Tom Swan and the Head of St George Part One: Castillon

Book 0: Tom Swan and the Head of St George

by Christian Cameron

Genres: Historical Fiction

Synopsis

Castillon: Part One of a fast-paced serialised novel set in the turbulent Europe of the fifteenth century. 1450s France. A young Englishman, Tom Swan, is kneeling in the dirt, waiting to be killed by the French who have taken him captive. He's not a professional soldier. He's really a merchant and a scholar looking for remnants of Ancient Greece and Rome - temples, graves, pottery, fabulous animals, unicorn horns. But he also has a real talent for ending up in the midst of violence when he didn't mean to. Having used his wits to escape execution, he begins a series of adventures that take him to street duels in Italy, meetings with remarkable men - from Leonardo Da Vinci to Vlad Dracula - and from the intrigues of the War of the Roses to the fall of Constantinople.

Release date: August 23, 2012

Publisher: Orion

Print pages: 64

Sample

Tom Swan – Part One: Castillon

For good or ill, Thomas Swan had been one of the first men into the French gun positions and one of the last to be taken. So he was on the right of the line of captives as the blood-maddened crowd of peasants and foot soldiers killed Englishmen.

Swan was too tired to struggle. He thought about it. By the time he’d watched them kill a couple of men-at-arms worth far more than he was worth, he realised that they were all going to die.

He took a breath and wondered somewhat idly how many he had left. A Frenchwoman killed an archer by cutting off his penis with an eating knife. The archer screamed, utterly wretched, and the crowd cheered her. Swan took another breath.

It was his first battle – his first campaign in France. His first time out of London. But he’d heard enough from his mother’s brothers to guess why the Frenchwoman had killed the archer.

A big man – a really big man – shouted at the French mob in French. Swan’s French was quite good. The man didn’t even sound English. He heckled them, and when two French gunners came for him, he picked one up. The man stabbed at him with a long knife. The big man shrugged after the Frenchman put a knife in him, and threw him into the crowd.

Off to the right was a party of men on horseback. They were pushing through the line of wagons that guarded the back of the gun emplacement.

The big man was still fighting. The Frenchmen had scattered, and one was loading a handgun. Another aimed a crossbow and pulled the lever, but his aim was poor and the arrow killed a third Frenchman, a franc-archer at the edge of the crowd.

Swan felt the Frenchman behind him shift his weight, and hunched for the blow. He couldn’t help it. He thought of twenty wrestling tricks his uncles had taught him to take the man’s sword, but he could barely raise his arm. He’d fought . . .

Talbot was dead.

It was all unbelievable. He thought, Damn it, I’m here to make my fortune! I’m only eighteen!

He took another breath, and waited to die.

The horsemen pressed into the crowd, swords drawn. Armoured knights. And a cardinal. Swan knew what the round red hat meant.

Two francs-archers grabbed an English archer, tore his shirt, and then beheaded him in three gory strokes of their short swords. The knights did nothing to stop it, and Swan’s hopes died.

The crowd bayed like a hunting pack and pushed towards the latest killing, and the cardinal was almost unhorsed. He shouted at them, and the crowd moved again – two of the knights pulled their horses up on either side of him, protecting him. The nearer of the French knights reached out and cut a French soldier with his sword. The man flinched away.

Swan pushed through his despair. It couldn’t hurt. It might even help.

‘Kyrie eleison, Pater! Kyrie, Agie Pater!’ he shouted in Greek.

All that learning ought to be good for something.

The cardinal’s head snapped around, his eyes searching.

A Frenchman’s fist crashed into Swan’s head.

He stumbled.

Now and in the hour of our death. Amen.

He was hit again, fell to the earth, and . . .

Thomas Swan awoke to crisp linen sheets and light.

His whole body hurt.

Good Christ, I . . .

‘I’m alive!’ he said aloud. And felt like an idiot, but he was very much alive. Certain parts were insisting they were alive.

He looked around – there were palettes laid on a wooden floor, and whitewashed walls. A monastery, then.

‘One of the English devils is moving!’ said a woman’s voice in French.

A burly monk appeared with a staff. Swan bowed. He was naked, which put him at a disadvantage.

‘Tom Swan, at your service,’ he said. Then switching languages, he said, ‘Serviteur,’ in good Gascon French.

The monk pointed one end of the staff at Swan and called, ‘Help! Help!’

It might have been funny, except for the real possibility he was about to be killed. Swan bowed again. ‘My interests are entirely in food, friends,’ he said.

Other men on palettes of straw and clean sheets were stirring. Swan had to assume that the big man in the bandages was the Fleming who had fought the Frenchmen. The man wasn’t moving. He had one arm out over his sheet, and that arm was covered in massive bruises.

He counted sixteen. Sixteen men.

‘Good Christ,’ he said.

The burly monk continued to threaten – ineptly – with the butt of the staff. He shouted for help again, and there were distant footsteps.

A slim man – older, but with angelic blond hair and a less than angelic face – appeared from behind the monk. ‘You are the barbarian who speaks Greek?’ he asked.

It’s difficult to appear dominant or even charming when you are naked and covered in dried blood and bruises. Swan shrugged. ‘Greek. French. Italian. English. Latin.’ He smiled in what he hoped was an ingratiating manner because he really wanted to live.

The blond man nodded. ‘Come with me, then,’ he said in Latin.

Swan spread his hands as if to indicate his nudity.

The blond man was dressed foppishly like an Italian – tight hose, tight short jacket, a tiny hat perched on his curls. He had a very effective sneer. ‘His Eminence has seen a naked man before,’ he said. ‘Perhaps not as gamy as you – but still. Move.’

The fop drew a dagger from behind his back.

Swan considered the possibility of taking the man’s weapon and running. He didn’t have the bone-weary feeling of defeat – his joints ached, he had bruises, but he could fight.

The slim blond man looked as if he knew what he was about. He kept his empty hand between them, and the dagger well back.

Swan w. . .