ‘Red flag,’ he allowed, as if his father might doubt him.

‘Very well,’ Shipman allowed. He nodded. ‘Let go, forward there.’

The mainsail was let go and sheeted home very quickly, and the tub-like Katherine Sturmy began to gather way very slowly. Behind her vast bulk, five galleys crawled into a neat formation and then rested their oarsmen.

The Turks formed a neat crescent to receive them. Swan could already see the ghazis and the marines forming in the bows, and the glow of matches.

Fra Domenico had said it — For the first minutes, the Sturmy will be alone against all their ships.

The sun had not quite left the sky when the Turkish ships leapt to ramming speed. The Sturmy was under full sail, her round hull ploughing the water at a third of the speed of one of the order’s galleys or one of the charging Turks — a speed that was pitifully slow. Swan regretted allowing Sturmy to risk his ship, which was going to be hulled by half a dozen rams, anyway.

And behind them, the order’s galleys huddled in the broad wake of the big English merchant as if they were terrified of the Turkish onslaught.

Swan put a hand on the German sword at his waist and felt its hilt, which he already loved. It was light and responsive — heavy on the hip, but light in the hand. He had on all his armour. His leg harnesses were killing him — all he could imagine was that his legs had grown again.

Amidships, the Burgundian gun crews stood over their low gonnes — which the crew had christened ‘right pig’ and ‘left pig’ because they did look a little like feeding pigs. Slow match burned, as it did aboard the Turkish ships, and every sailor who could be spared had his English longbow to hand. Peter had his on the deck beside him, despite his armour and assumed air of knightly prowess.

Swan was playing the role of ship commander. In fact, he never gave an order — it was Sturmy’s ship, and Shipman was clearly the true captain, and the two men worked together with the ease of long and sometimes bitter familiarity.

Neither seemed concerned about the encounter.

The lead Turks came on. They had now formed into two lines. The lead line was going to ram the English round ship, and the following line was going to pass to the north and south of the wreck and attack the order’s galleys.

Just as Fra Domenico had predicted.

Swan glanced at the ring on his finger. It sparkled like Fra Diablo’s eyes as he gave the orders.

When Swan thought about the ring, his roguish notions of cleverness were largely rendered squalid by the excellence of Domenico’s gesture.

And he thought — Well, if I go to the bottom, so does the ring. Take that, Drappierro. But at another level, he had to ask — Why did he just give it to me? Eight thousand ducats?

As always seemed to happen in a sea fight, time began to compact. One moment, he had all the time in the world to empty his bladder and check the hang of his sword, to try to adjust the fit of his left leg-armour, because the greave was grinding into his instep somehow — and the next, the Turks were ten ship lengths away, at full racing speed, the grunts of their rowers audible over the darkening sea.

Swan drew his sword.

Sturmy put a hand on his arm. ‘You might put it away,’ he said with a smile. ‘Yon heathen will never make it near my deck.’

Swan nodded sheepishly and sheathed his sword.

He spent the last minute going forward to stand with the other ‘knights’ in the forecastle.

Peter grunted at him. He pointed at the Turks, close enough to touch.

‘Fucking Idiots,’ he said.

The first Turk struck them, his narrow profile almost lost behind the high bows of the English ship. But his ram, mounted above the waterline, struck the English ship like a hammer.

Against an anvil.

The Turkish ship was at full speed, and she struck hard enough to kill the Katherine Sturmy’s way for a heartbeat, but the masts held.

The Turkish ship bounced.

It bounced so hard that its mainmast came down, slewing the whole galley — the bow came round sharply, exposing the long fragile broadside to the impact of the Sturmy’s forefoot, and she ground the Turkish galley under her like a great lady treading on a snake. The Turk rolled, took on water, and was broken in half — all in three heartbeats — and every one of her two hundred Christian slaves died in ten more.

Katherine Sturmy swept on, for all the world like an aristocratic lady in a great hall, moving slowly and with vast canvas dignity.

The second Turk was caught in the ruin of the first — too close to turn, he ended by ramming the sinking galley and Katherine Sturmy needn’t have crushed his oars, but she did as she passed. The wreck of the dead Turk was already dragging his ram down, trapping the second ship the way a drowning man might kill his rescuer.

The next three Turks turned away.

The archers amidships began to have targets, and the quarter-pound arrows began to rise like lethal gulls to fall — the full weight of the sea breeze behind them — on the hapless Turks. With just a dozen archers, the Katherine Sturmy’s men — forty feet above the Turkish decks — began to inflict a catastrophe.

Right Pig belched fire.

Peter, the only archer in the forecastle, leaned out and loosed. ‘You could stop pounding my back and lend a hand, Englishman!’ Peter barked.

Swan found he was grinning like a fool. He got his Turkish bow up — his arms felt like lead in arm harnesses — but he fought off his fatigue and began to rain arrows into the Turkish galleys far below as they passed.

Left Pig barked — and a Turkish galley’s mast fell in two. It was, in fact, a wild shot. But the shot clipped the mast fifteen feet above the deck, and the whole sail fell over the rowers. They were still fighting to get the canvas off their faces when the Blessed Saint John ended their struggle, ramming them. Blessed Saint John cut the Turk in half and carried through, oars in tight, and the drowning rowers screamed as the halves filled with water. Chained to their benches, they went down with the wreck.

The fight was never close, and quickly took on the air of a massacre. One Turkish ship ran inshore and took the full weight of the artillery mounted high in the Mytilini fortress, as though all of Prince Dorino’s frustration was to be vented in one fall of shot.

Each of the order’s galleys killed one Turkish galley, as if their professional reputations demanded an equal share of the kills, but Blessed Saint John ran the Turkish squadron flagship down, well upwind. The two ships lay side by side for half an hour, wreathed in smoke from small arms, while the rest of the order’s galleys hunted other prey or rescued the handful of Christian slaves who could swim and were not chained. The Katherine Sturmy was out of the fight as soon as the Turks learned not to close with her. She couldn’t catch any of them, and couldn’t point close enough to the wind to give chase, anyway.

Before the last two Turks vanished over the horizon, Master Shipman had turned the ship and was running down the wind — waddling down, Swan thought — towards the gap in the breakwater. They entered the harbour with the rising of the moon, and dropped anchor to the cheers of thousands of townspeople, Greek and Latin, gathered on the beaches and on the slopes under the fortress.

Swan hadn’t redrawn his sword. He had loosed half a hundred arrows, but he was elated instead of exhausted. He couldn’t stop moving — he helped the English sailors unload the guns and started on their cargo.

Blessed Saint John was the last ship into the harbour. Every other ship cheered her — she had killed two Turkish galleys and taken a third by boarding, her knights moving in a thin red line across the Turkish decks until the last desperate — and demonically brave — Turk was cut down. The captured galleys were towed to mooring and their freed crews swam ashore into a riot of celebration.

Swan waited for the Blessed Saint John to land, stern first. He could tell from the way she was rowed that she’d lost men — the oars weren’t fully manned.

He held a rope while the ship beached. He waited with the first rush of oarsmen coming ashore, and then, when he heard what they had to say, he ran up a ladder and went aboard.

Fra Domenico was by the mainmast amidships. His head was in Fra Tommaso’s lap, and his eyes sparkled like the ring’s jewel. The whole right side of his breastplate was caved in, and no one had even tried to remove it.

His brilliant eyes met Swan’s.

Swan bowed, and he found that his eyes were full of tears.

‘Ah!’ Domenico whispered. ‘The English spy. Or prince.’ He laughed, and coughed, and blood sprayed across the deck. ‘You know, as long as I wore the ring, I was invincible, eh?’ He nodded.

Fra Tommaso pointed at the ring. Swan took it from his own finger and held out to the other man, but the dying man pushed him away with surprising strength.

‘Yours now, boy. I go to meet my god. I have left no sins untried, nor am I a humble and contrite heart, but by our lord, I have beaten the enemies of the faith like a drum.’ He smiled. A long sigh escaped him, and Swan thought he was dead.

But the man’s eyes rolled open. ‘And if we were wrong — if killing in war is murder …’ He laid his head back. ‘Then I console myself that Christ died even for such as I.’ His smile changed its character. ‘Tell the English they were beautiful. Will you tell them, Master Swan?’

‘I will, my lord.’

Domenico’s smile was now almost too much to bear. He raised the jewelled cross on his breast and touched it to his lips, and looked at Tommaso. ‘I am not afraid,’ he said.

And died.

After a while, Fra Tommaso put the dead knight’s head on the deck. He turned to the two Venetian knights. ‘Are we agreed that we follow the rest of his plan?’ Tommaso asked.

Fra Giovanni nodded. ‘First, because he was who he was.’ The Venetian shrugged. ‘Secondly, because it is still the best plan.’

Later, Swan half carried Tommaso into his room at the hostel. The older man was so far gone — fatigue, and sorrow, and a small wound on his left thigh — that he could scarcely walk. Outside, the town celebrated as if it were Easter. It almost was, if you were a Frank.

Recklessly, Swan poured his mentor a cup of wine, and the older knight drank it off. He stared out at the revellers just outside his window.

He turned his head, and by the fitful candlelight, Swan could see that the other man was crying.

Swan put a hand on his shoulder — embarrassed as children are when parents show weakness. But Tommaso pushed him away. ‘What if it is for nothing?’ the old man asked the darkness. ‘What if Drappierro is right, and we’d be better to sail away and leave them to surrender?’

Swan sighed. He’d wondered the same thing, even as his arrows plucked lives. He thought of all the Turks he knew — and admired. And all the Italians he detested.

But he didn’t suggest any such thing. Instead, he straightened and said, ‘It can’t be for nothing. Fra Domenico …’

Tommaso turned back to the darkness. ‘Lived by the sword, and died by it. Bah — be gone, boy. Go drink wine, or worse. I’m in a black mood, and I’ll console myself in the usual way.’

Swan went to pour him more wine, and the old man managed a slight smile.

‘Prayer, foolish boy. Be gone.’ He put a hand on the younger man’s shoulder. ‘We’ll play this through to the end in the morning. Eh? I know you won’t do it, but I’d recommend some sleep.’ He sniffed. ‘Or a bath. Do I smell fish?’

Swan left the knight on his knees.

Fra Tommaso knew him all too well, and the bells at midnight found him on the slope under the castello, drinking his third cup of wine with a dozen English sailors. Shipman had his arm around Swan’s waist, and said, ‘Just come aboard and we’ll see you home, Master Swan. These foreigners are no friends, let me tell you, for all you’ve steered us through ’em like a ship through reefs and sands. Eh, Master Richard?’

Richard Sturmy had his arm around his wife, a tall, brown-haired woman who looked very much in charge of her own destiny. She dropped a pretty, straight-backed curtsy and said, ‘Your servant, Master Swan.’

Swan gave her a bow.

‘If my husband is to be believed, we owe you a real debt,’ she said. She smiled to show she was teasing. ‘I came for adventure, and I confess I’ve had a good deal more adventure than I wanted. But our thanks are genuine.’

Master Richard nodded. ‘Anything for you, Master Swan. Any time. That alum will make my fortune.’

Swan nodded. ‘There are — to be frank — three things you could do for me. And one is to take my mother a letter.’

If they were shocked to hear that a gentleman of the order had a mother at an inn in Southwark, none of them gave themselves away by midnight torchlight, although Katherine’s twelve-year-old girl shrieked and asked her mother, ‘Aren’t they all whores in Southwark? Pater says so!’

And Master Shipman laughed. ‘I’ll take it,’ he said. ‘I know the Swan quite well.’ He shook his head. ‘I probably know your mum, lad.’

Swan laughed, because social embarrassment was the farthest thing from his mind. ‘She owns the place,’ he said.

‘Christ on the cross!’ exclaimed Master Shipman. ‘You mum’s Ann the Swan of Southwark?’

‘It’s a small world,’ Swan said. He knew his mother would be flattered to hell and back to know that men stood on a beach in Greece and spoke of her inn.

‘And the second thing?’ Sturmy asked.

Swan shrugged. ‘I noticed you have a small wherry on your decks. I need her.’

Shipman looked pained, but he nodded. ‘Can you handle her?’ he asked. ‘We brought her all the way from the Thames!’

Swan shrugged. ‘I stole a dozen of them as a boy,’ he admitted. ‘I’d also like a small cask, and some tallow.’

‘Tallow we have.’ Sturmy laughed.

Eventually, it was all too much for him — their gratitude, the matter of his mother, and their offers to take him home. He sent a taverna boy for pen and parchment, paid in good silver, and sat on a camp stool to write a letter that would cross many thousands of miles before it reached his mother — if ever.

‘Dear Mater,

You may be surprised that I am still alive …’ he began. He grinned, feeling a little better, and wrote on for almost half an hour, until the small blond girl came shyly to his elbow. She watched him write. She’d been asleep twice, but now was awake because cannon had been fired out over the harbour — at first, men thought it was an alarm, but it proved just the garrison clearing loads from the day.

‘You write very well,’ the girl said.

Swan nodded. He was almost done.

‘You said you was writing your mater, but that says “Messire Drappiero”.’

Swan glared at her.

‘The princess in the fortress …’ Hannah Sturmy paused. ‘She said if I met the English knight, I was to give him this. But I think my mother won’t approve.’ Young Hannah looked at him — a frank appraisal, as if trying to work out why her mother might not approve.

It took Swan several moments to work it out — he was composing something very carefully. He looked up. ‘At the palace?’ he asked.

‘You smell really bad,’ Miss Sturmy said.

Swan managed a laugh. He rose and stretched and caught a whiff of his own smell, and wrinkled his nose.

‘By Saint George,’ he said to Hannah. ‘I am rather foul.’ He saw her mother close at hand, by the family fire. ‘Goodwife Sturmy?’ he called out, dusting sand from the beach under his feet on the small square of parchment. Then he used the seal he’d pocketed from Fra Tommaso’s room.

‘I think we are gossips, now, Master Swan — you being from Southwark just as we.’ She nodded graciously. ‘Londoners or near enough.’ She curtsied. ‘You may call me Katherine. Or even Kat.’

He nodded, warmed by the accent — the exact accent — of home. ‘Please call me Tom,’ he said.

He smiled at Hannah, and the child looked at her mother. ‘I have a note. For Master Swan. But that’s wrong, isn’t it? From a lady, I mean.’

Goodwife Sturmy took the note from her daughter and placed it in Master Swan’s hands.

‘But I cannot receive notes from men!’ Hannah muttered. She rolled her eyes like twelve-year-old girls the world over.

Katherine Sturmy looked, for a moment, like her namesake in the harbour. ‘No,’ she said. ‘You may not, Hannah Sturmy.’ She allowed herself the slightest smile at Master Swan, although there was disapproval there, too.

Swan made himself finish his letter to his mother, although he longed to read the note and rush off. In truth, he knew that the Sturmys had left the palace shortly after the battle. The note was six hours old.

He kissed Katherine Sturmy’s cheeks and embraced Richard Sturmy. He embraced half a dozen sailors and Master Shipman, and then, free at last, he wandered down the hill towards the torchlit tavernas open along the beach. The night was still full of revellers.

He read the note.

I will wait. Find me.

Fatigue fell away from him.

Where would she wait? The palace? He walked up the winding road, almost half a mile around the great stone bulk of the fortress and its many bastions. There were revellers everywhere, and just short of the torchlit main gatehouse, he found what he’d hoped for — twenty noblemen and women gathered in the softly lit darkness under the great walls. He watched them from a distance for a long minute — but none of them was the woman he sought. He went into the gatehouse, and was passed without question — he was still, he was shocked to find, in his breast and back plate and his red surcoat.

Halfway into the inner ward, his elation and his energy deserted him. Suddenly the sword on his hip was a grinding spit of iron, and the armour was a prison, and every muscle in his back and shoulders whined and moaned or screamed in agony. He paused, and for a moment he considered simply sitting under the wall and going to sleep.

Sleep.

He looked up the hill of the great fortress’s interior from the main gate. But the palazzo was dark — even the cressets at the doors were extinguished.

He turned and began to walk down the cobbles to the gatehouse. It suddenly seemed very far, and he felt very foolish. In fact, he laughed aloud.

His feet were loud on the stones.

He emerged from the gatehouse and turned to look at the aristocrats and their party, but they weren’t people he knew — he saw one older man from the festival at the palace, but the others were strangers — and he couldn’t very well ask whether they’d seen a princess of the blood wandering loose.

‘Christ, I’m a fool,’ he said, and started down the road.

As soon as he heard the footsteps behind him, he thought of Drappierro’s warning — that he had people on Lesvos. He whirled, the German long sword coming silkily out of its scabbard.

Princess Theodora stood behind him. Her face was clear in the moonlight.

‘I followed your laugh,’ she said. ‘I hear you are a fool.’ She raised an arched eyebrow. ‘The sword is, I promise you, unnecessary.’

‘Who says I am a fool?’ Swan asked, his heart beating harder than it had in the sea fight.

‘An expert,’ she said. She came close to him — so close that suddenly her eyes were alive in the moonlight and he could feel the heat of her body. She paused and put a hand on his arm. ‘You stink, Englishman.’

Swan laughed. ‘There were fish,’ he said. Which was suddenly a very funny thing to say.

She nodded. ‘I’d say there was also blood, and worse,’ she said. ‘I happen to know where there is a great deal of water.’ She raised her face, and her lips brushed his, and then she was away into the darkness.

‘That’s all I dare,’ she said. ‘I’d hate to be overwhelmed, and faint.’

Fatigue forgotten, he chased her into the darkness.

In the morning, the Katherine Sturmy weighed anchor and sailed away, north and west. And the order’s fleet rowed out of the harbour, and turned south, towards Chios. A Thames wherry was roped down amidships on the Blessed Saint John’s deck, and Swan stood by the helmsman, bleary-eyed with fatigue.

Just before the bells would have struck for nones, with Mytilini almost lost in the day-haze behind them and Mount Olympos plain as day on their starboard side, Fra Tommaso sent for Swan in the aft cabin.

‘I’m guessing you had mass this morning,’ Fra Tommaso said.

Swan nodded soberly. He had left Princess Theodora by a postern gate that opened — magically — without a knock, and had proceeded, carrying his breastplate, to the grotto church, where he’d heard mass in the pre-dawn darkness. He wasn’t sure whether he’d had any sleep or not. It was all like a dream.

‘You’ll still go through with this?’ Tommaso asked. His voice was dry. He was very much the same as he had been in their first days together. He handed Swan a glass of sweet wine. ‘Listen, lad. You are a passable liar and a fine sword, and with a little humility, you might make a man. If you do this — the odds are you’ll die hard, and for nothing.’

Swan frowned. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’ll do it.’ Some time in the darkness, instead of mumbling endearments, she had said my world is ending. He had promised her. She had also told him not to trust Zambale. What could possibly be wrong with Zambale?

What’s wrong with me? Swan thought. Tommaso was offering him a way out, and he was eager to go.

Tommaso narrowed his eyes. ‘Let me try this another way,’ he said. ‘I’d far rather that you sailed away now — or had left last night with the Sturmys — than that you went to Chios and … betrayed us.’ He shrugged. ‘I’m sorry.’

Swan shook his head. ‘Don’t be, my lord.’ He smiled, and glanced at the ring on his finger, the crystalline head of Athena sparkling in the sun. ‘You and Domenico read me aright.’ He shrugged. ‘It is hard to explain. But I think — I think that I cannot betray you.’ He flashed the ring. ‘Besides, I’m invincible.’

Tommaso rose and crushed him in an embrace. ‘Well, boy, you are my kind of fool, and no mistake. If you live — I’ll see that your patents of nobility pass the chapter, even if they’re as false as a tartar’s heart.’

While Tommaso embraced him, he dropped the order’s command seal back on the man’s sea table.

Then Swan bowed deeply. ‘I think I’d make a very poor knight,’ he said. ‘But I promise that if I survive this, I’ll always be at the order’s service.’

Ten minutes later, the wherry was over the side, and he had the little sail up, and was skimming the waves like a boy on the Thames, headed south. At his feet was a bundle of Turkish clothes, stripped from a corpse on the beach — there had been a selection on the small tide. When he was well clear of the Christian fleet, he stripped and went over the side with a painter around his waist and a lead-weighted keg — just a small keg, the kind in which men shipped valuable cargoes of alum or such. He went under his own hull twice, and then surfaced, and almost ruined his plan by being so tired he had trouble getting back aboard.

But he finally got a leg over the gunwale, and as he rolled back aboard, he saw the order’s galleys under full sail, line astern, obviously making for the Bay of Kalloni. And to the south, he could see the pickets of the Turkish fleet. Fra Domenico had wanted the Turks to see the order sail into the Bay of Kalloni.

At the last command meeting, he’d smiled — wryly — at the knights, and Richard Sturmy. ‘We do not have to win,’ he said. ‘We do not have to provide a massed Christian fleet. We only have to sow doubt. Doubt is our greatest ally. The Turks think their traitor sent the Genoese Grand Fleet away.’ Domenico had paused. ‘What if Domenico is not a traitor? Omar Reis has to consider that.’

Nor had Swan wasted his writing time solely writing to his mother.

He concealed the forged letter to Messire Drappierro very carefully behind the wherry’s backboard — a location every London boy knew. He hoped that Turks knew the trick too, because he wanted the letter to be found.

Drappierro thought he was so very smart.

Whistling, Swan got the sail back up, picked up speed, and put the bow south again.

To Chios.

The only problem with Swan’s plan was that it depended on several people behaving in predictable ways, and Swan knew that at any point, he could simply be killed. Some parts of the plan would then continue to function, but — despite the order’s teachings — Swan wasn’t very interested in the functioning of his plan after his own death.

And what if they haul the boat out of the water? he asked himself. What if they haven’t landed their oarsmen?

He thought of a hundred flaws.

He landed with the dawn on the northern tip of Chios and saw the Temple to Zeus as the sun crossed the mountains and kissed the still-standing columns. He lay on the warm marble and slept — all day. He awoke to watch half the Turkish fleet sailing away on a long reach west, probably headed for the entrance of the Bay of Kalloni, and he grinned at the ring and the head of Athena on his hand and thought of Fra Domenico.

Then he worried that Auntie’s galley was heading south.

Eventually, he decided that it was, truly, out of his hands, and he went back to sleep.

As darkness fell, he woke, and swam off the east pediment of the temple, in what might have been the most beautiful place he’d ever seen. And then dried himself, and put on the dead man’s clothes, tied his turban, and launched his boat.

He took the time to say a prayer. And to look at the ring, and the temple.

The Turkish fleet — at least, the half still in the Asiatic Straits off Chios — was far more bunched up than it had been — less confident, Swan suspected.

He came up with them as darkness was falling. His hands shook so badly he could scarcely keep the tiller against the wind, but he held his course, and near full dark, he brought his small boat through the picket ships without raising so much as a shout — in fact, he was ready with a fine story of escape from Christian dogs, but no one called out to him.

He came alongside the flagship, and was finally challenged.

‘Take me to Messire Drappierro,’ he said in brash Turkish. He sounded terrified inside his own head. His heart hammered as if Princess Theodora had just dropped her gown.

He thought of … nothing. He forced a smile, and went over the side, of his own free will, aboard the Turkish flagship, with his Turkish clothes worn incorrectly, and his turban tied in a way no true son of the faith — or daughter — would ever tie such a thing.

A pair of janissaries grabbed him and threw him to the deck, and in a blinding flash of terror, he saw a terrible flaw in his plan.

What if Drappierro isn’t aboard?

But he had to try. ‘Messire Drappierro!’ he wailed.

They stripped him. It was not done gently, and a pair of officers came to watch.

‘A Christian spy!' was the shout.

‘Search his boat!’ another called.

‘Master Drappierro!’ Swan wailed in real terror. The part of his brain that never turned off noted that he was being methodically beaten while stretched across the galley’s supply of gunpowder — the barrels were Italian.

He was kicked twice — in the stomach and again in the privates. He writhed in agony, naked, on the deck.

‘He’s mine,’ Drappierro said. ‘Dear boy — couldn’t you just have come to the town like a civilised person?’

Swan almost wet himself in relief. He couldn’t control his muscles. He was in the grip of a terror so absolute — it is one thing to contemplate capture by a cruel enemy, and another to endure it. In the light of the handful of torches and lanterns, the Turks looked demonic.

‘What do you mean, he is yours?’ one of the Turkish officers asked.

Drappierro waved arrogantly. ‘One of my men. Understand, fool of a Turk? My men. Working for me.’

‘I will search his boat anyway,’ the Turk spat.

‘Suit yourself,’ Drappierro said. ‘I am surrounded by men who prefer violence to thought. Master Swan, I do not think you will live long, lying naked on the deck of this ship. Have you got it?’

Swan pointed mutely at the Turkish officer. He found it hard to speak. Just as he began to recover his wits, he saw Auntie’s shadowy steward watching him.

But that was terror turning to … hope.

The African turned and vanished into the aft cabin.

Drappierro was arguing with the Turkish officer. ‘You took a ring from the prisoner?’ he asked.

The Turk glared at him. ‘Perhaps! What is it to you, sir?’

‘It is mine. The prisoner merely carried it to prove himself from me.’ Drappierro held out his hand.

The Turkish officer drew himself up. Swan had seen the same gesture from an archer in Southwark who couldn’t pay his bill. ‘What does it look like?’ he asked.

Drappierro spat. ‘I can have you bastinadoed, you fool! I am the Sultan’s friend.’ He held out his hand. ‘It has a crystal or a diamond in the bezel and the ring is gold. The head is of Herakles …’

The Turk had the ring on his finger, and he gave himself away looking at it. The crystal winked in the torchlight. The Turk cursed, and flung the thing into Drappierro’s greedy hand. The Genoese man took it.

The other Turk — just clambering back over the galley’s low side — watched with something like amusement. ‘It is your ring?’ he asked in low, grave tones.

‘Yes, yes,’ Drappierro said with evident delight.

The Turk bowed and caught his brother officer by his flowing sleeve and dragged him aft towards the main-deck tent, telling him to stop making trouble in careful Turkish.

The oar decks were empty. Swan had hoped to hide in them, but that had all failed now — he hadn’t expected the guards to be so alert, and now he was in the most desperate position possible.

Drappierro knelt by his side. ‘How did you get here? You are long ahead of time!’ He sneered. ‘So eager for my service?’

Swan wanted to retch. ‘The … order … broke out of Mytilini.’ He coughed. ‘I stole a boat.’

Drappierro scratched his beard. But he wasn’t really looking at Swan. He was trying to see his ring in the poor light. ‘This feels more like crystal than diamond,’ he said. ‘Oh, but I can feel the age of it.’ He smiled. ‘It really is a pity you have so many enemies, young man.’ He stood, and as he stood, a pair of Africans took Swan’s arms.

Swan had expected this betrayal. In fact, he’d planned on it — but that didn’t really fight the fear. ‘Messire!’ he wailed, and he sounded very desperate.

‘Omar Reis will never even know you were here,’ Drappierro said. ‘Your friend — his sister — has made a fine offer for you. She gave me her word that you will not die.’ Drappierro laughed. ‘We are all men of the world, eh, Swan? If you ever manage to escape, come and see me.’

The Africans had dragged Swan to his feet, but they were not unkind, and Swan settled and they gave him a little space. He used it to bow low.

‘We are, indeed, all men of the world,’ he answered. ‘Think of me,’ he managed.

Drappierro’s head shot round, because Swan’s tone had been too bland by half.

But the Africans were taking him down the main deck. He left Messire Drappierro trying to look more closely at his ring, even as a dozen janissaries came down the deck from the command tent.

Just over his shoulder, he could hear the voice he dreaded most of all — that of Omar Reis himself.

‘Messire Drappierro,’ the Turkish general said in his near-perfect Italian.

And then Swan found himself face to face with Maral Khatun. Auntie.

She was thirty-five — five feet of muscle and silk and black hair. In the dark, she was merely a shape and a set of shawls, but he still knew her — by scent, and by the deference of all the men around him suddenly.

He made himself bow.

She chuckled. In Arabic, she said, ‘Well, he doesn’t lack for manners. Bring him along.’ She turned to her Africans. ‘Mustafa — what is all the shouting in the Frankish tongue?’

‘I do not know, mistress.’ The African bowed. ‘Hamza Beg is … debating, with your brother.’

‘Find out, there’s a dear.’ She looked at Swan. ‘You speak a little Arabic, I think.’

There were men aboard who knew he spoke Turkish, so he bowed again. ‘And Turkish, my lady.’

She laughed. ‘Oh, you are revenged on a poor woman, are you not? So you understood every word, you scamp?’ She seemed neither spiteful nor annoyed.

‘I know we were interrupted,’ Swan said. It was a line he’d practised for this moment. All his dice were thrown.

She stepped back, and her laugh pealed across the deck. ‘You are bold.’ She leaned forward. ‘You know I have purchased thee?’

He nodded.

More shouting from aft.

‘There is talk of taking the Englishman from thee, mistress,’ Mustafa said.

‘Let us be away to our own ship,’ Auntie said. ‘Immediately. I command it. Englishman, what have you done?’

Swan bowed his head. ‘As I serve God, lady, I have done nothing but carry a message from this man Drappierro to the Lord of the Knights of Wrath and then I have brought the lord’s answer to Drappierro.’

She smiled as they settled in a small boat. Her Africans began to pull them away from the side. There was more shouting aboard the flagship, but no heads appeared at the side. Swan could hear Omar Reis and another, deeper voice.

‘Truly, you are the very son of iniquity and father of lies, young man. Despite which, I can see thee as … Ganymede.’

‘Hermes,’ Swan managed. ‘Ganymede’s tastes ran to other things than messages.’

The woman laughed again. ‘Oh, infidel, how I shall use thee.’ She turned to her rowers.

Swan saw his small boat still tied under the stem of the flagship.

‘Shall I merely cut out his tongue?’ she asked Mustafa.

The African grunted and pulled his oar. They were passing down the length of the ship.

‘Why is my brother so wroth with the Genoese ambassador?’ she asked.

Mustafa grunted. ‘This infidel brought the Genoese a message from the Pirates of Rhodos,’ he said.

My hands are not tied, and I do no think this is going to get any better, Swan thought.

‘So he is a double traitor,’ Auntie said with real satisfaction. She smiled at Swan. ‘If my brother kills him, I won’t have to pay him a thing for you!’

Swan smiled at her with every bit of forced flirtation he could muster. All he could see was her eyes.

‘I can use my tongue for many things,’ he whispered.

She giggled. ‘Well — perhaps we will have a test of that. If you pass, you may keep it. We could apply these tests one part at a time — anything that fails is removed.’

‘Anything that fails you, mistress, deserves nothing more,’ he said in Arabic. His right hand moved very slowly.

They were twenty cloth yards from his little boat.

He saw her close her eyes as he leaned forward to kiss her, and his hand trailed along behind Mustafa’s back.

He took Mustafa’s belt knife out of the sheath at his back and cut the man’s throat before Auntie’s eyes were open again. The other rower went for the knife — Swan broke his arm and he screamed and got the knife in his eye for good measure, and then Swan slammed the pommel into Auntie’s head as she drew her own knife.

The woman moaned and subsided, eyes wide with terror and the weight of the blow. She was stunned, but not unconscious.

The boat was suddenly full of blood.

Swan was sick of all of it.

He knelt by her in the bow and wrestled the boat with one oar alongside his own. No one looked over the side to see the source of the dying man’s scream. Swan panted twenty long breaths, his mind almost blank.

The woman opened her mouth.

He put his hand over it and she bit his hand until he put the knife to her nose.

‘I won’t kill you,’ he said. ‘But I’ll take your nose off.’

‘Try, you dog! You killed Mustafa, you-’

He rammed a thumb up under her jaw and she grunted in pain and subsided.

Carefully, he tied her hands and feet and then crumpled one of her shawls into a gag and shoved it into her mouth. She was unresisting.

‘Please note that I am not killing you,’ he said carefully. ‘I could. But I’m sick of the whole thing. I’m … sorry about Mustafa.’ He sounded insane, even to his own ears.

For a moment, in the darkness, he almost lost it. The man’s skull popping under his hands — the feel of the dagger. In the stinking, hot darkness.

He threw up over the side.

He rolled into his own boat, and shoved Maral Khatun’s boat as hard as he could, sending each of them in opposite directions.

Forty feet away, Drappierro said, ‘Your accusations are pure foolishness, Pasha. Get a grip on yourself. There is no mighty Christian fleet, and there is no trap.’

Omar Reis did not sound angry. Merely professional. ‘Why the letter, then, messire?’

‘A forgery!’ Drappierro spat. ‘An obvious forgery.’

Swan went into the water. It was colder than he expected, and he felt the current as soon as he went in. He fought fatigue and revulsion.

And fear.

As soon as he put his head under the water, it was dark, and he felt the man’s neck go just as he pounded the blade into the man’s skull. The skull cracked like an egg and then the whole head collapsed under his weight. Then he felt himself repeat the blow, even though he knew the man had to be dead.

He tried to rise off the new corpse, but his leg failed him and he sank back — now kneeling on both knees. He could see nothing. He could hear at least two men dying. Everything smelled of blood, and faeces, and despair.

He was there for long enough to feel the total panic. He couldn’t get his head under the water. He would not do it.

Any moment, a Turk would put his head over the stern and see Auntie — or him.

He tried again.

Damn it.

He tried prayer, and nothing came.

Tried thinking of beautiful women. Of the head of St George.

Of life.

He didn’t breathe deeply enough, but in the end he got his head under water, and he got under the boat, and his desperately questing hand found the little keg secured by the rope. Weighted with lead.

Fuck them all, he thought. I’m going to pull this off.

He made enough noise to wake the dead, getting back in his boat.

No one paid him any attention, because Drappierro and Hamza Beg and Omar Reis were shouting like bulls.

Swan opened the small keg. Inside it was full of tallow, except for the bars of lead that killed its buoyancy, the oiled leather packet of gunpowder, and the small oiled silk packet. Swan took that. He didn’t smile. The fun of the prank was gone with Mustafa’s throat.

Now it was just a job.

Inside the powder bag was the length of a man’s hand of slow match, and his tinder box. Swan reassembled his device — the packet of powder inside the tallow, which he packed back, his hands greasy with the stuff. He pulled the waxed plug on the barrel and fed the fuse through it, and then he tapped the top of the keg into place until the thin board snapped past the ends of the staves.

It took him ten tries to light his char cloth. Auntie was a hundred yards away, coasting on the current.

He giggled.

He reached out and grabbed the anchor chain and pulled, so his boat began to float north along the side of the galley. Swan got this oars in the water, set the keg on the stern post and gave three long pulls so he was moving well — he was clumsy, using one hand to balance the barrel every other stroke, and the boat swung back and forth and bumped along the galley’s low sides.

A sailor — deck crew — looked out over the side, his head silhouetted against the moon.

Swan ignored him and touched the char cloth to the slow match. The fuse began to burn, a thin wisp of smoke rising in the still air.

Drappierro shouted, ‘Of course it’s the little bastard. He’s made the whole thing up — forged the letter! Listen, Pasha! He’s a thief and liar!’

‘There’s a man in a boat!’ shouted the sailor.

A hackbut appeared over the side, the torchlight sparkling on its polished barrel.

Swan had expected to have another minute to let the fuse burn. But his time was up — he could hear the gods telling him he was done.

Or just God.

He rose at his oars, plucked up the keg, and threw it with both hands as hard as he could into the air.

And then, without awaiting the result, he dived into the water.

And at the bottom of his dive, he swam down, even as he heard the bark of hackbuts above the water.

The dreams of death — Salim’s death — followed him in the water, but he out-swam them.

He swam until he could no longer hold his breath, and even then he moved his arms. It was suddenly light all around him.

All around him.

He was trying to rise when the fist of a giant slammed into the water above him, and he was forced out — and down. He swallowed water, but he was past his panic.

He coughed out the last of his air, utterly disoriented. Unable to choose which way led to the surface and air. The light dimmed — but fortuna showed him the glint of a glass bottle on the bottom of the harbour where some reckless sailor had dropped the precious thing — and suddenly his brain worked, and up and down were restored.

He gave a kick to the surface.

The Turkish flagship was on fire.

Swan laughed.

Swan swam into the town on the exuberance of success, and climbed the central pier unaided and undetected. The whole harbour was lit by the inferno of the galley burning in the middle of the channel, and by the time Swan was standing on the pier, two dozen alert deck crews had cut their cables and were rowing — weakly, because most of their oarsmen were ashore — rowing for safety. A galley is fifty metres of light, dry wood coated in pitch and fused in oiled linen and hemp and tarred rope — a firebomb waiting for a light — and no Turkish captain could afford a spark.

The Chians, quite naturally, thought it was an attack and sounded the alarm. Every soldier in the town went to the walls, seaside and landside. From the pier, Swan could see the Genoese and Portuguese gunners in the seaward bastions, their matches lit, watching the desperate movements of the Turkish crews. In the Turkish camp off to the north, the janissaries stood to arms and the drums beat.

A second Turkish galley caught fire.

The crew, less brave than the crew of the flagship, jumped for the safety of the water. The ship drifted on the current, and more and more galleys cut their cables or dropped their anchor chains.

Undermanned galleys began to drift within extreme range of the town’s guns. Unordered, the Portuguese master gunner ordered the seaward bastion to open fire.

Unnoticed, the author of the night’s excitement dragged himself under a fishing boat pulled well above the tideline on the town’s inner beach.

Despite the roar of the cannon and the flickering light, he was asleep before the third Turkish galley caught.

In the morning, a professional observer could make out four Turkish galleys burned to the waterline and then turned turtle, their buoyant timbers keeping the wrecks afloat, drifting with the obscene wetness of dead jellyfish. Two more had been captured when they drifted ashore, and another destroyed by gunfire.

Swan stood on the beach, drinking it all in, and then walked — naked — up into the town. He went to the house of the Latin bishop, and demanded clothing as a member of the order, and was clothed. Swan played the injured hero to perfection, and had the sympathy, first, of the bishop’s valet, and then of his housekeeper, and by the time he’d shared a plate of veal with the prelate, he had the bishop’s complete sympathy as well.

‘You are the young man who accused the president of the council of impiety,’ the bishop said, with a certain amusement. ‘I remember you.’

Swan bowed where he sat. ‘Yes, my lord.’

The bishop — a Genoese — sat back and played with his cup. ‘The president sees his duty differently than you or I,’ he said.

A young Greek appeared at the doorway to the room — once a woman’s solar, Swan thought — and when the bishop looked at him, he indicated a small piece of paper or parchment between his fingers.

‘Excuse me,’ the bishop said, with a civil inclination of his head. He accepted the message and read it. And smiled.

‘The Turkish fleet is reported to be abandoning their camp — their rowers are going aboard and they are burning all the supplies they moved ashore. Come, Master Swan.’

Swan followed the bishop — a big man who nonetheless appeared capable of rapid movement and decisive action. The diocesan palace was not a grand affair, but it did sport a fine old tower, and they ran up six flights of steps to the top.

From the top, they could see the straits full of Turkish shipping, and the far coast of Asia. To the south, at the base of the mountain, the Turkish camp looked like a nest of woodlice kicked by a child, and to the north, they could see the vanguard of the Turkish fleet already forming up. On the beaches south of the town, dozens of Turkish ships were landing stern first and taking aboard their full crews of oarsmen.

Almost at their feet, in the town’s main square, the president of the Mahona and a dozen Mahonesi were arguing with an armoured man, who was waving a sword like an actor in a St George play.

‘Young man, I do believe that God has answered our prayers.’ The bishop nodded and then grinned like a much younger and less dignified man.

Swan’s joy was tinged with anxiety for the young Lord of Eressos. ‘My particular friend Zambale …’

The bishop shook his head. ‘Why hold him, when the Turks are leaving? He was only taken up at the behest of that detestable apostate Drappierro.’ He shrugged. ‘There is half the Mahona. Let us go and address them.’

The bishop paused in his own yard only long enough for servants to drape the correct robe and place the correct mitre on his head — which they did as he walked through them. Swan received a scarlet surcoat — close inspection showed the white cross to have been hastily added to a churchman’s garment, but Swan was transformed from looking like an armed servant to a soldier-prince of the Church.

The bishop gathered a dozen retainers — men-at-arms and priests — and swept out of his gates into the square.

In the square, a crowd had gathered. There were twenty fully armoured men on horseback, and the captain of the town continued to argue with the Mahonesi, the face inside his armet red with exertion — and wrath.

But the appearance of the bishop — brilliant in his Easter robes, with a retinue behind him — silenced the square. The captain, a mercenary, knelt before the bishop and kissed his ring.

The president of the Mahona fiddled with his black cap nervously.

Then his eyes flickered over Swan and froze.

Swan offered him the smile that the lion has for the gazelle.

‘In the aftermath of such a brilliant stroke, surely we should be thanking God,’ said the bishop.

The captain bowed. ‘What we should be doing is attacking their rearguard and stinging the bastards so that they think twice about coming back.’ He looked at the president. ‘What we are doing is — nothing.’

‘More violence may only force the Turk into greater efforts!’ the president said. But he was looking at Swan, and sweating.

Swan didn’t push past the bishop. Life at his father’s episcopal court — and at Hampton and with Bessarion — had taught him a great deal about patience. And revenge.

Instead of acting prematurely, he watched the bishop. The man was almost a head taller than the president, and looked more like a man-at-arms than some of the men-at-arms. He spread his arms and gave an invocation, and then all the people in the square knelt and said three prayers.

And then the bishop glanced at Swan.

Swan stepped forward past the bishop, and placed himself in front of the president.

‘You have misplayed your hand, you know,’ Swan said pleasantly. ‘The Turks are beaten and they will run. They know the Allied fleet is on the way.’

‘There is no Allied fleet!’ the terrified man hissed.

Swan, who knew perfectly well that there was no Allied fleet, kept his composure. ‘You can’t imagine that the Turks are running from nothing?’ He smiled. ‘I call on you to release this sortie, to wreak the havoc on the infidel that is your duty — your duty!’ Swan bowed. ‘And please, release my friend the Lord of Eressos immediately.’ Swan leaned over and spoke very quietly. ‘I have your correspondence with Drappierro.’

Swan had also learned, in gutters and palaces, that sometimes a really big lie is better than any amount of truth.

The president turned a chalky white.

He stepped back as if struck — and raised a hand. But he was not utterly without cunning. ‘You will ride with the sortie, sir?' he said, his voice already rich with unction. ‘A man as full of knightly virtue as you!’

Swan laughed. He had laughed more in the last six hours …

‘I will ride with the sortie, unarmoured. I will go unto the battle front like Uriah, but I will not be touched.’ He grinned like a maniac at the president of the Mahona. And held up his left hand, where a brilliantly carved diamond glittered. ‘Because I am invincible,’ he said.

He bowed to the bishop, and one of the bishop’s servants ran for a horse.

What he got was a fine black churchman’s horse, a heavy beast that the bishop rode in parades and occasionally to falconry. But Swan didn’t care.

He vaulted into his saddle, and joined the captain of the town.

The mercenary was no older than Swan, and wore a fortune in armour. ‘Messire is a Knight of the Order?’ he asked. The bishop’s servants handed Swan gauntlets and a bevoir for his neck and a fine German sallet — none fit well, but all were far better than nothing. And a sword and a dagger.

‘I’m merely a volunteer,’ Swan admitted.

The young captain twirled his moustache. ‘Well, by Saint George, Messire has already won the day with the Mahona, so if Messire would do my little company the honour of carrying the standard of the town, perhaps we will show these worthy Turks that Italians have some skill in arms. Eh?’

Swan took the lance with the town’s small standard.

With mounted crossbowmen and every local gentleman who had a horse and arms, they mustered a hundred cavalry for the sortie.

The Turks were well prepared for such a move, and the captain, for all his youth, was too professional to waste men late in a victory, so the next hour was spent in a series of dashes from cover to cover, quite unlike Swan’s former notions of armoured combat on horseback before he came out to Rhodos. Under the captain’s shouted commands, they would ride at the beach, swerve in behind a hill, and their crossbowmen would snipe at the enemy rearguard from cover, while pages held their horses — and then, when the janissaries prepared a counter attack, the men-at-arms would sweep away.

It was exactly the sort of warfare that Swan had practised under the turcopilier of Rhodos.

By the time the sun was high in the sky, Swan, in almost no armour, had sweated through all his clothes, and the fully armoured men’s faces were as red as beets when they raised their visors or removed their armets or sallets.

There were fewer than a dozen Turkish ships left on the beach when the janissary commander made his lethal error. He had a great deal of beach to cover, and he elected to spread his men in open ranks — only two deep, and four paces between men.

The captain was eating an apple. He watched for a moment, and turned to Swan. ‘It is like the moment when she kisses you — you know what I mean, messire?’

Swan laughed. ‘Oh, I do,’ he said.

When they charged, the Turkish bows plucked men from saddles — or shot horses. But the Turks were too thinly distributed to stop the charge, and clearly had been misled as to their number — and in the time it takes a man to bleed out, the situation went from an organised retreat to a rout, and then the horsemen were in among the galleys, killing sailors, and after that, it was a massacre. The oarsmen were mostly slaves — and as soon as the horseman came down the beach, they screamed like ghazis and ripped at their captors with their bare hands.

It was too late to be decisive. Eight of the dozen galleys got off the beach, and there was little the horsemen could do to stop them. But four ships were taken. And when the Turks tried to come in with other ships and take them back, they were greeted by the Italian captain’s little surprise — a pair of guns on wheeled carriages.

The Turks ran for the open sea, and the garrison cheered from the walls.

When they returned through the sally port, the Lord of Eressos stood there in half-armour with a borrowed sword.

‘Damn you!’ he said. ‘I’ve missed everything!’

Swan slid from his borrowed horse. ‘I doubt it. I think this war will go on a long, long time.’

He introduced the captain of the town to his Lesbian friend, and the three of them, when the horses were curried and the weapons cleaned, proceeded to bathe — first in water, and later in adulation.

Late that night, Swan sat in a waterfront taverna, and gazed at the diamond on his finger.

‘Is that the jewel that the whoreson Drappierro wanted?’ The Lord of Eressos spread his hands.

Swan looked at him. ‘Where did you hear that?’ he asked, his head racing. Theodora said …

‘People talk.’ Zambale smiled, then shrugged. ‘I suppose one of the guards said something.’

Swan looked at him in wine-soaked puzzlement. ‘What would they know? Drappierro sent everyone out of the room.’

And then it hit him. Drappierro had spies everywhere — on Chios and Lesvos. Swan’s eyes locked with Zambale’s.

He regretted opening his mouth.

Zambale backed up a step and drew a dagger.

‘Son of a bitch,’ Swan said. He got his back to the wall and reached for his borrowed sword.

It wasn’t there, of course. It was leaning against the wall of the bishop’s palace.

‘You have to know everything, do you not, Englishman?’ Zambale flicked the dagger with easy competence between his hands.

The Italian captain took a sip of wine.

‘In this case,’ Swan said, ‘I can let it go. If you can.’

Zambale pursed his lips.

Swan didn’t relax — he was in one of the guards the order taught — but he raised a hand. ‘Zambale — I like you. Let it go. I don’t care. If you reported to Drappierro, or if you didn’t — I don’t care.’

‘Always the hero. With Prince Dorino, and now, here.’ Zambale’s face was twisted with rage — or grief. The dagger flicked into his right hand — point down.

‘Walk away,’ Swan said.

Almost as if the dagger was controlling the man, the right arm went up, and Zambale slammed the dagger at Swan overhand.

Swan took the weight of the blow with his open left hand — which then closed like a vice, thumb down, on Zambale’s wrist. He twisted, and Zambale’s face came so close that they were eye to eye, nose to nose, as Swan twisted the other man’s wrist on the blade of the dagger and stripped the weapon, which fell to the floor with a clatter.

He backed away, leaving the other man with nothing but a sore shoulder.

The Italian captain took another sip of wine.

The prostitutes and the wine-boys were watching intently.

Zambale sighed. He sank to one knee — and plucked up the dagger. ‘Fuck you,’ he said, in Italian.

The Italian captain drew his dagger and tossed it across the table to Swan, who caught it by the blade and flipped it into his hand.

‘Walk away,’ Swan said, again. ‘Whatever you think is worth this — manhood, honour, chivalry, money — it’s not worth it. All lies. Walk away.’

Zambale shouted incoherently and lunged, and Swan killed him.

‘Giovanni della Scalle,’ the Italian captain said, introducing himself. ‘You have killed before, I think.’

‘Many times,’ Swan said, in utter self-disgust. He drank down another cup of wine.

Della Scalle shook his head and made a wry face. ‘I think that you tried not to kill him. I did not really understand — I’m sorry, I didn’t know what was happening.’ His insincerity was as alarming as his initial reluctance — Swan thought that Della Scalle could have disarmed Zambale at any time.

Swan bowed and returned his cleaned dagger to the man. ‘Messire, I hope it is so, and you will pardon my cynicism, but it must be very convenient in certain quarters that Messire Drappierro’s friend here is … dead.’

Della Salle blinked, and his eyebrows rose. ‘Very convenient,’ he said. ‘I ought to arrest you, as duelling is illegal, but I find that you acted in self-defence, and I will so report it to the Mahona.’ He leaned forward. ‘I might have killed you, too. My employer would fancy that.’ He nodded.

‘I need to leave this place,’ Swan said.

Two days later, a fishing boat carrying the English squire doubled the long point guarding the Bay of Kalloni and turned into the channel itself on a favouring wind. As the arms of the land opened, Swan could see all the way down the great bay. He could see the pair of galleys on guard just a few bowshots into the bay, and behind them …

… behind them were forty galleys — some with the arms of the Gattelusi, and some with the arms of the order, and another dozen with the arms of Venice.

Swan watched them for hours as his fishing boat tacked down the bay, and twice, he wept.

Eventually, he found himself before Fra Tommaso in the great stern cabin of the Blessed Saint John.

Fra Tommaso sat quietly, hands crossed.

Swan stood in silence, too, after an initial bow.

Finally, Tommaso cleared his throat. ‘I’m glad you survived,’ he said.

Swan didn’t really trust himself to speak. He tried twice, and Fra Tommaso handed him a cup of sweet wine.

After he had taken a sip, he managed to begin. He wanted to be calm, and rational. And instead, all he could find was anger.

‘It was all a ruse!’ he said.

Fra Tommaso looked away. Swan had to admit to himself that the man was genuinely moved.

Swan shook his head. ‘Drappierro was not a spy,’ he said.

Fra Tommaso spread his hands. ‘That is between Messire Drappierro and God,’ he said. ‘But I think the truth is that he was a very good spy.’

‘Drappierro was playing the double agent, but all along he was helping to pin the Turkish fleet in place on pointless little sieges until you rallied the great powers.’ Swan pointed out of the beautifully glazed stern windows at the fleet arrayed behind them. ‘You have the ships for a battle. Odds of two to one are nothing to the order.’ He could not conceal his bitterness. ‘You must have been ready to pounce on their vanguard.’

‘Yes,’ the old man said. ‘When they separated half their fleet, we sent for the Venetians.’ He shrugged. ‘They came a day late — after the Turks scuttled away.’ Tommaso shook his head. ‘There will be no battle now. Would I be a foolish old man if I guessed that you started the fire on the Turkish flagship?’

Swan nodded.

Fra Tommaso hung his head. ‘Thy will be done,’ he said to the crucifix that hung on the cabin wall.

‘I also forged a letter from Fra Domenico ordering Drappierro to lure the Turks into pressing the siege of Chios until he could launch his counter-attack.’ Swan chewed and spat each word. ‘I hid it where the Turks were sure to find it after they captured me.’

Fra Tommaso nodded. ‘Brilliant,’ he said.

‘But Fra Domenico sent me for the opposite reason, did he not? The ring was the signal — the ring would tell Drappierro that all was well, and my presence was the guarantee to the Turks that all was exactly as Drappierro was telling them. It was double bluff, and I ruined it.’

Fra Tommaso looked up and met his eye. ‘We didn’t trust you.’ His eyes dropped. ‘It is God’s will.’ He shook his head. ‘We will never have another Christian fleet like this — not for a hundred years.’ But then he raised his eyes. ‘But you will recall that I never wanted this course of action. I am of the faction in the order that says that our duty is to the sick and the poor, and not to Genoa or Venice.’

Swan drew the ring of the conqueror from his finger and threw it on the table. ‘Here. Keep it.’ He turned to leave, and paused.

Fra Tommaso narrowed his eyes. He looked at it and sighed. ‘How did you preserve the ring?’ he asked.

Swan knew he was bragging. But he couldn’t help himself. ‘I had a copy made,’ he said. ‘I gave Drappierro the copy. It was dark.’ He placed his donat’s ring on the table next to the conqueror’s ring. ‘Neither of these will make anyone invincible,’ he said.

‘Drappierro is still alive,’ Fra Tommaso said. ‘Keep it. Fra Domenico gave it to you. You are angry — but this is God’s will. I do not pretend to understand to what end God works. Take the rings — both of them. And stop being a boy. Be a man. Yes, we used you. If we had ordered you to board a Turkish galley alone, you would have gone, and died. Yes?’

Swan thought for a moment, and then nodded. ‘Yes.’

Fra Tommaso met his eyes squarely. ‘You were expendable. If you succeeded too well …’ He shrugged. ‘At the very least, you saved the lives of hundreds of men who would, in this very hour, be locked in mortal combat — Christians and infidels.’ The old man shrugged. ‘But don’t play the injured innocent. It’s a dirty business. That is war.’

In the end, Swan took the rings, and a blessing.

Ancona, in late summer, bore no shadow of the conflict raging at the other end of the Mediterranean. The fishing fleet dotted the sea, and the great round ships and fast galleys of the merchants studded the wharves, and so great was the peace then reigning that Ancona had both Genoese and Venetian shipping in the harbour when Swan’s ship dropped anchor.

He ordered his armour and kit unloaded and left Peter to watch it while he ran up the streets of the town to his rented house. The smile on his face was so wide that other men and women smiled to see him, and men recognised him and called out, so he had to stop three times and be welcomed.

And then he was in his own street, and he went to the door and knocked.

After a few minutes, a cold hand seemed to grip his heart.

And when the bell rang the hour, his landlady came to her door. She looked frightened.

‘Where is my wife?’ he asked.

She put a hand to her mouth and slammed her door.

Before Swan could leave his landing, her servant brought him a sealed letter. He knew Violetta’s hand immediately.

He opened it in eager relief — in one minute, he’d feared plague, robbery, kidnapping, and Messire Drappierro’s assassins.

My dear Tommaso, it began.

He read a sentence or two, and then his eyes lost their ability to see and for a moment, the world went white.

He went to an inn and ordered wine.

When his head was better, he read:

My dear Tommaso,

I have left you, and taken all your money. I am truly sorry, but it is dull here, and my soul tells me you are dead. And if you are not — well, I enjoyed playing your wife, but I do not think either one of us meant it for ever, did we?

I will go to Milan with an old friend, and cause you no scandal. I will remember our Christmas with pleasure.

I found studying medicine dull. Only men could take the saving of lives and turn it into something dead. I spit on them.

If you come to Milan — well, do not expect to be my husband, or my pimp, and we will be friends.

Violetta

Swan read it six or seven times, and finally he raised his face at a startled servant girl and grinned.

‘Well, well,’ he said.

Later, he told the entire tale to Peter, who knew everything anyway, and to Antoine, who had spent four months cooking for strangers and was obviously happy to have escaped the Turks.

Peter shrugged with Dutch sangfroid.

Antoine smiled into his wine. ‘I liked her,’ he said. ‘But she was not anyone’s wife.’

Swan bowed to the truth of the statement and raised his cup. ‘To Violetta,’ he said.

The candlelight winked on Alexander’s ring.

And ten days later, Swan stood before Cardinal Bessarion, with Peter and Antoine at his shoulders. He’d been careful crossing Rome — but not too careful. He rather fancied a fight with the Orsini.

Bessarion embraced him and offered his ring for a kiss.

Swan handed the cardinal a thick packet of papers. ‘From your steward on Lesvos,’ he said.

Bessarion laughed. ‘I gather you return a Christian hero,’ he said.

‘Perhaps,’ Swan allowed. He raised a hand. ‘First — how is Di Brachio? And Giannis? And the rest — Cesare?’

The cardinal nodded. ‘Di Brachio is still recovering. He had more than a month with the fever. Messire Cesare is at the Curia even now. Giannis and his wife no longer live here, but remain in my employ.’ The cardinal reached across his desk and squeezed Swan’s hand. ‘By God, sir, it is good to have you back. I have a letter from the master of the order praising your work — and your courage.’ Bessarion raised an eyebrow. ‘I have a meeting in five minutes — tell me quickly and then take some weeks and write a full report. Did you catch the spy?’

Swan thought of Drappierro. And he thought of Prince Dorino, and his three traitors.

‘No,’ he said.

Bessarion shrugged. ‘It was a long shot at best.’ He rang the bell on his desk and rose. ‘You have a star from heaven on your finger.’

Swan drew it off and handed it to the cardinal. ‘I’m told it was the signet ring of the great Alexander.’

Bessarion slipped it on his finger. ‘We’ll dicker later. As usual, you have exceeded my expectations. Go and sin with your friends, and I’ll see you when I can make time for a cup of wine. Go — go — I don’t want the Pope’s French secretary to even know you exist.’

Swan slipped out the private door into the servants' corridor, and was enfolded in a deep embrace.

He looked into Di Brachio’s eyes. They were slightly too bright, as if fever had marked him — but he had weight on, and some muscles, and looked a little more alive than the last time Swan had seen him.

Alessandro grinned. ‘You English — everything loud, eh? Could you not have saved Chios quietly?’ He embraced the Englishman again.

Swan grinned back. ‘I missed you — and Giannis and Cesare — every day. I was … way over my head.’

‘Ah!’ Di Brachio said. ‘Welcome to the profession.’

And that night, they sat in a small, quiet inn north of the forum — all seven of them. Giovanni Acudi was brilliant in scarlet robes, and De Brescia looked more prosperous then Swan had ever seen him. Giannis and his new wife Irene sat hand in hand, almost uninterested in the others, and Peter sat with Di Brachio. The cardinal’s other Greeks were on a mission. It was not discussed.

He heard that De Brescia had been all the way to the Germanies and back, and that Acudi was trying a case against the Orsini and had to be protected by Giannis and thirty men. They drank, and drank, and went to vespers and returned and drank more.

‘What were you doing in Germany?’ Swan asked De Brescia, who laughed.

‘What indeed?’ the man answered. ‘I went to great conference — almost a parliament. Every ruler in Europe sent their representatives. They met to discuss a crusade, and I believe that I have never seen so many nobly born fools posture so ineptly. The Emperor sponsored the conference — although he does not want a crusade — and the English and French helped pay for it — although they hate each other worse than twenty Turks.’ He shrugged. ‘I was bribed every day.’ He snorted.

Giannis leaned forward. ‘Despite which, the Hungarians and the Germans may put something together.’ He put a finger to the side of his nose. ‘Do you know who this man is, called Hunyadi?’

Di Brachio smiled. ‘Fancy a visit to Romania?’ he asked, and everyone laughed except Peter and Swan, neither of whom understood.

Acudi drew on the table in wine. ‘Mehmet is going to try to take all the rest of the Empire,’ he said. ‘He has four armies preparing.’

‘And the Crusaders and their legate will rally to the Hungarians at Belgrade,’ Di Brachio said.

Swan shook his head. ‘I have a report to write,’ he said. But he laughed. And before the evening ended, they all drank to it.

‘To Belgrade!’ they all shouted.