The Long Sword

by Christian Cameron

  The old admiral, who had scarcely spoken a word to me since our argument on his quarterdeck, came below when summoned by his marines. He didn’t avert his eyes, but merely shook his head.

  ‘You killed the bastards too quickly,’ he said. But he flashed me a smile. ‘Pirates – animals. They prey on Christian and Moslem alike, and are the enemies of all men.’ He nodded at one young man. ‘That’s a bad way to die, eh?’

  And later, he had malmsey served to all of us, and he said, ‘It is easy to prate of the foul religion of the infidel and all that, but when you look at what those pirates did – to Genoese, my natural enemies – you know that it is those bastards who are the enemy. And they live in the seams and fissures between the rivals and ply their horrid trade because the lawful powers are busy fighting.’ He looked at me. ‘I’m sure I’ll go to hell for saying it, Sir Knight, but I’d rather clear the fucking pirates off the sea than conquer Jerusalem. I can go to Jerusalem any time I want, just for paying a fee to the Sultan in Cairo, who is a lawful man with normal appetites. And when we take Tyre, or Jaffa, or whatever unlucky town we storm …’ He shrugged. ‘I’ve said too much.’

  You see these horrors at the fringe of war. Routiers rob and rape, and worse, and I’ve known men who eventually go dead inside, and rouse themselves by inflicting horror. I’ve heard Camus say that raped nuns make the best whores, and the Levantine pirates were of the same breed – men dead to anything but the false feeling of power. But when I looked around that afternoon, the dead Italians very fresh in my head, I saw that Nerio and Juan agreed with the admiral, whatever they might say. They did not believe in the crusade.

  Perhaps no one did.

  We raised Rhodos at the first breath of autumn. I didn’t know the Mediterranean then as I do now, but I knew a storm when it came, and we rowed, sailed under a scrap of brailed-up lateen on a short yard, and rowed again until our hold was awash with waves breaking over bulwarks amidships and the rowers were sitting in water and every man not rowing was bailing or manning the pumps. We were three days and two nights somewhere north and west of Rhodos, and when the oarsmen were exhausted and the water was gone, the admiral conned the ship himself, got into the lee of an islet and rested us in calm water until we were strong enough to beach stern first on a beach of gravel.

  The Venetians are superb seamen. We didn’t lose a ship. I will spare you my thoughts, except to say I feared death more every moment during that storm than I ever had in mortal combat. I think that is because we fear that with is foreign, and not that which is familiar. The storm terrified me, so that when the sky was black and rent with fire, the timoneer struck me with his rope and pushed me to an oar. And I went.

  Nor did I hold it against him.

  At any rate, we raised Rhodos, and entered the ancient harbour – everything east of Venice is ancient. Rhodes had a great navy when Rome ruled the world, and now she does again: the ships of the Hospital are few, but well feared.

  The harbour was packed with shipping the way a Bristol keg is packed with mackerel. Or perhaps the way Sherwood Forest is packed with trees – aye, that’s more apt, because their masts stood like a forest. There were more than a hundred ships in the harbour or on the beaches outside. There were forty fighting ships: from the Order, from Cyprus, from Genoa, from the Gattelussi. There were even two from the Emperor at Constantinople. With the Venetian galleys, there were almost sixty fighting sail, and another hundred round ships to carry the army and their horses.

  And the horses! All Rhodos was covered in a carpet of warhorses. We had almost five thousand knights and men-at-arms, and most of them were mounted. The Order’s chancellor told me one night after Mass that he was feeding near four thousand chargers out of the Order’s farms and byres.

  I didn’t see the horses at once, because as soon as we beached I went with my friends to see the legate. Marc-Antonio waited on me; his inflammation had gone down at sea, and the storm had, of all things, cured his fever. We found the legate in the English langue, the tavern devoted to the needs of English knights and squires within the Order.

  I haven’t said as much as I might about the Order. When they found me, I was as uncritical as a man can be. I loved everything about the Order: the sense of community, the brotherhood, the religious devotion, the discipline, the training in arms. When I came to the Order, they seemed to me the very antithesis of the routiers, who had no spirit, no driving purpose beyond greed, no training, and no discipline. Who sold their own members for money.

  By the crusade summer, I was more critical. Juan di Heredia’s combination of competence, intense ambition, lax morals and amoral piety had, despite my respect for the man, cost me something of my idealism. The realities of preparing the crusade – even my beloved Father Pierre’s open questioning of the uses of violence – all made me look more deeply at the Order. Fra Daniele didn’t shock me – his ilk existed in Avignon – but he helped insure that I would look at Rhodes with a careful eye.

  At any rate, the Order – on Rhodes, and in any commanderie with multiple ‘nations’ or ‘languages’ – had inns to house and support them. In the earliest days in Jerusalem, I suspect this had been to comfort new knights, so that they could hear their own language spoken. By the crusade summer, some of the languages no longer had as many adherents, and other, new divisions had grown to divide langues and inns that formerly had been pillars of the Order. The French langue was deeply divided between French and Burgundian and Hainault; the Italian langue was bitterly divided between the knights of Genoa and the knights of Venice, with the Florentine and Neapolitan and Sianese and Veronese knights as a sort of third ‘side’. There was a German langue, and an English langue that included Scottish and Irish knights – two groups who did not view themselves as English any more than a Provençal knight was French or a Catalan knight was ‘Spanish’.

  Despite these divisions, --perhaps even because of them, the Order was a solid fabric. The Order could be petty and bureaucratic; it had whole slaughterhouses of parchment scrolls dedicated to knight’s’ genealogies and land holdings and registered rents and leases, but the Order provided inns, hospital care, and in some cases, transportation for pilgrims travelling to the Holy Land from all of Europe. From your front door in London or Aix-la-Chappelle or Nijmegen or Nuremberg or Prague or Verona or Barcelona or Nájera or Paris or Bordeaux you could travel all the way to Jerusalem guarded, supported, and cared for by the Order.

  The decision to guard the pilgrim routes and to provide care for the sick, whether pilgrims or not, had been one of the earliest, defining moment in the Order’s history. Unlike the rival Templars, the Hospitallers had not defined themselves solely as warriors. With the fall of the Holy Land, about a hundred years before my time there, the Templars had lost their purpose, but the Order continued to provide caravans to Jerusalem.

  I mention this because on arriving at Rhodes, the capital and fortress of my Order, I saw for the first time how few the Knights of the Order were. In truth, in times of peace, the Order maintained only about three hundred brother-knights at Rhodes, and another few hundred serving brothers. Some serving brothers were professed soldiers: that is, professional soldiers who had taken all the vows of the Order, but were of insufficient birth to rank as knights. They were called brother-sergeants. There were very few in the commanderies in Europe – just two in Avignon, a few retired old men in England helping to raise warhorses – but there were hundreds at Rhodes, where they provided the expert leadership and technical skills in siege work and ship handling to the knights. But most of the serving brothers were doctors, apothecaries, nurses and herbalists, carpenters and blacksmiths and other skilled men. They were not warriors except in the direst emergency.

  All this is by way of explaining that Rhodes was a military base, a great fortress in the very face of the Turkish enemy, but also a small state, like Vicenza in Italy or Strasbourg. It had a small but expert army, a set of skilled crafts
men, a subject populace of free peasants most of whom were Greek schismatics, and a handful of feudal lords – mostly Latin, but a few Greek. It had a government and ambassadors and the Grand Master was as powerful as many princes. Rhodes had an excellent fleet of six galia sottil and one galia grossa and two dozen lesser craft, small galleys with fewer than a hundred oarsmen, fast and shallow in draft, that could cover shipping, transport pilgrims, or raid the enemy coast. The navy drove most of the Order’s military preparations. Rhodes was a naval power. She contributed two full-time galleys to the defence of Smyrna, a city on the coast of Turkey that the last crusade had seized in Crecy year.

  Yet this small fleet, and the garrisons of the dozen castles the Hospitallers manned in Outremer and the Ionian islands, and the armed caravans that took pilgrims to the Holy Land – these small operations required almost all of the Order’s manpower. Rhodes always had to be prepared for siege, still does. At any moment an enemy fleet might descend like the Assyrian wolves to try to snap up the port or lay siege to the city. And every mark of the revenue of the islands, the tolls paid by pilgrims, the revenues of all the Order’s estates in Europe and Cyprus – all that money was already spent and on the same castles, ships and caravans I’ve mentioned.

  We always imagined the Order as a great Roman legion of knights, ready to march at a moment’s notice against the Saracen foe. But the truth was that for a Passagium Generale the Order had to summon in all the knights and brother-sergeants and donats and other volunteers from all over Europe, which cost money and took ships. And then they had to feed and house all those men, see to their equipment, put them in the field, feed and maintain them and their horses. All that, while continuing to serve pilgrims, heal the sick, and defend their own fortresses. So, they were a legion, but most of the legion was tied down in routine duties.

  We arrived – that is, the legate arrived – with fifty brother-knights from the commanderies, men like Fra Peter Mortimer. And there were a hundred more come with the Genoese or making their way in private ships. Rhodes was packed to the gunwales with knights.

  And every one of them had precedence over me.

  The inn of the English langue was so much like home that I blinked in the great stone doorway and imagined, for a few heartbeats, that the Thames was two streets away. The English langue was located below our bastion, the section of walls for which the English are responsible during attacks. The building is tall, like a London house, and broad, taking up the space that two or three houses would occupy, with a glittering facade of mullioned windows. The ground floor is stone, and rubble-filled timber soars away, whitewashed over stucco over brick, four tall stories of London shining in the Mediterranean sun. Deep stone basements protect the ale and they go down so deep in the soil that you can see the ancient street from the time of Alexander and there is a marvellous bust in one of the cellars, a bearded man’s head that some say is Saint John and Nerio says is Messire Plato, the philosopher.

  It might be the best inn in London, save for the omnipresent smell of garlic and the presence of oil lamps on every table and olive oil in the food. But it is a noble building with many rooms and many places for private conversation; unlike any other inn I know it has a chapel and a chaplain. The courtyard has a line of pells where men may practice the art of arms, and the archery range and tiltyard are close.

  By ancient custom, the commander of the English langue is the turcopolier, or the officer in charge of mercenaries. I’m not sure what this says about the English, but in the crusade year, the turcopolier was the captain of the Order’s cavalry and scouts; a senior military officer. His name was Fra William de Midleton, and he was a tall man of enormous girth, and no amount of exercise seemed to reduce his size.

  I learned all this on arrival, because the turcopolier was sitting in a snug with the legate.

  He rose, his great belly pushing at the table that Father Pierre was using as a desk, and extended a massive hand. ‘Sir William de Midleton – I am delighted at your coming, sir, and the more so as the manner of your arrival reflects so much credit on our nation in the Order.’

  In the next few minutes I learned that our battle with the Turks was the talk of the waterfront and indeed of the whole town, where it was fairly reckoned as the first fruits of the crusade, since the whole coalition fleet was composed of men committed, at least on paper, to the attack.

  ‘How did you find your first brush with the enemy?’ Fra William asked.

  I was flushed by his praise, but I bowed and thanked him. ‘I found them to be good soldiers and wonderful archers. Brave and very dangerous. But poorly armoured.’

  Fra William nodded. ‘Those are Turks. Brave and reckless. Wonderful archers! When we get a few to convert, we recruit them instantly, I promise you. But when you face the Egyptians, the true Mamluks, you will see that courage and archery united with the industry and discipline of Egypt. The Ghulami are fully armed – and twice as dangerous.’ He smiled. ‘Luckily, we have … arrangements … with the Sultan.’ He smiled at Father Pierre.

  The legate did not smile. ‘No Christian should have an arrangement with the infidel,’ he said.

  Fra William raised both eyebrows. His face was broad and flat with a large nose and wide, childlike eyes – he looked more like a favourite uncle than a commander of mercenaries. ‘Excellency, when you have lived here as long as I—’ he began.

  Father Pierre looked at me, and not the turcopolier. ‘I have been in the East since the year of Poitiers,’ he said. ‘I have lived in Constantinople and Famagusta. I know the Latin sees of Outremer. I know that Venice and Genoa and Pisa and Florence have made their own pacts with the devil – but I do not expect such rhetoric from the Knights of Christ.’

  Fra William showed his dismay and anger. He leaned against the cool stone wall and shook his head.

  I thought of the admiral and his statement about pirates. But, quite wisely, I think, I didn’t say what came to mind.

  In the difficult silence, Fra William bowed stiffly – or perhaps, roundly – and squeezed past me. ‘I’m sure the legate would like to brief you alone,’ he said. ‘When he has finished with you, perhaps you would be as kind as to come to my closet and I will assign you a cell.’

  He was perfectly pleasant, although I could see his irritation. He walked out of the oak door and closed it behind him.

  Father Pierre rested his head in his hands. ‘Why does the Pope want a crusade – an armed attack – on men half the Inner Sea view as allies?’

  Sometimes men ask rhetorical questions. They don’t want answers. But in this case, I felt that it was worth a try. ‘The Pope has declared crusades against Milan and even Naples,’ I said.

  Father Pierre sat back. ‘I do not like my role here. Enough of that – you are too young to share my burdens, and it is unfair of me even to mention them. You have won a great victory.’

  I shrugged. ‘My lord, we all won a victory.’

  He nodded. ‘And the Venetians? They came willingly?’

  I shrugged again. ‘My lord, they are here.’

  He laughed. ‘Sir William, you sound more like an Italian every day. Your friends – my friends – they prosper?’

  I nodded. ‘None of us took a bad wound,’ I said.

  ‘By the grace of God,’ added the priest, and I bowed my head.

  Then I told him most of the expedition, leaving out almost everything Admiral Contarini had said. He nodded.

  ‘The Venetians are the best sailors on the face of the inner sea,’ he said. ‘But they turn their God-given talents to the service of greed and not God. The Genoese beat them here.’

  ‘The Genoese were not present when we faced the Turks,’ I said.

  Father Pierre nodded. ‘The Genoese say that by fighting the Turks, we provoke a naval reaction that may threaten the entire Crusade,’ he said. He raised a hand as I began to protest. ‘Spare me, spare me! I know. Th
e Genoese serve only their own city.’

  I leaned forward. ‘Have you chosen our … goal?’ I asked softly.

  For the first time in my life, I saw Father Pierre be evasive. He was a very poor liar. ‘No,’ he said.

  I knelt and confessed myself of my amorous thoughts. My confessor laughed. ‘Chastity sits heavily on you, my son,’ he said. ‘Be careful. Be … wise.’

  ‘Wise?’ I asked.

  He shook his head. ‘I have said too much. For your penance, you may find all your friends billets in this city and then join me for dinner. Lord Grey celebrates his birthday and he is eager to see his nephew. How was Master Stapleton?’

  ‘He was brilliant in arms and a good man throughout.’ I waved towards the closed door. ‘He is the last man among us unknighted.’

  ‘You would recommend him for knighthood?’ Father Pierre asked, his hands steepled in his accustomed way.

  ‘Without hesitation. He will be a better knight than I am.’ I bowed.

  Father Pierre shook his head. ‘I doubt that,’ he said, the best compliment he ever paid me. His praise was given sparingly, and often to third parties so this was very sweet, despite being so brief. He waved me away in dismissal. ‘I’ll speak to Lord Grey,’ he said.

  As I closed the oak door – it might have been imported from England, it was that heavy – I thought that in the past few months, my beloved Father Pierre had begun to act more like a prince of the church. He was not spoiled. It was merely that his new dignity shrouded his enthusiasm and his genuine friendliness.

  I missed Father Pierre. He was there when his eyes laughed at my petty sins, when he knelt with me on the floor to pray, when he embraced me. But the cautious strategos who lied about the goal of the expedition …

  At any rate, I went up a floor and along a hallway so narrow that a man in full harness would have had to go sideways like a crab. I asked the servants – some English, some Greek, some Arabs – the way until I found the open door at the end of a hall that should have been straight but was not. Later I learned that the English langue was one of the richest, and was built in four stages that did not perfectly align, so that the main hall of the second floor was neither straight nor flat.