Tom Swan and the Last Spartans 1 Read online

  Swan dismounted, gave his horse to Kendal and pushed into a hedge of flowering bushes to look. The busy traffic of the road was an arm’s length away, and the English pilgrims were still wondering where Kendal had gone.

  Such a fine young man.

  Swan saw Clemente, well across the road in the northbound traffic. He’d missed them, which pleased Swan at one remove but complicated matters, too.

  And then he saw where Clemente was looking. He looked, too, and saw a dozen fully armoured men-at-arms following a small pennon. Two of them were looking in a merchant’s wagon and the merchant was as white as a sheet.

  Forteguerri looked different in armour – bigger, more imposing. Swan supposed he did himself. Swan watched the man until he collected his soldiers, regarded a pair of Florentine merchants pass with a donkey, asked them their business, and then rode away north. Forteguerri looked calm, even bored.

  Swan felt very clever. But not so clever that he didn’t take his time scouting the next step on the route. He led them by two very small roads to the Via Flaminia and north all the way to Spinelli’s former villa.

  Spinelli laughed. ‘You think no one will look for me here?’ he asked.

  ‘That’s exactly what I think,’ Swan said.

  Spinelli nodded. ‘I used to sleep in the stable while they were building. There’s still a bed.’

  Kendal doubled back before full dark to the Milvian Bridge with a message for Giannis or Bessarion. The other four spent a modestly uncomfortable night in the barn, but it hid them and their animals, and despite the mice, there was enough grain. Swan spared a worry for Clemente, but the boy had a head on his shoulders and Swan had no way to contact him.

  He had plenty to worry about that night, and when the ‘Romance of Troy’ no longer held his attention, he sat on the book chest, watching out of the house’s highest window, as the Vatican went dark, one light at a time. For a while he could see the bulk of the Colosseum, and then it, too, was gone in the darkness.

  He never went to sleep.

  When morning came, he heated water in the kitchen, with a very small fire, and shaved with his travel razor, which, despite repeated stropping, was getting dull and cut him twice. He was trying to choose which dirty linen shirt he’d wear when Kendal appeared from the north, heralded by a yell from the servant on watch. Kendal came into the yard with Clemente, who had a small portmanteau with soap and two clean shirts.

  Swan shocked everyone by embracing Clemente, who was obviously pleased to be so valued.

  ‘His Eminence is ready,’ Kendal said. ‘He’ll take us straight to the Pope. He’ll be at San Silvestro after matins is sung.’

  Swan got them all ready and mounted, perspiring freely in his clean shirt, and they rode north and east, crossed the Tiber by the Silvian Bridge and then rode east again. Swan was determined to keep his charges safe. He did not enter Rome by the pilgrim gate, already busy, but cut farther east and took them in through the Salarian Gate, which was just being opened by bored professional soldiers. They made it to San Silvestro in time to hear matins sung themselves, and Swan had the satisfaction of seeing the monks start when their new donor entered. And seeing Bessarion bless Spinelli. And seeing Giannis and the Other Dmitri guarding Bessarion.

  The work day had barely begun in the chancery of San Angelo when Swan led Spinelli up the steps to the Red Chamber, while Bessarion entered the main antechamber for his appointment with the Holy Father. Swan was still taking no chances; had his armour been in Rome, he might well have worn it.

  ‘Last time I saw Forteguerri, he was still riding north on the Via Cassia,’ Clemente said with some satisfaction. ‘Messire Giannis says that your new boy Francesco saw Antonelli and Forteguerri meet before he rode away.’

  Swan noted that when he reported, Clemente displayed a sense of self-importance that might erupt into arrogance. Something to be dealt with later.

  Jacob emerged into the Red Chamber before they’d warmed their cushions. He knew Spinelli, and he needed no great intelligence to know what Swan had cradled in his arms.

  ‘I think I can accommodate you with an interview,’ he said with a wink. He beckoned Swan. ‘Well done. But …’

  ‘He came of his own will, Jacob. He is as puzzled as we all are.’ Swan glanced around, expecting a Medici servant or Antonelli himself, perhaps, hiding behind every piece of heavy church furniture.

  Jacob bowed to Spinelli and then stepped into an alcove with Swan.

  ‘As best I understand, he was leaving Rome by stages all summer. Since his wife died. His business in Florence bears this out. I have two reliable witnesses that he began to close out portions of his bank before his wife died, in fact, and intended, or intends, to go back to the luxury silk business.’ Swan looked over his shoulder. ‘He left a factor here, a trusted man, Landi Giannetti.’

  Jacob stared at a Madonna. He scratched his tonsured head. ‘I know the name. I suspect I have met the man. What happened?’

  ‘My guess is that he was abducted. I can tell you where, I can guess why, and there are a surprising number of suspects.’ Swan shrugged. ‘His Holiness didn’t ask me to find Giannetti. I am here with Spinelli.’

  ‘Now, God be praised,’ Jacob said with surprising conviction. ‘So you are. Will you join Bessarion?’

  ‘That was our plan. I did not want observers to see Spinelli enter the palace.’ Swan nodded. ‘In fact, my archer, Kendal, is watching the door to the Red Chamber. No one will enter.’

  Jacob frowned. ‘A little high-handed, Ser Thomas,’ he said. ‘But come. Let us end this.’

  Swan thought that the German priest would take the tiara, but he did not. Instead, he collected Spinelli and the two clerks carrying bags of gold, and together they went into the papal apartments.

  Bessarion had obviously cleared the way. Spinelli bowed low, and the Pope nodded, genially enough. Swan knelt and presented the tiara, which Jacob took from his hands and carried away.

  ‘Holy Father, you still owe me twenty thousand florins,’ Spinelli said.

  Callixtus seemed to shrug. He waved at Jacob. ‘Let my treasurers find you some surety,’ he said. ‘I needed the tiara. And men told me lies about you, my son, and I believed them, which is my own shame.’

  Spinelli nodded.

  ‘You no longer wish to work here, with me?’ Callixtus said.

  ‘Holy Father, the last two years have cost me almost eighteen thousand florins; more gold than the capital with which I opened my bank. I will return to Florence, where I can make money by working hard.’ Spinelli didn’t sound aggrieved. He spoke simply. Swan, who had always hated bankers, liked this one.

  ‘Is this still about the Bishop of Toledo?’ Callixtus asked.

  ‘Holy Father, it is in part. But I promised my wife to return to my home, and then, before I could make good my vow, she … died.’

  ‘That’s bad,’ the Pope admitted. He could not, as far as Swan could observe, meet Spinelli’s eye.

  Jacob came back. ‘Father Maffei has all the accounts to hand and has your remuneration drawn up and ready to sign,’ he said. The Pope looked away, and Bessarion was silent.

  Spinelli nodded. ‘I’m with you, then,’ he said. He knelt and kissed the Pope’s ring, and then rose and followed Jacob out into the hallway.

  The Pope looked at Bessarion and gave a slight shrug. ‘I have done worse things in the name of Christ,’ he said.

  Bessarion sighed. ‘Holy Father, I believe that young Ser Thomas deserves some reward.’

  ‘He does indeed. First he saved Belgrade, and then he found my wayward banker.’ Callixtus couldn’t manage a smile, and Swan knew that, one way or another, something terrible was being done to Spinelli. He hoped very much it simply involved money. He didn’t like being an accomplice to … to whatever they were doing. Which clearly included Bessarion.

  The Pope beckoned. Swan went forward, kissed his ring, and the Pope clasped his hand. ‘Jacob has found you a title,’ he said. ‘And a little land, to
o, I believe.’ His Italian had a heavy Spanish accent, but that did not cause it to sound worse to Swan. ‘I’ve already signed the deeds. I understand you intend to be wed.’

  ‘It is possible,’ Swan said. ‘That is, I have hopes …’

  Callixtus now vouchsafed a smile. ‘Not until you take my dispatches to Hungary, via Milan and Venice,’ he said. ‘Perhaps you can visit your little estate when you ride for Venice, but it is well out of your way and I would prefer you to make all the haste you can.’

  Swan bowed again. ‘I will endeavour to fly like Hermes, Holy Father.’

  Callixtus looked puzzled.

  Bessarion smiled with the tolerance of the scholar for the dolt. ‘Mercury, Holy Father. The messenger of the old gods.’

  Callixtus was not much of a humanist, and he grunted. ‘You are my messenger, he said, almost pettishly.

  ‘Yes, Holy Father,’ Swan said.

  Swan collected his patents along with his dispatch case. He read the Latin on his title with satisfaction, and the deed to his estate was a fine old piece of parchment with the seal of two popes and an emperor, which suggested to him that, at least, the land existed. He was in little doubt that when he arrived he would find someone else in possession, but he had an idea for that, as well.

  ‘Messire Spinelli may wish an escort to Florence,’ Father Jacob said. He looked embarrassed, but Swan was delighted to be assured that Spinelli was alive. Bessarion had worn a look that Swan had never seen on him before, something very like guilt.

  They were all in the courtyard, with Clemente holding Bessarion’s mule and the cardinal himself reading Swan’s title with amusement, when Antonelli rode in with ten men-at-arms in papal livery. Swan looked at the man. He was not afraid. No one was going to arrest a cardinal in the very grounds of the Palace of San Angelo.

  Antonelli did look as if he’d have liked to.

  ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Spinelli.’ His smile might have blighted crops, it was so cold.

  Spinelli nodded. He had emerged from his interview with the papal treasurer pale, and his lips were tight. ‘Antonelli,’ he said.

  ‘Have you returned what was never yours?’ Antonelli asked.

  ‘There was nothing I had to return,’ Spinelli said. ‘I had debts to settle.’

  ‘I, too, have debts to settle,’ Antonelli said. It was shockingly rude of the Florentine to ignore Bessarion, but he did.

  Spinelli suddenly laughed. ‘You know, messire, you think we are enemies. That’s because your head is well up your arse. Let me give you a piece of advice.’

  ‘I don’t need to listen to you, you …’

  ‘A word of advice. Run, Antonelli. Take your money and run, before they treat you as they have treated me.’ Spinelli laughed bitterly. ‘My only revenge on you for your lies and slanders will be that you will ignore my advice, and be served in turn for your greed. Perhaps this is what the Pope is about, punishing bankers for greed. Good day, Messire Antonelli.’

  ‘I will find it,’ Antonelli hissed. ‘I will find the money. And you will be caught.’

  Spinelli shrugged.

  Swan didn’t like the movements of Antonelli’s hands or his body language, and he stepped between the men.

  Antonelli looked at him – mounted man to man on foot – as if Swan was a worm or an insect. ‘Get out of my way,’ he snapped.

  Swan smiled. ‘No,’ he said. ‘You annoy me, so I think I’ll annoy you.’

  ‘Pah,’ Antonelli said. ‘Do you know who I am? I’ll break you.’

  Swan shrugged. ‘That might be more interesting than your attempt to bribe me, messire.’

  Deliberately, he turned his back on Antonelli – in public, in the palace, as if the Florentine banker were a person of no account. ‘Come,’ he said, as genially as he could. ‘Come, Messire Spinelli. Let us go find Messire Forteguerri and tell him his errand is wasted.’

  He had the pleasure of seeing Antonelli change colour twice.

  ‘You are, perhaps, very foolish here,’ Giannis said as they rode clear of the gates.

  Swan laughed. ‘Perhaps. But I feel so much better.’

  He and Giannis were a little ahead of the cavalcade as they passed over the San Angelo bridge headed south. ‘But the treasure?’ Giannis asked in a hiss.

  Swan looked into the water beneath them, and spat in a contemplative manner. ‘I think it is real,’ he said.

  ‘Real?’ Giannis asked. ‘Where?’

  Swan shrugged. ‘I’ll guess it’s in Rome,’ he said. ‘But to be honest, every time I’ve guessed in the last few days, I’ve been wrong. Spinelli didn’t have it and wasn’t in hiding. And he did have the tiara and no one tried to steal it. I feel as if I have been in a chess game with a master player, where I made all the wrong moves, and in the moment of victory, knew I had never understood the rules of the game.’

  ‘Ah,’ Giannis said. ‘Rome makes me feel this way all the time.’

  Swan laughed.

  He saw Bessarion home, on principle; collected Bessarion’s letters for Florence and Milan and a packet for Venice so thick that it needed its own wicker basket; Bessarion made it worse by adding two manuscripts.

  ‘A copy of the Iliad,’ he said. ‘For a friend.’ He gave Swan a blessing and then handed him a very small scrap of parchment that nevertheless held his seal and the Pope’s. ‘Spinelli is paying off my balance,’ he said. ‘Much of it goes to you. This is your pay for Hungary.’

  ‘You are too kind,’ Swan said.

  ‘You act too much like a great aristocrat, and not enough like a penniless wanderer,’ Bessarion said.

  Swan considered that he had not, yet, sold the magnificent cameo he’d lifted in Venice, and smiled.

  ‘I do well enough for myself,’ he said.

  ‘I remain interested in any little antiquities you run across,’ Bessarion said. ‘Now go with God, and may your young lady see fit to accept you.’

  Swan bowed deeply. He felt as if he was leaving Bessarion for the last time, which was foolish. But he kissed Bessarion’s ring, and then the man himself on both cheeks, and then he and Kendal, Clemente, the two clerks and Spinelli were spurring through the suburbs. Bessarion’s house lay almost exactly at the other end of Rome from Spinelli’s, and Spinelli wanted his books back, and his artwork. But when he saw they were already on the right bank of the Tiber for the Via Cassia, he shrugged and relented.

  ‘To hell with it,’ he said. ‘There’s a perfectly good carter with whom I do business. I’ll have him get the rest.’

  Swan reined in. ‘Pepino,’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ Spinelli said.

  Swan looked at Clemente. The young man shook his head.

  ‘Why didn’t Pepino ship your books?’ Swan asked Spinelli. ‘I mean, why didn’t they go with your other movables?’

  ‘It’s a good question. I assume he met with Giannetti, and they planned the move.’ Spinelli waved to the north. ‘You said you wanted to get moving. Let’s go. I would like to ride in the sunlight and forget what I just heard.’

  Swan bit his lip. ‘No. I have to know now.’ He wouldn’t explain, but led them back over the Silvian Bridge, an hour out of their way, and back to Spinelli’s former villa. He took Spinelli to the barn and showed him the cloak.

  ‘Giannetti’s?’ Swan asked.

  ‘Yes. I have seen him in it several times.’ Spinelli scratched his jaw.

  ‘I think they took him – here. He came to meet your carter, who may have a role and may just be a stalking horse.’ Swan shook his head. ‘At any rate, load your books on the mules and let’s be gone. I don’t think you should contact Pepino again. I think I see the shape of this. And if I ever come back to Rome, perhaps I’ll dig.’

  And then they rode north, for Florence. Over the Silvian Bridge one more time, and then to the fork where the Via Cassia went towards Tuscany and the Via Flaminia went into Umbria.

  ‘What happened?’ Swan asked, when they were clear of the city and the worst of the pilgrim traffi
c.

  Spinelli groaned. ‘I was enjoying my ride,’ he said.

  But that night, when the campfire had burned down and everyone lay in blankets but Swan and the banker, he said, as if five hours hadn’t passed, ‘Have you ever been betrayed?’

  Swan thought about it. ‘Yes,’ he said, thinking of Violetta. ‘Although as I get older, I suspect I was the agent of my own destruction.’

  Spinelli was silent for a while. ‘You are an interesting man,’ he said eventually. ‘You must think a great deal more than most of your kind.’

  Swan wished they had more of the banker’s excellent wine. ‘You have been betrayed?’ he asked softly.

  Again, Spinelli was silent. Swan had noticed that the banker was, in fact, slow to speak, and always considered his words, except in anger. Swan was aware that this was a good habit; he simply found it very difficult in practice.

  ‘The Holy Father has assigned me about twelve thousand ducats in income to pay a loan of twenty thousand,’ Spinelli said. ‘I have already accepted a loss of almost five thousand ducats on the Bishop of Toledo, which the Holy Father had promised to restore to me.’ His voice was flat; emotionless.

  ‘You are alive, in good health,’ Swan said.

  ‘You think that because I am rich, a little matter of ten thousand ducats is nothing?’ Spinelli asked. He actually laughed. ‘Perhaps that is what they all think. Listen, Ser Thomas. That loss will affect all my shareholders, all my people. I will not donate money this year to my church or to the monks at San Croce. All work on the house I’m building will stop and perhaps never start again, and a dozen poor workmen will have no work, to say nothing of some artists and some stonemasons. I will not starve … but neither will I grow. That money is the equivalent of the profits of five years working in that hellhole of Rome. And it is God’s punishment on me for ignoring my wife.’

  Swan shrugged in the darkness. ‘Many men ignore women,’ he said.

  Spinelli all but spat. ‘My wife wasn’t just a woman! She came of the Peruzzi, the best bankers in Florence. She advised me based on her instincts, and by Saint Thomas, I should have trusted her. She knew more of banking than I.’ The banker stared at the embers. ‘Five years’ profit, gone in an afternoon. The five years she begged me to come back to Florence. It is God’s work; now I have neither wife nor profit.’