Текст книги "Sword and Scimitar"

Автор книги: Simon Scarrow

Соавторы: Simon Scarrow
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Текущая страница: 28 (всего у книги 33 страниц)

Richard gazed at him and then glanced towards the door. ‘I had better go. I need to prepare my men for a patrol tonight. I’ll come again, when I can. Goodbye, Father.’

He stood up and walked away. At the door he paused and then Maria stepped into view and held his arms and kissed him on the cheek. Richard received the kiss awkwardly before he raised a hand to touch her arm gently. Then he bowed his head and eased himself from her grasp and strode off down the corridor. Maria stared after him fondly, then turned back towards the room, towards Thomas, a smile lighting up her face as she saw that he was awake. The image he had seen earlier in the mirror was still fresh in Thomas’s mind and he angled the scarred side of his face away from her as she approached and sat down.

Neither spoke at first and then Thomas swallowed nervously and cleared his throat. ‘I am sorry for your loss. Oliver was a good man.’

‘Yes. . . Yes, he was.’ The sadness in her tone was genuine. ‘He was kind to me, until the end. It was your presence that changed him. It could not be helped. I was never able to give him what he wanted from me. What you always had.’ She reached out and tentatively cupped his cheek. Her skin was smooth and cool and Thomas closed his eyes as he breathed in the faint scent of her.

‘I should have been a better wife to him.’ Maria glanced in the direction Richard had gone. ‘And Oliver should have let me be a better mother to my . . . our son. He knows the truth but he cannot forgive me for past wrongs.’

Thomas laughed drily and she turned to look down at him with a frown. ‘What?’

‘It’s just that we have all made such a mess of things. Me, you, Oliver, Richard. There is no escaping the past. Not for us. Nor for La Valette or Suleiman. We are all the prisoners of our history, Maria.’

‘Only if we choose to be.’ She leaned closer to him and kissed his brow. ‘There is time to change.’

A shot struck the fort and the impact was felt by all in the room and dislodged some plaster. Thomas could not help a wry smile. ‘Not for those involved in this struggle.’

‘For us, and for Richard, there is still a chance to mend the bonds that were broken. I would have that. I would hold you in my arms again, my love.’

‘Even like this?’ Thomas said harshly as he turned his head for her to see the livid scars on his face and scalp. He flicked the sheet back to reveal his left side. Maria’s calm expression never wavered.

‘Do you think I have not seen your injuries? It was I who changed your dressings and cleaned your wounds. I saw to your most base needs. I know your body more intimately than your own mother ever did. I grieved for your suffering even as I tended you and I prayed each night that you might live. And God, in his infinite mercy, has answered me.’

Maria’s words struck a cold chord in Thomas’s heart. ‘If it is God’s will that we should have endured all that we have, then what does God know about the quality of mercy? I am done with God, Maria. All that now matters to me is you, Richard and the men at whose side I fight.’ He paused and smiled grimly. ‘Though I should say, fought. For I am destined to be a poor soldier now.’

Maria stared at him. ‘You have no faith?’

‘Not in God. And, until recently, precious little in people. Yet I have seen the best and worst in men these last months. I count it a great pity that it takes a conflict over something as insubstantial as faith to test the valour and venality of men.’

‘It is God’s test then,’ Maria countered fervently. ‘His test of our resolve. He still has a purpose for you, Thomas.’

He took her hand and gazed into her eyes. ‘Maria. I am what you see before you and that is all. I would not be a burden to you. I love you, and always have. But I am a changed man from the young knight you once knew. To me, you are still the same Maria and I wish nothing more than to be at your side until the end of my life. But I would not want to be there under any degree of sufferance. Not for my body, or my character, or my beliefs. I would have you think on that before you choose to be my wife, if that is your desire.’

‘But it is, my love.’

Thomas touched her lips with his fingers. ‘Hush now. I would not have you give an answer before you have thought it through. And I am tired. Very tired. Go now and we can speak again when I have rested, and you have reflected.’

She made to speak, then stopped herself. Her lips pressed together in a thin line and she nodded. Maria leaned forward to kiss the puckered skin of his scarred cheek and stood up. ‘Until tomorrow.’

‘Tomorrow then.’ He nodded.

She smiled and left the room hurriedly, cuffing her cheek as she passed through the door and out of sight. The soft slap of her sandals quickly faded and Thomas stared up at the ceiling, his heart heavy.

Until Maria had considered the realities of what he had become, he would not have her. To accept her as his wife, only for her to come to wish she had chosen differently, would be the worst fate of all, Thomas reflected.

‘I see your visitors have gone.’

Thomas opened his eyes and saw Christopher smiling down at him. He held a small wooden tray bearing a bowl, cup, spoon and a meagre hunk of dry bread.

‘The meal I promised you. Can you sit up, or should I help?’

‘I can do it myself.’ Thomas gritted his teeth and eased himself up the bed until he was propped against the wall. The monk placed the tray on the stool beside him and Thomas found that the pleasant odour of the soup made him feel hungry. As he carefully took a few sips with the spoon, the monk looked out of the window.

‘There are clouds to the north. There’s rain coming. A storm perhaps. Yes, a storm, I think. The end of the season is almost upon us. Pray God we hold out until the autumn arrives.’

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

For the next two days Maria returned each morning and on the third day Thomas felt strong enough to venture on to the walls of St Angelo. The air was still and the flags and standards of both sides hung limply. Dark clouds loomed over the island, a sign of the abrupt change in the weather that portended the end of the summer. The enemy guns were concentrating their fire on what was left of the defences that protected Birgu and the walls of the fort were safe to walk, for the moment. Maria had not mentioned the exchange that had taken place between them that first day after Thomas had recovered from his fever, and such talk as there was between them was pleasant enough as they cautiously felt their way towards each other. It only became halting when they spoke of the future.

The last time he had beheld the vista of the harbour and the surrounding landscape from St Angelo, the peninsulas of Senglea and Birgu had been largely untouched by the siege. Now Thomas gazed out over an apocalyptic panorama of death and destruction. The outworks of St Michael and Birgu had been flattened and the main walls were little more than piles of rubble stretching between the battered bastions. Nearly all the buildings in the town of Birgu had been damaged by roundshot and many had collapsed. Masts and rigging emerged from the sea off the eastern shore of the peninsula where La Valette had given orders for ships to be sunk to prevent the Turks attempting to land there. Although it had been a month since the Turks’ failed seaborne assault on Senglea, the channel between the two peninsulas held by the defenders was still littered with the shattered remains of galleys, and hundreds of bloated and discoloured corpses which created a nauseous stench in the streets of Birgu when the hot breeze blew in from the open sea.

Turkish batteries had been sited on every vantage point and kept up a steady fire on the defenders, levelling what remained of the out defences and occasionally lobbing a shot into the town to harass the civilian population and eat away at what was left of their morale. The landscape between the walls and the Turkish trenches was scarred by the passage of cannonballs and scorched by the incendiary weapons hurled by each side. The usual courtesies of war had been abandoned; any parties that dared to venture out to collect and bury the bodies were immediately fired on. As a result, thousands of corpses and shattered limbs lay beyond the walls of Birgu, carrion for the gulls to feed on.

Thomas beheld the scene in shocked silence. Even though he had witnessed the savage struggle for St Elmo, that had been on a small scale compared with what now lay before him. It seemed hard to believe that the enemy could not easily scale the rubble that was all that was left of the defences of Birgu. Only the hastily constructed inner works that blocked off the streets leading into the town would then stand in their way.

Maria had been watching his reaction to the sight of the battlefield. ‘It’s hard to remember what this island looked like before the Turks came. It seems a long time ago now. Sometimes I find it hard to remember that there was a life before all this. Or to believe that there will ever be a life after it that is not forever in its shadow. ’

‘It will pass from memory,’ Thomas replied. ‘A hundred years from now this will all be forgotten save for a brief mention in historical accounts of our time. We are good at forgetting such things, else there would be an end to war.’

‘Some things are not forgotten,’ Maria said quietly. ‘Nor can they be, no matter how hard the mind wills it.’

Thomas was silent for a moment, and then nodded. ‘That is true.’

‘Then why deny the consequences of it?’ she asked in a plaintive tone. ‘If you find something in life that is true and pure, and know it to be so in the depths of your heart, surely it should be embraced? As surely as one believes in God.’

Thomas turned his gaze away from the devastation beyond the walls of St Angelo and fixed her with his one good eye. ‘Are you as sure of our affection for each other as you are certain of your faith?’

‘Of course.’

‘Then tell me, what is the basis for your faith? What proof have you that there is a God? Has he ever made himself manifest to you? Speak truthfully.’

‘No.’

Thomas sighed. ‘Nor to me, or many others. Yet we are required to believe, on pain of death for heresy.’

Maria took his hand, her expression anxious and pained. ‘Why do you say this, Thomas? Why do you wish to have me doubt my faith? Tell me.’

‘Maria, if you can believe that this world exists on the whim of a God you have never experienced, if you can believe that there is a divine purpose behind the slaughter of good men and blameless innocents without the slightest shred of proof, then why should I trust that your love for me is any more real than your faith?’

‘Because I know it, I feel it, in here!’ She clasped a hand to her breast. ‘It is as real to me as my own flesh and the blood that courses through it.’

Thomas looked at her and saw the gleam of conviction in her expression. For an instant the tortured landscape that stretched out all around St Angelo receded and only the small space that surrounded the two of them existed.

‘What more do you want from me?’ asked Maria. ‘What more can I say? Is it that you doubt your feelings for me?’

‘Never,’ Thomas replied instantly. ‘It is just that I have changed. I am a ruined man and I would not have one grain of pity in any affection you bear towards me. Nor would I have you accept me now and then live to regret it in what time is left to us.’

Maria’s expression became cold. ‘You think me a fickle heart, Thomas. It is a cruel charge to lay at the door of one who has thought so fondly of you across so many years.’

‘Not so fondly that you refused to be married to another man.’ It was a cruel jibe and Thomas regretted his words the moment he had uttered them.

‘What would you have had me do? Starve to death in the gutter? Lock myself away in a nunnery for the rest of my life? I had no reason to believe that you would ever return for me, and you never did. You came when your master whistled for you and not before.’ Thomas frowned at her depiction of his obedience to La Valette, and he felt the weight of his guilt as he considered her accusation. A gust of wind blew a strand of hair across Maria’s face and she brushed it away irritably as the first drops of rain fell. Thomas took her hand and led her towards the shelter of a sentry post, a small domed chamber with a narrow slit overlooking the harbour. The rain began to fall in earnest. There was little room in the post, with only a small stone shelf for the sentries to sit for a brief rest. Thomas found that he had to stand close to Maria, so that their arms were touching as they stared out at the rain. Then he felt her flesh tremble and turned to see that she was crying. He felt a pang of guilty pain and reached a hand up to gently wipe a tear from her cheek.

‘Don’t cry.’

She glared at him, her lips quivering. ‘Why not? You would break my heart and tell me not to grieve over it?’

Thomas shook his head. ‘I did not mean

Then he leaned forward and kissed her. It was clumsily done and she instinctively recoiled. Then she quickly reached up and grasped his shoulders and pulled him towards her and kissed him back. Her eyes were open for a moment, then closed as she pressed herself against him, her lips softly bound to his in a warm caress that sent shivers of ecstasy rippling through his body. A flash of lightning lit up the walls of St Angelo and a moment later thunder rolled through the sombre grey clouds and ended with a dramatic clap that caused them both to start. Their faces drew apart and they stared into each other’s eyes before Thomas laughed nervously.

‘What?’ She frowned suspiciously. ‘What amuses you?’

‘Nothing . . . Only that I am such a fool. Such an old fool.’ Thomas leaned forward and kissed her again. ‘There is so little time left to us and I am squandering it like a callow youth.’

The rain continued to fall for more than an hour, splashing off the flagstones in a steady hiss, interrupted from time to time by bursts of lightning and thunder that drowned out the sound of the Turkish guns. For the first time in months the air was cool and the wind that accompanied the storm had a chilly edge that caused them both to shiver as they embraced. They remained close as they sat on the sentry’s hard seat and talked in soft tones about the years that had passed since they had been parted, and of the time before that, when they had been together. Any lingering strangeness between them soon faded and Thomas was content as he rested his cheek on the top of her head, breathing in the scent of her hair. At length the wind began to die away and the downpour subsided into a drizzle before the dark clouds parted and the sun shone on the remaining roof tiles and walls of the ruined town. Maria raised her head and sniffed gently.

‘What is it?’ asked Thomas.

‘The smell of war has gone. Just for now.’

Thomas smiled. She was right. The constant smell of burning, powder smoke and corrupting bodies had disappeared. He filled his lungs with the untainted air and felt as if a ray of hope had pierced the brooding gloom of the landscape.

A soldier emerged at the top of the staircase from the fort. He glanced round at the world briefly washed clean and smiled faintly to himself Then he caught sight of them in the sentry’s shelter and hurried across the slick flagstones towards them.

He stopped outside the entrance and bowed his head. ‘Sir Thomas Barrett?’

‘Yes?’

‘The Grand Master sent me to find you. He desires that you attend him now that you have recovered sufficiently to resume your duties.’

‘Recovered?’ Thomas cocked an eyebrow.

‘What madness is this?’ Maria demanded. ‘Can you not see that Sir Thomas is badly injured? He needs rest and time to recover.’ The soldier looked at her. ‘Every man is required to defend Birgu, my lady. That includes the walking wounded. From now on, if they can walk then they’re not wounded.’

Maria opened her mouth to protest but Thomas held up his fingers to touch her lips gently. ‘I will go willingly to battle. I have everything to fight for now.’ He turned to the soldier. ‘Where is the Grand Master?’

‘His forward command post, sir.’

Thomas gestured towards the dressings on his left arm. ‘I have been out of the fight for a while. I am not familiar with the latest position.’

The soldier nodded. ‘The Grand Master and his staff are at the merchants’ guildhouse on the main square, sir. I’m returning there now. I can show you the way.’

‘Thank you.’

Thomas felt Maria grasp his hand tightly and when he looked round he saw that her face was filled with anguish. ‘Stay here, Thomas. Stay with me. Please ... I beg you.’

He gently squeezed her hand and then pulled himself free and smiled. ‘I will come back and find you as soon as I can.’

The soldier turned away and made for the head of the staircase. Thomas followed, forcing himself not to turn his head and look back.

The two men left the scarred walls of St Angelo and made their way through Birgu. There seemed to be hardly a building left undamaged. Heaps of bricks, plaster and tiles lay everywhere, and the charred remains of buildings showed where the Turkish bombardment had caused fires. Occasionally there was a deep whine of a shot passing overhead and the crash and clatter of debris as it struck home. Some effort was being taken to keep the centre of the streets clear of rubble to permit passage, but lately the scale of destruction had overwhelmed the defenders. Several times Thomas and the soldier were obliged to clamber over heaps of bricks and shattered timbers.

Thomas was surprised to see that many people were prepared to brave the dangers of the streets and were busy searching through the remains of collapsed buildings, pausing only to look up at the sound of an incoming cannonball and hunch down behind the nearest cover until the danger had passed. Gaunt faces watched them warily as they went by.

‘Scavengers,’ said the soldier. ‘They’re looking for food, and valuables. The Grand Master has issued an edict forbidding looting, but there are too few soldiers left to enforce it. Besides, the people arc on the edge of starvation and the edict means little to them.’

‘Starvation?’

The soldier nodded. ‘The rations were cut again three days ago. They’re on a quarter of what they were given at the start of the siege. If it goes on much longer then the poor bastards will start dropping dead where they stand.’

‘How is the spirit of the local people holding up?’

‘They’re a tough lot, the Maltese,’ the soldier conceded. ‘Not one word about surrendering or even seeking terms from any of ’em. They’re ready to follow the old boy right to the end. He fights alongside them, shares the dangers, and only allows himself to eat what they do. So he’s their hero. Here we are, sir.’

The soldier indicated the shell of a large building across an open expanse of rubble-strewn ground and with a start Thomas realised that he was looking across what had once been the neat lines of Birgu’s main square. They picked their way over to the entrance of the merchants’ guildhouse, stopping once to duck down as a cannonball moaned overhead. They listened for the crash of the impact but it never came.

‘Overshot,’ the soldier said with satisfaction.

They stood up and hurried across the square. A sentry at the guildhouse door recognised the soldier and he waved them through. Beyond the wide arch of the doorway was the hall where the island’s merchants and cargo-ship owners had met to do business. Windows high up in the walls had once illuminated the whitewashed plaster walls upon which hung portraits of the most influential of the guild’s members. Now the flagstone floor was covered with dust and grit, and where the roof had fallen in, shattered roof tiles lay in heaps. The soldier led Thomas across the hall to where stairs led down into the storerooms beneath the building. A corridor stretched out on both sides at the bottom of the stairs and was illuminated by candles guttering in iron holders mounted on the walls.

‘You’ll find the Grand Master down at the end.’ The soldier pointed to the left.

Thomas nodded his thanks and the soldier turned to the right to join a small group of men sitting at a table, drinking and playing dice. Arched openings lined the corridor and as Thomas passed by, he could see that some were being used to treat the wounded.

Others were filled with weapons, armour, powder kegs and small baskets of ammunition for arquebuses. A short distance down the corridor Thomas saw that a hole had been knocked through the wall and a stretch of tunnel led to the cellar of another building. There was an open space where a number of tables had been set up. Two men sat at one table upon which a map of the island was spread.

By the gloomy light of the candles Thomas could make out the features of Romegas in urgent conversation with a thin man with a matted white beard. It was a moment before he recognised the Grand Master. La Valette looked up at the sound of footsteps and he smiled wearily as he waved Thomas towards a stool beside the table.

Romegas nodded a greeting. ‘I’m glad to see you again, Sir Thomas. I feared the worst when I heard of your injuries. You were lucky to escape from St Elmo at the end.’

Thomas sensed a hint of criticism in the man’s tone and indicated the scarring on his face. ‘You have a singular view of what constitutes luck.’

Romegas shrugged. ‘ You and a handful of men survived, when all others were killed. I would call that luck, for want of another word.’

Thomas felt his anger stirring. ‘And which word would that be? What exactly would you accuse me of?’

The Grand Master cleared his throat. ‘Gentlemen, please, that’s enough. There are too few of us left to waste our efforts on petty fractiousness. That is why I summoned you from the infirmary, Thomas. I need every man who still has the strength, and the heart, to fight the Turks. We have lost so many good men, including my own nephew, and Fadrique, the son of Don Garcia. At least your squire still lives. He has proved to be a fine warrior, as brave as they come.’ He smiled briefly before his expression became sombre once again. ‘You two are the last of my advisers. Save all your anger for the enemy.’

Thomas was shocked. ‘Just the three of us? I know about Stokely, but Marshal de Roblas?’

Romegas stroked his creased brow. ‘He was shot through the head several days ago. But you would not have been aware of that, Sir Thomas. Much has happened while you were recovering from your wounds. Birgu and Senglea came under attack soon after St Elmo fell. You have seen the damage done to the town, but let me tell you that the wall is largely a ruin, destroyed by bombardment and the mines dug by the enemy’s engineers. Only the bastions still withstand the enemy’s guns. We have built an inner wall but it is a poor defence that is barely ten feet high, and there are no more than a thousand men left to hold the Turks at bay. Most of our soldiers are wounded and all of them are exhausted and hungry. Our powder is running short and there is still no sign of the relief force Don Garcia promised us.’

Thomas pursed his lips. ‘If it is as bad as that then we shall surely be defeated.’

‘No, Don Garcia will come,’ La Valette said firmly. ‘My good friend Romegas is inclined to dwell on our difficulties at the expense of our opportunities. Our situation is bleak but it is only half the picture. We know that the enemy camp is wracked with sickness and their spirits are at a low ebb because of the heavy losses they have endured since the siege began. And now the season is changing and the rain has come to add to the enemy’s discomfort. If we can hold Mustafa Pasha back for a little longer, he will be forced to quit the island before autumn sets in.’ He paused and narrowed his eyes shrewdly. ‘If I were the enemy, I would throw everything into one final assault, whatever the cost.’

‘Why?’ asked Romegas.

‘Because I would know that my master, the Sultan, would not be merciful if I were forced to return to Istanbul having failed to carry out his orders. I would do anything to keep my head on my shoulders. Therefore I believe Mustafa Pasha will attack us with all his might very soon.’ La Valette looked at his surviving advisers. ‘When the Turks come, they will be more desperate than ever to wipe us out. We shall need to be more than their equal in determination, or else they will slaughter every man, woman and child in Birgu.’

‘There is something else we could do,’ Romegas said quietly. ‘We still have St Angelo. We can defend that, even if we can’t hold

Birgu. Sir, I suggest we withdraw what is left of our fighting men into the fort. We can hold out there for a month or so yet, until Don Garcia and his army, or autumn, arrives.’

Thomas shook his head. ‘What about the civilians? We couldn’t possibly fit them all into the fort. Are you suggesting that we abandon them to the Turks?’ He thought of Maria and turned to his commander. ‘Sir, we can’t do that.’

‘We might have to,’ Romegas insisted. ‘How else can we make our supplies last long enough? The people are already starving. Our men will not have the strength to fight on in a few weeks’ time. The fort is more readily defended than the town and wall. It makes sense. It might be our only chance to save the Order, sir.’

‘Only at the price of our reputation,’ Thomas retorted. ‘Our name will go down in the annals of infamy if we leave the people to the mercy of the Turks. There will be no mercy, just massacre.’ Romegas smiled coldly. ‘This is war, Sir Thomas. A war that I, and the Grand Master, have been fighting through all the years we have served the Order. What matters, above all, is the survival of the Order.’

‘I thought that what matters is stemming the tide of Islam,’ Thomas countered.

‘While we live on we will always be the sword thrust into the side of the enemy,’ Romegas replied. ‘To ensure that, we must be prepared to make sacrifices. For the greater good.’

Thomas saw the strained expression on the Grand Master’s face as he reflected on Romegas’s suggestion and gave his response. ‘It’s true. We could hold St Angelo far more easily than Birgu, and perhaps long enough to see out the siege . . . And yet, what Sir Thomas says is also true. We should never forget that the Order was set up to protect the righteous and the innocent.’ He thought for a moment and then sighed. ‘I think I already know what I must do. Yes, I am certain of it.’

Romegas glanced at Thomas and smiled, believing that he had won the argument. ‘It is for the best, sir.’

‘You mistake me,’ said La Valette. ‘There will be no retreat to the fort . . . once I have seen to it that the drawbridge is blown to pieces.’