‘It is with reason that I speak,’ La Valette protested. ‘Without our galleys the Order is powerless. But if you think my argument is partial, then let us seek a more detached opinion.’ The Grand Master turned. ‘What is your opinion, Sir Thomas?’
‘Why ask him?’ objected Don Garcia. ‘He is a member of your Order. His opinion is prejudiced.’
‘He has not served the Order for twenty years and he is not a subject of the King of Spain. His views are those of an outsider. Well, Sir Thomas, what say you?’
Thomas’s mind raced as he considered his reply. Don Garcia’s request made sense, given the immediate threat, but he knew how the Order prized its galleys. If he supported the Spaniard then he risked the enmity of the Grand Master and most of the other knights. It would only result in bitterness and division. Besides, this was a fine chance to win La Valette’s approval. Without that he could not hope to further Richard’s mission or discover more about the fate of Maria. He cleared his throat.
‘Without the galleys the knights cannot take the war to the enemy. The warriors of the Order would be stranded on this rock. Once the siege is lifted, they will continue to wage war against the Turks and their corsair allies. For that the knights must have the galleys. If you take them, what guarantee can you give the Grand Master that they will be returned to us? In any case, what difference will seven galleys make, given the odds? Sir, you are under orders not to risk your ships or your men unnecessarily. In which case, it does not matter if the galleys join your fleet or stay here.’
Don Garcia glared at the Englishman. ‘Is this how you repay my confidences?’
‘I did not know that you spoke in confidence at the time, sir.’ The Spaniard turned his gaze to the Grand Master. ‘So much for detached opinion. Very well, keep your damned galleys. Just promise one thing. If there is any danger that they might fall into enemy hands, you will destroy them. ’
‘I guarantee it. I will burn them down to the keel with my own hand rather than see them taken by the Turks or, worse, those corsair devils.’
‘Then the matter is settled, though I think you have ill served our cause. As for the defences, you have my opinions and I pray that you act on them while there is still time. Now I must return to my command on Sicily. I bid you farewell, and good fortune. Come, gentlemen!’ Don Garcia gestured to his officers to follow him.
As the Spaniards descended the staircase into the tower, La Valette watched until the last had disappeared from sight before he approached Thomas and smiled warmly.
‘I hoped that I could count on you. Only a knight could understand what the galleys mean to the Order.’
Thomas bowed his head. ‘I am your servant, sir, and my loyalty is to the Order, but I pray that my words were wise. Don Garcia may turn out to be right after all and those galleys could tip the balance against the enemy.’
‘Now the decision is made we shall never know, Thomas. Put the matter aside and do not let it burden your thoughts.’ He patted him on the shoulder and then turned to descend the staircase.
Thomas lingered behind for a moment and Richard leaned towards him and muttered, ‘Good work, Sir Thomas. You have La Valette’s trust. We can make good use of that.’
‘If you say so.’ Thomas rested his elbows on the parapet of the tower and stared across the Grand Harbour towards Birgu. All morning he had been trying to avoid thinking about the brief encounter with Sir Oliver the previous evening. Sleep had not come to his troubled mind and for the moment he wanted to thrust aside all thought of the secret purpose behind his presence here. There was a more urgent, more personal, purpose that needed satisfying. Only then could he face the enemy with an untroubled mind.
That night, after the two knights had taken their supper, Jenkins and Richard were tasked with cleaning Thomas’s armour. They carried it through to the hall along with a box containing rags and stoppered pots of polish and wax. Settling on stools by the hearth, they set to work. Jenkins quietly instructed the squire to work the polish on to the surface of the armour then rub it in with a fresh cloth until there was only a faint smear on the metal, after which he used a clean rag to buff it to a shine. Richard worked in silence for a while before he cleared his throat. ‘Jenkins, do you recall a knight by the name of Sir Peter de Launcey?’
‘Of course, sir,’ Jenkins replied as he dabbed some more polish on to the rag that covered his finger, and then rubbed it into the crest of the helmet. ‘It’s not as if there have been many knights joining the Order from England since King Henry took on the Pope. I remember Sir Peter, though he was not with us for long. He joined two years before the King died. Quiet man, and very devout. More so than most of the others. He took his vows seriously. It was a sad day when I heard he had lost his life. He’d only just come back from a voyage to England. Called back for some family affair, as I recall.’ Jenkins shook his head sadly. ‘To have travelled all that way, only to drown here in the harbour. Tragic accident.’
‘Yes. More than you know,’ said Richard. ‘Sir Peter was a cousin of mine.’
Jenkins paused in his polishing and looked up. ‘Really, sir? I’m sorry to hear that.’
‘Oh, we weren’t close. But he was family.’ Richard paused for a moment as he put down the breastplate and reached for the gorget. ‘I met his brother before we left London.’
‘Brother? I didn’t know he had a brother.’
‘Well, a half-brother in fact. He was an infant when Peter left England. I doubt he would have mentioned him. Anyway, when I told him where I was bound he asked me if I might look into a small matter for him.’
Jenkins kept his attention on his work. ‘Mmm?’
‘Sir Peter’s personal effects were never returned to the family. They’d written to Sir Oliver Stokely but received no reply.’
‘He’s a busy man. I’m not surprised.’
‘Still, it would have been a small kindness to at least have answered the letter and arrange for the return of his property, such as it was.’
‘Well, he didn’t leave much behind.’ Jenkins hawked up some phlegm and spat on to the crest of the helmet and rubbed furiously. ‘A small wardrobe of clothes, a Bible, a writing case and a few other oddments. Just enough to fill a small chest. His armour was added to the Order’s stores.’
‘I see ... I don’t suppose you could show me his chest? There might be time to arrange for it to be sent back to his family before the Turks arrive. I know they’d appreciate it. They took the news of his death badly.’
Jenkins lowered the helmet and flexed his gnarled fingers. ‘The chest isn’t here any longer.’
‘It isn’t?’
Jenkins shook his head. ‘We had it in the cellar for a while. Then a cistern in the next building started leaking so we had to move the lot out. As far as I recall, anything of value was removed to St Angelo. That’s the last time I saw it. The chest was taken up to the fort in a cart with some other boxes and caskets. I remember it well enough as it was a handsome lacquered piece. Anyway, the chest is still up there as far as I know.’
‘Good.’ Richard smiled. ‘Lacquered, you say? Black, I assume.’
‘Black as coal. With brass strappings. And his coat of arms set in a crest on the lid.’
‘Coat of arms? What device would that be?’
Jenkins looked up at the crests fixed along the beams above. ‘There. That one. The field of red with the boar’s head beneath a gold chevron. See?’
Richard tilted his head back, stared a moment and nodded. ‘It should be easy enough to find if I go and look for it.’
Jenkins chuckled. ‘Not so easy as that, Master Richard. They put it in the dungeon beneath the keep, where they store the archive and treasury of the Order. You don’t just walk in. You have to get written permission from the Grand Master himself to enter the dungeon. There’s a fortune in gold, silver, gemstones and silks in there. The proceeds from the galleys’ raids on enemy ships and ports.’
‘No wonder he keeps it under lock and key.�
� Richard laughed. ‘Out of temptation’s way. And under heavy guard, I’ll warrant.’
‘Of course.’
‘’Tis a pity. I would have liked to send Peter’s belongings home to his family.’
Jenkins cracked his knuckles and nodded towards the greaves and mantlets. ‘Just those to do now. Should be done in time to see to the gentlemen’s supper.’
Richard heaved a sigh, reached for the nearest greave and began to apply the first blob of polish. He glanced sidelong at the servant whose concentration was fixed on the tricky overlapping plates of the mantlet, and he allowed himself a smile of satisfaction now that he knew what to look for and where to find it. The smile faded as he contemplated the challenge of getting into the dungeon — in the very heart of the Order’s headquarters, and under heavy guard.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The pace of the work being carried out on the island’s defences increased feverishly following the departure of Don Garcia and his squadron of galleys. True to the Spaniard’s advice the Grand Master gave orders for the construction of a ravelin to protect the most vulnerable comer of Fort St Elmo. The bare rock of the peninsula provided a firm foundation but there would only be time to cut enough stone for the outer facing before the Turks could arrive. Behind the stone facade the defenders would have to pile up and pack down rubble and earth. From the outside the new fortification would look formidable enough but the moment it was subjected to the penetrating power of iron cannonballs it would soon be battered down.
Meanwhile St Elmo was fully provisioned and the modest cistern that lay beneath the keep was filled to the brim. Gunpowder and shot was placed in the storerooms, ready to feed the small complement of artillery that was mounted on the fort’s gun platforms. Stout boxes filled with shot for the arquebusiers were positioned along the parapet and hessian sacks were filled with soil and piled in the courtyard, ready to fill any breaches in the walls.
Each day ships entered the harbour with cargoes of grain, wine, cheeses and salted meats. There were also tools and building materials needed to prepare the defences and ensure that damage could be repaired. Some of the vessels had been intercepted at sea by Captain Romegas and his galleys and summarily requisitioned since the Order’s needs overrode any notions of legality. The owners and crews were promised compensation in due course, though that depended upon Malta surviving the Turkish onslaught.
In the first days of spring the companies of Spanish and Italian mercenaries hired by the Grand Master began to arrive and were assigned billets in the towns of Birgu and Mdina. They were hardened professionals and had been lured by generous payments from the Order’s coffers, and the prospect of loot. It was well known that the Sultan’s elite corps, the Janissaries, were richly dressed and paid handsomely in gold and silver. Their corpses would provide rich pickings for the mercenaries. There were also small groups of adventurers who travelled to Malta to offer their services to the Order, motivated by religious fervour and the desire for glory. Amid the new arrivals were a handful of knights who had received and honoured the request to return to Malta and fight alongside their brothers.
Throughout April the defenders laboured hard to raise the height and depth of the walls and bastions that protected the promontories of Senglea and Birgu. In front of the wall, slaves and Maltese work gangs swung picks to break up the rocky ground and excavate a defensive ditch deep enough to hamper attempts to scale the walls. So short was the time and so desperate the need to bolster the defences that none was spared the duty of toil. The Grand Master, despite his advanced years, appeared every morning in a plain tunic and a strip of dark cloth tied about his brow, ready to work for two hours, breaking ground with a pick or joining the long chain of workers carrying baskets of rubble inside the walls of Birgu. All the knights and soldiers were required to do the same and the grudging indifference of the local people gave way to surprise and then respect as they found the sons of Europe’s noblest families working alongside them. Within days they had taken to cheering La Valette when he appeared each morning and took up his pick or basket.
Buildings close to the walls that might be used by the enemy for shelter were demolished and the timbers and rubble taken into Birgu to add to the material set aside for repairs. Those made homeless by the destruction of their houses were given billets in the town. There was little problem accommodating them as a steady stream of the town’s inhabitants with sufficient wealth to fund their temporary exile took ship for Sicily, Italy and Spain, there to await news of Malta’s fate.
As April drew to an end all knew that the Turkish fleet would already be at sea, heading west. Orders were given for the farmers and villagers across the island to prepare to abandon their homes and seek shelter in Mdina, a fortified hill town that had once been the capital of the island, or within the walls of Birgu. No crops, cattle, goats, grain or fruit was to be left for the enemy to forage and preparations were made to foul the wells and cisterns with rotting animal carcasses and slurry. The Turks would find a wasteland waiting for them when they landed and would be forced to ship in their sustenance, or starve before the lines of the Christian defences.
At first Thomas, Richard and Sir Martin had been assigned to training the Maltese militiamen in the most basic of fighting skills. It had long been the policy of the Order to discourage the islanders from using weapons out of fear that the local people might be emboldened to rebel against the Order of knights that had been imposed on them. As a result the majority of them were strangers to swords, pikes and arquebuses and only a handful had ever worn any armour. There were some who had been selected to serve as soldiers of the Order and these assisted with the training and translated the commands into the local tongue that sounded more like Arabic than any European language to an unfamiliar ear. Indeed, the islanders, with their dark features and skin, looked more like Moors and Turks than Christians. Yet they were fanatic in their loyalty to the Church of Rome and hatred of the enemy who been preying on the Maltese for over a hundred years. They were keen to learn and were soon handling their weapons like experienced soldiers. Thomas had insisted that they should also be taught to use the arquebus, but such was the shortage of gunpowder that only three live firings were permitted once the militiamen had learned how to load the weapons.
Once the hurried training was complete, the English knights and their squires were allocated to the work party under Colonel Mas, one of the mercenaries recruited by the Grand Master. They were tasked with constructing the ravelin and rose at dawn to take a hurried breakfast before heading through the narrow streets to the quay. There they waited with the other soldiers and civilians for places on the boats ferrying the workers across the harbour to the landing stage below the fort. Outside the wall they were issued with picks and joined the slaves already at work cutting a ditch into the rock in front of the ravelin.
For most of the morning they worked in the shade, but as the rays of the sun reached down into the ditch, the heat added to the discomfort of the constant chinking of the picks, the swirling dust and the ache of tired limbs. The glare of the sun was harsh enough to make the men squint, and it steadily burned exposed skin as the workers swung their picks under the burden of their sweat-soaked tunics. At noon they climbed out of the ditch and slumped in the shade of the awnings. They took their midday meal from the boys who had emerged from the fort carrying pitchers of watered wine and baskets of bread and roundels of a hard goat’s cheese made locally. These were handed to the soldiers and the Maltese while the slaves sat in the open and were fed warm gruel from a tureen, one ladle per man, slopped into battered leather cups. These were thrust into the soiled hands of each slave and, still chained in pairs, they squatted down to savour the paltry rations that kept them alive and able to work, and no more. They were barefoot and dressed in rags stained with their own filth. Unkempt hair hung in knotted locks about their bearded faces and their features were gaunt.
On the first day Richard had regarded the slaves with abject pity and when they
had settled to eat he chewed slowly at his bread for a while before he spoke to Thomas.
‘Those slaves, they look more like animals than men.’
Sir Martin chuckled as he chewed on a strip of salted beef. He swallowed and cleared his throat. ‘They’re worse than animals, young Dick.’
He spoke loudly so that the nearest of the slaves would hear him. One of them, fairer skinned than the others, looked up at the insult and glared fiercely from beneath his matted locks of dust-grey hair but kept his silence.
‘They’re still humans,’ said Richard.
Sir Martin shrugged. ‘Whatever they are, they’re the enemy, the enemy of our faith, and they would slaughter us without mercy had they the chance. And you, Dick, are a squire and you will treat me with due deference.’
‘I am Sir Thomas’s squire,’ Richard replied.
‘That is as may be, but you still call me “sir” when you address me.’ Sir Martin turned to Thomas. ‘You need to tame your squire, he lacks the necessary humility.’
Richard glanced at Thomas and the knight sighed.
‘He’s right, Richard. Remember your place and act accordingly. Else I will not be so tolerant. Understood?’
The squire nodded reluctandy.
‘That said, a knight is required to show charity, even to his enemies.’ Thomas rose stiffly and walked over to the nearest pair of slaves and stood over them. ‘You understand some of our tongue, I think.’
The Muslim who had reacted to Sir Martin’s insult looked up warily and then nodded.
Thomas held out the remains of the bread he had been eating. ‘Here. Take it.’
The slave stared at the bread and chewed his chapped lips. Then, hesitantly, he reached a hand out and delicately plucked the hunk from Thomas’s fingers. At once he began to tear at it, watching Thomas anxiously as if the knight might snatch the bread back without warning. The slave chained to him was a thin dark-skinned Moor who seemed to be in pain as his companion fed, and he began to make a pitiful keening noise. The other man paused for a moment and then tore what was left in half and gave a piece to his companion. The act surprised Thomas who had often witnessed the selfish levels to which slaves were driven by the need to survive. Compassion was a weakness that could kill a man.
Sword and Scimitar Page 18
