Tom Swan and the Head of St. George Part Six: Chios (2 page)

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 Bengül.

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.