Religion: A Novel

by Tim Willocks

He found the women in a nest of rocks at the water’s edge. At closer range the sound of Amparo’s lute was delicate and clear, the notes of its many strings lifting the boldness of Carla’s viola like the wings of so many hummingbirds. Both women seemed lost within the sphere of infinite beauty that they spun, their eyes closed to this world, their faces thrust up to the firmament at moments of ecstatic flight, their chins tucked into their shoulders as they dived the depths of their hearts for pearls of truth. And if the scales of the cosmic balance could ever be righted, if that calamitous measure of woe in one tray heaped could ever be countered and made to tip back from its nadir, then it was here and now, and by the power of this magic invisible that filled the air.

  Tannhauser found a perch and sat down to listen. He wasn’t alone. There must have been twoscore people gathered there and about, as one might find them drawn on a market day by a jongleur or a fool. Soldiers and peasants and women, knots of grubby boys, and tatterdemalion girls holding hands, these latter with the vacant faces and haunted eyes of children who had witnessed all that perdition allows. Some had brought candles or lamps, and these threw small arcs of light that were quickly lost in the uneven ground. All kept their distance. They sat or stood or squatted with no great fuss. Some had the glister of tears running down their cheeks. Some were merely curious. Others seemed dazed or befuddled, as if the gulf between the beauty of the music and the catastrophe around them were too vast to bridge.

  The musicians themselves were oblivious to all but the Divine. The realm they were exploring lay far from this one; and perhaps its charting was the noblest gift they made, for this realm here was so dark, so caged by dolor and death, and so far stranded from all imaginable others, that to illuminate, even for a moment, a dominion where harmony reigned was to pluck the stars from the heavens above and place one in every hand.

  Bors tiptoed up and sat down. He proffered a leather flask. Tannhauser took a drink and stifled a gasp. By its kick the brandy had been rectified in a helmet, but it spread a glow, and he drank again and handed it back. Bors tilted his head at the performers and puckered his lips in pride, as if he’d tutored them himself. While they listened, the tyranny of Time seemed overthrown forever; but forever too is another of Time’s satraps, and at last the musicians stopped and they sat in a circle of silence, a silence near as exquisite as the music now long vanished on the wind.

  A girl in the crowd clapped with rapture and someone shushed her, as if they were in church. Then bit by bit the crowd broke up and drifted toward the ruins like specters called to their tombs by the onset of day, and the creek front became deserted and Tannhauser and Bors alone were left behind. The retiring crowd took their lamps and as the last yellow orbs disappeared into the streets, Tannhauser glimpsed a long face caught by the glow. A face striking for its aquiline beauty and beardless cheeks. He grabbed Bors’s arm and pointed but it was gone, and he wondered if he’d seen it there at all.

  Tannhauser said, “Anacleto?”

  “He’s about,” agreed Bors. “He lurks out of sight. Like the spider never seen upon the web until the fly is trapped. He too has taken holy orders, as a Knight of Magistral Grace. Want me to roust him?”

  “Until it’s time to kill him and Ludovico both, there’s no good sense in it.”

  Tannhauser turned to watch Carla and Amparo pack their instruments. How splendid it was to see them both together again. They were a little thin, yes. There were new lines carved on their features that would never be erased. But their fettle looked fine enough to him. Indeed, each in her way was so fair of form and face that his heart almost stopped as the moment of reunion loomed. He loved them both without let or doubt and in that conundrum, for once, he found neither contradiction nor anguish. That knot could be unraveled on some other occasion. As they clambered back up the rocks, toting their cases, Tannhauser rose from his seat and they saw him.

  Both women stopped for a moment, as if confronted by an apparition, or perhaps a troll escaped from some Northern tale. It was true he didn’t look his best. His breeches hung in shreds about his knees. His shirtless arms were streaked with sweat and dirt. And the brigandine was the kind of garment sported by a bravo of the lower sort. These defects were beyond mending for the moment. At least he’d had his beard oiled in the bazaar the day before and was wearing a respectable amount of gold. But while he entertained these vain and risible frets, the women dropped their cases and rushed toward him, arms outstretched, with a gratifying display of tearful joy.

  He embraced them both at once, an arm to each, as on that long-ago day of the first clash when he’d solicited their blessing for the fight. He held their heads to his chest, as if they were his children, or as if he was theirs. If they hadn’t wept so hard he might have done so himself, and thus was their sentiment welcome. His chest swelled with a marvelous sense of warmth, engendered in part by the pressure of their breasts against his ribs, and when Carla raised her face to meet his eyes, Tann-hauser grinned.

  “You called,” he said. “How could I not come running?”

  This garnered a smile from each of them and he looked from one pair of shining eyes to the other—Amparo’s irregular face yet again exerting its lethal charm, and Carla’s soulful elegance knifing his soul—until affection threatened to undermine his poise and he glanced away over their heads.

  “Bors,” he said, “bring their accoutrements, if you will. We’re going back to the auberge. And there, when we are snug, I will tell you all a tale you won’t forget.”

  PART IV

  By Dens of Lions Encompassed

  The Assumption: Wednesday, August 15, 1565

  Post of Italy—Fort Saint Michel

  The waning moon stood, by Anacleto’s reckoning, in Aquarius. Siege guns boomed at disparate intervals and the walls beneath Ludovico’s feet would occasionally shudder as a ball struck home. In the trenches cut into the hills, and on the Marsa plain beyond, the Turks rested to restore their strength after recent reverses. Ludovico watched the shadows in the Ruins of Bormula and brooded on those shadows that lay across his own affairs.

  Ludovico had seen Tannhauser on the night of his arrival in the Borgo. That the German was still alive didn’t alarm him. The Grand Master valued his military skills and in this respect Ludovico was as grateful as the next man for all the help they could get. But why had the man returned at such risk and to such a high likelihood of death? Tannhauser was sexually embroiled with the Spanish girl, Amparo. Carla had claimed she and he intended to marry. It was an odd arrangement, yet by no means without precedent, and in love all things were possible. Ludovico’s own return to Malta had at least in part been influenced by the knowledge that Carla was here. Yet surely the barbarous German was beyond such chivalry. Tannhauser might fancy he could save the women should the Turks overwhelm them. Or he might plan to take them away, out of the Borgo. How this might be possible, Ludovico couldn’t imagine, but he didn’t underestimate the German’s guile. He’d seen, too, the way that Tannhauser had taken both women to his breast, and how they’d sobbed with relief to see his face.

  The day now ending was a holy day, the feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into Heaven. Its celebration comforted the townsfolk, not least because so many had joined Her and so many more expected to do so. A chaplain from Valencia, with the help of some terciosand a boy to play the role of Nuestra Señora, had crudely staged a mystery play, which portrayed the death of the Virgin and—after a struggle between the apostles and the Jews for Her mortal remains—the transportation of Her soul to the Gates of Paradise on the wings of five angels. There She was crowned Queen of Heaven, to a fanfare of bells, trumpets, and firecrackers. That grizzled Spanish soldiers played the angels did nothing to diminish the awe and enjoyment of the crowd. This peasant devotional, of which he’d seen many, would’ve had little effect on Ludovico had not Carla provided a musical accompaniment on her viola da gamba. Carla had played with extravagant passion and had transformed the primitive ritual into someth
ing he would never forget.

  Ludovico rested his arms on the stones of the ramparts and his head on his arms. He was exhausted. So was every man in the garrison, except perhaps La Valette. Physical fatigue was natural; Ludovico had courted it for years. But he’d found the mechanisms of his brain slowing too and this for him was something new. Thoughts came with difficulty and proved banal when they arrived. He went about his recruitment of political allies, within the Religion, with the enthusiasm of a man consulting the surgeon for the lancing of a boil. He slept poorly. Despair lurked about the darker labyrinths of his mind. Where his wit had always skipped, it now crawled. He could have put all this down to war, for many were affected in this fashion, but he was victim to a much more potent malady. He ruminated helplessly on Carla. His yearning for her ate at his spirit. Even his appetite for prayer was dulled and the solace it provided thin. Her sublime performance in the mystery play had triggered his present melancholy. He missed the music she and her Spaniard had played down by the rocks. He’d gone to listen to them every night and their harmonies had transported him and he’d read into Carla’s performance a poem of love. So extreme—so contemptible—was his folly that, at moments, he’d allowed himself to imagine that she played for him.

  Despite such absurdities, discipline had kept his passion—and his presence—invisible to Carla. Invisible to all but Anacleto. Ludovico was no expert in the field of love but knew that it was the ultimate realm of intrigue, the most intricate of human games. Like any expert in one realm, he recognized his weaknesses in those in which he had scant experience. Logic and instinct both assured him that he wouldn’t win Carla while the siege endured. He would have to wait on Peace. The love poem of her music had, for a while, given him strength: the strength to endure, to fight, to husband the fire of his own love into a glowing bed of inextinguishable coals, rather than a fiery blaze. Then Tannhauser had returned, and she’d embraced him by the rocks, and a great draft of rage and pain had blown through his heart, for he’d known that in fact she’d played for him.

  Carla played still, he’d been told, but now at the Auberge of England, and still for Tannhauser. For him and his criminal companions. Ludovico raised his face and stood tall and turned away from the vacant battlefield.

  “Anacleto,” he said.

  Anacleto turned at once. His face in the moonlight seemed sculpted from ivory. Ludovico’s association with the Spaniard was the closest and most lasting of his life. They’d shared a thousand roadside camps. Together they’d watched thousands die, in the Waldensian purges. Here, on the ramparts of Saint Michel, they’d fought shoulder to shoulder. Their relationship endured because it was without perceptible warmth. It was untrammeled by sentiment and was therefore free of lies. In a world of ceaseless perfidy, Anacleto’s fealty was precious. Ludovico loved him. Like a son. Yet now Ludovico knew that he had his own son. Orlandu. The boy was alive, among Moslem devils. Tannhauser had usurped that role too. Ludovico counseled himself to patience. In time he would reclaim son and mother both.

  “You have known love,” said Ludovico.

  Anacleto had stabbed his father and strangled his mother. His sister, Filomena, had been hanged for the crime of incest. The lands to which he’d been heir had been confiscated. Before Ludovico had found him, he’d been put to the torture by the zealous and still had refused to repent. Anacleto nodded, his eyes wary.

  “It cost you a great deal,” Ludovico went on.

  Anacleto looked at him for some time. He had as true a heart as any Ludovico had known and he was moved by the turbulence in his eyes.

  Anacleto said, “To not have known it would have cost me more.”

  Ludovico understood. He wished his own courage had been as great. He nodded.

  “And Filomena and I will meet again,” said Anacleto. “Be it in Heaven or the Whirlwind of Lovers.”

  That Anacleto would endure Hell for his passion, Ludovico understood too. He said, “You have my assurance it shall be the former. The Church has forgiven you your sins, as it belatedly forgave Filomena’s, and Christ is all-merciful.”

  As if reading his thoughts, Anacleto said, “Do you want me to kill the German?”

  Ludovico’s mood suddenly lifted. The younger man’s fortitude had stirred his own. He’d mope like a girl no more. He smiled. “You’re a pillar to my strength,” said Ludovico. “To answer your question, no. The time is not right. And Tannhauser may yet serve us.”

  “How so?” asked Anacleto.

  Ludovico kept his own counsel. “God will answer that question in good time.”

  Saturday, August 18, 1565

  Bastion of Germany—The Tub—Bastion of Castile

  Of the many trials and riddles that had vexed him since his return, one had preoccupied Tannhauser above all others: namely, how to get back out again—with Carla, Amparo, and Bors in tow. His pleasure in being reunited with his companions would be short-lived if their destination, as seemed likely, were a mass grave. Yet a thing does not come about just because one ardently desires it, and even a man as intrepid as he could find himself victim to circumstance.

  The mild euphoria that had attended his return had been banished by the state of enfeeblement which the ague had bequeathed him, and which had been revived with a vengeance by the rigors of his journey from Mdina. To provide acceptable accommodation, Bors had evicted several injured troopers from Starkey’s rooms, and Tannhauser had set himself to eating well, to reading the works of Roger Bacon, of which Starkey had a fine edition in Italian, and—armed against the bombardment with beeswax earplugs—to sleeping as much as possible during daylight. This enlightened and restorative program had been interrupted by calls to a series of tedious conferences with Grand Master La Valette.

  These were held at La Valette’s headquarters, which had been relocated from the fastness of Sant’Angelo to the town’s central piazza. Although this had been widely interpreted as a gesture of camaraderie with the ravaged population, it soon became clear to Tannhauser that La Valette simply wanted to be closer to the action. Almost alone of the entire garrison his vitality was undiminished—if anything he looked like he’d shed ten years—and he subjected Tannhauser to long discussions about the Turkish losses, their morale, supplies of ammunition and provender, the condition of their cannon, the techniques of the Mameluke engineers at that very moment burrowing mines toward the city walls, and Mustafa’s tactical intentions. These last seemed fairly clear to Tannhauser: Mustafa would continue to fling shot and bodies at the walls until either he ran out of both or the walls came down. The dispatches that Gullu Cakie had carried included a letter from Garcia de Toledo in Sicily. In it Toledo promised to send ten thousand men by the end of August, but since a similar promise concerning the end of June remained unfulfilled, neither La Valette nor anyone else believed a word of it.

  “Toledo’s prestige would survive the loss of Malta,” said La Valette, “but not the loss of Spain’s Mediterranean fleet.” He added, without discernible regret, “We are alone.”

  On the twelfth of August La Valette had revealed to the public the papal bull promulgated for their benefit by His Holiness Pius IV. This document assured one and all of forgiveness of their sins and immediate transit to Paradise should they die in this Holy War. The vellum was on display in San Lorenzo, where the faithful could stare in wonder at the gorgeous Latin script and the silk-veiled red wax seal with its imprint of the Fisherman’s Ring. The results had been quite remarkable, but Tannhauser didn’t intend to be buried in this mausoleum with the faithful.

  He could think of no good reason why the boat he’d stolen and concealed at the hamlet of Zonra two months ago should not still be where he’d left it. The problem lay in reaching it. The circle of Turkish steel around the enceinte was tighter than he’d foreseen. He still hadn’t worked out how to get through the Kalkara Gate, and no other route was feasible. A guard was usually on duty at the inner blockhouse; a night watchman stood on the bastions of England and Germany high above; an
d though his willingness to serve the Religion was reaching its limit, he didn’t want to leave the wicket gate open to the Turks when they left. These conundrums he hoped to solve by the wane of the moon.

  Bors alone was privy to these affairs. Tannhauser was by no means certain that Carla would be willing to leave at all. She was devoted to her work. There was no trade more compelling than that of heroism—not even debauchery—and Carla had proved herself heroic. Many regarded her as not far short of a saint. They lit candles to her deliverance in the church of the Annunciation and blessed her when she passed in the street and kissed the hem of her dress. Knights pledged their lives to her protection. Men without number attributed their survival to her care; even more had passed into the hereafter with lighter hearts and gentled minds.

  Tannhauser had seen these things with his own eyes and they had done little to diminish his regard for her or to leaven his own yearning. The other day Father Lazaro had sought him out to thank him for introducing her, and had made a rueful joke at the expense of his own initial reluctance to employ her. But the joke might fall on Tannhauser too. Heroism and saintliness led all too easily to martyrdom; and neither her death nor his own played a part in his plans.

  Time would tell.

  Amparo, he was sure, would agree to go. As far as he could tell she maintained the indifference of a holy fool to the chaos around her. She’d taken him to the stables to visit Buraq, who was in finer fettle than he could have hoped, and who threw such a fit of equine happiness on their arrival that the other war-frayed beasts almost staged a riot. Buraq would not be leaving with them. With luck a Turkish general would claim him and he’d live like a king. Perhaps even Abbas. Leaving Malta was an irksome business. There was no sense in alerting either woman before it was necessary.

  He often dwelt on Orlandu. The boy had lodged himself deep in Tannhauser’s heart. Yet Orlandu enjoyed a safer haven than any of them here, and that was a source of contentment. Nicodemus, fine fellow and excellent cook though he was, would have to take his chances with the garrison.