The Religion (83 page)

"All of you?"

Davud waved a hand across the invisible bulk of Monte San Salvatore.

"All except the gunners."

Tannhauser's heart quickened. He leaned forward and in a display of indifference pushed a half-charred stick of wood into the embers. He watched the flames catch and said, "They tell us nothing, of course. But you say our Pasha intends to commit the reserve? The entire reserve?"

"The time has come," confirmed Davud.

The reserve regiments stationed on San Salvatore, besides protecting its siege batteries, had acted to block any repeat of the Christian relief force that had marched across its slopes to Kalkara Bay-with Ludovico-back in July. But the Turks couldn't walk on water either. To attack the Borgo the reserves would have to deploy to the south and with only the artillery crews left behind, the route to Zonra-and his boat-would be open. Even for a band of four. Tannhauser marked the North Star and just above the rim of the hill in the northeast, toward Zonra, the horns of Taurus. The Bull would guide them home. He thought of Amparo and reckoned it a strong omen. He stretched his arms.

"The time has come, also, for me to go," he said.

The look of a child flitted across Davud's face.

A fragment of the Koran floated up through Tannhauser's brain.

He said, "With Allah lies the knowledge of the end of the world. He is the One who sends the rain and who knows the contents of the womb. No soul knows what he will earn tomorrow, and no soul knows in what land he will die. Only Allah is all-knowing, wholly aware."

The four youths made reverent gestures, but were no less frightened.

"Have you been in battle before?" asked Tannhauser.

He glanced around the fire. All four shook their heads.

"In the charge," said Tannhauser, "stick close together and watch for one another's safety."

They all four stared at him intently.

"In the noise, the smoke, the terror, you'll think only of yourself-and Allah, most exalted is He. It's natural but also fatal. Eight eyes are better than two, four swords better than one. Pool your courage and your skill. Where goes one, go all, but do not group tight in the open or you'll give them a target."

He waited so that this sank in, and they nodded.

"Watch for their Greek fire-the flying hoops. And the cannonballs too-they'll rise from the clay like cobras, but if you're sharp, you can straddle them. And avoid the Christians wearing full armor; they may not be devils but they're devilish hard to kill."

They looked at him as if he were Solomon. Their earnest faces moved him. He reached into his robe and took out his box and fingered two stones of opium. Why not? He drew his dagger, its stained blade black and wicked in the flames, and they watched him carve the gold-flecked pills in half.

"The advantages of being in the first wave are few," he continued, "but remember this one. Your role is to engage the enemy-on the whole by dying-so that the second wave might overwhelm them. If you survive until the second wave arrives, pull back-but do so slyly, like a cutpurse from a crowd. Don't panic. Don't run. Keep your war face. Grab a wounded comrade, and carry him back to the lines. Carry him proudly. If you make it, at worst you'll earn a flogging, at best a bonus for valor. Now, show me your right palms."

They held out their hands. By now, if he'd told them to stick them in the fire, they would've obeyed him. He placed half a pill in each palm.

"Swallow these as you draw up on the hill, when your heart begins to knock against your ribs. Not before. They are a taste of Paradise and will help to banish your fear. And if Paradise is where you're bound, they will make the journey easier."

He wondered if he should ask about Orlandu, for the boy's health was often on his mind, but here at the opposite end of the front the likelihood
that they'd know him was remote. In any case, he knew that the
silahadar
cavalry hadn't been committed since the first day. There was no point sending horses to scale walls. He stood up.

They reached their feet before him and showered him with blessings.

"Say nothing of what has passed between us to anyone else," he said. They nodded. "
Assalaamu alaykum,
" said Tannhauser. He added, "May Allah keep you safe."

As he walked away he saw the watch fires on Corradino and was tempted to go and find Orlandu, and perhaps share his fire too. But he'd pushed his luck far enough, and it wasn't long until sunrise. Let the boy sleep. He needed some rest himself. His return to the Kalkara Gate was without incident. Bors covered his approach and opened the wicket. Before he went to give Starkey the latest intelligence, Tannhauser explained his findings. Bors was skeptical.

"The road to Zonra will be open?"

"The boat is ours for the taking," Tannhauser assured him. "It's time to pack our opium and jewels. We sail tomorrow night."

"All that stands in our way is Mustafa's last battle."

"I've fought more last battles than I can count on this bloody island. Have some faith, man, and it will be our last, even if no one else's."

Saturday, September 1, 1565

Bastion of Germany-Sacred Infirmary-Post of Castile

At dawn, timed as always to the muezzin's call, the one hundred and fourth Moslem captive of the siege was strung from a greasy rope above the Provençal Gate. It had been many weeks since anyone on either side had paid much attention to this ritual-the victims excepted-yet had it failed to take place the consternation would have been as great as if a flag of surrender, not a body, had been hung above the gate. This morning, as the garrison prepared to meet their end, the genius of this macabre practice was reaffirmed in Tannhauser's mind, for as the rope snapped tight the garrison raised a hoarse and defiant cheer.

The gallows thus replenished, a Mass for the island's deliverance was held in the church of San Lorenzo. At the same time, chaplains stationed
at intervals along the enceinte said Mass for the ragtag soldiery. In the infirmary, and the pain-choked piazza outside, other chaplains did the same for the afflicted. The service was solemn and yet, as on the last day at Fort Saint Elmo, a curious calm pervaded the population. There was nothing left to fear. The only task remaining was to die. As the last
Amen
rose heavenward, La Valette pulled off another brilliant stroke.

The Order's silver processional cross was carried down the aisle of San Lorenzo and behind it came the holy icon of Our Lady of Philermo. As the icon passed by, there were many who saw real tears stream down the Madonna's pale cheeks. Some fainted away with ecstasy. Next came the Sword of Saint Peter, the lid of its silver casket open so that the fortunate might glimpse the heroic relic therein. Finally came the Religion's most sacred possession, the Right Hand of John the Baptist, sealed in a jeweled reliquary. An honor guard of knights drawn from each of the eight langues brought up the rear, led by La Valette himself.

The procession left the church and toured the blasted streets, wending by the infirmary and the fragile line of defenders strung out along the bastions and walls. All genuflected and crossed themselves as the Holy Relics passed by, and everyone felt the power of Jesus Christ and Our Lady and Saint Peter and the Baptist surge through their hearts. The thought of Moslem dogs desecrating the Hand of Saint John fueled the rage and redoubled the strength of every Christian soldier on the ramparts. By the time the procession repaired back to San Lorenzo, the spirit of the depleted garrison was as undaunted as at any time during the siege.

Tannhauser missed the Eucharistic rites due to his indulgence in baser forms of worship; but while searching for Carla, with Amparo at his side, he caught a portion of the grand procession marching by, and marveled that a piece of theater could have so profound an effect. By any reckoning the parade of relics was worth an extra thousand men, and maybe more than that, for to fight for oneself is one thing, but to fight for the right hand of the man who baptized Jesus is quite another. The hand that lowered His head beneath the Waters of Jordan, no less. Even Tannhauser felt his blood rise, and wondered if the Way of Christ were not after all the path to Transcendence.

He found Carla in the infirmary piazza, looking not far short of Blessedness herself. She held a cup of wine to the lips of a man both of whose foreshortened arms were swathed in clotted lint. She was haggard
and worn, her hair tangled with filth, and her faded black dress was tattered, but when she turned to him and smiled he swore she'd never looked so lovely. He realized that appearing with his mistress on his arm was poor form, but Carla took this in her stride. He wondered if the arrangement might be continued beyond their union, and decided that, even if that were so, it would create a new touchstone for folly. Compared to the complexities of loving two women at once, war was a mere bagatelle. He let go of Amparo and assumed a military demeanor.

Before he could open his mouth, Carla said, "I trust you slept well."

Tannhauser thought the remark rather cutting, and perhaps her smile too. He took an added step away from Amparo and resorted to bluster. "Since you ask, I was up the better part of the night," he said, "risking life and limb behind enemy lines in pursuit of our shared ambitions."

"Our keenest ambition?"

"The very same."

Carla looked about the serried wounded, and he saw the doubts resurface in her mind.

"Of every ten men who took up arms in this city's defense, nine are dead or very close to it," said Tannhauser. "You've served them with more heart than honor or valor-or even God-can demand. If we can see out this day, we'll have a chance to save Orlandu. And ourselves."

She looked at him. He smiled. She nodded. He motioned to Amparo to join her.

"Stay here and stick together," he said. "No wandering. I'll be back after dark. Be ready."

Tannhauser learned that there had been other nocturnal actions besides his own. During the predawn hours, Andreas de Munatones, the singer, dancer, and Asturian knight of Santiago, had led an underground foray through the Christian countermines. After savage fighting by torchlight the Mamelukes and Laghimji sappers had been vanquished, and two of the timbered Turkish galleries snaking under no-man's-land had been set ablaze with incendiary pipkins. The Maltese sappers dragged Andreas back from the second with a pickax through his chest and carried him to San Lorenzo, where he died during dawn Mass.

These sorties, though brave, had failed to detect several other mines
packed with gunpowder that the Turks had built beneath the enceinte. Three of these mines exploded with great destruction as a prelude to the attack.

Tannhauser and Bors, who'd decided to throw their lot in with the Northmen, saw the mines blow as they reached the bastion of Germany on the far Christian left. The painstaking weeks of repairs to the inner wall of Castile were demolished in an instant. Between the bastions of Italy and Provence a thirty-foot section of curtain collapsed into the ditch. A score of defenders were buried beneath the stones. On the summit of Santa Margharita the
Sanjak i-sherif
was unfurled. A rippling barrage from the Turkish siege guns illumined the rim of the heights. And as the smoke rolled down onto the flatlands and jihad was once more rejoined, thousands of
gazi
reeled across the Grande Terre Plein to determine the judgment of Allah.

"Allahu Akabar!"

The plain had the look of a lake of reeking mud glazed hard by the sun, but no rain had fallen all summer and the native clay was pale. The encrusted black pan across which the heathen charged was baked from spilled gore and the last evacuations of the dying. The dust kicked up by the
gazi
's feet wasn't dirt, but the desiccated blood of their dead comrades. Iridescent swarms of blowfly spiraled skyward green and blue and some men fell as they sank up to the ankles in seething nests of maggots invisible to the eye. When the Religion's cannon opened up, scores more were mowed down with atrocious wounds and they writhed in the fetid corruption like creatures primeval. Yet still they came. At three hundred feet a volley of musketry raked them and the carnage was redoubled.

Tannhauser rammed a fresh ball down the barrel of his rifle and wiped his brow. The army laboring toward them was no longer the implacable force that had landed at Marsaxlokk. The tenor of the Moslem battle cries was reedy, their fervor scraped from the dregs of a harrowed spirit. They no longer stormed the ramparts for their Sultan, or for booty or for honor, nor to slake the hatred of Christ that had animated previous assaults. They came not even to see the Face of God. They charged forward now out of that blind collective impulse which is the curse and doom of mankind. Each man went forward because the next man did, and with the same purposeless courage. Tannhauser cranked the wheel lock's key and primed the pan.

As he rose up to fire again a cluster of four young levies caught his eye as they stumbled for the gap in the post of Castile. They moved as if they'd have held one another's hands if they could, like children wandering lost through a degenerate bazaar. He lowered his gun. A brass cannonball bounced across the field and a futile pity clawed his heart as he foresaw its intersection with their path. The youths saw the cannon shot too and exchanged frantic yells, and if one hadn't grabbed at the others they might have eluded its calamitous arc. But he did and panic froze them. They watched, as did Tannhauser, as the ball skipped up from the clay at knee height and chopped them down one and all before bounding on. A figure struggled free from the limbless and tangled melee, screaming as much as his friends though he appeared unharmed. He looked down on the dismembered mass. He threw up his guts. Then he raised both arms and his mouth gaped soundlessly at the bastions above, as if surrendering not to the enemy but to a Power more vicious and unfeeling than them all.