Simon Scarrow - Sword and Scimitar

‘At the moment your greater need is men who can set an example, sir,’ Thomas replied. ‘There are other good men in the Order whose advice you can rely on. In the past they may have been rivals, but there is no past now. Every man here has come to accept that we have one common purpose. Our places at your side will be filled by others.’

La Valette smiled sadly. ‘It is true ... I only wish that it had not taken this turn of events for our comrades to realise it. A pity that imminent extinction is the only thing that brings us wholly together in common cause.’

‘Even then . . .’ Colonel Mas cocked an eyebrow. ‘I am sorry, I have been a soldier too long. It tends to harden a man’s cynicism.’ La Valette stared at him and then smiled, and broke into a laugh. Thomas joined him, and even the scarred and battle-hardened Mas grinned. For a moment the grim burden of the last month lifted and there was a shared lightness of feeling that might have been close to friendship at a different time and place.

The boom of the Turkish cannon across the harbour broke the spell. La Valette rose from his chair and came round the table and embraced Colonel Mas.

‘I thank you, Colonel. You are a good soldier. A good man. I am sorry that I recruited you to our cause. You deserve a better end than this.’

‘There is no need to apologise. I am a mercenary, sir. I go where the fighting is, and in truth, my end is long overdue. Besides, not many of us find such an honourable exit. It’s usually sickness or syphilis that does for us in the end. This is better.’ He narrowed his eyes. ‘Just be sure my contract is paid. I have a wife and children in Barcelona.’

‘I will see to it. You have my word.’

‘Thank you, sir.’ Mas stood to attention, bowed his head in a final salute, and turned and strode from the room, leaving Thomas alone with the Grand Master. There was a moment of awkward silence as the older man regarded the English knight. A pained fondness filled his eyes.

‘I count it a great pity to have lost your services for so many years, Thomas. I knew you had potential from the very first day you joined my galley. I had plans for you even then. I have given my life to the Order. I have denied myself a wife, a family.’ His gaze dropped and his voice faltered. ‘When you left, it felt as if I had lost a son . . . When you returned, it warmed my heart, for the first time in a long while. And now?’ He looked at Thomas again. ‘It is not too late to change your mind. I said that I need men like you at my side. I meant it.’

‘Sir, my path is set before me. I will follow it to the end . . . But it does my heart good to know that I have meant something to you.’ He took the hand that La Valette offered him and clasped it firmly for a moment and felt the tremor in the other man’s touch. Then Thomas withdrew his hand. ‘Goodbye, sir. Like the colonel,

I too have affairs that I must setde before I leave.’

I le stood outside the gate and stared at the brass knocker before him. He had been standing there for a little while in the thin light of dawn. A patrol of soldiers had passed him, with a curious glance, before continuing on their way, not willing to question a knight of the Order. Thomas breathed deeply, resolved in what he would do blit unsure of the words he would use, and fearful of the manner in which he might be received. He had reached the house in the hour before dawn and remained out of sight inside a narrow alley between the houses standing opposite. Stokely had left the house at sunrise, wrapped in a cloak, and strode up the street in the direction of St Angelo. Once he was out of sight, Thomas emerged and slowly stepped across the street towards the courtyard wall and the stout wooden door framed by a limestone lintel.

He grasped the knocker and rapped it twice.

There was a short delay before he heard a door opening, muttering, and the patter of footsteps on cobbles and then the sound of the bolt being drawn back. The door opened just wide enough for a face to look out and Thomas recognised the maid who had accompanied Maria at St Elmo.

‘The master isn’t here,’ she said.

‘I know. I have come to see Lady Maria.’

The maid looked surprised. Then she shook her head. ‘No one comes to see my lady.’

‘I have. Please tell her that Sir Thomas Barrett is at her gate. Say that he begs a moment of her time and nothing more.’

The maid cocked an eyebrow and closed the door. The bolt slid back and her footsteps retreated towards the house. Despite his desire to control his feelings, Thomas felt his heartbeat quicken and a clamminess in the palms of his hands as he waited. When the bolt was drawn back again he was startled; he had not heard any footfall. The door opened and there was Maria. She wore an indigo gown and her long hair was tied back. Bare feet showed beneath the hem of the gown, an inch from the ground. She stared at him for a moment, without expression, and he feared that she might simply turn him away. But then the door opened wider and she stepped to one side.

‘Please, enter.’

Thomas crossed the threshold and Maria closed the door behind him. He looked round briefly and saw that the courtyard was no more than a small square in front of the house. But it was filled with potted plants and hanging baskets where flowers of every shape and colour waited to gleam in the full light of the coming day. To one side was a long, low seat, shaded by a trellis upon which bougainvillea had been trained. He looked at Maria again and saw a hint of a smile at the corners of her mouth before she turned to the maid. ‘Lucia, leave us. Sir Oliver’s boots need polishing. See to it.’

The maid bowed her head and primly hurried back up the small flight of steps into the house. Maria turned to Thomas and gestured towards the seat. They sat down at either end, leaving a gap of perhaps a yard of rich velvet cushion between them.

‘Why did you not wait for me in the chapel at St Elmo?’ Thomas asked gently.

She stared at him for a moment before replying hesitantly, ‘I had time to think, and I became afraid.’

‘Afraid? Of me?’

She shook her head. ‘Of course not.’

‘Then who? Sir Oliver?’

‘No.’ She tore her gaze away from him and looked at her hands, neatly folded in her lap. ‘I was afraid of what I might do. That I might behave in a way I would regret.’

‘What do you mean, Maria?’

She looked up again. ‘You are not a fool, Thomas. You know precisely what I mean. And I know that you still feel for me as you did all those years ago. I could see it in your eyes, in your expression.’

Thomas nodded. ‘And you? Do you feel the same?’

‘Why should I after all that you caused to happen to me?’ Her voice was suddenly cold and hard-edged. ‘Before I met you I was destined to marry into one of the great houses of Sardinia. I would have had a palace and wanted for nothing. But then you stole my heart. I was publicly shamed and cast aside by my own family. I lost them, you and my child, and would have spent the rest of my days confined in a nunnery, or worse, had it not been for Oliver coming to my rescue. I owe that man a great debt. And so do you.’

‘Why?’

‘For the fact that I am here before you, and that you do not have more to trouble your conscience than you do.’

Her words struck deep into his heart and he glanced down at his hands lying limply in his lap. There was a silence between them that stretched out unbearably in the close warmth of the Maltese night before Thomas spoke again. ‘I would give anything to have my time again and put right the grievous wrong I have done you.’

‘But we cannot have our time again. What’s done is done.’

He looked up quickly. ‘Then what would you have me do to make amends?’