The Last Crusaders: Blood Red Sea (12 page)

They came to the tavern, and there was no Maria. Instead, no sooner had they pulled up the benches and sat down than a tiny boy came running in, wide eyed, open mouthed and breathless, and stood by their table. He was barefoot, wore ragged breeches and shirt, and could not have been more than four or five.

‘You are the landlord here?’

The boy stared.

‘Well then,’ said Stanley. ‘A jug of wine, bread, water, whatever there is.’

The boy nodded and sped off.

‘I’m sure they’re getting younger,’ said Smith.

The food and wine came, and Hodge raised his cup. ‘Wish it was good English ale to toast you with, but still. Here’s to you, Brothers Smith and Stanley. What a turnout. Who would have believed it?’

Nicholas said little and drank hard. Both knights noticed. After Malta, the galleys, and Algiers jail . . . the boy from Shropshire, son of a knight himself, was deeply wounded and scarred within. Their hearts ached for him. He would take more than a good meal to mend. And he hardly touched his plate of food as it was.

‘Eat,’ said Stanley. ‘You need it.’

‘I’d eat some opium if you had any,’ said Nicholas. ‘For my head.’

Not your head, your heart, thought Stanley. He could well foresee the thin English boy passing the last few months of his young life in a smoke dream, on a filthy divan in a den in Tangier, living for nothing but the pipe and an easy death.

It was not only from Pedro Deza they had saved him.

‘So now,’ said Stanley, settling back and turning his cup of wine in his hand. ‘Let us understand this clearly, old comrade-in-arms. After the Siege you and Hodge spent four long happy years in the house of Franco Briffa. Then we bid sad farewells to you, and you sailed from Malta, bound for England. But you were taken by corsairs on the passage to Spain.’

They nodded.

‘You were galley slaves, you spent time in jail, you escaped, were recaptured . . . Finally you survived the destruction of the very galley you slaved on, and were picked up from the sea by Fra Gil de Andrada, our brother Knight. ’Tis not improbable. The western Mediterranean is still our sea as much as anyone’s. Then, for reasons unclear, you arrived upon the soil of Holy Catholic Spain – after two years of bitter tribulation at the hands of Moors and Barbary pirates – and promptly hurl yourself into a fight
on behalf of the Moors?
Against Catholic Spain?’

‘He always did have a noble heart,’ said Hodge, with what sounded much like sarcasm.

‘Nobility, bravery,’ said Stanley, ‘often look so like idiocy on a moonless night.’

Nicholas grinned. This from two warrior monks who, though they would hate to hear it said, had shown more crazed bravery at Malta in four months than were told in a library of
Iliads
.

Smith said, ‘What
were
you doing in the house of a Moor? I can see why Deza might have had his suspicions.’

Nicholas explained as best he could. Smith grunted. ‘Fool.
Hiding in a chest
indeed.’

‘A fool to his fingertips,’ said a woman’s voice behind. ‘A fool and addlepate beyond measuring.’

It was Maria, hands on her hips. The small boy came in and stood half hidden in her skirts. She tried to sound angry, but there was a light in her eyes.

‘So you were freed from the dungeons of Pedro Deza?’

Nicholas nodded, swallowed, wiped his lips. ‘Close-run thing.’

‘And now what will you do? Ride off to Madrid and insult King Philip to his face, perhaps? Go and seek the north-west passage to the Indies, a hundred years too late? Or sail off in a sieve to find the Golden Fleece?’

‘I think we might go to Cyprus.’

Hodge looked resigned. Maria cried, ‘
Cyprus!
It is full of Greeks.’

‘One or two, I believe.’

‘But then all Greeks are liars and fools. At least you will not be noticed there.’

Maria turned her attention to her little boy. He had a new graze on his knee.

‘She likes you,’ said Stanley.

‘Pour me more wine,’ said Nicholas.

‘In fact I’m sure I remember her. Wasn’t she the one who salved your bruised sconce all those years ago . . . ?’

‘A young widow, I surmise,’ said Smith. ‘And as pretty as ever.’

Nicholas grabbed the wine jug.

‘We have free passage to Messina if we want it,’ said Stanley. ‘With plain sailing we will be in Sicily in five days. You are sure you want to join us?’

Nicholas looked at Hodge. They had been together so long, through so many trials, they could read each other’s thoughts without speaking. England was closed to them for now. After all their sufferings, it was a terrible thing to learn.

Nicholas sighed. ‘Let us sail east after all. Into the cannon’s mouth, as ever. Let us go and fight the Turk all over again.’

‘Might as well,’ said Hodge.

On the quayside, porters were piling up cedarwood chests, five, six in number. An elderly Spanish gentleman was overseeing them.

‘What the devil are those?’ asked Smith. ‘They don’t look like armaments.’

‘His Excellency Don John has ordered more vestments for his wardrobe,’ said the elderly gentleman. ‘He felt he had insufficient for the voyage. Six more suits, two cloaks, linen and undergarments, hats in the latest styles, and six pairs of boots of finest Spanish calf leather.’

‘For a voyage of five days?’

‘Just so.’

The sun was going down as they moved off from the quay. It had been quite a day, beginning in terror in a torturer’s dungeon, ending now in magical reunion with old friends. Nicholas could have wept with exhaustion and elation.

When he looked back towards the quay, a young woman was standing there, a small boy close beside her. Nicholas raised his hand in farewell. She raised her hand likewise, and then turned swiftly away and was gone into the crowds.

‘This arrant new Florentine order,’ observed Stanley mockingly, ‘the Knights of St Stephen, our callow imitators. They are laymen, not monks, and allowed to marry.’

‘Really?’ said Nicholas, settling back and yawning and closing his eyes. ‘Fascinating.’

As they drew near to
La Real
, Don John’s flagship, Nicholas marvelled at her beauty. He and Hodge had been on fat-bellied Genoa merchantmen, stinking corsair galleys, lean warships of the knights, that funny little bucket of a vessel that sailed them out of Bristol six long years gone – but never anything quite like this. A palace afloat on water.

She blazed in the setting sun. Her hull below the water was black but above, her waist was crimson, her gunwales deep yellow and her railings crimson and gold. Her poop-deck awning was of finest crimson satin, and above it hung the two-headed Habsburg eagle of the Holy Roman Empire, the quartered standard of Spain, and even the eight-pointed cross of the Knights of St John.

‘He is not, strictly speaking, permitted to fly that one,’ said Stanley quietly, ‘even though he’s a Knight Commander in the Order, and we are his acting aides-de-camp. But he may yet prove the Knights’ best ally. So we say nothing.’

At the prow of
La Real
shone the dimly gleaming barrels of her main guns, thrusting out from beneath her fighting deck. Sakers and culverins flanking, but the centre-line gun most definitely a full-size cannon, perhaps as much as an eighty-pounder. The whole ship would shudder when a linstock was put to her breech.

They climbed the ladder on her larboard – even that was elaborately carved and gilded – and were beckoned to sit on luxurious velvet-padded benches on the covered admiral’s deck. The small windows were of colourful stained glass, depicting the lives of the apostles and the saints.

‘Clear glass would be better,’ grunted Smith. ‘Get a view of the approaching Turk.’

The elderly gentleman from the quayside appeared again and ordered wine to be brought for them. He introduced himself with a little bow.

‘Don Luis de Requesens, tutor to His Excellency. Who is now at his evening toilet. He will join you presently.’

‘Has to pluck his eyebrows,’ said Smith when Don Luis was out of earshot.

Nicholas grinned and cradled his silver goblet of wine, cool to the touch and beaded with water droplets. The goblets had been chilled on beds of ice. In early summer. How on earth . . . ?

‘Brought down by muleteers from the Sierra Nevada,’ said Stanley. ‘Snow lies up there till June.’ He grinned ‘The things you can have if you’re a prince.’

‘Or sail with a prince,’ said Nicholas.

He took a gulp of wine, sweet and white and deliciously cool on a sultry Cadiz evening. Then he said, ‘So. Tell us about Cyprus.’ Stanley drew breath.

‘You remember I said to you once that Malta was but a minor skirmish in a much greater war?’

‘Minor skirmish!’ said Hodge bitterly.

Stanley nodded. ‘Not in heroism and endurance, of course. But
the greatest battle is yet to come. Perhaps the final battle. And a sea battle, we believe. It will make or break us. If we win, it will mean the end of Ottoman dreams of conquering Europe. If we lose . . . well, there are already Ottoman forward bases in the Adriatic, Ottoman war galleys harrying Venetian shipping right to the mouth of the lagoon.’

‘Raids led by that devil-born traitor, Kara Hodja,’ growled Smith, his eyes burning like coals, ‘who was once a Dominican friar.’

‘We will meet with Kara Hodja one of these days,’ said Stanley, his voice soft but chilling. ‘The Black Priest will have his last rites soon.’

‘But,’ said Smith, ‘the raids of Kara Hodja will seem as nothing if the fleet now being assembled on the Bosphorus succeeds in destroying the Christian navies piecemeal, and comes to dominate the Mediterranean end to end. Then Europe will be theirs for the taking. St Peter’s Rome will be a mosque, as Constantinople’s St Sophia became a mosque a hundred years ago.’

‘A far more beautiful church than St Peter’s, incidentally,’ said Stanley.

‘You have seen it?’ asked Hodge, wide eyed.

The knight gave an enigmatic smile. Then he was serious again. ‘So you see, bit by bit, Christendom falls to the Armies of the Prophet, and still we are divided against each other. The Turk gobbles us up singly, like a fox among chickens. Long ago Jerusalem fell to Islam a second time. All the ancient heartlands of Christendom. Then in 1453, Constantinople herself. And since then, Trebizond, Rhodes, Belgrade have also fallen, with further attacks on Corfu, Venice, Vienna . . . The dark shadow of Islam creeps ever westwards.’

Smith thumped his boot on the deck. ‘And the Turk
must not win!
This battle that is coming will decide the fate of the world. Nothing less. If the Turk destroys us in the Mediterranean, sails free past Malta and Sicily into the west, then that fanatical empire can command the Atlantic seaports of the Sultanate of Morocco. Asilah and Agadir, Larache, Mogador, Azzemour . . .’

‘And once established there,’ said Stanley, ‘the Turks can attack the Spanish treasure ships coming from the Indies. That treasure, I sometimes think, is all that keeps Christendom afloat and able
to fight at all. Lose that treasure and we are doomed. We can no longer build warships, can barely hammer out a few swords in a smithy. We are finished.’

Smith said, ‘The Turk will go on to Madeira, the Cape Verde Islands, the Gold Coast. This mightiest of Islamic empires has always had a land army second to none. Now they are learning to become sailors, there is no knowing what may befall. We must stop her armada. And soon.’

Stanley said, ‘But what with? The knights have the Chevalier Romegas, the greatest naval commander of the age. Even the Turks would admit that. And he commands . . . six galleys. The Turk is building three galleys
a week
. The Ottoman fleet that is soon to sail out of the Bosphorus will number three or four hundred galleys. We Knights of St John give a good fight, and are reputed gallant. But not that gallant.’

‘And now you believe that the Turks will first sail on Cyprus?’ said Nicholas.

‘Aye. And Cyprus
must be held
,’ said Smith, thumping his boot again for emphasis. ‘It is Christendom’s forward bastion, from which we will—’

Stanley looked sharply at him, and Smith bit his lip.

‘How much do you know?’ asked Stanley.

‘How much do you think?’ said Nicholas. ‘Our corsair overlords were shockingly remiss at keeping us up with the affairs of the world.’

‘Well then. Cyprus, as Brother John here says, must be held. It is indeed Christendom’s eastern bastion. Look.’ Stanley began to move objects around on the gently rocking table, to represent a rough map of Europe. His wallet was Spain. His dagger served for Italy. His sword laid crosswise was the north coast of Africa. Smith snapped a frayed lace from his shirt and formed a thin crescent where Constantinople stood.

‘Such artistry,’ said Stanley. ‘So then. Cyprus, here,’ he laid down a gold coin, ‘is a mere sixty miles from the coast of the Holy Land and the lost kingdoms of Outremer. If we are ever again to march through the streets of Jerusalem, to pray in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on Calvary hill, it is from Cyprus that we’ll sail. Cyprus is now a Venetian possession, but it is surrounded by Ottoman.
Turkey itself to the north, Palestine east, Egypt to the south, and even west of her, the new Ottoman possession of Rhodes. The Venetians have always maintained a friendly neutrality with the Turks. You know how they value their trade.’

‘Gold hoarders,’ growled Smith. ‘Soulless bankers, Mammon-struck mercenaries of the Adriatic. Yours for a ducat.’

‘Thank you, Brother,’ said Stanley. ‘But now, inevitably, as we had long warned, the Turk is about to invade Cyprus anyway.’

‘And we will have to get Venice to awaken at last,’ said Smith, ‘and join with the Papal States, and with Spain, with Genoa and with Savoy, at the very least. If we are to have a fleet anything like big enough to face the Turks.’

‘And the thought of Venice, Genoa and Spain all agreeing to fight on the same side,’ said Stanley, ‘instead of against each other, is about as likely as Brother John here taking up embroidery.’

Hodge shook his head. ‘This all sounds to me like what my old dad would call a pig’s arse of a muddle.’