Rhodes

‘You’re English, I think,’ Swan said.

The man smiled. ‘My da was English,’ he said. ‘I’m Greek.’

‘Seems a long way from London,’ Swan said.

The archer shrugged. ‘My pater was from Cumbria. He came out here after Agincourt.’ His eyes went over Swan’s shoulder, and then flicked back.

Fra Tommaso nodded. ‘The Gattelusi hire a great many English,’ he said. ‘They always have.’

‘Englishmen make fine pirates,’ Fra Domenico said. He stooped to scratch a stray cat. Mytilini was full of them.

The line moved on – past the guardpost, and up into the rocks. Swan breathed deeply, just to enjoy the smell. And examined the stonework of the redoubt above him. In the last light of the sun, he could see round stones the size of wagon wheels set into the fabric of the fortification. He tried to imagine why anyone would shape round stones to fit into a fort wall.

He thought – all too often – of the fight in the dark. Of the torches of the Turks revealing the fallen column that half-blocked the passageway.

Three slow steps forward later, and despite his heartbeat soaring and his breath coming hard, he had it, and he said ‘εύρηκα!’

The two knights and his servant all turned on him as if he were a madman.

‘They’re columns! Ancient columns from temples!’ he shouted excitedly. He was all but bouncing on his toes. ‘Those round stones are column drums – ancient ones!’

‘You speak Greek?’ asked a man at his elbow. The man was still smiling, despite half an hour on the hill carrying Swan’s portmanteau.

‘A little, brother,’ Swan said. ‘Those are columns, yes?’

‘From the pagan times,’ agreed the Greek. ‘Over by Kalloni, there are temples.’

‘Like the Parthenon?’ Swan asked.

The Greek shrugged.

Swan waved at a middle-aged woman with a tray full of wine cups. ‘Ο άνθρωπος έχει μια δίψα για το κρασί! This man has a thirst for wine.’

The Greek nodded. ‘Very kind,’ he said in a voice that suggested – politely – that men did not carry heavy leather trunks purely from public spiritedness.

Swan paid the woman and tried a flirtatious smile. She responded with a look that suggested that a life of serving wine to fishermen and pirates had given her some fairly effective armour.

Swan put his smile away for easier prey. And inched up the hillside.

‘Where are we going?’ he asked.

The timoneer, who was next in line behind Swan, gri

‘How ancient?’ Swan asked.

He went up three steps. The steps were very old – smooth as glass.

The line moved again. Now he could see there was a heavy wood and iron door – right in the hillside. A party of men came out of it and squeezed down the steps, all smiles – and headed towards the beach and the tavernas.

Fra Tommaso nodded. ‘They think that taking mass protects them against the sins they have yet to commit,’ he said. But he watched his oarsmen with the fondness of a parent for his children. ‘Speaking of sin, Master Swan – we are invited to the palace. Tonight, we are to be received, and tomorrow, there is some sort of fete in our honour.’

‘We will stay?’ Swan asked, hope springing eternal. The word ‘palace’ alone offered more hope than anything he’d heard since Alexandria.

‘I want the hulls to dry,’ Fra Domenico said. He was looking at Asia across the strait – only a few leagues wide. ‘Faster ships take more prizes.’

Fra Tommaso took Swan’s hand. ‘Listen. We are men of God – you are a volunteer. So we will send you to this festivity tomorrow. As our representative. Yes? And you will not do the order any dishonour. Hmm?’

Swan sighed.

They climbed a few more steps and the deck officers squeezed by them, pausing to embrace the old knight, who blessed each of them. And then the door opened, and Swan could smell incense.

‘Come on,’ Fra Tommaso said, starting down steep steps into the dark interior.

Swan got one step down before he froze.

He felt the man’s neck go just as he pounded the blade into his 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 was kneeling on cold stone. Someone was trying to pull him, and he got his arm around the man’s neck and jerked him off balance …

‘It’s me! Christ on the cross, are ye wode!’ shouted Peter in his ear.

Fra Domenico caught Peter and pushed him away. ‘He’s fighting under the city! On Rhodos! Let him be!’ Hands seized Swan around the waist and turned him – so that he could see stars, and the shocked faces of the timoneer and the man carrying his trunk.

He took a shuddering breath.

Fra Domenico turned his head. ‘Smell the incense, my son. See the candles and feel God’s holy presence. There is nothing here for you to fear. This is a holy place.’ His voice was very gentle – very calm. And it ran on, and on.

Swan found that he was … himself. Except that his hands were shaking so hard that he could not hold the railing for the stairs.

‘Take him back into the air,’ Tommaso said.

Swan closed his eyes and swallowed bile. ‘No,’ he gasped. ‘I’ll go down.’

He made a foot reach down, and then another, and then another. It seemed like a hundred steps down into the earth, and he could feel the weight of the tons of rock over his head, a palpable force pressing down on him. He was sweating as if he were fighting in armour.

But he made it to the sandy floor of the cave. And the cave wasn’t dark at all. It was lit by a hundred candles, and the smell of incense drowned the smell of blood that stuck in his nose the way dog shit can stick to your throat.

The priest was Greek. But for once, that didn’t seem to matter. He smiled, said a few words, and gave the two knights communion. They knelt to take it and muttered Latin invocations.

Despite his spi

The priest raised a clerical eyebrow. And gave the host to Peter.

A hundred heartbeats later, he was out under the stars with the two knights. He took in great gasps if air as if he’d been unable to breathe.

‘You’ll want to bathe before we go to the palace,’ Fra Domenico said, more kindly than Swan had ever seen him. The man’s ring glittered with an i

Swan was begi

Tommaso shrugged. ‘From pagan times, no doubt – but no less holy for that.’

Fra Domenico shook his head. ‘No – our young hero is smitten by the ancient world. Aren’t you, lad? Nymphs and satyrs and priestesses.’

‘I should like to see the temples at Kalloni.’ For the first time in two weeks, he thought of Cardinal Bessarion. ‘And my master, Cardinal Bessarion, had a mission for me – at Kalloni.’

‘Go and bathe,’ Fra Tommaso said, a little impatiently. ‘We’ll clean our throats with some good red wine. I want to render unto Caesar, and visit my friends here.’

The baths were packed with sailors and oarsmen, but Swan’s status as a Donat and his fame from the fight under the walls won him a spot in the bath almost immediately. Men moved aside – men bowed.

There is something very odd about accepting praise, or even courtesy, while naked. Swan felt shy – he certainly didn’t enjoy the attention as he might have on another occasion.

He didn’t pay enough heed to the men ahead of him, and hopped down into the first bath.

And shrieked.

All around him, oarsmen and sailors cursed – and laughed.