The Disorderly Knights (26 page)

‘Thus, note, playing into the hands of the King of France,’ said Lymond cheerfully. ‘Because the Order, being badly led, badly organized and thoroughly demoralized, cannot defend itself let alone Tripoli, and has forced the Emperor to lock up half his sea and land forces in southern Italy and Sicily to protect the Emperor’s lands from a possible break-through by the Turks, once Malta is overthrown. Since he is also being held in north Italy by France, attacked in Germany by the Duke of Guise and at war with Turkey in Hungary, the failure of the Order in the Mediterranean is about the best thing that the Kingdom of France ever witnessed. You are now what every sect potentially becomes when it loses leadership,’ said Lymond calmly. ‘A tool.’

‘So we allow the Osmanlis to sweep the world,’ said Jerott Blyth, his eyes bright.

‘You either get out, and let the so-called Christian nations, instead of cutting each other’s throats, unite and destroy the religion they all oppose; or you make yourselves so strong that you can dictate your own terms.’

‘Under Juan de Homedès?’ said Gabriel. His eyes had for a long time, never left Lymond’s.

‘No. Nor under Graham Malett,’ Lymond said.

The blood, spreading under the golden skin, over the royal bones, stained Gabriel’s face, as few people had ever witnessed it. Through it, Gabriel smiled steadily still, unaware of Jerott’s hard fists at his side. ‘You are hard,’ he said. ‘Who, then?’

‘Until Juan de Homedès dies, no one,’ said Lymond. ‘After that, the list surely is very short. De Villegagnon is a born soldier and seaman but not truly a man of God, I think. Strozzi is strong but ambitious, with a personal vengeance to fulfil. Romegas is resourceful and gallant but without great personal power. Which leaves—’

‘La Valette. I thought you had hardly spoken to him,’ said Sir Graham. His colour was still high.

‘I have heard of him from every knight I could reach,’ said Lymond. ‘It is sometimes better than meeting the man himself.’

‘And Graham Malett, Grand Cross,’ said Jerott’s voice at his shoulder. ‘What faults has the Master discovered in him?’

But Gabriel himself answered, his colour gone, leaving his face rather pale. ‘For love of me,’ he said, ‘I can ask men to do all that I wish. I could grow to love this power too much.’

‘You hear,’ said Lymond placidly, into Jerott’s icy face. ‘We all love him too much.’

For the second time, swiftly, Gabriel caught Blyth’s arm as it began to swing. Lymond did not move. ‘Be still. Are you children?’ said Gabriel, angered at last. ‘Be still: your own destiny is behind you. There is Tripoli, there on the bow.’

They turned. Ahead, a white crescent of walls and towers within the single arm of the bay, lay the castle and city of Tripoli with the white Cross of St John minute on the ramparts. And outwith the spit, rocking gently at anchor in deep water, harnessing the sea with frail canopies and gilded tassels and long, reeling banners of scarlet and gold, were the Sultan Suleiman’s ships.

‘O Lord my God,’ said Gabriel, his deep, quiet voice lingering over the waters. ‘Take us, your children, into your hands; for we are losing our way.’

Blyth, his face hard and sick, closed his eyes with one hand. Lymond, his gaze on another fort, brave under the Order’s flag, perched on the spit from the bay, merely began absently to whistle, choosing for the purpose a long, complicated and extremely bawdy song from the Scottish seaboard.

*

He repeated it at intervals as slowly, their seamen standing unarmed on deck and the lilies of France flying plain at the masthead, the two ships rowed slowly between the silent ranks of Turkish vessels to join the Ambassador’s, lying alone in the alien fleet.

D’Aramon’s standard, flying beside the French flag, showed that he was aboard. Much later, in a high, answering whistle from one of the Turkish boats, the pirate Thompson replied.

The gunfire as d’Aramon’s brigantine came in was heard by Oonagh O’Dwyer, beside her sick lover’s side in the Turkish encampment, and by the beleaguered Governor of Tripoli. To Marshal Gaspard de Vallier in his castle, it meant at first only that Sinan Pasha had opened fire, and his well-meaning staff, brash or ailing, had failed to inform him of it. Then he saw, as he hurried to the battlements, that the guns were not yet aimed at town or castle, but saluted an incoming brigantine, prominently displaying the royal colours of France. A moment later, as the brigantine gave tongue in return, he distinguished the colours of Luetz d’Aramon, familiar in the Mediterranean for six years as French Ambassador to the Grand Seigneur of Turkey.

Short of excommunication, the Frenchman could not intend to give active aid to his Turkish friends against the Knights of St John. He must be coming to intercede. When the skiffs put out and later, when the two other French ships sailed in and crept up to their leader, Marshal de Vallier felt a great weight ease from his overstrained heart. Help was near.

*

Patient, subtle, attuned by hard years of experience to the Asiatic mind, the Baron d’Aramon moved slowly. Every formality of arrival was observed. And then, before dreaming of requesting an audience, his gifts to Sinan Pasha, to Dragut and Salah Rais were dispatched. They came from the coffers he had brought to lay before the Sultan himself: a ruby and emerald brooch, a filigree purse full of gold, a belt of velvet wrought with Mexican silver and pearls, and length upon length of gold tissue and silk.

In due time, the courtesies were returned. By then the two galleys from Malta were in. Taking Michel de Seurre, Nicolas de Nicolay and Graham Malett with him, along with no more of his train than he needed to maintain his royal master’s standing, His Excellency the French Ambassador to Turkey was rowed ashore as night fell to the Osmanli camp for his audience with the Sultan’s general. As he went, the
ezân
rang out over the waters, proclaiming the Omnipotence and Unity of God. It rang out still as he stepped ashore among the robed and jewelled fighting arm of Islâm to the low rattle of the drum.

If he failed to move these men to give up their attack, it might mean the end of the Order in Malta. If he succeeded, his career as Ambassador for the King of France in the Levant was very possibly at an end, and
hiver sans feu, vieillesse sans maison
his reward.

Through the murmuring night, spicy with musk and honey and mint, between the lamplit tents and the coruscating, shifting shadows that were the children of the House of Osman, past the sudden odour of horseflesh that told where the small, swift animals were tethered, past the fumes of oil and fish and tripe soup and mutton where the Cooks of Divine Mercy prepared the evening meal, the Baron d’Aramon passed gravely through the ritual stages of welcome, and arrived at last at the great scented pavilion, transparent with lamplight with the sheet gold of the Sultan’s standard planted outside, where Sinan Pasha greeted him. His train following, the French Ambassador entered.

The war-leader’s tent was dressed, as he had expected, with the treasured care of a concubine. Under the precious filigree lamps the faces ranged before the fine linen hangings sewn with ribbons were not hostile; they were the faces of men with work to do, confident, competent, and showing a large patience before their importunate visitors. Seated on silk cushions piled over thick carpets, the Frenchmen were served with sweetmeats: sugared pistachios and ginger, Temesuár honey and rose jam, fresh dates and
halvá
; and drank from bowls of new milk, or full pitchers of
khusháf
, seasoned with amber and musk; the juice of Bokhara apricots and syrups of red-hearted peaches, served cradled in snow.

The thickened, sweet liquids, the robes of the eunuchs impregnated with jasmine, in the earliest days of his Embassy had sickened him,
waiting strung-up for the opening of the state matter he had come to discuss. Now, he felt nothing and spoke of nothing (‘a very kiosk of Paradise’) as the chased cups were filled (‘rest to the soul; food to the spirit’), and when the time came, knew instinctively when to launch into the interminable, empty phrases leading insensibly to his master, the King of France; his master’s regard for the Order of St John of Jerusalem, some of whom were born his subjects; and his master’s willingness to regard it as a signal favour if the Grand Seigneur’s great army would turn its eyes from Tripoli and pursue its courageous purpose elsewhere. This willingness to be marked, in the immediate future, by a display by the King of France of his famed munificence.

His flowing Arabic reached an end, and he waited, hearing behind him the effective suction of Nicolas de Nicolay draining his cup. Flanked on the heaped cushions by his corsairs—Dragut heavy and motionless, Salah Rais with his long, Egyptian hands lax on robed knees, the Aga Morat smiling—Sinan Pasha, Chasse Diable, answered agreeably. A man of middle height, the stiff folds of his
jubbé
rustled as he leaned forward, and the undervest of gem-sewn silk flashed in the light. His face, sun-darkened and lean, was dwarfed by the turban entwined with gold tissue which fell like a lock to one shoulder; but he did not use his hands, as an Arab does, to give point and space to his case.

He might have had no case to make. In the unexcited cadences of the Moslem, for whom it is unmannerly to raise the voice or to laugh, Sinan Pasha regretted that the Emperor (on whom may the blessing of God on High ever rest!) and the Order of the Knights of St John of Jerusalem (may God light up their tombs!) should have seen fit to trick and deceive the army of the Commander of the Faithful and the Lieutenant of the Envoy of God upon Earth.

The Emperor promised that the Sultan should receive the keys of Bône. The Sultan’s officers sought them accordingly wherever the Emperor had representatives, to be met with either vain words or cannon fire; even at Malta, where they had looked for salutations and refreshments for their weary society. ‘I am sorely aware,’ said Sinan Pasha, with the unchanging expression of his hot brown eyes totally at odds with the commiseration in his voice, ‘that the King of France (O God, be propitious to his house!) dislikes witnessing the siege by ourselves of a town defended by the famous and valorous Knights of Malta; but unfortunately,’ he continued, his dark brows raised like flock in his sunken face, ‘unfortunately, these brave men are always where, by the grace of the Most High, the Sultan would be himself.’

And since the Sultan intended to have Tripoli which was merely recovering, after all, his own; and had given him, Sinan Pasha, a sealed commission to that effect which His Excellency the Prince
d’Aramon might peruse, it was as much as his, Sinan Pasha’s, poor life was worth to disobey. ‘Fight ye in God’s true battle, says the Qur’ân,’ ended the General piously; and d’Aramon drily answered, ‘The Christian Bible says much the same thing.’

But he tried. And when, bruised against the wall of Sinan Pasha’s indifference, he had to give up, Gabriel in his deep, rich voice continued: appealing less to Sinan than to Dragut, the old Commander; speaking with balance and humour; leafing it, even, with the twists of subtle, harmless malice that the mind of Islâm enjoys.

He drew, at last, a gleam from Dragut’s sharp, seaman’s eyes; but Sinan the Jew, clapping his hands, said, ‘Thy silver tongue, O Lord, has won me quite to thy side; but of what use to thee or to me is a headless body? To disobey the King of Kings is to die. All the world shall honour you, who spoke for your religion. It is sad that Allâh does not show himself smiling to you, but to me. Let us eat, that there may be no ill will between us.’

The smell of
piláf
came thick on the hot air, driving out the jasmine and cloves and the underlying aroma of sweat-sodden clothing. The French Ambassador stood, his long tight hose wrinkled to the thigh, his neck and wrist-frilling limp. ‘The blessing of God upon thee, O Ghazi, and my thanks,’ he said. ‘But we must return, You have heard us fairly, and what is to come will be revealed by God.’

For a moment there was absolute silence. Neither Sinan Pasha nor any of his company had risen, as courtesy demanded; no one spoke. Instead, reflectively, the white and gold turban inclined, and to a silvery rustle, the door curtain behind the Ambassador fell into place and swayed there, shutting out the fires, the tents, the moonlit dunes leading to Tripoli.

Then inside the pavilion there was a running flash of Damascus work round all the fringed walls, steadying into a trembling blaze. The Janissaries had lifted their blades.

‘The Prophet, who is the Emissary of God, has already signified the path,’ said Sinan’s dispassionate voice. ‘We fear the sea between this place and Constantinople is unsafe at present for the King of France’s great lords. Nor may we permit them, such is our concern for their welfare, so lightly to violate the honour of nations. Honour us, we beseech you, with your company yet awhile. Eat, sleep, and seduce our poor ears with your voice in exquisite talk. There is no haste for either of us to leave this city
while it stands
.’

Behind the Baron d’Aramon the knights de Seurre and Graham Malett had risen to their feet, with Nicolas de Nicolay and the rest of the suite quickly after. They rose, their hands on their empty sword-belts, and then stood with stiff-lipped nonchalance as the linked scimitars shimmered and stilled. The trap had closed on them,
and there was nothing to be done. The French Ambassador and his suite were to be guests of the Turk.

*

Silent under the African stars, the three ships from Malta waited for d’Aramon and Gabriel to return, and as the white crescent of Tripoli faded into the night and the light-shot black water around them lapped against the carved hulls of the Turkish fleet, strewn like night blossom on the warm sea, Jerott Blyth studied Lymond.

Since Gabriel and de Nicolay had left, they had not spoken. Just before night fell, for a long time, Lymond had been watching the Tripoli shore so that Jerott’s own attention had finally been caught, and he had surveyed it in turn. Through the dusk he saw at length some shadowy activity: a dark bulk slowly moving on the weedy rocks between sea and castle, followed by another. Then, as night deepened, the rocks were full of prickings of light.