Shadow of God

by Anthony Goodman

  Soon the bleeding slowed, and the blood turned more purple than red. Finally, after a few minutes, the bleeding stopped altogether. Melina sat holding the Commander across her lap, still pressing the cloth into the wound. Renato had come to see what was happening, and gently took the cloth from her hand. He placed his fingers gently on de Baraban’s neck. Then he signaled the two knights to take the body away. He had no room for the dead in his hospital.

  He led Melina away by the hand. She tried to resist him, but he pulled her toward the small room where her babies were now asleep. “Basta, Cara. Basta. You have had enough for now. Sleep with your babies. Hélène will help me, and we’ll carry on without you for a while. God bless you.”

  Then, Renato returned to the ward. As he passed the front door, another knight was being led into the hospital. The knight held a handkerchief to his right eye and was shrugging off the assistance of two comrades. But, it was clear he could not see, for each time the other knights let him go, he staggered in a crooked path. Renato took the man by the elbow and sat him down on the stone floor. He pushed the knight’s shoulders until the man was resting against the wall. Then he removed the cloth from the knight’s eye. There was a ragged wound to the eyeball, which was clearly destroyed. Renato knew instantly that the man would not see from that eye again. He replaced the cloth and placed the man’s hand over it. “Hold this firmly, my Lord. I need to see if that other eye of yours will see again.”

  He examined the good eye and could find no injury. Then he placed a clean cloth over both eyes and wrapped the man’s head in a bulky bandage. He took the man by the hand and led him to a corner where some blankets were stacked against the wall. “Sit here, my Lord. I’m afraid I have no bed for someone with a wound such as yours. Keep both eyes covered for the night. Then, in the morning, I will unbandage your good eye so that you can see your way back to your Auberge. I’m sorry for your wounds and your pain.”

  The knight nodded. “Gracias, Doctor. Muchas gracias,” was all the man said. Then, Juan d’Homedes y Cascón of the langue of Aragon put his head against the wall and tried to sleep.

  Hélène walked unsteadily down the center of the huge main ward, stepping between the rows of bodies that now virtually filled the hall. Her hands were shaking from fatigue as she headed for the sanctuary of Melina’s little room.

  In the three weeks since she started working with Melina and Doctor Renato, Hélène had not left the hospital at all. Each time she thought of going to see Philippe, waves of wounded descended upon them and she was forced back to work. Philippe, for his part, came to inspect the wounded at least once a day, but his visits were brief and his moments alone with Hélène were few. At first she thought he was purposely ignoring her, perhaps punishing her for coming to Rhodes. Then she realized that he, too, was overwhelmed with the responsibility of command; that he carried the burden of the dead and the dying.

  On her way to Melina’s room, Hélène stopped briefly to help a young knight who was getting ready to return to the battlements. His wounds were fresh, his dressings saturated with old blood. But, still he struggled into his armor and fled the protection of the hospital walls. Hélène shook her head sadly, wondering if she would ever see this young man alive again. Would he come back with still more terrible wounds? Or would he never make it to the hospital at all, killed outright in battle and taken to the few remaining buildings where the bodies were stored for burial?

  She hesitated outside Melina’s door and listened. Through the constant low-level noise of the hospital ward—the groans and the cries; the noises of pain and of despair—Hélène could just hear the soft voice of Melina singing to her babies. She pushed the door open slowly, stepping carefully and quietly into the little room. A single candle burned on the floor in the corner, casting shadows of Melina and the twins onto the walls and ceiling. The flickering orange light made Hélène a little lightheaded, so she lowered herself quickly to the floor, taking up all that was left of the space in the small room.

  The two women had grown very close over the past weeks. They shared more than the common bond of nursing the wounded back to health. It was that each of them was committed to a love that their society and religion had forbidden, had forged a friendship dearer and stronger than either had ever known before. Hélène envied without jealousy the small family that God had given to Jean and Melina. Barely an hour could go by without her wondering whether such a treasure would ever be hers and Philippe’s. Indeed, she thought, would their love survive even this siege?

  Melina’s song grew lower and softer as the girls fell asleep against her breasts. Though their lips still sucked languidly at her nipples, their eyes were closed and their little hands hung limply against their chests. In another minute the sucking stopped, and they were sound asleep.

  Melina wiped the milk off their lips and her nipples, and then closed her bodice. She continued to hold Maria and Ekaterina in her arms, as if she could protect them from the chaos that reigned around her own small fortress inside the hospital. She rocked slowly back and forth, willing the twins into a deeper and deeper sleep. She was smiling the whole time; one of the few moments in the day when life allowed her that luxury.

  In a whisper, Hélène said, “Looking at the three of you makes me believe that there will be an end to all of this someday. That there is hope…”

  “I know,” Melina said. “Without these two I would have given up long ago. I cannot think that God would allow such an evil to harm such innocence.”

  The two women sat quietly, both thinking that what Melina had said was true, and equally true was that it violated every tenant of Hélène’s religious teaching. They both struggled with the absurdity that these two little angels could be tainted with Original Sin. For Hélène, all her strict Catholic convictions had been turned upside down since she came to live with Melina. And for Melina, the beliefs of her Judaism had long ago swept away the Christian teachings of her youth. Neither woman believed the dogma under which the knights lived and fought. Yet, both loved men who lived by those rules, and were prepared to die for them.

  In the silence, the noises of the ward intruded into the room, making both women more aware of the reality of their situation. Melina said, “Has the Grand Master said what he will do after the siege?” She could still not bring herself to call him Philippe.

  “You mean about us?”

  “Yes.”

  “No. He hasn’t discussed it since I arrived here. And before that, it was never an issue. There was no way that we could be seen together in Paris, so near the seat of his power, or of his family.” She wiped at a tear, and shivered though the room was overly warm from body heat. “And you and Jean?”

  “Right now, Jean is focused completely on defending the city— and us. We talked once about what he would do if the Grand Master forbade us to be together. But we never resolved it. I think now that he’s a father, he might very well leave the Order if it became an issue. But he would never do it until we have driven the Turks away. He’d never shirk his duty while the Order is still at war.”

  A shadow seemed to fall over the room, as both women thought the unthinkable.

  Hélène was the one who finally said it. “And if the Turks cannot be driven away? What then?”

  Melina looked down at the girls in her arms and drew them closer to her. “Then we shall see. I cannot even think of such a thing at the moment. That my two little girls could become the slaves of the Sultan. To live in a despicable harem. To be…” She shook her head and squeezed her eyes shut as if the vision in her mind could be blotted out. “Never!” she said sharply. The girls startled in their sleep, arching their backs, arms outstretched, fists clenched. “Never…” she whispered. “And if Philippe should offer to surrender the city to the Sultan?” Melina went on softly.

  “Oh, I don’t think that would ever happen. He is not a man who surrenders. He sees the world in very distinct terms; of good and evil; of them and us. I think he is committed in his hea
rt to fight to the last knight; to the last Rhodian as well. No, I don’t see him ever surrendering the city as long as there is a man left to fight alongside him on the battlements.”

  Hélène hugged herself tighter, then moved closer to Melina. She put her arm around Melina’s shoulders and took the girls into her embrace with her free arm. The women let their heads fall together, and in a few moments all four of them were soundly asleep.

  All through the first weeks of August, the Turkish slaves labored day and night to construct the earthworks that would bring the Sultan’s cannon in position to fire down into the city. Thousands upon thousands of pounds of earth and rock were brought in from around the fortress. Turkish engineers coordinated the efforts, and Janissaries guarded the workers from the harassing sorties of the knights.

  The huge ramp was sited just opposite the Post of Aragon. The mound of earth sloped gently up from the Turkish lines and topped the walls opposite the tower by more than fifteen feet. On top of the earthwork were mounted the Sultan’s finest cannons. Enormous parties of men and draft animals had been required to drag the heavy cannons up the ramp and into position. Every hour of the day and night was spent bringing in powder and shot. The huge stone cannonballs were hauled to the top on wooden sledges, until the Turkish artillerymen were ready to begin firing down upon the knights’ gunners manning the walls. By late August, after nearly a month of siege, everything had been set in place.

  Once the earthwork was completed and armed, both sides fought completely exposed. The Turkish gunners and artillerymen were in clear sight of the defenders’ guns, and the knights were exposed in their positions on the walls.

  As the battle raged high in the air over Aragon, the knights from the langue of England, who had been helping defend the position, took a terrible beating. Most were killed, as was the Commander of Aragon, along with the Master Gunner.

  The Turkish cannon pounded the walls and the tower from sunup to sunset. Huge piles of stone and earth rubble fell from the fortress and began to fill the protective ditch at the base of the wall. Slowly and inevitably, the Turkish troops moved closer to the city walls, covered by the firing from the earthwork.

  At night, when the Turkish gunners could not see their targets, the knights sent slaves to the walls to repair the breaches that had been made during the day. Each day, as the sun rose over the Mediterranean Sea, the Turkish gunners would open fire and drive the workers back. Then, the cannons would begin their ceaseless pounding of the walls and more openings would appear.

  Gabriele Tadini stood before the Grand Master. It was nearly midnight, and neither had slept very much in the past several days. “My Lord, we are sustaining terrible casualties. Up until now they had not been doing very much damage. But, as of today, they have become extremely dangerous.”

  “Haven’t we been able to fire upon the workers on the earthworks?”

  “We have, my Lord. And the Infidels have been slaughtered by the hundreds. But, the Sultan cares nothing for the lives of his men. He has tens of thousands to send in behind them. Why, he is filling our ditches with their bodies! But we cannot trade even twenty of them for one of our knights. They have too many waiting in the rear to replace those we kill.”

  “What can we do?”

  “I know that you are against our making any further sorties. But, I think we need to silence their guns. I proposed to take a large contingent of mounted knights to attack the Turkish artillery. I think if we made a lightning strike, driving right up the earthwork, and returned quickly to the fortress, our casualties would be light and we could silence the guns on top.”

  “Very well. How many men will you need?”

  “I would take the mobile force, and knights from the largest langues. Perhaps two hundred mounted men.”

  Philippe let out a long breath. “That’s a third of my men, Gabriele.”

  “I know, Seigneur. But, this is a major battle and could be decisive in our defense of the city. And, I want to take one of your own knights as my second in command, Jean de Morelle?”

  “Oui. D’accord,” Philippe said, weary and resigned. “Jean will be perfect. Send for him. He is probably at the hospital.”

  “No doubt,” replied Tadini, smiling to himself.

  On the night of August 19th, Gabriele Tadini gathered the mobile force of knights, as well as the contingent from the langues of France, Germany, and Provence. Riding out from the Post of Italy, he led his men toward the no-man’s-land between the fortress walls and the Turkish cannon. Jean de Morelle rode alongside Tadini.

  “Keep our men close to the walls. I want to give our muskets and arquebuses a clear shot at the Turkish gunners should they try to attack us before we reach the cannon. Somehow, I don’t think they’ll leave the ditches.”

  “Oui.” Jean wheeled his horse and rode back to pass the word to the knights, who were riding along the walls in columns of two. As the knights rode out, they crossed the ground toward the Turkish cannon. The earth was broken up by the trenches that the Turkish soldiers used for cover.

  Tadini was mounted upon a huge white charger, a grand cheval de bataille. He approached the giant earthwork and urged his horse into a slow canter. The knights followed as the columns snaked along the base of the fortress. When the columns turned the corner between England and Aragon, Tadini increased his pace. The knights tightened their columns and joined the chase. Jean galloped his horse to the head of the column and joined Tadini. There, in the ditches, were more than a thousand Turkish Azabs guarding the ramp to the earthworks.

  When the two hundred men were poised at the walls, they wheeled the columns and rode straight for the waiting Turkish troops. With his lance pointed to the sky, Tadini turned to his men and shouted, “Andiamo!” As a single body, the knights galloped forward and down upon the terrified soldiers waiting in the ditches.

  Immediately the ground began to seethe with men scrambling across each other to get out of the way of the oncoming knights. Dirt and stones flew from the hooves of the onrushing horses. The terrified Turkish soldiers clawed their way out of the trenches and began running toward their own lines. They slipped and fell across their comrades, and bodies began to pile up in small heaps, impeding the troops trying to escape. Their commanders screamed and beat at them with their swords, but the troops continued to run.

  Tadini and his knights increased their speed, trampling the fallen bodies of the enemy. The ground became muddy with the blood of the Azabs. As the knights came down upon the running soldiers, they lowered their lances and speared the men as they ran. When the Turks had been driven beyond their cannons, the knights wheeled the columns once more and rode up the incline to the waiting batteries. The heavy guns were pointed toward the fortress and could not be turned to fire upon the knights. Some of the Turks guarding the cannon scattered and scrambled down the steep embankment at the sides of the earthworks.

  When the knights reached the cannon, they set fire to the wooden carriages supporting the heavy guns. The carriages crumbled as they burned and the cannon toppled over, rolling into the earth or down the sides into the ditches. Several of the fleeing Azabs were crushed to death beneath the massive tumbling cannons.

  Turkish artillerymen who remained at their posts were cut to pieces by the swords and lances of the charging knights. Some rose to fight and died. The rest ran and were trampled or beheaded by the swords of the knights’ cavalry.

  With the guns destroyed and the Turkish soldiers fleeing in panic, Tadini set fire to the stores of powder, regretting as he did so that he could not carry the precious gunpowder back into the fortress. He wheeled his horse and led his small army back down the slopes toward the walls. As they neared the bottom of the incline, a small force of Turkish Azabs suddenly appeared in front of Tadini. His horse reared at the abrupt appearance of this wall of men. Tadini tried to regain control. As he struggled with his reins, his lance fell to the ground. Tadini reached for the falling weapon and lost his seat on the horse. The horse, unbalance
d by the sudden shift in weight, staggered to the right. Tadini lurched in his saddle, his boot slipping from the stirrup. He realized that he had no chance of staying with the horse, and leaped from the saddle, landing on his side in the hard rubble of the earthworks. As he struck the ground, his chest armor prevented a serious injury to his ribs. But he landed on his right arm, and the combined weight of his body and the unyielding surface of the armor smashed into his elbow and upper arm.

  He struggled to free himself as the Azabs closed in on him. He rolled to his left, but the pain and numbness in his right arm and hand prevented him from getting to the saber dangling from his left hip. In an awkward movement, he rotated his left wrist inward and tore the saber from its scabbard. He steadied himself and faced his attackers.

  There were six Azabs, lined up abreast in front of him. His horse had gotten to its feet and was stamping back and forth behind Tadini. As it had been trained to do, it kicked its hind legs out at the approach of Azabs from the rear. Slowly the line of men formed into a crescent and closed in on the Italian engineer. Tadini assessed his position. There was no way he could fight his way through all six, and he knew he had to prevent an encirclement. He backed into the side of his nervous horse and felt for the saddle leather without taking his eyes from the enemy. He knew he had no chance to regain his mount. With only his left hand still working, they would cut him down as soon as he had one foot in the stirrup.

  Tadini stood erect, looking directly into the eyes of the Azab officer. He smiled and lifted his chin in the officer’s direction. He raised the saber, now held in his left hand, its point aimed between the eyes of the man in front of him, and said in perfect Turkish, “So, who will be the first to die?”

  The Azab officer stared at Tadini in utter disbelief. Tadini lunged forward without warning. His saber made a soft swish as it moved through the air. A crimson streak stretched from the officer’s left ear down across his neck and into the collar of his tunic. Blood poured from the wound, and bubbles of air mixed with the blood. The man looked surprised, but as he started to speak, no sound came from his lips. Only a red froth and ever-enlarging crimson bubbles issued from the front of his neck. He staggered back and forth for a moment, and then vacantly stared at his men. As he fell forward, he looked back at Tadini, but the knight was no longer there. At the very moment the Azab’s face smashed into the dirt, Tadini had slashed the neck of another Turk and was about to run his saber through the chest of a third. But his time was running out.