EPILOGUE
The Battle of Lepanto was hailed by Cervantes himself as the greatest event in the history of the world. Certainly it seemed to win a general peace, though with occasional skirmishes, and establish the bounds between the Christian world and the Muslim for generations.
Yet there followed some strange occurrences.
Only six months later, in a small back room in a house in Algiers, Kara Hodja was gunned down by two mysterious, hulking masked men carrying four pistols apiece. The assassins were never caught.
The captured banner of the knights in Hagia Sophia vanished from under the very noses of the Turks, and reappeared in the Chapel of St John in Valletta, Malta, only a few weeks later.
Most astounding of all, the stuffed skin of the gallant Marc’antonio Bragadino, still cruelly displayed in the Topkapi Palace, also disappeared. Such a feat seemed almost impossible, and the Ottoman court wrote long letters demanding to know who was responsible.
No Christian prince or prelate could advise on it.
But in 1572, the last mortal remains of Marc’antonio Bragadino were buried with full honours in the magnificent Basilica of San Giovanni e Paolo, in Venice, where they remain to this day.
Pope Pius died in 1572.
Don John enjoyed his hour of fame and had many more beautiful mistresses, including Diana di Falangola, Zenobia Saratosia and Ana de Toledo. There were plans for him to marry Mary, Queen of Scots, or even an invasion to make him King of Ireland. They came to nothing.
His brother Philip sent him to Flanders to fight the unwinnable war there against the Protestant rebels. He died of typhoid in 1578, only seven years after his great victory of Lepanto, aged just thirty-one. In his last year he wrote, ‘I spend my time building castles in the air but in the end, my castles and I alike blow away in the wind.’
His brother Philip lived on until 1598, racked with gout and suffocated by asthma.
Sebastiano Veniero recovered from his severe wounds, and in 1577 was given the ultimate accolade of being made Doge of Venice. It is said that in his very last years he mellowed a little. He now rests in the Basilica of San Giovanni e Paolo, along with Bragadino.
Andrea Doria lived on until 1606. He was suspected by some of cowardice at Lepanto for not having engaged more closely. But those who had been there knew the truth.
Don Álvaro de Bazán, Marqués de Santa Cruz, died in February 1588. His death was fortuitous for the English, for this brilliant commander had been leading the Spanish Armada. He was replaced by the markedly less capable Duke of Medina Sidonia. Had Santa Cruz remained in command, English history might have been very different.
Miguel de Cervantes continued for a time to seek chivalrous adventure. He was captured by Muslim corsairs in 1575 and spent five years as a slave in Algiers. Later he spent too much money on a fine suit of armour, went bankrupt and was imprisoned. But by the time of his death in 1616, he had written his immortal Don Quixote – the most hilarious yet poignant mockery of chivalric ideals ever written.
Sultan Selim II, ‘the Sot’, died in 1574. It is said that he was drunk at the time, and slipped over in his bathhouse.
He was succeeded by the peace-loving Murat III, who agonized for eighteen hours before giving the traditional Ottoman order for all his brothers to be strangled by deaf mutes with silken ropes. He spent most of his reign in quiet seclusion in the provincial town of Manisa, where he particularly loved the teachings of a gentle Sufi mystic, who soothingly interpreted the Sultan’s nightmares and dreams.
Mehmet Sokollu, Grand Vizier, died in 1579. Many said that his death was arranged by his old enemy, Lala Mustafa Pasha, the butcher of Famagusta.
Joseph Nassi also died in 1579, and all his great wealth was seized by the Sublime Porte for its own use, a seizure also masterminded by Lala Mustafa.
In 1580, Lala Mustafa himself became Grand Vizier, but died after only four months in office.
As recently as 1965, Pope Paul VI returned the captured Ottoman banners of Lepanto to Turkey. In the naval museum in Istanbul can still be seen the standard of Ali Pasha Muezzinzade. Not all banners have been returned. More still hang in the church of Santo Stefano in Pisa.
Of the two Knights of St John, known as Stanley and Smith. nothing was ever certain. But in the harbourside taverns of the Mediterranean, from Cadiz to Aleppo, from Marseilles to Algiers, rumours abounded. Even in the warlike valleys of the Caucasus, it was said, and upon the frozen plains of Muscovy where the Tatar horsemen still threatened, in the burning Syrian desert, upon the emerald coast of Coromandel, and far away into the snow-capped mountains of Central Asia, their names and reputations were not unknown . . .
AUTHORS NOTE
Originally Clash of Empires: The Great Siege was conceived as a stand-alone story. But after finishing, I wanted more of my characters and their adventures, especially Nicholas and Hodge, Smith and Stanley, and it seemed many of my readers felt the same.
Besides, there was another epic moment in history which could very well have involved our heroes: Lepanto. It was actually poetry, not history, which first led me to it, in G. K. Chesterton’s thumping good ballad. It’s a fine poem to learn off by heart, as schoolboys used to, and makes an excellent companion on a walk.
The other question readers always want answered is, How much is true? And as with The Great Siege, I think I can honestly answer: a lot. The biggest liberty I have taken is probably compression of timescale. Nicosia was in fact besieged in the summer of 1570, and Lepanto took place the following year, but I have compressed them into a single summer for greater dramatic tension.
Otherwise, the broad outline of events is pretty accurate. Most of my characters were actual historical figures – even minor players like Aurelio Scetti, the wife-killing lute player, and Maria la Bailadora, the female dancer who fought at Lepanto: a detail so absurdly romantic that if it weren’t true I would hesitate to make it up.
Joseph Nassi’s plans for a Jewish state in Palestine; the appalling fate of Marc’antonio Bragadino; Don John’s pet marmoset, plucking enemy arrows from the mainmast and snapping them triumphantly in half; that last, surreal, exhausted fight of the oranges and lemons; all these things are attested by contemporary chronicles and witnesses.
Among the many books consulted, I am especially indebted to Empires of the Sea: The Final Battle for the Mediterranean by Roger Crowley; Galleons and Galleys by John F. Guilmartin; White Gold by Giles Milton; and The Renaissance at War by Thomas Arnold.
For travellers, there is a superb replica of Don John’s La Real in the Maritime Museum, Barcelona. Cyprus remains as fascinating an island as ever, though sadly divided since the 1974 Turkish invasion. History is still very much alive here. Nicosia is a lively, bustling cosmopolis, whole stretches of its mighty walls still standing, while Famagusta (now in Turkish-occupied territory) is a haunting ghost city of ruined but beautiful Gothic castles, churches and cathedrals. Its massive walls and bastions have survived rather better, however, and remain breathtaking. For armchair travellers, a DVD called The Stones of Famagusta is highly recommended.
As for Lepanto – site of that epic sea battle whose destructiveness would not be equalled, as Roger Crowley points out, until the Battle of Loos in 1915 – a UNESCO survey in 1980 found that the sea level has risen by 3.5 feet in the last four centuries, and the coastline altered considerably. There has been very little submarine excavation, but a magnetometer sweep showed up a lot of iron, as well as numerous ‘non-ferrous clumps’: the remains of galleys, lying at a depth of only 450 feet, and the bones of so many men, both Muslim and Christian, indistinguishable now in the depths of the silent sea.
Author of the bestselling Attila trilogy, William Napier was born in 1965 and was educated in Cheltenham, Oxford and London. He lives in Wiltshire and travels widely.
By William Napier
Julia
Attila
Attila: The Gathering of the Storm
Attila: The Judgement
Clas
h of Empires: The Great Siege
The Last Crusaders: Blood Red Sea (originally published as Clash of Empires: The Red Sea)
Copyright
An Orion ebook
First published in Great Britain in 2012 by Orion as Clash of Empires: The Red Sea
This ebook published in 2013 by Orion Books
Copyright © William Napier 2012
The right of Willam Napier to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.
All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-1-4091-4763-3
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The Last Crusaders: Blood Red Sea Page 38