Shadow of God (37 page)

The Janissaries talked among themselves in Turkish again, and Basilios had difficulty hearing the words. He could not tell whether they wanted to come and buy knives for all of them, or just kill him and take the knives.

Then the leader of the three said, “Let’s go. Show us your long, armor-piercing knives.” Basilios led them down to the beach and walked along the water line. He kept to the soft pebbles near the water’s edge, hoping that the bad footing would hinder the Janissaries more than him in the event of a fight. As he drew near his boat, he could see nothing of his mates. He hoped that they were there in the shadows, but had no way of knowing if they had made it back yet. As he got within a yard, he could see a lone basket of fish in the sand. Did the boys bring this back or had it been left there all along? He had no idea. The odds now were getting a little tight for him.

“Over here, sir. Right this way.”

The three Janissaries were right behind Basilios as they came to the basket. Basilios walked to the side away from the boat. That way, if his men were hidden, they could strike from behind. If they were not there at all, he would have a half-step lead in running from the soldiers.

The young man leaned over the fish, and then pulled away in disgust. “Those are fish! Where are the knives?”

“Right here,” Basilios said, as he pulled his own knife from his belt.

The leader immediately perceived the threat and drew his scimitar. He pointed the tip of the blade straight at Basilios’ throat and
stepped forward, closing the distance. There was no hope for Basilios now. He could neither fight with his shorter knife, nor could he run.

There was a movement in the boat. The two other Janissaries turned to confront the danger, but they were too late. Both slumped to the ground as the two wooden oar handles simultaneously swept into their temples. They fell in a heap together on the wet sand. Before the third man could attack Basilios—before he could even turn his head—Nicolo’s ax severed the young man’s head from his body. As the boy fell forward, his scimitar grazed Basilios’ thigh. The Janissary fell into the sand next to his unconscious comrades, his blood covering their new blue uniforms as his heart continued to pump for a minute more.

Basilios staggered back, grabbing at his thigh. He took off his neckerchief and pressed it into the bleeding wound. The blood stopped, and he said, “Quickly! Get all three of them into the boat. We don’t want to wait a minute more.”

Marcantonio and Petros dragged the bodies of the two unconscious Janissaries over the gunwales of the boat and dumped them into the scuppers. Nicolo took the dead boy by his collar and belt and heaved him into the stern. Then, Basilios limped into the boat, and as he cut the mooring line with the Janissary’s scimitar, he plucked the severed head from the beach by the hair and impaled it upon the blade.

“A gift, for the Grand Master.” He threw the head and the sword onto the pile of fish and grabbed an oar. Together, the men rowed the boat back into the black night. Once well off shore and hidden by the darkness, they set sail north again, for their secret route to the city.

Only a drying stain of blood was left on the sand to inform upon them. As the morning wore on, the incoming tide washed away the last traces of the dead young man.

Melina was terrified for her babies. The only sounds she heard were the crashing of the cannonballs that entered the city and the screams of her neighbors. Animals began to panic at the noise and the flying stone chips. Their anxious screams added to the din. With little light in the small house, Melina became increasingly frightened.
The walls closed in on her. She began to fear that she might be killed and the babies left alone for days while Jean was defending his post. She had no idea when he might be able to check on them again.

By noon, the house was beginning to heat up in the fierce July sun. With the doors and the windows bolted and shuttered, it became difficult to breathe. Melina fanned the twins as they slept. Ekaterina and Marie were like two little dolls in a toy bed. They even slept on the same side and held the same little arm stretched out, with the other curled near their heads; two tiny fencers in the
en garde
position.

Melina could hardly believe her good luck twelve months ago when she had discovered that she was pregnant. By then, she and Jean had been living permanently in her little house. Nothing had been said to Jean by the Grand Master, or even the knights of his own
Auberge
. Somehow the preparations for war and the huge amount of work that needed to be done had made their own relationship of little importance to the rest of the inhabitants of the city. Many of the knights had women in the town. Some lived openly with them, while others slipped back and forth between their inns and their lover’s houses after dark.

When she discovered her pregnancy, she knew Jean would be thrilled as well. They had not yet married. The war and the threat to their lives had made a formal ceremony seem insignificant just then.

Neither of them had considered the possibility of twins. When she went into early labor, Jean called the Jewish midwife from the Quarter. He and the midwife stayed with Melina for the first hours. When there was no progress after the first day and night, Jean became alarmed.

“Stay with her,” he told the midwife. “I am going to get Doctor Renato.”

Melina had tried to stop him, but he insisted. The midwife was horrified. No male doctor would attend a woman in labor. She would have protested, but she, too, was alarmed for her patient, and actually relieved. By the second day of labor, she actually wanted to share the responsibility with someone else. She knew that women
who remained in labor for more than a day or two after their water broke often became sick and died of a fever shortly thereafter.

Jean had hurried down the
Calle Ancha
, the Broad Street of the Jewish Quarter
.
He went through
Calle de Los Ricos
and
Calle de Los Locos,
the Streets of the Rich and the Crazy. Finally, he left the Quarter and hurried to the
Collachio
. He turned right into the Street of the Knights and ran to the hospital. He took the massive staircase two steps at a time, and went directly to the ward. Renato was bending over a patient, changing dressings on an abscess that he had drained the prior day. He was surprised to see Jean running into the ward.

“What is it, Jean?”

“It’s Melina,
Dottore.
She has been in labor now for more than a day. And still there is no sign of the head. The midwife is of no use. Can you come? Please?”

“
Bien entendu!”
Of course! “Wait here a moment, while I get some things.”

Jean waited in the ward while Renato fetched his bag of surgical instruments. The two hurried from the hospital and back down the Street of the Knights. Jean led the way, for Renato rarely left the hospital, and had never been to the couple’s little house.

“Jean,” Renato said, as they hurried through the streets, “this must remain between the two of us.”

“Doctor?”

“I mean that I will do everything I can for Melina. I love her and you too dearly to let anything go undone. But, it’s a grave crime in these idiotic times for a man to…to…see the private parts of a woman in labor. It is madness, but even a doctor may not do this. This very year a doctor in Hamburg—Wartt was his name, I think— was burned at the stake for doing such a thing. He wanted to help a poor woman in labor who he thought was dying. He dressed in woman’s clothing and went as a midwife. But, they caught him and burned him for the crime. I will help you, of course. But, we must keep our silence. And the midwife, too. I know her. She will not betray me. I have helped her before.”

“
Merci
, Doctor. I know what it means for you to do this for us,
merci beaucoup.”

When they entered the room, Melina was quiet. The midwife stepped back against the wall. Renato ignored her and went directly to Melina. He lifted the gray wool covers and pulled back the sheets. Jean turned his head to the wall. He could not look at Melina as she was so intimately examined by another man; even his trusted friend, Doctor Renato.

As Renato examined Melina, she began to groan and then cry out as the contractions resumed against her partially opened womb.

“Bring that lamp closer,” he called to the midwife. Jean, by this time, was sitting on the floor in a corner. He was sweating more than Melina, and had buried his face in his folded arms. He prayed aloud as the doctor and midwife tended to his love. He found himself alternating between the Latin prayers of his youth and the unfamiliar Hebrew prayers that Melina had taught him. He wanted God at his side now, and it didn’t matter whose God.

“Closer!” Renato shouted. “There! Hold it right there.”

He wiped his hands on a damp towel and reached between Melina’s legs. She cried out louder, but Renato persisted.

“There! There’s the problem!” He turned to Jean. “There are
three
hands in there, Jean. Therefore, there will be a fourth!” And he laughed. Jean looked up, but what the doctor had said made no impression on him. He only heard Melina’s cries. Then, in the midst of her pain and tears, she too laughed, as she realized what the doctor had said.

“Twins, man! Twins!” He slowly inserted his fingers into Melina’s womb and took gentle hold of the little hand. Then, as carefully as he could, he used both hands to maneuver the little child until its crown of black hair was showing. Melina pushed, and Renato said, “Harder, my dear, harder!”

Melina cried out and pushed again. The little black patch of glistening wet fur grew larger, and then, without warning, there was a forehead and ears and a slightly squashed nose. With a rush, the baby fell into Renato’s hands. She was so slippery that he nearly dropped her.

“Over here, woman! Take this child and hold it while I get the other one out. We cannot deal with this umbilical cord yet. I must get the other child out quickly.”

He handed the first baby to the midwife, who swaddled it in a bit of clean cloth and held her to the side, as far as the umbilical cord would allow. Renato placed his hand back into Melina’s womb, which was considerably more dilated and roomy now. He probed around and found a foot. He maneuvered the foot as he had the arm, and rotated the baby around to prevent it coming out feet first. “I’m sorry for this,
Querida
, but I don’t want to take the risk of entangling the two cords. The baby might strangle before I can get her out.”

Jean was still praying wildly, almost oblivious to the scene in the room. His time in the hospital had taught him no skills relating to childbirth; virtually all the babies born on the island were born at home. None had ever come into the hospital, at least while Jean was there.

“Don’t push just yet, Melina. Hang on, and pant if you need to. Pant like a puppy in the heat. I need to get the head down before you push any more.” Renato continued to work, as Melina puffed her cheeks and panted as fast as she could. The reflexes in her laboring pelvis were telling her body to push, and it was all she could do to fight it. The sweat poured from her forehead and trickled down her neck. She kept glancing at Jean, who was trembling at the sight of his wife and the one baby in the room.
Pauvre Jean!

“Now! Now push!” Renato shouted in Greek. He had the baby’s head in his hand and was pulling gently from side to side. First the right shoulder came through and then, very slowly, the left. As soon as the head and shoulders were out, the baby flew into the doctor’s arms. The cords were slightly tangled, and Renato placed the second child on Melina’s abdomen. He took two strings of sinew and tied each cord twice. It took no more than thirty seconds to complete the four ties. Then he took a knife from his pocket and cut each cord between the ties.

The midwife took the children away from the foot of the bed and placed them next to Melina. She tapped Jean on the shoulder several times before she could bring him back from his prayers. She very nearly had to drag him to Melina’s side. He knelt by the bed, and was about to ask if the babies were all right when two
wonderful cries filled the room simultaneously. He put his head down on her breast, hugged Melina and his twin girls, and sobbed.

“A few minutes more,” said Renato. “As soon as the afterbirth is delivered, I’ll leave you in the care of the midwife. There is much to do in the hospital. I think we have a single afterbirth for the two babies, so it will be hard to tell the little girls apart. Better to name them now, and find some mark on their bodies to tell the difference.”

Then, with a gushing noise, the single afterbirth was propelled from Melina’s womb, attached, as Renato had predicted, to the two cords. A large volume of blood and clots followed the afterbirth, sliding off the sheets and onto the floor. To Jean, the pink stain on the sheets looked like the trail of a wounded animal. He couldn’t bear to think of Melina’s blood spilling onto the floor, like the blood of the men he had killed in battle. So, he turned away and buried his face again in Melina’s breast. Melina cupped his head in her arm and comforted him like a third baby.