Shadow of God (58 page)

Rhodes
September 22nd, 1522

Suleiman walked his horse slowly in the early morning light. The sun had just broken over the ocean, and light shimmered on a frothy sea. The winds were stronger now that autumn was approaching, and the hint of worsening weather was unmistakable. At his right side rode Ibrahim, quiet and relaxed upon his stallion. On the Sultan’s left rode a newcomer to these morning outings, Doctor Moses Hamon, the Royal Physician. In the Empire of the Ottomans, Jews were forbidden the privilege of riding a horse. Mules and donkeys could be used for transport, but horses were the sole province of the Muslims, a privilege of rank in the social hierarchy. However, the Sultan had waved this prohibition for his physician. Hamon had been busy during the first months of the siege. With the Sultan in perfect health, he had been bored at first. Then, he made his way into the hospital tents, and at once had found himself immersed in the care of the wounded and the tutoring of the young doctors and their assistants. Except for his daily rounds in the hospital, he had not left the security of the Sultan’s camp. Suleiman treated the doctor as a precious resource, and kept him nearly as heavily guarded as he, himself.

“You’ll enjoy this inspection, Doctor. You need some diversion, I think.”

“Yes, Majesty. I’m anxious to see the disposition of the army, and to get a closer look at the city.”

As they rode east toward the sea, the pounding of the cannons became more insistent. They had to raise their voices to be heard. By the time they reached the outskirts of Piri Pasha’s encampment, Hamon could feel the earth rumble beneath his horse’s feet as the massive cannonballs burst out of their huge bronze barrels and struck the towering walls. Two days earlier, Piri Pasha’s troops made a furious assault at the Post of Italy, preceded and followed by unceasing bombardment. There had been serious damage to the walls. Simultaneously, Mustapha Pasha attacked Provence, England, and Aragon, reinforced with Bali Agha’s Janissaries. The knights had been driven back, and several of their standards captured by the Turkish soldiers.

But, the knights rallied, and poured every piece of murderous equipment in their possession into the fight. Greek Fire spewed from copper tubing and incinerated large numbers of Azabs. Boiling pitch and oil were poured from the overhanging parapets, inflicting terrible burns and agony; musketeers and arquebusiers filled the ditches with bodies killed by their ceaseless volleys of well-aimed shot.

Even the archers, with their leather-fledged, metal-tipped arrows, slaughtered hundreds of Turks that day. Though slow to reload, the crossbow was powerful and accurate, and—unlike the longbow—required little skill to use. The slight twist to the leather feather caused the arrow to spin in flight, increasing its accuracy and penetration. It was an arrow exactly such as these that fatally wounded King Richard, the Lion Heart, some three hundred years before. Now, the Rhodian skies were filled with intermittent flights of longbow arrows as well, which looked like masses of migrating birds, flying in perfect formation, finally diving to the earth; down into the center of the attacking Turkish forces.

By the end of the day, again, the Turks were forced to retreat, leaving more than two thousand more dead in the ditches, after they had killed some two hundred mercenaries and a dozen knights.

Piri Pasha’s sentries received word that the Sultan’s party was approaching the camp, and Piri rode out to greet them. Suleiman’s personal guard stopped at the entrance to the encampment and took up perimeter positions. Suleiman’s groom took his horse, and
another groom brought the Sultan’s sword. The servant girded the Sultan with his fabled sword of the House of Osman, and Piri led them into the camp.

“
Salaam Aleichum
, Doctor Hamon,” Piri said after formerly greeting Suleiman.

“
Aleichum salaam
, Piri Pasha.”

“How good to see you here. Are you going to inspect the camps with our Sultan?”

“With your permission, Grand Vizier,” Hamon replied with a bow.

Piri smiled at his friend, who had seen him through the long illnesses of Selim. “You have had all the permission you need,” he added, looking at Suleiman, who was now walking ahead toward the front of the camp.

“Well?” Suleiman asked Piri, who had scurried to catch up to the Sultan.

“Difficult, my Lord. Difficult. The battles two days ago were very costly of both lives and morale. The men are grumbling, and I’ve had to be extremely harsh with anyone caught speaking treasonous words. And, this morning, something bizarre happened.”

“Yes?”

“At first light, the knights fired a catapult at my camp. I expected flaming oil or pitch. Or at very least, a mass of dead rotting animals. They have done that many times before, hoping, I think, to spread disease among my troops. Of course we set fire to any of the carcasses that land within the camp. But, today, they sent us the body of a man. It was not rotting, and, in fact, the body was still warm. He had been quartered before they sent him to us. I don’t know what to make of it. There,” he said, pointing to a small crowd of soldiers. “There it is.”

Suleiman turned toward the crowd, with Ibrahim and Hamon close behind. As the Sultan approached the men, the sentries cleared a path. A corridor opened, and all heads bowed low as Suleiman passed before them. Only the sounds of the cannon persisted, unchanged by the presence of the Sultan.

Suleiman and Piri walked to the center of the circle. There on the ground were the battered remains of Apella Renato. Ibrahim
came and stood beside Suleiman. Finally, Hamon made his way to the body.

Renato’s remains had been arranged by the soldiers into a semblance of normalcy. Though the clothes were in tatters, someone had lined up the legs with the torso. The head remained attached to the right side of the chest. Many had seen this grisly site before, a common form of execution then.

There were a few minutes of silence, when suddenly, there was a stifled gasp from Hamon. Suleiman and Piri turned to face him, and saw Hamon standing there with his hand over his mouth and the blood drained from his face. He looked up at Suleiman and said, “I know this man. I’m sure I know this man.”

“Who is he?” said Suleiman.

“Well…he is…was…a doctor. I knew him in Istanbul, many years ago. Perhaps ten or fifteen years ago. His name is Apella Renato.”

“And?”

“He practiced medicine in the Jewish Quarter. My father knew him, too. I think they worked together from time to time, in the royal court. About ten years or so ago, he disappeared. He had no family, so it was a while before anybody knew he was gone. Word spread about the community, as it will when one of us—a Jew—goes missing. But, we never heard. There were rumors. But, we never knew for sure. Why do you think he was up there?” Hamon asked pointing to the ramparts of the city.

Suleiman turned to Piri Pasha and raised his eyebrows in question.

“Majesty, do you think…?”

“It’s possible. Who else could this be? Who else would merit being drawn and quartered and thrown into our camp?”

Hamon looked back and forth between Suleiman and Piri. “My Lords?”

Suleiman hesitated, and then said to Hamon, “My father sent a spy to live among the knights about the time you said this man disappeared. We’ve received information from him regularly all these years, and several pieces of information during this siege. It makes sense that this is he. What else but treason would merit such an execution?”

Hamon knelt down in the sand and moved Renato’s chin up a bit. “He was definitely hanged first. Look here, at these rope burns on the neck. And he lived long enough to sustain these purple bruises there, too,” he added, pointing to the discoloration in Renato’s neck. “From the rest of the bruising,” he pointed to the body parts, “I would say he was alive until the time he was quartered, poor man. Dear God, what an awful thing to do.”

Suleiman turned to walk away. Piri and Ibrahim followed without another word. Hamon stood in his place and said, “Majesty.”

Suleiman stopped, and turned to see what the doctor wanted. Hamon looked at his Sultan with a hint of pleading in his eyes. “Majesty, this man worked for us. For the Muslim armies of the Sultan. He was a doctor and a Jew. I feel a commitment to what he did on our behalf; a proper service and burial for him. Surely he deserves more for his suffering than to lie here in this strange place to be eaten by the crows?”

Suleiman sighed, and said, “Doctor, I can understand how you feel. But, we do not have the time or the facilities to bury every soldier who dies in our cause,” and he pointed in the direction of the ditches now overflowing with Turkish corpses. “But in deference to the services you and your family perform for the Sultan, I will allow you a little time to say the appropriate prayers and arrange for his body to be properly wrapped and buried in a small grave. You may see to it now. Some of my guards will escort you back to the
serai
when you are done.” Hamon bowed his head, and remained in that position until the Sultan had left.

Suleiman said a few words to Piri Pasha, who gave the orders to five of the Janissaries. Then, Suleiman, Piri Pasha, and Ibrahim walked back along the corridor of soldiers to their horses.

Suleiman rode back to the tent on Mount Saint Stephen wondering about the siege he had started; weighing the cost in the lives of his loyal young army against the gain to the Empire. It troubled him deeply to sacrifice so many young men for this little island fortress.
This is the burden of command,
he thought,
that will bear down on my soul for the rest of my life.

When the Sultan was gone, Hamon supervised the wrapping of the body in a plain white shroud. After the soldiers dug a shallow grave, he stood by the body and looked out over the sea south and east, in the direction of Jerusalem. Among the noises of the cannons and the shaking of the earth, he began to recite the
Kaddish—the
Sanctification—a prayer recited for the dead.

“
Yis-gadal v’yis-kadash sh’mey raba, b’alma di v’ra hirutey…”
Magnified and sanctified be God’s great name in the world which He has created according to his will…

Hamon supervised the lowering of the body into the small grave, and threw a symbolic handful of dirt onto the white shrouded body. He stood over the hole in the ground as the soldiers shoveled the dirt back into the grave. When they were done, the soldiers picked up their shovels and returned to their duties.

Hamon stood there for a moment, and said quietly, “Goodbye, Apella. God’s peace be with you.” Then, he looked to the horizon again, and said, “
Shema Yisrael, Adonoi eloheynu, Adnoi echod.”

September 23rd, 1522. Philippe called the meeting to order. The Piliers, ranking officers from each of the
langues,
were seated at the long oak table. Even Andrea d’Amaral was on time for this critical strategy session. The Servants-at-Arms formed a second circle around the table, standing behind their masters.

Philippe looked weary as he began the session. Dark bags of loose skin hung beneath his eyes. His gray hair and beard served only to make him look old now, not distinguished and vibrant as they once did. He sat in a tall backed chair with leather padding, and leaned forward on his elbows. “Gentlemen, we have reason to believe that the Turks are preparing a major assault. The tactic has now changed, and we might be in for a general assault on several fronts at once.” He looked to Thomas Scheffield, his
Seneschal,
and said, “Thomas?” Then Philippe reclined in his seat.

Thomas Sheffield, Commander of the Palace of the Grand Master, stood. “My Lords, there has been unprecedented activity in the Turkish lines. Troop movements and changes in the disposition of the artillery. Our sentries have reported a general shift of manpower
away from the northern and western ramparts to the south and the southeast of the city. Though they have tried to conceal it, we can see that troops have massed in front of Aragon, England, Provence, and Italy. We have seen men moving in the night through the gardens outside the ditches, and concentrating to the south. There seems little question that the Sultan plans a general assault, so we must change our strategy in response. We don’t have enough manpower to plug gaps in all the locations at once, should their cannon and mines break through on several fronts.”

Scheffield sat down, and John Buck stood up. “Our only hope of repelling a general assault is to be mobile. We must have our system of sentries and runners in place so that we can know where and when more knights are needed. If the Turks make a breakthrough in
any
point in the walls, they will pour into the city like a tide, and we will then have them at our backs as well as our front. We cannot possibly confront so many men with the numbers of knights and mercenaries we have left. So, it’s imperative that we continue to block each opening as it occurs, and repel each assault as it occurs.” Buck looked to Philippe for any additional comments. Philippe said nothing.

Buck continued. “Gentlemen, this could be the decisive battle of the siege. I’ve heard that there is a great discontentment growing in the lines of the Sultan. His soldiers are unhappy and demoralized at the sight of the thousands of dead comrades lying in the ditches around our castle. And so they should be. If we can hold off this general assault, and continue to slaughter them with minimal loss on our side, it may turn the tide against them. Suleiman may find his men unwilling to fight. The great-grandfather retreated just before the bad weather in his assault forty years ago, and I expect Suleiman may do the same. The weather is just starting to deteriorate now, and will get worse in very short order. So, we must demoralize them with a resounding victory when the general assault comes. We will count upon Tadini’s men, and their newfound accuracy from the parapets, to send death down upon the Turks from the sky. The enfilade must not stop until the Turk is in full retreat, and then we must harry them in their rout. Any questions?”