Tom Swan and the Head of St. George Part Five: Rhodes Page 5

  ‘We’ll come back when you’ve fired the gonne,’ Elder Karl spat. ‘You’ve overcharged it. It might explode.’

  ‘Fuck you,’ Swan swore. He pulled the tinder box from his belt purse and struck a spark on to some tinder. He checked his aim one more time and touched the glowing char-cloth to the top of the quill.

  The little gonne barked like a bolt of sulphurous lightning. The mouth of the barrel rose a foot in the air and slammed down, and the whole frame jumped back a handspan, smacking into Swan’s arm, which might have been broken if he hadn’t been in plate armour.

  Across the ravine, on the hillside opposite, a man was screaming. Otherwise, there was no change – the gonne hadn’t hit anything. And yet a half-dozen Turks suddenly burst from the cover of the mantlets and ran back up their ridge.

  Peter loosed three arrows in rapid succession and scored two kills. As the last Turk vanished over the crest, he made a wry face. ‘Niet zo slecht,’ he said. ‘Not bad.’

  Sir John appeared from the other side of the English tower. ‘Who fired?’ he demanded.

  Swan pointed.

  One of the Turks was still screaming, his horrible cries echoing around the ravine in an unnatural way. ‘We killed three,’ he said.

  Sir John looked at Old Karl, who was just poking his head over the parapet. ‘We were not to fire without orders,’ he said.

  Old Karl looked smug.

  Swan was suddenly tired. ‘Why?’ he asked.

  ‘Because we were ordered not to fire,’ Sir John said gently. ‘Young man, obedience is one of our order’s virtues.’ He nodded to the Burgundians. ‘No more firing without orders.’

  ‘Ve told him not to fire,’ Karl said. Just at that moment, Swan hated all of them.

  Sir John was in full plate, and he didn’t shrug. He stood straighter. ‘It would take the wisdom of Solomon to decide whether it is better to disobey and kill three Turks, or to obey the original order and fail to kill the Turks.’ Sir John’s smile wasn’t genial. He leaned over to Karl, who shrank back. ‘It is Master Swan’s business whether he obeys me. It is your business to obey him. Understand?’

  The thin English knight went back towards the tower, his steel sabatons rasping on the stone.

  ‘Obedience is one of our order’s virtues,’ Peter quoted. ‘Along with chastity and poverty. Master Swan, you have brought us to hell.’

  Swan, angry as he was, had other thoughts crowding in. He raised a hand for silence.

  There it was again – the sound of steel on stone. Like Sir John’s sabatons. Somewhere under his feet.

  ‘Peter, did you see what they were doing on the hillside?’ Swan asked.

  ‘Heh!’ Peter said. ‘Dying?’ He laughed his nasty laugh. ‘Is that the sound their black souls make shrieking to hell?’

  ‘Before you potted them, Peter.’ Swan was looking out under the shade of his hand again. An arrow was lofted from the beach. Swan ducked back and then popped out from behind another merlon. ‘Hello – look, Peter, I got one!’ he said. From his new angle he could see that there was a Turk lying face down behind the nearest mantlet.

  It wasn’t the mantlet at which Swan had fired, but that wasn’t important.

  ‘Doesn’t it look as if there’s an opening?’ Swan asked.

  Peter was sulking. ‘Gekke machine,’ he said. ‘Smells like hell come to earth.’ But after both of them had ducked under a new salvo of arrows, he leaned out and glanced. ‘Too dark,’ he said.

  Holes in the ground didn’t interest Peter. But Turkish arrows did, and he began to collect a few. He held them up in the last light. ‘Cane. Beautiful. Why don’t our fletchers make them like this?’ he asked. He picked up his own Turkish bow and fitted one. And watched the rocks by the beach. ‘Show yourself,’ he ordered his master.

  Swan leaned out and Peter smiled and loosed.

  A second later, a man stood, raised his bow, and Peter’s arrow took him in the chest.

  Peter was insufferable for the next hour.

  After they were relieved, Swan didn’t unarm. Instead, he picked up a pair of lanterns and a long Arabic headscarf. He stopped by the well in the English tower to drink water.

  Peter still had his brigandine on. ‘Vere do you tink you are going?’ he said.

  Swan frowned. ‘I want to investigate a theory,’ he admitted.

  Peter sighed theatrically.

  Fifteen minutes later, they were easing past the stinking privies in near-total darkness. Each of them had lanterns, and both were armed.

  ‘You are insane. You know that,’ Peter said. ‘Christ Jesus, this smell will never come off my good jack. You deserve to be hanged. Sweet Christ!’

  Past the privies, moving very carefully. Past the cat piss. Swan’s boots were silent, but his arm harnesses made distinct sounds each time they tapped against stone.

  Into the ancient underground street. ‘Which way do you think we’re going?’ Swan asked Peter.

  ‘I haf no idea, you madman!’ Peter complained. ‘Ve are in hell.’

  Indeed, the hidden under-city of Rhodos was a fair simulacrum of hell. It stank – and it was very hot. And absolutely dark. The lanterns with their olive-oil lamps burned with too little light to illuminate any more than a step or two in front of them.

  Swan crept down the ancient street. He could feel the slightest breeze on his face, as he had the last time he’d been here – with Salim.

  Far away in the darkness, there was a distinct clank.

  He eased the sword in his scabbard. And pressed forward.

  After ten slow steps, he reached a cross-tunnel. He ran a gauntleted hand over the stone – held his oil lamp in the tunnel and saw the flame move.

  ‘This way,’ he said.

  He struck his head – a ringing blow that staggered him and might have knocked him unconscious if he hadn’t had a helmet on. When he recovered, he raised his lamp and saw that his cross-street – it had cobbled paving under his booted feet – was only four feet high.

  ‘Must we do this?’ Peter asked. His voice was very loud.

  ‘I think the escaped slaves are trying to let the Turks into the town,’ Swan said.

  ‘Vere the fuck are we?’ Peter asked.

  Swan rested a moment, his hips against what he suspected were the under-shorings of the English wall. ‘This is the ancient city,’ he said. ‘Many of the old floors – and old walls – still bear weight. So there are empty spaces – and a path among them. Salim knew it. I didn’t think about it at the time – about who exactly lived down here – but it must be escaped slaves.’

  ‘And they would help the Turks. Of course they would,’ Peter admitted. ‘So – there is a way out?’

  ‘Can’t you feel the breeze? They must have opened one – or found an old one. There was a great siege here in antiquity.’ Swan levered himself to his feet, avoided striking his head, and crouched, feeling a variety of pains in his back.

  Behind him, Peter asked, ‘Just what do you expect to find? Turks?’

  Swan hadn’t really given it any thought. Now that he did think about it …

  ‘Why not just tell Sir John?’ Peter asked.

  ‘He thinks me a fool,’ Swan spat.

  ‘No, he thinks you are young,’ Peter said fondly. ‘Vich you are, of course. But I keep you alive and make you much more smart, eh?’

  Swan tried to ignore the Dutchman’s banter as crawling on his hands and knees in a tunnel frequented by cats in near-complete darkness was not easy. His breastplate didn’t seem to want to fit in places that his eyes told him he could.

  He had to pull the lantern forward, then wriggle past it, then pull it forward again. In the process, something crossed his hands. He flinched.

  Peter felt the flinch. ‘Vat vas dat?’ he asked.

  Swan’s hands were shaking. ‘A cat,’ he said. ‘Mother of God, I hope it was a cat.’

  Swan had never been a great one for prayer, but several more minutes of scrambling along a narrow tunnel in the stinki
ng dark caused him to start a veritable litany of prayer, interspersed with curses.

  There was a noise ahead of them. It wasn’t a single clank, but a series of noises – a rattle, a long grinding, a muffled thump.

  ‘Shit,’ Peter said. ‘Now I’m tinking you are in the right of it.’

  Swan heard him sigh.

  ‘Ve should perhaps go back and fetch help, yes?’ Peter asked.

  ‘I want to be sure,’ Swan said.

  ‘I’m plenty sure,’ Peter put in. ‘Lamps out!’ he hissed.

  Swan obeyed.

  He had thought it was dark before. Now it was utterly dark, the kind of dark he remembered from the cisterns under Constantinople. But they had been clean and airy, and this was hot, close, and reeked of cat and worse.

  Swan pushed forward. It was his usual reaction to fear and terror – to go at it – and now he scraped along in the stifling dark until his questing right hand found … nothing.

  He reached down, and his breastplate scraped against the floor – or the street, hard to tell. But his right fingers found stone.

  To his front, suddenly there was light.

  And voices, speaking in Turkish.

  ‘No! We will take you right into the city!’ complained one.

  ‘Silence, dog! The knights can hear you. We don’t want to come into the city. We will use your tunnels to place a charge of the powder that burns.’

  ‘Stapha, you are an old woman. Let’s press forward and seize the wall! We’ll be famous! The Pasha will make us all lords!’

  ‘Stupid Ghazi! The Pasha is a fool and will not reward anyone.’

  ‘Shh! In the name of Allah, the merciful and the compassionate, will all of you be silent!’

  The last voice had authority.

  Swan turned his head. ‘Go and get help!’ he hissed.

  Peter grunted.

  After a moment, Swan reached out to touch the other man – and there was nothing there.

  Tom Swan was alone in the stinking darkness with twenty Turks.

  Very slowly, while the Turks debated their next move, Swan swung his booted feet over the low sill he’d discovered and tested the lower floor. Cautious experimentation revealed that he was dropping down into a room – a larger room, judging from the echoes. Or perhaps just a broader corridor. Swan contemplated going back – back along the cat-infested crawlspace behind him. But he couldn’t face fighting in such a constricted place. He was too afraid of coming to a place that his breastplate wouldn’t fit going backwards.

  Having got his feet down to the new level, Swan reached out to right and left. The walls were there – just beyond easy reach in both directions.

  His heart was beating like an armourer planishing metal – tinktinktinktink. It was so loud he was afraid it was making noise, and so close under his throat that he felt he might throw up. His breastplate suddenly felt too small.

  He drew his sword. He did it very carefully – left hand reversed, a long, slow pull.

  ‘Son of a whore, we can take the town now!’ one man shouted, in Turkish. His voice rang off the walls.

  Swan estimated that they were about sixty feet away. He could see two tongues of flame – oil lamps, or lanterns – and a little bit of red which was someone’s cloak, or hood.

  He took a cautious step forward and almost fell – there was something lying across the corridor. He felt it with his sword-tip, slid a foot across it, slid the other foot across it. He was sweating so much that he was afraid he would drown in his armour.

  Very, very carefully he felt his way another step along the corridor.

  And another. Whatever the blockage behind him, he now had space in which to fight.

  He checked his dagger.

  ‘And I say now!’ shouted the most aggressive Turk.

  And the torches began to move.

  Swan’s hands were shaking so badly he had trouble finding the top edge of his visor. He reached up with his sword-point and touched the ceiling overhead. There was a hissing fall of gravel over his armour, but the ceiling was at least four feet above him.

  He brought his visor down. In the stinking darkness, the visor did nothing to limit his vision.

  And the torches, or lanterns, crept closer.

  ‘Pig! Dog! Heretical scum of the underworld!’ a man swore.

  It sounded to Swan as if the man had just stubbed a booted toe on something. Swan had a moment’s fellow-feeling for a man he was about to fight.

  He brought his sword into a low guard position and waited, knees weak, hands shaking, and breath short. It was very different from being on the deck of a ship in the sunlight, surrounded by friends.

  Now he could see the lead man – who walked slightly bent because he was huge, both tall and fat, with dyed red hair and a dyed beard and a short axe in his hand. Swan assumed the man was the aggressive one. He had the look. The torchlight made the man’s red kaftan glow. It almost hurt Swan’s eyes.

  Of course, they were all watching the floor.

  Swan watched the axe. The sheer size of the first man intimidated him. Intimidation made him angry – always had. Bigger men had bullied him his whole young life.

  The torchlight illuminated the floor of the tunnel for five yards. They still hadn’t seen Swan, and he couldn’t stand the tension any more.

  He leaped forward and cut, a rising snap from a low guard that sheared through the big Turk’s cheek and nose, so that the tip cut through his left eye and stopped on the ocular ridge. Swan leaned into the weapon and pushed it home into the skull and the man died instantly. The sound of his own wild scream echoed and roared and he wasn’t fully aware that it was his own as he recovered, again low, this time into Fiore’s dente di cinghiare. He was afraid of catching his sword on the walls or the ceiling – but his first strike had made him calm, and having recovered, he struck again, gliding, feet flat, slightly offline to the right and thrusting over the corpse even as the dead man’s torch went out on the cobbles.

  The second Turk made a parry – but some of the blow caught him. Swan stepped in and caught his sword with his left hand, halfway down the blade, and thrust it – almost blind in the dark. He thrust three times, sure he’d hit, and then flicked a cut from his wrist as he backed a step. Now the only torch was held by the last Turk, or perhaps an escaped slave, and there were two corpses and Swan could see – a little. He doubted that they saw much of him.

  ‘Back! Back! The knights know we are here! Back, you fools!’ shouted the one with the voice of iron.

  But it was chaos in the corridor.

  An older, more experienced man would have leaped at them in that moment, but Swan was still amazed at his initial success and still cautious.

  The third man had time to ready his weapons – a light axe, and a curving sword.

  ‘It is just one man!’ he shouted. ‘Aiiee!’ and he attacked.

  Swan ignored the sabre and cut at the axe. The sabre blow rang on his helmet, and his pommel struck something – he had one of the man’s arms, and he broke it at the elbow, and punched his armoured right hand into what he assumed was the face as yet another weapon struck him – he dropped his opponent and stepped back, looking for balance. Two weapons struck him together – a blow to his visor that almost brought him down and a cut to his left arm that rang like a bell on his left vambrace. He had his sword up, and he cut down, into the darkness, and connected – and there was a vicious pain in his right calf. He screamed – or roared.

  Someone had his left arm. He slammed his right fist and his pommel at this new threat – connected, and the man fell away – then he took a kick or a punch to his knee that caused him to fall backwards.

  His head struck the stones that had almost tripped him as he entered the corridor. He hit hard – but his armet took the blow and his thickly padded liner saved him.

  He could hear them coming, and he knew he was hurt, and more on impulse than by training he hauled himself over the rock – under his desperate hands, it became a stone co
lumn with deep fluting. He knelt because his left leg was having trouble supporting him, took his sword in both hands, and put the point up.

  Forty feet down the tunnel, there was a scream and the last torch went out.

  ‘One, two, three! Charge!’ called a voice in Turkish. They had taken twenty of Swan’s gasping breaths to ready themselves.

  Swan had used the time to get against the right-hand wall, crouched down behind the fallen pillar. He couldn’t see them. But he could certainly hear them.

  They all screamed together – the long, undulating scream that had taken Constantinople.

  The two leaders hit the pillar together. And fell.

  Swan cut – in panic – at the sounds. Hit something soft, cut again, and again. And again. Cut – thrust, cut.

  A desperate Turk, heroically brave, seized his sword-blade – probably in his death throes, but his sacrifice was not in vain. By luck, or fortuna, he plucked the blade right out of Swan’s hands. Swan felt it go – heard it fall.

  A man hit his chest. And tried to wrap his arms about Swan’s shoulders.

  Swan pulled the man over the column – every Turk had to discover the downed column for himself, and it had become Swan’s greatest advantage. He used it to break the man’s balance and threw him, and then fell atop him, steel-clad arms and hands working brutally.

  A heavy weapon rang off his helmet. And there was suddenly weight on his back – he rolled, a man screamed, and Swan got his right hand on his rondel dagger. It was still there. He got it out – reversed – and stabbed with it.

  He realized that the roaring sound was his own voice.

  He felt the man’s neck go just as he pounded the blade into the man’s 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 could see nothing. He could hear at least two men dying. Everything smelled of blood, and faeces, and despair.

  Perhaps he whimpered. He certainly wanted to.

  That was how Fra Tommaso found him, when he came at the head of a dozen knights. Swan was still kneeling, facing the corridor. His armour was caked in blood and dirt, and he had a dagger blade in both hands, and he was weeping. He couldn’t stop it, and he couldn’t get his helmet open. As soon as he heard the Italian voices coming, he’d burst into tears.