For five days they sailed calmly south down the thickly wooded coast of Portugal, though moving too slowly for Smith and Stanley’s liking. Nicholas felt a growing excitement. Who would have believed, when he lay shackled as a vagrant in that stinking pound only a few weeks before, or slept shivering in freezing barns with his orphan sisters, that he would soon be sailing south to war with two Knights of St John?
As for Hodge, he seemed to look out impervious on every coast they passed, and Nicholas knew he was already homesick.
‘Don’t be downcast, Hodge. You will look on the green hills of Shropshire again, I promise. I dream of it too — and my family. What remains of it.’
Hodge remained gloomy. ‘Foreign parts don’t suit all of us.’
‘And imagine the tales you will have to tell over your ale down at the Woolpack.’
‘Ale,’ whispered Hodge longingly. ‘Shropshire ale.’
Smith too stared out gloomily from the bow at the calm seas, the gentle wind only just filling the sails. The shadow of the mast on the sea like a mocking sundial, ever moving. His brothers at Malta, steadfastly waiting. The numberless Turk coming on.
Stanley nodded over at him. ‘My brother knight is of a tragic disposition,’ he said jovially.
He spoke loudly enough for Smith to hear. The gloomy knight’s back stiffened.
‘But then he has much to feel melancholy about,’ Stanley went on. ‘His unfortunate visage, for instance. And he was once disappointed in love, when the jade ran off with another. Very fair she was too. Rather long in the face, perhaps — but lovely long legs, a rich auburn mane, huge brown eyes like honey. Altogether the prettiest horse you ever saw.’
Smith turned and snarled over his shoulder.
‘And you, Master Hodgkin. Do you pine for your native land because you left a sweetheart behind?’
‘No,’ said Hodge shortly. ‘I’d just rather bide there, is all.’
‘Ah, but the world has grown vastly of late.’ Stanley looked out over the western sea with that faraway expression of his, eyes half closed. ‘And whole new continents yet to be found, some say. The fabled antipodes, islands in the Pacific Ocean. Such travellers’ tales.’
‘Have you travelled much, then?’ asked Nicholas.
Stanley twisted back suddenly, half hanging from a rope, eyes dancing. ‘Have we? My brother knight and I, have we not sailed the known world in our time? Were we there when the Great Mughal rode into the battle on a mighty elephant dressed in scarlet silk? Have we seen the caravans pass in the shade of the palms of Mysore? Have we ascended the High Kashmirs? Have we wandered the bazaars of Bengal, seen Circassian slave girls as white as ermine pelts? Have we seen fiery macaws in the Island of Serendip, and the wooden houses of Yeddo among the Japanese lakes? Smoked Chinese opium in gold and jade pipes?’
Nicholas’s eyes roved over Stanley’s travel-stained clothes, his battered boots, his distant gaze formed by far horizons. He shivered. What kind of Knight of St John was he?
‘Have we not raided the shallow inlets of the desert Libyan coast, and spun yarns of it for our supper in the city squares of Bohemia, people throwing silver pieces into our begging bowls? Have we not crossed over the high pine-clad mountains in the depths of a snowbound December, to fight in the hard-pressed marches of Hungary? And have we not seen the very flower of Hungarian chivalry fall beneath the curved blade of the Ottoman? Seen Christian skulls whitening on the great Hungarian plain? For Suleiman was there too. And will come again.
‘Have we not gazed upon the ruins of Antioch, of Heliopolis, and the wondrous pagan temples of Isfahan? Slipped unseen through the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb, beneath the bright Arabian moon? Breathed in the sweet odours of the frankincense trees of the Yemen? Walked in thick furs along the banks of the frozen Moskva, set eyes on the Czar of all the Russias himself, whom they call Ivan the Terrible? Perhaps we have even sailed the Atlantic, and seen the wild jungles of the Americas — they are only a month’s sailing away! Hummingbirds and volcanoes, conquistadors in the deep green forest, the snowcapped mountains of the Andes. Did we fight alongside Pizarro and that terrible General Carbajal, still fighting in the saddle at eighty? When they finally hanged him, he went to his death with all his satanic pride and ferocity intact, disdaining to ask for pardon. They can but kill me, he sneered.’
Stanley shook his head softly. ‘They can but kill me. Now there’s a motto for a man.’ He fixed his wide-eyed gaze on the two boys. ‘A grave maxim. And one to remember when we come into Malta.’
The boys pondered.
Then Stanley grinned his teasing grin once more. ‘Were we sent by our Grand Master, La Valette, to league with the wild tribesmen of Daghestan against the Ottoman columns? Did they nickname us Blackbeard and Inglitz? Did we escape through the midnight streets of Trebizond from an evil Turkish jail, the manacles still on our wrists? Were we were there at the siege of Nakhichevan, when the monstrous Ottoman basilisks roared against the armies of the Qizilbashi in their red hats? Did we sail through the Straits of Hormuz, were we there at the siege of Surat on the spice-laden Malabar coast?
‘The wind is blowing in the sails, boys. The horses’ hooves are stamping, and a myriad new worlds wait to be discovered. The green hills of Shropshire are as lovely as May, and a man should know and love his native ground. But beyond the far horizon … aah …’
‘What tripe he talks,’ said Smith, stumping past to relieve himself over the stern. Yet as he passed by, he shot his comrade-in-arms what looked like a warning glance. As if to say, Hold your tongue, brother knight. You talk too much.
Then Stanley fell silent.
The master of the Swan was still adamant that he’d not go east beyond Cadiz.
‘Malta I know not,’ he said stubbornly.
‘Sardinia, then. You know Sardinia. You might pick up a fine cargo of sweet wine there, much cheaper than in Spain, and yet sell it back in Bristol for Spanish prices nonetheless.’
The master pondered Stanley’s business advice. At last he said, ‘Cadiz for fresh water and the best price for our cloth. Then Sardinia, for four hundred florins more, or a hundred ducats.’
‘A hundred ducats!’ Stanley laughed. ‘Twenty.’
‘Eighty.’
‘Ten.’
The master scowled. ‘You mock me. That’s no bargaining.’
Stanley hadn’t time to bargain. He stood. ‘Listen to me, man. We sail to Malta to fight a Christian crusade against an invader who will devastate all of Europe if he triumphs. One day he will come to Bristol too. This gold coin in my wallet is to buy men and weapons to fight him, not to pay you for your services. You take us to Sardinia, and you will earn yourself twenty gold ducats, no more, and the knowledge that you have done God’s will.’
At last, the captain sullenly held out his hand. Stanley counted out the heavy Spanish ducats.
It was common knowledge that you could not argue with a master on his ship, Emperor of his little wooden domain amid the sea’s boundlessness. Evidently, it was common knowledge that Stanley did not have.
13
They rounded Cape St Vincent, passed by a flat, marshy coast to the north, the sky filled with elegant white seabirds, and finally into a great harbour, backed by an ancient city, gleaming white and pleasantly crumbling.
‘You are now nearer the sun in his zenith than the north coast of Africa,’ said Stanley. Hodge looked very uncomfortable. ‘Mind your drink is clean and never go hatless, or your wits will fry in your skull. And this — ’ he held is arms wide — ‘is the most ancient sea city of Cadiz, founded by the Phoenicians, three thousand years ago.’
‘We’re in Spain?’ said Hodge disbelievingly, gazing round the harbour tight-packed with jostling boats and many coloured sails, a babel of barefoot seamen shouting, loading and unloading sardines and olives and wool. ‘Will they treat us well? Are we English not enemies?’