Shadow of God

by Anthony Goodman

  Philippe waited for the Sultan in his great room. He quickly rose to greet Suleiman, who was led to a large oak chair. He sat next to Philippe while Ibrahim waited near the doorway with the knights. When Philippe began to speak, Ibrahim moved closer to translate. Philippe had his own interpreter present, but the conversation with Suleiman on Mount Saint Stephen was so successful that Ibrahim was allowed to continue.

  “Sultan Suleiman Khan, it is an honor to receive you here in my palace. You do us a great honor by your presence.”

  Ibrahim translated this into Turkish, and Suleiman bowed his head in acknowledgment. Philippe continued. “Please allow me to present you with these poor gifts, as a token of our respect for you.” He signaled to one of the knights, who brought out a carved wooden box. The knight knelt before the Sultan and opened the box. It was lined with crimson velvet, and contained four golden goblets. Suleiman reached into the box and removed one of them. He held up and turned the goblet in his hands. Then he showed it to Ibrahim, and with a smile of appreciation said, “Your generosity is most greatly appreciated.”

  When Suleiman had replaced the goblet and the box was removed, Philippe said, “Preparations have been made for our departure. I and my knights will leave the island on the morning of January 1st. A few citizens and all the mercenaries will depart with us. We agree to all your terms, and I am assured that there will be no resistance to your occupation of the city after the Order has left. You have shown great mercy, Majesty, which is more the mark of a great man than that of conquest.”

  After an hour more of pleasantries and protocol, Suleiman and Ibrahim took their leave. When the Sultan rose, Philippe bowed. He knelt and took Suleiman’s hand, touching his head to the sleeve of the Sultan’s caftan, and kissing his hand.

  Suleiman and Ibrahim walked down the great staircase to the courtyard and remounted their waiting horses. The procession continued back to the Gate of St. John, with Tadini and de Bidoux, once again, in command. The knights saluted the Sultan at the gate, forming two columns as Suleiman and Ibrahim rode back to the Turkish lines.

  Rhodes

  Christmas Day to New Year’s Day, 1523

  As the knights prepared for their departure, the Turkish lines were withdrawn to a distance of a mile from the walls of the city. The Sultan’s camps were restored to their usual clean, disciplined conditions. The soldiers rested, as the doctors continued to work on the backlog of wounded. The weather was still cold and wet, but the morale of Suleiman’s army improved each day.

  A corps of four hundred Janissaries was sent into the city under the leadership of Achmed Agha. The knights watched from their positions as the Janissaries entered the gates. They moved into the city as a unit, forming a block of silent armed warriors. Their uniforms were freshly washed, and their swords polished. Their helmets carried the traditional herons’ feathers, and their blue vests glowed in the morning light. Not a word was spoken nor any orders given by the officers. The Sultan’s elite corps moved to their positions and established their guard posts.

  Bali Agha commanded the remaining Janissaries outside the walls. The young troops were deployed at strategic outposts throughout the inner city, but remained away from the Street of the Knights and the Palace of the Grand Master. Suleiman had given strict orders that none of the knights or the citizens were to be molested or insulted in any way. The usual wartime practice of free looting by the troops was forbidden.

  But, the heady taste of victory was too much to bear for some of the troops. Oddly, it fell upon the youngest and freshest Janissaries to disobey their commanders. A group of Janissaries newly arrived from Syria had missed virtually all the fighting. They were disappointed that they had not been given their chance for glory against the invidious knights. They imagined themselves slashing through the vanguard, their scimitars dripping with Infidel blood. They could never have imagined the impenetrable wall of fierce warriors that had cut their comrades down in wave after wave for the past one hundred forty-five days. Only the ditches brimming with fallen corpses reminded them of the realities of the war.

  When they entered the city, the wildest of the new arrivals went directly to the churches and began desecrating anything that spoke of Christianity. They destroyed icons and defaced images of Christ and the Virgin Mary. Townspeople were knocked aside when they tried to protect their holy places, and several were severely wounded with slashes from the as-yet-unbloodied scimitars. Several women were raped and beaten, and one old man was thrown from a wall into the rubble of the ditches. Private homes were entered, and food taken from the owners. Some of the people were stripped of their clothes, and made to walk naked in the streets in the freezing dampness.

  A deputation of Christian citizens appeared before Achmed Agha and complained bitterly of the destruction and terror that the Janissaries were spreading through their town. They told the Agha that they had the protection of the Sultan, Suleiman. Could they not trust the word of the Emperor of the Ottomans?

  Achmed was furious. He immediately sent a detail of officers and his more seasoned Janissaries to stop the looting and the violence. The guilty soldiers were brought before him and severely reprimanded. When confronted with their crimes, they tried to explain that they had acted as good Muslims. “Did not the Holy Qur’an forbid the presence of graven human images inside a mosque? Were not the churches soon to be converted to mosques? Therefore, was it not our duty to erase the images of Christ and any others that we might find?”

  The young troops were ordered to return stolen goods, and then sent from the city back to their own lines to wait out the rest of the occupation.

  Suleiman stood alone outside his pavilion on the slopes of Mount Saint Stephen, watching the knights prepare for their departure from Rhodes. It looked to him like a swarm of ants dismantling their nest.

  A messenger appeared quietly at his side, bringing written news of the violence caused by the newly arrived Janissaries. Suleiman was furious. He said, “I have pledged my word and my honor, and woe be he who stains it.” He quickly wrote out an order and handed it to the messenger, who was to deliver it to Achmed Agha. The penalty for any further disobedience would be death.

  Suleiman stared into the waning light. As darkness settled over the island, the few remaining fires in the city grew brighter. In the flickering shadows, knights and citizens hurried to collect their belongings and gather their families together for their flight. In the darkness, the lights in the Palace of the Grand Master dominated the northwestern part of the city. Figures passed back and forth in front of the lighted windows, disappearing again as quickly as they had come. Suleiman knew that one of those shadows must be Philippe.

  As he walked back alone into his serai, Suleiman felt a sense of sadness. The euphoria of victory over the knights was gone, replaced by a thread inexplicably connecting him with his former enemy. For the first time since he arrived on Rhodes, he felt he understood the passions that drove the Grand Master.

  In the Palace of the Grand Master, the knights were busy gathering their possessions. Suleiman had agreed that they could take their swords, pikes, halberds, muskets, and the scant remaining supply of shot and powder. He forbade the removal of the cannons from the city, though the ships could retain their cannons for their own protection against piracy on the high seas.

  Philippe ordered the Sacred Holy Relics to be brought to his quarters for packing and cataloging. “Gabriele, see to the protection of these treasures,” he said to Tadini. “The Infidels will care nothing for them. They have already begun desecrating the churches; who knows what will happen to our churches after we leave?”

  “Aye, my Lord, I’ll see to it.”

  William Weston was cataloging the treasures. He stepped forward and showed the Grand Master his list. “We have already packed away the Sacred Relics of the True Cross, my Lord. Also the Holy Thorn and the Holy Body of St. Euphemia. We are just now wrapping the Right Hand of St. John, and a Holy Icon of Our Lady of Fileremos. The rest of the reli
cs are all safely put away.”

  “Well done, William. Keep these near to us at all times. They will not be left unguarded until we are installed in our new home; only God and Jesus know where that will be.”

  January 1st, 1523. In the late afternoon, just before darkness overtook the island, the Gate of St. John was opened by the Grand Master’s guard. Philippe sat astride his horse, dressed now in the black robes worn by the knights during peacetime, and walked at the head of the solemn procession. His broadsword hung from the wide leather belt at his left side. His head was bare, and his thin white hair blew in the chill January breeze. At his side was Gabriele Tadini da Martinengo. Tadini still wore the worn leather patch over his right eye. Following close behind was Antonio Bosio.

  The other knights walked in lines of two, carrying only their personal weapons. William Weston was waiting at the ships with his guard of fifty knights. There were several more transports and four galleys. All the possessions and treasures were loaded and secured. The most valuable—the Holy Relics—were stored deep in the hold of the flagship, the carrack Sancta Maria; this very same ship that had, only sixteen months before, brought Philippe from Marseilles to his new home on Rhodes. The mercenaries and some of the citizensoldiers of Rhodes followed the knights as the procession wound its way through the periphery of the city to the harbor.

  Philippe tried with all his might to maintain his dignity as the Grand Master. But, as he descended to the harbor, he found it increasingly hard to breathe. A great weight pressed on his chest, as he fought to hold back the tears. His mind reeled with the real cost of the siege. After one hundred forty-five days of fighting and two hundred years of occupation by the Order, he was leaving his island home, deserting the remains of hundreds of his brothers-at-arms.

  Later, on the afterdeck of the Sancta Maria, in a darkness that seemed to hang from the shrouds of the ship, Philippe looked back toward Rhodes. Squinting into the night, he could just make out the silhouette of the mountainous island blacking out the stars where they met the sea. The crisp winter air cut though his robes as the light wind propelled him and his knights away from their island home. The vastness of the black sea and the infinity of the stars made him wonder where on Earth he and his knights would ultimately land. And he thought again—as he had almost constantly since he admitted the inevitability of defeat—of Hélène.

  He wrapped his black robes closer about him, and sighed deeply. Then he leaned over the rail and peered for the last time back toward Rhodes. Now the shadow of her mountains were gone, and the stars dipped down to touch the surface of the sea.

  Shortly after the fall of Rhodes, word was brought to the newly installed Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V. When he heard the news of the knights’ defeat, with tears in his eyes he said, “Nothing in the world was ever so well lost as Rhodes.”

  On January 2nd, 1523, Suleiman led a Muslim service in his new mosque in the city of Rhodes. Under the knights, the building had been the Conventual Church of St. John. With the graven Christian images removed, the Faithful joined their Sultan in prayer. When he watched the departure of the knights, he is said to have told Ibrahim, “It breaks my heart to see this old man evicted from his home of so many years.”

  Suleiman commanded over one thousand Janissaries and troops to remain on the island and assure order. On January 6th, he began the return trip to Marmarice; then across Asia Minor to a triumphal reception in Istanbul.

  Flushed with the exultation of finally driving the Knights of St. John from Rhodes after two hundred years of occupation, Suleiman settled down to the task of consolidating his Empire and extending its massive reach. But despite his costly victory, Suleiman and the Knights of St. John were destined to meet in battle again.

  Philippe and his defeated knights sailed from Rhodes to the island of Crete. There, at the port of Khaniá, the remnants of the Knights Hospitaller of St. John waited out the terrible storms of winter. The knights resupplied their ships and tended to the recovery of the remaining wounded. When the weather improved, the knights set out for Messina, at the eastern edge of Sicily. Upon their arrival, plague erupted among the ships, and the Order was quarantined for several weeks. Finally, Philippe was invited by the Pope to sail with his small fleet to Civitavecchia, near Rome.

  In November, 1523, Giulio de Medici was elected Pope Clement VII. The new Pope had himself been a Knight Hospitaller, and was sympathetic to the plight of the Order. While turbulence and war erupted all around him, Philippe made it his sole task to secure a new home for his knights. The German Lutherans of Charles V were pillaging Rome, and slaughtering the Pope’s monks and nuns. For the next several years, Philippe visited the monarchs of Europe, enlisting supplies and arms. The knights wandered from city to city, still seeking a place of their own. Antonio Bosio even made secret return visits to Rhodes to assess the possibility of recapturing the island paradise for the knights. But, it was not to be.

  Finally, in 1530, Charles V was crowned Emperor. Philippe and the Order petitioned Charles for possession of the island of Malta as a new home for the knights. While Malta was little more than a rocky desert, it did have two excellent natural harbors. Philippe immediately appreciated Malta’s strategic position in the Mediterranean Sea. From there, the knights could once again harass shipping between Africa and Asia Minor or Europe. Charles granted Philippe’s request, with the proviso that he also garrison Tripoli, on the African coast directly south of Malta. With these two posts, the knights could control all the regional shipping, while protecting Charles from attacks against his territories in Sicily and Italy.

  In 1530, the Order of the Knight of St. John Hospitaller became known as the Knights of Malta. It would be decades before the knights would give up their hopes for a return to Rhodes. Unknown to the Order, they still had another rendezvous with their sworn enemy, Suleiman.

  For his part, Suleiman wished never to see or hear of Rhodes again. Many of the Christians remained on their island home and took up life under the Muslim’s generous terms. Though there was some inevitable violence and rancor, peace finally settled on the island. Eventually, some three thousand Latin Christians left Rhodes to follow the knights to Malta.

  Though Philippe de L’Isle Adam would die on Malta in 1534, the knights would continue to make life miserable for the Ottoman fleet plying the Mediterranean. Eventually, regretting his merciful and generous behavior towards the knights at Rhodes, Suleiman would lead his armies against the knights once more, this time against Grand Master Jean Parisot de la Valette.

  In 1565, on the island of Malta, two strong men from the ends of the Earth would once again stand face to face.

  As an avid reader of historical fiction, I often find myself anxious to know exactly where the author has drawn the line between history and fiction.

  This is a work of fiction. I have drawn extensively upon both current and historical documents collected over twenty years to try to paint the most accurate picture of both the times and the personalities of the characters.

  One cannot know the thoughts of people who have been dead for nearly five hundred years, but contemporaneous letters and descriptions can give us a fairly accurate peek into their thoughts and their lives.

  As for the characters, all were drawn from real people except the following:

  Hélène did not exist outside the imagination of the author. There is no evidence that Philippe Villiers de l’Isle Adam had ever strayed from his vows of celibacy from the day he entered the Order of the Knights of St. John until the day he died.

  Melina, Jean, and their twin girls are legendary characters. There is a substantial folklore about a woman who did see her knight slain on the battlements of Rhodes, and then killed her children before entering the battle herself and being killed by the Janissaries. It is said that the Turks retreated after they saw she was a woman in knight’s armor.

  The fisherman, Basilios, is an historical figure, while his three associates are not.

  All the remaining char
acters existed in real life. If there is any discrepancy between the lives and actions of the real characters and this story, the errors are entirely mine.

  Word origins: a = Arabic; t = Turkish; f = French; mf = Middle French; e = English; me = Middle English; g = Greek; i = Italian; s = Spanish.

  Agha. (t) Military: a general officer. Any high-ranking officer. Similar to Pasha.

  aigrette. (f) Decorative tuft of long, white herons’ plumes, generally used in a headdress.

  Allah. (a) God.

  arquebus. (mf) Small-caliber long gun, operated by matchlock mechanism.

  asper. (t) Silver coin of low value.

  Ayyüb. (a) Ayyüb al Ansari (also Eyyüb al Enseri). Companion and standard bearer to the Prophet. Also a section of Istanbul where his small tomb was built.

  Azab. (t) Military soldier, equivalent to current-day Marine.

  bastinado. (s) Corporal punishment by striking the soles of the feet with a stiff stick.

  Beylerbey. (t) Provincial Governor and/or general of a feudal cavalry.

  Bunchuk. (t) Military standard made of varying number of horses’ tails mounted on a wooden bar. The Sultan’s Bunchuk—the highest—held seven black horses’ tails.

  caravanserai. (t) Rural wayside inn. A stopping place for caravans.

  Chorbaji. (t) Soup Kitchen. Title of Janissary officer.

  Collachio. (i) Convent of the knights.

  corsair. (f) Pirate.

  dervish. (t) Muslim monk who has taken vows of celibacy, austerity, and poverty.

  Devshirmé. (t) The levy of young non-Muslim (generally Christian) boys for conscription into the service of the Sultan. Usually admitted to military or government posts depending upon the results of rigorous testing.