Текст книги "Sword and Scimitar"

Автор книги: Simon Scarrow

Соавторы: Simon Scarrow
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Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 33 страниц)

CHAPTER NINETEEN

The pace of the work being carried out on the island’s defences increased feverishly following the departure of Don Garcia and his squadron of galleys. True to the Spaniard’s advice the Grand Master gave orders for the construction of a ravelin to protect the most vulnerable comer of Fort St Elmo. The bare rock of the peninsula provided a firm foundation but there would only be time to cut enough stone for the outer facing before the Turks could arrive. Behind the stone facade the defenders would have to pile up and pack down rubble and earth. From the outside the new fortification would look formidable enough but the moment it was subjected to the penetrating power of iron cannonballs it would soon be battered down.

Meanwhile St Elmo was fully provisioned and the modest cistern that lay beneath the keep was filled to the brim. Gunpowder and shot was placed in the storerooms, ready to feed the small complement of artillery that was mounted on the fort’s gun platforms. Stout boxes filled with shot for the arquebusiers were positioned along the parapet and hessian sacks were filled with soil and piled in the courtyard, ready to fill any breaches in the walls.

Each day ships entered the harbour with cargoes of grain, wine, cheeses and salted meats. There were also tools and building materials needed to prepare the defences and ensure that damage could be repaired. Some of the vessels had been intercepted at sea by Captain Romegas and his galleys and summarily requisitioned since the Order’s needs overrode any notions of legality. The owners and crews were promised compensation in due course, though that depended upon Malta surviving the Turkish onslaught.

In the first days of spring the companies of Spanish and Italian mercenaries hired by the Grand Master began to arrive and were assigned billets in the towns of Birgu and Mdina. They were hardened professionals and had been lured by generous payments from the Order’s coffers, and the prospect of loot. It was well known that the Sultan’s elite corps, the Janissaries, were richly dressed and paid handsomely in gold and silver. Their corpses would provide rich pickings for the mercenaries. There were also small groups of adventurers who travelled to Malta to offer their services to the Order, motivated by religious fervour and the desire for glory. Amid the new arrivals were a handful of knights who had received and honoured the request to return to Malta and fight alongside their brothers.

Throughout April the defenders laboured hard to raise the height and depth of the walls and bastions that protected the promontories of Senglea and Birgu. In front of the wall, slaves and Maltese work gangs swung picks to break up the rocky ground and excavate a defensive ditch deep enough to hamper attempts to scale the walls. So short was the time and so desperate the need to bolster the defences that none was spared the duty of toil. The Grand Master, despite his advanced years, appeared every morning in a plain tunic and a strip of dark cloth tied about his brow, ready to work for two hours, breaking ground with a pick or joining the long chain of workers carrying baskets of rubble inside the walls of Birgu. All the knights and soldiers were required to do the same and the grudging indifference of the local people gave way to surprise and then respect as they found the sons of Europe’s noblest families working alongside them. Within days they had taken to cheering La Valette when he appeared each morning and took up his pick or basket.

Buildings close to the walls that might be used by the enemy for shelter were demolished and the timbers and rubble taken into Birgu to add to the material set aside for repairs. Those made homeless by the destruction of their houses were given billets in the town. There was little problem accommodating them as a steady stream of the town’s inhabitants with sufficient wealth to fund their temporary exile took ship for Sicily, Italy and Spain, there to await news of Malta’s fate.

As April drew to an end all knew that the Turkish fleet would already be at sea, heading west. Orders were given for the farmers and villagers across the island to prepare to abandon their homes and seek shelter in Mdina, a fortified hill town that had once been the capital of the island, or within the walls of Birgu. No crops, cattle, goats, grain or fruit was to be left for the enemy to forage and preparations were made to foul the wells and cisterns with rotting animal carcasses and slurry. The Turks would find a wasteland waiting for them when they landed and would be forced to ship in their sustenance, or starve before the lines of the Christian defences.

At first Thomas, Richard and Sir Martin had been assigned to training the Maltese militiamen in the most basic of fighting skills. It had long been the policy of the Order to discourage the islanders from using weapons out of fear that the local people might be emboldened to rebel against the Order of knights that had been imposed on them. As a result the majority of them were strangers to swords, pikes and arquebuses and only a handful had ever worn any armour. There were some who had been selected to serve as soldiers of the Order and these assisted with the training and translated the commands into the local tongue that sounded more like Arabic than any European language to an unfamiliar ear. Indeed, the islanders, with their dark features and skin, looked more like Moors and Turks than Christians. Yet they were fanatic in their loyalty to the Church of Rome and hatred of the enemy who been preying on the Maltese for over a hundred years. They were keen to learn and were soon handling their weapons like experienced soldiers. Thomas had insisted that they should also be taught to use the arquebus, but such was the shortage of gunpowder that only three live firings were permitted once the militiamen had learned how to load the weapons.

Once the hurried training was complete, the English knights and their squires were allocated to the work party under Colonel Mas, one of the mercenaries recruited by the Grand Master. They were tasked with constructing the ravelin and rose at dawn to take a hurried breakfast before heading through the narrow streets to the quay. There they waited with the other soldiers and civilians for places on the boats ferrying the workers across the harbour to the landing stage below the fort. Outside the wall they were issued with picks and joined the slaves already at work cutting a ditch into the rock in front of the ravelin.

For most of the morning they worked in the shade, but as the rays of the sun reached down into the ditch, the heat added to the discomfort of the constant chinking of the picks, the swirling dust and the ache of tired limbs. The glare of the sun was harsh enough to make the men squint, and it steadily burned exposed skin as the workers swung their picks under the burden of their sweat-soaked tunics. At noon they climbed out of the ditch and slumped in the shade of the awnings. They took their midday meal from the boys who had emerged from the fort carrying pitchers of watered wine and baskets of bread and roundels of a hard goat’s cheese made locally. These were handed to the soldiers and the Maltese while the slaves sat in the open and were fed warm gruel from a tureen, one ladle per man, slopped into battered leather cups. These were thrust into the soiled hands of each slave and, still chained in pairs, they squatted down to savour the paltry rations that kept them alive and able to work, and no more. They were barefoot and dressed in rags stained with their own filth. Unkempt hair hung in knotted locks about their bearded faces and their features were gaunt.

On the first day Richard had regarded the slaves with abject pity and when they had settled to eat he chewed slowly at his bread for a while before he spoke to Thomas.

‘Those slaves, they look more like animals than men.’

Sir Martin chuckled as he chewed on a strip of salted beef. He swallowed and cleared his throat. ‘They’re worse than animals, young Dick.’

He spoke loudly so that the nearest of the slaves would hear him. One of them, fairer skinned than the others, looked up at the insult and glared fiercely from beneath his matted locks of dust-grey hair but kept his silence.

‘They’re still humans,’ said Richard.

Sir Martin shrugged. ‘Whatever they are, they’re the enemy, the enemy of our faith, and they would slaughter us without mercy had they the chance. And you, Dick, are a squire and you will treat me with due deference.’

‘I am Sir Thomas’s squire,’ Richard replied.

‘That is as may be, but you still call me “sir” when you address me.’ Sir Martin turned to Thomas. ‘You need to tame your squire, he lacks the necessary humility.’

Richard glanced at Thomas and the knight sighed.

‘He’s right, Richard. Remember your place and act accordingly. Else I will not be so tolerant. Understood?’

The squire nodded reluctandy.

‘That said, a knight is required to show charity, even to his enemies.’ Thomas rose stiffly and walked over to the nearest pair of slaves and stood over them. ‘You understand some of our tongue, I think.’

The Muslim who had reacted to Sir Martin’s insult looked up warily and then nodded.

Thomas held out the remains of the bread he had been eating. ‘Here. Take it.’

The slave stared at the bread and chewed his chapped lips. Then, hesitantly, he reached a hand out and delicately plucked the hunk from Thomas’s fingers. At once he began to tear at it, watching Thomas anxiously as if the knight might snatch the bread back without warning. The slave chained to him was a thin dark-skinned Moor who seemed to be in pain as his companion fed, and he began to make a pitiful keening noise. The other man paused for a moment and then tore what was left in half and gave a piece to his companion. The act surprised Thomas who had often witnessed the selfish levels to which slaves were driven by the need to survive. Compassion was a weakness that could kill a man.

‘I gave you the bread, not him. Why did you share it?’

The slave looked up. ‘Because I chose to . . . master. That is one freedom I still have.’

His accent was familiar and Thomas was curious to discover more about a slave who spoke like a native of England yet was a Muslim slave.

‘Where are you from?’

‘Tripoli, master. I was the bodyguard of a merchant, until his ship was captured by one of your galleys.’

‘And how does a slave from Tripoli come to speak English?’

‘I was born in Devon, master. On the coast.’

‘Devon?’ Thomas raised his eyebrows. ‘Then what the devil are you doing here?’

The slave lowered his gaze as he spoke. ‘I was nine when a corsair ship raided our village, master. They killed my father and several other men, and took the women and children to sell in the slave market at Algiers. I never saw my mother again. I was kept by the corsair captain. He raised me, trained me to fight and then sold me to the merchant.’

‘And converted you to Islam?’

The slave nodded. ‘It is my faith.’

Sir Martin spat with disgust. ‘A traitor to your own kind is what you are!’

The slave flinched and seemed to shrink under the harsh rebuke.

Thomas squatted down in front of him. ‘What is your name?’

‘Abdul, master.’

‘I meant your real name. Your Christian name?’

‘My name is Abdul,’ the slave said firmly. ‘Abdul-Ghafur. I am no Christian. I am a Muslim.’

Thomas met his gaze and for a moment the slave stared back as a man, defiant and proud, before he wavered and slumped back into himself.

‘Is there no part of you that remains from your previous life? After all, you still speak your mother tongue.’

The slave shrugged his bony shoulders. ‘There are memories, but that was another life. Before I was shown the truth through the teachings of Mohammed, peace be upon him.’

‘And yet this is the reward won by your faith.’ Thomas gestured at the other wretched creatures hunched nearby. ‘You have become a slave. Renounce Islam and you could be free, and return to your home in Devon.’

‘There is no home for me there. The boy I was then is no more, Hospitaller. I am now Abdul. In due course I will be the master and you will be the slave. Then perhaps I might return your kindness and offer you a crust.’

Thomas smiled mildly. ‘You think that the Sultan will take this island?’

‘How can he not? He has God on his side. The faith of his soldiers is stronger than yours, and those who fight with you. The outcome is certain and only a fool would doubt it. I, and the other Muslim slaves, will be set free. Those Christians who still live will be put in chains and sold in the markets of the Sultan. The leader of your Order will be executed and his head will be thrust upon a spear and mounted high enough for all in Istanbul to see and know that God is great.’ The slave’s eyes glittered with fanaticism as he spoke and there was a harsh, cruel edge to his voice. Then his expression softened and he addressed Thomas earnestly.

‘Save yourself, while there is still time. Leave this place, master. What does it profit an Englishman to fight and die so far from home? Get out, before the iron fist of the Sultan closes around this rock and crushes it to dust.’

‘You might ask yourself the same question. In any case . . .’ Thomas scooped up a stone the size of a plum and held it up in front of the slave’s eyes. Then he placed his other hand over the stone and clasped his hands together with all his strength, grimacing as the hard edges pressed into his palms. He held his hands there for a while before he relaxed with a gasp and eased them apart. The stone lay as before, and the skin of Thomas’s hands was impressed with marks of its edges. ‘There. The rock is unbroken and your Sultan shall be no more successful than I, when his fleet descends on Malta. Think on that.’

Thomas stood up and returned to his comrades. Sir Martin let out a deep laugh and clapped his hands together. ‘Oh, that showed him. You put the cocky little beggar in his place, Sir Thomas. Well done!’ He picked up a pebble and lobbed it at the slave who flinched as it bounced off his shoulder. ‘You’ll rue the day you ever betrayed England! Mai si le das la fe falsa del Islam,as they say in Spain.’

The slave who called himself Abdul-Ghafur glared back with cold loathing and muttered something under his breath before he looked down at his feet again. Sir Martin smiled with satisfaction and chewed another mouthful of cheese and bread before washing it down with a gulp of the watered wine. He regarded Thomas out of the corner of his eye for a moment before he cleared his throat.

‘There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you, Sir Thomas. For some weeks now.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yes, well, it’s about the, uh, circumstances relating to your leaving the Order a while back . . . some years before my time, you understand.’

‘Really,’ Thomas said evenly. ‘What would you ask of me that you don’t already know? I assume you have approached some of the other knights about my personal business.’

Sir Martin puffed his cheeks and tilted his head to one side. ‘I have spoken to a few, yes. Of course there aren’t that many fellows who were around in your day.’

‘But enough to give you the necessary details, I’ll be bound.’

‘They were fairly tight-lipped, as it happens. All I got from them was that a woman was involved and there was something of a scandal and that you had brought dishonour on the Order. ’

‘Then you have it all. There is no more that needs to be said.’ Thomas gestured towards the open sea. ‘I think we have more pressing problems, Sir Martin. The Turks could be upon us at any moment. That is surely what we should be fixing our minds on. Not events from many years ago.’

The other knight opened his mouth to reply, paused briefly, then let out an exasperated breath and rose to his feet. ‘Need to relieve myself. Back soon.’ He turned and strode off across the stony terrain towards the shallow latrine ditch that had been dug a hundred paces beyond the ravelin’s defence ditch. Thomas bit into what was left of his cheese ration and chewed on its woody texture. Opposite him Richard swept the crumbs off his tunic and glanced round quickly before he spoke in an undertone.

‘I think it’s time that you told me the whole story.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I need to know. If my mission here is to succeed then I have to be aware of any potential dangers, or advantages, that might affect the outcome.’

‘And I suppose you might make good use of any information

that might help you to have some kind of hold over me?’

‘Of course,’ Richard replied flatly. ‘That is the nature of my employment.’

‘Then have you ever questioned the ethics of that employment? Perhaps you should.’

‘I serve Sir Francis, who serves Cecil, and both serve our Queen and country. Therefore my ethics are beyond reproach. And nothing will stand between me and my purpose here.’

‘Come now, Richard. You are not quite the iron man you pretend to be. You are well trained, but your feeling for others has not been trained out of you. I saw that clear enough in the fight on the galley. And again just now when you considered the plight of that slave.’ Thomas leaned over and tapped his squire’s breast. ‘You have a heart. Don’t try and starve it of nourishment, else you will cease to be a man and become a mere device.’

Richard glanced over towards the latrine ditch where Sir Martin was already squatting down.

‘Tell me exactly what happened, before he comes back,’ he demanded.

‘If I refuse?’

‘Then you compromise my mission.’

‘And what if I don’t care about that?’

Richard smiled shrewdly. ‘But you do care. I, too, can peer into another man’s heart. If we fail to fulfill our task then many others will suffer. That is something you, Sir Thomas, will not conscience. So tell me what I want to know.’

There was a tense silence before Thomas bowed his head and thought. Little needed to be kept secret and in any case, he could surely find out the details if he was diligent in his enquiries. Thomas ordered his memories before he began. ‘Very well. Some twenty years ago I was serving with one of the Order’s galleys off the coast of Crete. La Valette was the captain. It was clear that he was destined for one of the senior posts in the Order and it was considered an honour to be chosen to serve on his galley. It had been an uneventful voyage, we had had no luck in finding any Turkish shipping. Then we put into a port on the south coast and discovered that a galleon had passed by the day before so La Valette set off in pursuit. By the time we tracked them down to an isolated bay further along the coast they had been joined by two corsair galleys. As you have seen, the Grand Master is not the kind of man who is discouraged by unfavourable odds, so he launched a surprise attack just before sunrise. We sank one galley and captured the galleon and the other galley. I was placed in command of the galley and ordered to return to Malta. It was as we were searching the hold that we came across a captive, a woman.’ Thomas paused as he felt the familiar longing in his breast. ‘Maria was the daughter of a Neapolitan noble and betrothed to the son of an aristocratic family on Sardinia. Her ship had been taken by the corsairs and she was to be held for ransom.’

Thomas looked at Richard, feeling foolish as he continued. ‘I tell you I had never seen such a woman in my life. She was slight and darkly featured with the most beautiful brown eyes. It would not be honest to say that my first thought was of love. I was just flesh and blood, despite my vows to the Order – not that many knights strictly observed their vows. Indeed, I was not the only one captured by her charms. However, there was some spark of deeper affection between us from the outset. If you had a cynical nature you would no doubt be smiling at what you consider to be my naive feelings, scoffing at the folly of youth, but I tell you, with all my heart and experience of life, that she is the one real love I have ever known. I had never felt the fierceness of such feeling before then, and the barely endurable ache of it ever since. I tell you, Richard, love is forever balanced between a paradise of passion and infernal torment. That is its price . . . and it is the price I freely paid at the time and have regretted ever since.’ Thomas winced and shook his head. ‘No. That is not my regret. My regret is that I was not stronger.’

He was silent for a moment, struggling to restrain the rage and self-loathing that threatened to consume him.

‘Go on,’ Richard coaxed coldly. ‘Tell all.’

Thomas gritted his teeth and snatched a deep breath with a soft hiss. ‘We loved unwisely, and without restraint, during the summer months, while word was sent to her family that she had been found and was safe. We both knew the danger of what we did but could not master our desires. So we met in secret, or so I thought, until La Valette ordered me to cease contact with her. Of course I did not. And the inevitable happened. We were discovered together one night. I say discovered, but we were not. Maria had been spied upon and followed, by Sir Oliver Stokely, who had thought himself a rival for her affections because she had shown him kindness. But that had been her nature. She was kind to all. He considered it a token of something more, something he would have had, were it not for me. So he gathered some men at arms as witnesses and caught us together. We were arrested and taken before the Grand Master of the time.’

‘And then?’

Thomas rubbed his brow. ‘The fault is mine. I should have obeyed orders, and I should have been aware of the danger Maria faced as a consequence of our affections. Even La Valette could not save me from expulsion, and I would not save myself. I did not deserve any form of clemency, and I did not deserve her love. Because of me her life was ruined. Her family disowned her. I never saw her again. I was put on a galleon and taken to Spain and ordered never to set foot on Malta, nor attempt to find Maria. La Valette sent me one last private message, that he would attempt to have me recalled when the time was right. And so I waited. Year after year. Wondering if Maria lived, if I would ever be permitted to rejoin my comrades. My hopes dying by a tiny but incremental measure each day. Until the summons arrived.’ Thomas breathed in deeply to release the tension in his chest. ‘This is my chance for redemption. It is too late for me to make good what I did to Maria, but I might yet prove worthy of the life that has been given to me.’

Thomas glanced up and saw that Sir Martin was making his way back from the latrine ditch. There was little time left to say any more for the present. He turned back towards his squire but before he could speak the sharp blast of a trumpet cut through the still air. Up on the wall of the fort Colonel Mas leaned forward on his hands and bellowed, ‘The break’s over! Back to work!’

The slave overseers picked up their whips made from the dried penises of bulls and set about driving the slaves back on to their feet and down into the ditch. The other members of the work party stirred with weary groans, some still hurriedly finishing off their rations. Thomas placed his hand firmly on Richard’s arm.

‘Whatever happens here, do not dishonour yourself as I did. Whatever your masters have ordered you to do, only do what is right.’

‘And how will I know that?’

‘Trust your heart. Not your ambition.’

Richard shook his head with a look of pity and pulled himself free of Thomas’s hand and reached for his pick. ‘I need neither heart nor ambition. I just do my duty. That is all that should concern a man. Perhaps if you had thought the same, you might have saved yourself from a life of torment, Sir Thomas.’

‘Upon my soul!’ Sir Martin puffed as he trotted up to them. ‘A fellow needs a break long enough to eat and perform his ablutions, eh? This won’t do.’

He glanced at them both, noting the sullen expression on the squire’s face and the anxiety etched in Thomas’s features.

‘What? What’s happened?’

‘Nothing,’ Thomas replied, forcing himself to tame his emotions. ‘Nothing at all. Let’s to work. We live in the shadow of the Turk and there’s still much to be done.’

He took up his pick and set off after Richard. Sir Martin watched them for a moment, and quietly tutted to himself.

‘What irks them so? By God, there’s enough peril already without having private conflicts to settle.’