The Religion: A Novel

by Tim Willocks

  Such was Tannhauser’s joy that he lost his footing and vanished below the brine. His mind reeled until he clapped both hands to the rock, and found his feet, and thrust himself back up to gasp at the air. He was humiliated that a medium he’d otherwise mastered could render him so helpless, but he crabbed along the outcrop’s far face and at last reached the craft without drowning. With the sea here waist-deep and with his toes once again clenching rock, he peeled back the canvas and hauled himself aboard.

  In the bottom lay two pair of oars, a rudder, a mast, and a furled lateen. There was a barrel of water, a pitch-sealed chest—he presumed of biscuit—and stowed in a trap bolted onto the gunwale were a knife, fishhooks and line, and a compass wrapped in oilcloth. Sicily was fifty miles due north; the Calabrian coast, where no one wanted his head impaled on a spike, only fifty miles more.

  He untied the boat from two iron hoops nailed into the rock and rowed her back around the shoreline. She cut the shallow waves like a blade and with the lateen up and a breath of wind would outrun any galley on the sea. At the shore he collected his gear and left Buraq with a bag of rolled barley. He rowed the boat north across the bay and pulled in at Zonra. He dragged the boat up the beach and careened her in the seaward lee of a roofless stone outhouse. He covered her with the canvas and an hour’s worth of hand-shoveled shale. From the sea she couldn’t be distinguished from the outhouse wall. From land, only a determined search would unearth her, and since the hamlet was waterless and lately gutted, the Turks were unlikely to return. From here, on foot—and even with two women in tow—they could be under sail within three hours of leaving the Kalkara Gate.

  Tannhauser dressed, marched back to Buraq, wrapped his new Damascus musket in a blanket, and continued south to Marsaxlokk Harbor, where the bulk of the Sultan’s fleet yet lay at anchor. Supply ships plied to the North African ports and back, and the beaches teemed. He watered Buraq and joined their afternoon prayers, and took tea and honeyed almonds with an Egyptian navigator. They talked of Alexandria and Tannhauser gleaned that Admiral Piyale remained too chary of the Gregale winds to commit more than a dozen galleys to the blockade. Some patrolled the Gozo channel and the rest prowled the mouth of Grand Harbor, both of which sectors Tannhauser could readily avoid. It was to secure the northern anchorage of Marsamxett that the battle for Saint Elmo still raged.

  With this welcome news boosting his confidence in a happy passage home, Tannhauser fell in with a mule train taking firewood and flour to the army’s bread kilns on the Marsa. He told the captain of their Sipahi escort of the attack on Torghoud’s battery, of which the fellow was unaware. As often before, he was treated to a view of the Religion from the Turkish point of view. A cult of satanic fanatics. Less soldiers than criminals. Slavers, pirates, human devils, perhaps even sorcerers. A plague to be extinguished for the sake of peace and the good of the rest of the world. It took no great shamming on Tannhauser’s part to agree.

  At the main Turkish camp on the Marsa he took to the bazaar and renewed his acquaintance with certain of its denizens. They drank yogurt with salt and coriander, and he learned how savage the Turkish losses had been at Saint Elmo. Several janissary orta had been virtually wiped out by their refusal to retreat. Though the campaign was proving more arduous than expected, no one doubted that their Sultan would prevail, according to God’s will. When merchants ran the world, they all agreed, there would be harmony among nations; but until that distant date they would profit as they could.

  The virtues of Malta’s harbors were much discussed, as were the uses to which they would be put when absorbed into the Sultan’s dominions. Under the evil hegemony of the Hounds of Hell, the island was little more than a barracks and a market for slaves. Under the Ottomans it would prosper. Here, at the crossroads of half a dozen major trade routes, and with Christian piracy eliminated, fortunes would be made. These traders were poised to stake their claim; that was why they’d come so far and at such risk. Tannhauser found himself envious. Then he realized that when Malta became a wellspring of Turkish cash, he and Sabato Svi could dip their bucket from as far as Venice. Despite periodic bickering, the Serene Republic had always held first place in Ottoman trade. He put this thought, in broad terms, to the gathered merchants, who received it with enthusiasm. One knew Sabato Svi by reputation and Moshe Mosseri in person. Jews were trusted and respected. Tannhauser imagined Sabato’s eyes at the thought of twice the business at half the distance.

  It occurred to him that this required the Turks to triumph at the Religion’s expense. But the fact was that if the Religion was wiped out, no one would mourn for long. Masses would be said and the dead honored. Monarchs, princes, and popes would squabble over their lands. Those who hated La Valette would pay wordy tribute to his reputation, as a means to inflating their own. The knights would vanish from memory along with the cause for which they’d died. And Time would consign their name to the shelves of History, alongside dynasties, tribes, and empires too sundry to number.

  “Who are the Greeks now, despite a thousand years of Byzantium?”

  He muttered this thought out loud and the others looked at him strangely, perhaps because the answer was evident to all. Those Greeks with any talent were the slaves of Suleiman Shah, and grateful to be so. The rest were peasants scraping a living from the rocks. He gathered his wits and gave them the benefit of his expertise in the market for pepper. From Malta they could ship direct to Genoa, Barcelona, Marseilles, and cut out the Venetians altogether. Prices were bandied and unspoken calculations furrowed their brows. The remains of the day slipped by in such altogether civilized speculations. The coffee was strong, the cakes were sweet, and no man spoke of murdering another. The sun fell behind the high country to the west. The muezzin called. Tannhauser joined his friends at prayer, and impostor and blasphemer though he was, he found it a comfort. Afterward, the Galata grain dealer most intrigued by his forecasts in pepper, and who had friends in the Mendes family, let slip the rumor that Mustafa planned to surprise Saint Elmo with a night assault next day, on the infidel Sabbath.

  With this titbit to feed to Starkey, Tannhauser left the encampment and rode Buraq through the dark to the Kalkara Gate. With Mustafa obsessed with Saint Elmo, the Borgo’s eastern flank was thinly patrolled and he met no trouble on his way. A day to find Orlando Boccanera. Surely no more than two or three. The boy had been raised in the Borgo and that was most likely where he’d be. Then he’d take the ones he cared for from this hellworld and leave the rest to God’s will.

  When he reached the Auberge of England on his return from Sant’Angelo, Majistral Street was deserted and the sky above was clear and indigo blue. The moon was waxing and would be bright for a week to come, but it set between one and two and wouldn’t endanger their nocturnal flight to Zonra. Five was a large number to get past the watch on the Kalkara Gate, even with the passe portes to Mdina. But where else could the guard imagine they were going? He smiled. The women would be absolute proof against any suspicion of defection to the Turks.

  He entered the refectory and found Bors and Nicodemus playing backgammon. Bors wore that expression of ecstatic anguish which is unique to compulsive gamblers on the verge of a heavy loss. Asleep with his head on the table was a third man he didn’t know. A bandaged stump swung from his shoulder. Amparo slid from nowhere and threw her arms about him and he gave her a squeeze and a kiss on her luscious lips. She was more oddly beautiful than ever. Her lean, asymmetrical face was split by the candlelight, the fractured cheekbone lost in shadow, and he found that he missed it and wouldn’t have wished her unblemished even if it could have been so. In her hair she wore the ivory comb and he was touched. He let go of her and she, with reluctance, of him. He rested the Damascus musket in its blanket against the wall.

  “So,” said Bors, “the Great Khan returns.” Runnels of dried sweat striped the gunblack on his face and gave him the appearance of a giant and unruly child. “What news from Mecca?”

  Tannhauser saw the huge demijohn. �
�Is there any wine left?”

  “No.”

  “Supper?”

  “The cook is occupied.”

  Nicodemus rolled the dice and Bors cursed vilely and banged the table with his fist. The night was yet warm and Tannhauser considered the cool water in his tub. Why not? He unbuckled his scimitar and unbuttoned his caftan. He watched Nicodemus clack white bones around the backgammon board with fluent expertise.

  In Turkish Tannhauser said, “Nicodemus, let him win. Imagine he’s but a small boy, whom you love tenderly.”

  “That’s how he plays,” said Nicodemus. “But why should I throw the game?”

  “It would bring tranquillity for all and tonight I would value it. And it will be a shrewd investment for future contests.”

  Bors rolled the dice and cursed again. “These dice are bewitched. What did the Greek dog just say?”

  “He told me he’d like to bugger you, but is waiting until you bathe.”

  “He’s already buggered me, a dozen times. I may need to borrow some gold.”

  “You’re playing for gold?”

  Bors scowled, his huge filthy hand hovering over the board. “What news, I say? What news?”

  Tannhauser said, “They’re warming our dinner in Calabria.”

  Bors momentarily forgot the game. He looked at him sourly. “And a pilot?”

  “We have a compass. I’m our pilot.”

  “Magnificent.”

  “I’ve also identified the contessa’s boy.”

  Bors returned to scanning the board with thinly veiled rage, then plunged his hand as if into a nest of scorpions. The black bones slammed home. “I’m not interested,” he growled.

  “Where’s Carla?”

  Amparo answered, “She’s asleep.”

  “Then I’m for a bath,” said Tannhauser.

  Bors ignored him and scooped the dice into the leather cup. Glowering with menace he slammed it down in front of Nicodemus. “Roll and be damned, you Moslem fiend.”

  Tannhauser saw the alarm on Amparo’s face and smiled. “Pity him,” he said. “Bors was the finest backgammon player in Messina, or so he thought.”

  “Once again I find myself trapped among the circumcised,” said Bors. “Here, in the bastion of the Catholic Faith. It’s against the natural order.” He watched the roll of the dice then froze like a cat spying a wounded mouse as Nicodemus made a flagrantly incompetent move. “Go take your bath,” said Bors, “and leave the men to their business.”

  Tannhauser went to his cell and stripped and took a towel and went to the garden. When he got there he saw a flash of ivory and silver. Amparo was already immersed in the tub beneath the stars. He stopped. This was a novel concept and a rum one. His bath wasn’t something he was in the habit of sharing. He was more than content to be soaped, scrubbed, oiled, embrocated, and so forth, at least by a woman, but to swill about in the same water? Amparo’s face loomed above the ironbound rim, angelic and pale and lovely in the moonlight. It was clear she had no idea that this act was radical, but in such artlessness lay much of her matchless charm. It would be unkind to ask her to leave and even worse to refuse to get in. He walked over and tested the contents with his hand. The water still held the day’s heat. His body would be soothed, not shocked, and with this prospect his dilemma became more acute. Then the same silver light that lit her face gleamed from two majestic white hemispheres. They broke the water’s surface like the hero’s reward in some ancient and erotic myth, and the dilemma was wiped from his mind like a shadow from a screen. The frankness of the gaze that she directed at his fast-engorging privities mocked his squeamishness, and without further ado he vaulted over the edge and splashed in beside her.

  He’d intended the tub to relax his limbs and to empty his mind of excitements for a spell. The immaculate slither of milky flesh that wrapped itself about him sabotaged both these possibilities at once. He restrained himself from instantaneous congress and let his hands roam about her thighs beneath the brine.

  “You razed the Turkish guns today,” said Amparo.

  It wasn’t a memory he wished to revisit. With his lips on her neck, he merely grunted.

  “Was it terrible?” she said.

  “Terrible?” he mumbled, perplexed. Perhaps she was trying to soothe him. “We killed many men,” he said. “But with such worldly matters you needn’t be concerned.” He kissed her throat. He ran his fingers into her hair. One breast filled his hand, as if of its own volition, and he sighed from deep in his chest as bliss overpowered him. Yet he remained obscurely pestered by her query. Such topical questions were not what he’d come to expect from her.

  “Amparo, how do you know about the guns?” he said.

  She said, “Orlandu told me.”

  Tannhauser’s arousal receded with a disconcerting abruptness. He stood up and she slid from her perch across his thighs. “Orlandu?” he said. “Who is Orlandu?”

  “My friend from the harbor. I told you, he thinks you a great hero and wanted to meet you.” He vaguely recalled this matter but had paid it no mind. Amparo continued: “He was here in the refectory. He shared our supper not an hour since.”

  “How old is this friend of yours?”

  “He says he’s fifteen, though he isn’t sure.” She understood his agitation. “He doesn’t believe he’s Carla’s son, and neither does Carla.”

  Tannhauser wasn’t reassured. “What’s his family name?”

  “Orlandu di Borgo.”

  He laughed, but without humor. His vision of escaping the island shimmered before him and with it a nameless dread that he had to resolve with all speed.

  “Who’s the man at the table, with the missing arm?”

  “Orlandu’s friend, Tomaso.”

  “Wait here,” said Tannhauser. He levered himself over the rim.

  “Are you angry with me?”

  “On the contrary. Just be patient.”

  He hurried to the door of the auberge and realized he’d left the towel behind. He didn’t turn back. The slap of his feet on the tiles seemed abnormally loud. He reached the refectory to a peal of exuberant laughter from Bors, who looked up as he entered.

  “The tide has turned!” roared Bors. The sweat marks on his cheeks looked like tears of joy. “Justice has forged her masterpiece!”

  “Wake the Maltese,” said Tannhauser.

  Bors reacted to his tone by leaning over and prodding a finger as thick as a broomstick into the sleeping man’s ribs. Tomaso jerked up, confused by his surroundings, still the worse for several pints of wine, and alarmed by the nude and dripping figure that hulked from the candlelit shadows.

  “Orlandu Boccanera,” said Tannhauser.

  Tomaso looked about the table as if to point him out, his blurred eyes roving about the dark when he didn’t find him. It was answer enough.

  Tannhauser said, in Italian, “Where does he live? The house of Orlandu?”

  Tomaso looked around as if for help.

  “I know where Orlandu sleeps,” said Amparo. Her head peeped around the door frame. She was wrapped in the towel.

  “Good,” said Tannhauser. “We’ll get dressed at once.”

  As he turned away, Tomaso said something that none of them understood. He pointed to a spot on the floor by the wall. Tannhauser rapped the table with his fist. “Bors?”

  Bors turned and looked and said, “That’s where Tomaso’s sword and armor were stacked.” He blew his cheeks. “I’d say young Orlandu must have taken them with him.”

  Tomaso spoke again and the words included “Sant’Elmu.”

  Tannhauser looked at Bors. “Tell me I just misheard him.”

  Bors wiped a finger across his mustache. “Well, the lad was all afire to join the broil. And I daresay we stoked it.”

  “He’s twelve years old,” said Tannhauser.

  “In cuirass and helm he’d look man enough and more. He wouldn’t be the first to lie about his age, to go for a soldier. And, I must say, the lad has a quick and ready to
ngue when he wants to wag it.”

  Tannhauser felt the floor falling out of his bowels.

  He said, “You’re coming with me, to Sant’Angelo’s wharf.”

  “But the game,” said Bors. “I have him on his knees!”

  Tannhauser ran to his cell to grab his boots and a pair of breeches.

  Tannhauser and Bors double-timed it through the narrow streets. Between the crenellated rim of the curtain wall and the silhouette of Castel Sant’Angelo the town was a pool of darkness. As they got closer to the fortress, voices and groans rang out, and they passed stretcher bearers hauling the day’s injured to the infirmary by torchlight. The evacuees were distinguished not merely by their wounds but by an absence in their eyes, as if horror had robbed each one of something precious. They ran on.

  Castel Sant’Angelo stood on its own rock, separated from the Borgo by a canal. The bridge across the canal led to the foot of the castle and to the curving wharf from which the boats set sail to Saint Elmo. The bridge was jammed with a desperate and bloody human traffic. Tannhauser browbeat his way past the provost marshal and they shoved their way through the press with all necessary callousness. On the bare stones of the wharf lay bodies that had expired during the crossing. Beside them lay a dozen more who looked unlikely to make it across the bridge. Spilled gore abounded, in puddles and gelid lumps, and it clung to his boots as he hurdled the dying and the dead. Two chaplains moved among the moribund, smearing chrism on their foreheads and nostrils and lips.