Bessarion sighed. ‘It could come sooner,’ he said. ‘The knights sail in all weathers.’ He looked at the two young men. ‘It is said in the College of Cardinals that Mehmet II plans to destroy all the learning of the ancient world and replace it with the Koran. That he means to conquer the whole world.’
It occurred to Swan that this was not the place for him to declare his almost absolute admiration for the Turks – their manliness, their horses, their swords and their war machines and their poetry. But the picture of Mehmet II destroying manuscripts seemed a little extreme. ‘The Grand Turk reveres learning,’ he said.
Bessarion’s baleful glare fell on him squarely. Swan liked his employer, and he’d heard many foolish things about Christians while he was with Turks. He nodded. ‘But of course, he is the merest infidel,’ he added piously.
Bessarion’s basilisk stare faded into a pleasant smile. ‘Excellent. Get some rest – well-earned rest – from your Herculean labours. There is a new steward about the place – Father Ridolpho. A protégé of the Cardinal of Avignon.’ His eyes crossed Di Brachio’s, and some message passed. ‘He is very’ – here the cardinal gave the slightest sniff, as if he detected an unpleasant odour – ‘very careful with money.’ He scribbled a note and handed it to Di Brachio.
‘Do not, I beg you, bait our employer,’ Di Brachio said. ‘You and I know that Mehmet has every intention of conquering the world. This Bessarion needs to know. You and I know that Mehmet the Second, may his name be blessed, is a far, far more moral ruler than most of the perverted creatures who inhabit the College of Cardinals. We do not say this out loud. Mm?’
Swan nodded in humility. ‘I’ll watch my tongue next time,’ he said.
Di Brachio laughed. ‘No, you won’t. But never mind. I have a note in my hand that authorises the steward to pay us. I can see, with nothing more than a glance about this palazzo, that the good cardinal is in funds – look, those silver ewers were in pawn when we were here before. Eh? So we’ll be paid.’
He suited action to word, walking down to the offices on the first floor, where Swan had rarely been. A dozen clerks, some in holy orders and some just ink-stained young men, sat at desks like oar benches, writing furiously. The steward of the household was a middle-aged priest, tall, with chiselled features and a strong build, and he took the note from the cardinal and nodded.
‘Ah – you are the famous young Messer Swan,’ he said in Genoese Italian. He frowned. ‘I understand that after your last escapade, half my clerks were lamed by the Orsini, who chased them through the streets every day for a month.’
Swan tried to look apologetic.
The priest bit his thumbnail. ‘Household servants are paid on Thursday next.’ He made a note and smiled at Di Brachio. ‘Please return then,’ he said. He countersigned a ledger in red ink, and turned to the tall desk that dominated the room. He sat on a high stool and resumed writing.
Swan looked at Di Brachio, who had turned bright red. The Venetian cleared his throat.
‘You expected something more?’ asked the priest.
‘I am no man’s servant,’ Di Brachio said.
The priest shrugged. ‘Take it up with His Eminence, then,’ he said. ‘You thugs give us a bad name. I’m cutting expenses. Twenty-five ducats for each of you? My clerks can live a year on that much money.’
Swan thought, in the privacy of his head, that he had once been able to live five years on so much money.
Di Brachio pursed his lips. He drew his sword, and the clerks riffled like fowls in a farmyard. But he didn’t threaten. He simply threw the notched blade down on the work table.
‘See the blade?’ he said. ‘Ruined – fighting Turks. I can’t buy a new blade for twenty-five ducats.’
The priest shrugged. ‘That is between you and the cardinal,’ he said, and his voice had some of the whine of a cat’s. ‘I gather you are very … close.’
Di Brachio grew still for a moment. Then he picked up his sword. ‘Have you ever seen the bodies they pull out of the Tiber after three days?’ he said quietly, and the priest stepped back. Swan thought of Ser Marco’s admonition and moved between them. Besides, when the good father had opened a drawer to fetch out the ledger with its red-inked entries, Swan had seen a great deal of gold sitting in a bag.
‘Ah, Father, we have been too long on a ship. You are only doing your duty.’ He bowed, his right hand searching behind him, hidden, he hoped, in the folds of his cloak. His hand closed on the bag, and he bowed again. ‘I, for one, would be happy to take my twenty-five ducats and rejoice in them.’
The priest rubbed his wrists with his thumbs and wished for God to strike them dead, but after long seconds of inaction, he opened a small box on his tall desk and began to count out ducats.
Di Brachio followed him, holding his notched sword. ‘I wonder sometimes, Father,’ he said quietly.
The priest looked up.
‘I wonder if killing a priest feels any different from killing a Turk or a footpad,’ he said. ‘I am not a servant, nor am I a thug, nor can you make your puerile assertions about my relationship with the cardinal without immediate consequence. Do you understand me, Padre?’
The priest drew himself up. ‘You wouldn’t dare,’ he said, but his voice indicated how unsure he was.
Di Brachio nodded. ‘Sometimes, men make mistakes about where they are powerful, and where they are weak. A few months ago, I foolishly acted as if I had power in Venice, and I was lucky not to be killed. But here in this house, Father, you are to me like a louse between my fingers.’ Di Brachio’s voice hissed slightly, and he placed the point of his sword against the priest’s belly. ‘If I did have a special relationship with His Eminence, what kind of fool would you be to twit me with it?’
The other clerks were frozen. Two of them tried to slip past Swan up the stairs, and he dissuaded them with a single roll of his shoulders.
‘You thought you could insult me to my face. There, now you know you are wrong. Here’s a choice, priest. Understand your place, and we can yet be friends. Or – try and take some action against me, and see. See what happens, my friend.’ The Venetian swished his blade through the air and lightly swatted the priest on the arse.
Swan would have laughed, except that he thought that Di Brachio was being foolish. It never ceased to amaze him how often the older man accused him of foolish behaviour, only to indulge in his own.
The priest finished counting out the money, his fingers trembling slightly, and Di Brachio stood like a predator denied his prey and glared at Swan, who had dropped the bag into the top of his right boot and then had to walk very carefully not to lose it.
‘You may,’ hissed the priest, ‘find that I, too, have friends.’
‘Friends? A creature like you?’ Di Brachio mocked.
Together they climbed the stairs from the clerks’ level to the main floor, and when they’d reached their rooms, Swan drew Di Brachio into his, opened the bag, and dumped it on the bed.
‘Greedy bastard,’ Swan said.
Di Brachio looked at the gold – almost a hundred French francs – and laughed. ‘You just stole money from your own employer,’ he said.
Swan shrugged. ‘It was right there,’ he said. ‘It’s the Church’s money – and thus it belongs to every Christian. You and I are Christians, and more than that, we just fought for the faith. These are our legitimate wages.’
‘By God, Swan, now I know your father really was a cardinal,’ Di Brachio said. He sat on Swan’s bed and counted the coins into two piles. ‘Di Brescia is about somewhere. Shall we find the lawyers and go out?’