To Swan, it looked more defensible than any place he’d ever seen, except perhaps Monemvasia.
The sun was setting red in the west when they glided inside the fortified breakwater and the rowers folded their heavy oars away, raising them out of the oar ports and feeding them along the central catwalks or into the racks along the ship’s sides. Mytilini cheered them as they landed – seven Christian galleys – and the cheers from the garrison high above met the cheers of the Greek populace lining the beach. On Lesvos, the Genoese – at least, in the guise of the Gattelusi, the ruling family – were well beloved. The Gattelusi had married into the imperial family of Byzantium more than once, and they shared the good looks of the Paleologi and some of their indolence. But their marriages, their powerful private army and their occasional rescues of the Byzantine emperors – some financial, and some military – had earned them the love of their Greek subjects – who also paid the lightest taxes in the eastern Mediterranean.
Swan leaped over the stern to the beach and Peter tossed him the leather bag that held his own clothes and then the leather portmanteau that held Swan’s kit – and then leaped down himself. They walked up the beach, teetering slightly after days at sea. A pair of Greek men came and took their bags with wide smiles.
‘It is nice to be so popular,’ Swan said, smiling at a very pretty Greek girl. She smiled – then blushed and dropped her eyes. And clutched an older woman standing near by, who gave a sniff.
Fra Tommaso landed on the sand with a thump. The oarsmen were all off – most of them already pushing through the crowd. They weren’t going to the brothels and tavernas that lined the waterfront. In this port, they went first up the hill, towards the fortress, in a long and disorderly line.
Swan saw that his kit had joined the line. Fra Tommaso waited until Fra Domenico joined him on the sand, and the two knights went up the hill. The older knight paused and waved. ‘Coming, young scapegrace?’
Swan followed the knights. The line took for ever to move – it started at the edge of the beach, and wound between the lower gates of the fortress and then up to a point that vanished in the dusk on the side of the hill.
The tavernas along the waterfront served wine to the oarsmen in the line – heavy ceramic beakers full of strong red wine that was delicious after salt air. Swan was on his second cup as he passed through the gate.
The soldier there wore a fine, velvet-covered brigandine and had a heavy war bow in his hand. He smiled constantly, but his eyes moved everywhere.
‘You’re English, I think,’ Swan said.
The man smiled. ‘My da was English,’ he said. ‘I’m Greek.’
‘Seems a long way from London,’ Swan said.
The archer shrugged. ‘My pater was from Cumbria. He came out here after Agincourt.’ His eyes went over Swan’s shoulder, and then flicked back.
Fra Tommaso nodded. ‘The Gattelusi hire a great many English,’ he said. ‘They always have.’
‘Englishmen make fine pirates,’ Fra Domenico said. He stooped to scratch a stray cat. Mytilini was full of them.
The line moved on – past the guardpost, and up into the rocks. Swan breathed deeply, just to enjoy the smell. And examined the stonework of the redoubt above him. In the last light of the sun, he could see round stones the size of wagon wheels set into the fabric of the fortification. He tried to imagine why anyone would shape round stones to fit into a fort wall.
He thought – all too often – of the fight in the dark. Of the torches of the Turks revealing the fallen column that half-blocked the passageway.
Three slow steps forward later, and despite his heartbeat soaring and his breath coming hard, he had it, and he said ‘εύρηκα!’
The two knights and his servant all turned on him as if he were a madman.
‘They’re columns! Ancient columns from temples!’ he shouted excitedly. He was all but bouncing on his toes. ‘Those round stones are column drums – ancient ones!’
‘You speak Greek?’ asked a man at his elbow. The man was still smiling, despite half an hour on the hill carrying Swan’s portmanteau.
‘A little, brother,’ Swan said. ‘Those are columns, yes?’
‘From the pagan times,’ agreed the Greek. ‘Over by Kalloni, there are temples.’
‘Like the Parthenon?’ Swan asked.
The Greek shrugged.
Swan waved at a middle-aged woman with a tray full of wine cups. ‘Ο άνθρωπος έχει μια δίψα για το κρασί! This man has a thirst for wine.’
The Greek nodded. ‘Very kind,’ he said in a voice that suggested – politely – that men did not carry heavy leather trunks purely from public spiritedness.
Swan paid the woman and tried a flirtatious smile. She responded with a look that suggested that a life of serving wine to fishermen and pirates had given her some fairly effective armour.
Swan put his smile away for easier prey. And inched up the hillside.
‘Where are we going?’ he asked.
The timoneer, who was next in line behind Swan, grinned. ‘Ancient tradition here. When a galley comes in, we go to the shrine and take mass.’
‘How ancient?’ Swan asked.
He went up three steps. The steps were very old – smooth as glass.
The line moved again. Now he could see there was a heavy wood and iron door – right in the hillside. A party of men came out of it and squeezed down the steps, all smiles – and headed towards the beach and the tavernas.
Fra Tommaso nodded. ‘They think that taking mass protects them against the sins they have yet to commit,’ he said. But he watched his oarsmen with the fondness of a parent for his children. ‘Speaking of sin, Master Swan – we are invited to the palace. Tonight, we are to be received, and tomorrow, there is some sort of fete in our honour.’
‘We will stay?’ Swan asked, hope springing eternal. The word ‘palace’ alone offered more hope than anything he’d heard since Alexandria.
‘I want the hulls to dry,’ Fra Domenico said. He was looking at Asia across the strait – only a few leagues wide. ‘Faster ships take more prizes.’
Fra Tommaso took Swan’s hand. ‘Listen. We are men of God – you are a volunteer. So we will send you to this festivity tomorrow. As our representative. Yes? And you will not do the order any dishonour. Hmm?’
Swan sighed.
They climbed a few more steps and the deck officers squeezed by them, pausing to embrace the old knight, who blessed each of them. And then the door opened, and Swan could smell incense.
‘Come on,’ Fra Tommaso said, starting down steep steps into the dark interior.
Swan got one step down before he froze.
He felt the man’s neck go just as he pounded the blade into his 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 was kneeling on cold stone. Someone was trying to pull him, and he got his arm around the man’s neck and jerked him off balance …
‘It’s me! Christ on the cross, are ye wode!’ shouted Peter in his ear.
Fra Domenico caught Peter and pushed him away. ‘He’s fighting under the city! On Rhodos! Let him be!’ Hands seized Swan around the waist and turned him – so that he could see stars, and the shocked faces of the timoneer and the man carrying his trunk.
He took a shuddering breath.
Fra Domenico turned his head. ‘Smell the incense, my son. See the candles and feel God’s holy presence. There is nothing here for you to fear. This is a holy place.’ His voice was very gentle – very calm. And it ran on, and on.