Tom Swan and the Last Spartans 2 Read online

  It was beginning to be cold at night, and Swan wanted things; better blankets, a good iron pot. A bow. But they were riding across the deserted landscape, and as they went south and east, the land grew rougher.

  On the ninth day from Belgrade, Stephan came back from a long ride to the east and reported that he’d found a village and people. And that the Sultan had stopped there on his way south, and several thousand Hungarians had come that way weeks before.

  Alessandro frowned. ‘This is hopeless,’ he said. ‘I think we should go home. We have no more chance of locating your company than two ships have of meeting on the high seas.’ He blew on his hands. He had open sores on them. ‘I hate to be cold, English.’

  Stephan shook his head. ‘Not so bad,’ he said. ‘Hungarians go east to avoid Serbs, and then back west to fight. Iskander Bey comes down from north. Not so far.’

  John nodded. ‘Not so far,’ he agreed.

  ‘I wish we had Giannis, or Dmitri,’ Swan said. ‘I wish I was in Venice,’ Alessandro said. ‘Let us leave wishing for a few days. It only makes me hungry.’

  With nothing to do but ride and work, Swan found himself telling Bembo all he knew about the Pope, the tiara, the old Pope’s treasure and Antonelli. Hours of riding were whiled away in speculation; Bembo, supported ably by Clemente and Kendal, refined his notions of what he knew.

  ‘And still it is all speculation,’ Bembo said. ‘I agree that it would seem Antonelli ordered that Spinelli’s factor be captured; that instead he was killed. So what? I’m sorry, but most of the cardinals in Rome have done worse, for less cause.’

  ‘Orsini is the Pope’s strong arm in the city,’ Swan said.

  ‘I always thought it was a mistake of yours to get so deeply involved against them,’ Bembo said.

  ‘This from you?’ Swan asked.

  Bembo shrugged. ‘I only killed them when they got in the way,’ he said. ‘You made them sting.’

  Swan laughed aloud.

  Bembo joined him. ‘All right, I’m full of shit,’ he admitted. ‘But … just because Orsini is involved does not mean it’s any darker than usual. The Pope needs money. This is nothing new. Antonelli tried to bribe you to see if the Pope was making a financial deal without him. Again, nothing new.’

  ‘And the Medici?’ Swan asked.

  ‘This is unique; more so if someone has actually attempted to kill Sforza or his brother. But you made that Loredan’s business. People as good as you or I will look into that, and, because Loredan is a creature of compartments and cubbyholes, you and I will never know what they discover.’

  ‘I feel that I am on the verge of understanding …’ Swan looked at Clemente, who was two horse lengths ahead and had just reined in. ‘Do you think … no, never mind. Listen, Alessandro. Is Antonelli a member of your … fraternity?’

  Bembo smiled. It was a wintry smile, bleak and cold. ‘We do not exactly hold meetings,’ he said. ‘But as far as I know, he is not.’

  ‘Damn. Bast. He must know Donna Lucrezia.’ Swan paused. ‘I am on to something.’

  ‘I think we are about to have a discussion with the Turks instead,’ Bembo said, and drew his sword. He turned his horse and rode back to where Kendal was with Hassan and Umar.

  Swan had picked up a pair of javelins and he drew one from its case under his thigh as he rode. He rode up a slight rise, waved to Clemente fifty paces away, and stood in his stirrups.

  He could see movement in the next valley.

  ‘Hide,’ he called.

  In no time they had all crossed a shallow stream – a very cold shallow stream – and got under cover of a stand of fir trees. Every man dismounted and held his horse’s head to keep the animals quiet, and Clemente took the remounts deeper into the wood.

  Swan nodded to the Turk. ‘Silence, sir, or I will have to be sure you are the first to die.’

  The man inclined his head. ‘Of course,’ he said.

  Swan watched the little trail on which they’d been moving south. Now that he was no longer on his little rise, he could see almost nothing but the heavy fir tree branches in front of his face and about sixty paces of trail as it crossed the brow of the hill across the stream.

  They waited for a very long time. The sun began to go down, and dismounted as they were, it was cold. Wherever the Albanians were, they were going to have a hard time finding their party.

  The sound of voices carried along the edge of the stream as well as the clinking of bits and the sound of hooves. Swan listened, keeping perfectly still; so did the other men.

  The language was Greek.

  That meant very little. Many Islamic converts spoke nothing else.

  Swan thought, though …

  He leaned forward, and his movement must have caused a branch to waver. Fifty paces away, a man in a steel cap froze and reached for his bow, but by then Swan was already plunging through the trees and yelling a greeting in Greek.

  It was Grazias, and in no time he was surrounded by his stradiotes, who embraced him like a long-lost brother and expanded their affection to include Kendal and Clemente and even Bembo, when he appeared.

  ‘I thought you must be warm and dry and forgetting us in some fine house in Rome,’ Grazias said.

  Swan introduced Bembo; Grazias greeted him in pure Veneziano and the two men shook hands.

  ‘Tell me everything,’ Swan said. ‘Do we have a camp?’

  Grazias laughed. ‘We are the evening patrol,’ he said. ‘The knights are useless, pardon me; we do all the work. But yes – the compagnia is back over that ridge, and Ser Columbino will be more happy to see you than I can describe, because none of us love the Hungarians and we all want to go home.’

  ‘Hunyadi is dead,’ Swan said.

  Grazias nodded. ‘I assumed as much. If he was alive, this would all be different. Listen, capitano; it has been bad. The Hungarians are no better than Turks; they rape and burn wherever they pass, and they think we should do the same. Our knights fought once, the second day; ever since then, their armour rusts and they are useless because they are too slow. The Turks are long gone; this Michael Szilágyi is too cautious and too rapacious to get much done. The Serbs were no help. It is … like Greece. Perhaps worse. But it is bad in camp; the Hungarians do not love us, and some of the Italians have contemplated … mutiny.’

  Swan nodded. ‘I’m sorry I left. Or sorry I returned.’ He turned and looked over the next ridge. ‘I’ll do what I can.’

  ‘Take us home,’ Grazias said.

  Swan’s homecoming to the Compagnia San Maria Magdalena might have had more of a festive atmosphere if anyone had retained even a single ounce of wine, but there was none, and the raiding party – it was scarcely an army – had lived off the land for too long. Everyone was hungry, and tired. But they were very glad indeed to see their capitano, and Ser Columbino crushed Swan against his steel breastplate until Swan thought it might be an attempt at assassination.

  ‘Belgrade was better,’ Columbino spat. ‘I hate these people.’

  Despite the protests of his people, Swan rode over the low ridge to where the Hungarians, most of them part of Hunyadi’s professional army, were camped. Darkness was falling and the sentries were jumpy, but Swan and Clemente were eventually handed over to the inner banderium and, at full dark, Swan was standing at a campfire while a man-at-arms fetched Szilágyi.

  ‘You have come back to us!” the Hungarian noble said. He had on a simple silk robe and a heavy fur hat. ‘Perhaps you will impose some discipline on your useless Italians.’

  ‘The Ban of Hungary is dead of the plague,’ Swan said.

  Szilágyi shrugged. ‘I have known this for days,’ he said. ‘I am returning to Belgrade. There is much to be done.’

  Swan nodded. ‘So there is no Christian army remaining in the field,’ he said.

  Szilágyi shrugged again. He was handed hot wine. None was offered to Swan. It was quite cold. ‘The King of Hungary and the Emperor will try and break us now,’ he said. ‘All of the Hunya
di must stand together, or we will all be shorter by our heads. We may yet need the Turk as an ally.’

  ‘Just so,’ Swan said. He bowed, held his tongue, and withdrew.

  Back in his own camp, he summoned all his officers. The Germans were gone, but the surviving Bohemians, led by Dušan, the largest of Ladislav’s men, had joined the English. There were still almost forty lances. Orietto commanded the former Malatesti, and Juan di Silva had the rest, as corporals. Sam Cressy was master archer. Young Marco the Venetian was sent for at Swan’s instruction.

  ‘Women?’ he asked.

  ‘None came,’ Columbino said. ‘I’m glad, too,’ he said savagely. ‘This was … barbaric.’ ‘Some of the Hungarian and Bohemian women are with Přemysl,’ he said, as if he was confessing to something.

  Swan nodded. Grazias was the last man in, and with him were the two Albanians, Stephan and John. The Byzantine officer pushed into Swan’s pavilion, which was already up and furnished despite the hour.

  And warmer than outside, with a small borrowed brazier.

  ‘Just the man I wanted,’ Swan said. ‘Ser Orietto, get six absolutely reliable men-at-arms and post them around this tent. No one to come in. Clemente – hot water for everyone. A tisane if you can make one.’

  ‘My lord,’ Clemente said.

  Swan waited, speaking to each man about very little; Rome, the thanks of the Pope, a few lies and some truths about the thanks of the Christian world. When Orietto came back and nodded, Swan stood up.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ he said. ‘As best I understand, we are none too happy in our service here.’

  Every head nodded, except those of the two Albanians.

  Swan beckoned to Grazias. ‘Do you and your men think you could find Skanderbeg?’ he asked.

  Grazias nodded. He turned and said a few words to John the Albanian, and the man cracked a rare smile, and they talked back and forth.

  ‘We know where the Bey is, within a dozen miles,’ Grazias said. ‘May I say that winter is coming, and Iskander Bey doesn’t need the kind of heavy cavalry that you have. Knights are wasted in this scrub.’ Grazias turned and translated in Albanian.

  John said something, and then Stephan said more.

  ‘They agree. Unless there is a big battle. Stephan says knights are wonderful to have at a great battle. Turks fear them.’ Grazias nodded.

  Columbino laughed. ‘I think we know that,’ he said.

  ‘How are our horses?’ Swan asked.

  ‘Despite a month wandering the no man’s land,’ Columbino said, ‘we got the pick of the Turkish horse lines. We are rich in horseflesh. It would be good to have grain to feed them up. And if we try to winter in the field, they will all die.’ He sighed. ‘And so will we.’

  Swan nodded. He turned back to Grazias. ‘Can we buy supplies from Skanderbeg?’ he asked.

  Grazias pursed his lips. He spoke to John. The Albanian nodded.

  ‘He says, of course. Iskander Bey rules a large area.’ Grazias nodded. ‘I like this very much. Then we run for the coast and Venice retrieves us. We could be home in a month, instead of next summer.’

  Swan nodded. ‘Perhaps. I wish to keep my options open.’

  Men were already starting to brighten up.

  ‘You mean to leave the Hungarians?’ Orietto asked.

  Swan nodded. ‘The Ban of Hungary is dead, and he was supposed to be paying. I’m quite sure he never will, now. We are the Pope’s and Bessarion’s. I have a mission from Bessarion.’

  Everyone, even the English, smiled.

  Cressy was an old veteran and knew how the game was played. ‘You mean we’ll fight for Skanderbeg, cap’n?’ he said.

  Swan shook his head and glanced at Grazias. ‘I am thinking of taking us to Mistra,’ he said.

  Grazias looked as if an electric shock had gone through him. ‘Mistra in the Peloponnese?’ he asked.

  ‘Can it be done?’ Swan said.

  Grazias looked as if he’d seen a vision of heaven. Then he sobered. ‘I don’t know.’

  Swan nodded. ‘I don’t know either. So we go to Iskander Bey and buy food. Anyone against?’

  Orietto frowned. ‘I don’t want to say I’m against. But we know the way back to Belgrade.’

  ‘Belgrade can’t feed itself just now and is full of plague,’ Swan said. ‘None of you have the plague?’

  ‘We haven’t been touched, thank God,’ Orietto said, and every man present crossed himself.

  ‘Right. We leave at first light and ride to Skanderbeg. Any against?’ Swan asked.

  Not a hand was raised.

  ‘Welcome back, cap’n,’ Cressy said.

  Yes,’ Columbino said. ‘I agree. Welcome back.’

  Later, lying in the dark, Bembo spoke from across the pavilion.

  ‘You always planned to go to Mistra, didn’t you?’ he asked.

  Swan nodded. ‘If it can be done, it’s what Bessarion wants.’

  Bembo coughed. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘For once, that’s what Venice wants, as well.’

  ‘Do you think we can save Greece?’ Swan asked the darkness.

  ‘No,’ Bembo said. ‘But perhaps we can save something.’

  By Christian Cameron

  Tom Swan and the Head of St George

  Volume One: Castillon

  Volume Two: Venice

  Volume Three: Constantinople

  Volume Four: Rome

  Volume Five: Rhodes

  Volume Six: Chios

  Tom Swan and the Siege of Belgrade

  Volume One

  Volume Two

  Volume Three

  Volume Four

  Volume Five

  Volume Six

  Tom Swan and the Last Spartans

  Volume One: Florence

  Volume Two: Milan

  The Tyrant Series

  Tyrant

  Tyrant: Storm of Arrows

  Tyrant: Funeral Games

  Tyrant: King of the Bosporus

  Tyrant: Destroyer of Cities

  Tyrant: Force of Kings

  The Killer of Men Series

  Killer of Men

  Marathon

  Poseidon’s Spear

  Salamis

  Other Novels

  Washington and Caesar

  God of War

  The Ill-Made Knight

  Copyright

  An Orion eBook

  First published in Great Britain in 2016 by Orion Books

  This eBook first published in 2016 by Orion Books

  Copyright © Christian Cameron 2015

  The moral right of Christian Cameron to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the copyright, designs and patents act 1988.

  All characters and events in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN 978 1 4091 6342 8

  Orion Books

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