by Tim Willocks
Abbas’s horse went down with him, then struggled to its feet, its hooves treading its master as it scrambled away. At Abbas’s either side, the regimental standard-bearer and two other officers were felled by the same volley. Tannhauser pulled Buraq’s head about.
“Mattias!”
Tannhauser turned. Bors pointed down the line with the barrel of his musket. From another breach, two hundred feet down the ever-changing front, a knot of five riders spilled out onto the open plain to the rear of the fighting. Their horses were lathered, almost blown. The group started back across the basin toward the defile. The knight at their head wore a peerless black carapace of Negroli armor. The three knights behind him completed a diamond-shaped square and in the square’s center rode Orlandu.
He was naked to the waist and looked as proud as a gamecock.
Tannhauser looked back at Abbas. He stood swaying on his feet among the knot of dead, leaning on the shaft of the yellow standard in his hands. A knight rode down on him and Abbas tilted the shaft and wedged its butt against his foot and speared the horse through the chest on its spiked finial. He stumbled aside from the collapse of man and beast and dropped to one knee, and came up with a scarlet sword, and fell on the downed knight with the last of his strength. Thirty yards behind him, another knight wheeled about and made to charge him down.
Tannhauser sheathed his sword and turned back to Bors.
“Follow them but don’t engage. I’ll join you.”
Bors nodded and set forth. Tannhauser crunched back the dog of his pistol and shortened his grip on the reins and Buraq kicked into a gallop from a standing start. He rose forward in the stirrups as they bolted through the gap toward Abbas, closing the distance between them as the knight with lowered lance did just the same from the farther side. Abbas rose from his victim and with a flick of his head saw both his seeming executioners bearing down. He raised his sword to meet Tannhauser’s charge, and Tannhauser thumbed the strap from under his chin and threw his helmet aside. At thirty feet Abbas blinked with recognition and Tannhauser pointed past him with the pistol. With the halting gait of one badly hurt, Abbas turned to meet the oncoming lance. Tannhauser gave Buraq a free head and leaned forward into the jump. Buraq cleared the mound of dead to Abbas’s left and landed without breaking stride. The head of the onrushing knight flicked toward him in surprise. At ten-foot range Tannhauser aimed and shot him in the chest.
The steel ball punched through the breastplate and the knight reeled back against the cantle, the lance flying wide and falling as his mount carried on. Tannhauser pulled Buraq to a sliding stop and wheeled. The knight was slumped forward. Abbas flashed the point of his blade at the horse’s face and it swung aside, and as its rider toppled to the ground, his hand tangled in the reins and pulled the beast to a halt. Abbas fell to his knees and leaned on his sword.
Tannhauser dismounted beside him. Abbas was covered with so much blood it was futile to seek out the wounds. He looked up.
“Ibrahim.”
“Father,” said Tannhauser. “Have faith.”
He hauled Abbas to his feet and manhandled him against Buraq’s flank. He stooped and laced his hands under Abbas’s foot. “With me now.” He heaved and Abbas threw his leg and made the saddle and lay with his arms round Buraq’s neck. Tannhauser took the bridle.
“Pray,” he said. “Adh-Dhariyat.”
As Tannhauser led Abbas toward the stranded horse, they sang the verses together.
“By the winds that winnow with a winnowing, And those that bear the burden of the rain, And those that glide with ease upon the sea, And those Angels who scatter blessings by Allah’s command, Verily that which you are promised is surely true, And verily Judgment and Justice will come to pass.”
Tannhauser stooped over the fallen knight. A red froth bubbled from his nostrils and his beard gleamed with gore. He clung on to the reins of his mount and Tannhauser stomped on his arm and ripped them free. He mounted the warhorse, and it reared beneath him and he dug in his knees and mastered it, and Buraq pulled up close and his presence seemed to gentle the other. Abbas hung on to the short flaxen mane, his lips now moving without sound. Tannhauser took Buraq’s rein and led them back through the gap into the open basin.
He glanced south and saw the knot of Ludovico’s band, now halfway up the vale toward the defile. Orlandu was safe. Some way behind them and to their left another pair of riders followed: Gullu Cakie and Bors. Since the vale was randomly populated with the to and fro of Corna’s messengers, a trickle of knights from the Borgo newly arrived, and with stumbling coveys of wounded, mounted and afoot, neither group drew attention. To the north, the battle had shifted to the grassy slopes and sandstone shelves that rimmed Saint Paul’s Bay. Beyond it lay the turmoil of boats, and the long voyage home to the Golden Horn.
Tannhauser worked the horses to a trot and skirted the Christian rear where the Sari Bayrak continued their fighting retreat. Between this action and the main engagement lay a section where the tumult was less fierce, and Tannhauser set toward it. They rode within the great arc of killing like beings transported by sorcery into someone else’s dream, for none appeared able to see them and no one barred their way. The horses high-stepped the carcasses littering their path and among these latter no Moslem wounded were seen, for the succedent waves of Christians had butchered them all. They passed through a hiatus in the line and reached the foreshore, where fifteen thousand men fought hand to hand across a mile of sand.
The beaches teemed with Turks struggling to embark. In places the contest had spilled into the shallows and the surf crested red about the soldiers’ knees. From the longboats pulling for the transports, janissaries exchanged fire with the mangas on the slopes, and the cannon of the galleys plowed shot into the Christian pikemen. The battle had hours yet to go, but the only question was how many dead the Turks would leave behind them. Tannhauser no longer cared. He pushed his mount through the press, the warhorse shouldering the crowd aside and treading with imperious scorn on those who fell.
“Agasi sari bayrak,” Tannhauser barked, and the ranks parted as they saw the bloodied general he led behind him.
At the water’s edge three longboats were loading. Tannhauser swung down and went to Abbas. Abbas’s eyes were slitted with pain. He let himself slide from the saddle into Tannhauser’s arms. Tannhauser carried him to the shallows, the child now the father of the man. In the stern of the second longboat he saw Salih Ali, who seemed to be in charge of the loading for he brandished a pistol at the refugees crowding the water, desperate to board.
“Salih!” Tannhauser called.
The corsair knew him at once. His eyes widened at the panoplied general in his arms. Tannhauser waded to the gunwale.
“Staunch the aga’s wounds,” said Tannhauser. “To you he’s worth a fortune if he lives.”
Despite the anarchy abounding thereabouts, Salih recognized a rich source of profit—and no little glory to boot—when it was dumped in his lap. He tapped his forehead in salute and helped Tannhauser lower Abbas into the boat. Salih screamed at the oarsmen to push off at once and they ran out their looms into the water.
Tannhauser slipped off his treasured gold bangle and wrapped the lions’ heads around Abbas’s arm. Abbas opened his eyes and Tannhauser took his hand and squeezed it.
Tannhauser said, “I came to Malta not for riches or honor, but to save my soul.”
Abbas squeezed back, his fingers feeble. He raised his head and stared into Tannhauser’s eyes. Tannhauser saw his unvoiced agony. Beyond the agony, there was concern: for him.
“My son,” said Abbas. “Have you found salvation among the infidel?”
“I found you,” said Tannhauser. “And I found Love. That is salvation enough.”
Abbas said, “Then you’re not coming with me.”
Tannhauser felt pain lance his heart. He smiled and shook his head.
“No, Father. Not this time.”
Abbas smiled back. “This time I travel to the
Golden Horn without you.”
“Only in body. In spirit I am by your side. As you have always been by mine.”
Abbas squeezed his hand for the last time. He said, “Astowda Okomallah.”
“Assalaamu alaykum,” said Tannhauser. “Fee iman Allah.”
Tannhauser let go his hand and Abbas sank into Salih’s lap. Tannhauser stepped back. He watched the boat pull away through the blood-crested foam, with Abbas bin Murad in its prow. Then he turned and remounted Buraq, and he rode back through the crowd and up the foreshore, and he left the final slaughter to its disputants, for he’d yet to settle one last quarrel of his own.
The Feast of the Nativity of the Virgin: Saturday, September 8, 1565
Naxxar Ridge—The Corradino Heights
At its narrowest point the road between the mountains was almost throttled with bodies. Those Turkish wounded who’d crawled this way had been butchered where they lay, and a dozen or so Spanish foot soldiers were stripping the bodies of ornaments and gold. They looked up as Tannhauser rode by and their faces were as bright children caught at play. As he debouched from the defile and onto the plain, he saw three riderless warhorses cropping the browned grass in the haze up ahead, and a sense of desolation swept through his chest. The sirocco stirred whorls of dust from the trail and in the warping heat thrown up from the sun-flayed earth the mounts appeared towering and misshapen, like imaginary monsters compounded of incongruous parts. A fourth horse was tethered by the roadside, in the shade of a withered tree, and two human figures appeared seated against its trunk. Tannhauser coaxed a canter out of Buraq and as he got closer his heart sank yet further.
A pair of armored hulks lay cooking and spread-eagled in the noontide sun. The first was Bruno Marra. Blood poured from his ears and from out the rims of his eyeballs, and his helm was creviced so deep into the underlying skull that tools would have been required to lever it off. The breastplate of the second knight still rose and fell. Amongst other wounds the shaft of a broken lance jutted from his groin. It was Escobar de Corro. Tannhauser swung down and drew his sword and Corro looked up at him. The Castilian’s features trembled with the effort of containing his screams, for he was unwilling to give his enemy that satisfaction. Beyond that, his face wrote nothing that could be read, and Tannhauser cut his throat, and walked to the tree.
Gullu Cakie held a Turkish water flask to Bors’s lips, and Bors drank with a vengeance, then spit a stream into his hand and mopped his face. Gullu seemed unharmed and for that Tannhauser gave thanks. Bors was bareheaded, his hair curled and matted with sweat, and he boasted multiple gashes to the scalp and face. His left arm was half detached at the tip of the shoulder and bone and tendril-like sinews gleamed in the gap. From beneath his cuirass, blood had pooled and curdled in his lap. His silver-and-ebony musket was cradled upright by his ear, as if he’d carry it as his staff in the afterworld to come.
Tannhauser squatted beside him and Bors smiled.
“Only one dead out of four?” said Tannhauser. “Those days in the hole must have left you weak in the arm as well as in the head.”
“Time would have given me claim on three but for you showing up,” growled Bors.
“Three?”
“The Black Hand shouldn’t over-trouble you. I finally put one through that cursed Negroli plate. Steel shot, double load, at a hundred and fifty feet.”
“That will get the job done,” said Tannhauser.
“Anacleto I left for you.”
Tannhauser looked at Gullu Cakie.
“I tracked them as far as the Mdina road,” Gullu said. “Ludovico wasn’t fit to make the climb. They turned toward the Borgo instead.”
“And the boy?”
“In fine fettle,” said Bors. “I think I surprised him.” He grinned. “I surprised them all, the bastards. Better make haste or Ludovico may make the town and blacken your name.”
Tannhauser asked, “Am I going to see you again?”
Bors shook his head. “Not this side of Perdition.” He pointed up at the shadeless tree. Three fat ravens perched on the same bare branch and watched with curious motions of their heads. “They’ve come to accompany my spirit to the other side. But do not mourn, for I’ve slaked my pride and made my peace with God. The road was long and its end a sight more glorious than I deserved.”
Tannhauser put a hand to the nape of Bors’s neck and squeezed. He’d imagined this moment many times. The death of his most beloved friend. Now it was here, his sadness was more than he could bear and he couldn’t speak. He swallowed on a plug of emotion and smiled.
“When you get back to Venice,” said Bors, “and you cash in our goods and count our gold, give my share to the family of Sabato Svi. He was a damnable Jew, to be sure, and if I’m bound for Hell, he and I will toast you through Eternity, but his kin will have more use for my spoils than you will.”
Bors contained a spasm from below. He wiped his mouth and raised his hand and took Tannhauser’s arm. Despite the extremity of his condition, his grip was still like a vise.
“Gullu will see my carcass back to the Borgo,” he said. “Will you see me buried proper?”
Tannhauser nodded. He squeezed the great ox neck again, for his tongue was still tied.
“Now kiss me, my friend, and be gone,” said Bors, “for I don’t enjoy lengthy farewells.”
Tannhauser cradled his massive head in both hands. He kissed him on the lips.
“Until the end,” said Tannhauser.
“The very end,” said Bors.
Tannhauser swallowed and stood up and walked to Buraq.
“Mattias,” called Bors.
Tannhauser turned. He looked into the wild gray Northern eyes.
“Stand by Lady Carla and don’t be a fool,” said Bors. He grinned. “You’ll make the liveliest pair of nobles since Solomon and Sheba.” He took a mighty breath, as if to laugh at his own wit, as was his habit, and something gave way inside him, and he didn’t let the breath out again. His head fell back against the tree trunk. Thus Bors of Carlisle did die.
Tannhauser mounted Buraq. He rode on through the wind-raised dust of the defile.
The two knights and the half-naked boy left the polluted plain and rode up the trail to Corradino at a pace so slow they might have crawled it on their hands and knees. At the summit they stopped. Around them here and there lay the quitted Turkish trenches, and in them bones and improvised hovels and forsaken gear and ruptured cannon, and racks of ribs both animal and human stretched with stiffened hide and mottled skin. Spread out below was the landscape Orlandu had thought he would never see again.
Grand Harbor sparkled sapphire blue. The twinned peninsulas of L’Isola and the Borgo were as familiar as his hand, and yet seemed changed forever. The great enceinte was shattered from Saint Michel to the Kalkara Gate and moated by incalculable numbers of dead. Whole sections of either town looked stomped into the ground by a titan’s rage. The shot-tattered sails of L’Isola’s windmills turned no more, despite the rising sirocco. Yet from this seeming necropolis the church bells pealed without cease, and somewhere within the wrack they celebrated life and hope and the future to come.
Orlandu’s throat tightened. The Moslems had been driven from their shores, and to these shores they never should have come; yet he’d witnessed their massacre in Saint Paul’s Bay with an anguish scarcely less rending than that which he had felt for the men of Saint Elmo. He wondered what Tannhauser would say, and Tannhauser would say that it didn’t matter, for it was done, and what mattered was the things they’d do next. Orlandu turned to study Ludovico.
The Black Knight with his mortal wound was a mystery. Ludovico of Naples. He’d never heard of him, yet he thought he’d known all the most gallant brethren of the Order. Still with them was the haunted, one-eyed youth, whom Escobar de Corro had called Anacleto. Orlandu had assumed that these men were allies of Tannhauser. Then Bors had bearded them at the defile and had almost slain them all. Ludovico now hunched forward in his saddle. He bre
athed in short, shallow breaths. His agony was great. He saw Orlandu watching him and raised his head.
“Are you pleased to be home, boy?” he said.
His voice was gentle. The obsidian eyes still radiated something like love.
“Yes, sir,” replied Orlandu. “I’ll be in your debt forever.”
Ludovico managed a smile. “You have the manners and the bearing of a man. From whom did a boy like you learn such?”
“The great captain, Mattias Tannhauser,” said Orlandu.
Ludovico nodded, as if he’d thought as much. “You could’ve wished for no better mentor.”
Orlandu’s confusion multiplied. “Then you do know him?”
“He and I are bound together by God’s Will. As to your debt, consider it discharged already, and more than generously repaid.”
Ludovico’s smile became a grimace as pain lanced through his bowels and he doubled over. He made no sound and the spasm passed and he raised his head again. “I wanted to reunite you with your mother, Lady Carla, in Mdina, but the mountain would have finished me off.”
He doubled forward yet again.
Questions filled Orlandu’s mind. Anacleto urged his horse up and took the reins from Ludovico’s slack grasp and handed them to Orlandu.
“Take him to the infirmary,” said Anacleto. “Find Father Lazaro.”
Orlandu nodded and Anacleto wheeled and whipped his horse back down the hill. Orlandu glanced after him. Out of the spoliated plain of the Marsa below, a horseman galloped toward them tailing dust. The horse was the color of a new gold coin and its tail was as pale as wheat. The rider’s hair flowed wild and glinted a fiery bronze in the westering sun.
