Tom Swan and the Head of St George Part One: Castillon Read Online Free PDF Page A

desk and the cardinal rode to his place at the front of the column.
    The boots were very good – thigh high, goatskin, waxed to a deep black. ‘My spares, and my second-best sword,’ the Italian said. ‘I don’t trust you, but I think I might have to like you. So let me be honest. If you don’t come back, I love these boots, which means I will find you and kill you for wasting my time. If you do come back, I will lend you both sword and boots until we get to Paris.’ He smiled. It was the first real smile Swan had received from the mercenary. ‘Do we understand each other?’
    Swan reached out and took the boots and the sword – a damned good sword, he was pleased to see. Then he held out his hand. ‘I understand you – perfectly,’ he said.
    Alessandro nodded. ‘I thought you might,’ he said, and rode away.
    Tilda watched him go. ‘What was that about?’ she asked.
    Swan gave her a lop-sided smile. ‘He thinks I may be a rogue,’ he said.
    Tilda smiled. ‘He’s sharp.’ She swayed back and forth again. ‘I can make an hour – if you don’t have any other appointments.’
    Swan stretched. ‘I’m so tired, mistress. I feel as if I was up all night.’
    ‘Perhaps a nap would do you good,’ she said. ‘Will you come back and visit me?’
    He grinned. ‘Do you have a dozen of us, out there on the roads? Coming in rotation?’
    She shrugged. ‘And if I do?’
    He laughed. ‘It must be honesty day. Let’s play at napping.’ He took her hand. ‘Of course I’ll come back.’
    She rolled her eyes.
    An hour later, booted and wearing a sword and carrying a dirty but presentable pair of gloves that he’d picked up off a side-table in the abbey, he leaned against a pillar in the stable, eating another apple. The two notaries came out of the scriptorum.
    ‘Do you know how long it takes to write a formal letter between two Princes of the Church?’ Cesare said, disgustedly.
    ‘About an hour?’ Swan said. ‘Here, have an apple, messires.’
    Accudi caught his in the air, got a leg over his horse, and stretched. ‘I have a sword of my own, Messire Swan,’ he said.
    Swan shrugged. ‘Now I do, too,’ he said. The two notaries laughed.
    They left the abbey easily enough, trotting through the outskirts of the town, which was just filling with French soldiers pouring in from the south. Swan wasn’t particularly worried about being lynched on the spot, but he rode more freely once he was in the countryside to the north and east of the town and out from under the walls.
    At noon they stopped at a roadside shrine with the L’Isle river flowing at their feet and ate good sausage and bread with local soft cheese. Swan had a good leather bottle now, thanks to Tilda, and he shared it freely.
    ‘Your lady-friend provided the wine, eh?’ Cesare said.
    Swan smiled and didn’t answer. He was watching the hills. They weren’t steep, but they rose well above the valley.
    ‘You look . . . concerned,’ Giovanni said.
    Swan raised an eyebrow. ‘Something shiny and of steel was on that hillside,’ he said.
    After lunch they rode quickly. The notaries were, as usual, excellent company, and for more than an hour all conversation degenerated into Latin jokes, most of them bawdy.
    In a little hamlet of perhaps a hundred villagers, Swan asked the two lawyers to wait under the tree in the central square while he asked directions. He rode into a walled compound. He leaned down from the saddle in front of the stone house that seemed to function as the auberge.
    ‘Have you seen a convoy of wagons?’ he asked the man sitting on the bench.
    ‘Maybe, and maybe not,’ the man said. ‘Who are you?’
    Swan shook his head and made a face. ‘No one of any importance,’ he said. ‘But I wish to catch my master. How long ago did they pass?’
    ‘Before noon – hey! Give me a penny, master!’ The man was suddenly wheedling. He got up off his bench. ‘I told you what you wanted to know.’
    Swan shrugged. ‘I don’t