Simon Scarrow - Sword and Scimitar

‘She is what I came here for.’

‘And she will still be here after tonight. Our chance to get the document will not. Sir, be strong. Fail me here and now and thousands may die in England.’

Thomas felt tom between his conscience and his heart. ‘I do not know what is in that document you seek but I know that I must speak to Maria.’

‘And you will. I swear that I will do all that I can to make it so,’ Richard said earnestly. ‘Now come, we should leave, at once.’ Thomas was still staring across the square. The man raised his head and the light of the nearby torch revealed his features clearly. Sir Oliver Stokely. He bent his head to whisper something to Maria and she smiled briefly, as if to humour him.

The raw emotion that burned in Thomas’s breast twisted violently like a blade and after an instant of confusion, a torrent of thought, of possibilities, coursed through his fevered mind. Recent exchanges and events fell into place and the hope of a moment before crumbled before a tide of anger and a bitter sense of betrayal. ‘Sir Thomas. Come. Before the moment is lost.’

He allowed himself to be steered out of the archway and down the darkened, empty street, and a moment later Maria, Stokely, the friar and his rapt audience were lost from sight. As their footsteps echoed lightly off the walls of the buildings lining the street, Robert of Eboli’s voice came after them.

‘All must ask for forgiveness, or perish in the fires of hell . . .’

CHAPTER THIRTY

They made their way through silent darkened streets where only cats prowled now, no longer keeping a wary eye out for the dogs that used to challenge them. It would be the turn of the cats in due course, Thomas reflected, if the siege endured and food supplies began to be severely rationed. As they neared the channel that separated Birgu from the fort, the ground began to rise. This was the poorest quarter of the town where the fishermen lived in two-storey hovels, a living space above with a room beneath to dry and store their nets, and where fish were salted for winter. Ahead, the narrow street gave out onto a levelled area of gravel where the men of the garrison drilled. Beyond was the drawbridge that led into the fort. There was only one guard visible at the entrance to the fort, clutching a pike in one hand, his soft cap dipped towards his chin with weariness. There were a handful of others in the towers of the fort that overlooked the harbour on three sides.

‘Time to prepare,’ Richard said softly as they crouched beside the last of the fishermen’s houses. They removed their boots and pulled the hoods of their cloaks up. Richard reached into the haversack he had been wearing beneath and took out two bleached lengths of rope which they tied about their middles in the manner of friars. Then he hefted the leather cosh he had carefully packed into the bottom of his baggage before leaving England. He slipped the loop over his wrist and gave it an experimental swing to feel its weight and recall the feel of the weapon. He glanced at Thomas. ‘Ready?’

‘As ready as I can be for such business.’

Richard flashed a grin in the gloom. ‘This is the business I am trained for. Trust me and follow my instructions and you will be fine.’

They stood up and with Richard in the lead began to cross the level ground. Thomas was uncomfortable with this reversal of positions but knew that he must trust Richard. He was no longer playing the squire and had reverted to being one of Walsingham’s agents, skilled in the dark arts of subterfuge and stealth. The sound of the cannonade was much louder away from the town and the flames spurting from the batteries on the high ground above St Elmo lit up the crest of the ridge brilliantly as each round was fired. As Thomas stepped on to the weathered timbers of the drawbridge he was aware of the dark void on either side. Glancing down he saw the deck of the Turkish galleon that had been captured the year' before and had done much to provoke the Sultan’s decision to finally obliterate the Order of St John.

The two men had almost reached the end of the drawbridge before the guard roused from where he had been leaning against the wall beside the gate.

‘Who goes there?’ he demanded, lowering the point of his pike a fraction and grasping the shaft firmly in both hands.

‘Friar Gubert and Friar Henri, from the cathedral,’ Thomas called back, as calmly as he could.

‘What is your business? You should be at the sermon.’

‘We’ve come from there,’ Thomas continued as they approached the man. ‘With orders from the Grand Master. He is to entertain Robert of Eboli afterwards and sent us to tell his steward to prepare a meal.’

‘His steward is at the sermon,’ the guard replied. ‘I saw him leave myself.’

‘Are you certain, my son?’ Thomas stepped closer, and then suddenly shot his arms out and grabbed the wrists of the astonished guard. An instant later Richard stepped round the man and swung his cosh in a savage arc towards the back of his skull. It connected with a solid thud before the man could cry out. He went limp and Thomas took up his weight and then eased him on to the ground, just inside the gate where he would be least visible.

‘No, not there.’ Richard lifted the guard under the shoulders and dragged him towards the drawbridge.

‘What are you doing?’ Thomas whispered.

‘He might recognise us.’

‘Wait.’ Thomas stepped between Richard and the drawbridge. ‘It’s dark, and we’re wearing hoods.’

‘He heard your voice.’

‘Then that’s a risk I am willing to take. Leave him,’ Thomas said firmly.

Richard was still for a moment. ‘What if he comes round? Or he’s discovered?’

Thomas knew that Richard’s caution was sound, from a cold- hearted point of view, but he was not prepared to see the man killed. ‘Leave him, and let’s get on with it.’

‘You’re being foolish,’ Richard growled. ‘You’ll get us killed.’

‘Not if we move fast. Now leave him be.’

‘Damn you!’ Richard let the guard drop then, before Thomas could intervene, viciously hit him again with his cosh. ‘There, just to make sure.’

Without waiting for Thomas to respond Richard turned and padded through the arch of the gatehouse. Thomas breathed in deeply to calm his anger and followed. On the far side of the arch they entered a narrow passage overlooked by murder holes, then passed under the iron points of a portcullis before the passage turned at right angles towards another portcullis and then opened out on to the fort’s small courtyard.

All was still and quiet; the enemy guns across the harbour were slightly muffled by the mass of the walls rising up towards the stars overhead. They waited a moment, hearts beating swiftly as their senses strained to detect any sign of movement. Then, satisfied that they had not been noticed, the two men crept round the edge of the courtyard towards the entrance to the storerooms and dungeons cut into the rock beneath St Angelo. Pausing on the threshold, they looked down the staircase and saw that the main guardroom was dimly lit by a handful of candles. There was no sound from below. They descended warily until they stood on the flagstone floor and looked around. The musty air was noticeably cooler and the sweat on Thomas’s forehead felt chilly. There were two large tables with benches on either side. A few bare wooden platters remained, together with some brass cups decorated with Islamic verses, part of the loot the Order had taken over the decades following their arrival in Malta. Three corridors led off the guardroom.

‘Which way?’ whispered Thomas.

Thomas recalled the last time he had stood in the same spot, twenty years before, when he had overseen the soldiers tasked with carrying a chest of silver coins from the hold of La Valette’s galley to the security of the dungeons. Then there had only been one corridor opening off the guardroom.