wearing beneath and took out two bleached lengths of rope which they tied about their middles in the manner of friars. Then he hefted the leather cosh he had carefully packed into the bottom of his baggage before leaving England. He slipped the loop over his wrist and gave it an experimental swing to feel its weight and recall the feel of the weapon. He glanced at Thomas. ‘Ready?’
‘As ready as I can be for such business.’
Richard flashed a grin in the gloom. ‘This is the business I am trained for. Trust me and follow my instructions and you will be fine.’
They stood up and with Richard in the lead began to cross the level ground. Thomas was uncomfortable with this reversal of positions but knew that he must trust Richard. He was no longer playing the squire and had reverted to being one of Walsingham’s agents, skilled in the dark arts of subterfuge and stealth. The sound of the cannonade was much louder away from the town and the flames spurting from the batteries on the high ground above St Elmo lit up the crest of the ridge brilliantly as each round was fired. As Thomas stepped on to the weathered timbers of the drawbridge he was aware of the dark void on either side. Glancing down he saw the deck of the Turkish galleon that had been captured the year' before and had done much to provoke the Sultan’s decision to finally obliterate the Order of St John.
The two men had almost reached the end of the drawbridge before the guard roused from where he had been leaning against the wall beside the gate.
‘Who goes there?’ he demanded, lowering the point of his pike a fraction and grasping the shaft firmly in both hands.
‘Friar Gubert and Friar Henri, from the cathedral,’ Thomas called back, as calmly as he could.
‘What is your business? You should be at the sermon.’
‘We’ve come from there,’ Thomas continued as they approached the man. ‘With orders from the Grand Master. He is to entertain Robert of Eboli afterwards and sent us to tell his steward to prepare a meal.’
‘His steward is at the sermon,’ the guard replied. ‘I saw him leave myself.’
‘Are you certain, my son?’ Thomas stepped closer, and then suddenly shot his arms out and grabbed the wrists of the astonished guard. An instant later Richard stepped round the man and swung his cosh in a savage arc towards the back of his skull. It connected with a solid thud before the man could cry out. He went limp and Thomas took up his weight and then eased him on to the ground, just inside the gate where he would be least visible.
‘No, not there.’ Richard lifted the guard under the shoulders and dragged him towards the drawbridge.
‘What are you doing?’ Thomas whispered.
‘He might recognise us.’
‘Wait.’ Thomas stepped between Richard and the drawbridge. ‘It’s dark, and we’re wearing hoods.’
‘He heard your voice.’
‘Then that’s a risk I am willing to take. Leave him,’ Thomas said firmly.
Richard was still for a moment. ‘What if he comes round? Or he’s discovered?’
Thomas knew that Richard’s caution was sound, from a cold- hearted point of view, but he was not prepared to see the man killed. ‘Leave him, and let’s get on with it.’
‘You’re being foolish,’ Richard growled. ‘You’ll get us killed.’
‘Not if we move fast. Now leave him be.’
‘Damn you!’ Richard let the guard drop then, before Thomas could intervene, viciously hit him again with his cosh. ‘There, just to make sure.’
Without waiting for Thomas to respond Richard turned and padded through the arch of the gatehouse. Thomas breathed in deeply to calm his anger and followed. On the far side of the arch they entered a narrow passage overlooked by murder holes, then passed under the iron points of a portcullis before the passage turned at right angles towards another portcullis and then opened out on to the fort’s small courtyard.
All was still and quiet; the enemy guns across the harbour were slightly muffled by the mass of the walls rising up towards the stars overhead. They waited a moment, hearts beating swiftly as their senses strained to detect any sign of movement. Then, satisfied that they had not been noticed, the two men crept round the edge of the courtyard towards the entrance to the storerooms and dungeons cut into the rock beneath St Angelo. Pausing on the threshold, they looked down the staircase and saw that the main guardroom was dimly lit by a handful of candles. There was no sound from below. They descended warily until they stood on the flagstone floor and looked around. The musty air was noticeably cooler and the sweat on Thomas’s forehead felt chilly. There were two large tables with benches on either side. A few bare wooden platters remained, together with some brass cups decorated with Islamic verses, part of the loot the Order had taken over the decades following their arrival in Malta. Three corridors led off the guardroom.
‘Which way?’ whispered Thomas.
Thomas recalled the last time he had stood in the same spot, twenty years before, when he had overseen the soldiers tasked with carrying a chest of silver coins from the hold of La Valette’s galley to the security of the dungeons. Then there had only been one corridor opening off the guardroom.
Richard gestured to the left passage. ‘Follow me.’
They crossed the room and entered a tunnel. A candle guttered halfway along and dimly illuminated the regularly spaced doors on either side. As Richard led the way, Thomas felt a chill tremor of anxiety ripple down his spine. If they were discovered here, there would be no explaining away their presence. Ahead, the corridor came to a junction with yet more passages leading off to either side. The stale smell of dogs filled Thomas’s nostrils.
‘We’re close now,’ said Richard. ‘We go right here, then it’s perhaps twenty yards to the chamber where the sentries guard the entrance.’
‘And then?’
‘We’ll deal with whatever we find the same way we did with the guard on the gate.’
‘Assuming one guard is all there is.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Some plan.’ Thomas shook his head. ‘And if there are four of them, like you saw before?’
‘Then we have to deal with four of them.’
They slipped round the corner and crouched low as they approached the door at the end of the passage where the Grand Master had kept his hounds. The doors to the kennels were open and by the light of another candle Thomas saw the wooden pegs on which hung the collars and leashes of the animals that had been destroyed on La Valette’s orders. Ahead stood an arched doorway. The door was ajar and a brighter light burned within. There was no sound as Richard and Thomas stole silently along the passage. Richard readied the cosh in his right hand and quietly drew out his dagger with the other. Thomas reached into his side bag and took out his own cosh, and slipped the loop over his wrist.
They were perhaps ten feet from the door when there was a light rattle and clack from the room beyond and a brief cry of triumph that was answered by a gruff curse. Thomas and Richard froze. Richard held up his hand to signal Thomas to wait. Then he crept forward towards the door and peered round very slowly. A moment later he backed away and spoke softly into Thomas’s ear.
‘Two of them, playing at dice. No more than two paces from the door. We’ll have to rush them. Ready?’
‘Yes, but no killing unless we have to, understand?’
Richard frowned and opened his mouth to reply, but then thought better of it and shrugged instead. ‘Very well, on three.’ The two men braced themselves behind the door. In the gloom Richard glanced at Thomas who nodded, then as the dice rattled again he counted softly. ‘One . . . two . . . three.’
Springing forward, Richard thrust the door aside and burst into the small chamber, with Thomas right behind him. The two guards were hunched over a table. Their heads turned at the intrusion, eyes wide with surprise.
Richard leaped towards the nearest man, his cosh arcing through the air. The guard tried to throw up his arm to block the blow but he was too slow and the heavy leather bag cracked into his skull and he tumbled off his stool and on to the floor. Thomas ran past and round the end of the table and swung his cosh at the other guard’s head. The second guard had time to scramble off the stool and the cosh struck the edge of the table, the shock of the impact sending the cups leaping into the air, spilling their contents over the coins and the dice that had been laid out. The guard snatched a dagger from a small scabbard hanging from his waist and thrust the point at his attacker. Thomas threw himself to the side to avoid the deadly blade. The guard slashed wildly from side to side, forcing Thomas back. Sensing the wall at his back Thomas leaped forward, grasping the man’s knife hand and punching his
