Shadow of God (73 page)

Ibrahim translated this into Turkish, and Suleiman bowed his head in acknowledgment. Philippe continued. “Please allow me to present you with these poor gifts, as a token of our respect for you.” He signaled to one of the knights, who brought out a carved wooden box. The knight knelt before the Sultan and opened the box. It was lined with crimson velvet, and contained four golden goblets. Suleiman reached into the box and removed one of them.
He held up and turned the goblet in his hands. Then he showed it to Ibrahim, and with a smile of appreciation said, “Your generosity is most greatly appreciated.”

When Suleiman had replaced the goblet and the box was removed, Philippe said, “Preparations have been made for our departure. I and my knights will leave the island on the morning of January 1st. A few citizens and all the mercenaries will depart with us. We agree to all your terms, and I am assured that there will be no resistance to your occupation of the city after the Order has left. You have shown great mercy, Majesty, which is more the mark of a great man than that of conquest.”

After an hour more of pleasantries and protocol, Suleiman and Ibrahim took their leave. When the Sultan rose, Philippe bowed. He knelt and took Suleiman’s hand, touching his head to the sleeve of the Sultan’s caftan, and kissing his hand.

Suleiman and Ibrahim walked down the great staircase to the courtyard and remounted their waiting horses. The procession continued back to the Gate of St. John, with Tadini and de Bidoux, once again, in command. The knights saluted the Sultan at the gate, forming two columns as Suleiman and Ibrahim rode back to the Turkish lines.

Rhodes
Christmas Day to New Year’s Day, 1523

As the knights prepared for their departure, the Turkish lines were withdrawn to a distance of a mile from the walls of the city. The Sultan’s camps were restored to their usual clean, disciplined conditions. The soldiers rested, as the doctors continued to work on the backlog of wounded. The weather was still cold and wet, but the morale of Suleiman’s army improved each day.

A corps of four hundred Janissaries was sent into the city under the leadership of Achmed Agha. The knights watched from their positions as the Janissaries entered the gates. They moved into the city as a unit, forming a block of silent armed warriors. Their uniforms were freshly washed, and their swords polished. Their helmets carried the traditional herons’ feathers, and their blue vests glowed in the morning light. Not a word was spoken nor any orders given by the officers. The Sultan’s elite corps moved to their positions and established their guard posts.

Bali Agha commanded the remaining Janissaries outside the walls. The young troops were deployed at strategic outposts throughout the inner city, but remained away from the Street of the Knights and the Palace of the Grand Master. Suleiman had given strict orders that none of the knights or the citizens were to be molested or insulted in any way. The usual wartime practice of free looting by the troops was forbidden.

But, the heady taste of victory was too much to bear for some of the troops. Oddly, it fell upon the youngest and freshest Janissaries to disobey their commanders. A group of Janissaries newly arrived from Syria had missed virtually all the fighting. They were disappointed that they had not been given their chance for glory against the invidious knights. They imagined themselves slashing through the vanguard, their scimitars dripping with Infidel blood. They could never have imagined the impenetrable wall of fierce warriors that had cut their comrades down in wave after wave for the past one hundred forty-five days. Only the ditches brimming with fallen corpses reminded them of the realities of the war.

When they entered the city, the wildest of the new arrivals went directly to the churches and began desecrating anything that spoke of Christianity. They destroyed icons and defaced images of Christ and the Virgin Mary. Townspeople were knocked aside when they tried to protect their holy places, and several were severely wounded with slashes from the as-yet-unbloodied scimitars. Several women were raped and beaten, and one old man was thrown from a wall into the rubble of the ditches. Private homes were entered, and food taken from the owners. Some of the people were stripped of their clothes, and made to walk naked in the streets in the freezing dampness.

A deputation of Christian citizens appeared before Achmed Agha and complained bitterly of the destruction and terror that the Janissaries were spreading through their town. They told the Agha that they had the protection of the Sultan, Suleiman. Could they not trust the word of the Emperor of the Ottomans?

Achmed was furious. He immediately sent a detail of officers and his more seasoned Janissaries to stop the looting and the violence. The guilty soldiers were brought before him and severely reprimanded. When confronted with their crimes, they tried to explain that they had acted as good Muslims. “Did not the Holy
Qur’an
forbid the presence of graven human images inside a mosque? Were not the churches soon to be converted to mosques? Therefore, was it not our duty to erase the images of Christ and any others that we might find?”

The young troops were ordered to return stolen goods, and then sent from the city back to their own lines to wait out the rest of the occupation.

Suleiman stood alone outside his pavilion on the slopes of Mount Saint Stephen, watching the knights prepare for their departure from Rhodes. It looked to him like a swarm of ants dismantling their nest.

A messenger appeared quietly at his side, bringing written news of the violence caused by the newly arrived Janissaries. Suleiman was furious. He said, “I have pledged my word and my honor, and woe be he who stains it.” He quickly wrote out an order and handed it to the messenger, who was to deliver it to Achmed Agha. The penalty for any further disobedience would be death.

Suleiman stared into the waning light. As darkness settled over the island, the few remaining fires in the city grew brighter. In the flickering shadows, knights and citizens hurried to collect their belongings and gather their families together for their flight. In the darkness, the lights in the Palace of the Grand Master dominated the northwestern part of the city. Figures passed back and forth in front of the lighted windows, disappearing again as quickly as they had come. Suleiman knew that one of those shadows must be Philippe.

As he walked back alone into his
serai,
Suleiman felt a sense of sadness. The euphoria of victory over the knights was gone, replaced by a thread inexplicably connecting him with his former enemy. For the first time since he arrived on Rhodes, he felt he understood the passions that drove the Grand Master.

In the Palace of the Grand Master, the knights were busy gathering their possessions. Suleiman had agreed that they could take their swords, pikes, halberds, muskets, and the scant remaining supply of shot and powder. He forbade the removal of the cannons from the city, though the ships could retain their cannons for their own protection against piracy on the high seas.

Philippe ordered the Sacred Holy Relics to be brought to his quarters for packing and cataloging. “Gabriele, see to the protection
of these treasures,” he said to Tadini. “The Infidels will care nothing for them. They have already begun desecrating the churches; who knows what will happen to our churches after we leave?”

“Aye, my Lord, I’ll see to it.”

William Weston was cataloging the treasures. He stepped forward and showed the Grand Master his list. “We have already packed away the Sacred Relics of the True Cross, my Lord. Also the Holy Thorn and the Holy Body of St. Euphemia. We are just now wrapping the Right Hand of St. John, and a Holy Icon of Our Lady of Fileremos. The rest of the relics are all safely put away.”

“Well done, William. Keep these near to us at all times. They will not be left unguarded until we are installed in our new home; only God and Jesus know where that will be.”

January 1st, 1523. In the late afternoon, just before darkness overtook the island, the Gate of St. John was opened by the Grand Master’s guard. Philippe sat astride his horse, dressed now in the black robes worn by the knights during peacetime, and walked at the head of the solemn procession. His broadsword hung from the wide leather belt at his left side. His head was bare, and his thin white hair blew in the chill January breeze. At his side was Gabriele Tadini da Martinengo. Tadini still wore the worn leather patch over his right eye. Following close behind was Antonio Bosio.

The other knights walked in lines of two, carrying only their personal weapons. William Weston was waiting at the ships with his guard of fifty knights. There were several more transports and four galleys. All the possessions and treasures were loaded and secured. The most valuable—the Holy Relics—were stored deep in the hold of the flagship, the carrack
Sancta Maria;
this very same ship that had, only sixteen months before, brought Philippe from Marseilles to his new home on Rhodes. The mercenaries and some of the citizensoldiers of Rhodes followed the knights as the procession wound its way through the periphery of the city to the harbor.

Philippe tried with all his might to maintain his dignity as the Grand Master. But, as he descended to the harbor, he found it increasingly hard to breathe. A great weight pressed on his chest, as
he fought to hold back the tears. His mind reeled with the real cost of the siege. After one hundred forty-five days of fighting and two hundred years of occupation by the Order, he was leaving his island home, deserting the remains of hundreds of his brothers-at-arms.

Later, on the afterdeck of the
Sancta Maria,
in a darkness that seemed to hang from the shrouds of the ship, Philippe looked back toward Rhodes. Squinting into the night, he could just make out the silhouette of the mountainous island blacking out the stars where they met the sea. The crisp winter air cut though his robes as the light wind propelled him and his knights away from their island home. The vastness of the black sea and the infinity of the stars made him wonder where on Earth he and his knights would ultimately land. And he thought again—as he had almost constantly since he admitted the inevitability of defeat—of Hélène.