Читать книгу The Knights of Rhodes - Bo Giertz - Страница 10

The Chancellor

The Commander of Vera Cruz, Knight of the Grand Cross, Grand Prior of Castile, Don Andrea d’ Amaral paced back and forth over the floor in the great hall unable to sit still. He looked out over the garden, turned back to the door and the far side, looked absentmindedly out through the arches in the stair hall, turned completely around, stood and slapped his sole against the stone floor, went back to the window and drummed on the marble slab.

Today, the twenty-second of January was the vote. As Carretto’s successor, he would open the election. As the chief candidate he could have declined, but there was hardly any reason to do that. It was, of course, a purely formal tradition.

Chief candidate?

Was it such a sure thing? The matter ought to have been clear. He was the order’s best naval officer. The fact was, he had been in charge this whole last year while the old Carretto slowly faded out. But there was also this Phillippe Villiers de l’Isle Adam, who had stood in his way as long he could remember. He couldn’t stand this man. He fussed over people. He smiled to the right and left. He looked appreciative when people spoke rubbish. He worked in small words of praise where an honest chewing out would have been more suitable. No wonder he was popular. And it paid on a day like this.

In some miraculous way, appearances always worked against him when they were opposing each other. Like the day at Layazzo, a decade ago, the greatest day of victory they had experienced in a century—his great victory. But how many thought that it was his victory today?

The Chancellor remembered. He had led the galleys through the gray sea that slapped up through the oar beam and washed over the rowers to Cap Andreas on the far east side of Cyprus. There he met l’Isle Adam with the ships, all eighteen sails. Then they set out east with orders to seek and destroy the Sultan of Egypt’s flotilla in the bay of Layazzo, the port of Alexandria. It was there to protect a convoy of at least fifty masts that would carry one of the greatest loads of logs ever seen in Alexandria‘s harbor. Now was the time to destroy it. It would be used to build an armada in the red sea that could crush the Portuguese and forever block the back way to India. The lumber was in Layazzo, or could it possibly be loaded already?

This meant they had to strike fast and hard. He gave orders to seek the enemy and attack wherever they were to be found even on the road. But l’Isle Adam was cautious as usual. He didn’t want his ships to take fire from the shore (if there even were any cannons there, a very unlikely scenario). He was scared of finding bad wind and being driven ashore. He wanted to wait and ambush the enemy on the sea. If he now desired to do it . . .

This time they fell out in orderly fashion, quarreled, squared off, and had their swords half drawn when the chaplain got between them. Then l’Isle Adam yielded and said something to the effect that he would take the risk to sailing inland for the sake of unity. It sounded pious and noble. Naturally, it made an impression on the captains, who stood there embarrassed and taken aback.

And naturally they did what he, d’Amaral, had anticipated. They met the Egyptians on the open sea. There was a magnificent battle. He boarded the Sultan’s flagship. He himself was the first over the gunwale. He still remembered the giant-like Mamluk that he knocked back so hard his head bounced against the deck. He remembered his duel with the young admiral, the Sultan’s own nephew. Brave boy, but what help was that?

Then they burned the timber on the beach, stowed the cargo space full of prisoners and the decks with cannons. Then they manned the boarded vessels with skeleton crews and took the disabled ships in train. They came back almost twice as strong as they sailed out.

But how many remembered that today? If they remembered any of it, it was probably the legend of l’Isle Adam’s nobleness.

The Chancellor looked out over his garden again, down where Ibrahim, the Turkish slave that had become head gardener worked. Ibrahim was a godsend. He had discovered him one summer day on the galley San Giovanni. They had been on caravan longer than expected. The rowers began to get sick from sitting in chains week after week. They had festering sores from sitting and cramps in their legs. They had become incapacitated with lumbago. Then he did something very unusual: He let them go on land in turns in a protected bay with a sandy beach and un-scalable mountains on all sides. Under the observation of expert shots circling with drawn crossbows, they were able to bathe in the warm clear salt water, wash their festering sores, stretch out in the sand, and gorge on grapes from a wild vineyard. When they came back on board, down in the hell after three hours in paradise, he happened to see a Turk who had stuck some small red flowers in his wet hair. This awakened his interest. Not everyone takes flowers with them to hell. He called to the man, who to his surprise spoke very good Greek. He was a gardener from the outskirts of Constantinople, who was taken with a cargo ship of vegetables outside of Mytiline.

So he purchased Ibrahim from the Religion because at the present he needed a gardener. And he never regretted it. He did his job quietly and peacefully, slow but orderly. And if he ever opened his mouth, it was always worthwhile to listen.

Now the campanile’s bell began to ring. The election would begin now. By evening he might possibly have given his first speech as Grand Master. How much would he dare to say? It was best to begin cautiously with the old phrases about sacred memories and an inherited obligation. But then maybe also about some of the victories that were won at the negotiation table by wise predecessors, who understood that it was best at times not to chase after the wind and not challenge fate, all for the goal that stood above all others: to not jeopardize this little kingdom built upon such great sacrifice. But now he had to go . . .