Tom Swan and the Head of St. George Part Four: Rome by Christian Cameron Page A

had washed in a basin of steaming hot water. Now it was dark red and very cold. The washing had very quickly escalated. Even now his loins stirred.
    He walked along the corridor in the growing light and found her behind him, muffled in a massive over-robe of familiar-looking English wool.
    He found himself holding her hand.
    Violetta’s odd and beautiful eyes met his. ‘I like you,’ she said quickly, and kissed him on the corner of the mouth. Considering how widely both of their mouths had travelled, it was curious how intimate this little gesture was.
    They walked into the receiving room. Di Brachio was in bed. He had Master Claudio on one side of him, and Madame Lucrescia herself on the other. He was breathing.
    They tiptoed out again.
    In bed, their warmth had not dissipated, and they lay together, just being warm, for long enough that hands began to wander.
    Eventually, Swan rolled off her and pushed the hair out of her eyes. ‘When do the bailiffs come to throw me out? And when is the fencing lesson?’
    She laughed. ‘I have days off,’ she said. ‘One a week, or six a month when my courses run.’
    Swan had grown up in an inn. ‘Oh!’ he said, understanding. ‘Can you fence then?’
    Violetta shrugged. ‘We’ll find out,’ she said.
    Di Brachio was moved to the cardinal’s palazzo later that day. Swan had a word with the steward – a quiet word – about how he would feel if any harm came to the Venetian. Later that day, without any coordination, Giannis cornered the priest on much the same mission, as he reported, laughing, to Swan.
    The Greeks desired to see Rome – Master Nikephorus from the standpoint of academic enquiry, and the others with the enthusiasm of visitors.
    Two days later was one of Violetta’s days off, and he took her out with Di Brescia, Giannis, Irene and Andromache. The younger Apollinaris was in bed with a fever that didn’t promise well – Rome was notorious for such things – and Master Nikephorus was preparing to give a lecture on the head of St George and was practising his Latin and cursing all Franks.
    ‘You are all ignorant barbarians!’ he said to Swan, when Swan came to the suite allocated to the Greeks to collect his friends. The master was declaiming to an audience of two sleeping cats and three attractive young women.
    ‘The cardinal told him that his Latin pronunciation would be incomprehensible to the Italians,’ Irene said quietly.
    ‘I come from the city of New Rome, where the empire endured without change! Tribes of Goths and Lombards overran this worthless, ruined town while Constantinople had running water and a thousand poets and philosophers!’ The old man sputtered.
    Giannis continued to watch the older scholar with something like worship, but Irene plucked at his kaftan. ‘Our Italians are going out – shopping,’ she said.
    Irene and Violetta circled each other like swordsmen upon introduction. Irene threw back her head and Violetta stood taller and threw out her chest, and Swan had to fight the urge to laugh. It was cold in the cardinal’s garden and he realised that he had not thought this through well enough.
    But half an hour of walking arm in arm with Irene and Andromache broke through Violetta’s reserve, and she became as animated as Swan had seen her, speaking her Milanese Italian quickly, laughing constantly, as she showed the two Greek girls the markets of Rome.
    Swan’s errand was clothing, and he brought them to the used-clothing market.
    Di Brescia laughed. ‘You are a Roman, now,’ he said.
    Violetta was walking, cloaked, with a veil over her face, between two equally hidden Greek ladies. The clothing market was a masculine space – men changed their hose and codpieces at the tables – and there was some consternation.
    The nearest girl – most tables were run by girls – turned to the veiled women. ‘You shouldn’t be here, and if you’re here on a wager, get lost. Not a place for nice girls, sweetie.’
    Di Brescia