The Disorderly Knights

by Dorothy Dunnett

  He was shaking. And Lymond’s cold voice following was as refreshing as spray. ‘And you will all become converts and go to the Mussulman’s paradise, where the climax of love lasts for ten thousand years. Consider it, Brother Jerott, if you dare.’

  Brother Jerott, still scarlet, was spared the need to reply. For the door opened on a middle-aged gentleman who proved to be the Order’s Receiver himself; an Italian banker who acknowledged Jerott’s introduction with a courtesy barely concealing his extreme disquiet. At mention of de Villegagnon, he sat down suddenly, waving to the knights and to Lymond to do likewise. ‘You’ve come from France with the Chevalier. Oh, dear. Well, you don’t need me to tell you that he has just brought the Viceroy very bad news. Bad news. The Turk is preparing. He will soon be attacking these shores.’

  ‘The French Constable’s warning,’ said Lymond mildly, ‘was to the effect that the Turk was sailing rather against Malta and Tripoli.’

  The Receiver heaved a nauseated sigh. ‘That, M. le Comte, is what the Chevalier de Villegagnon said. His Excellency—I dislike having to say that his Excellency did not believe him. His Excellency, in fact, accused him of being the Constable’s catspaw. The Viceroy, it seems, prefers to think that the warning is a French device to remove all naval defences from Sicily and Italy itself, to expose the Emperor more readily to attack by the Turks.’

  There was a heavy-breathing silence during which Lymond’s voice, unsurprised, said, ‘And M. de Villegagnon replied …?’

  ‘The Chevalier said “Christ” several times—he was exceedingly overwrought,’ said the Receiver apologetically. ‘Exceedingly. He reminded the Viceroy that, contrary to all standing treaties, the Emperor—with the assistance of all the knights, French, Spanish, Italian, German, English—had seized the Sultan’s possessions in North Africa and had mortified the corsair Dragut to such a pitch that Dragut has not only petitioned but tried to pay for the privilege of launching an attack to exterminate the knights of Tripoli and Malta from the earth. He said that the Sultan was fully as angry as Dragut, and that when the Emperor excused himself on the grounds that he was, with the knights, simply clearing the seas of worthless corsairs of no concern to the Ottoman lords, the Sultan answered by heaping official appointments on Dragut and his friends, and by gathering them publicly within the framework of his fleet.… He was most convincing,’ said the Receiver doubtfully. ‘Hard as it is for us to believe on this island, so close to Italy, that so great an infidel fleet could be built and commissioned simply to demolish a rock—’

  ‘Was the Viceroy convinced, sir?’ said Jerott’s hard young voice. ‘Since you clearly are not?’

  The Receiver, who was merely doing his best in a state of some shock, said, ‘I—there are difficulties in accepting the whole of M. de Villegagnon’s premise, but I do so—I am prepared to do so. His Excellency has done the same. He has promised Tripoli two hundred soldiers from Naples, to be sent to Malta as soon as levied.’

  ‘Under me,’ said Jerott Blyth instantly, and in the ensuing babble of voices cut his way by sheer lung power. ‘Under me … and if anyone objects, they can argue with steel.’

  ‘Since we are all to die together on our rock,’ said Lymond’s voice, pleasant as ever, silencing the argument, ‘is there not one simple precaution we may take? The Turkish mind, after all, is far more subtle than ours. Our cruder subterfuges might even succeed. I take it that however near to Malta the Sultan’s flotilla approaches, Charles is unlikely to release Imperial ships to help you?’

  ‘He will never leave Sicily and Naples unguarded,’ said the Receiver with simple conviction. ‘Never. And without Prince Doria’s fleet, our own galleys are useless against this monstrous navy of Sinan Pasha and Dragut.’

  ‘And there is your one frail hope, surely,’ said Lymond patiently to the circle of brown and bearded faces, shining with sweat in the lamplight. ‘For although you know this for certain, Dragut does not. Say, if Malta were attacked, that the Turks intercepted a boat arriving from Sicily with ostensible news for the Grand Master that Doria was back in Messina, and that couriers had been sent abroad, to Naples, to Genoa, summoning ships and troops to help raise the siege. It wouldn’t be true, but the Turks couldn’t depend on it. They might take fright. They might retreat …’

  They discussed it, the young men’s voices rising in their excitement. The Receiver was doubtful. Could such a ruse mislead the Turks? How would he know that Malta had suffered attack? Whom could he send to Malta with a spurious message? And how ensure that the Turks would intercept it?

  They argued a long time without reaching a conclusion, but Lymond, watching them, did not add to his point. Buckled to his fine belt was the thick purse, chiming with gold pieces, that Jerott Blyth silently passed to him. For though the Knights Hospitallers were not a gambling Order, they had their pride.

  It was then two hours to dawn. As the sun rose, innocent on the innocent sea, the Chevalier de Villegagnon with his retinue, among whom Francis Crawford was modestly one, set sail in the Viceroy of Sicily’s fastest brigantine for Malta, island fortress of Holy Church in the Middle Seas, and destined prey of Dragut.

  II

  The Tongue of Gabriel

  (Maltese Archipelago, July 1551)

  ‘UNTIL you have smoked out this nest of vipers, you can do no good anywhere.’

  The words, long ago, had been the corsair Dragut’s, speaking of Malta. And soundlessly Francis Crawford repeated them now, standing fanned by the striped triangular sail overhead, his gaze on those pink morsels of sandstone far ahead off the bows of the brigan-tine, a flaw in the shining blue twill of the sea.

  Malta, Comino and Gozo, the three islands of the Maltese Archipelago. Melita, island of honey, navel of the great, tideless waterway. Comino, island of cumin and spice.…

  He had spoken aloud. ‘And Gozo,’ said the Chevalier de Villegagnon gravely at his shoulder. ‘Isle of Calypso, the long-haired enchantress, alluring Odysseus with her voice at the loom.’

  There was a respectful silence to the shade of Calypso, during which Nicholas Durand and Lymond were thinking of two quite different women. Then they were close enough to smell the hot sandstone rock, the dazzle of sea in their eyes; and under bare poles, the rowers drawing the brigantine through water like hazy blue glass, they slid into the long fjord with three left turnings: the historic deepwater harbour of Malta.

  On their right, the scarlet flag of the Order moved, and then dipped ceremoniously from the watch-tower of St Elmo below the baked yellow heights of Mount Sciberras. The Order already knew, by fast boat from Sicily, that de Villegagnon was coming, and why.

  But that was all. No galleys moved in or out of the long inlet, no metal glittered; no scramble of men building, digging, defensive, was visible on either side. On the brigantine, no one spoke save the master and the bo’s’n, repeating orders, as she crept into Malta in the blazing midsummer silence; and Malta slept, sullenly, all around.

  One precaution only the Order had taken. The chain was across Galley Creek, the hand-forged Venetian chain whose every link had cost the knights ten golden ducats. It sealed the mouth of the middle of the three blind seaways entering the long southern coast of the fjord, and from its vast capstan on the left to its rock bed on the right, joined the two tongues of land between which all the galleys and brigantines of the Order usually lay. On the left tongue was Birgu, the fishing village the knights had made convent and home of the Order, with the fort of St Angelo at its tip. On the right was the peninsula called L’Isla, with a watch-tower and scattered houses which stared across Galley Creek to Birgu.

  Now, above the tiered, windowless walls of Fort St Angelo rising white from sea and rock on their left, a second scarlet flag dipped in turn; and a puff of smoke, followed by the dull thud of a gun, reported to the piled, yellow-white town of Birgu at its back that de Villegagnon had come. A skiff, running alongside the shallow boats supporting the great chain from side to side of the creek, freed the middle stretch fr
om supports, and the taut line sagged and dipped as, invisibly, the slaves below St Angelo flung their weight on the capstan bars. De Villegagnon, silent in the bows, turned and nodded to the Master, and the brigantine slowly gained speed and slid over the line.

  Slid, and then stopped, for the Chevalier, leaning over the rail, had seen the sloop turn and dart to the brigantine’s side, and caught sight of paler faces within it among the olive skins of the crew, and a swing of black cloth. Neatly balancing amidships, a man stood and hailed the incoming ship.

  Without approaching the rail, Lymond studied de Villegagnon as the rowers backpaddled and the big ship was stubbed to a halt. ‘A welcoming party?’

  A change had come over Durand de Villegagnon’s face. For the first time you saw that, even to such a soldier—travelled, accepted, assured—coming to Malta was coming home; was coming to his Church and his friends, and to the only altar he knew where he could lay down his burdens for a space. De Villegagnon said, ‘Yes.… It seems so. The knight on the left is the Pilier of the French Tongue. The man next to him is the Grand Master’s secretary. The fat one is Nick Upton, the Turcopilier in charge of Malta’s defences—he’s English.’

  ‘And the Grand Cross who hailed you?’ Moving to de Villegagnon’s side, Lymond watched as, below, the rope ladder swung down from the poop for the four knights to ascend. The man in question, already standing, was the first to lay hands on the ladder. He glanced up, grimacing: a tall, broad-shouldered knight in early middle years with hair brighter than Lymond’s own—a brief cap, ruthlessly cropped, of guinea-gold, with a vein of his sister’s apricot at the crown. ‘Gabriel,’ said the Chevalier de Villegagnon, with the tension gone from his voice. And so Lymond and Graham Reid Malett met.

  Between these two fair-headed men; between Gabriel’s Viking dimensions, his radiance, his serenity and the fauve, high-strung person of Francis Crawford, there passed no shock; no intuitive blaze of emotion. Coming to offer his hand after the great embrace he had shared with de Villegagnon, Sir Graham Reid Malett, Grand Cross of the Noble Order of the Knights of St John of Jerusalem; monk, soldier and seaman, of whom Strozzi, Francis de Guise and de Villegagnon himself had spoken with such exceptional warmth, conveyed simply a friendly interest that widened into a mock apologetic smile. Malett said, ‘I’m going to hold prayers for a moment, I’m afraid: it’s our rather repetitive custom. Could you pacify the Master for me? I know he’s wild to get into Birgu’s brothels.’

  And thus released with courtesy from unnecessary commitment, Lymond was able to stroll to the prow with the Master while the four knights knelt on the beechwood deck where they stood and gave thanks for the Chevalier’s safe voyage home.

  Grace, intelligence, humour and great strength: these were the first impressions of Gabriel a stranger would receive; these, and the beauty of his magnificent voice. As prayers ended and the ship moved slowly up-creek to its berth, he spoke quickly and quietly of his arrangements. De Villegagnon and Lymond were to stay with him at Birgu. Unique among the knights, Gabriel had a house to himself instead of sharing the communal life of the Langues. Later, a meeting of the Supreme Council had been called, before whom de Villegagnon must speak.

  At this point Sir Graham paused. In the sun-reddened face with its shapely bones, strong jaw and wide brow seamed with dry lines; in the sea-blue, cloudless gaze, a shadow of trouble existed. Addressing de Villegagnon, ‘You’re no novice, Nicholas,’ he said. ‘You know the weakness here, and how your detractors will work.’

  ‘I had something of the same treatment from the Viceroy,’ said de Villegagnon equably. The impotent storm of anger he had nursed from Messina seemed to have gone. Instead, he looked like a man restored to the cool legal terrain of his fathers; and all the emotion he had bred to sustain him slipped unneeded away. Lymond recognized that de Villegagnon had not only the confidence of Gabriel’s support: behind Gabriel he saw God.

  ‘Nicholas thinks I have the Grand Master in the palm of my hand,’ said Gabriel tranquilly, picking up Lymond’s tenor of thought. ‘But no one here controls Juan de Homedès, least of all the poor gentleman himself. I pity him; I also fear for him. I fear for us all. He and his Spanish knights have weakened the Order. This season they may dishonour it in the eyes of all reasonable men.’

  The soft bulk of Nick Upton pressed into the triangle. ‘Gabriel, I am not a reasonable man. I say, throw out Juan de Homedès.’

  Malett laughed, but unlike Upton, he kept his voice to a murmur. ‘Throw out a Grand Master, appointed by Charles V and the Pope? In face of his overwhelming Spanish vote in the Supreme Council? And with the whole Turkish fleet liable to besiege us? If ever the Order needed to be whole, Nick, it is now.’

  ‘Better a wholesome half than a rotten whole,’ said the fat Englishman dourly.

  ‘You forget,’ said Gabriel quickly, his gaze on the fast-nearing quay. ‘We are hospitallers to trade. With the right medicine, even the rotten whole might be cured in time.’

  ‘Even though,’ said Lymond, since no one else seemed to be saying it, ‘Juan de Homedès has been Grand Master for fifteen years?’

  Gabriel smiled. ‘Despite that. For Durand de Villegagnon has been absent for much of that time, and Leone Strozzi, and many more I could name. Nicholas is the first to come back. By tomorrow, you will see, there will be more.’

  Upton, the fat Turcopilier, dropped his argument abruptly. ‘And M. le Comte de Sevigny is to give us the benefit of his experience,’ he said.

  Again the wise, disarming blue gaze scanned Lymond. ‘I did not care to court his already well-founded contempt by expressing it,’ he said. ‘But that, of course, has been all along in our minds.… Shall we go ashore?’

  And, sparing Francis Crawford the need to reply, Gabriel turned and moving lightly, for all his great height, led the way on to the baked sandy clay of Birgu.

  *

  Less than an hour later, bathed and robed, the Chevalier de Villegagnon went to pay his formal respects to the Grand Master, and Lymond, left for the moment alone, changed quickly and in anonymous dark jerkin and hose walked into the steep, slatted lanes of Birgu.

  From a breathless sky, the sun beat on the soft yellow rock; the long spit on which the knights had reared their tall, elegant houses, face to face in a network of alleys that climbed the steep ridge on either side from the water’s edge, where the Maltese lived still, in cabin and hut. Emptied by the hour of siesta, Birgu presented itself boldly to the observer climbing silently between the splendour of grille-work and portico, cartouche, shrine and balcony; beneath the banners drooping still from the sunlight into the shadowy canyons where he walked.

  First the private houses with their marble steps and beautiful knockers; the coat of arms fresh, the saints in their flowered niches bright with gold and enamel. Then the Auberges, Inns of the Eight Langues into which this Order of international knights had long ago been divided, so that each race could sleep and eat with its fellow nationals and speak, in the Inn at least, the same common tongue.

  Since 1540, the English Langue had been nominal only. There were ten English knights left on Malta, of whom Nick Upton was one. In London there were, openly, none. When King Henry VIII of England renounced the Pope, he renounced the Order of St John of Jerusalem as well; seized the Order’s rich Priory at Clerkenwell and all their possessions.

  In Scotland the Priory was untouched, but only two of her knights remained in the convent: Jerott Blyth, at present in Sicily and now ranking as French; and Graham Malett, Knight Grand Cross and friend of the French, whose integrity that afternoon in support of de Villegagnon must sway even the Grand Master to believe that Malta and Tripoli would be attacked, and Malta and Tripoli must be saved.

  Now, as Lymond, observing, quartered Birgu, only the Maltese stirred.

  Between the palaces of the knights and those that served them; the convents, the elegant homes belonging to officers of the Church and the town; between the bakehouse and the shops of the craftsmen, the arsenals a
nd magazines, the warehouses, the homes of merchants and courtesans, Italian, Spanish, Greek; past the painted shrines and courtyards scraped from pockets of earth with their bright waxy green carob trees, a fig, a finger of vine, a blue and orange pot of dry, dying flowers and a tethered goat bleating in a swept yard, padded the heirs of this rock, this precious knot in the trade of the world. Umber-skinned, grey-eyed, barefoot and robed as Arabs with the soft, slurring dialect that Dido and Hannibal spoke, they slipped past the painted facades to their Birgu of fishermen’s huts and blank, Arab-walled houses or to sleep, curled in the shade, with the curs in a porch.

  A great Church and a race of defenders had come to bless the peasants and noblemen of Malta, who possessed a rock and the language Christ spoke. Bitterly silent both about the privileges they had lost and the laws they were now to fulfil, the Maltese were apt to recall that the Church was already theirs long before the knights came; and that before the knights came, they had no need of defenders.

  At the highest point in the little walled town, overlooking the canal which separated Birgu from the big white fortress built on the point, Lymond paused to look, the high trill of caged singing birds the only sound in the heat.

  Over there, in the high fort of St Angelo where the Grand Master lived, the knights and their suites would withdraw in time of siege. The cisterns in St Angelo would be their only water supply; the stone-lidded grain tanks their main source of food; the slaves in the rock dungeons verging the canal their charge and their danger.

  In the long journey from Marseilles Lymond had not wasted his time. He knew that Malta had no rivers, no wells and only one or two sweet-water springs, of which Birgu had one. He knew that, scattered pueblos apart, the only other city of substance, poorly fortified, was the old walled capital of Mdina, guarding a broad, dusty plain nine miles northwards. He knew that Malta’s spoonfuls of Sicilian topsoil sustained cotton and melons, figs, vines, olives with difficulty; and that her corn, her biscuit meal, her meat, her wine, her powder all came from Sicily, or Naples, or Candia. Without her own ships, or the Emperor’s fleet, a long siege would fall hard on the island.