Blood Red Sea

18

By nightfall the terms of surrender had been agreed. Bragadino decided that he had no choice, and they must take the risk that Lala Mustafa would keep his word, despite the death of his son.

‘The same self-delusion, the same appeasement,’ said Smith — though he did not blame Bragadino himself. ‘The Crescent has won again, advanced a little further across the world. We have done nothing to stop it, and it has all been in vain.’

Nicholas thought of the ordinary infantrymen, heroes all, and of stout Baglione, and of the little powder monkey, Andreas, buried in a nameless mass grave with a hundred others in the hurried twilight.

It could not all be in vain.

Worse than the despair of defeat was the terrible tension that held the city from sleep all night long. Would the sack come?

At one point they heard a huge roar from across the plain, and thought that the Bektasis were coming. Grown men and women whimpered and knelt, the most irreligious now prayed in the street, crossing themselves feverishly; some lost control altogether, and children looked on wide eyed as the adults around them went mad.

But still the sack did not come. The roar they heard was merely some celebration.

Instead the city was ringed around with a disciplined row of guard tents. The great chain was lifted and the harbour filled with Ottoman galleys. A red crescent flag flew from the towers of St Nicholas Cathedral.

Whether the last grain stores had been sabotaged from within, they never knew. The poorest had been eating asses and cats the last few days. Wine stores were so low, most drank water with vinegar.

‘And some say the whole operation to take Cyprus was because of wine,’ said Stanley. ‘There’s an irony.’

‘How so?’ said Nicholas.

‘Because Cyprus wine is famous, and Sultan Selim is a great lover of it. So, some say, that wise confidant and adviser of his, Joseph Nassi, encouraged the conquest of the island even more forcefully than the Grand Vizier, Mehmet Sokollu.’

‘Joseph Nassi? Who is he?’

‘A rich Jew,’ said Smith. ‘Maybe the richest in all the world. Close friend of the Ottoman court. You may even glimpse him soon.’ He spat into the fire. ‘He is to be the King of Cyprus.’

There was a figure standing at the edge of the firelight. Nicholas saw the long, thin face, lit by the orange glow. He beckoned him over. The man shook his head, so Nicholas went over to him.

‘If you do not mind,’ said Abdul softly, ‘I shall not join you. I do not think your knightly friends trust me stilll. I will go into the mountains, I travel faster alone. I have had enough of sieges for now. I have repaid my debt to you handsomely. I believe I saved your lives once, perhaps twice. May you prove lucky under,’ he coughed, ‘the new Ottoman rule. I have in my possession certain valuables,’ he patted the canvas bag over his shoulder, ‘which will stand me in good stead. Two months ago they were Nicosia’s. A month ago they were Sultan Selim’s, strictly speaking. Today they are Abdul of Tripoli’s. In another two or three weeks, if all goes well, they will be with a banker friend of mine in Aleppo. What a merry-go-round it is!’

‘Then?’

‘Then, I long to go on the haj to Mecca.’

Nicholas stared at him. ‘Are you sincere? I did not think you a pious Muslim.’

‘Not pious,’ said Abdul with his enigmatic smile, ‘nor entirely orthodox, no. But. . mysteries are many in the world that is. And I would like to see Mecca one time before I die.’

Nicholas nodded. ‘Well,’ he said at last, shaking his hand, ‘Allah go with you.’

‘And God with you,’ said Abdul. Then he gave a strangulated little laugh. ‘Ah, if only men of all creeds and nations could live together in such sweet peace and harmony as we,’ he laid his hand on his heart and fluttered his eyelashes like a dancing girl, ‘then how soon we would all die of boredom!’

And he turned and made for the darkness.

Life was strange. You could not account for it. You could only do what you thought right. A Moor could prove a friend, for a time, and in battle you found yourself killing a man without even judging him.

Abdul turned back one last time. ‘By the way, Master Nicholas of England, did you and your knights never think it strange that our paths should keep crossing? First we met in the prison of Pedro Deza, back in Cadiz, and at Nicosia, and then I appear again in Famagusta. Like your shadow.’

Nicholas looked puzzled. It seemed far fetched, certainly. He shrugged. ‘The Mediterranean is a small world, I am beginning to think.’

‘Think on that way!’ said Abdul. ‘Do not think suspicious thoughts, such as that I was always in the pay of the Great Sultan, and paid to track you across the sea. And to find out about you and your close comrades, those two wandering Knights of St John who seemed to know so much.’

‘You. .’ He was momentarily lost for words, head spinning. Then he said carefully, ‘If that were the case, what would you do now?’

‘Why, I would make for Aleppo via Constantinople and the Court of the Great Sultan, my beloved master. I always take roundabout routes, they can’t track you so well that way. I would report on all your travels, rich in detail and colour, and conclude with your heroic death at the siege of Famagusta. And then I would collect my handsome reward and go on my way. Whistling a little tune, perhaps.’

Nicholas shook his head wearily. ‘But I do not believe you have ever betrayed us.’

‘You can tell it from a man’s eyes,’ said Abdul, ‘his mouth, his expression, his hands. A hundred things. Liars are not so hard to identify, after all.’

‘Truly you are a man in a thousand.’

‘Do not insult me! Abdul of Tripoli is a man in a million, nay, entirely unique!’ Then he said more gently, ‘God watch over you anyway, Master Nicholas of England.’

‘And you, Abdul of Tripoli.’

Then he was gone.

Nicholas turned back and almost bumped into a figure just round the corner.

Smith.

‘You move quietly for a fellow of such bulk,’ he said.

Smith nodded after the departed Moor. ‘I tell you something even more amusing than the Moor there spying on us all this way, or pretending to. We knew it all along.’

This game of spy and counter-spy. It could drive a man mad.

‘Why did you let him?’

‘Perhaps,’ said Smith, ‘the Moor told us more than you realise.’

The next day the half-ruined city was taken over by an impressively orderly occupation, far different to Nicosia. Huge gangs of slaves worked to clear away the damage, and the defeated saw with a strange dismay that much of Famagusta, especially around the harbour, was barely touched. It would be rebuilt as magnificent as ever by winter, a prized new jewel in the Ottoman crown.

Sultan Selim had acquired a very fine harbour and city, along with the third-biggest island in the Mediterranean.

Bragadino and his immediate counsellors were invited to dine at the palace: until yesterday, Bragadino’s palace. He was now billeted with the others, on a hard horsehair pallet in a grubby airless room, while Joseph Nassi, the rich Jew, was already in occupation.

‘It is a trick,’ said Smith.

‘I do not think so,’ said Bragadino. ‘Joseph Nassi is a man quite independent of Lala Mustafa, who shows no sign of wanting even to enter the city of the Infidel.’

‘Let us go,’ said Giustiniani wearily, ‘and see what this triumphal Jew has to say to us.’

Nicholas found Hodge in the hospital, washing his arms clean.

He shook his head. ‘Not I. The fighting’s done but we’re as busy as ever here. You go to dine.’

Nicholas said hesitantly, ‘You are not angry?’

‘No. I’m just learnin’ fast, that’s all.’

Slaves had already scrubbed and cleaned the entire building, new tapestries were hung and carpets were laid, another column from Salamis was sent for by ox wagon to replace one that had been shattered by an unfortunate Ottoman cannonball. A galley came into the harbour with fresh furnishings, linens, silks, magnificent gilded lamps and lanterns. And Joseph Nassi’s beautiful wife, Dona Gracia, daughter of a fabulously wealthy Portuguese Jewish banking family.

The party of Christians were invited early to bathe themselves, and fresh robes were laid out for them on velvet-upholstered divans.

Nicholas chose a blue silk robe, belted with a gold sash, feeling sick. In the Franciscan hospital, men, women and children still lay dying of fever and gangrene. Hodge was up to his elbows in blood and filth.

Smith looked blackly rebellious, almost refusing to bathe.

‘Just co-operate,’ said Giustiniani. ‘That is an order, Fra John. We are Venetian counsellors. We are hear to listen and observe. Joseph Nassi is a man of high civilization, confidant of the Sultan, yet also personal friends with Prince William of Orange and the Emperor Maximilian, connections with the Duchy of Burgundy. He is even said to have masterminded the election of the King of Poland. Now suppress your mulish will for once. The time for fighting is over.’

It was not a grand hall, however, but a much smaller chamber where dinner was laid. A table, white linen, silver candlesticks, ivory-handled knives. Dishes of fruit, jugs of wine. Discreet servants, and still more discreet though well-armed guards at the door.

They were led to be seated. Just the five of them. There was no sign of the new King of Cyprus.

All so quiet and elegant. Their ears still ringing intermittently from the cannon fire of just two days ago. Beneath these fine silk robes, many a cut and burn.

‘I don’t like this,’ said Smith. He eyed the knife in front of him.

‘Mind your manners,’ said Stanley quietly. ‘No stabbing the host now.’

Then the doors were opened and in came a man and a woman. Nicholas, at least, felt more at ease, and took a quick, deep gulp of wine as he stood. You were less likely to be slaughtered at the table, he felt, if there was a lady present.

Joseph Nassi smiled at them, hands held wide. ‘Gentlemen, please, be seated.’

He sat at the head, his wife at the other end, Nicholas and Stanley either side of her. She was dark, hair threaded with silver, although no more than thirty-five, and immensely beautiful. Nassi himself was of medium height, wore a plain back robe, had dark curly hair and bushy eyebrows. He bristled with energy. Nicholas had been expecting something much smoother, plumper, more pompous; less disarmingly likeable.

The host clapped his hands and the servants bustled. He raised his goblet.

‘Gentlemen, and my beloved wife, the incomparable Dona Gracia: I give you Peace!’

They all drank. Smith concentrated hard on swallowing.

Then Nassi said something quite incomprehensible, adding afterwards, ‘As the old Venetian proverb has it.’

They smiled and nodded. Bragadino looked puzzled.

Fish was brought.

‘Caught this morning,’ said Nassi. ‘In the coastal waters of my new kingdom.’ His tone was light and dancing, teasing and testing, and he eyed them all one by one as he spoke, assessing them like an inquisitor. ‘An offensive idea to you, I am sure-’

Bragadino shrugged. ‘The verdict of Providence.’

Nassi smiled. ‘Then again, since Cyprus is now under my rule, from the moment Famagusta surrendered, there has been no further sacking. You may have noticed.’

So you could keep it all for yourself, thought Smith.

Nassi read his thoughts as if reading a book.

Stanley recalled that cunning Turkish interrogator at Nicosia, Ertugul Bey. Joseph Nassi could outwit an army of Ertugul Beys.

Nicholas nodded and his goblet was refilled by a silent servant. He glanced sidelong at Dona Gracia. There was a slight flush on her cheek, and her mouth was beautifully shaped. She really was very lovely. For a moment she reminded him of a more elevated, more graceful version of the Widow Evangelina.

‘So,’ said Joseph Nassi, ‘you will no doubt form a judgement of me. You are very well informed, you n. . You Venetians.’

Was he about to say knights? Did Nicholas just imagine it? He felt a cold thrill.

Did Nassi even want them to know he knew?

He played at life like it was a game of chess.

‘I was sorry to hear about the flood at Venice in this recent summer storm.’

Stanley tried not to tense, and spoke in his most perfect Venetian Italian. ‘Indeed, sire. Most regrettable.’

‘Was there much water damage?’

‘I believe some.’

Joseph Nassi smiled. ‘There was none. I know you four, you are Knights of St John.’

Forks and goblets stopped halfway to their mouths. Then Smith quickly laid down his fork and reached for the knife. Stanley slammed his hand down upon the back of Smith’s so that the goblets jumped. Dona Gracia gave a soft scream.

Joseph Nassi said with a sharp note of command, ‘Gentlemen, please.’ He turned in his chair and had quiet words with the steward. A moment later the doors were opened and the armed guards departed.

Smith relaxed slightly.

In came a musician.

‘Play outside, in the hall,’ ordered Nassi. ‘We do not wish to hear you, but we wish no one to hear us either.’

The musician, thin and pale as a weed starved of sunshine, bowed very low and sorrowfully, his lute held at arm’s length, and then retired. A few moments later, he and his three fellow musicians began a plangent madrigal outside the door.

Joseph Nassi smiled around. Smith laid his fork on his plate and his hands on the table. ‘Forgive my rashness,’ he blurted.

‘My husband will have his little jokes,’ said Dona Gracia, her voice soft and low. Smith looked at her, and under that thick black beard, Nicholas could have sworn he saw a blush.

It was a strangely intimate dinner, just Nassi and Dona Gracia, the four knights and Nicholas himself. This would be the only time in his life, he thought, when he would have dinner with a king! A Jewish king too, like Solomon and David. Life was a dream.

They were eating with the enemy, whom they would have fought to the death two days ago. Yet the food was delicious — lamb followed the fish — and Nicholas drank more of the fine wine and felt light headed and ludicrously merry, for all the bloodshed of the past weeks, the dead bodies, the stench of the hospitals. He knew what it was. It was sweet, strong Cyprus wine, and the animal joy of the survivor, stronger than any guilt.

A steward refilled his goblet again. He turned to Dona Gracia.

‘More wine for you?’ He hesitated and then risked, ‘Your Majesty?’

She laughed. ‘How ridiculous,’ she murmured. ‘But you know, the terrible thing is, I think I could grow to like it.’ She sipped her wine. ‘Your Majesty indeed. You are a charmer, young knight.’

‘I’m not a knight,’ he said.

‘No? Then what?’

‘A gentleman adventurer.’

‘Indeed?’ She arched her beautiful eyebrows and said no more.

‘No,’ Joseph Nassi was saying, leaning forward on the table, ‘there was no summer flood at Venice, and that was not an old Venetian proverb I gave you. In fact it was Aramaic, the language of Jesus. But we hear there was nearly a massacre of sorts at Nicosia. There were four Knights of St John, two Italians and two Englishmen if we hear correctly, who stood in the way of the late Governor Dandolo driving my people out of the town. To be mown down by the Turkish guns between the lines.’

They said nothing. He seemed to know everything. Nicholas even wondered, a little blurrily, whether Nassi had contact with Abdul of Tripoli. Who could say?

Nassi said, ‘The Knights of St John have not always been so kind to the Jews. Nor were the Templars of old.’

‘It is true,’ said Giustiniani. ‘All men are fallen.’

‘Among my people we use the phrase “The Righteous among the Nations” for those Gentiles who risk their lives to save a Jew.’

‘You do those four fellows too much honour,’ said Smith. ‘It was a street skirmish in Nicosia, a small, ugly thing. Little more than schoolyard bullying.’

‘Nevertheless,’ said Nassi, ‘my people are so accustomed to being bullied, it always comes as a pleasant surprise to have a Gentile stand alongside us.’ He held out his hands. ‘Come, let us not quarrel. The story of the Jews and the Christians is not always a happy one, but there are beacons of light. This deed of yours — this street skirmish, you call it — I call it a righteous deed in the sight of God. Tell me your names.’

Still they hesitated, though all there knew they could judge this extraordinary Jew already. He was both cunning and open hearted, a bewitching mix of lightning intelligence, manipulation, charm and sincerity. Joseph Nassi, who sat at the right hand of Selim the Sot himself.

‘Fra Pietro,’ said Giustiniani finally.

And then they all gave their first names, until Nicholas, who firmly announced, ‘Master Nicholas Ingoldsby of the Country of Shropshire in England, and rightful heir to the estate of my father, Sir John Ingoldsby, knight.’

Smith glared at him, Stanley sighed, Dona Gracia touched her napkin to her mouth to hide her smile, and her husband regarded him with amusement and curiosity.

‘Very well,’ he said. ‘One day you will have your reward, in this world or the next.’

Nicholas made himself slow down on the wine and eat more. It was a delightful dinner, now he felt sure they were not to be stabbed or poisoned.

Joseph Nassi was as entertaining a host as they had ever known. He risked drily disparaging remarks about Lala Mustafa himself — ‘sitting in lonely triumph in his tent,’ he said, ‘having his feet rubbed down.’

And he amused them with a lengthy tale about how he cornered the beeswax market. Dona Garcia leaned towards Nicholas and murmured, ‘Do say if my husband is boring you.’

‘On the contrary,’ he said, ‘I have always had an intense fascination with beeswax.’

Her eyes danced. This young Englishman!

‘We had two bad summers,’ Nassi was explaining, ‘and the bees did not fly. I asked about the orchards of Bursa, and the bees weren’t flying there either. Truly, a schoolboy could have worked it out. I could have bought up fruit as well, but it does not store so well. And so I, Joseph Nassi, sinister and mercenary Jew as I am, bought up as much beeswax on the open market as I could, at the going rate, cheating nobody. The following year there was inevitably a shortage, the price doubled, tripled, and I made a fair but handsome profit. At which many indignant voices were raised, saying, See the Jew, how he stuffs his pockets!’

He sighed. ‘In truth, money does not interest me. I am only interested in what it can buy. Safety for myself, my family, my kin. For the wandering Jews have no abiding city. Only our Bible: our portable Jerusalem. We have no armies, no war galleys, no land of our own. We must live by our wits, as God intended.’

‘Since we are being so open with each other,’ said Giustiniani, ‘tell us, sire. What will come next? Do we need to fear? How can there be peace?’

Nassi spoke carefully. ‘Of course I cannot make you privy to Ottoman state secrets. But there are those, will always be those, who wish for an Islamic Caliphate to stretch from eastern horizon to west. I do not think the Sultan Selim himself wishes this. I do not wish this.’ He smiled faintly. ‘What room would that leave for my own people?’

Giustiniani said, ‘We hear you have a bold plan to repopulate Palestine with Jews?’

‘How well informed you are, for humble travellers!’ said Dona Gracia.

‘It is true,’ said Nassi. ‘The Sultan has gifted me the Lordship of Tiberias, including the village of Saged, ancient centre for the study of the Kabbalah. A subject close to my heart. We have rebuilt Tiberias’ walls, irrigated, planted mulberry groves to develop a silk industry — though so far, I confess, few Jews have been prepared to quit Christendom, with all its difficulties, for a new life in a hard land. But it may come yet.

‘Meanwhile, Christendom herself needs to bring about some final confrontation with the Ottoman Empire, on equal terms.’ He popped a grape into his mouth. ‘Some accommodation, some balance, must be found in the Mediterranean. A balance of power. Then we can all have peace.’

When they left, Joseph Nassi returned their weapons to them, and assured them they would not be harmed within the city.

Dona Gracia held her hand out to be kissed. It was sweetly scented, orange oil perhaps, and as he kissed, Nicholas glanced up and his eyes met hers, dark and dancing.

I am drunk, he thought, as he weaved after his comrades down the street. What a fool.

‘You know,’ Stanley was saying, ‘though he is an operator straight out of Machiavelli’s rule-book, and close adviser to Selim, and clearly the brains behind this entire Cyprus operation, which for the Turks, after all, has gone so smoothly — yet I cannot help but like this fellow.’

‘For a Jew,’ said Smith, ‘perhaps he is not all bad.’

‘His heart is not in Cyprus,’ said Giustiniani, ‘but Palestine. Even Jerusalem itself.’

‘Also sacred to the Mohammedans,’ said Mazzinghi.

‘And to me,’ said Smith.