Simon Scarrow - Sword and Scimitar

Beside him Richard turned to him with a puzzled look. ‘What is it, Sir Thomas?’

Thomas opened his mouth to reply but his jaw just hung slackly. Then the woman raised her face, framed by dark, unadorned tresses of hair, to look over the fort as she approached, and Thomas shuddered in a turmoil of denial and hope.

‘It’s her . . . Sweet Jesus, it’s her . . . Maria.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

‘Maria?’ Richard started. ‘Impossible. She’s dead. Stokely said so. How can she be alive?’

‘That’s her,’ Thomas replied simply. ‘As sure as I live.’

‘Where?’

Thomas raised his hand and pointed. ‘The woman in the green.’ The finery of her clothes marked her out from the procession of frightened islanders and Richard picked her out at once. She was still some fifty yards away. ‘You must be mistaken.’

Thomas did not reply at once, fearing that Richard was right, and that he had allowed his deepest desire to see her again trick him. He stared hard, and his certainty that this was Maria grew with every step she made towards the gate. There was only one way to tell for certain and before he knew what he was doing, Thomas turned away from the parapet and strode across to the stairs leading down into the passage behind the gate.

‘Sir Thomas!’ Richard called after him. ‘Wait.’

He ignored the squire and quickened his pace, his boots echoing off the stone walls of the staircase. A hand grasped his shoulder. It was Richard.

Thomas shook him off and continued down the steps.

‘What are you going to do?’ Richard called after him but made no attempt to follow.

Thomas did not know, only that he had to be certain. Already the doubt was creeping back in and he dreaded the deadening blow to his heart should he be wrong. He emerged into the gloomy passage at the bottom of the stairs and saw that it was filled with people streaming past from the main gate. The woman and her retinue could not yet have reached the gate, Thomas reasoned. He stepped to one side of the passage and waited, his heart beating swiftly and a light, almost giddy feeling filling his head.

Then the man carrying the staff came out of the shadow of the passage. A moment later there was the woman and now he could see the fine patterns of green lace sewn on to her cloak. Her hair hung down over her shoulders, showing faint streaks of grey. She paused, not more than five paces from him, and looked around the interior of the fort. Her eyes, dark and piercing, passed over Thomas and the parties of soldiers carrying off the last of the supplies that had been heaped in the courtyard that morning. Lastly she looked with pity on the frightened huddles of civilians squatting on the flagstones, some openly crying with despair. The small group of servants who had been following her caught up and were pressed on by those behind, and their mistress stepped forward into the courtyard.

The image of Maria that Thomas had carried in his mind for over twenty years was not that of this woman, yet there were enough similarities to feed his burning desire for it to be her. He felt the urge to call out her name, but he could not bring himself to and thereby shatter the possibility that this was her. The woman took several more paces, each one slower than the last, until she stopped and stood quite still. Despite the people filing past either side of her, including those of her household, a sense of stillness bound her to Thomas and he was blind to the swirl of detail that surrounded them both, and deaf to the voices of the soldiers and the sobs of the civilians. Slowly she turned round and then, as if not quite daring to meet his gaze, her eyes tracked across the flagstones that separated them and up his body towards his face. Her lips moved slightly as she stared at Thomas.

All doubt was banished now and Thomas slowly paced towards her and stopped at arm’s length, not knowing what to say. What words could express twenty years of longing that had warred with the need to accept that the past could never be revisited?

‘Thomas . . .’ she said softly.

He half smiled, then caught himself and nodded. ‘Yes.’ Then he smiled again. ‘Yes . . . Maria.’

Her expression was filled with shock and bewilderment. ‘How can it be? How is it possible?’

He wanted to hold her, felt that he should, yet it was so long since they had last touched that it seemed he had forgotten how to and did not dare do the wrong thing and risk a rebuff. But he must say something.

‘I have been recalled. La Valette sent for me. I came back, from England. I had hoped, prayed, to see you again.’

At once there was a frightened look in her eyes, as if she had suddenly discovered herself to be standing on the edge of a precipice. For an instant Thomas dreaded that she was going to recoil from him, turn away and flee. But the expression swiftly faded from her face and she smiled uncertainly.

‘Now you see me.’ She held out her hands.

Thomas glanced at the fingers, still slender as he remembered them but now there were small creases and a slight waxiness to the skin that told of her age. Nonetheless, he took a half pace towards her and took her hands in his, and felt a tremor run through him at the cool softness of her flesh.

‘I was told you had died,’ he said without thought.

‘Dead?’ She laughed. ‘No. Quite alive. For the present. And you? I have often wondered what became of you once you left. I imagined that you had returned to that estate you spoke of. Found yourself a wife perhaps, and had a family.’ She spoke with forced cheerfulness.

‘No wife and no family. But I have my estate at least.’

The stilted conversation was like a dam holding back a deluge of questions, declarations and things that demanded to be said.

‘I thought of you often,’ said Thomas. ‘Every day.’

She smiled, then the smile faded and she released her light hold oil his fingers and let her hands fall back to her sides and shook her head. ‘I tried to forget you. I tried . . .’

‘Sir Thomas!’

The shout instantly drew him back from the seething turmoil of emotions and he turned to see La Cerda hurrying across the courtyard towards them. A servant in a dark tunic with the white Star of the Order on his breast followed at his heels. Thomas was torn between his need to hold on to this fragile link with Maria and his duty. He glanced at her pleadingly.

‘Stay there, just a moment, I beg you.’

Maria nodded and Thomas turned to La Cerda. ‘What is it?’

‘A message from Birgu.’ La Cerda indicated the servant. ‘Speak.’

‘Yes, sir.’ The servant drew a breath as he tried to stand erect and deliver his instructions. ‘The Grand Master sends his compliments and requests that you return to St Angelo at once, sir.’

‘At once?’ Thomas frowned. He glanced anxiously at Maria. ‘But I am not finished here. There is still work to be done.’

‘Sir, the Grand Master demands your presence,’ the servant insisted.

La Cerda could not help a thin smile. ‘You have your orders, Englishman. I think I can take charge of my own command again. I thank you for your assistance. Now, you’d better go.’

Thomas gritted his teeth and then nodded. ‘A moment.’

He turned away and stepped towards Maria. ‘You heard. I have to go. But I must see you again as soon as possible. We need to talk.’

‘Talk?’

‘Of course, there is so much I want to say, so much I want to hear. Say you will speak to me.’

‘Very well.’

Thomas glanced round the courtyard and saw the door to the small chapel. ‘Take shelter in there. I will come and find you as soon as I can. I swear it.’

He took her hand and pressed it tenderly, feeling the tremor in her flesh and the flush of heat in his breast.