The Great Siege

2

By candelight that very evening, a much smaller meeting took place. Around a marble-topped table in an upper room, the map of Ptolemy again before them, just three men sat in counsel. Suleiman on a raised chair, to his left Mustafa Pasha, and to his right, Piyale, admiral of the grand fleet. Where Mustafa was a cunning Anatolian peasant risen to the heights by ruthlessness and ability, the aristocratic Piyale, little more than half Mustafa’s age, smooth and charming, had been raised in the Imperial Palace itself. He also made the cunning move of marrying Genhir, one of the Sultan’s granddaughters.

Mustafa was speaking, sharing his limitless knowledge of the White Sea.

‘It will be a distant campaign. The island is almost a thousand miles away’ — he traced a bony finger over the blue-tinted sea of the map — ‘and has no resources. Not a timber, not a stick of firewood. We must take everything.

‘Aside from the harbour, dominated by the Castle of the Knights, San Angelo, Malta is no more than a bare sunburnt rock, some ten miles across. A wind-scoured mountaintop between Europe and Africa, its roots on the bed of the White Sea. A merciless desert of thorn scrub, a few carob trees, no rivers. Other inlets on the east side, a small harbour to the south, shallow bays to the north, but to the west, towering, impassable cliffs. A handful of wretched villages, and an ancient city in the heart of it. Note well this city’s name: Mdina.’

‘The Arabic for city,’ murmured Piyale.

‘For three hundred years,’ nodded Suleiman, ‘this island was under Islamic rule. And as Islamic law teaches, a land that has once been under Islam, is always under Islam.’

He waved his hand for Mustafa to continue.

‘Rainwater is collected in cisterns. Now it will be raining, but by March the rain will stop, and not fall again till autumn. The island lies further to the south than even Algiers or Tunis. In summer the sun can kill a man in armour.’

‘We know the number of knights?’ asked Piyale.

Suleiman knew everything, from the name of the French king’s new mistress to the private finances of the Pope.

‘There are some four hundred knights now stationed at Malta,’ he said. ‘As many again might answer the call from Italy, Spain, France and Germany. The Hospitallers still have commanderies and estates across Europe. But many of those “knights” are farmers in all but name. We will face eight hundred knights at most.’

‘And our Army of Malta will number forty thousand,’ said Mustafa.

Sultan, general and admiral contemplated these figures with satisfaction.

Mustafa resumed. ‘The inhabitants other than the knights are a decrepit and ancient Maltese nobility in Mdina, and an ignorant village peasantry, devoted to Christian idols. Raids by the North African corsairs have only made them more ardent in their un-belief.

‘A harsh and worthless land, then, but for those dogs of St John who must be destroyed, and the great harbour, which must be taken. It will be our base for the southern conquest of Europe. The war requires planning and supplies, yet its course will be simple. First the harbour will be captured, then the knights destroyed, and the population slaughtered, enslaved or exiled. Slaughter is satisfying, but slavery enriching.’

Suleiman almost smiled. A typical maxim. ‘We should seek to rupture the island’s water cisterns,’ he said.

‘Majesty.’ Mustafa nodded. ‘Cannon will be needed for this, and to reduce fortifications. Dragut’s knowledge of the island would also be useful.’

Suleiman looked up.

‘Dragut?’

Mustafa smiled. ‘Dragut. The very sound of his name is a weapon of terror in Malta.’