He remounted and sat a moment in the shade. He must have water soon or he would be pissing black. Yet he felt a little better. Things were clearer. Some things. His ardent heart, his fierce loyalty to his father and his sisters and his name, even to Hodge; his love of comradeship, his appetite for glory, and for righteous vengeance. Now he had an object for his temper and his many passions. Of course he had come to Malta to fight the Mohammedan. But now he would fight them with savage joy in his heart, and absolute conviction. For his father and his mother, his sisters, for England and St George. For Christendom, for the Knights, for the magnificent, defiant scornful peasant woman beheaded by the Turks. For Copier and Faraone and De la Rivière, and all the tough soldiers and gallant knights yet to die.
He screwed up his eyes and heeled his horse gently forward into the white blaze.
For all of them.
‘Open the gates!’
A party of Turks watched from the heights of Santa Margherita not half a mile off, their muskets trained on his back. But he wore the green neckerchief of protection. The drawbridge swung down, the gates of Birgu swung open. Nicholas stopped his horse on the narrow drawbridge and tore off the neckerchief and looked back at them, unsure if they could see. In case they could, he leaned back and made as if wiping his horse’s arse with the cloth, embroidered with the sacred names in Arab script. Then he dropped it in the dust behind him and walked his horse in. A shot rang out wild. The gates slammed shut.
Stanley came running, and also Hodge.
‘God’s mercy, boy, you’re alive!’
‘Alive and well,’ croaked Nicholas, slithering from the horse and finding his legs didn’t work. Hodge held him.
‘Water!’ bellowed Stanley.
The boy drank.
‘Slowly.’ After only a few tantalising glugs, the knight pulled the flask away. ‘The others?’
Nicholas shook his head.
‘Copier too? De la Rivière?’
‘They all died fighting. We faced two hundred or more. We charged them … Copier gave the order. They had murdered a woman.’
Stanley gripped his sword hilt. ‘This is a sad loss. A bitter loss.’
‘I was no hero. I did not break free, the Turks let me go. The tall fellow in the black robe, their leader.’
‘Mustafa Pasha himself?’ Stanley’s blue eyes were round. ‘La Valette will want to speak with you. When we’ve got you bandaged.’
‘I’m fine,’ he said. ‘I only took a blow to the head.’
The knight of the lost English langue looked almost guilty. ‘You’ve not looked in a glass of late.’
‘The Turks offered me none. Nor roasted mutton, nor sherbet, nor harem girls. The uncouth barbarians. More water.’
He gave him the flask again. ‘Then to the infirmary with you.’
6
They weren’t called the Knights Hospitaller for nothing.
The Sacred Infirmary was one of the most beautiful buildings Nicholas had ever seen. A different world from the heat and blood and dust outside, it breathed the spirit of gentleness, expertise and monastic calm. The great dormitory where the sick lay was a vast, high-roofed hall, blissfully cool, with arched windows down the east and west side, admitting only the soft golden light of morning and evening. The walls were plain whitewashed, the smell clean and soothing. Slop buckets by beds were emptied instantly. Alcohol and turpentine and other disinfectants were widely used. All dishes and instruments were made of silver. The ministering brothers wore white. Forty beds lined each wall, well spaced from each other. Most lay empty for now.
Nicholas lay back on cool white sheets and a young brother, Fra Reynaud, washed his face. He kept dabbing around his nose.
‘It was the back of my head they hit me hardest.’
Fra Reynaud sat him up again and looked. ‘Your skull’s thick.’ He washed off the crusted blood and dabbed on brine and alcohol. Nicholas gritted his teeth and made no sound.
The knight returned to washing his face. He rinsed the cloth in a shallow silver dish, silver being the miraculous enemy of infection and putrefaction. The water spiralled with red.
‘They must have kicked me in the chops or something,’ said Nicholas. ‘When I was out cold.’
‘They slit your nose.’
‘They what?’
‘Just a nick. They might have cut off your nose entire, so give thanks to God. It’s only your left nostril. Not bad, but it’s bled a lot. I’ll put a fine stitch in it. Mostly you need to drink water and then some salted bread. Tonight you’ll get meat broth.’
‘Slit my nose,’ repeated Nicholas, still indignant. ‘When I was out cold? Damned barbarians.’
‘Mind your blaspheming tongue,’ said the Hospitaller mildly. ‘Most knights have suffered a lot worse in their time.’
His hands were huge and strong, yet his touch precise. It was said that a good chirurgeon should have the heart of a lion, the hands of a lady and the eyes of a hawk. This one’s mighty sword-hands were hardly those of a lady, but they were as gentle. He had battle-scars on his face. Over his white soutane he wore a silver cross. Warrior, healer, monk.
Nicholas’s eyes roved over the cool white arches and crossbeams of the lofty infirmary roof above him. Like a cathedral. A refuge, a holy place. What men they were, the Knights. How he was beginning to love them.
La Valette rested grave eyes upon him. ‘Why were you riding with Copier?’
‘As a volunteer.’
‘And only you lived?’
‘Yes, Sire.’
‘The history.’
Nicholas told him.
La Valette studied some papers, then looked up. ‘You give a good account. Yet it was a grievous loss. Copier died like a young hothead.’ He looked out of the window. ‘But the Turks attacked Castile on De la Rivière’s advisement. Now that I like. Their loss was greater.
‘When the Turks are defeated, we will recover our brothers’ mortal remains and give them good burial. Now go to the church and confess. Your soul is stained with blood, though infidel.’
The Conventual Church of St Lawrence was the church of the knights, filled with their escutcheons and tombs. A church full of noble blood-lines. In the crypt lay the bodies of the former Grand Masters of Malta.
Nicholas took his place in the confessional.
He said he had had lustful thoughts.
‘Was she married?’
‘No, they were-’
‘You have had lustful thoughts about more than one woman?’
‘Yes, Father. Many.’
‘You are young. It is but colt’s evil, and the weakness of youth. Yet lust becomes a habit, and habit becomes character. Pray to God for grace.’
‘Yes, Father.’
‘You’re certain they were not married?’
‘No, they were young. There was one in a tavern, in Cadiz, and there is one on the island here. She is very beautiful.’
‘Think not on her. This is hardly the time for gallantry anyway, not with the Turk upon us.’
‘I have killed men. On a ship, and here on the island.’
‘You have already killed a Turk on Malta?’
‘Yes, Father. I rode out with Marshal Copier’s troop. I cut one open across his flanks. I doubt he lived.’
There was a kind of hiss from the other side of the grille. It sounded like exultation. Then sober silence.
‘Also Father — I blasphemed and used foul language.’
‘In the heat of battle.’
‘No, Father. In the cool after. In the Sacred Infirmary here, I said damned barbarians. And before the Turks, as I rode away at their bidding, I … I called their leader, this Mustafa Pasha, a bad thing.’
‘To his face?’
‘Yes. It was dishonourable, and very foolish.’
‘You have insulted Mustafa Pasha of the Ottomans, to his face? And lived?’
‘Yes, Father.’
This time, the sound of exultation was unmistakable. With ill-suppressed excitement, the priest said, ‘What did you say to him? The exact words, boy. I need to know, so I may pronounce appropriate penance.’