Blood Red Sea

12

As they neared the city Nicholas saw how magnificently built it was, three landward walls and a fourth seaward, the waves indeed lapping at its base as Stanley had said. Walls second only to those of Jerusalem or Consantinople, so it was said. But the walls of Nicosia, too, had been impressive. What gave him most heart, after the wretched past few weeks, was the sense of crisp order and efficiency. It had him sitting up straighter on his nodding horse, weary and famished as he was.

A postern gate was opened and they rode in and dismounted. They led their horses through a maze of hot dusty streets, gloomy arched passageways and steeply-roofed towers. Everything was an orderly bustle, soldiers everywhere, men and women with barrows, a little boy and girl, brother and sister, carrying a single cannonball between them in a sling of cloth. Two burly bearded priests, perspiring heavily in their black robes, silver crosses on their chests, carrying rocks on their shoulders to the walls.

The sense of steely determination was palpable. Their hearts swelled within them. A city of men and women and children prepared to stand and fight against a huge invading army. Nicholas had half forgotten the pity and the pathos of it. Malta all over again. And then, far more than Malta, Famagusta was a city of such ghostly, breathtaking beauty. A city of three hundred and sixty-five churches, it was said, one for every day of the year, and each more lovely than the last. Neat Orthodox chapels with rounded walls and golden domes, lancet windows and Gothic arches in the French style, St George of the Latins, St George of the Greeks, churches of the Armenians, Nestorians, Syrian Jacobites, Copts, Franciscans. . and everywhere, priests in black and friars in brown, working among the people, sweating and dusty as any.

‘Like Outremer before the fall. .’ murmured Stanley.

All of it surrounded by two miles of formidable walls fifty feet high, twenty feet thick and now massively bulked by the ceaseless labours of the citizens. Five main gates, fifteen bastions, a deep dry ditch. The great Lion of Venice, carved in stone, high over the sea gate, glaring out unblinking over the burning Mediterranean. The citadel and the Great Hall of the Lusignans, the palace of the Governor ornamented with granite columns taken from nearby ancient Salamis, palm trees rustling in the breeze, and gorgeous flags and standards high on the battlements. The streets a swarming entrepôt of Levantine exiles, Phoenician merchants from Beirut and Tyre, Jews, Syrians, Greeks, Italians, Alexandrians. Crusader chapels, fountains and courtyards, back alleys with cool, shadowy taverns exuding the aroma of sweet Cyprus wine. And in the heart of the city, the magnificent St Nicholas cathedral, modelled on the cathedral of Rheims itself. Like a Gothic fantasy stranded on the shores of a desert island. .

It was like being back in the times of Saladin and Richard Coeur-de-lion. Jerusalem the Golden was near now, where Christ himself had walked. Just across that sparkling sea.

‘Farthing for your thoughts,’ said Stanley, but Nicholas just smiled.

He was thinking, Here would be a fair place to fight and die, if I must.

‘I’ll tell you my thoughts,’ said Smith.

Stanley sighed. ‘If you must. But I’m not paying for them.’

‘I’m thinking, Famagusta is the toughest nut in the eastern Mediterranean. She will stand for months. And if Don John and the Holy League attacked the Ottoman fleet at sea, once siege is engaged here, we could destroy the power of the Turk utterly.’

‘Hope and pray, Fra John,’ said Stanley. ‘Hope and pray.’

Grooms took their shabby, tired horses, and they were led into a courtyard of the Governor’s palace. No waiting this time. The moment the Governor heard there were fugitives from Nicosia, he came out to them.

A tall man of some sixty years of age, scion of one of Venice’s noblest families. Black doublet and hose, long white hair elegantly combed back over the ears, a grave expression, and searching eyes. Green eyes, like his sons.

‘God save you. You come with news of Nicosia?’

‘All bad news,’ said Giustiniani. ‘The city is fallen with great loss of life, great brutality. We escaped only by the grace of God and trickery. Now the siege army of Lala Mustafa is marching this way. He will expect your instant surrender, like Kyrenia and Lemessos.’

Governor Bragadino grimaced. ‘Numbers? Our scouts estimated some fifty thousand.’

‘More. Seventy thousand, and with the usual complement of guns. But it was the mines that finished Nicosia.’

‘As usual. And a relief fleet from Venice was seen near Crete, but has now turned back. You heard this too?’

‘Aye. We heard it.’

Bragadino’s eyes glittered, impossible to read. ‘Come. You look half starved. Eat and drink.’

Giustiniani introduced them all as they walked inside.

‘Knights of St John are always welcome at a siege,’ said Bragadino. ‘Although I see you have not a weapon nor a scrap of armour among you. And Commander Piero del Monte might have sent more of a relief force than four.’

‘With respect, sire, we hardly made it across Cyprus as it was. And Piero del Monte is holding the knights in readiness for the Holy League, and the final confrontation. He believes it will be a sea battle. A clash of two galley fleets, such as the world has never seen.’

Bragadino nodded thoughtfully. ‘Well, you are welcome now, especially after Malta. And as for the two travelling Englishmen. .’

‘They too fought at Malta.’

Bragadino eyed Nicholas and Hodge with a new curiosity. ‘Did they indeed? Hm.’

He ordered platefuls of food for them all, jugs of cool water fresh drawn from the well, sweet Cyprus wine. ‘After this, you can sleep.’

Nicholas felt tired even as he ate.

‘After this, we would be glad of a tour of the walls,’ said Smith. Bragadino called for a map, and showed them what his latest intelligence told him.

‘Famagusta will stand as long as it can. But look. It is an island in a Mohammedan sea. The Ottomans are already far to the west. On the Adriatic they hold the coastal forts of Dulcigno, Antivari and Budva. You know that Kara Hodja, the Black Priest, even briefly blockaded the basin of St Mark itself? A disgrace.

‘That most cunning Grand Vizier, Mehmet Sokollu, orders raids on Crete, to keep Venice distracted there, but still afraid to commit to total war. Spain is similarly distracted by the internal revolt of the Moriscos, again manipulated from Constantinople, we are sure. All of Christendom is in turmoil, the Ottomans outfox us at every turn, both on the battlefield and in intelligence and diplomacy. They sow discord, keeping us at each other’s throats. They may be arming the Protestants in the Netherlands. And with Cyprus taken, we have heard one rumour that they plan the most breathtaking attack of all. On Rome.’

They stared. ‘Rome?’ said Nicholas softly.

Bragadino said, ‘Centuries ago, the ninth century after Christ, Muslim hordes also took Rome. They held the Pope himself to ransom. Why should they not do so again? Imagine what would happen. All of Protestant Europe would rejoice at the fall of the Great Babel of Rome, would it not? Rush to congratulate the Turks? Or would England, say,’ he fixed Nicholas, ‘finally realise that Europe must stand together, or it is lost?’

Nicholas stammered, lost for words.

‘Meanwhile, we hold them here in Cyprus.’

‘This last corner of Cyprus, you mean,’ said Stanley.

‘Just so. And we pray that the Holy League realises the extent of the peril, and comes together at last.’

A messenger whispered in the Governor’s ear. He nodded curtly, looked around at his new guests unseeing, and then whispered a reply. The messenger departed, with Bragadino following close on his heels.

He reappeared a minute later. ‘Another tasty dish has just arrived,’ he said drily.

Giustiniani mopped his mouth with a napkin. ‘Sire?’

‘A head on a plate. Can you guess whose?’

Stanley said, ‘God save us all, the fool has followed us here. Or the least-thinking part of him anyway.’

‘We saw him beheaded before our own eyes,’ said Smith. ‘It was a very clean cut. I take it you mean the topmost part of Governor Dandolo?’

‘The same,’ said Bragadino. ‘With a note demanding our immediate surrender. He comes with as much style as he ever mustered, his head on a silver platter. A look of surprise set cold on his face.’

‘Garnished with pigeon livers and white lilies?’ said Mazzinghi.

Bragadino gave a very quick, faint smile, and then said, ‘In truth, it was the folly of Venice to appoint him Governor on this front line, right under the nose of the Turk.’

‘We are told the Governor of Famagusta has more belly.’

Again the faint smile.

Giustiniani asked, ‘How will you reply, sire?’

‘Will? Nay, the time is short and I have replied already. The reply is plain. With your own blood you will capture this city.’

There was a moment of silence. Nicholas’s heart thumped. There was to be no relief and no surrender. He had always known, but now it was certain. Such a reply was a blast of the bugle.

It was coming. And soon.

He took another gulp of wine. Then another. Heaviness and dread and that dangerous excitement in the blood.

Sir John Smith, Knight Grand Cross and lover of battle, meanwhile, leaned back in his chair, stretched luxuriously and grinned through his thick black beard. ‘Lala Mustafa Pasha will not like that.’

‘No,’ said Bragadino. ‘He will not like it one bit. But life does not always go according to plan, even for the greatest.’

Stanley grinned too. This was a man to lead them.

Bragadino stood, popped a morsel of bread in his mouth, and said, ‘Come and see the walls. Before you fall asleep.’

They toured the broad tops of the walls, marvelling at their massive breadth and strength, and the busy efficiency of work going on.

Bragadino indicated the moat below. ‘Plentifully spiked with small mines, tripwires, grenades buried just beneath the sand. More primitive are the planks studded with poison nails, and the baskets of vipers we have in store.’

‘Vipers?’ said Hodge. ‘What d’you want with vipers, sir?’

Bragadino looked rueful. ‘Something for the boys to do. I sent them all out to catch vipers, and gave them a copper per head. When it comes to the attack, we tip them out on the Turks’ heads. What say you, master Englishman?’

‘I say, vipers aren’t great distinguishers between Mohammedan and Christian, and tend to bite any man that passes. And I should know,’ he added feelingly.

Bragadino smiled. ‘You may be right. We shall see.’

‘I see dust,’ said Nicholas softly.

All turned. Smith knelt and laid his hand on the stones. Was it imagination, or could he feel a deep rumble, as from the underworld itself? He stood again. But Ingoldsby was right, eyes like a hawk. The horizon was losing the definition of the hard Mediterranean light. A gigantic dust cloud was arising.

‘Here they come,’ said Mazzinghi.