Swan walked away hurriedly lest he betray himself. After two turnings and crossing a broad thoroughfare, he was in yet another set of wandering alleys, no wider than his arm. Here the shops were mere awnings. And here were scraps of antiquities – a head of Aphrodite in marble, a seal carved in quartz, another in bloodstone. Swan eyed them all, collected a few and began to dicker with the owner.

He saw the man signal someone behind him, but made the mistake of assuming it was the signal to another seller.

He made a further error in taking his purse out of his leather bag – and disclosing the sum of ten gold ducats. But Swan was canny enough to see the change come over the dealer’s face, like tidal water covering the sands. He flinched and turned – and saw the stick.

He ducked, and took the blow high on his left arm, and let out a startled squeal of pure pain.

He got his right hand on his dagger, and in so doing lost his purse. The silk bag landed and opened, and a gold ducat rolled out.

There were six of them, at least.

A club struck his shoulder. The left arm was numb, but the man lingered too long and Swan kicked him in the groin with the whole weight of his foot.

His life was saved by the second man’s greed. Instead of killing him, the man had knelt to pick up the coin. A third man, tall and black, swung a pole or a spear at his head and Swan tried to back up a step and fell over the kneeling man. On instinct, he rammed his dagger into another footpad’s shin. The man screamed. Swan got a hand on his belt and the same motion that pulled Swan to his feet helped him put the other man on the ground.

He took a blow on his back that hurt like fire, and riposted with a sweeping dagger blow that dropped the tall African, at least temporarily. The others backed away and Swan, his left arm tingling, picked up one of the abandoned clubs. He menaced the pedlar with his dagger and swept the seal stones into his leather bag – the purse would have to stay on the ground.

His eyes went left, then right. He pivoted, and looked over his shoulder.

The pedlar rolled the table over on him. He leaped back, and the man shrieked, ‘A Turk! A Turk! A Turk has raped my son!’

When a somewhat bedraggled Swan went back aboard his galley – he’d run through half of Alexandria, and taken several hard blows – he cleaned up and found himself summoned to the stern cabin to translate for his captain.

Fra Tommaso met him on the main deck. The rowers – all professionals – were ashore, behaving like oarsmen, and Swan, whose ribs ached, wished he had chosen to join them.

‘You have two remarkable black eyes,’ Fra Tommaso said. ‘You speak English, I gather.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Swan could barely think. He’d survived the encounter by not using his weapon again and by running – apparently the right tactic when set upon by six men and an angry mob. His stolen gemstones were safe below, but he’d lost the dagger and all the trinkets he’d purchased earlier in the day as well as the ten ducats he’d carried.

He’d learned that Egyptians hated Turks. Probably more than they hated Christians.

‘The English ship is making trouble,’ Fra Tommaso said. ‘I want you to explain to them.’

As it proved, the English ship was making trouble merely by existing, and the Genoese wanted to storm it and kill the entire crew. A very voluble Genoese officer, who was never introduced, stormed and raged at the English merchant, Messire Richard Sturmy. Sturmy stood silently with his hands behind his back like an errant schoolboy. Swan liked him immediately.

The Genoese didn’t offer a point of view or a legal quibble. He merely made threats – threat after threat, so fast Swan could scarcely keep up.

‘Tell this sodomite that if his wife and child are aboard, I’ll rape them and sell them to the Turks. Tell him—’ The Genoese found it hard to speak with Fra Tommaso’s hand over his mouth.

‘That is one threat you will not make on my ship, messire,’ Fra Tommaso said quietly.

Swan had waited patiently through a long and vicious harangue. Now he turned to Messire Sturmy.

‘I am English,’ he said. ‘I am a Donat of the order. Thomas Swan.’ He offered his hand.

Sturmy seized it the way a drowning man might seize a log. ‘Blessing to God and Saint George, my friend! An Englishman! Here!’ He embraced Swan. ‘These … foreigners – I can’t understand ’em. My shipman can, but he says we’re forbidden to trade here – which is cant! I have a letter from the King! And another letter from the Sultan!’ He grinned at Swan and seemed to take him in for the first time. ‘By the gentle saviour, lad, someone used you as a pell!’

Swan read the letters quickly. He turned to his knight. ‘Sir – the Englishman has a letter signed by the King of England appointing him an ambassador. And the King of England has the agreement of the Signory and of the Republic to allow this ship to trade on the Levant.’ He handed the letter to Fra Tommaso. ‘And, sir, he has a letter from the Sultan. The Mameluke Sultan Al Ashraf.’

Fra Tommaso raised an eyebrow. He turned to the Genoese. ‘He has letters – even from your republic.’

‘Any whore can get such a letter. Tell him to leave or I kill him and his ship.’ The Genoese leered.

‘You are not the best advertisement for your republic – you know that, eh?’ Fra Tommaso said.

‘I do not ask for your opinion, Fra Tommaso!’ the Genoese said. ‘Genoa does not support the knights so that they may banter about the news. Rid us of these interlopers!’

Bits of the merchant’s spittle flecked Swan’s doublet.

Swan rarely thought of himself as an Englishman. He thought of himself … as himself. As friends with a handful of men and women to whom he was loyal. As one of Bessarion’s men.

But the Genoese made him feel like an Englishman, and he was tempted to do the Genoese a harm.

He read over the letters. ‘Messire Sturmy, this man is determined to be rid of you, and he commands the Genoese shipping here – or has the power to make his commands felt. Would you consider trading up the coast of Syria? Perhaps with the Turks?’

Sturmy laughed. ‘I’d be happy to do so, Sir Knight, but I was told those waters were …’ He turned and looked at the Genoese man. ‘… full of pirates.’

‘What do you trade?’ Swan asked.

Sturmy counted on the tips of his fingers. ‘Lead. I have lead in the holds as ballast, but it is worth a mint here – they don’t have any. And hides. I have some tallow – all the way from the Russias – and wool, of course. Our own wool,’ he added, as if Swan would have believed that another country might export wool.

Swan tried to look as if he was angry. ‘I am looking to make a fool of this Genoese,’ he said, pointing at the man.

‘That would be neighbourly!’ Sturmy said. He composed himself and tried to look contrite.

‘If,’ Swan said, shaking his finger, ‘you dye your own wool …’ He paused and yelled, ‘You stupid whoreson! Are you wode? Listen to me!’

‘I am listening!’ Sturmy shouted back. ‘And the Devil take me if I’ll ever leave my own fulling house again! Ships are for shipmen!’ He spat right back.

‘I imagine you use alum,’ Swan said, in a tone of voice a man might use to reason with a child.

Sturmy began to grin. ‘I use it when I can afford it.’

‘There’s a port – the cream of the jest is it used to be a Genoese port. In Asia Minor, called Phokaia.’ He nodded at Fra Tommaso. ‘And Rhodes would take all your lead. It’s close to Phokaia.’

‘Phokaian alum!’ Sturmy said, and the Genoese captain’s head shot round. Some things translate. Some are easy to pluck out of the air.

Swan spent some time explaining to the Genoese that Phokaia sounded very much like an English swear word. He was explicit and embarrassed the merchant, who didn’t like to hear bawdy talk in front of the clergy. ‘He’s sailing away?’