Free Tom Swan and the Head of St. George Part Six: Chios by Christian Cameron

answered our prayers.’ The bishop nodded and then grinned like a much younger and less dignified man.
    Swan’s joy was tinged with anxiety for the young Lord of Eressos. ‘My particular friend Zambale …’
    The bishop shook his head. ‘Why hold him, when the Turks are leaving? He was only taken up at the behest of that detestable apostate Drappierro.’ He shrugged. ‘There is half the Mahona. Let us go and address them.’
    The bishop paused in his own yard only long enough for servants to drape the correct robe and place the correct mitre on his head – which they did as he walked through them. Swan received a scarlet surcoat – close inspection showed the white cross to have been hastily added to a churchman’s garment, but Swan was transformed from looking like an armed servant to a soldier-prince of the Church.
    The bishop gathered a dozen retainers – men-at-arms and priests – and swept out of his gates into the square.
    In the square, a crowd had gathered. There were twenty fully armoured men on horseback, and the captain of the town continued to argue with the Mahonesi, the face inside his armet red with exertion – and wrath.
    But the appearance of the bishop – brilliant in his Easter robes, with a retinue behind him – silenced the square. The captain, a mercenary, knelt before the bishop and kissed his ring.
    The president of the Mahona fiddled with his black cap nervously.
    Then his eyes flickered over Swan and froze.
    Swan offered him the smile that the lion has for the gazelle.
    ‘In the aftermath of such a brilliant stroke, surely we should be thanking God,’ said the bishop.
    The captain bowed. ‘What we should be doing is attacking their rearguard and stinging the bastards so that they think twice about coming back.’ He looked at the president. ‘What we are doing is – nothing .’
    ‘More violence may only force the Turk into greater efforts!’ the president said. But he was looking at Swan, and sweating.
    Swan didn’t push past the bishop. Life at his father’s episcopal court – and at Hampton and with Bessarion – had taught him a great deal about patience. And revenge.
    Instead of acting prematurely, he watched the bishop. The man was almost a head taller than the president, and looked more like a man-at-arms than some of the men-at-arms. He spread his arms and gave an invocation, and then all the people in the square knelt and said three prayers.
    And then the bishop glanced at Swan.
    Swan stepped forward past the bishop, and placed himself in front of the president.
    ‘You have misplayed your hand, you know,’ Swan said pleasantly. ‘The Turks are beaten and they will run. They know the Allied fleet is on the way.’
    ‘There is no Allied fleet!’ the terrified man hissed.
    Swan, who knew perfectly well that there was no Allied fleet, kept his composure. ‘You can’t imagine that the Turks are running from nothing?’ He smiled. ‘I call on you to release this sortie, to wreak the havoc on the infidel that is your duty – your duty!’ Swan bowed. ‘And please, release my friend the Lord of Eressos immediately.’ Swan leaned over and spoke very quietly. ‘I have your correspondence with Drappierro.’
    Swan had also learned, in gutters and palaces, that sometimes a really big lie is better than any amount of truth.
    The president turned a chalky white.
    He stepped back as if struck – and raised a hand. But he was not utterly without cunning. ‘You will ride with the sortie, sir?' he said, his voice already rich with unction. ‘A man as full of knightly virtue as you!’
    Swan laughed. He had laughed more in the last six hours …
    ‘I will ride with the sortie, unarmoured. I will go unto the battle front like Uriah, but I will not be touched.’ He grinned like a maniac at the president of the Mahona. And held up his left hand, where a brilliantly carved diamond glittered. ‘Because I am invincible,’ he said.
    He bowed to the bishop, and one of the