The Last Crusaders: Blood Red Sea (48 page)

‘You will write of all your travels,’ she said. ‘I have never travelled outside England, not even to Wales, nor desire to. You have wandered far and wide. You will write up your adventures, what you have seen. You will tell all. We want to know the customs of Shrove Tuesday in Cadiz, the weather in Naples, the winds in the Messina Strait. The fortifications of Malta and Cyprus . . .’

Nicholas bowed. He had never contemplated setting down his experiences in writing, but now it was a royal command, he had no choice in the matter.

‘You will have half a dozen men-at-arms to recover your property.’

‘With gracious respect, Majesty, that is not needed. I have a man-at-arms worth a dozen.’ He nodded at Hodge.

‘He is an Achilles, this Hodge?’ she said with irony.

‘He is,’ said Nicholas without irony.

‘I cracked a few unbelieving skulls, Your Majesty, it’s true,’ volunteered Hodge, against all court etiquette. The chamberlain winced. ‘They took some crackin’ and all.’

The Queen smiled now. ‘Hodge, Hero of Malta, and better yet – Englishman. I decree an annual pension of five pounds for life.’

Hodge gasped.

For many years after in Shropshire, the tale was told. Of how Gervase Crake, the hated but powerful Justice, had been overseeing the whipping of a vagabond girl at the cart’s end in a market square one bleak February day. And two grim-faced strangers rode into the square, just as had happened, so folk memory said, some six years before. They were on horseback, and they carried swords, and they looked as if they knew how to use them. They were as
sunburned as Spaniards yet they spoke English.

They demanded the weeping girl be set free. Crake opposed them with a sneer. Had he not six ruffians for his guard? More than ruffians. Three of them carried tattoos on their brawny forearms, showing they were mercenaries who had fought with the dreaded free companies, in the German wars of religion.

A fight broke out, and in a matter of minutes four of the ruffians lay dead. The two others fled, sore wounded, and were never seen again in the county. The two strangers bore a few knocks and bruises too, but fewer than Gervase Crake. He was then stripped and whipped and thrown in the dog pound until some later use could be found for him. As a chimney sweep, perhaps, or tavern turnspit.

One of the strangers was the long-lost son of old Sir John Ingoldsby, come to claim his inheritance. The old hall that Crake himself had been living in! So of course it was all shipshape and handsomely cared for. Then the son of old Ingoldsby found his sisters in another gentleman’s house, two of them now in service as maids. A third had died in his absence. Their reunion was such a thing to see, they said, it would make a stone weep.

And afterwards, a serving-man said he had glimpsed the long-lost son of old Sir John Ingoldsby go into the barn there at the hall, near sunset it was, and find the things of his boyhood still hanging on the walls. A child’s leather saddle, the one he’d learned to ride on. A hoop and a stick. A toy sword made for him by the gardener, long since lain in the churchyard. And the son had fallen to his knees and wept, till his man Hodge came and helped him into the house.

But others said it was wrong of the serving-man to spy and worse of him to tattle. For surely that young Ingoldsby had travelled wide and seen many things, more than most of them in the village would ever see in their lives. And doubtless his heart was full of all the beauties and the sorrows of the world.

The Battle of Lepanto was hailed by Cervantes himself as the greatest event in the history of the world. Certainly it seemed to win a general peace, though with occasional skirmishes, and establish the bounds between the Christian world and the Muslim for generations.

Yet there followed some strange occurrences.

Only six months later, in a small back room in a house in Algiers, Kara Hodja was gunned down by two mysterious, hulking masked men carrying four pistols apiece. The assassins were never caught.

The captured banner of the knights in Hagia Sophia vanished from under the very noses of the Turks, and reappeared in the Chapel of St John in Valletta, Malta, only a few weeks later.

Most astounding of all, the stuffed skin of the gallant Marc’antonio Bragadino, still cruelly displayed in the Topkapi Palace, also disappeared. Such a feat seemed almost impossible, and the Ottoman court wrote long letters demanding to know who was responsible.

No Christian prince or prelate could advise on it.

But in 1572, the last mortal remains of Marc’antonio Bragadino were buried with full honours in the magnificent Basilica of San Giovanni e Paolo, in Venice, where they remain to this day.

Pope Pius died in 1572.

Don John enjoyed his hour of fame and had many more beautiful mistresses, including Diana di Falangola, Zenobia Saratosia and Ana de Toledo. There were plans for him to marry Mary, Queen
of Scots, or even an invasion to make him King of Ireland. They came to nothing.

His brother Philip sent him to Flanders to fight the unwinnable war there against the Protestant rebels. He died of typhoid in 1578, only seven years after his great victory of Lepanto, aged just thirty-one. In his last year he wrote, ‘I spend my time building castles in the air but in the end, my castles and I alike blow away in the wind.’

His brother Philip lived on until 1598, racked with gout and suffocated by asthma.

Sebastiano Veniero recovered from his severe wounds, and in 1577 was given the ultimate accolade of being made Doge of Venice. It is said that in his very last years he mellowed a little. He now rests in the Basilica of San Giovanni e Paolo, along with Bragadino.

Andrea Doria lived on until 1606. He was suspected by some of cowardice at Lepanto for not having engaged more closely. But those who had been there knew the truth.

Don Álvaro de Bazán, Marqués de Santa Cruz, died in February 1588. His death was fortuitous for the English, for this brilliant commander had been leading the Spanish Armada. He was replaced by the markedly less capable Duke of Medina Sidonia. Had Santa Cruz remained in command, English history might have been very different.

Miguel de Cervantes continued for a time to seek chivalrous adventure. He was captured by Muslim corsairs in 1575 and spent five years as a slave in Algiers. Later he spent too much money on a fine suit of armour, went bankrupt and was imprisoned. But by the time of his death in 1616, he had written his immortal
Don Quixote
– the most hilarious yet poignant mockery of chivalric ideals ever written.

Sultan Selim II, ‘the Sot’, died in 1574. It is said that he was drunk at the time, and slipped over in his bathhouse.

He was succeeded by the peace-loving Murat III, who agonized for eighteen hours before giving the traditional Ottoman order for all his brothers to be strangled by deaf mutes with silken ropes. He spent most of his reign in quiet seclusion in the provincial town of Manisa, where he particularly loved the teachings of a gentle Sufi mystic, who soothingly interpreted the Sultan’s nightmares and dreams.

Mehmet Sokollu, Grand Vizier, died in 1579. Many said that his death was arranged by his old enemy, Lala Mustafa Pasha, the butcher of Famagusta.

Joseph Nassi also died in 1579, and all his great wealth was seized by the Sublime Porte for its own use, a seizure also masterminded by Lala Mustafa.

In 1580, Lala Mustafa himself became Grand Vizier, but died after only four months in office.

As recently as 1965, Pope Paul VI returned the captured Ottoman banners of Lepanto to Turkey. In the naval museum in Istanbul can still be seen the standard of Ali Pasha Muezzinzade. Not all banners have been returned. More still hang in the church of Santo Stefano in Pisa.

Of the two Knights of St John, known as Stanley and Smith. nothing was ever certain. But in the harbourside taverns of the Mediterranean, from Cadiz to Aleppo, from Marseilles to Algiers, rumours abounded. Even in the warlike valleys of the Caucasus, it was said, and upon the frozen plains of Muscovy where the Tatar horsemen still threatened, in the burning Syrian desert, upon the emerald coast of Coromandel, and far away into the snow-capped mountains of Central Asia, their names and reputations were not unknown . . .

Originally
Clash of Empires: The Great Siege
was conceived as a stand-alone story. But after finishing, I wanted more of my characters and their adventures, especially Nicholas and Hodge, Smith and Stanley, and it seemed many of my readers felt the same.

Besides, there was another epic moment in history which could very well have involved our heroes: Lepanto. It was actually poetry, not history, which first led me to it, in G. K. Chesterton’s thumping good ballad. It’s a fine poem to learn off by heart, as schoolboys used to, and makes an excellent companion on a walk.

The other question readers always want answered is, How much is true? And as with
The Great Siege
, I think I can honestly answer: a lot. The biggest liberty I have taken is probably compression of timescale. Nicosia was in fact besieged in the summer of 1570, and Lepanto took place the following year, but I have compressed them into a single summer for greater dramatic tension.

Otherwise, the broad outline of events is pretty accurate. Most of my characters were actual historical figures – even minor players like Aurelio Scetti, the wife-killing lute player, and Maria la Bailadora, the female dancer who fought at Lepanto: a detail so absurdly romantic that if it weren’t true I would hesitate to make it up.

Joseph Nassi’s plans for a Jewish state in Palestine; the appalling fate of Marc’antonio Bragadino; Don John’s pet marmoset, plucking enemy arrows from the mainmast and snapping them triumphantly in half; that last, surreal, exhausted fight of the oranges and
lemons; all these things are attested by contemporary chronicles and witnesses.

Among the many books consulted, I am especially indebted to
Empires of the Sea: The Final Battle for the Mediterranean
by Roger Crowley;
Galleons and Galleys
by John F. Guilmartin;
White Gold
by Giles Milton; and
The Renaissance at War
by Thomas Arnold.

For travellers, there is a superb replica of Don John’s
La Real
in the Maritime Museum, Barcelona. Cyprus remains as fascinating an island as ever, though sadly divided since the 1974 Turkish invasion. History is still very much alive here. Nicosia is a lively, bustling cosmopolis, whole stretches of its mighty walls still standing, while Famagusta (now in Turkish-occupied territory) is a haunting ghost city of ruined but beautiful Gothic castles, churches and cathedrals. Its massive walls and bastions have survived rather better, however, and remain breathtaking. For armchair travellers, a DVD called
The Stones of Famagusta
is highly recommended.

As for Lepanto – site of that epic sea battle whose destructiveness would not be equalled, as Roger Crowley points out, until the Battle of Loos in 1915 – a UNESCO survey in 1980 found that the sea level has risen by 3.5 feet in the last four centuries, and the coastline altered considerably. There has been very little submarine excavation, but a magnetometer sweep showed up a lot of iron, as well as numerous ‘non-ferrous clumps’: the remains of galleys, lying at a depth of only 450 feet, and the bones of so many men, both Muslim and Christian, indistinguishable now in the depths of the silent sea.

Author of the bestselling
Attila
trilogy, William Napier was born in 1965 and was educated in Cheltenham, Oxford and London. He lives in Wiltshire and travels widely.

By William Napier

Julia

Attila

Attila: The Gathering of the Storm

Attila: The Judgement

Clash of Empires: The Great Siege

The Last Crusaders: Blood Red Sea (
originally published as
Clash of Empires: The Red Sea)

An Orion ebook

First published in Great Britain in 2012 by Orion as
Clash of Empires: The Red Sea
This ebook published in 2013 by Orion Books

Copyright © William Napier 2012

The right of Willam Napier to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.

All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978-1-4091-4763-3

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