Tom Swan and the Head of St. George Part Six: Chios Read Free

the ridge, and one of the men-at-arms – yet another Giannis – grinned and told Swan it was called Mount Olympos. Behind him, most of the Turkish fleet was rowing on the calm sea towards Chios, and he could see their vanguard in a narrow crescent followed by the main body.
    He’d had time to make a fair copy of the spy’s report and to receive Tommaso’s promise that, regardless of the outcome of his mission, the report would find its way to Cardinal Bessarion. He had time to read the small parchment slip from Theodora, which said, in neat Latin, that she looked forward to their next meeting.
    He’d also experienced a frisson of fear – and excitement – to find that one of the Turkish galleys was called The ship of the sister of Turahanoglu Omar Reis, benefactor of the poor. It had taken him long minutes to pick the Turkish out of the Greek letters, but when he had it …
    He watched the Turkish fleet as if Auntie might come on deck and wave.
    Swan’s easy Greek and charm made him many friends among the Stradiotes, and they were a cheerful party over the hills to Kalloni. They camped in a grove of enormous pines and firs that seemed to touch the stars above them, and the next morning Swan arose to sage tea and fresh pork cutlets purchased from a peasant. He curried his horse in the dawn and wondered why anyone would ever live anywhere but Greece.
    ‘What is it like – Scotland?’ asked Zambale.
    Swan laughed. ‘I’ve never been there,’ he said.
    ‘But it is part of England?’ the Lord of Eressos asked.
    Swan put his curry back in his saddle pack and shook his head. ‘Is Constantinople Turkish?’ he asked. ‘The Scots and the English are not friends. They merely occupy parts of the same island.’
    Zambale laughed. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘This is what my father said. And yet – all his friends were English. He said that, out here, none of it mattered.’
    Swan laughed too. ‘Perhaps in England, Greeks and Turks are friends,’ he said. ‘They would both miss the sun.’
    Zambale was not amused.
    The Lord of Eressos’s mood improved as they descended from the forests of the mountains to the plain of Kalloni. Seen from one of the last turns of the road, the bay was laid out like a rich man’s swimming pool in Italy – a perfect, azure blue, shaped like an enormous teardrop.
    ‘You like everything old,’ Hector Zambale said.
    Swan nodded, drinking in the view. ‘I do,’ he admitted.
    ‘There are a pair of temples here that men say are among the finest in the world,’ Hector said. ‘They are certainly the finest on Lesvos.’
    Swan sighed. He had begun to wonder whether life with the Order of St John was to be his bane. Once upon a time, he’d have ridden down to see the ruins – aye, and then found a ship for Italy.
    Even as it was, a niggling little voice told him that he’d done his duty, in the main. He had no need to linger for a losing war. He had solid evidence of the traitor. Perhaps proof.
    Except that, somewhere in the night watches, a sense of duty – a sense of belonging to the order – had crept up on him. It was not that he believed in the ideal of crusade, or had had a sudden conversion. Merely that he couldn’t bear to disappoint – or desert – men like Fra Tommaso. Or Fra Domenico. They trusted him.
    He sighed again. ‘Let’s get to Chios,’ he said. ‘If we make it back here alive, I would like nothing better than to see your temples.’
    Zambale nodded.
    Kalloni proper was a small town built on the ruins of a city, and Swan gawked like a country boy in the big city until Zambale’s men had hired them a fishing boat. They caught the evening breeze out of the bay, the big lateen, as big as the rest of the boat, moving them swiftly over the dark blue water. They left Prince Dorino’s fleet behind them, securely beached. One pair of military galleys were rowing guard far out in the bay, which was itself like a small, calm sea.
    Swan fell asleep, but he awoke as soon