Swan had grown up in an inn. ‘Oh!’ he said, understanding. ‘Can you fence then?’
Violetta shrugged. ‘We’ll find out,’ she said.
Di Brachio was moved to the cardinal’s palazzo later that day. Swan had a word with the steward — a quiet word — about how he would feel if any harm came to the Venetian. Later that day, without any coordination, Giannis cornered the priest on much the same mission, as he reported, laughing, to Swan.
The Greeks desired to see Rome — Master Nikephorus from the standpoint of academic enquiry, and the others with the enthusiasm of visitors.
Two days later was one of Violetta’s days off, and he took her out with Di Brescia, Giannis, Irene and Andromache. The younger Apollinaris was in bed with a fever that didn’t promise well — Rome was notorious for such things — and Master Nikephorus was preparing to give a lecture on the head of St George and was practising his Latin and cursing all Franks.
‘You are all ignorant barbarians!’ he said to Swan, when Swan came to the suite allocated to the Greeks to collect his friends. The master was declaiming to an audience of two sleeping cats and three attractive young women.
‘The cardinal told him that his Latin pronunciation would be incomprehensible to the Italians,’ Irene said quietly.
‘I come from the city of New Rome, where the empire endured without change! Tribes of Goths and Lombards overran this worthless, ruined town while Constantinople had running water and a thousand poets and philosophers!’ The old man sputtered.
Giannis continued to watch the older scholar with something like worship, but Irene plucked at his kaftan. ‘Our Italians are going out — shopping,’ she said.
Irene and Violetta circled each other like swordsmen upon introduction. Irene threw back her head and Violetta stood taller and threw out her chest, and Swan had to fight the urge to laugh. It was cold in the cardinal’s garden and he realised that he had not thought this through well enough.
But half an hour of walking arm in arm with Irene and Andromache broke through Violetta’s reserve, and she became as animated as Swan had seen her, speaking her Milanese Italian quickly, laughing constantly, as she showed the two Greek girls the markets of Rome.
Swan’s errand was clothing, and he brought them to the used-clothing market.
Di Brescia laughed. ‘You are a Roman, now,’ he said.
Violetta was walking, cloaked, with a veil over her face, between two equally hidden Greek ladies. The clothing market was a masculine space — men changed their hose and codpieces at the tables — and there was some consternation.
The nearest girl — most tables were run by girls — turned to the veiled women. ‘You shouldn’t be here, and if you’re here on a wager, get lost. Not a place for nice girls, sweetie.’
Di Brescia bowed. ‘I will escort the demoiselles into the church,’ he said. ‘If you and Giannis wish to see to your sartorial splendours.’
All three veiled women were laughing as hard as women in veils could laugh with dignity as Di Brescia led them away across the square. Irene began to put on a show of offended modesty — she was, after all, an actress, thought Swan. Andromache and Violetta began to match her, and men in the market began to dress hurriedly, and to apologise under their breath. And curse.
The Englishman and the Greek went up an alley and found the shop — really a house with a table outside — where Swan had purchased his first suit. The old man laughed and took his hand.
‘By Saint Christopher, my boy — you are still alive! I must say I’m surprised.’
Swan opened the pilgrim’s scrip he’d carried through the whole walk and produced the suit of scarlet and the matching cloak. ‘Too small for me,’ he said ruefully.
The old man raised an eyebrow. ‘Yes — your shoulders are much bigger. And you are an inch taller. Well — I must say that you are the first customer to return this suit standing up,’ he said. ‘Look at this slash!’ he complained.
After some haggling and much poking through neatly piled clothes, Swan emerged with two good suits of brown wool; doublet, hose and gown all matching — almost clerical in their plainness, but the cloth was good and the stitching perfect.
‘A gentleman from the far north,’ the old man said, shaking his head. ‘Here one day, caught by footpads and killed. A pilgrim from Danemark.’
Swan also picked up a pair of silk hose, only slightly worn at the knees, and a not-quite-matching doublet in superb blue velvet with embroidery. It was the finest doublet he’d ever owned, and the knife-cut in the back went between the embroidered panels neatly and had been cunningly repaired. The bloodstain on the inside hadn’t reached the velvet.
‘I could have the lining unpicked and resewn if you’d rather,’ said the old man.
Giannis just rolled his eyes. He had a good leather jerkin, carefully tooled and sporting fine buttons like acorns, and he was uninterested in any colour beyond black.
The old man smiled. ‘Soldiers,’ he said. ‘Either they are popinjays, or they are not.’
The two young men dickered for what seemed an appropriate length of time and walked off, carrying their purchases. They retrieved their party from the Chapel of St Maurice. Then they walked down the perfumers’ street, and Swan gave way to impulse and purchased something exotic for Violetta, who smelled it and glowed at him. In the street of glovers he bought gloves — plain chamois, from Austria, for fighting, and another pair for her.
The three men spent money at a remarkable rate, in fact, and drew a small crowd of beggars and worse. In the street of swordsmiths, while Swan ordered Di Brachio’s war sword dismounted and a new blade added, the commotion around the Greeks became bad enough that four men in city colours came with truncheons and began beating the beggars away.
The smith’s apprentice shook his head. ‘Everyone knows the old Pope is dying,’ he said. ‘The nothings are getting ready to riot.’
Swan collected a pair of training swords — light arming swords with no edges — and emptied his purse on the counter.
They crossed the forum carefully. Because Swan was watching the beggars, he caught sight of the red and yellow of the Orsini well to the north, and Di Brescia led them south, down the ancient steps and across the palazzo.
‘Surely they are not after us,’ Giannis said.
Swan wrinkled his nose as if he’d smelled something bad — his most Italianate habit. ‘We spent too much money and made too much noise,’ he said.
South of the forum, they seemed to be alone. They approached a tavern owner — winter was off season for pilgrims — rented his courtyard and two tables, and sat comfortably, with jugs of hot wine, in the winter sun. The landlord served them hare and a spicy sausage dish.
Swan put two gold francs into the landlord’s hand. ‘I wish the courtyard to have no prying eyes. Yes?’
The innkeeper leered. ‘None at all!’ he said.
If he had a peephole, he was doomed to disappointment, unless he fancied watching three women and three men exchange the very rudiments of swordsmanship. If Swan had imagined that he would be the teacher, he quickly discovered that both Di Brescia and Giannis had as much — or more — to contribute. Giannis was soon the voice of instruction. He had experience training soldiers, and that experience was more valuable than Swan’s youthful passion or Di Brescia’s tempered training.
The whole might have been riotous, or salacious — perhaps both together — except that the three women were so very serious.
Irene was merely annoyed when a slap to her knuckles from Di Brescia’s sword drew blood. Violetta took a cut to her right calf that caused her to hobble in the cold air, and made her angry. Andromache avoided injury but was patently afraid of the weapons and yet as eager to learn.
They played in the courtyard until the light left the sky, by which time all three women could adequately hold a sword, slap an attack away, and respond — too slowly — with a counter. The men finished with some bouts, and except for one heart-stopping moment when Di Brescia’s new right leg lunge almost resulted in Swan taking a blade through his eye, the fighting was pretty and safe.