Swan thought for a moment. ‘Yes. Not as warm as here but … beautiful.’ A wave of homesickness assaulted him and just for a moment he thought of London — of fishing in the Lea and chasing girls over the fields at Lambeth, where the archbishop had his palace south of London and all the brothels were.
‘I suspect that my time here is nearly done,’ the prince said, looking at the assembly.
‘Do you believe the Turks will defeat us?’ Swan asked.
Prince Dorino smiled. ‘What a charming child you are, to be sure,’ he said. ‘The Turks? I mean my son Domenico, who will cheerfully murder me.’
‘Why?’ Swan asked. He could only picture Fra Domenico, who was, surely, too old to be this man’s son.
‘Wealth. Power. And to please the Turks.’ The prince shrugged. ‘Please — drink wine, dance, and if you can manage it, fornicate. These things will make you happier than listening to me.’
‘Would anything convince you to let your fleet cooperate with ours?’ Swan asked.
Dorino laughed. ‘Perhaps to save something from the wreckage — if I believed anything could be saved. My dear boy — this is the end. My world is ending whether I live or die. Christendom has failed.’
Dorino made Swan angry. Swan had few scruples of his own, but he didn’t preach defeatism and he couldn’t imagine that this rich man wouldn’t fight. ‘Why not fight because it is the right thing to do?’
Prince Dorino smiled. Shook his head. ‘Is it?’ he asked. ‘The Turks may be better men. Their government — even their religion — may be better.’
Swan met his eye. ‘Have you ever thought,’ he asked, playing his card as carefully as he could, ‘that there is a traitor, selling Christendom to the Turks?’
‘I think it often,’ Prince Dorino said.
Swan leaned forward. ‘Can you imagine who would do such a thing? Betray Christians to the Turk?’
Dorino laughed his high-pitched, woman’s laugh.
‘I don’t have to imagine. Through my correspondence I have traced three of them who sell us to the Turk every day! The Doge of Venice, the director of the Casa Saint Giorgio in Genoa, and the Pope. Traitors. Every one.’ Dorino made a moue. ‘That’s not who you are after. Eh?’
Swan shook his head. ‘I take your meaning.’
Prince Dorino laughed without mirth. ‘Yes — I think there is a traitor.’ He shrugged. ‘Whether he does more damage then the Pope …’
‘My cousin is a notorious atheist,’ Theodora said. She took the prince’s arm. She was wearing a double-folded chiton — nearly transparent linen, beautifully arranged, and two layers thick, so that sometimes, when she moved, it was modest, and other movements seemed to disclose …
Her skin really was the colour of amber and looked as if it was hot to the touch. Her lips were coral, and her eyes the same peculiar green, and for all her perfection of figure she had immense dignity. When she spoke, she spoke with the effect of careful deliberation.
Swan found that his mouth was hanging open.
‘I would send my fleet to sea to fight for this woman,’ Prince Dorino said. ‘The Sultan wants her.’
‘He has so many Greek ladies in his harem now — what is one more?’ she asked.
Swan clamped down on his intention to flatter. ‘Perhaps he is a collector,’ he said, instead.
Prince Dorino nodded. ‘That is well said,’ he murmured. ‘The young prince here was a great hero at Rhodos, one gathers.’
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.