Shadow of God (46 page)

At the beginning of the second week in August, after more than a month of fighting, the knights were beginning to suffer heavy losses. The Turkish artillery massed its attacks against the Bastions of England and Aragon. The earthworks outside the ditch had finally overtopped the walls there, and the Turks were able to move heavy cannon in place on top of their newly built earthen mound. They could fire down into the city from the new vantage point. There were fourteen batteries—virtually all of Suleiman’s remaining heavy cannons—concentrated in this sector. By the end of the week,
there was significant damage to the Post of England and a large hole in the neighboring wall of Aragon.

Each night, the citizens and knights would repair and block up the breaches. Each dawn, the Turks would open fire again and reopen the breaches. Both sides sustained terrible losses, but the English suffered out of proportion to their numbers. The mobile reserves were sent wherever aid was needed, but it was not enough to secure their position if an all-out assault were made by the Turks.

While Hélène had virtually become Renato’s first assistant, Melina was performing triage at the time of the cannon offensive against Aragon and England. Her job was to see if she could determine who needed the attention of the doctor first. This grisly aspect of her job meant she had to determine who were so badly hurt that they could not reasonably be expected to survive. Doctor Renato and his helpers had to give priority to those who could be healed enough to get quickly back into battle. Then he tended those who might live, even if they could not fight. Medical attention and supplies would be wasted on the rest. They would await their deaths alone.

Melina found herself overwhelmed with the responsibility. What if she were wrong? What if a knight might have lived after all, with just a little attention from the doctor?

“Triage is the hardest job, Melina,” Renato had told her. “Not even the doctors can be sure at such a time. But, we do the best we can. If there were another doctor here I could spare, he would be doing what you are doing. I cannot be spared for such a job, so it falls to you. Do the best you can, and trust in God to guide your decision.”

Melina did as she was told. But, she found herself crying almost continually. The dying young men made her weep. The pain of the wounded made her weep. The brave knights who were sent back into battle with their wounds still fresh, their bandages stained with blood, made her weep all the more. She dreaded every footstep in the corridor, for fear that the very next victim might be Jean.

No one could be spared to tend to the wounded on the battlements. So, all of the injured were carried to the hospital by fellow knights or citizens. Some of the knights were brought in still wearing their cloaks and helmets. She held her breath as the visors were
removed, fearing the moment when she might see Jean’s face. Day and night she waited for the terrible moment when she might have to decide to withhold treatment from the man she loved more than her own life. And she knew that every time another wounded knight was brought into the hospital, by wishing he were not Jean, she was wishing it on some other poor soul.

“I could
never
turn away Jean,
Docteur
,” she had told Renato. “
Jamais!
”

“God will guide you,
Chèrie.
Trust in God.”

On the night of the heaviest assault, the Commander of the Post of Aragon, Juan de Barbaran, was carried into the ward. Two knights had struggled with the heavy body, for he still wore his armor and sword. They placed him on the floor at the entrance to the ward. “
Ayudame, Señora
.” Help me, the wounded knight said in Spanish. Melina looked at the amount of blood on the man’s cape and the blood puddling on the floor. De Barbaran had been struck with a flying shard of stone. It had severed two large vessels in his neck, and he was bleeding to death before her eyes. She put a hand against the flowing blood, as Renato had shown her to do. She wadded up some cloth from a basket and pressed it into the wound. But still the blood soaked through, seeping between her fingers. She began to cry again as the man’s voice weakened. “
Ayudame, Señora. Por favore. Ayudame
,” his voice now no more than a gasp.

Soon the bleeding slowed, and the blood turned more purple than red. Finally, after a few minutes, the bleeding stopped altogether. Melina sat holding the Commander across her lap, still pressing the cloth into the wound. Renato had come to see what was happening, and gently took the cloth from her hand. He placed his fingers gently on de Baraban’s neck. Then he signaled the two knights to take the body away. He had no room for the dead in his hospital.

He led Melina away by the hand. She tried to resist him, but he pulled her toward the small room where her babies were now asleep. “
Basta, Cara. Basta
. You have had enough for now. Sleep with your babies. Hélène will help me, and we’ll carry on without you for a while. God bless you.”

Then, Renato returned to the ward. As he passed the front door, another knight was being led into the hospital. The knight held a handkerchief to his right eye and was shrugging off the assistance of two comrades. But, it was clear he could not see, for each time the other knights let him go, he staggered in a crooked path. Renato took the man by the elbow and sat him down on the stone floor. He pushed the knight’s shoulders until the man was resting against the wall. Then he removed the cloth from the knight’s eye. There was a ragged wound to the eyeball, which was clearly destroyed. Renato knew instantly that the man would not see from that eye again. He replaced the cloth and placed the man’s hand over it. “Hold this firmly, my Lord. I need to see if that other eye of yours will see again.”

He examined the good eye and could find no injury. Then he placed a clean cloth over both eyes and wrapped the man’s head in a bulky bandage. He took the man by the hand and led him to a corner where some blankets were stacked against the wall. “Sit here, my Lord. I’m afraid I have no bed for someone with a wound such as yours. Keep both eyes covered for the night. Then, in the morning, I will unbandage your good eye so that you can see your way back to your
Auberge.
I’m sorry for your wounds and your pain.”

The knight nodded. “
Gracias, Doctor. Muchas gracias
,” was all the man said. Then, Juan d’Homedes y Cascón of the
langue
of Aragon put his head against the wall and tried to sleep.

Hélène walked unsteadily down the center of the huge main ward, stepping between the rows of bodies that now virtually filled the hall. Her hands were shaking from fatigue as she headed for the sanctuary of Melina’s little room.

In the three weeks since she started working with Melina and Doctor Renato, Hélène had not left the hospital at all. Each time she thought of going to see Philippe, waves of wounded descended upon them and she was forced back to work. Philippe, for his part, came to inspect the wounded at least once a day, but his visits were brief and his moments alone with Hélène were few. At first she thought he was purposely ignoring her, perhaps punishing her for coming to Rhodes. Then she realized that he, too, was overwhelmed
with the responsibility of command; that he carried the burden of the dead and the dying.

On her way to Melina’s room, Hélène stopped briefly to help a young knight who was getting ready to return to the battlements. His wounds were fresh, his dressings saturated with old blood. But, still he struggled into his armor and fled the protection of the hospital walls. Hélène shook her head sadly, wondering if she would ever see this young man alive again. Would he come back with still more terrible wounds? Or would he never make it to the hospital at all, killed outright in battle and taken to the few remaining buildings where the bodies were stored for burial?

She hesitated outside Melina’s door and listened. Through the constant low-level noise of the hospital ward—the groans and the cries; the noises of pain and of despair—Hélène could just hear the soft voice of Melina singing to her babies. She pushed the door open slowly, stepping carefully and quietly into the little room. A single candle burned on the floor in the corner, casting shadows of Melina and the twins onto the walls and ceiling. The flickering orange light made Hélène a little lightheaded, so she lowered herself quickly to the floor, taking up all that was left of the space in the small room.

The two women had grown very close over the past weeks. They shared more than the common bond of nursing the wounded back to health. It was that each of them was committed to a love that their society and religion had forbidden, had forged a friendship dearer and stronger than either had ever known before. Hélène envied without jealousy the small family that God had given to Jean and Melina. Barely an hour could go by without her wondering whether such a treasure would ever be hers and Philippe’s. Indeed, she thought, would their love survive even this siege?

Melina’s song grew lower and softer as the girls fell asleep against her breasts. Though their lips still sucked languidly at her nipples, their eyes were closed and their little hands hung limply against their chests. In another minute the sucking stopped, and they were sound asleep.

Melina wiped the milk off their lips and her nipples, and then closed her bodice. She continued to hold Maria and Ekaterina in
her arms, as if she could protect them from the chaos that reigned around her own small fortress inside the hospital. She rocked slowly back and forth, willing the twins into a deeper and deeper sleep. She was smiling the whole time; one of the few moments in the day when life allowed her that luxury.

In a whisper, Hélène said, “Looking at the three of you makes me believe that there will be an end to all of this someday. That there is hope…”

“I know,” Melina said. “Without these two I would have given up long ago. I cannot think that God would allow such an evil to harm such innocence.”

The two women sat quietly, both thinking that what Melina had said was true, and equally true was that it violated every tenant of Hélène’s religious teaching. They both struggled with the absurdity that these two little angels could be tainted with Original Sin. For Hélène, all her strict Catholic convictions had been turned upside down since she came to live with Melina. And for Melina, the beliefs of her Judaism had long ago swept away the Christian teachings of her youth. Neither woman believed the dogma under which the knights lived and fought. Yet, both loved men who lived by those rules, and were prepared to die for them.

In the silence, the noises of the ward intruded into the room, making both women more aware of the reality of their situation. Melina said, “Has the Grand Master said what he will do after the siege?” She could still not bring herself to call him Philippe.

“You mean about us?”

“Yes.”

“No. He hasn’t discussed it since I arrived here. And before that, it was never an issue. There was no way that we could be seen together in Paris, so near the seat of his power, or of his family.” She wiped at a tear, and shivered though the room was overly warm from body heat. “And you and Jean?”

“Right now, Jean is focused completely on defending the city— and us. We talked once about what he would do if the Grand Master forbade us to be together. But we never resolved it. I think now that he’s a father, he might very well leave the Order if it became an
issue. But he would never do it until we have driven the Turks away. He’d never shirk his duty while the Order is still at war.”

A shadow seemed to fall over the room, as both women thought the unthinkable.

Hélène was the one who finally said it. “And if the Turks cannot be driven away? What then?”

Melina looked down at the girls in her arms and drew them closer to her. “Then we shall see. I cannot even think of such a thing at the moment. That my two little girls could become the slaves of the Sultan. To live in a despicable harem. To be…” She shook her head and squeezed her eyes shut as if the vision in her mind could be blotted out. “Never!” she said sharply. The girls startled in their sleep, arching their backs, arms outstretched, fists clenched. “Never…” she whispered. “And if Philippe should offer to surrender the city to the Sultan?” Melina went on softly.

“Oh, I don’t think that would ever happen. He is not a man who surrenders. He sees the world in very distinct terms; of good and evil; of them and us. I think he is committed in his heart to fight to the last knight; to the last Rhodian as well. No, I don’t see him ever surrendering the city as long as there is a man left to fight alongside him on the battlements.”

Hélène hugged herself tighter, then moved closer to Melina. She put her arm around Melina’s shoulders and took the girls into her embrace with her free arm. The women let their heads fall together, and in a few moments all four of them were soundly asleep.