The Last Crusaders: Blood Red Sea

by Napier, William

  ‘That wine will kill you.’

  Nicholas gave a sullen smile. ‘I expect it will.’

  ‘A message comes to us at Valletta, suggesting that if the young Englishmen who fought at Malta, at Cyprus and Lepanto, gentlemen volunteers and good Catholics, returned to England, to London, and presented themselves to the Queen there, they may find a warmer welcome than they think.’

  ‘You have a message from the English court?’

  ‘No, not from the English court,’ said Smith. ‘You’re not that celebrated.’

  ‘So, what, a couple of sunburned Catholics just walk into Whitehall Palace and bid her good morrow?’

  Stanley nodded. ‘Maybe.’

  ‘And then – let me see – we are led away from the Palace and taken to the Tower, and hung from the beam and beaten until we abjure Rome and the saints and say we are good Protestants now, like the rest?’

  ‘Catholics are not hunted down and killed like rats, you know,’ said Smith with a touch of irritation. ‘Elizabeth prefers to . . . ignore them. And she likes a handsome young hero. Especially if he doesn’t stink of Sicilian wine.’

  Nicholas belched. But Hodge’s eyes were shining.

  Nicholas said, ‘We have seen so much war and so much religion. Sometimes I think there is too much religion in the world, and that is why men war with each other. Catholic and Protestant, Mohammedan and Christian. And further east, Turk against Persian, Mohammedan and Hindu, and heaven knows what other wars in other uncharted worlds. But my father always said, there is just enough religion in the world to make men hate each other, but not enough to make them love each other.’

  ‘Your father was a knight and a wise man,’ said Stanley.

  A day later, sober and shaven, Nicholas and Hodge tracked down Smith and Stanley in a room of the Governor’s palace.

  ‘Where will you go after this?’ demanded Nicholas. ‘No more Turk to fight? Smith, you will go quite mad with peace.’

  Smith grinned, after a fashion. ‘We have a yearning to visit the lovely city of Constantinople,’ he said.

  Nicholas and Hodge could not but laugh. ‘Is it your first visit there?’

  ‘I . . . I don’t recall exactly. But the yearning is strong in me – for a number of reasons.’

  ‘Dangerous, though.’

  ‘Naturally, or else I would go crazed in my wits with boredom.’

  ‘We will meet again one day.’

  ‘You are going to England?’

  They nodded. Suddenly they could not speak. Then they wept openly as they embraced each other, the two young adventurers feeling they were losing their fathers all over again, the two knights feeling they were losing their sons.

  ‘Courage, masters Hodge and Ingoldsby,’ said Stanley briskly, parting from them. ‘Brother Smith, dry your eyes, I do declare.’

  Smith made a noise like a wounded bear.

  ‘Let us not weep like women. We have known strange days, such scenes, such battles – and by some miracle, we all live, when so many brave men have died around us. A tale for your children and grandchildren at the fireside, is it not?’

  ‘And perhaps we will have another jaunt to England again soon,’ said Smith. ‘We are much loved there, I know.’

  ‘And may you come back to Malta one day,’ said Stanley. ‘Only three weeks’ sailing, with God’s grace.’

  ‘Perhaps we will,’ said Nicholas. ‘Perhaps.’

  They could find no boat in December to take them from Sicily to Spain, not in winter seas, so they travelled up to Naples, and went overland in three months around the coasts of Italy, France and Spain. They met with many adventures, a few tavern brawls, and some generous-hearted girls.

  It was March when they came down to Barcelona, and there found a ship that would take them round to Cadiz.

  ‘Cadiz,’ said Nicholas. ‘I know a tavern there we like.’

  ‘You again,’ she said.

  ‘You remember us? It was nearly a year ago.’

  ‘I could not forget, though how I have tried to rid my memory of your ugly faces. I even brought you food in prison when you were jailed by Pedro Deza. Englishmen, are you not?’

  ‘That we are,’ said Nicholas. ‘You have heard of the great sea battle against the Turk off Greece? We fought in it. We were its greatest heroes.’

  ‘Of course, and also at the Siege of Malta. I remember. You are the greatest liar I have ever had in this tavern. And I have had a few.’

  ‘Bring us wine, fair maiden. Though I am already half drunk with your beauty.’

  ‘You will only get more drunk and tell still more outrageous lies.’

  ‘We will show our scars from the battle. Lepanto, it will be known as.’

  She sighed, hands on her hips. ‘Show me your new scars, then, gained in some dirty knife fight in the backstreets of Malaga.’

  They showed her. She looked unimpressed, tossed her black hair, and went to serve other customers.

  Towards the end of the evening, Nicholas told her, ‘We are going back to England now.’

  Hodge was snoring gently, head on the table.

  ‘Good,’ she said.

  ‘Come with me,’ he said. ‘Marry me.’

  She laughed, a harsh, magnificent laugh. ‘You know nothing of me, fool and liar.’

  ‘You are a young widow, your name is Maria de l’Adoracion, your man died fighting in the revolt of the Moriscos in the mountains, and you have a son of four or five.’

  She looked surprised, a faint smile. ‘You remember that?’

  ‘Of course. As well as your loveliness. Now you need another man.’

  ‘Indeed I do not! Or if I did, it would be a decent man, not a drunken fool who is always in trouble.’

  ‘Marry me. I need a good Catholic wife and there are few now in England.’

  ‘England! I might as well go and live at the pole with the perpetual snow and the white bears.’

  ‘It is a little colder in England than Andalusia,’ he admitted. ‘And they do not like or trust Spaniards. It is a Protestant country, life is hard for Catholics and getting harder.’

  ‘It sounds very desirable. I cannot think why I have not married a drunken English fool before.’

  ‘Also the food is foul, there is very little wine, it is expensive, and oranges too. It can rain on any day of the year. It used to be warmer, some say, two or three hundred years ago, but now it is very cold in the winter. Animals freeze to death standing in the fields, sheep on the wolds are frozen to the ground, and the rivers turn to ice, even the London Thames. Ice so thick they roast oxen on them at the fairs. In midwinter there is barely eight hours of daylight.’

  ‘Tell me the disadvantages now.’

  ‘Hm. You’d have to be my wife. I am a penniless and un-propertied vagabond and soldier who has not seen his homeland for six years. On my return I may be arrested and tortured at any moment.’

  ‘So nothing new there. You are how old now?’

  ‘Twenty-two.’

  She tossed her head. ‘I am but twenty. You look far older.’

  ‘The Mediterranean sun has played havoc with my fair English complexion, once so fine and lily white. And all my scars . . .’

  ‘Scars on a man are not all bad. So long as he fought on the side of God, and with honour. But your face and arms are burned so badly by the sun you will be a wrinkled old man in another five years. You are badged with powder burns like a German mercenary, you are an Englishman and so the enemy of Spain, you are penniless—’

  ‘Though rightful heir to great estates in the County of Shropshire.’

  Hodge abruptly woke up. ‘I wouldn’t say great estates . . .’

  ‘Thank you, Hodge.’

  ‘More lies,’ said Maria de l’Adoracion. ‘You look like any other feckless vagabond, wandering this Mediterranean Sea between two worlds, picking off the scraps from this endless war of Christendom and the Turks. And now you presume to take me home as your wife, to your Protestant island of which I know
nothing, nor any word of the barbarous language except “goddam”. The usual curse of your pious and God-fearing sailors when in my tavern. What a cultivated and intelligent people you English must be!’

  ‘Goddam,’ murmured Hodge, gazing up at her, ‘isn’t she magnificent?’

  Then she said, ‘In truth, though I do not love the Moors, who killed my man in the mountains – yet it was your intervening, so foolishly but bravely, when those poor Moors were being driven out of Cadiz – and ending up in jail for your pains – it was that which first made me think you were not all bad.’

  Nicholas waited.

  She said, in a softer voice, her hard tavern mask dropped away, ‘Get you to England, Englishmen. Perhaps you will find kind English brides there, who will tame your hearts.’

  10

  They sailed on a merchantman two days later, and came to London in the bleak days of January. They shivered like aspen leaves in the chilling east wind.

  ‘I had forgotten . . .’ stammered Hodge, nose blue.

  They bought woollen cloaks. People stared at them in the streets, one man barged them and called them Gypsies. They tossed back their cloaks and showed their swords and were left alone.

  They lodged in Cheapside and requested audience at the Palace.

  Stanley had not lied to them, about some mysterious higher influence.

  Three days later, they were to attend Her Majesty at Greenwich.

  ‘Her Majesty,’ whispered Hodge. ‘After all I’ve seen, this is still the most . . .’ He could find no more words.

  In an outer chamber they were first addressed by an elegantly bearded chamberlain in a black fur robe. Told to kneel before her, not to look directly at her. Only to answer questions, to ask none.

  ‘And it is known that you are Catholics still, and loyal to Rome. You will, of course, leave off your swords.’

  They unbuckled, Nicholas saying, ‘Yet I am loyal to my Queen also, and would die to defend her.’

  The chamberlain smiled a thin smile. ‘She will judge your loyalty for herself. She is a very fine judge of men indeed.’

  Hodge could not have looked directly at her if he had tried. He would have been blinded. Her dress was white satin, there were many pearls in her hair, she was as a white of countenance as an angel, though her hair was flame red. A woman still only in her thirties, yet it was wrong to think of her as a mere woman. A queen, radiant, from another world.

  They knelt and waited for a long time. At last she spoke, her voice feminine yet commanding.

  ‘There is a trusted confidant of ours, a wealthy merchant in Constantinople, who has done us some service in the past. He has no great liking for the Catholic princes of Europe, and in that at least we have a common interest. Now he sends us a letter. A request, in return for the many good deeds he has done us in the past. He says that you are of a party of four Englishmen – the other two being Knights of St John, and Englishmen disavowed.’ Her voice was crisp with contempt. ‘He says the four of you did brave service to his people, in the city of Nicosia in Cyprus.’

  Joseph Nassi. It was Joseph Nassi behind it all.

  ‘Speak,’ she said.

  ‘Your Majesty,’ stammered Nicholas, head still bowed, ‘we did a small thing, to protect some citizens, albeit Jews, from cruel treatment. Families who were to be driven out in front of the Turkish guns. We protested, and the decision was revoked. Not a sword was drawn, nor a drop of blood spilled.’

  ‘Bloodshed is no sure sign of bravery. If you stand firm, peace will often come rather than war. Stand.’

  They stood, knees aching.

  Her blue eyes were hard upon them.

  ‘Your words are to our liking,’ she said. ‘Claiming only small courage for yourself, and therefore more credible. You would hardly credit the extravagant tales we hear from our more . . . heroical sea captains.’

  The chamberlain and others tittered.

  Nicholas could not help a slight smile. She saw it and smiled frostily too.

  ‘Now, to this request. It is requested that we admit you once more into our kingdom, as free men, to go untroubled.’

  There was a pause. A very long pause. Nicholas’s heart sank. She could not admit to this. Some other reward would suffice instead, before they were sent on their way once more, into exile.

  She seemed to hold her breath, and then breathed out a little. ‘We grant this request.’

  They were home. In England. With no need to wander more.

  Beside him, Hodge began sobbing.

  ‘Come, Master Hodge,’ said the Queen. ‘It is Hodge, is it not? More manly. You have seen worse things than this in your travels, I am sure.’

  ‘Worse, yes, Majesty,’ sobbed Hodge. ‘But none better. To be back in England.’

  Few things moved the Queen so deeply as an Englishman’s simple love of England.

  ‘There’s an honest Englishman,’ she said. ‘Even if he is burned black as the devil’s own heart.’

  ‘Please, Your Majesty, it’ll soon wash off in the English rain.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it,’ she said. ‘Hodge, it is such as you that shall make our England the glory of the world. And as for you, Nicholas Ingoldsby – Sir Nicholas Ingoldsby, I should say – your late father, Sir John, was by all accounts a good gentleman, though not one for the Court.’

  ‘No, Majesty. He liked the country.’

  ‘Hm. You too?’

  ‘I too. The Court is not my world. The old hills of Shropshire . . .’

  ‘After all your adventures?’

  ‘Yes, Majesty.’

  She pursed her pale lips. ‘Nevertheless, your father entertained Catholic knights in secret at his Shropshire home. During arrest he resisted and died of natural causes. Yes?’

  Nicholas swallowed. ‘Yes, Your Majesty.’

  ‘His estates passed into the hands of the local magistrates, and their value to our exchequer. We see nothing remiss in this. But now further enquiries suggest that the Justice of the Peace, one Gervase Crake, has provoked widespread dissatisfaction. There are reports of cruel treatment, and worse, peculation against the Crown. Action will be taken against him in due course. But I should say that if meanwhile Sir Nicholas Ingoldsby himself, though still barely more than a boy, were to go back to his native Shropshire and demand the return of his ancestral lands – by force if necessary – the Crown might at least wink at such proceedings.

  ‘In the future, perhaps this Ingoldsby might make a very serviceable Justice himself, and servant of the Queen. But for that he would have to abandon his Popish religion and swear loyalty to the Church of England.’

  Nicholas said nothing. What could he say?

  Her Majesty understood very well what agonies of conscience could make a man say nothing. She herself had spent much of her life in careful silence, not choosing, and would no doubt spend years more that way. Silence was a friend who would never betray.

  ‘You will write of all your travels,’ she said. ‘I have never travelled outside England, not even to Wales, nor desire to. You have wandered far and wide. You will write up your adventures, what you have seen. You will tell all. We want to know the customs of Shrove Tuesday in Cadiz, the weather in Naples, the winds in the Messina Strait. The fortifications of Malta and Cyprus . . .’

  Nicholas bowed. He had never contemplated setting down his experiences in writing, but now it was a royal command, he had no choice in the matter.

  ‘You will have half a dozen men-at-arms to recover your property.’

  ‘With gracious respect, Majesty, that is not needed. I have a man-at-arms worth a dozen.’ He nodded at Hodge.

  ‘He is an Achilles, this Hodge?’ she said with irony.

  ‘He is,’ said Nicholas without irony.

  ‘I cracked a few unbelieving skulls, Your Majesty, it’s true,’ volunteered Hodge, against all court etiquette. The chamberlain winced. ‘They took some crackin’ and all.’

  The Queen smiled now. ‘Hodge, Hero of Malta, and better ye
t – Englishman. I decree an annual pension of five pounds for life.’

  Hodge gasped.

  For many years after in Shropshire, the tale was told. Of how Gervase Crake, the hated but powerful Justice, had been overseeing the whipping of a vagabond girl at the cart’s end in a market square one bleak February day. And two grim-faced strangers rode into the square, just as had happened, so folk memory said, some six years before. They were on horseback, and they carried swords, and they looked as if they knew how to use them. They were as sunburned as Spaniards yet they spoke English.

  They demanded the weeping girl be set free. Crake opposed them with a sneer. Had he not six ruffians for his guard? More than ruffians. Three of them carried tattoos on their brawny forearms, showing they were mercenaries who had fought with the dreaded free companies, in the German wars of religion.

  A fight broke out, and in a matter of minutes four of the ruffians lay dead. The two others fled, sore wounded, and were never seen again in the county. The two strangers bore a few knocks and bruises too, but fewer than Gervase Crake. He was then stripped and whipped and thrown in the dog pound until some later use could be found for him. As a chimney sweep, perhaps, or tavern turnspit.

  One of the strangers was the long-lost son of old Sir John Ingoldsby, come to claim his inheritance. The old hall that Crake himself had been living in! So of course it was all shipshape and handsomely cared for. Then the son of old Ingoldsby found his sisters in another gentleman’s house, two of them now in service as maids. A third had died in his absence. Their reunion was such a thing to see, they said, it would make a stone weep.

  And afterwards, a serving-man said he had glimpsed the long-lost son of old Sir John Ingoldsby go into the barn there at the hall, near sunset it was, and find the things of his boyhood still hanging on the walls. A child’s leather saddle, the one he’d learned to ride on. A hoop and a stick. A toy sword made for him by the gardener, long since lain in the churchyard. And the son had fallen to his knees and wept, till his man Hodge came and helped him into the house.

  But others said it was wrong of the serving-man to spy and worse of him to tattle. For surely that young Ingoldsby had travelled wide and seen many things, more than most of them in the village would ever see in their lives. And doubtless his heart was full of all the beauties and the sorrows of the world.