Tom Swan and the Last Spartans 2 Read online

  Tom Swan and the Last Spartans

  Volume Two: Milan

  Christian Cameron

  Contents

  Title Page

  Tom Swan and the Last Spartans: Volume Two: Milan

  By Christian Cameron

  Copyright

  Tom Swan and the Last Spartans

  Volume Two: Milan

  Tom Swan, or rather Ser Thomas Suane, knight of the Order of St Mark, donat of the Knights of St John Hospitallers, and recently, possibly, created Count of Camerino-Montorio, sometime courier, servant and even spy of Cardinal Bessarion and Pope Callixtus III, sat in a bare chamber that had only two stools and a pot for a man to piss in. The room was very clean. It wasn’t in a prison, because Florence was a civilised city, and besides, Ser Thomas was not actually under arrest.

  On the other hand, the door was locked. Swan was cheered, however, that he and his companion were in a Florentine public building and held by soldiers in the pay of the city.

  The other man was angry. He was not occupying the second stool, but pacing. ‘This,’ he said for the third time, ‘is an outrage.’

  Swan leaned back against the wall. ‘I wish I had a book,’ he said. ‘Damn, I was right there. I could have borrowed your “Romance of Troy”.’

  The other man was his namesake, Thomas Spinelli, banker and silk merchant of Florence. Spinelli frowned. ‘Who has time to read romances? I took it when a man offered it. Books are better collateral than jewels. Incredible demand.’

  Swan sighed. ‘We may be about to have a great deal of time to read,’ he said.

  ‘Blessed Saint Thomas!’ Spinelli swore. ‘My bank will collapse if I’m out for a day.’ He looked harrowed, and his face had aged in the last hour. ‘If I didn’t know better, I’d say that this was arranged for just such a purpose.’

  Swan nodded. He was afraid, but at another level he was relatively unconcerned. He kept his views to himself, however. ‘What did your lawyer say, anyway?’ he asked. Spinelli had been picked up while returning from a visit to his lawyer about the legality of doing business with Swan, as a Venetian citizen.

  ‘Oh, as to that, I was overcautious,’ Spinelli said. ‘You can do business here twice; once as a Venetian and again as a member of the papal family. I was reminded that Bessarion himself does business here, and so do others.’ He shrugged. ‘You cannot own a business, but you can contribute and make a profit.’

  ‘Perfect,’ Swan said cheerfully.

  ‘Not if we languish here,’ Spinelli said.

  Swan shrugged. ‘Clemente will bring us dinner. I wish I’d asked him to bring books. I love to read, and I never have time. Do you think, now I’m a shareholder, that you could lend me a few?’ Swan paused. ‘Bah, of course! I can read all the books Bessarion is sending to Venice.’

  Spinelli shook his head. ‘You are very calm for a man facing the Medici.’

  Swan smiled. ‘I truly hope that we are facing the Medici,’ he said.

  Clemente came before dark. He brought a light supper of chicken, some good broth, a loaf of excellent bread, a flagon of white wine, and a small lantern. The guards let him in with a bow, and he sneered.

  ‘I gave them a florin,’ he said with an urchin’s contempt for men who could be bribed.

  Swan smiled. ‘I cannot tell you how happy I am to see you,’ he said. ‘Tomorrow when you come, bring me any of the manuscripts that are in the yellow oiled-silk pack in my saddle malle.’ He scratched under his beard. ‘I hope you unsaddled my nice Arab. She deserves better and I forgot her.’

  Clemente looked hurt. ‘Of course, milord.’

  Swan rolled his eyes. ‘My lord?’

  ‘I read some of your papers, milord,’ Clemente was insufferably smug.

  Swan gestured. ‘You are getting above yourself.’

  ‘Except that they sent a man to take away all your papers,’ Clemente said. ‘I handed over everything I could find.’

  Swan’s heart sank.

  ‘Except that, unfortunately, I have a thick peasant head and forgot that you must just have packed your horse.’ Clemente’s thick head was eloquently slapped. ‘So in fact, they have no papers but your passports.’

  ‘Bless you!’

  ‘And I had to read a few of them, milord, just to know what there was. You are really a count, now!’ he said enthusiastically.

  Spinelli laughed. ‘It costs the Pope nothing. In a few years, everyone in Italy will be a count.’

  Clemente frowned at the banker. ‘Still, it makes me so glad Peter taught me a little reading,’ he said. ‘Milord, you have only four florins left in your purse.’

  Spinelli shook his head. ‘I have several thousand florins. Get one of my blockhead apprentices to come with you tomorrow.’

  Clemente agreed that he would.

  ‘And Messire Kendal?’ Swan asked.

  ‘Has purchased some staves … shafts, perhaps? And is at Bersconi, the fletcher, making arrows. He sends his regards.’ Clemente looked smug, again.

  ‘Clemente, you are some day going to be a great man, and if you are not hanged, I hope you will remember the rest of us. What do you do to pass the time?’ Swan asked.

  ‘Just what you would do in my place,’ Clemente said. He winked, and slipped out the door.

  Time passed in silence. Spinelli was not garrulous. Swan was thinking.

  ‘What do you think this is about?’ Spinelli asked, as the bells rang for compline.

  Swan smiled, keeping up his unworried mask. ‘Nothing I’d talk about here,’ he said.

  The next evening, two of Spinelli’s apprentices came with a table, set it for dinner and served as if they were eating in the casa Spinelli. Then each of them delivered a memorised oration on the day’s business, and Spinelli signed some papers. Clemente came a little later.

  ‘They came back and looked for more papers,’ he said loudly. ‘They ignored me when I told them that you were a courier for the Holy Father.’

  Swan’s gut churned. ‘And?’ he asked.

  ‘What could I do? After I protested, and Kendal convinced the men to sign a chit, I gave them the Holy Father’s letters for the Bishop of Milan,’ Clemente said, still speaking loudly.

  Swan winced.

  Clemente shrugged with his usual eloquence. ‘Listen, milord!’

  ‘Stop calling me that,’ Swan said.

  ‘Never!’ Clemente insisted. ‘Listen. Perhaps you, a gentleman, would fight to the death to protect the Pope’s letters. Pfft. Now you’d be dead. But I am a peasant and the son of a peasant, and I said … “Sign here.”’ He laughed.

  Spinelli laughed too. ‘If the count, here, is ever fool enough to kick you out of his household, you come straight to me, Messire Clemente, and I will find you work as a factor.’

  Swan shook his head. ‘Now he’ll demand higher wages,’ he said.

  ‘Only what Master Peter got,’ Clemente said.

  On the morning of the third day, Clemente came early, with a book of Plethon’s philosophy and Swan’s ‘travelling court clothes’, or rather the best suit he packed for travel. He’d worn the suit to church on Sunday. It was brown with embroidery, and in Florence it looked a little dull, but his best clothes, the Venetian doublet and hose, were still in a trunk in Belgrade.

  ‘Men came and told me to prepare you to meet an important personage,’ Clemente said.

  ‘And Spinelli?’ Swan asked.

  ‘No word was said.’ Clemente shrugged. ‘Sorry, sir.’

  Clemente vanished for fifteen minutes and returned with a big copper basin of hot water. Swan bathed, shaved and changed into his better clothes. He felt naked without a sword or at least a dagger; in fact, he didn’t even ha
ve a belt and purse.

  Clemente tidied their prison room for a while and retired.

  Swan and Spinelli played chess. ‘Who is Plethon?’ Spinelli asked. ‘This is Greek, I take it?’

  Since Swan had discovered that Spinelli was well educated in Latin, he suspected he was being primed.

  ‘Yes. These are the ancient Greek letters.’

  ‘Very different from the Etruscan that our ancestors wrote here,’ Spinelli said. ‘I have been in several tombs.’

  ‘Ah,’ Swan said, making his move. ‘I would love to see some of the tombs.’

  Spinelli discussed the marvels of the two he’d seen. ‘And this Plethon? Is he the philosopher who was here for the Council? Old Cosimo adored him. I was too young to have free time to hear him lecture.’

  ‘You see,’ Swan said, ‘you know more about him than I do.’

  Spinelli smiled. ‘You make me talkative,’ he admitted.

  He was summoned to the window by a voice calling. This was not unusual; they were not in prison, and Spinelli had many friends and relations who came to speak to him or even transact business.

  While Spinelli talked to a weaver at the window, Swan read Plethon, who was, it was readily apparent, more than just a heretic, as Giannis had called him in Rome. He was something of a pagan. Swan read him with delight and thought of Cyriac of Ancona, who had also worshipped some of the ancient gods.

  Thinking of Cyriac made Swan think of the small black book of closely written papyrus pages which Cyriac had given him. His heart beat very fast as he thought of what Alberti, for example, could do with it. He wondered whether Clemente had handed it over. Unlikely, but he’d never shown it to the boy. It was in code, suspicious in itself.

  Swan tried to go back to reading.

  ‘Ser Thomas?’ asked a man-at-arms. ‘Come, please.’

  Swan rose. He and Spinelli exchanged glances.

  ‘I’ll tell everyone in Florence,’ Spinelli said. ‘Half my friends are outside this window.’

  ‘I’ll wager you a copper to a piece of gold this is all a misunderstanding,’ Swan said. He bowed to Spinelli and went out of the room.

  They bundled him into a small closed carriage with no springs; really, just a box on a wagon. It bounced dreadfully on the paving stones and Swan began, for the first time, to really fear he was about to be … disappeared. It was the word that kept coming to his head. He was painfully aware that, dead, he could not complain to the Holy Father of arrest or imprisonment. That all his internal rationalisations for why he could not be held were not valid if they simply killed him.

  And he had meekly surrendered.

  When the carriage rolled to a stop he was ready. But as soon as the carriage door opened, he saw that he was in the courtyard of a very elegant palace, and not, unless someone very powerful wanted bloodstains on his marble, a place where anyone would be killed. Swan had prepared himself to attack the first man into the carriage after him, and he had to take a deep breath and release it.

  ‘Ser? Ser Thomas?’ a man-at-arms asked. ‘Our apologies …’

  Something in Swan’s eyes must have given him away. The man-at-arms took a step back.

  Swan shook his head. ‘Just a spell,’ he said. ‘I am better now.’

  The man-at-arms kept his distance. He knew violence when he saw it. ‘We mean you no harm, Ser Thomas. But Il Capo wants to see you, and we can’t have everyone knowing.’

  Swan had no idea who Il Capo might be. But he inclined his head and followed the armoured man.

  They walked a long way. They went through an outer courtyard and then through an inner court to a magnificent double stairway in marble that framed a first-storey entrance. The man-at-arms ran up the steps as if he was not carrying seventy pounds of harness. Swan smiled in respect.

  Inside the palace they went through two apartments and a long hall. Everything was superb, and Swan was stunned by the profusion of antiquities and the quality of furnishings and hangings. It was the richest interior he’d ever seen.

  So he knew who Il Capo must be, and he was ready, despite some shaking in his hands, when he was led into a small chamber completely decorated in tarsio, with careful wooden inlays in many colours, including ebony and ivory. The whole back wall was a careful trompe l’œil of a larger apartment, and Swan could see other clever façades hiding doors and cabinets.

  The man at the writing table was the same age as Bessarion, or perhaps older. He wore red, like a cardinal, and his clothes were plain and very unassuming. Swan was a good judge of the value of wool, and Cosimo di Medici was wearing good English wool; not the best, but very good indeed. He wore a plain red biretta over a linen cap.

  He looked up and gave his man-at-arms a small smile. And went back to writing.

  Swan began to relax. It was hard to pinpoint exactly why he was relaxing, but Di Medici had something of Bessarion’s air of casual competence. Swan felt at home. And there was a lot to see. He turned part way round, so as not to present his back to the great man but so as to be able to see the Roman statue in the outer hall, which was a particularly graceful muse.

  Swan wondered, briefly, whether it was possible for a man to fall in love with a statue. He assumed that more than a thousand years before, some young woman had possessed those exquisite feet and those superb hips and that winning, open face, untroubled by her own beauty or the use some man might make of it. She was long dead and her loveliness all decayed to dust and mud, and yet here was her image.

  ‘Ser Thomas,’ Di Medici said. The great man rose and offered his hand as if they were peers.

  Swan dropped to one knee in a full reverence.

  ‘Illustrio,’ he said.

  ‘Bah!’ Di Medici said. ‘I am not some prince of the Church. You need not kiss my ring. I am a citizen of this republic and no more.’

  Swan nodded. ‘First citizen, perhaps, Illustrio.’

  Di Medici smiled to indicate that he was not immune to flattery. ‘You are not surprised to find yourself here?’ Di Medici asked.

  ‘From the moment that I was arrested, I hoped to find myself here,’ Swan said.

  ‘That is a remarkable sentence,’ Di Medici said. He sat again. ‘I suppose that I should tell you that you were not arrested, but merely detained; that it was not done at my bidding; all that sort of thing.’

  Swan sketched a smile. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Messire Spinelli is less pleased than I and feels his business is threatened.’

  ‘Yes,’ Di Medici said. ‘I gather you wish to enter into his business. Are you leaving the Holy Father?’

  Swan smiled more fully. ‘Nothing like, Illustrio. But a man may invest, may he not?’

  ‘Yes, especially a man intending to wed,’ Di Medici said. ‘Do you consider settling in Florence?’

  Swan spread his hands. ‘Illustrio, until the Holy Father ceases to send me on various missions, there is no plan to “settle”. As well ask a warhorse where he plans to be put out to stud.’

  Cosimo di Medici apparently enjoyed this last sally. He laughed, a sharp bark. ‘I was warned you were amusing,’ he said.

  ‘Warned?’ Swan asked.

  Di Medici leaned forward. ‘Do you know why you are here?’ he asked.

  Swan nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘With some degree of precision. Perhaps better than you yourself, Illustrio.’

  Di Medici’s head shot up. ‘Really?’ he asked sharply.

  Swan spread his hands. ‘I could easily be mistaken. I’m sure you have excellent men working for you. But the fact of my, mm, detainment, and Spinelli’s, suggests that you have been told that we two know things. In fact, we do not know these things at all. On the other hand, I am an accredited courier of the Holy Father, as you now know, since your people have the Holy Father’s letters to the Archbishop of Milan.’

  ‘You are a bold rogue,’ Di Medici said. ‘Tell me what these mysterious things that you and Spinelli do not know might be?’

  ‘We have no idea where the old Pope’s tr
easure might be. We are not involved. I can explain in detail how Messire Forteguerri became confused as to my role, and Spinelli’s, if you like.’ Swan was standing, not at all relaxed. The man-at-arms leaned in a niche. Di Medici was looking at two papers on the table in front of him.

  ‘Ah, you know Messire Forteguerri?’ Medici asked. ‘I was not aware.’

  ‘We met socially in Rome,’ Swan said.

  ‘You are also a condottiere?’ Medici asked.

  Swan frowned. ‘I have a company of lances in the service of the Church,’ he said. ‘Bessarion and His Holiness paid to raise them, so I cannot pretend to be independent.’

  Medici nodded again. ‘Why should I believe you about the treasure?’ he asked. His voice was different. Harsher.

  Swan was getting annoyed. ‘Illustrio, I was fighting Turks in Belgrade when these people began this search. I returned to find a state of affairs and the Holy Father – himself, in person – ordered me to find Messire Spinelli, which I did. I am now on my way back to Hungary. Since Messire Spinelli lives in Florence, you have access to him any time you want, although I can assure you that he has no more notion of the whereabouts of the treasure than I do, and the Holy Father has already interviewed him on the subject.’

  Di Medici winced. ‘I had thought these matters more secret than they are, obviously.’ He considered. ‘Forteguerri says you are pursuing the treasure; that he has warned you off, and you have ignored his warnings.’

  Swan spread his hands. ‘Illustrio, I am on my way to Belgrade via Milan and Venice. You know I am! You have my letters. And apparently you know that I hope to propose marriage.’ He crossed his arms; as close to an expression of anger as a capitano might be allowed to display before an illustrio.

  Di Medici nodded. ‘Listen, then, Ser Thomas. I am aware that you have learned some things. Several things I would not have had you learn, to be honest, not least of which is that Forteguerri does work for me. Eh?’

  Swan nodded. ‘I have no idea to what your Illustriousness might refer.’

  ‘How long might this ignorance last?’ Di Medici said. ‘I can be a good friend to a coming man.’