The princess cast down her eyes and smiled politely.
‘He killed ten Turks.’ Dorino’s voice became like that of an oracle. Swan felt a chill run down his back. ‘Isn’t that splendid, Theodora?’
‘You must be a very great man of arms,’ Theodora said. The compliment bored her – he could see her thoughts going elsewhere.
‘But has anyone asked how the Turks knew to get in under the city in the first place?’ Dorino asked.
Swan scowled. ‘The slaves told them,’ he said.
‘Really?’ Prince Dorino said. ‘Didn’t the Turks arrive and camp simply to hide their intentions? Didn’t they know before they even landed?’
Swan had clenched his teeth. He gestured agreement.
Swan hoped that the prince would leave them alone, but the fete had reached a size that made it worthwhile to start the dancing, and Caterina could be seen going from person to person – the musicians struck up a ‘German’ dance from Milan, and Swan knew it. The Prima Figlia Guglielmino. Two couples danced it as a group of four – very stately, very intimate.
Swan, in his usual way, chose to chance everything on one hazard.
‘May I ask you to dance?’ Swan said. The slightly amused look in her green eyes made him feel like a man who was in a game in which he couldn’t even afford the stake, much less a wager.
‘Well,’ the princess said. ‘As you are a prince – although of two generations of bastardy, I hear tell – and I am a princess, it seems to me that no one is more suitable to ask. So yes, you may.’
It took Swan a moment to work through her beautiful Greek and realise that she had not said yes.
‘Your Grace, would you do me the immense honour of dancing?’ he asked. For the first time in many months, he blessed his father, the cardinal, for enough formal training to play this game at all.
She looked away. If it was meant to be flirtatious, it was the clumsiest flirtation Swan had ever seen. That seemed unlikely. Then she smiled.
‘Is it an immense honour?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ he said into her eyes.
She sighed. ‘I doubt I’ll find anyone more suitable. May I share a commonplace with you, your grace?’
‘Please do,’ Swan said, inwardly cursing the vaccuousness of his expression.
‘Sometimes, it is tiresome ot be a beautiful princess,’ she said, and allowed him to lead her to the floor with a subtle inclination of her head.
The other couple in his set proved to be the Lady Caterina and the Lord of Eressos. They swept away into the dance, which was, to Swan, a rigorous exercise in etiquette and memorisation. He knew the dance well enough – a few steps in, he was assured that he knew it, and that Zambale knew it, too.
But the women really knew it. The men walked their stately half-circles and the tempo changed, and Theodora, who was the lead woman, performed her movimento, and Swan wanted to cry out at the beauty of her movement – her body, the simple linen – Caterina echoed the movement, and for one measure the two women were hand to hand and eye to eye, and if Swan had been a painter, he would have painted that moment.
And then the women fled, and the men pursued – all to the usual conclusion, except that Swan, on the last place change, took the princess at exactly the same moment that the Graeco-Scot took Caterina – by the waist, raising them and spinning to set them in their places, as if they had been in a Moresca. It suited the music – the women flushed and smiled, and the audience were thunderous in their applause.
‘Hah! Couldn’t have been prettier if we’d planned it,’ Zambale said.
As he was disposed to be courteous, and as the princess had vanished in a crowd of popularity, Swan walked with the Lord of Eressos to the table set with wines and a slave poured him a glass.
‘Do you feel a fool in these clothes?’ Zambale asked.
Swan shrugged. ‘Yes and no. For those of us with muscles to show …’ He left the rest of the comment unspoken. Zambale looked the part of Hector and had no shortage of musculature on display, and women of all ages watched him as they might watch a favourite pony every time he moved.
Zambale nodded. He paused, as if confused, and then said, hurriedly, ‘Would you take me as a volunteer? On your galley?’
Swan frowned. ‘Surely you have duties here?’
Zambale shrugged. ‘No. That is, yes, but I … Dorino is not going to do anything. I want to do something.’
Swan had a certain sympathy for Dorino’s point of view, the more he considered it. The Turks seemed remarkably benevolent – united, just and strong, they contrasted with the Christian states and their petty princes and Church feuds. Simultaneously, he identified with the crusaders and the Knights of St John – England, good King Richard and the evil Saracens were all part of his childhood.
And it was good to do something.
‘I’m sure we can find you a place,’ he said.
‘I want to see a real fight,’ Zambale insisted.
‘You could have my place,’ Swan said. It didn’t sound as light hearted as he’d meant it. Swan had found that there were some limits on courage. He’d begun to fear that some day he might just run out.
Swan danced seven times. He was in demand – as Theodora’s first partner, as an Englishman, and as a novelty. He danced with Caterina, to Prince Dorino’s delight, and he danced with Isabella, with her brother on her other side, a Bereguardo Novo that seemed to go on for ever and in which he was frustratingly close to the princess and never close enough.
Later, wine was served from the magnificent ancient krater that sat in the foyer on a plinth, and Swan hurried to drink twice-watered wine from Candia – and to be the first to bring a small cup to the princess, who took it without comment, a slightly bored flick of her eyes his only reward. He wondered what he had done wrong.
And then Caterina clapped her hands – very like Violetta for a moment – and called all the women her own age together, matrons and unmarried girls too. Swan turned and caught Theodora’s eye on him. Nor did her eyes leave his, once they’d met. So he winked.
She smiled.
She took a step towards him, and he towards her, almost as if they were dancing.
Caterina beckoned to her, and she walked – gracefully – across the marble floor and took her friend’s hand.
‘She’s been married,’ Zambale said. ‘Looks like that, and the Emperor’s daughter – there’s talk she’s to be given to the Grand Turk as a bribe. Or married to the Prince of Persia. Uzun Hasan. You know the White Sheep?’
Swan had never heard of Uzun Hasan, or the White Sheep Turkomans. Zambale was happy to inform him. Swan spent the brief political lesson with his eyes on the most beautiful thing in the room.
And when the women had discussed the possibilities of the last dance, it was decided that they would perform a Verzeppe, a fast, violent dance like a skirmish where three men danced with two women.
He found that his group of three men was himself, Zambale and Prince Dorino, the latter with his cloak cast aside. They danced with Caterina and Theodora. There were four more sets, and all the tables had to be cleared. And the dance was so new that they walked through it four times, with a level of informality that seemed at odds with earlier parts of the fete. But a great deal of wine had been drunk – and faces were flushed. Two men had attacked each other with their fists and been removed; several couples were sufficiently engaged in amorous behaviour that the bishop had taken his entourage and left.
Swan had never been to such a fine party.
The dance itself was like a fight. It was fast – it required coordination, and the fastest element required one of the men to weave his way through the ladies as they turned – this could be balletic or ballistic, depending on the man’s agility and skill. But the opportunities for eye contact and interaction were endless – each man had a moment with the two women in every figure.