The Long Sword (48 page)

I mention this because on arriving at Rhodes, the capital and fortress of my Order, I saw for the first time how few the Knights of the Order were. In truth, in times of peace, the Order maintained only about three hundred brother-knights at Rhodes, and another few hundred serving brothers. Some serving brothers were professed soldiers: that is, professional soldiers who had taken all the vows of the Order, but were of insufficient birth to rank as knights. They were called brother-sergeants. There were very few in the commanderies in Europe – just two in Avignon, a few retired old men in England helping to raise warhorses – but there were hundreds at Rhodes, where they provided the expert leadership and technical skills in siege work and ship handling to the knights. But most of the serving brothers were doctors, apothecaries, nurses and herbalists, carpenters and blacksmiths and other skilled men. They were not warriors except in the direst emergency.

All this is by way of explaining that Rhodes was a military base, a great fortress in the very face of the Turkish enemy, but also a small state, like Vicenza in Italy or Strasbourg. It had a small but expert army, a set of skilled craftsmen, a subject populace of free peasants most of whom were Greek schismatics, and a handful of feudal lords – mostly Latin, but a few Greek. It had a government and ambassadors and the Grand Master was as powerful as many princes. Rhodes had an excellent fleet of six
galia sottil
and one
galia grossa
and two dozen lesser craft, small galleys with fewer than a hundred oarsmen, fast and shallow in draft, that could cover shipping, transport pilgrims, or raid the enemy coast. The navy drove most of the Order’s military preparations. Rhodes was a naval power. She contributed two full-time galleys to the defence of Smyrna, a city on the coast of Turkey that the last crusade had seized in Crecy year.

Yet this small fleet, and the garrisons of the dozen castles the Hospitallers manned in Outremer and the Ionian islands, and the armed caravans that took pilgrims to the Holy Land – these small operations required almost all of the Order’s manpower. Rhodes always had to be prepared for siege, still does. At any moment an enemy fleet might descend like the Assyrian wolves to try to snap up the port or lay siege to the city. And every mark of the revenue of the islands, the tolls paid by pilgrims, the revenues of all the Order’s estates in Europe and Cyprus – all that money was already spent and on the same castles, ships and caravans I’ve mentioned.

We always imagined the Order as a great Roman legion of knights, ready to march at a moment’s notice against the Saracen foe. But the truth was that for a
Passagium Generale
the Order had to summon in all the knights and brother-sergeants and donats and other volunteers from all over Europe, which cost money and took ships. And then they had to feed and house all those men, see to their equipment, put them in the field, feed and maintain them and their horses. All that, while continuing to serve pilgrims, heal the sick, and defend their own fortresses. So, they were a legion, but most of the legion was tied down in routine duties.

We arrived – that is, the
legate
arrived – with fifty brother-knights from the commanderies, men like Fra Peter Mortimer. And there were a hundred more come with the Genoese or making their way in private ships. Rhodes was packed to the gunwales with knights.

And every one of them had precedence over me.

The inn of the English
langue
was so much like home that I blinked in the great stone doorway and imagined, for a few heartbeats, that the Thames was two streets away. The English
langue
was located below our bastion, the section of walls for which the English are responsible during attacks. The building is tall, like a London house, and broad, taking up the space that two or three houses would occupy, with a glittering facade of mullioned windows. The ground floor is stone, and rubble-filled timber soars away, whitewashed over stucco over brick, four tall stories of London shining in the Mediterranean sun. Deep stone basements protect the ale and they go down so deep in the soil that you can see the ancient street from the time of Alexander and there is a marvellous bust in one of the cellars, a bearded man’s head that some say is Saint John and Nerio says is Messire Plato, the philosopher.

It might be the best inn in London, save for the omnipresent smell of garlic and the presence of oil lamps on every table and olive oil in the food. But it is a noble building with many rooms and many places for private conversation; unlike any other inn I know it has a chapel and a chaplain. The courtyard has a line of pells where men may practice the art of arms, and the archery range and tiltyard are close.

By ancient custom, the commander of the English
langue
is the turcopolier, or the officer in charge of mercenaries. I’m not sure what this says about the English, but in the crusade year, the turcopolier was the captain of the Order’s cavalry and scouts; a senior military officer. His name was Fra William de Midleton, and he was a tall man of enormous girth, and no amount of exercise seemed to reduce his size.

I learned all this on arrival, because the turcopolier was sitting in a snug with the legate.

He rose, his great belly pushing at the table that Father Pierre was using as a desk, and extended a massive hand. ‘Sir William de Midleton – I am delighted at your coming, sir, and the more so as the manner of your arrival reflects so much credit on our nation in the Order.’

In the next few minutes I learned that our battle with the Turks was the talk of the waterfront and indeed of the whole town, where it was fairly reckoned as the first fruits of the crusade, since the whole coalition fleet was composed of men committed, at least on paper, to the attack.

‘How did you find your first brush with the enemy?’ Fra William asked.

I was flushed by his praise, but I bowed and thanked him. ‘I found them to be good soldiers and wonderful archers. Brave and very dangerous. But poorly armoured.’

Fra William nodded. ‘Those are Turks. Brave and reckless. Wonderful archers! When we get a few to convert, we recruit them instantly, I promise you. But when you face the Egyptians, the true Mamluks, you will see that courage and archery united with the industry and discipline of Egypt. The Ghulami are fully armed – and twice as dangerous.’ He smiled. ‘Luckily, we have … arrangements … with the Sultan.’ He smiled at Father Pierre.

The legate did not smile. ‘No Christian should have an arrangement with the infidel,’ he said.

Fra William raised both eyebrows. His face was broad and flat with a large nose and wide, childlike eyes – he looked more like a favourite uncle than a commander of mercenaries. ‘Excellency, when you have lived here as long as I—’ he began.

Father Pierre looked at me, and not the turcopolier. ‘I have been in the East since the year of Poitiers,’ he said. ‘I have lived in Constantinople and Famagusta. I know the Latin sees of Outremer. I know that Venice and Genoa and Pisa and Florence have made their own pacts with the devil – but I do not expect such rhetoric from the Knights of Christ.’

Fra William showed his dismay and anger. He leaned against the cool stone wall and shook his head.

I thought of the admiral and his statement about pirates. But, quite wisely, I think, I didn’t say what came to mind.

In the difficult silence, Fra William bowed stiffly – or perhaps, roundly – and squeezed past me. ‘I’m sure the legate would like to brief you alone,’ he said. ‘When he has finished with you, perhaps you would be as kind as to come to my closet and I will assign you a cell.’

He was perfectly pleasant, although I could see his irritation. He walked out of the oak door and closed it behind him.

Father Pierre rested his head in his hands. ‘Why does the Pope want a crusade – an armed attack – on men half the Inner Sea view as allies?’

Sometimes men ask rhetorical questions. They don’t want answers. But in this case, I felt that it was worth a try. ‘The Pope has declared crusades against Milan and even Naples,’ I said.

Father Pierre sat back. ‘I do not like my role here. Enough of that – you are too young to share my burdens, and it is unfair of me even to mention them. You have won a great victory.’

I shrugged. ‘My lord, we all won a victory.’

He nodded. ‘And the Venetians? They came willingly?’

I shrugged again. ‘My lord, they are here.’

He laughed. ‘Sir William, you sound more like an Italian every day. Your friends –
my
friends – they prosper?’

I nodded. ‘None of us took a bad wound,’ I said.

‘By the grace of God,’ added the priest, and I bowed my head.

Then I told him most of the expedition, leaving out almost everything Admiral Contarini had said. He nodded.

‘The Venetians are the best sailors on the face of the inner sea,’ he said. ‘But they turn their God-given talents to the service of greed and not God. The Genoese beat them here.’

‘The Genoese were not present when we faced the Turks,’ I said.

Father Pierre nodded. ‘The Genoese say that by fighting the Turks, we provoke a naval reaction that may threaten the entire Crusade,’ he said. He raised a hand as I began to protest. ‘Spare me, spare me! I know. The Genoese serve only their own city.’

I leaned forward. ‘Have you chosen our … goal?’ I asked softly.

For the first time in my life, I saw Father Pierre be evasive. He was a very poor liar. ‘No,’ he said.

I knelt and confessed myself of my amorous thoughts. My confessor laughed. ‘Chastity sits heavily on you, my son,’ he said. ‘Be careful. Be … wise.’

‘Wise?’ I asked.

He shook his head. ‘I have said too much. For your penance, you may find all your friends billets in this city and then join me for dinner. Lord Grey celebrates his birthday and he is eager to see his nephew. How was Master Stapleton?’

‘He was brilliant in arms and a good man throughout.’ I waved towards the closed door. ‘He is the last man among us unknighted.’

‘You would recommend him for knighthood?’ Father Pierre asked, his hands steepled in his accustomed way.

‘Without hesitation. He will be a better knight than I am.’ I bowed.

Father Pierre shook his head. ‘I doubt that,’ he said, the best compliment he ever paid me. His praise was given sparingly, and often to third parties so this was very sweet, despite being so brief. He waved me away in dismissal. ‘I’ll speak to Lord Grey,’ he said.

As I closed the oak door – it might have been imported from England, it was that heavy – I thought that in the past few months, my beloved Father Pierre had begun to act more like a prince of the church. He was not spoiled. It was merely that his new dignity shrouded his enthusiasm and his genuine friendliness.

I missed Father Pierre. He was there when his eyes laughed at my petty sins, when he knelt with me on the floor to pray, when he embraced me. But the cautious
strategos
who lied about the goal of the expedition …

At any rate, I went up a floor and along a hallway so narrow that a man in full harness would have had to go sideways like a crab. I asked the servants – some English, some Greek, some Arabs – the way until I found the open door at the end of a hall that should have been straight but was not. Later I learned that the English
langue
was one of the richest, and was built in four stages that did not perfectly align, so that the main hall of the second floor was neither straight nor flat.

Fra William filled the room he called his ‘closet.’ It had a pigeon roost (as we call it) for scrolls, and the whole shelf was packed with them, hundreds of scrolls, and there were more around the room in baskets. In among the scrolls was a table no bigger than the sideboards on which squires cut meat and mix wine, and it, too, was covered in scrolls, and the bulk of the man was wedged between the pigeon roosts and the writing table. By his side was another tall man, this one as thin as Sir William was round.

‘Sir Robert Hales – Sir William Gold.’ He waved at us.

Sir Robert Hales rose and took my hand. ‘I have heard of you, in France and in Italy.’

I bowed. ‘Indeed, my lord, we were introduced at Clerkenwell.’ I smiled. ‘I was with Juan di Heredia’s nephew.’

Sir Robert flushed. ‘Sir William … indeed. I swear you were younger then. Or perhaps smaller.’

We all laughed. I had been a squire of no account whatsoever. Now I was a knight of moderate fame.

Sir Robert sat. ‘Of course, I know your sister, who shares your high courage.’

My turn to flush. I had scarcely thought of my sister in six months. Fra William looked up from his writing. ‘Sit, Sir William. By our lady, clear him a space. There’s nowhere for a man to sit.’

I stood against the far wall and hoped that nothing fell on me. Very gradually, I leaned against a set of shelves weighted down with scrolls and books and tall stacks of parchments being led to their dooms by their heavy seals, slipping gradually but inevitably towards the floor.

‘You had a quarrel with Fra Daniele,’ Fra William stated. He did not ask.

I said nothing.

‘Senior Knights of the Order are commanders,’ he said. He was still writing quickly. His big hand was perfectly well-trained, and his writing was as neat as a professional scribe’s hand. He was writing Latin. ‘Many of my paid soldiers are commanders in their own right, and I have to explain to them that here, on Rhodes, their authority is nothing, and only the brother-knights have the power to giver orders.’

He looked up at me. ‘In Outremer, mercenaries sold themselves to the enemy. We have become careful.’

I nodded.

Fra William pursed his lips. ‘You further informed Fra Daniele that the legate is your lord.’

I suppose I sighed. I was trying to control my temper, and not doing a perfect job.

Fra William frowned. ‘He is a great man, perhaps a saint. But you, as a volunteer in the Order, must obey your superiors. You swore an oath to obey.’

‘Any reasonable order,’ I said.

‘No,’ Fra William said. ‘There is no such stipulation. You swore to obey. Kindly keep that in mind. I have no doubt – no doubt at all – that you are a brilliant soldier. The dockside tales of your daring are worthy of Roland or Oliver or Gawain. But if you wear the red coat, you must obey.’ He raised both eyebrows in his most cherubic look, one I would come to understand better. ‘Even Fra Daniele.’