by Tim Willocks
Of the seventy-odd artillerymen and levies, most lay dead or squirming with dire wounds. The rest either tried to flee or howled to Allah or rallied to the call of their commander, who stood with a red crescent standard by his saffron-colored tent. All such choices met with a similar outcome. De Lugny’s knights, their steeds half blown by the charge, retrawled the camp at a canter and slaughtered the Moslems to a man. Their weapons and harness were slathered with brains and gore. Their snorting war mounts stoved in ribs with their shoulders and crushed skulls with their iron-shod hooves and snapped at fingers and hands with their great square teeth. The encampment’s commander and his guard were lanced like a bevy of swine and as the Turkish standard was brandished aloft in triumph, some knights dismounted to ransack the ruin for trophies and to finish the groaning wounded where they lay.
Tannhauser urged Buraq into the shambles. He bent across his neck to murmur a gazel, for the animal was gentle and a stranger to the reek of battle’s consequence. As they headed for the saffron tent, the prayers of the wounded were silenced one by one, until only the sounds of victory remained. The knights, by habit so dour, were exhilarated by the totality of their success and smiles flashed abroad and jubilant praises were offered to the saints and coarse jokes cracked about this dismembered body or that severed limb. Yet this didn’t curb the efficiency they brought to their chores. They slaughtered the captured mules in squealing droves and smashed the butts of drinking water apart. By the edge of the bay those detailed to demolish the artillery mounts and to hammer spikes into the touchholes of the guns went about their work with a will. Others rolled kegs of gunpowder, stacked thereabouts in abundance, into the shallows, where they stove them open with their axes and vented their contents in the brine. Sacks of flour, and provender by the barrel and the bale, followed too, until the shoreline resembled the wake of a disaster at sea. And all of this without the use of fire, though it would’ve been swifter, for they’d yet to make the long ride back to Mdina and their numbers were small.
The ground in places was boggy with entrails and gore, and Buraq tossed his head in distaste, and Tannhauser steered around such spots as he sought out the Chevalier De Lugny. In skirting the splayed and tangled slain who’d made their final stand by the tent, Tannhauser spotted a nine-palm musket on the ground. Its match still smoldered. Its stock was pinned beneath its owner’s corpse. The blue-black hue of the damascened barrel, which seemed to glow from deep within its substance, and the arabesques of silver wire with which the ebony woodwork was inlaid, announced the hand of a master gunsmith. He marked its location in the wrack and rode up to De Lugny, who was mounted and issued orders to Escobar de Corro. Corro asked some question that Tannhauser didn’t catch.
“Leave for the Borgo now,” said De Lugny, “and take this.” He handed Corro the captured crescent-moon standard. “It will stir their spirits.”
De Lugny turned to Tannhauser and nodded.
“A fine morning’s work, Captain Tannhauser,” said De Lugny. “The Angelus bell not yet rung and not a single man lost or wounded. Accept my compliments on behalf of Marshal Copier.”
“Don’t tarry too long,” said Tannhauser. “When the battery fails to open fire, Torghoud will read this state of affairs and send Sipahis in the hope of an ambuscade.”
“Let him do so,” scoffed Escobar de Corro.
Tannhauser gave him a glance, but expressed no opinion. “With your permission, I’m away.”
De Lugny raised a crimson-glistered sword in salute. “With God’s blessings.”
Tannhauser rode back a few yards and stopped and dismounted and retrieved the Damascus musket, which on closer encounter was finer than he’d supposed. He stripped a pouch of balls and a powder flask from the corpse. The man dead was young and exquisitely featured. He’d been lanced through the base of the skull. In his turban was a spray of rubies set in white gold. Tannhauser stripped that too. As he remounted and canted the musket against his thigh, he caught Escobar de Corro’s eyes on the long blue barrel, as if it were a prize he’d marked out for himself. He looked into Tannhauser’s eyes and Tannhauser paused to give him his chance; but Escobar said nothing and Tannhauser wheeled away, as eager as was Buraq to leave the stench of that reeking field behind them. The sun had cleared the horizon and they rode toward it. By nightfall he hoped to secure the boat that would take him away from this island of fanatics and fools. He stroked Buraq’s neck with a sudden pang of anguish.
In Turkish, he said, “I can’t take you with me, old friend, but to whom shall I bequeath you? Christian or Turk?”
Saturday, June 9, 1565
The Sacred Infirmary—Auberge of England
Carla dipped a silver spoon into a silver bowl and raised a mouthful of broth to the poor man’s lips. He opened them and took the broth and swallowed, not with hunger or enjoyment, for he was beyond such sensations, but out of some sense of duty and, she realized, to please her. His name was Angelu, a fisherman by trade who would go to sea no more, for he was now blind and his hands resembled lumps of discolored wax in which broken twigs had been embedded.
Along with scores of other seriously wounded, he’d been evacuated from Fort Saint Elmo after the eight-hour Turkish assault had been halted by nightfall. Angelu’s head had been drenched in a gobbet of wildfire, hurled by his own comrades at the Turks. In scraping the incendiary jelly from his burning scalp he’d charred both hands to the bone. He sat huddled on a chair, the least agonizing posture he could find. The roasted vault of his skull was like an obscene tufted cap pulled over his ears, and it gave off a corrupt odor which overpowered that of the applied salves and lotions. Angelu had already received extreme unction and Father Lazaro didn’t expect him to survive another night. Carla did not believe that Angelu wanted to.
Lazaro had brought her to the Sacred Infirmary that morning. Carla had asked to serve yet she’d been fearful. Fearful of her lack of skill and knowledge, of the stern-faced brethren, of the fortress-like infirmary itself. Part of her wished she hadn’t complained about her uselessness. She despised it, yet days passed in emptiness passed quickly. Easy to gaze at the world until sunset threw a veil on it. Easy to dream without remembering of what. Lazaro marched her to the infirmary as if to a gallows, or so it felt to her. In fact it was to something more daunting by far.
The main ward of the infirmary was two hundred feet long with a series of shuttered windows along its southern aspect. The arched entrance was framed by Maltese stone. Above the arch was carved TUITIO FIDEI ET OBSEQUIUM PAUPERUM, the Order’s motto, which she read to mean Defenders of the faith and servants of the poor. Two rows of fifty beds each faced each other across the center aisle. Each bed had a red curtained canopy over its head, with a good mattress and fine linen. Armor, clothing, and weapons were bundled beneath. The patients were served their food on silver plate, for the monks placed great store in purity. The floor was tiled in marble and swabbed thrice a day. Thyrus wood burned in censers to cleanse the air and mask putrefaction and drive forth the flies. At the far end was an altar for the twice-daily celebration of the Mass and behind was mounted the crucified Christ. On the wall facing the windows hung the treasured banner under which the knights had abandoned their stronghold of Rhodes. It displayed the Virgin and the Infant Christ above the legend: AFFLICTIS TU SPES UNICA REBUS.
In all that afflicts us You are our only Hope.
Father Lazaro proclaimed it the finest hospital in the world, with surgeons and physicians to match. “Our Lords the sick,” said Lazaro, “want for nothing that we can give them. It is here in the Sacred Infirmary that the true heart of the Religion is to be found.”
The drifting incense, the murmur of prayer, the reverential concentration of the monks as they moved from bed to bed to wash and feed and dress the wounds of their Lords, gave the hospital the atmosphere of a chapel and this induced a sense of tranquillity otherwise unimaginable among so much suffering. It also enabled Carla to master the horror of her first encounter.
After the flood of wounded in recent days the ward was almost full. Though fresh corpses were carried from the ward each dawn and the wounded were discharged as soon as their lives were out of danger, space would soon run out. Like Angelu, most of the patients were young men of the Maltese militia or Spanish tercios. Few of them would be whole again. Lazaro and his colleagues had performed numerous amputations and trepannings and, as best they could, had repaired the grotesque facial injuries that abounded. Those pierced or shot through the gut lay stiff as planks, panting lightly and slowly turning gray with the agony of death. Those afflicted with monstrous burns suffered most of all. From the distance beyond the protecting walls came the constant rumble of cannon fire.
On arrival she was to wash her hands and feet in the lavatorium, and change into slippers to keep out the dust of the streets, for cleanliness was pleasing to God. She was forbidden to touch any wounds or dressings. She could serve food, wine, and water but could not wash the patients. If they needed to pass water or defecate she was to inform one of the brothers. If she noticed fresh bleeding, fever, or pox, she was to inform one of the brothers. If a man requested confession or Holy Communion, or appeared close to death, she was to inform one of the brothers. She was to speak in a soft, gentle voice. As much as possible she was to encourage Our Lords to pray, not only for their own souls but for peace, victory, the Pope, the liberation of Jerusalem and the Holy Land, the Grand Master, the brothers of the Order, the prisoners in the hands of Islam, and for their own parents, whether alive or dead. Because the sick were the closest to Christ, their prayers were the most powerful of all, more, even, than those of the cardinals in Rome.
Lazaro took her down the ward, where she was conscious of the eyes turned at once upon her. Those of the serving brothers were shocked. Those of the wounded flickered, as if glimpsing a divine apparition from within a nightmare. Some of the seasoned troopers licked their lips and exhaled sighs. She felt herself blushing and her grand intentions teetered. What good could she do here? She was in the middle of more raw pain than should ever be assembled underneath one roof. However, she’d be damned, at least to herself, if she retreated. She wasn’t without tools, she told herself. She had Faith, and it was strong; she had much of Love to give; she even had a modicum of Hope. She steeled herself and walked tall. Then Lazaro stopped and introduced her to poor Angelu. Silent, blinded, helpless. Deformed beyond the wildest dreams of cruelty.
Angelu, she realized, was to be the test of her devotion.
Carla sat with him all day long and the man uttered not a word. To some of her questions he replied with a single nod; to others he shook his head. The questions were simple, for her Maltese was poor. Although she’d grown up here it had been a language used only for speaking to servants and grooms and this fact now shamed her, for this man and thousands like him were dying in her defense. Yet her voice provoked some animation in his twisted posture. Within the dark torture chamber that his body had become, he was aware. She took out her rosary and prayed and in his silent and sightless vigil Angelu prayed with her. At least so she believed.
At times pity overcame her and tears rolled down her face and her voice faltered, but she offered her pity to God and begged His forgiveness for her selfish concerns. She fed Angelu and lifted cups of wine and water to his lips. She wondered why he didn’t speak and if, perhaps, he couldn’t—if perhaps the fire had scorched his throat raw too—but it wasn’t her place to ask, only to serve. She prayed with him and for him and for them all and as the hours passed and Aves flowed through her like an endless and sacred song, her horror vanished, for horror was merely the complaint of her own fragile senses and was itself another wound to the man so afflicted before her. Then her pity vanished too, for pity was to see him as less human than she. And even her sorrow subsided to its embers and an incandescent Love filled her being, and she realized that Christ had entered her, body and soul, with a power beyond her experience or vision. Christ’s love surged through her with the force of revelation and she understood, and she knew, that through such love all sins were forgiven, even those atrocities that surrounded her in such profusion. She wanted to tell Angelu and opened her eyes to look at him: at his half skull and half face, at the opaque, blistered orbs that bulged beneath shriveled eyelids and sloughing brows, at the withered claws that quivered at the ends of his arms. Angelu was walking his own road to Golgotha. It was he who had invited Christ into her heart.
She said, “Jesus loves you.”
Angelu’s head jerked back and his mouth twisted open, and she didn’t know what this meant, or if she’d hurt him, or if he hadn’t heard what she’d said. For a moment she was afraid.
She said again, “Jesus loves you.” Then she said, “I love you.”
Angelu’s lips trembled. His breath shuddered. She reached out and put a hand on his shoulder. It was the first time she’d dared touch him. Quietly, for even in this darkness his strength had not deserted him entire, Angelu lowered his head and started to cry.
Later they heard Mass and she helped him to kneel while they took Communion, and if he said “Amen” neither she nor the chaplain heard him. Afterward, she served him beef broth from the silver bowl, and seeing that he had no appetite, she put the food aside, and since the ward was busy with the mealtime, and suddenly thinking that it might disturb him not to know who his strange companion was, she told him, as best she could, something of herself, and her purpose in returning here, which was to find her lost son, whose name she did not know. Angelu said nothing throughout and by now she was sure that he was quite unable to do so. Then Carla too fell silent and she wondered if she should not tell him too about Mattias Tannhauser.
That day she’d prayed for Mattias, with his image in her heart, more often than for any other. He was German—a Saxon—a race of which she’d neither knowledge nor experience, but which by reputation was marked by brilliance and barbarity in equal measure. He’d not a drop of noble blood in his body, yet carried himself among the Knights of Saint John—a sect obsessed with such notions—as if born into the purple. His admiration of the Turks seemed to exceed his opinions of those he called the Franks, yet he’d turned his hand against them. He’d murdered a priest without a tremor of conscience, yet gentleness and courtesy were rooted in his nature to a depth she’d seen in no other man she’d known. He believed in no God that he could name yet was filled with spirit. His carnal appetites, like his passions for beauty and knowledge, were uninhibited and vast, yet he’d watched everything he owned burn to ashes without a word of regret or reproach. For all his brutal pragmatism, he’d taken her part on a whim and was even now chasing a phantom across this deadliest of terrains. He perplexed her utterly.
Was this man really to become her husband? Was she to become his wife?
His affair with Amparo, the vehement erotism of its conduct and of the feelings it had stirred within her own nocturnal thoughts, had challenged her emotions to a struggle she’d fought hard to master. The man was entitled to his fancies; he was a soldier of fortune and a man of the widest world; she could expect no less; and he’d given her no promise in respect of romance. The marriage was a contract as dry as those he struck for timber and lead. But could that really be so? Had she not felt in him something more? Or had he only sensed her fear of carnal relations? That fear was deep and unexamined, for to examine it was impossible without the resurrection of her memories of Ludovico.
Her physical passion for Ludovico had been every bit as ecstatic and uninhibited as Amparo’s was for Mattias; perhaps more so, for the latter pair had crossed no forbidden boundaries, while she and Ludovico had shattered every rule both sacred and profane. That transgression had lent their ardor a compulsive, delirious intensity that had lured her so far into madness that she was terrified of going near it ever again. And not merely into madness but into a tragedy that laid waste to her life and to her family, that had cost her her nameless child, and whose consequences even now threatened the lives of those she loved. Mem
ory still made her nauseous with fear and guilt and shame. Memory still aroused her most painful sexual longings—when she let it do so, which she did not. Dry as timber and lead was the way her marriage to Mattias ought to be. She would be a spinster wife and cause no more chaos. And if, despite her waning hopes, she found her son, that would be an outcome for which she’d always thank God.
Even so, jealousy tormented her.
She wanted Amparo to be happy; to see her so filled Carla with joy. And yet, at one and the same time, it also dripped acid on her heart. The crudeness of her fantasies revolted her: but yes, Carla wished that it was she who moaned in the night beneath Tannhauser’s brawn. She craved tenderness and kisses and the look of love. She wished that he’d brought her a silvered comb from the Turkish bazaar. Such pettiness filled her with self-loathing, and to spare herself she’d started avoiding Amparo. Yet Amparo was not to be blamed for giving herself to such a man. Amparo tolerated moderation as a wild horse the bridle. Amparo had known tragedy that made her own seem trite. If either deserved such happiness, it was the girl. And in this God was just and all-wise. He’d given Carla this trial to strengthen her soul. She would see it through. The thread that bound the three of them together was fragile, and around them violent forces were daily unleashed. Carla prayed that she wouldn’t be the one to break it. No matter what she felt, she would do nothing to come between them. This, she realized, was the reason she found herself in the infirmary. In the infirmary, problems such as jealousy were trifles.
Dusk fell and the monks lit three lamps, which would burn all night, to protect the sick from illusions, dubiousness, and error. The two serving brethren assigned to the night watch moved from bed to bed with a candle in one hand and a jug in the other. “Water and wine from God,” they said to each patient. La Valette paid a visit before the darkness outside was complete. He said little, and possessed little natural warmth that Carla could feel, yet his presence was an inspiration to the wounded men, who all but climbed from their sickbeds to salute him. He noted Carla sitting by Angelu and one brow briefly rose on his high forehead. He said nothing to her and left soon thereafter to a valiant chorus of cheers.