Religion: A Novel

by Tim Willocks

  kullar: The slaves of the Sultan.

  Laghimji: Turkish sappers corps, who dug mines, built roads, and so on.

  langue or tongue: One of the eight national divisions within the order, these being the Langues of Auvergne, Provence, France, Aragon, Castile (which included Portugal or Crato), Italy, Germany (which included all Northern European and Scandinavian priories), and England.

  machicolations: Projecting gallery on brackets, on outside of castle or towers, with holes in floor for dropping rocks, shooting, and so on.

  manga: A tercio detachment of between one hundred and four hundred arquebusiers.

  mantlet: Detached fortification preventing direct access to a gateway; low outer wall.

  Marsamxett: Natural harbor on north coast of Malta.

  Marsaxlokk: Large natural harbor on the south coast of Malta.

  merlon: The high segment of the alternating high and low segments of a battlement.

  oçak: The sacred hearth; the janissary corps was known to its members as the oçak.

  orta: A company of Turkish soldiers, the number varying by corps. A janissary orta in the time of Suleiman was comprised of 196 men.

  oilette: Firing hole built into a wall for cannons, muskets, or arrows.

  Outremer: The Crusader states of Palestine and the Middle East.

  Pater noster: “Our Father”; the Lord’s Prayer.

  Philip II: Spanish emperor, son of Charles V.

  pilier: The dean or master of a langue of the Order of Saint John.

  prior: Head of a commandery of the Order of Saint John, equivalent to an abbot.

  rejoneador: Bullfighter on horseback.

  Sanjak i-sherif: The black war banner of the Prophet, inscribed with the Shahada.

  scryer: A spirit medium or clairvoyant.

  Shahada: “There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his messenger.”

  silahadar: The Yellow Banners, or Sari Bayrak, oldest Ottoman cavalry division.

  Sipahi: The Kirmizi Bayrak, or Red Banners, Ottoman cavalry.

  solak: Elite janissary guard regiment; bronze helms but no armor.

  solar: Upper living room, often over the great hall; the lord’s private living room.

  surah: A chapter of the Koran.

  tercio: Spanish infantry battlefield squadron of some three thousand men, composed of pikemen and arquebusiers.

  Topchu: The Ottoman artillery corps.

  tuyere: A vent from the bellows in the firepot of a forge.

  wall stair: Staircase built into the thickness of a wall.

  wicket: Man-size door set into the main gate door.

  yerikulu: Provincial Turkish infantrymen.

  Zirhli Nefer: Chain mail–armored division of the janissary corps.

  Acknowledgments

  The author would like to acknowledge the inspiration, insight, and generosity of Al Zuckerman of Writers House. No writer has a better agent or editor, and no man has a greater friend.

  A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Tim Willocks was born in 1957 in Stalybridge, a small rural mill town in the Pennine Hills of northwest England. He was the eldest of four children; the only sense in which his mother may be said to have spoiled him was by buying him as many books as he could read. When he wasn’t reading, he spent his spare time roaming the countryside reenacting Errol Flynn movies. Until the age of eleven he was educated by an order of Roman Catholic nuns, the Sisters of the Holy Family of Bordeaux, who broke a lot of canes on his hide. The Brothers of Saint Francis Xavier at Xaverian College, Manchester, were rather less handy with the cane, and they provided a superb education.

  In 1976 Tim went to University College Hospital Medical School in London. He took a bachelor of science degree with first-class honors in 1979, and graduated with a bachelor of medicine/bachelor of surgery in 1983. After practicing for several years as a junior doctor in a number of specialties (general surgery, internal medicine, pediatrics, emergency room, orthopedic and cardiothoracic surgery) at hospitals around England, he practiced psychiatry and addiction medicine in London until 2003. Hippocrates claimed that “medicine is the noblest of all arts,” and so it is, but other arts held an irresistible allure.

  In 1986 Tim was awarded a first Dan black belt in Shotokan karate by Sensei Sadashige Kato of the Japanese Karate Association. He still trains several hours per week. In 1991 he cofounded the Kurtz Theatre Company and produced thirteen plays on the London Fringe, including Christopher Marlowe’s Jew of Malta. The play sparked Tim’s interest in the Great Siege, which forms the background to The Religion.

  Tim’s first novel, Bad City Blues, was published in London in 1991. His second, Green River Rising, was translated into fifteen languages. In writing a screenplay of the latter for director Alan J. Pakula, he was lured into the film business, and this occupied most of his writing endeavors for several years. During that time he wrote and produced three feature films: Bad City Blues (with Dennis Hopper), Swept from the Sea (with Rachel Weisz and Sir Ian McKellen), and Sin (with Gary Oldman and Ving Rhames). He has written many other screenplays and worked with some of the best directors in Hollywood, including Steven Spielberg, Curtis Hanson, and Michael Mann.

  Tim completed The Religion in a cabin in the backwoods of upstate New York. He now lives in a nineteenth-century farmhouse in County Kerry, Ireland.