Tom Swan and the Head of St George Part Three: Constantinople by Christian Cameron

face.
    Swan smiled back. It wasn’t the wisest choice, but Swan couldn’t stop the smile.
    It became a grin.
    Omar Reis’s smile faltered.
    The introductory oration ran to its final stanzas – in Persian.
    ‘That’s my bit,’ said Cesare.
    At the poety, Mehmet sat forward.
    The bishop, who had been toying with his magnificent crystal crozier, suddenly looked up.
    Mehmet smiled. He leaned over and whispered something to the Florentine, who nodded and walked across the hall to the embassy, even as the chamberlain answered the embassy and the translator began to say:
    ‘The Sultan is delighted to accept the plaudits of his cousin, the Pope . . .’
    The Turkish answer ground on – a little more pointed than the papal oration, in that it suggested that Christians had always been the aggressors and Islam, and Allah’s servant Mehmet and his father Murad, were but innocent servants of Allah’s will.
    The Florentine stopped and bowed. ‘The Sultan wishes to know who among the embassy composed the poem at the end?’
    Before he could be stopped, Cesare bowed. ‘I had that honour.’
    ‘You write in Persian?’ asked the Florentine.
    ‘I write in Latin. I found a translator.’ He bowed.
    The Florentine returned his bow.
    The Pope’s gift was a bridle – a magnificent piece of horse tack, decorated in gold, with medallions of the finest Italian work, buckles in blued steel and gold, dyed a deep red.
    The Sultan looked at it, smiled, leaned over to Omar Reis and made some remark which caused all the men around him to laugh.
    Their interpreters paled. The nearer said, ‘The sultan says the Pope takes me for a horse.’
    The bishop went forward with the second gift, a cabinet such as Italian noblemen used to display their jewels and their antiquities – a magnificent piece of vulgarity, with a hundred drawers of exotic woods and mirrored backs, gold and silver wire inlay, marble terraces . . .
    Like a palace, reproduced as a piece of furniture.
    The Sultan didn’t even look at it, or the bishop. He had started to chat with the men closest to him. The bishop stood by the Pope’s great gift and time ticked by – literally, as there was a German clock in the centre of the cabinet. It was wound, and set, the machine ticking away.
    Swan found it fascinating. A machine. A machine that could measure time .
    Eventually the Sultan was interested, too, and when one of his confidants stopped talking, he rose suddenly, walked down from the dais, and stood by the cabinet. With the help of the Venetian factor, he opened the clock and looked at the mechanism. Then he shrugged, and said something in Turkish to Omar Reis, who grinned – or rather, showed his teeth.
    The interpreter closest to Swan gulped audibly. ‘He says, first he takes me for a horse, and now, for a woman.’
    Omar Reis passed within a few feet of Swan. He turned to grin his feral grin, and his nose wrinkled slightly.
    Swan saw him pause in his progress across the floor.
    He looked back – not a long look, but a mere flick of the eyes.
    Swan would have sworn that the Wolf of Thrace’s eyes glowed. Swan had never had such a look of poisonous hatred directed at him in all his life.
    Uh-oh .
    Cesare, behind him, said, ‘Boy? What have you done?’
    Alessandro looked at him.
    I smell of Khatun Bengül’s perfume . Swan’s vision tunnelled, and for a moment, he thought he was going to faint. Or worse.
    I’m an idiot .
    Mehmet spoke quietly, his words clear in the silent hall.
    The bishop bowed and extended a hand with the Pope’s letter.
    The chamberlain took it. Without any grand display, he managed to give the impression that he was handling a small sack of human excrement. He deposited the letter with a lower functionary, who scurried away.
    Mehmet nodded.
    ‘The Sultan would like to grant you a boon in return for your magnificent presents,’ said the interpreter. ‘He says that he has a surfeit of Christian slaves – so many that their value is