Blood Red Sea

4

There were thunderstorms, precipitous mountain paths made of nothing but sloping scree above thousand-foot canyons, and a ransacked monastery inhabited by just one old priest. He had nothing to give them, and they nothing to give him, yet he laid his hand on his heart as if to say thank you to them. He never spoke a word, sitting among the smoking ruins.

Smith said, ‘So the Turks have passed this way.’

Then they ascended a last slope on to a saddle of the mountains, with higher peaks rising to left and to right of them. And ahead, out on that burning plain below them, they could just make out a walled city, almost obscured by the great ochre cloud that hung over it.

‘A sandstorm,’ said Mazzinghi, trying to sound wiser than his years. ‘It’s early in the year for it.’

The air shuddered with a hollow distant boom.

‘That’s no sandstorm,’ said Abdul softly.

‘No,’ said Smith. ‘That’s the Turkish bombardment. And that dust cloud there was once Nicosia’s walls.’

Mazzinghi blanched visibly, and Nicholas shivered with a mixture of dread and excitement. But the dread was strong. Dread that he could not take it all again, after those four terrible months of siege on Malta. Dread that he would dishonour himself, crack and run in the hell and din of battle.

He caught Hodge’s eye. What were they doing here, after all?

Hodge read him instantly. ‘We don’t have to be here,’ he said quietly. ‘If we can’t return to England, we could still find somewhere more peaceful than this.’

‘But it’ll be something to tell your grandchildren. How you fought in the Cyprus wars.’

‘They’ll never believe it. They’ll just have me medicined and put in Bedlam.’

‘We’re already in Bedlam!’ cried Nicholas, laughing that wild, sudden laugh when the fit was on him and a silver light shone in his eyes.

He knew why he was here. For the memory of his father. For dreams of a pure cause in an impure world. For days of hardship and grandeur, and pity for those who lived in lesser days.

The older knights were studying the plain before them gravely, as if it were a military map. Nicosia was in a terrible position, on flat low land surrounded by hills.

Giustiniani said, ‘That great engineer Savoragno did his damnedest, pleading with the Venetian senate for more work to be done on the defences, but those wise elders did nothing. He had only enough time and money to reduce the old nine-mile circuit to three, add some ramparts, and eleven decent enough bastions. And that was all.’

‘Now Venice will pay for its parsimony,’ said Stanley.

‘Not if we can help it,’ said Giustiniani. Yet at that moment another great bombardment juddered through the air, mocking his words. Turkish cannon big enough for a man to crawl inside, belching flame and black powder smoke and iron balls of two hundred pounds or more.

Another plume of ochre dust rose slowly into the still-hot air.

Smith brandished his sword. ‘Nicosia, endure! We are coming!’

They descended out of the mountains for a long night and more cautiously the next day, keeping to the edge of woods or ravines thick with undergrowth. Creeping like animals. But Turkish patrols could be anywhere. Indeed, a warier commander than Lala Mustafa would have stationed lookout troops on the heights of the Troödos, but there was no sign of any. An indication of confidence. He commanded an army of tens of thousands, and a fleet that already owned every port on the island except Famagusta. Why should he worry?

And he was right. No Venetian force had come against him, no Holy League. Just a reckless, ludicrous band of seven knights and adventurers. And they had got through so far as much because of Lala’s negligence as their own skill.

Then they were down through the last foothills, past deserted farmsteads and villages, and on to the plain. Nicosia was a few miles off, and the rows upon rows of Turkish tents much nearer.

They dropped down behind some rocks. There was no wind, it was midday. The dusty ground at their feet was soon spotted with their sweat. They might as well have rested in a bread oven.

‘So,’ said Nicholas, ‘how do we break into Nicosia?’

‘Break in?’ said Stanley, a mocking light in his eye. ‘Ah yes. We crawl in through a secret tunnel, do we not, unknown to the Turks? Through an ancient water culvert, perhaps, or even a cavern piled high with Orient treasure?’

Nicholas looked sour.

‘I have been thinking,’ said Abdul.

‘So have we,’ said Smith sharply.

‘Yes, but if you will permit me. As a shifty and unchristened Moor, my mind is doubtless more subtle and devious than yours.’

Giustiniani smiled. ‘Let him speak.’

Abdul said, ‘We need to act the part of those whom the Turks would not kill, but would actively want to enter the city — and whom the Venetians would receive in peace, not shoot dead from the walls as we approach. Now hear my plan.’

A few minutes later, Smith was arguing furiously with Giustiniani. ‘They will take our weapons! Even this jezail, made of the very finest Indian wootz steel, the best rifled musket perhaps in all of-’

The older knight said, ‘Brother John, we have argued enough. I am in command here, and I say we may trust this Moor, at least so far, and I like his plan as the best — or the least foolish — that I have heard. Now be silent and obey.’

Smith dropped his head, teeth grating.

‘Oh, and one more thing. That banner of St John you are carrying. It will have to go.’

Smith looked up again, his eyes blazing. But Giustiniani’s grizzled features were set hard, and he was indeed in command. Smith slowly reached into his knapsack and drew out the furled banner. For a man of his temper, obedience was always far harder than poverty or chastity. He walked slowly away and dug a hole in the shadow of a wall.

They walked in single file across the plain. Giustiniani went first. Smith carried a white sheet knotted to a stave. The noise of the Turkish bombardment falling on the wretched, beleaguered city ahead never stopped. It filled them with foreboding.

So intent were the Turks on their prize, so negligent of the most basic guard duties, that the seven were in among the conical tents before they were challenged.

A single Turkish infantryman turned and stared at them, stony faced, disbelieving. Then he raised his musket, which was unloaded, and called, ‘Halt!’

His finger twitched on the trigger. Then two more infantrymen ran up, and some pikemen, pike-heads lowered at the crazed intruders.

‘Where is your commander?’ asked Giustiniani with such quiet authority that one of the infantrymen immediately ran off.

‘Put your hands on your heads!’ said the first infantryman.

They did so.

Another was loading his musket, ramming down the ball. He raised the muzzle again until it was just a few inches from Smith’s head.

The sweat trickled down.

A burly Turk with a broad gold belt around his middle and a thick black beard appeared before them.

‘Who the hell are you? Who is the Moor? Is he a Christian?’

Giustiniani still spoke quietly, in fluent Turkish.

‘We are come from Venice to order Governor Dandolo to surrender.’

‘How did you come here?’

‘Across the mountains. The Greeks betrayed us, we were set upon in the night and robbed of even our mules. Yet we would not fail in our mission. The moment we awoke and drew our swords, they fled.’

The Ottoman commander approved of this portrait of the accursed and cowardly Greeks. They would rob their own grandmothers. And the surrender of Nicosia would save them a heap of trouble. He eyed them from under bushy eyebrows. ‘You go well armed for mere ambassadors.’

Giustiniani said, ‘It is hard to borrow a sword on a battlefield.’

There was a light in the commander’s eyes. ‘You know this Turkish proverb?’

Giustiniani gave a little bow.

The commander scowled again. ‘Perhaps you are spies? I will send to the Pasha.’

He ordered his men to march them under close guard to the ground before his tent and sit them in the dust, hands still on their heads.

They sat, eyes blinded by the hot sun. Their swords still at their sides, Smith’s jezail across his back.

‘Now comes the difficult part,’ whispered Stanley. ‘Lala Mustafa is a savage in a silk robe.’

It was a long, long time before the commander returned. No one offered them water.

He stood before them, two Janizaries at either side. Towering men, fair skinned, extravagantly moustachioed. Slavs more than Turks.

‘The Pasha is pleased to learn that Venice has come to its senses,’ he said. ‘You will pass on into Nicosia unmolested, and we expect a written surrender from Dandolo by nightfall. You will leave your arms behind.’

‘That we cannot do,’ said Giustiniani.

The commander’s midnight brows contracted again. ‘You are in no position to refuse.’

‘A word, sire,’ said Stanley.

The commander grunted.

Stanley took a couple of steps closer to him and spoke sotto voce. He stepped back.

The commander scrutinized this broad-shouldered, powerfully built Christian, with his ruddy and sunburned cheeks, tousled fair hair, and laughing blue eyes, taller even than his two Janizaries here. Yes, the women would go for this one. Was he truly only an ambassador?

He smiled. ‘This is very funny.’ Then he laughed abruptly. ‘Very funny indeed! Let me send to the Pasha again.’

They sat for another hour. Even during a siege, Ottoman ritual and etiquette remained famously leisurely.

‘The devil knows how they conquered half the world,’ muttered Smith.

The commander returned once more, and this time he ordered them to stand and pass on into his spacious tent.

The sides were folded up to catch any breeze, and after the oven of the sun-baked plain outside, it felt refreshingly cool. To their astonishment, wordlessly, they were brought sherbet in silver goblets. Iced sherbet. In May. The ice was brought down in straw-packed panniers from the heights of Mount Olympos. By June it would all be melted. But for now. .

Nicholas could have laughed at the dreamlike unreality of it all. He reclined on a large satin cushion and raised his goblet to Hodge.

‘Enjoy it while you can.’

‘Aye, we’ll be in Nicosia soon, and no iced sherbet there, I wager. We’ll be glad to drink mule piss.’

When they had finished, they filed from the tent and were given ponies to ride. The commander had one last word with Stanley. He said, ‘The Pasha was amused by your tale. He says he hopes it was good sport! You may keep your weapons.’

Under escort of a dozen Janizaries, they went on their way.

‘What the devil did you tell him back there?’ demanded Smith. ‘You crafty devilish schemer and liar, more snake than that Moor there.’

‘Please do not derogate me,’ said Abdul. ‘I am far more of a liar and schemer than this noble knight.’

Stanley rode on, his silence infuriating.

‘Ned Stanley, you swine, tell or be damned.’

‘Aye,’ said Giustiniani, ‘that’s an order. I had no idea of any more tales.’

Stanley said, ‘I simply told him that we had to stay armed, because we couldn’t wholly trust Dandolo’s conduct towards us. The reason?’ He smoothed his handsome fair beard. ‘I said that Governor Dandolo had once caught me in flagrante with his own wife.’

All looked admiring except Smith, who looked disgusted.

‘This both amused our enemy,’ Stanley went on, ‘pleased them to think that Governor Dandolo was but a ridiculous cuckold, and made them still more friendly towards us, the Venetian party come to have Nicosia surrender, and save the Turks a deal more trouble and gunpowder. You see, Fra John, what a little quick wit can do? Instead of mere blockhead muscle and bluster?’

‘You devil,’ muttered Smith. ‘You born devil. I swear all this time in the East is turning you into a damned lying, snake-tongued Oriental.’

‘I do not think,’ said Abdul politely, ‘that Orientals have the monopoly on lying, sir knight. Was not Adam, the father of all mankind, less than honest in Eden?’

‘Eden was in the Orient too,’ said Smith, and thumped his heels so hard into the flanks of his mount that the poor beast sounded like a kettledrum.