Rhodes

‘Several of them didn’t have weapons,’ Fra John Kendal said. ‘Young man, no one denies your courage. Then or now. Tell the story.’

After several false starts, Swan did his best. He was drunk by the end, and Peter carried him to his bed.

‘In a year, it will be a tale to amuse the ladies, eh?’ Peter said.

‘Never,’ Swan spat. ‘Sweet Jesus saviour of the world, let me sleep without dreams.’

While he fought with dead men, the Turks buried their dead and sailed away empty handed. The next day, with the worst hangover of his adult life, Swan stood in the pounding sunshine and looked at the empty beach with the refuse of war—barrel staves and human excrement and an old sail flapping noisily. He felt dirty. He bathed, and shaved, and laced all the laces on his clothing. It felt like improvement. And then, obedient to orders, he sailed with both Fra Domenico and Fra Tommaso for Chios.

He managed to walk on board the galley, and he made himself take a turn rowing. When he was done, he drank down a gallon of delicious fresh water tinged with lemon, and threw up over the side. His left leg was weak. But his head was begi

‘You look better,’ Fra Tommaso said.

‘What are we doing?’ Swan asked. ‘Sir?’ he added, as respectfully as he could manage.

‘We’re bound for Chios,’ Fra Domenico said.

Swan swallowed his reply and tried to look eager.

Fra Tommaso pointed out of the stern windows.

There in the sun lay six more galleys – five of them the order’s entire fleet, and the sixth bearing the ba

‘The Turks have gone to attack Kos,’ Tommaso said. ‘We have information that their real target is Chios, and their attacks on us were to keep us pi

‘I have been appointed the order’s admiral,’ Fra Domenico said. ‘There should be a Genoese squadron at Chios and perhaps a few ships at Mytilini. I intend to gather them, and force the Turks to fight at sea.’

‘And God help us all,’ Fra Tommaso said.

The sea was clean, and it was su

They were two days going to Chios. They ran into an empty harbour, and left an hour later, sadder and wiser about the Genoese empire.

Swan was accepted aboard as an officer, and was invited to the command meeting held in the stern cabin. A dozen knights sat along the low benches under the great silver oil lamp, which Swan suspected had been looted from a Greek church, and watched Chios fall away astern.

‘You’d think they’d have kept their fleet in these waters,’ Fra Tommaso said quietly.

Fra Domenico shook his head. ‘Incredible. The fleet sailed home? Because the danger was too high? What danger are we speaking of, here?’

Fra Antonio – a Genoese knight – puffed air out of his lips and poured himself a cup of wine. ‘The Venetians, of course – with all respect to my brothers,’ he said, inclining his head to Fra Silvestre and Fra Giova

Fra Sylvestre sighed. ‘Brother, I wish I could protest that Venice would never attack Genoa while she was fighting the Turk.’ He shrugged. And reached for the wine. ‘But we both know that she would.’

Fra Domenico snorted in contempt. ‘This is surely more important than the petty contests of trade!’

‘This from the greatest pirate on the seas?’ spat Fra Sylvestre. He glared at Fra Domenico.

Fra Tommaso – the oldest man aboard – rose carefully to his feet to avoid smacking his head on the deck beams. ‘Brothers – this is not the place to fight among ourselves. Domenico, is it still your intention to sail for Mytilini?’

‘We can be there by nightfall,’ Domenico said. ‘Listen, brothers – piracy has given me some insights into war at sea from which perhaps the order might benefit.’ Fra Sylvestre appeared ready to remonstrate, but Fra Tommaso pressed him down with his right hand.

‘The best way to relieve Chios is to attack Turkish shipping along the coast,’ Fra Domenico said.

‘Really, you are no better than the Turks!’ Sylvestre spat.

‘Perhaps you think we might take them on, ship to ship? Perhaps we could challenge them to single combat?’ Domenico was derisive. ‘We have enough ships to wreck their commerce for two hundred leagues. And nothing will make the Sultan angrier.’

Swan looked at his hands.

Fra Tommaso nodded. ‘Make the Sultan angrier? That will certainly help.’

Mytilini had one of the largest fortresses Swan had seen in the whole of the Mediterranean Sea. The fortress stood on the city’s ancient acropolis, a headland towering above the lower town and the Genoese quarter on the hillside, and it had guns which could dominate the anchorages and beaches on either side.

To Swan, it looked more defensible than any place he’d ever seen, except perhaps Monemvasia.

The sun was setting red in the west when they glided inside the fortified breakwater and the rowers folded their heavy oars away, raising them out of the oar ports and feeding them along the central catwalks or into the racks along the ship’s sides. Mytilini cheered them as they landed – seven Christian galleys – and the cheers from the garrison high above met the cheers of the Greek populace lining the beach. On Lesvos, the Genoese – at least, in the guise of the Gattelusi, the ruling family – were well beloved. The Gattelusi had married into the imperial family of Byzantium more than once, and they shared the good looks of the Paleologi and some of their indolence. But their marriages, their powerful private army and their occasional rescues of the Byzantine emperors – some financial, and some military – had earned them the love of their Greek subjects – who also paid the lightest taxes in the eastern Mediterranean.

Swan leaped over the stern to the beach and Peter tossed him the leather bag that held his own clothes and then the leather portmanteau that held Swan’s kit – and then leaped down himself. They walked up the beach, teetering slightly after days at sea. A pair of Greek men came and took their bags with wide smiles.

‘It is nice to be so popular,’ Swan said, smiling at a very pretty Greek girl. She smiled – then blushed and dropped her eyes. And clutched an older woman standing near by, who gave a sniff.

Fra Tommaso landed on the sand with a thump. The oarsmen were all off – most of them already pushing through the crowd. They weren’t going to the brothels and tavernas that lined the waterfront. In this port, they went first up the hill, towards the fortress, in a long and disorderly line.

Swan saw that his kit had joined the line. Fra Tommaso waited until Fra Domenico joined him on the sand, and the two knights went up the hill. The older knight paused and waved. ‘Coming, young scapegrace?’

Swan followed the knights. The line took for ever to move – it started at the edge of the beach, and wound between the lower gates of the fortress and then up to a point that vanished in the dusk on the side of the hill.

The tavernas along the waterfront served wine to the oarsmen in the line – heavy ceramic beakers full of strong red wine that was delicious after salt air. Swan was on his second cup as he passed through the gate.

The soldier there wore a fine, velvet-covered brigandine and had a heavy war bow in his hand. He smiled constantly, but his eyes moved everywhere.