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

days, or I’ll kill Zambale. If you aren’t back in a week I’ll send word to have your so-called wife murdered. It won’t be pretty, even if she is a whore who opens and shuts to order – understand me, Master Swan? You have palpable hostages to fortune and I can strike at them all. Even your friends in Rome. Messire Di Brachio is recovering – did you know that? Are you two lovers?’
    Swan was shaking.
    Drappierro lowered his voice. ‘Really, Master Swan. Do not be a fool. If you return with the ring, I can arrange your escape. From Auntie and from Omar Reis. Neither cares so very much, eh? Bring me the ring, and I will be your friend. Need I say more?’
    Swan took a steadying breath and wished he were Zambale. ‘I need more than four days,’ he said. ‘The knights won’t let me go so easily.’
    ‘Oh, but they will. I thought you were so intelligent,’ Drappierro said lazily. ‘And by the way, you have just betrayed that the other boy’s life matters to you.’ He made a head motion, barely distinguishable. ‘Very well. Seven days. And then I send for both of them to die.’
    Swan couldn’t help himself. ‘I could leave Zambale to die and beat your messenger to my wife,’ he said.
    Drappierro nodded. ‘You could,’ he said. He smiled with a smugness that was impossible not to hate. ‘But you won’t.’
    Utterly in charge of the situation and everything around him, Messire Drappierro rose, and gave Swan a civil bow. ‘I’ll see you in a week, then,’ he said. He walked out through the open oak doors. He looked back and paused. ‘I own … a great deal of Mytilini. And most of the people in it. Don’t imagine you can deceive me. I’ll be watching through other eyes. Eyes that, if you stand with me, you can help me to command.’ He smiled. ‘I don’t want you to make a mistake and try to resist because you hate me, Master Swan. That wastes my time and your life.’ He nodded. ‘Get the ring. Nothing else matters.’
    Swan let out a breath and realised he’d been holding it a long time. Drappiero’s footsteps rang on the stone, and then the man was gone.
    Swan didn’t think he’d ever hated anyone so much in his entire life.
    Moments later, armoured men came and unlocked his cell. ‘You are free to go,’ one said in Burgundian French.
    Swan received his sword and his purse – empty – and was escorted to the port, where the same fishing boat was waiting, surrounded by soldiers.
    They sailed out unmolested, in a way that suggested that every Turkish ship knew exactly who they were.
    Giorgios, the fisherman, spat angrily over the side. ‘Maybe death would have been better,’ he said. ‘I have smuggled on these coasts for twenty years, and now every man in Chios and all the Turks have me marked.’
    Swan was trying to feel free and breathe easily, but he watched every glance from the fishermen and wondered which one of them was in Drappierro’s pay.
    It took them less than a day to sail back to Kalloni, and Swan lost precious hours dickering with a Kalloni bureaucrat for the loan of a horse. He signed a document he didn’t read, in the name of the Sovereign Order, used the Lord of Eressos’s name as often as he dared, and finally rode a small horse – but a good one – up over the ridges towards Mytilini. He alternated canters and walks, and every hour he walked beside the horse.
    He lost the road with Mount Olympos visible against the moon and stars, and wound up in a deep valley with a Roman aqueduct. He spent half the night sorting out this error and reached the road by a farm track just after dawn. He was exhausted and angry, and he crested the great ridge above Mytilini only to find two bearded men with halberds blocking his way.
    ‘All your money, and the horse and the boots, my lord,’ said the nearer man. He grinned.
    His brother – the resemblance was plain – grinned too.
    A twitch in the gloom, and Swan saw a third man with a heavy crossbow, fully spanned.
    Swan had