William Napier - Blood Red Sea

‘Where else had we to go?’ said Hodge. ‘And as the city took shape we were proud of it. Maybe it will stand as our finest work.’

De Andrada nodded. ‘Valletta is a wonder.’

‘But at last our hearts sickened for home,’ said Nicholas, ‘as men’s do. And though we were still penniless vagabonds, and had come to love our new island home of Malta very much — yet it was not truly our home. Not our native land. So finally we said sad farewells to our friends there, and sailed for England. But luck was a little against us, and our voyage home was interrupted — by corsairs.’

‘And they had other plans for us,’ said Hodge.

‘Yet for two years we survived, by God’s grace alone. On their stinking galleys, in their jails, or trying to flee. Hiding, afraid-’

Gil de Andrada said, ‘No need to hide more. You are with the knights again now.’

A thought struck him. ‘Smith and Stanley. Our comrades-in-arms at Elmo, and at-’

At last some happier news. Gil de Andrada smiled broadly. ‘Fra Eduardo Stanley and Fra Gianni Smith live and breathe and quarrel and fight still like true brothers. They may have a few grey hairs now, and move a little slower — but they remain among the most ferocious of the Knights. And the keenest for this last great sea battle to begin.’

Nicholas looked questioning.

‘Later. But as for England — my friends, my heart is heavy beyond telling.’ De Andrada took a deep breath. ‘Only last year, the Holy Father in Rome, Pope Pius V, issued a bull declaring your Queen Elizabeth excommunicate.’

The words sank slowly in. Excommunicate. Denied membership of the true Church, and eternal salvation. Pronounced a heretic, and so a false claimant to the throne of England. Now it was the duty of every Catholic prince in Europe to bring her down.

And Nicholas and Hodge were Catholics — and therefore traitors. They could never go home.

The silence was bitterly painful to all there. Fra Bernardo and Gil de Andrada could have wept for sorrow. These two were like Odysseus the wanderer, forever kept from his home in Ithaca by the malice of the gods.

At last Nicholas reached out his hand and laid it on the shoulder of his friend and comrade Hodge. Exiles and eternal wanderers together.

Hodge’s shoulders began to shake.

‘Bring them wine,’ rapped Gil de Andrada.

They drank only a little before they felt they could sleep again, heavy with weariness and sorrow.

‘There is more to discuss, but enough for now,’ said Gil de Andrada. ‘What is past is past. What is yet to come is in the hands of God. All things rest in God.’

Hodge and Nicholas lay down in the gently rocking cabin. Perhaps each time they slept would be less nightmare-ridden than the last. Perhaps their minds would heal eventually, along with their bodies.

‘When your skin can bear them,’ said De Andrada in the doorway, ‘there are clothes in that chest. And there is also this trinket that came off your neck.’

He was holding up the diamond necklace. Nicholas had quite forgotten it, a worthless thing compared to life itself.

‘I am no great judge of stones,’ said De Andrada. ‘You’ll need an Antwerp Jew for that. But I would hazard a guess this necklace is worth more than a peso or two.’ He tossed it over with a smile, and then a leather belt. ‘The belt has a hidden pouch within it, like a snakeskin. Hide the thing well in there. Perhaps you might even live long enough to change it into gold one day.’

They had fine sailing westwards to Cadiz, with the shores of Africa a few leagues off to port all the way. At any time another corsair galley might have been spotted, slipping out of some narrow sandy lagoon past the date palms where it had its lair. But they felt little apprehension. No corsair galley would dare to attack a ship flying the standard of the Knights of Malta. Even an entire squadron of them would hesitate. Corsairs were cowards, preying upon the weak and defenceless. And the knights were most certainly not defenceless.

Nicholas took only one look down below, where the captured corsairs were now chained to the benches in their turn, straining under the lash to speed the sails. His eye roved blankly over them as he squatted at the top of the steps, staring down, hearing them groan, his stomach turning at the familiar stench. Other than that, he felt nothing at all. Christ, he wondered, has my heart turned to stone? Suffering turned few men into saints. Most men it simply made hard and unfeeling.

He and Hodge sat out on deck in the shade of the sails and breathed in the fresh salt wind and felt a little stronger each day. They passed the time telling their rapt shipmates tales of Malta. The younger knights had missed out on the Great Siege, to their bitter chagrin, and wanted to hear every moment of the story. Nicholas told them as much as he could bear, and Hodge too was a fine raconteur, plain and clear sighted and with the exact memory for telling detail of the true countryman, having passed his Shropshire boyhood noting the changing colour of the haws each passing month, or telling the print of a dog otter from a bitch in the riverside mud. .

He also had his forthright opinions on foreigners, not a whit abashed that, apart from himself and Master Nicholas, everyone on this ship was a foreigner.

‘The Grand Master, this Valette,’ he declared, ‘knew how to give orders, and wasn’t a bad fellow for a Frenchman.’

‘What do you mean by that, friend?’ asked the young Chevalier de Rochefort.

Nicholas smiled and looked away.

Hodge said, ‘Only that your Frenchman, with only a few exceptions, is a deceitful simpering cotquean with not enough blood in him to fill a chicken, and a great friend of the Turk to boot.’

De Rochefort, of impeccably noble ancestry, French to his fingertips and still only a hot-headed nineteen, looked as if he might go below for his sword. But Gil de Andrada near by, enjoying Hodge’s account enormously, called out in stentorian tones, ‘Respect to our heroes of Malta and guests aboard, De Rochefort, sir! Let him speak! If you dislike his harsh opinions about the conduct of France in this great war — and his opinions are by no means unusual — then get below and wad your ears with gun cotton! Speak on, Master Hodge. Fine entertainment.’

‘He has opinions on other foreigners too,’ said Nicholas.

‘I’m heartily grateful you plucked us from the water back there,’ said Hodge. ‘We’d have been dead in a day. But this is what I learned at Malta, among other things. Your Spaniard is full of hot wind and boasting, but he can fight hardily enough if he’s in a corner. They gave a good enough account of themselves at Elmo, those Spanish pikemen, I allow that: almost as good as Englishmen at times. Portuguesers, well, they’re just like Spaniards, only shorter. Your Italian, he’ll fight best if there’s a pretty woman watching to admire, it, or some such reward at the end of it. Otherwise he’s another one full of hot wind, and treacherous and incestuous to boot. We met some Greeks, and they’re a snivelling wretched race. I don’t see how they could ever have been heroes like in the tales of Homer. Frenchmen you know about. Germans are fat, greasy barbarians, as are the Dutch. Others — well, they’re worse. But I don’t care if I am aboard a ship full of foreigners, I won’t fear to say it — there’s not a dozen foreigners of any nation who would be worth a single Englishman.’

At that, Hodge folded his arms and glared around to meet any challenge.

De Andrada led the applause. ‘You, Master Hodge, are truly one of these dauntless Englishmen we’ve heard about, with hearts made of oak.’

Hodge nodded acceptance.

‘Just promise me — you will never work for your country’s diplomatic service.’