Tom Swan and the Head of St. George Part Six: Chios Read Online Free PDF Page A

Mustafa was gone, Drappierro came and sat by the bars of Swan’s cell. ‘Where is the ring?’ he asked abruptly.
    Swan was ready. From the moment he saw Drappierro, he had decided that it was all about the ring – that Drappierro’s lust for antiquities was such that it was the lever that could move him. The question reinforced his guess.
    ‘I have it,’ Swan said.
    Drappierro leapt to his feet. ‘Give it to me!’ he said.
    Swan laughed. It sounded a little forced, to him – not his best bluff. He was, in truth, completely terrified.
    ‘You don’t think I’d have it here?’ he said.
    Drappierro glared at him. ‘God knows you have had plenty of opportunity to get it,’ he said. ‘I’ve been waiting for you to bring it to me.’
    Swan sat down. ‘It is in Mytilini,’ he said.
    ‘Where?’ Drappierro asked. ‘I have people there – I’ll have it fetched.’
    ‘And you’ll sell me to Auntie,’ Swan replied.
    Drappierro leaned closer. ‘My dear boy,’ he said. ‘I don’t need to sell you to Auntie – although I doubt anyone’s ever called her that in the course of her illustrious life. Do you know why she is here? It is curiously apropos. Hamza Beg is the commander of this fleet – but the command should have been Omar Reis’s. He sails in the second rank – but his sister is here for the Sultan. She is Mehmed’s eye. Hamza Beg has failed at Rhodos and failed at Kos and now, if he hesitates here, Master Swan, she will be rid of him and her brother will be the most powerful soldier in the empire. Those are Turkish politics. Omar Reis is my friend. Not yours, I think. You may trust him to kill you in a most imaginative way if he catches you. Imagine your death throes while you chew on your severed penis. One of a hundred hideous humiliations that the fertile mind of the Moslem has concocted.’ Drappierro allowed himself the flicker of a smile.
    ‘I’m pretty sure they do the same in Florence,’ Swan said, just to swallow his terror. ‘And the Allied fleet will come—’
    Drappierro sat up angrily. ‘What a foolish lie,’ he said. ‘The Genoese Grand Fleet is long gone. You know how I know? I ordered them myself.’ He looked at Swan and shook his head, as if disappointed. ‘Listen, Master Swan. You are a promising young man. You seem to have real taste and you seem to have a ready wit. I need you – in fact, I need a dozen like you. I intend to run most of the Mediterranean over the next decade.’ His smile flickered again. ‘This is a very difficult game, and I don’t expect you know a third of it. So please, leave the thinking to me.’
    ‘Planning to overthrow the Grand Turk?’ Swan asked.
    Drappierro smiled gently. ‘No, my dear. Much the opposite. Don’t you think that Christianity – inasmuch as there ever was an organised Christianity – is done? The Turks are the new power, and they will rein supreme. The fall of Constantinople signals the new era.’ He spread his hands. ‘You think me a traitor? The traitors are those who want to provoke a bloodbath that we cannot win. Or take another view – the traitors are the kings of England, Scotland, France, Castile and the Emperor, who will not leave their squabbles to make a real effort to defeat the Turk. Even if they did, I expect they’d fail. But they won’t even try. The West is done.’ He smiled again. ‘Don’t you think?’
    Swan thought that he had a point. But he also thought that he sounded like an insufferable prick busy convincing himself.
    Swan – ever a man for the main chance – was puzzled to find that he couldn’t stomach this, of all treasons. What an odd cause to choose for dying , he thought.
    He cringed at the image of a tortured death.
    ‘I have the ring,’ he said.
    Drappierro shocked him. ‘Then I’ll send you for it, of course,’ the Genoese ambassador said. ‘And that surprises you. Really, my boy, you must school your face better than that.’ Drappierro stood up. ‘Be back in four