It was dark, and hot — but the water was so hot that it steadied him, and he didn’t have to be afraid. And he was … touched by the respect of the oarsmen. When he got out, another man led him to the cold water, and he swam a little.
A small boy offered him a cup of wine from a tray.
The sailor put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Not unless you want to buy the boy, too, mate,’ he said. And grinned. ‘Custom of the house.’
Swan smiled at the boy and shook his head — and made his way to the dry room where he had shed his clothes. He felt so very clean that the clothes he’d been wearing now seemed filthy. He opened his portmanteau and dressed in his second best — brown cloth — too warm for spring in Greece but clean and neat. He paid an old woman a few bronze sequins to do his hair and he sat on the porch of the bath with a cup of wine while the two knights talked to the Greek priest from the cave in the outdoor wine shop under the eaves.
‘A person might think you were a pretty girl and not a knight of Christ at all,’ Fra Tommaso said. ‘Although, I confess that, having met your wife, her standards might have — hmm — rubbed off?’ He laughed.
‘His wife?’ Fra Domenico asked.
‘A very beautiful woman,’ Fra Tommaso said.
Fra Domenico smiled — a private smile, as if something he’d understood had been confirmed. ‘Have you any children, my son?’ he asked.
‘Perhaps we will, with God’s help,’ Swan said, and just for a moment, he saw her naked in his mind’s eye.
‘Children are the greatest blessing of marriage,’ Fra Domenico said.
I’m receiving marriage counselling from the most notorious pirate in the Inner Sea, thought Swan. He paid a small tip to the old Greek woman, who smiled toothlessly and patted him.
‘Adonis is prepared to grace us with his company,’ Fra Tommaso said.
Peter nodded from the porch of the baths. ‘I’ll just be making my way down to the waterfront,’ he said. ‘If you happen to kill anyone, be sure and take their purses — eh, my lord?’
Swan took this as a cue and delved into his own purse for a handful of ducats.
‘Any left for your own girl?’ Peter asked quietly.
Swan shrugged. He felt clean. He was almost out of money and, as usual, ready to face the world one desperate crisis at a time.
The palace of the Gattelusi appeared small enough from the outside. Located securely on the highest point of the acropolis inside the fortress, it was itself a citadel, with its own walls and its own chapel. The interior of the great fortress was not flat — rather, it rose constantly from the three successive gates, past the church, to the citadel. In the gatehouse and again on the walls of the citadel, the arms of the Gattelusi were carved into the stone — over and over — alongside the great double-headed eagle of the Paleologi. To the left and right, on one of the great towers of the citadel, there were — Swan stopped walking and fell behind Fra Tommaso — warriors. And men fighting animals.
Fra Domenico turned. ‘Master Swan!’ he called out.
Swan heard him, in a distant way. He was transfixed.
Fra Domenico walked back down the hill. And looked up. The last rays of the spring sun put a ruddy light over the high tower and placed the figures in high relief.
‘Gladiators, Fra Domenico!’ Swan said in wonder. ‘Roman gladiators on Lesvos.’
The knight put a hand on Swan’s shoulder. ‘Come on, my young classicist. Let us meet the owners. Perhaps they’ll give you one.’ He smiled at the older knight. ‘We are leading this young man into temptation!’ He waved at the palace. ‘In there is one of the finest collections of antiquities you will ever see.’
The last rays of the sun made the diamond on his finger glow like something magical.
The palace of the Gattelusi was as opulent as any palace in Rome — decorated in the most modern classical style, with the signal difference that many of the statues were not copies, but the real thing. A magnificent figure of a nude woman stood in the entry hall — modestly covering herself, eyes cast down, she arrested the viewer instantly. Behind her was a painted frieze in the classical style — paint on stucco — depicting dancing nymphs and satyrs. On the plinth to the left of the statue stood a single immense urn — a krater in ancient Greek red-figure ware, with a scene of Penelope weaving at her loom in the foreground, Odysseus leaning on his spear. Lest there be any doubt, their names were written in the ancient letters.
Swan looked down and found he was standing on a mosaic floor — a mosaic of a man and a woman, done in stones so small that the woman’s made-up eyes had six or seven tones to them.
Something like a groan escaped Swan.
Fra Domenico laughed. ‘It is the earthly paradise,’ he said.
Fra Tommaso was less inclined to be lyrical. ‘Is there a major-domo?’ he asked the two slaves who’d ushered them in.
‘I like to greet my guests in person,’ came a voice. It was an odd, androgynous voice — the voice of a mature woman, or perhaps an old man, or a very young one. The Italian was without accent — neither Roman nor Milanese nor Venetian nor Genoese. Merely — Italian.
Swan looked around. There were two African slaves by the door, and another pair of matching Bulgarian slaves standing by what appeared to be the main archway into the living quarters.
He looked up.
A storey above him, a magnificent silver lamp seemed to float in the air, the twenty wicks giving a golden light. Each wick emerged from the head of a beast, and all of the beasts were joined to a central body that twisted as if in mortal combat. The whole lamp was silver, and the chain that vanished overhead into the murk of the tower’s interior was silver.
And on the other side of the lamp, there was a small balcony — an interior balcony. On it stood a man dressed in traditional Byzantine robes, with a small purple-red hat adorned with pearls. He had a mature face — Swan thought he was in his fifties — with wide-set, liquid eyes and the long, straight nose of the Byzantine emperors.
Fra Domenico bowed. ‘Prince Dorino,’ he said.
Fra Tommaso shook his head softly, but said nothing.
The prince leaned over his balcony. ‘You admire my lamp, young man?’ His soft, womanly voice was disconcerting. It floated on the air and played tricks and made Swan unsure about who had spoken. It was like some mummer’s trick at a fair by the Thames.
‘I think it is remarkable,’ Swan said. ‘Is it … Roman?’
Prince Dorino laughed softly. ‘Roman? Psst — that for Rome,’ he said, and snapped his fingers. ‘Rome was a nation of barbarians who could do nothing but copy. It is Greek, young man. Everything worth having was made by the Greeks.’ He smiled. ‘Come — the advantage in height is too overwhelming. Come upstairs — my cousin is here and we are all learning our parts for the fete tomorrow.’
The two Slavs bowed and escorted the three men, in their plain clerical brown, past a magnificent tapestry of men hunting a rhinoceros; to a set of stairs broad enough to drive a wagon up to the top, curving like a snail’s shell, in pale marble. The stairs were flanked by fluted columns. Swan reached out and touched one. He looked at the base and saw that it was ancient — looked up at the capital and saw a design he didn’t know at all.
‘It is Aeolian,’ said a woman’s voice, quite near at hand.
Swan realized that he was standing with his mouth half-open, gaping like a fish. He was at the base of the steps. A woman clad in a chiton, with the peplos folded down for modesty, stepped out from behind the pillar. She had skin the colour of newly finished oak, and black hair that fell in ten thousand curls, and the most astonishing green eyes flecked in gold, like emeralds set in rings. She looked so very like an ancient statue sprung to life that Swan lost his ability to speak for a moment. Then he bowed, as deeply as if to a cardinal. When he raised his head, she was gone.