Free Tom Swan and the Head of St George Part One: Castillon by Christian Cameron Page B

bother to hide his laugh. ‘They must be worth . . . a thousand florins? Maybe a thousand ducats .’
    Swan shifted nervously. ‘Maybe,’ he said. He was becoming tired of getting caught. The adult world was much more complex that then world of pages.
    Peter sat back. ‘So – maybe I’d like to stay with you. If you’ll have me.’ He grinned. ‘And maybe if the pay is good.’ Ant maybe iff te paiy iis gut .
    Swan couldn’t believe what he was hearing. ‘Are you kidding?’
    Peter shook his head. ‘No. I think maybe it is time to settle down.’ He nodded. ‘The war is over. That’s what they say in Paris. England has lost everything – except Calais. I could go home to Antwerp – and what? Full cloth?’ He smiled. ‘I’ll go to Rome. Pray in St Peter’s. If you and I don’t get along so well – then I’ll come home.’
    ‘That’s . . . excellent!’ Swan smiled, and they clasped hands like soldiers. ‘Peter, you really are . . . I mean – thanks!’
    ‘Who knows?’ Peter said. ‘In time, perhaps I learn to be a servant.’ He got up. ‘By the way, don’t try and sell the ivory until we are on the road south. Avignon ought to be good.’ He leaned past his master. ‘I have a gift for you. For saving my life.’
    Swan laughed. ‘You don’t owe me a thing.’
    ‘It is not much of a life, but the only one I haf,’ Peter said. ‘Here. Don’t wear it until Avignon.’ He opened the linen stocking that held his bow and took out the count’s sword.
    Swan took it. It was a fine weapon – a single sword, a riding sword. The cross-hilt was plain steel, but it had the two finger rings of the new style, and a pair of deep fullers running down the double-edged blade. It was longer than Alessandro’s borrowed sword, and heavier in the hilt, differently balanced, with a complex ricasso. The blade was virtually unnicked.
    ‘A fine piece of steel. Eastern, I think. Bohemia, perhaps.’ Peter looked it over. ‘I almost kept it for myself.’ He shrugged. ‘I watched you. You are very fast.’
    Swan nodded. ‘Thanks.’
    ‘You’ve had some training, yes?’ Peter asked.
    Even in the close confines of the nun’s cell, Swan was thrusting and cutting. Peter pretended to cower. ‘Careful, master,’ he whined.
    Swan laughed.
    ‘But you could be much better,’ the Fleming continued.
    Swan stopped. ‘Really?’ he said, not entirely pleased. He imagined himself a good blade.
    ‘Watch Alessandro some time when his ankle is healed,’ Peter said. ‘Perhaps in Rome we can take lessons.’
    ‘We?’ Swan asked. He grinned.
    ‘We,’ Peter said.
    Once again, they shook.
    They rode hard out of Paris once the cardinal had settled his debts. They had no wagons and only four servants, the lawyers and the soldiers. They made twenty leagues a day, and if the servants complained, the soldiers enjoyed the pace.
    Peter had assumed they’d stop in Avignon for a week, but they didn’t come close to the formal papal city. Instead they went east into the mountains, crossing Savoy. Leaving Turin, Swan buckled on the count’s sword for the first time. They were a mile on the road before Alessandro saw it. He frowned at Swan, who nodded.
    ‘Peter picked it up,’ he said. ‘I never wore it before today.’
    Alessandro frowned, but later in the day he rode up and smiled. ‘I’m used to getting my way all the time,’ he said. ‘It is still a risk. A fine sword. Let me see.’
    Swan watched him roll the weapon around with his wrist – moulinetto , stramazone . He knew those Italian terms from his own Italian master. ‘Beautiful,’ he said. ‘As good as my own.’
    ‘Here’s your spare back,’ Swan said, suiting action to words.
    Alessandro accepted his blade. ‘What about my nice boots?’ he asked.
    ‘I need to earn some money to buy my own.’
    ‘I think they’re about the same value as my life, which, I think, perhaps, you saved.’ Alessandro nodded. ‘So keep them.’
    ‘I don’t know. They