Hastily the soldiers began to scramble on board. Hawkwood sent messengers to summon his skeleton force from the trenches. The sipahis had already been recalled and were now on board.
The darkness was beginning to fade as Harry stood beside Dragut on the lead galley and gave the signal to row.
The galley moved forward slowly. The channel was only just wide enough for the ship and its oars. But it was only a hundred yards long, and although they touched the sides once or twice, and the oars struck the sand to send men tumbling, they were through in ten minutes, and surging out into the blue water.
Behind them came another, and then another. And still there was no sound from the Spanish fleet. It was a watcher on the walls of Tunis who first discovered that the Turkish anchorage was deserted, and then gaped around to find them.
A bugle blew and there was instantly a terrific rumpus on the battlements. This aroused the Spaniards, who commenced to fire minute guns.
But by then all but ten of the Turkish ships were free of the land, and the rest were emerging every minute, bow to stern.
“Your orders, Hawk Pasha?” Dragut inquired.
“We’ll not sail off without giving them a taste of our metal,” Harry growled.
Dragut smiled. “Signal attack!” he yelled at his officers.
It was not yet light enough for signal flags to be discerned, but the Turkish commanders could have no doubt about their admiral’s intentions. As the drumbeats sounded through the morning, the already exhausted galley slaves were driven to yet further effort.
The bow gun was loaded, but Harry held fire until they were right up to the first galleon, which was only just raising its anchor and setting its sail. The cannon exploded, and the shot smashed into the stern gallery. Dragut put his bows up to the broken timbers and his men swarmed aboard.
The fight was brief, for the Spaniards were taken almost by surprise. Then it was a matter of tossing them overboard, dead or alive, and of setting fire to the looted ship. And then of sounding and signalling recall.
Not all the Turkish attacks had been as successful, but Harry could look back on half a dozen burning ships, and he had no doubt that a great number of dead Spanish were littering the bay. Of his own fleet only two ships had been lost, and the rest were surging away from their victory, now clearly lit by the rays of the rising sun.
Yana, Sasha, Tressilia and the children had all been avenged.
*
Tunis remained untaken, of course, which was something Harry had much on his mind. But he realised that he could not achieve that without first utterly defeating the Spanish fleet. So he hastened back to Algiers to mobilise the rest of his command.
There he found Aimée and Felicity beside themselves with worry; they had seen the Spanish ships making east. Now they were overjoyed at his success.
Harry despatched a galley to Constantinople with the news of his victory, and promised Suleiman that there would soon be news of an even greater victory. “I shall yet turn the Mediterranean into a Turkish lake,” he wrote, ‘for the greater glory of your name, O Padishah.”
Then he took his ships to sea. But the Spanish fleet had disappeared, scuttling back to Barcelona. Campaigning was over for the year.
*
Hawkwood spent the winter repairing his ships and building new ones. He had every intention of having an even greater fleet at sea in the following spring.
It was a happy winter. There was some rain, which was unusual enough, and the countryside around Algiers sprouted grass and flowers. There was time to spend at his palace, with Aimée and Felicity and little Anthony. Harry took the boy down to the ships to let him get the feel of a deck beneath his feet, the scent of tar and cordage in his nostrils.
“You won’t take him to sea as a babe,” Felicity begged.
“As soon as he can use a sword,” Harry told her.
That was a few years off, so she was happy. But then she was a happy girl by nature.
In the new year, a galley arrived from Constantinople, bearing a summons from the Sultan.
“Hawk Pasha,” wrote the new Grand Vizier, Rustem Pasha, son-in-law of the Sultan, for he had married Roxelana’s daughter. “The Padishah congratulates you upon your great victory over the Spaniards, and upon your many successes. He admires your prowess, and wishes you return to Constantinople so that you may stand at his right hand and contemplate a new campaign in Europe.”
“What news from Constantinople?” Harry asked the captain.
“Why, there is little news. The Padishah goes from strength to strength.”
“And he is in good health?”
“He has never been better, great Pasha.”
Harry took the letter to Aimée.
“I am sure that were Roxelana dead or disgraced, there would be some rumour of it,” he said.
“So you fear a trap,” she said.
“I fear my latest triumphs may have proved too much for her to accept.”
“Then temporise,” she recommended.
Harry took her advice.
“The Padishah well knows,” he wrote, “how desperate I am to be at his side. But the campaign in the Mediterranean is far from over. I may claim a victory over the Spanish fleet, but the Padishah knows that Tunis still stands in defiance of the Ottoman power, and until that city is again flying the crescent flag, I cannot consider my task completed. I therefore beg the Padishah’s indulgence to permit me to remain in Algiers for another two years, so that I may complete my objective and raise the glory of your name still higher.”
*
A month later he was at sea, before any reply could be received from Constantinople. His objective was to bring the Spanish and Genoese fleets to battle.
Felicity and Aimée watched him sail away. They no longer feared for him. Hawk Pasha and Dragut were establishing a reputation inferior only to that of the legendary Barbarossa. They had become used to Algiers, to the unchanging warmth of the climate. If they feared that one day the Spaniards would seek to destroy them, that remained a distant threat…and no threat at all if Hawk Pasha was present. And the Spaniards never knew when he was there or not.
Meanwhile there was little Anthony to be enjoyed, as he grew into a three-year-old, toddled about on sturdy feet and waved his wooden sword.
“He will follow in his father’s footsteps,” Aimée said. “One of the best things that ever happened to the Ottomans was the day John Hawkwood was shipwrecked on the coast of Anatolia.”
“But is it the best thing for the rest of the world?” Felicity wondered. She was seventeen now, and a most intelligent and thoughtful girl.
“Why, possibly not — at least for Europe,” Aimée agreed. “But as we are tied to the fortunes of this family, we must make the best of it.”
“I wonder,” Felicity said. “Do you not suppose that the Emperor, or Genoa, or even King Hal himself, might not pay Hawk Pasha well to change sides and lead his ships to the destruction of the Porte?”
“For pity’s sake, child, hush,” Aimée begged. “That is treason, and could bring us all the bowstring.”
“But do we not live under that fear all the time, anyway?” Felicity persisted.
“It is only because of that woman Roxelana,” Aimée insisted. “Soon she will fall from favour or die. That is what your husband waits for. I beg of you, girl, remember always that only in the favour of the Sultan is there any hope for any of us.”
Felicity did not pursue the subject.
*
In the autumn, the fleets came back, reporting another great victory, this time over the combined Spanish and Genoese fleets commanded by Andrea Doria himself, in the waters off Corsica. The crews were jubilant and so was Hawk Pasha.
“The Padishah will be pleased at this,” he said, “for we all but destroyed their fleets. Next spring, before they have time to recover, we shall have retaken Tunis.”
Work went on all winter fitting out the expedition, while word of the victory was sent to Constan
tinople.
“This time, Dragut,” Harry said, “there will be no fleet to bottle us up.”
*
By the spring Harry felt he had never commanded so fine a fleet or so enthusiastic an army. Everyone remembered how he had so cunningly extricated them from the trap that Tunis had become; and no one doubted that this time he would prove totally successful. His plans were to maintain a squadron of sixty ships at sea to hold off any Spanish or Genoese fleet, while his main force put to sea.
His only fear was that he would be leaving Algiers relatively exposed, but he was taking no risks with his family. Aimée, Felicity, Anthony and even Ayesha would be sailing in his own galley. Where he went, and how he prospered, they too would go and prosper.
***
“I shall be glad not to be separated from Harry,” Felicity said.
She stood at the windows of Hawk Palace and watched the dromon — an unusually large galley — slipping into the harbour, her masthead a mass of identifying flags.
“A messenger from Constantinople.”
“Another summons from the Sultan, I suppose,” Aimée said. “I but hope he is not countermanding the assault on Tunis. Harry has his heart set on that.”
She started down the stairs, and Felicity followed more slowly, glancing through the inner window to where Anthony was building castles in the sand of the centre courtyard, watched over by Ayesha.
She paused at the archway leading into the reception hall, where Harry was just emerging from his office. How splendid he looked, tall and strong and powerful, even if his beard was now streaked with grey.
She remembered her confused emotions when she had first beheld this man looming into her parents’ cellar in England, drawn scimitar in hand. She had seized a pistol when the women had been ordered to safety, uncertain whether she meant to use it on the intruders or herself. When she had beheld that commanding figure in the doorway, she had fired at him instinctively. And when she had missed, her blood had turned cold with the anticipation of imminent death.
Granted that this strange man had then treated her like a sack of coal, he had nonetheless not ill-treated her. If she had been determined to hate him then, her heart had not been able to watch without pity the grief in his face after the destruction of his family.
How could she, little Felicity Martindale, pity a brutal corsair who had snatched her from the bosom of her family? Yet she had, the more so as he had not vented his bitter rage on her in any way. Instead he had brought her to the most fabulous of cities, and into the most fabulous of palaces, and introduced her to a beautiful and charming woman she was now proud to call friend as well as aunt.
She had sensed then that she was destined for his bed — and not as the playmate of an idle hour, to be discarded when sated. He was to be her husband. She had eventually sought nothing more than that, and had discovered the glories of being married to so noble a man. To bear his son had been the greatest privilege she could imagine.
She regretted, of course, that Harry served a man regarded by most of Europe as the anti-Christ. Yet she hoped she could one day persuade him to return to the Christian fold. And if she was ever to wean this family back to the paths of righteousness, it would have to be through the medium of that little boy out in the garden, who had more English blood in him than either Harry Hawkwood or the uncle he so revered.
Until that day she would have to be patient.
And that meant honouring her husband and his alien ways at all times. Enjoying his triumphs. Thus she stood at the foot of the steps, heart swelling with pride, as they waited for the messengers from Constantinople bearing the Sultan’s greetings — and no doubt his congratulations.
There were four envoys. Dark-visaged men clad in splendid robes, they stalked into the reception hall and bowed low before Hawk Pasha.
“We bear greetings from the Padishah, my lord.”
Harry Hawkwood bowed in return.
“And messages,” the envoy added, his gaze drifting over Aimée at the foot of the stairs, and then over Felicity.
Suddenly she felt chill.
“Messages to be delivered in private, great Pasha. They are of the utmost secrecy.”
Harry Hawkwood nodded. “You’ll come into the office,” he said, and led them to the door.
Aimée took a step forward, as if about to speak.
Felicity discovered that she too had taken a step forward, and checked herself.
How could any mere female warn Hawk Pasha, so huge, so strong, so confident?
The door of the office remained open behind the men. From her position at the foot of the steps Felicity could not see into the room, nor could she clearly hear what was said.
Aimée moved closer to listen, and then turned, seeking her niece-in-law, as there came a peculiar sound from beyond the open door, half a protest and half a gasp.
“Felicity,” she shrieked. “Run! Run for your life! Take the child and run! Only vengeance remains.”
Felicity hesitated but a moment then darted across the hall towards the courtyard at the rear.
At the archway she paused to look over her shoulder. Three men had emerged from the office, bowstrings ready in their hands.
Not even Hawk Pasha had been able to resist the surprise grip of a bowstring round his neck. Now they sought her and Anthony. The Hawkwoods must be destroyed. But Aimée barred their way, hurling herself in front of them so that they tripped and fell to their knees on the marble floor. Cursing, they wrapped a bowstring round her neck.
Aimée, beautiful and dignified, who had suffered so much and waited so long to enjoy the love of William Hawkwood, was dying now so that she, Felicity, might live.
Tearing into the yard, she seized up the boy and kept on running — through the back of the house and out into the myriad streets of the Algiers kasbah.
Ayesha ran at her heels. Faithful Ayesha. Between them they would save Anthony’s life.
For vengeance. For only vengeance was left.
BOOK THE FOURTH
The Full Circle
“Tis all a Chequer-board of Nights and Days
Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays.
Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays,
And one by one back in the Closet lays.”
OMAR KHAYYAM
17
The Corsair
Ayesha hurried in from the front of the house.
“Lady!” she cried. “Lady! The fleet returns.”
Felicity Hawkwood’s head jerked, and she pricked her finger with her needle. But she ignored the spot of blood, laid down the sewing, and followed her servant on to the porch.
Not that Ayesha was a servant. The two women were the closest of friends. They had shared too much to be anything else.
Ayesha would know what emotions tumbled through Felicity’s heart and mind every time the fleet returned; she shared those as well.
Felicity peered at the cluster of ships bearing down on the famous moles that had kept Algiers impregnable. Not so long in the past the Emperor Charles V had himself led an expedition to rid the Mediterranean — his Mediterranean — of the Barbary corsairs. A fleet had appeared off the city, an army had been landed. But that time it had been the turn of the Spaniards to suffer the vagaries of the weather. A sudden storm had shattered the fleet; the army had hastily to be withdrawn before it starved to death.
The Spaniards had not returned. And now even the Emperor had retired; he had abdicated his immense power and retreated to a monastery. His huge dominions had been divided: between his son Philip II, who ruled Spain and the Indies, and his brother Ferdinand, who had taken the title of Emperor and now ruled central Europe. The days when a single brain could determine whether or not to oppose the steady expansion of Ottoman arms were past.
It was possible to say that the corsairs had broken the Imperial power. Because it had been the Ottoman sea power which had defeated Charles. Where even Suleiman the Magnificent had failed time and again in his onslau
ghts on Vienna, the galleys had taken the fight into every Christian home in the Mediterranean within twenty miles of the sea.
That tremendous project had been begun by Harry Hawkwood and Khair-ed-din Barbarossa. It had been carried to fruition by Khair-ed-din’s now famous successor, Dragut.
And with Dragut there sailed Anthony Hawkwood.
The very last Hawkwood, Felicity thought. The very last.
“I see the Admiral’s pennant,” Ayesha cried. She was in a state of high excitement. “And Piale Pasha’s.”
The Hungarian renegade was Dragut’s second-in-command.
“And Anthony’s?”
Ayesha squinted into the morning; her eyes were better than Felicity’s, although the two women were the same age: thirty-seven. For more than twenty years they had lived together, with their memories…and the delight of watching Anthony growing from a babe into a boy, from a boy into a youth, and from a youth into the man he now was.
“There!” Ayesha screamed. “There! He is there, lady! He is there.”
“Thank God!” Felicity whispered. “Thank God!”
She left the porch and returned to her chair, and to her sewing. She would remain there until he came to her.
Every time he went away, she thought she would die; she felt old, and afraid to look in the mirror. Because, at thirty-seven, her hair was streaked with grey. And there was sufficient cause for that.
But every time he came back, she felt like a young girl again.
It was not a cycle she had ever intended. When she and Ayesha had fled the Hawk Palace on that never-to-be-forgotten day sixteen years ago, dragging the four-year-old Anthony with them — bearing with them, too, the memory of Aimée Ferrand dying so gallantly that they might live — her only ambition had been to escape.
Aimée might have screamed for vengeance, but Aimée was of a different breed, and Aimée had lived her entire life in the midst of strife. For Felicity, it was all too new, and stark.
But escape, how? And where? Behind the city there lay only the desert.
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