The Last Crusaders: The Great Siege (18 page)

Then he and the old courtier Don Luis were gone.

‘
Who was that?
’

Smith stepped up to the door to be sure that the Prince that departed.

‘That,’ said Stanley quietly, ‘was the natural-born brother of the King of Spain.’

Nicholas and Hodge gaped.

‘Truly,’ said Stanley. ‘We step into the first tavern in Messina, and there he is. But not so remarkable, really, since he too is a Knight of St John.’

‘Formally speaking,’ growled Smith. ‘A deal of use that fop would be when it came to war. And the meaning of the vow of chastity seems to have escaped him.’

‘He is not the only knight to have erred there,’ said Stanley. ‘And by all the evidence, he is on his way to Malta to fight with his brothers.’

Smith sneered. ‘You can well imagine what terror the sight of so gorgeous a creature would strike into the hearts of your battle-hardened Janizaries.’

‘You mean,’ said Nicholas, still digesting this magical encounter, ‘he is the brother of King Philip of Spain?’

‘Half-brother. His father, like Philip’s, was the great Charles V. Philip’s mother, of course, was Queen Isabella of Portugal. Our Prince’s here was a certain German lady of playful disposition, called Barbara Blomberg.’

‘So playful, indeed,’ said Smith, checking out of the door once more, ‘that some say there is no certainty whatever that her natural son, our friend here in the white velvet, is the son of Charles V at all. He could be the bastard offspring of two or three dozen kings or noblemen from any country in Europe.’

‘What is his name?’ asked Nicholas.

‘His name,’ said Stanley, ‘is Don John of Austria.’

A moment later there came a terrific cry from outside. A cry that was almost a howl. Stanley and Smith were running in an instant, sword in hand. Nicholas and Hodge raced after them.

In the bright Sicilian sunlight, the white-clad figure of Don John of Austria at the harbourside was almost dazzling. He was in no danger. It was but a scrap of paper that had discomposed him. He read it over once more, hand held to his mouth in disbelief. Don Luis stood gravely by, and the message-bearer more awkwardly. All down the street waited Don John’s retinue, his personal bodyguard, and the porters for his numerous chests of clothes, weapons and
personal accoutrements. There were three wagonloads, piled high.

Don John turned on the two knights as they ran up, hardly aware of who they were, and said glassy-eyed, ‘My
brother
, God bless him and save him and make his reign long and prosperous – my
brother
, has decided that it would not be
politic
for us to proceed to Malta at this time. We are summoned home to Spain, there to await his further pleasure.’

‘It is understandable that His Majesty should—’ began Don Luis.

But he was cut short by another infuriated cry, as the Prince momentarily lost his royal froideur, crumpled up the letter and dashed it the ground. Just for a moment, Nicholas saw him not as a ridiculous coxcomb, but as a passionate young man only a few years older than him, with all the same dreams of glory.

The Prince seized Stanley by the shoulder, his gaze still distant.

‘I will fight the Turk, I
will
fight him. I will make my name a byword for war, and we will conquer. Fra, Fra …’

‘Fra Edward, sire. Fra Edward Stanley, Knight Grand Cross.’

‘Fra Eduardo.’ Don John released his grip, a little embarrassed, and patted Stanley’s rucked shirt back into place. ‘Damn it all, Sir Englishman, how I envy you your common blood.’

‘Common as muck, sire. Descended merely from English nobility, and the Earls of Derby.’

Don John smiled faintly, a moment of fraternal warmth. Nicholas saw then that he was proud but not arrogant, of haughty bearing but not cold or unapproachable, and he looked upon the world around him with a bright sparkle of pleasure in his eyes. Then the mask of royalty snapped back on, and he was as formal as before. He clicked his fingers rapidly, and the message-bearer scurried forward, head bowed, and retrieved the crumpled letter from the ground. The boy wiped it on his own sleeve lest it should have gathered any dirt, folded it carefully, and handed it back to Don Luis.

Don John pulled on his white kid gloves again.

‘We should give thanks to God for the wise caution of our dear brother,’ he said crisply. ‘Our brother the King, who is indeed so cautious that he will not relieve himself in his close stool before it has first been checked for
sharks
.’

He smiled around, and for the first time his gaze descended on Nicholas and Hodge.

‘These are your squires?’

‘We are gentlemen volunteers,’ interrupted Nicholas firmly, breaking at least three cardinal rules of etiquette in a single blow. Don John merely raised an eyebrow. These were but red-faced, dusty-booted English churls, from a barbaric Protestant island famed for nothing but sheep’s wool, heresy and fog. They could hardly be expected to know the intricacies of Spanish court etiquette. Besides, there was a fire in this one’s eye that he liked. He had always loved the impetuous, the ardent-hearted – so unlike that watchful, wary, frosty-arsed throne-squatter that was his damned dear
brother
.

‘Gentleman volunteers,’ he repeated, and bowed to the lad. ‘We crave your pardon.’

Nicholas could think of nothing to say. Stanley almost choked.

Don John sighed. ‘We envy you.
Vaya con Dios
, my English volunteers.’ He raised a gloved hand. ‘You and all my brother knights. For this coming battle of Malta will be hard.’

‘May it please your excellency …’

Don John nodded, allowing Stanley a question.

‘Does the Court of Spain have any intelligence of the Grand Turk’s progress?’

‘The Turk left Stamboul three weeks ago. Twenty-ninth of March. He will be at Malta any day now. Any hour.’ He smiled, but not unkindly. ‘I should delay you no longer. You are needed there.’

As for him, it was back to the slim white arms of the Lady Maria, the stiff cold court of Madrid, and the waiting.

‘But our day will come,’ he murmured.

The English party had already bowed and gone.

‘Three weeks ago! Jesu save us.’

‘I expect to hear the roar of guns in the south at any moment.’

Smith said, ‘Only thank God we have not heard them yet.’

‘They sail into a contrary wind much of the way.’

‘They will be here in less than another week, all the same.’

Racing after them, Nicholas instinctively dropped his hand down onto his sword hilt. It would come soon now.

They had only just scrambled aboard and were discussing urgently with the master when a deep, powerful voice roared from the high quayside behind them, ‘So this is the leaking bucket going to Malta! I might have known only a gang of sunstruck Englishmen would sail on such a ship of fools!’

‘I know that voice.’ Stanley shielded his eyes and looked up, a broad grin spreading over his ruddy features. ‘The Chevalier de Guaras. Fra Melchior! Do you seek permission to come aboard?’

The burly bearded figure swung himself down the iron ladder in the stone harbour wall. ‘I need no permission!’

‘Oi!’ called the master. ‘No strangers come aboard my ship without my word!’

Smith silenced him with payment. Stanley and the knight called Melchior de Guaras embraced.

‘Brother, you look older,’ said Stanley.

‘And you look fatter. How are you planning to slay the Turk, suffocate him with your belly?’

‘Ah, Fra Melchior, surely the greatest wit this side of Toledo! How near is the Army of Islam?’

De Guaras said, ‘Beacon fires from Calabria tell that they have passed by. We may have three days, no more.’

Stanley beckoned. ‘Master Ingoldsby, Master Hodgkin – I give you the Chevalier de Guaras, Knight Grand Cross. Our brother-in-arms.’

The Spanish knight shook their hands, eyeing them keenly. ‘Your squires?’

‘I am no man’s squire,’ said Nicholas quietly. ‘I am a gentleman volunteer, and this is my comrade, Hodge.’

De Guaras’s eyes twinkled. ‘I am honoured. You come at a good time. All are welcome upon Malta. Even Englishmen.’

Hodge seemed about to say something, so Stanley asked who else might need passage.

‘I will return,’ said the Spaniard. ‘There are more of us. Though never enough.’

Never enough indeed. The crowned heads of Europe sent no aid. Of all the ships in Sicily’s busiest port, the
Swan
was the only one heading south. All others were keeping well clear, sailing along the coast for Palermo, or north for Italy. The port of Siracusa was almost dead, the Malta Channel empty of shipping. All had heard the news, and it was mere folly to sail into a coming storm.

A few minutes later De Guaras returned with some crates on a cart, and two companions. Fra Adrien, the Chevalier de la Rivière, a knight of the French langue, an elegantly attired and soft-voiced fellow, whom Stanley whispered to Nicholas was as fine a swordsman as he would ever see. And with him a young novice of the Order, a Portuguese lad called Bartolomeo Faraone, no older than Nicholas.

Smith considered him. ‘And of the Holy Father’s proclamation that no beardless boys should fight, for the sake of Christian mercy?’

‘I am no beardless boy,’ said Faraone, rubbing the backs of his hands over his cheeks. ‘Perhaps your eyes are weak after a long voyage at sea.’

‘Does your mother know you are here?’

‘Peace, Fra John,’ said De la Rivière, smiling. ‘He is an earnest and devout novice, no younger than your – gentleman volunteers here. And besides,’ his smile faded, ‘every man is needed.’

‘How many are the Order now at San Angelo?’

De la Rivière hesitated. ‘The last I heard … four hundred or so.’

‘Four hundred?’ said Smith.

‘Four hundred of the finest in Christendom,’ said Stanley.

‘Pray that it prove so,’ said De la Rivière.

There came one last passenger for Malta, a youth who seemed to be travelling alone. He stood and swayed on the quayside just as they were loosening the ropes and preparing to move off.

‘Another for Malta! Hold there!’ he cried weakly.

Smith muttered, ‘Puppies in a sack, is he drunk?’

‘Or badly fevered,’ said Stanley.

The youth on the quayside was indeed an extraordinary sight. Very tall and lean, his face was long, thin and pale, adorned with a moustache like a bootlace stuck to his upper lip. He wore an extraordinary confusion of swords and daggers, none of the newest, and a much-dented breastplate in the ancient style with a huge crest in the centre, badly tarnished. He stood and swayed, eyes unfocused and brow sweating profusely in a manner suggesting extreme ill-health.

‘You’ll bring no fever on board my ship!’ said the master bluntly. ‘Now back off, we’re full.’

‘’Tis no fever,’ protested the youth, ‘except it be the
furor martialis
, the fever of chivalry and noble war.’ He clutched his stomach.

Smith said, ‘Stand back, I think he’s about to spew.’

There was an anxious moment, and then the youth regained his composure.

‘Your name, sir?’

He bowed very slowly. ‘My name is Don Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, from the demesne of the Alcalá de Henares, in Old Castile. My father is the universally renowned Rodrigo de Cervantes, knight at arms and sometime apothecary-surgeon, in reduced cirmcumstances. Through him I claim descent from the ancient kings of Castile, from Alfonso and Pedro, as well as Eleanor of Navarre, and ultimately from the Visigothic Kings themselves, Rodrigo being the name of—’

‘Spellbinding stuff,’ said Smith, ‘but we are in some haste. Your ancestry later, perhaps? We sail to war.’

‘Yes, well, quite,’ said the young man. ‘Now if you would just hold your craft still a while, I shall fetch my pack …’

He turned away unsteadily.

‘Sail!’ called Smith.

They were some paces off the quayside when the tall, starveling
figure of Don Miguel appeared once more, carrying a small pack and, for reasons unclear, leading a donkey.

‘What ho!’ he cried. ‘For Malta, for our Saviour and Saint James! I say, what ho there! I require passage!’

And to their astonishment he began to descend the iron rungs straight down into the water, sack on his back, the donkey staring gloomily down at his master as if he had seen it all before. People gathered around, laughing down at the fevered madman. It was good entertainment.

‘Hold there,’ cried the young knight errant. ‘I shall swim out to you!’

‘The breastplate alone will drown him,’ muttered Smith. ‘What’s the addlepate fool thinking of?’

‘He’s brain-fevered,’ said Stanley. Then he shouted to the bystanders, ‘Grab a hold of the puppy and bring him back! He’ll souse himself!’

At that moment the youth slipped from the bottom rung into the water and immediately vanished beneath the surface, until a stout mariner swung a boathook down and collared him by the leather strap of his breastplate. Another climbed down the ladder to help, and he was hauled up like a sickly eel.

The moment he could speak again, the fellow was calling out across the water about the Moors, and King Boabdil, and the Reconquista; about El Cid, and the Lady Aramintha, whose love tokens he wore about his person, sewn to his breast, and whose unearthly beauty he could scarce—

Then he lost consciousness, and was laid none too gently upon the quayside like a dead fish.

‘Brain-fevered, truly,’ said Smith.

‘A fellow of rare imagination,’ said Stanley.

‘Come,’ said De la Rivière. ‘To Malta.’

Smith tossed Nicholas an arquebus sidelong.

‘Here,’ he said, ‘show me how you’d load it.’

Nicholas was unfamiliar with the weapon, but he followed what he knew of loading a fowling-piece, and the twenty-one steps needed to ready a gun. Aware of the eyes of Smith and Stanley and the other knights keenly upon him, he worked as fast as possible,
taking pleasure in his own speed and deftness. Very soon it was done. He looked up triumphantly.

Smith said softly, ‘Strike me but you’re fast, boy.’