‘One less unbeliever to deal with.’ Don Garcia nodded with satisfaction, before he turned to the captain of the flagship. ‘Send some men below to free any Christians at the oars. Have them brought on deck to be fed and watered. The prisoners can take their place. The wounded who will recover will be chained in the hold. The others can be disposed of.’
‘Yes, sir,’ the captain nodded.
Don Garcia paused to look around the galley. ‘A fine-looking vessel. His Majesty’s navy can always use a new addition.’
As the first of the wretched creatures was helped up on to the sunlit deck from the living hell of the rowing benches, Thomas paused from his cleaning of Richard’s wound. The sight of the emaciated figures, stooped from having to bend below the low deck of the corsair galley, filthy and covered in sores, awoke a painful chain of memories in Thomas.
‘It’s hard to believe those creatures are men,’ Richard muttered. The rowers that had been marched down to Don Garcia’s flagship from the dungeons of the citadel in Barcelona had been pitiful enough but at least they had been rested, fed and given a chance to scrub themselves clean over the winter. The men stumbling on to the deck had endured far greater privation and degradation. They tore into the bread and cheese that was brought to them. Some of the Spanish soldiers looked on in pity while others stripped the robes off the prisoners and handed them to the freed men. Then, when the last of the Christians had been brought up, the corsairs were forced below and put in chains, destined to be worked to death in the vessel that had so recently been their own.
‘Such reversals of fortune are commonplace in this sea,’ said Thomas. ‘You’ll grow accustomed to it, I’ll warrant, if you live long enough. Now hold still, this will hurt.’
He had taken some thread and a needle from the well-stocked medical chest in the cabin that had belonged to the galley’s captain. Squinting, Thomas threaded the needle and tied the ends into a knot. ‘Hold your arm up and keep it still.’
Richard did as he was told and took one last look at the puckered lips of his wound before he turned and fixed his gaze on the nearest of the galleons where the crew were busy splicing some of the sheets that had been severed by the corsairs’ chain shot. Thomas gently pinched the sides of the wound together with his left hand and then pressed the needle through the skin, across the wound and out through the flesh on the far side of the cut. He pulled the thread through until the knot pressed lightly against the skin and then began the second stitch. Richard clenched his teeth and fought against the pain.
‘For a moment I thought you might not follow me into the fight,’ said Thomas, trying to take the young man’s mind off the stitching. ‘Back there, before we boarded. You were afraid?’ Richard shot him a quick glance. ‘You know I was.’
‘And yet you fought like a lion.’
‘I have been trained to fight.’
‘And right well. Who was your teacher?’
‘Another of Walsingham’s men.’
‘A soldier?’
‘Hardly.’ Richard smiled thinly. ‘He used to be a leader of a London gang. He was due to hang for murder but Walsingham offered him the chance to live if he was prepared to serve and obey orders without question. When he wasn’t questioning those Walsingham suspected of treachery, he was tasked with training the rest of the agents in the use of blades and street fighting. ’
‘I see. Chivalry was not a part of the curriculum, I imagine.’
‘Far from it. We were trained to kill quickly and quietly.’ Thomas nodded, and then concentrated on making the next stitch before he continued. ‘But you have never had cause to kill a man before this day, I think.’
The young man was silent and then looked down at the deck. ‘No.’
‘It is not a step taken lightly, Richard. The real tragedy is that now you have killed, it will weigh less on your conscience the next time. The greatest challenge you will face is trying to remember the man you were before your soul was stained with the blood of another. The more you kill, the harder it is to remember.’
‘Is that what you think?’
‘It is what I know. What I endure,’ Thomas added quietly.
‘Is that why you left the Order?’
‘That is my business, not yours. But I will admit to it being one reason why I could not continue in its service. Killing was so commonplace to us that it lost all meaning. And so it is with the enemy. It is all either side has come to know and the only profit on it is that we have perfected the very idea of hatred and revenge.’ The squire thought for a moment, until the prick of a fresh stitch made him wince. ‘Then how is it that you are here again? You could have refused Sir Robert and Sir Francis. They would have found another man.’
Thomas glanced up and chuckled. ‘I was summoned by my Order, to which I am bound by oath. As for your masters finding another man, there are few as well suited to their needs as I am. They need a man who is of the Order of St John yet does not carry its credo in his heart. Your masters are shrewd men, young Richard. They read me as easily as the pages of a book.’ He paused and reflected briefly on the other reason he had been ready to return to Malta: the need to know what had become of Maria. Had the Queen’s spymasters understood that too? He looked at Richard. ‘And perhaps even more shrewd than I give them credit for.’
‘Sir?’
‘’Tis nothing. Now, the last stitch and we are done here.’ Richard gritted his teeth again as Thomas pierced the skin and drew the last of the thread through. He carefully used Richard’s dagger to cut the needle free, and then tied off another knot. He inspected his handiwork and then took a strip of linen from the chest and covered the wound with a bandage.
‘There. That will heal within the month, provided you rest the arm and don’t disturb the stitches.’
Richard looked at his arm and then lowered it. ‘Thank you, sir.’ Thomas rose to his full height and rubbed the small of his back as he looked round the deck. The bodies had been removed, thrown over the side, and water sluiced across the deck to wash the worst of the blood away. The parted sheets had been repaired and the galley was ready to get under way. Already the other galleys had resumed their formation around the galleons and only the prize crew were now on board the captured vessel.
Thomas wiped his hands on a rag and patted Richard on the shoulder. ‘Come, we must return to the flagship.’
The squire picked up his gambison and armour and then stared at Thomas for a moment. ‘It seems that we both have our secrets, sir.’
Richard nodded. ‘And perhaps on Malta the truth will out.’
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Ten days later, after the soldiers aboard the galleons had been safely landed on Sicily, Don Garcia’s small squadron of galleys reached Malta. The sun was setting in the western sky, half hidden by a thin veil of sea mist, as the slim warships entered the mouth of the natural harbour that Malta had been blessed with. Or cursed, Thomas mused. The sheltered waters stretched deep into the heart of the small island and were separated by a peninsula with a rocky ridge running along its spine. To the north of the peninsula was the Marsamxett harbour, and to the south the Grand Harbour that had become home to the Order of St John. Such a fine harbour and the location of the island at the centre of the Mediterranean had drawn the attention of every naval power across the centuries, even back to the ancient empires of Rome and Carthage.
Over twenty years had passed since Thomas had last seen the vista of the Grand Harbour and much had changed. A new fort had been constructed at the end of the peninsula to command the entrances of the two harbours, and additional defence works had been added to St Angelo, the fort that was the headquarters of the Order. The red standard bearing a white cross floated above the highest towers of each fort. Beyond St Angelo lay the village of Birgu, which had steadily grown to serve the needs of the knights and their soldiers in their eternal war against the hordes of Islam. As he gazed at the thick limestone walls and squat towers of St Angelo, Thomas felt a slight ache in his heart as he recalled the years he had served there and the men he had counted as brothers, some of whom had died before his eyes and whom he had mourned. And those others he had known, like La Valette, who had inspired devotion and fanatical zeal.
And then there had been Maria. He had tried to put off thinking of her but there had never been a moment in
