Free Tom Swan and the Head of St. George Part Five: Rhodes by Christian Cameron Page B

springing eternal. The word ‘palace’ alone offered more hope than anything he’d heard since Alexandria.
    ‘I want the hulls to dry,’ Fra Domenico said. He was looking at Asia across the strait – only a few leagues wide. ‘Faster ships take more prizes.’
    Fra Tommaso took Swan’s hand. ‘Listen. We are men of God – you are a volunteer. So we will send you to this festivity tomorrow. As our representative. Yes? And you will not do the order any dishonour. Hmm?’
    Swan sighed.
    They climbed a few more steps and the deck officers squeezed by them, pausing to embrace the old knight, who blessed each of them. And then the door opened, and Swan could smell incense.
    ‘Come on,’ Fra Tommaso said, starting down steep steps into the dark interior.
    Swan got one step down before he froze.
    He felt the man’s neck go just as he pounded the blade into his skull. The skull cracked like an egg and then the whole head collapsed under his weight. Then he felt himself repeat the blow, even though he knew the man had to be dead.
    He tried to rise off the new corpse, but his leg failed him and he sank back – now kneeling on both knees.
    He was kneeling on cold stone. Someone was trying to pull him, and he got his arm around the man’s neck and jerked him off balance …
    ‘It’s me! Christ on the cross, are ye wode!’ shouted Peter in his ear.
    Fra Domenico caught Peter and pushed him away. ‘He’s fighting under the city! On Rhodos! Let him be!’ Hands seized Swan around the waist and turned him – so that he could see stars, and the shocked faces of the timoneer and the man carrying his trunk.
    He took a shuddering breath.
    Fra Domenico turned his head. ‘Smell the incense, my son. See the candles and feel God’s holy presence. There is nothing here for you to fear. This is a holy place.’ His voice was very gentle – very calm. And it ran on, and on.
    Swan found that he was … himself. Except that his hands were shaking so hard that he could not hold the railing for the stairs.
    ‘Take him back into the air,’ Tommaso said.
    Swan closed his eyes and swallowed bile. ‘No,’ he gasped. ‘I’ll go down.’
    He made a foot reach down, and then another, and then another. It seemed like a hundred steps down into the earth, and he could feel the weight of the tons of rock over his head, a palpable force pressing down on him. He was sweating as if he were fighting in armour.
    But he made it to the sandy floor of the cave. And the cave wasn’t dark at all. It was lit by a hundred candles, and the smell of incense drowned the smell of blood that stuck in his nose the way dog shit can stick to your throat.
    The priest was Greek. But for once, that didn’t seem to matter. He smiled, said a few words, and gave the two knights communion. They knelt to take it and muttered Latin invocations.
    Despite his spinning head – as much to control it as anything – Swan took the bread and murmured, ‘πατήρ μου δίδωσιν ὑμῖν τὸν ἄρτον ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ.’
    The priest raised a clerical eyebrow. And gave the host to Peter.
    A hundred heartbeats later, he was out under the stars with the two knights. He took in great gasps if air as if he’d been unable to breathe.
    ‘You’ll want to bathe before we go to the palace,’ Fra Domenico said, more kindly than Swan had ever seen him. The man’s ring glittered with an inner light as he gestured. ‘There’s a bath just there, where the street rises in front of the gates. Hurry.’
    Swan was beginning to get his bearings. ‘How ancient was that … chapel?’
    Tommaso shrugged. ‘From pagan times, no doubt – but no less holy for that.’
    Fra Domenico shook his head. ‘No – our young hero is smitten by the ancient world. Aren’t you, lad? Nymphs and satyrs and priestesses.’
    ‘I should like to see the temples at Kalloni.’ For the first time in two weeks, he thought of Cardinal Bessarion. ‘And my master, Cardinal