Blood Red Sea

5

The long ride through the vast Ottoman encampment showed them nothing they didn’t know already. The organization of the Turks was impeccable, the ranks and files of tents arrayed in gigantic squares across the plain, with broad avenues in between. And the resources of Lala Mustafa were limitless. His cannons nestled behind strongly built earthen ramparts, the gunners hidden from enemy snipers behind wicker breastworks. Unlike on Malta, there was plenty of timber on Cyprus, and plenty of earth too, compared to that barren rock. They saw cannonballs stacked in pyramids as high as a man, powder barrels by the hundred under canvas awnings, and sensed a besieging army indeed in the tens of thousands. Every nation under the Ottoman sun was here, and more besides: Bokharans, Armenians, Syrians, Egyptian Mamelukes. . Stanley swore later that he heard one powder-blackened gunnery team speaking Dutch.

As they passed out in front of the Turkish line to cross the bare no man’s land beneath the walls of Nicosia, approaching the southern gate, a strict order ran along the line and the guns fell silent. Their ears rang in the silence. They had bought the city a brief respite, perhaps a quarter of an hour.

‘Probably the biggest contribution we’ll make,’ said Smith sourly.

Coming closer, they could see how damaged the walls were already.

‘Sweet saviour,’ said Stanley.

The huge angled bastion to the right of the facing wall was already half pounded into a slope of rubble. Another couple of days, and Lala Mustafa would be sending in his Janizaries to finish it off.

If they thought Ottoman etiquette was slow, etiquette in Nicosia was sorely wanting. The gatekeepers kept them and their Janizary guard waiting for ten minutes before any answer came. The main gateways themselves were so deeply bulked they could not be opened, so a sally port would be unbarred, a low door in the wall just wide enough for one man to enter at a time, bent almost double. Meanwhile, on the walls, Venetian musketeers appeared and had them closely covered.

As he passed into the darkened archway, Nicholas saw a cannonball actually buried in the stonework beside him. He reached out and touched it. Still hot.

The sally port was heavily barred again behind them.

‘Who the hell are you?’ demanded a sergeant with a bloody bandage round his ear. The second time they had been asked that today.

Giustiniani ignored him and pointed back at the sally port. ‘It is not being used?’

The sergeant shrugged. ‘Not that I know of.’

‘Let me see the walls.’

‘Your weapons first.’

‘Damn it, you cur, we are Knights of St John. Out of the way.’

And the seven swept past the Venetian pikemen and their sergeant as if they were kings.

No, six. Nicholas stared around.

Abdul was gone.

Smith realized too and ground his teeth. ‘How could we lose him? Fools. He’ll be fighting with the Turks now.’

‘No.’ Nicholas shook his head. ‘He’s no fighter. He just wants to survive.’

Smith muttered another obscenity about Moors, and they hurried up the shallow stone steps to the bastion right of the main gate. The soldiers followed nonplussed.

Below they could see the Janizaries returning to the Ottoman lines at a fast trot with seven riderless ponies.

Stanley said, ‘We’d better get off the walls. The bombardment will start again soon.’

Sure enough, across the two hundred yards of no man’s land, they could already see gunnery teams cleaning and reloading the guns.

They reached the street below just as a huge cannonball struck somewhere not far ahead and brought down a last tottering wall. The narrow street filled with billowing dust. They crouched and spat, their eyes closed, and then out of the dust cloud ahead wandered an old woman carrying a kitten. The kitten was dead, she carried it by its swollen head.

‘That bad already?’ whispered Nicholas.

It was. The kitten was the old woman’s supper. And if she got home before someone robbed her of it at knifepoint, she would count herself lucky.

The sergeant said, ‘Each day the worst yet. Tomorrow we’ll be in hell.’

‘To the Governor’s palace. Urgently.’

Everything they saw as they hurried through the shattered streets of Nicosia made the sergeant’s words more real. Barely a building was untouched; the dust hung in funereal wreaths. There was a stench of sickness, of decay, perhaps even of the dreaded fevers that came with siege and bad water. But still worse was the sense of listless defeat. This was a city nearly finished in spirit, regardless of the state of the walls. They passed by a child’s body lying in the gutter, unburied, not even covered for decency, and at the end of the same street, four exhausted soldiers playing dice.

‘Why not dice over there!’ roared Smith at them with abrupt ferocity, indicating a crucified Christ in the wall of a church. ‘At the foot of the cross!’

The soldiers stared back at him, begrimed, exhausted, half starved, not understanding.

By the time they came to the Governor’s palace, Giustiniani had changed his plan. He would not be requesting an audience.

‘Where is he?’ he demanded.

They stormed into a wood-panelled chamber to find the Governor of Nicosia finishing a late lunch. He had just turned angrily on a fellow in a battered breastplate standing near, and hissed, ‘Knights of St John! It was the knights who began this whole accursed war!’

He saw them, mopped his mouth and stood.

Niccolo Dandolo, scion of one of the noblest Venetian families and direct descendant of old Doge Dandolo, was a lean man of middle years. His stockings betrayed calves that would win him no admiration from court ladies or courtesans, he wore his dull grey hair brushed forward low over his forehead in an unbecoming style, and his eyes were small and mistrustful.

Giustiniani spoke before he did, explaining who they were and why they had come in just two rapped-out sentences, a miracle of concision.

‘Knights of St John,’ said Dandolo. ‘You are welcome here.’ His tone managed to convey quite the opposite meaning. ‘And so Venice has sent no more aid, nor instructions to negotiate with the Turk?’

‘Neither.’

Dandolo looked bitter. ‘Well then. Every extra sword is welcome. My sergeant-at-arms here will show you to your positions.’

Giustiniani bowed.

And then, infuriated by this late lunch and this smooth false talk, the dicing soldiers and the dead child left uncovered in the street, and Nicosia slowly falling to the ground around them, Smith butted in, voice raised.

‘We come to give you our counsel, man! We who stood through the Siege of Malta for four long months, and made it one of the famous victories of Christendom. But this siege is a bloody shambles! Will you not listen to us?’

Giustiniani turned on him with a savage expression. ‘Brother!’

Dandolo mopped his mouth again, unnecessarily. His voice was cold. ‘Your passion is admirable, Brother. .’

‘Smith. John Smith, Knight Grand Cross.’

Somewhere not far off, another cannonball hurtled home. The coloured windowpanes rattled. Dandolo twitched.

‘Brother Smit. But your counsel is not required. Your aid is of course most welcome. And since I am Governor of this city, you are now under my command. To the bastion of Costanza with you now.’ He spoke to them as he would to schoolboys. ‘Off, off with you! We have other matters to attend to.’

Outside the palace, Giustiniani turned on Smith in a fury.

‘We are here for one reason and one reason only. To offer counsel and advice to that fool Dandolo. It is our only value here.’

‘And advice I offered!’

‘Not immediately, and clumsy as a bull at a cardinal’s dinner, you blubbering vainglorious idiot!’

Smith was open mouthed, but Stanley too looked angered with him.

‘I had it all planned,’ said Giustiniani. ‘After a day or two of, frankly, gross flattery and servility, we might just have begun to offer Dandolo the most tentative and subtle advice about how to rescue his wretched Nicosia from its doom. But you blunder in and offend him instantly. He will never listen to us now. We are wasted here.’ He walked on ahead, bristling.

‘We can still fight,’ said Smith stubbornly.

‘Yes, seven of us,’ snapped Stanley. ‘No, six, the Moor is gone. To fight this besieging army of tens of thousands. Who the devil are you, Achilles himself come back from Hades, or just John Smith? Now into his fifth decade, well paunched, out of breath, scarred like an old bear, but with only half as much wit in his skull!’

‘Brother, I-’

‘Out of my sight. You are a burden to me. To us all. You have made our entire journey, all our struggle, and our coming deaths, entirely without purpose.’

Sorrowfully John Smith turned away.

The elderly sergeant-at-arms wheezed up the stone steps to the west wall, where the bombardment was lightest. A long-serving soldier, never of the first rank, but faithful as an old hound, doing his service to the last in this city of the plain, surrounded by hills and guns and under sentence of death.

Around the walls, things were indeed, as Smith said, a bloody shambles. Men lay dead and dying, unattended. Walls were left unbulked, broken battlements unrepaired. A woman lay on her side, an apron to her mouth, choking. One of the disturbing, unreal sights you saw in the midst of battle.

Stanley knelt beside her and gave her a sip of water. Then he signalled to Mazzinghi, who helped her back down the steps. She never stopped trembling on his arm, seeming crazed in her wits. What had she been doing up on the walls anyway?

‘A whore,’ muttered the old sergeant. ‘They do it for a crust of bread now. And the soldiers still swive like beasts, not knowing if tomorrow they might be dead.’

‘What of the dying here, man?’ demanded Stanley. ‘Are there no medics?’

The sergeant shrugged. ‘The priests and the monks were serving as such but most have been killed, as has the Bishop of Paphos, with a breastplate on his chest and a sword in his hand. And all medicines are long gone.’

A stray musket ball kicked off the top of a nearby battlement, stone chips flying. They ducked lower.

It was hopeless. There was no La Valette in command here, only a few hundred Venetian and Spanish infantry, and worst of all, an uncertain cause to fight for.

‘We’re too late, aren’t we?’ said Nicholas quietly.

‘If I was Lala Mustafa,’ said Stanley, ‘I’d have sent my men in already.’

Giustiniani snapped, ‘Stamp on such thoughts, Brother! We are here to fight and win, to make Nicosia another Malta. Or at least to hold out until a Venetian relief force might be sent. Just another month or two. Look at the walls! It is still possible!’

The sergeant-at-arms creaked upright again and gave a salute. They glanced round.

There was a lean, dark-eyed man behind them with an intelligent light in his eye.

‘Captain,’ said the sergeant.

The newcomer nodded. ‘And you are the relief party?’

‘Such as we are,’ said Giustiniani. ‘We have known a siege or two. You command this bastion?’

‘I do. My name is Captain Paolo dal Guasto, Venetian infantry. The Greek levies are not to be trusted, and all our best commanders are dead. Our fighting Bishop of Paphos, Bollani, Thomas Visconti, Colonel Palazzo. The best always go first. The mediocre,’ he grimaced satirically, ‘stagger on a little longer.’

‘Show us the worst-hit bastion.’ They walked on round. ‘And tell us all you know of how things stand.’

And so Paolo dal Guasto told them. Of how Nicosia had had a defending force of several thousand to begin with, defending three miles of walls. But there were only a thousand arquebuses between them. Governor Dandolo had said they could trust to fixed defences rather than manpower or sortie.

‘Which you never can,’ said Stanley.

Dal Guasto did not comment. He said there were now barely three or four hundred fighting men left. Morale was so low, some had fled across the lines to join the Turks. The end must come soon. ‘Meanwhile,’ he said to Stanley, ‘that soldier lying there. He died well. Now I think his breastplate may fit you, sir.’

Stanley did the grim work of waving off the flies and stripping the dead man and Mazzinghi laced on his backplate. It was a fair fit. The rest began to look about them likewise.

‘The moat is dry,’ said Giustiniani. ‘Lala Mustafa diverted the river upstream?’

‘No need,’ said Dal Guasto. ‘The moat was dry when the Turks came in spring. Governor Dandolo had not thought to fill it. He said our bastions were mountains.’

‘And why was the invasion not resisted from the start? On the coast? It is always easier to keep men from landing when they are in the water.’

Dal Guasto’s words were studiedly neutral, giving nothing away. ‘It is not for me to explain. Governor Dandolo is our supreme commander.’ But his tone betrayed his quiet contempt. ‘The Turks landed unopposed at Lemessos Bay. Lemessos surrendered without a fight, like Kyrenia.’

Now they stood and looked across the half-ruined bastion of Costanza. Some mountain. Half the stonework was already in the dry moat below. It seemed as if there was nothing substantial between them and the entire Ottoman army. Why didn’t they just march in?

‘One village,’ said Dal Guasto, ‘Lefkara by name, actually rose in support of the Turks, sick of Venetian rule and heavy taxation. Besides, the Turks have cunningly offered all our Greek serfs their freedom if they join with them. Governor Dandolo ordered his militia to ride out and massacre all the inhabitants of Lefkara in punishment. Fortunately I myself was not under order.’

‘You jest.’

‘I have no sense of humour,’ said Dal Guasto.

Nicholas studied him sidelong. The narrow face, deep lined with tiredness. The high brow. No, Dal Guasto had a sense of humour. But Dandolo did not make him laugh.

‘Enough,’ said Giustiniani. ‘Is there any wine?’

‘Some dregs,’ said Dal Guasto. ‘You may not want a second cup after you’ve tasted it.’

They arranged themselves in a small chamber off Dal Guasto’s barracks in the heart of the city, laid out their blankets, inspected their weapons, their motley collection of armour. The sun was in the far west now, the Turkish bombardment dying off again. Perhaps they would attack tonight and finish it?

‘Perhaps,’ said Stanley. ‘Then at least we will die peacefully in our sleep.’

They ate from wooden trenchers with the soldiers, a grim stew of lentils and unnameable bones, perhaps mule, perhaps dog.

‘This,’ said Hodge, ‘has to be the worst supper I’ve ever tasted in my travels. And that’s saying something.’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Stanley. ‘It’ll get worse. It always does.’

And then there was a figure in the doorway. It was Smith.

‘Brothers, I have offended,’ he said abruptly.

Giustiniani stood and bid him welcome.

Smith said, not moving, ‘I have ever been an ill judge of men, and the fault was all mine today. Forgive me.’

Smith was not a man who found it easy to admit fault, least of all before an assembled company. It was an act of true humility.

Giustiniani’s heart was full. ‘Of course you are pardoned, Brother. I spoke with a bitter tongue. You only did according to your nature. Come and eat.’

‘Thank you, I have eaten.’ He bowed and went out.

After a moment, Stanley rose and went after him. Out on the walls, in the gold light of the setting sun, they would stand side by side, in utter silence, their old friendship healed. Brothers like no other.

Nicholas and Hodge came to join them.

‘Need some fresh air?’ said Stanley.

Nicholas nodded, looking a little green. ‘That supper.’

After a while Smith said, ‘You know, I have always struggled with the vow of obedience?’

‘I know it,’ said Stanley wearily.

Smith unslung his knapsack, knelt and unstrapped it. Then he stood and triumphantly shook out a faded banner. It was the scarlet standard of the Knights of St John, emblazoned with the white cross of Malta, which he had brought from De Andrada’s galley.

The one that Giustiniani had ordered him to leave behind. The one he had pretended to bury.

‘And what was it you called me?’ said Stanley. ‘A crafty devilish schemer?’

Smith gave a rare grin, a light in his black eyes that was positively boyish. He held his arms aloft and the banner hung down listlessly in the still evening air.

‘You’ll have to confess this to Giustiniani too.’

‘I will,’ said Smith. ‘Maybe tomorrow.’

And then a fortuitous gust blew along the walls, slight but just enough for the banner to open up and show itself. Along the wall, a couple of Venetian pikemen smiled.

‘We heard there was a party of knights among us!’ they called. ‘Now that banner gives good cheer!’

‘Venice has not always looked with favour on the knights,’ Smith called back, obstreperous as usual.

They were walking over, keeping an eye always on the Ottoman lines beyond in the gathering dusk. No torches, no linstocks. Pray it might be a quiet night.

‘Whatever our Fathers of the Republic may think,’ said one pikeman, ‘it does me good anyway. Here. Use this staff.’

In a minute they had the standard strung up high, the staff in an iron flag-loop behind a morion, and the light wind opened it up. A small thing, tiny compared to the great satin banners of the Ottomans, faded and frail compared to the magnificent sceptres with long white horsehair tassels, raised high on silver poles, standing amid the vast encampment of the besiegers. Yet the white eight-pointed cross on its scarlet background, a symbol feared and respected across the Mediterranean world, blazed out against the golden walls of Nicosia like a rose in bloom.

Nicholas looked out over the Turkish trenches, no more than two hundred yards off. And then he clearly saw a Janizary start up and stare, shielding his eyes against the sinking sun, regarding the dreaded red standard with steadfast eye. He nudged Stanley and they all watched. A few moments later, the Janizary leapt from the rear of the trench, seized a white horse by its bridle, vaulted on to its back and was away to give the unwelcome news to the Pasha.

Smith whooped and guffawed. He nearly capered.

‘Before heaven,’ said the Venetian pikeman, grinning broadly, ‘did you see that? Did you see the Turk run? Just the sight of it. Before heaven it does me good. Luigi, you saw that?’

His comrade was grinning too. ‘Couldn’t mistake it.’

‘How it’ll rattle ’em!’ bellowed Smith, his voice unnecessarily loud considering they were right next to him. ‘The sight of the old red standard will be about as welcome to them as an outbreak of galloping pox!’

Indeed, word was already spreading fast through the Turkish camp: the almost unbelievable news that, despite Nicosia being ringed around with Ottoman besiegers, it seemed Knights of St John, those devils and djinns, were now among the defenders. How many, no one knew. Some said it was a feint, a bluff, a mere piece of cloth. Others doubted. And among older soldiers, the terrible shadow of Malta rose in their minds.

Those Knights Hospitaller, those Knights of St John. .

They were the soldiers of Shaitan.

They were the mad dogs of Christendom.