Christian Cameron [Tom Swan a Venice (v5.0) (epub)

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.And at last, when Solomon tried a great leap forward, and Swan had to drop his sword to avoid spitting his student, there was the sound of one pair of hands applauding from the end of the garden.Balthazar stood there dressed, not as a Jew, but as a gentleman, in a short cloak.And wearing a sword.He bowed, gloves on heart.‘My thanks for sparing my son,’ he said.That marked the end of the afternoon.Solomon embraced him.‘I told Father you’d do it,’ he said.‘That was.amazing.Promise me we’ll do it again?’Swan smiled.‘I wish all my friends were so easily satisfied.’In the gateway, Balthazar held out a purse.‘I hope that this is enough,’ he said.Swan shook his head.‘You must be.messire, I did that for friendship.’The Jew looked as if he’d been struck.He stepped back.Swan shook his head.‘Damn it, I mean no offence!’There was a long pause – too long.Then the other man stepped forward again.‘My package is at your lodging,’ he said.‘I hope that all goes well for you in Constantinople.Your Orsini problem is – hmmm.Very close to you.’ He bowed.‘I am.honoured that you have chosen to befriend my son.’ He turned in a swirl of his cloak and vanished into the ghetto.Swan walked carefully down to the wharf, but he didn’t see Black Doublet or anyone else he recognised.It was dark by the time his boat left him at the entrance to the canal nearest his lodging.He knew the old whore who stood under the overhang of the last warehouse by the water.It was her turf – possibly her home.She had hennaed red hair and white face paint two days old, and was possibly as old as forty.He bowed.She nodded.‘There’s a man,’ she whispered.His shoulders tensed, and ice ran down his back.Your Orsini are very close, Balthazar had said.‘Ah, Madonna, not tonight,’ he said with a bow, and put a silver coin in her hand.‘By the church,’ she said.‘Joanna said to tell you.’He walked on.He felt as if he was being watched – felt naked.And the darkness seemed to hide a legion of enemies.At the next cross-alley, he turned and walked north, jumping over a dead dog and a steaming pile of fresh human excrement just dropped from a chamber pot.The alley was so narrow that his hips brushed buildings on both sides, and he was completely blind for seconds at a time.If they took him here.He emerged in the tiny square behind the church – the nearest building had a triangular floor plan because of the limitations of the two alleys, merging, and the square itself was only six paces across – the width of the small church of St Peter, the neighbourhood shrine.He stayed in the shadows by the triangular building.He could hear voices.Men on the edge of violence have a sound to them.The sound alerted him.He stood listening, indecisive.Make for the inn where he lodged? But if they were assassins, they might come in and kill him – and Niccolo and Joanna.Here in the darkness, he had an element of surprise.And a sword.And room to use it.He drew his sword and laid the scabbard carefully on a garden wall where he could reclaim it if he lived.Then he moved cautiously.Because he’d gone out to give a fencing lesson, he had on light leather shoes, like dance shoes, and he blessed them.He was silent.He moved to the corner.He could see one man at the church corner.That man was leaning forward to talk quietly to another, whose voice came back hollowly, echoed by the next alley.He stood at the corner and listened.The man closest to him said something.The voice floated back.‘I said, maybe he stayed with his Jews.Do you think he’s one of them? Some sort of sorcerer?’The disembodied voice came back.‘Fuck your mother!’ said the man closest to him, and Swan started across the square.He had to be sure, so he caught his sword with his left hand at the midpoint – mezza spada – and ran light footed in on his opponent, who had leaned into the alley.‘What?’ he said.Swan used his sword the way a workman might use a pick.His sword-point rammed right thought the back of his skull, killing the man instantly.He fell, and his fall seemed very loud to Swan, who froze.It must have actually been loud, because he saw a shadow move at the far end of the alley.And then the man was on him.Swan retreated in a single leap – to get more light and more room to swing a sword.He was shocked at the man charging him, but only as shocked as the assassin was himself, to find himself facing a sword an ell long with a dagger.Now he stepped back into his alley.Something in his stance gave Swan an instant of warning.There was the scrape of leather on a cobblestone.A third man.Swan whirled and cut – on instinct.He missed, but the new assailant sprang back.With two men coming at him from widely divergent angles, Swan knew he had to attack one.The new man was closer.Swan cut back up the same line he’d cut down.He dropped his cloak, keeping hold of one of the bucklers inside.He stepped forward with his left foot and punched with the buckler, and caught the man’s dagger more by luck than skill, and his counter-cut took the man high on the dagger arm.He screamed.Swan punched him in the head with his buckler and the man crumpled, and Swan pivoted as Alessandro had taught him, on his hips, and got his buckler up.The third man stood for the count of three.And then he turned and ran.Swan let him go.Running through Venetian alleys in the dark seemed like a sure way to die – or merely ruin his clothes.He reached down and the man at his feet stabbed at him and he caught the stab on his arm.The buckler took some impact, but the man’s knife scored into the meat of his bicep, and the pain enraged him, and he cut viciously at the man with his sword – not once but three times.Then he shook his head and cursed himself for a fool.And then he took their purses.Searched their clothes.No one had called the watch – one scream and one clash of blades wasn’t enough to upset most Venetians.He picked up the first one and carried him a block, to the canal.And dropped him in.Walked back, picked up the second, and repeated the exercise.When he was done, his hands didn’t stop shaking.He almost couldn’t walk.There were two torches burning outside the inn, and if another man had tried to kill him, he’d have died.He didn’t take any precautions, but walked up to the door.Only when he saw Joanna did he fully appreciate how foolish he’d been.She looked around – Cesare and a group of other men were playing dice.‘Come!’ she muttered fiercely.She dragged him into the kitchen.Then ran back and closed the front door.He sat on a settle by the fire and wondered if he would throw up [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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