The Last Crusaders: The Great Siege Read Online Free

peasantry, devoted to Christian idols. Raids by the North African corsairs have only made them more ardent in their un-belief.
    ‘A harsh and worthless land, then, but for those dogs of St John who must be destroyed, and the great harbour, which must be taken. It will be our base for the southern conquest of Europe. The war requires planning and supplies, yet its course will be simple. First the harbour will be captured, then the knights destroyed, and the population slaughtered, enslaved or exiled. Slaughter is satisfying, but slavery enriching.’
    Suleiman almost smiled. A typical maxim. ‘We should seek to rupture the island’s water cisterns,’ he said.
    ‘Majesty.’ Mustafa nodded. ‘Cannon will be needed for this, and to reduce fortifications. Dragut’s knowledge of the island would also be useful.’
    Suleiman looked up.
    ‘Dragut?’
    Mustafa smiled. ‘Dragut. The very sound of his name is a weapon of terror in Malta.’

3
Shropshire, England: Autumn, 1564
     
    Father Matthew was saying Mass when they heard the horses’ hooves approaching.
    The priest had been about to bless the bread – hoc est enim corpus meum , that holiest moment. But he stopped and instead prayed silently that the hooves would pass on.
    There was a frightened silence in the small oak-panelled room, lit only by candlelight. Father Matthew with his head bowed, lips moving, beside the table spread with the bread and wine. Sir Francis Ingoldsby, white-haired, broad-shouldered and bow-legged, with his four children behind him. The eldest, Nicholas, and his sisters Susan, Agnes and Lettice. The servants behind them. The October wind moaning in the chimney, the flames in the fireplace dancing in torment, the thin rain pattering against the leaded windowpanes. Ironshod hooves on the road.
    The listeners barely drew breath.
    Then the horses’ hooves clattered to a halt outside.
    At once there was movement in the room. Father Matthew took up the silver chalice and drained it and wrapped it up in a cloth along with the bread. The servants licked their fingertips and snuffed out all but one candle. Nicholas flung open the door and looked down the hall. At that instant the studded front door seemed to shake on its hinges at a mighty knock from sword hilt or musket butt.
    ‘Quickly, Father,’ urged Sir Francis. But the gaunt and bony Father Matthew was not of an age to move anywhere quickly.
    The other three Ingoldsby children stood back in the shadows, white-faced, the younger girls trying not to cry. A servant namedHodge, an expressionless, solidly built youth, was hauling back a section of linen-fold panelling. Another, louder knock came at the door. The wind moaned.
    ‘They’ll not knock a third time!’ said Nicholas in a desperate whisper.
    ‘That door has stood for four centuries,’ muttered his father. ‘It’ll stand a while yet.’
    ‘Patience, patience,’ muttered Father Matthew, with his bundle and missal under one arm, clambering slowly and stiffly into the tiny priest’s hole beside the fireplace. ‘Unto everything there is a time and a purpose and so forth.’
    There was no more violent knocking, only a curious grating sound from around the huge old iron lock. Then to Nicholas’s horror, a part of the mechanism moved as if at the hand of a ghost. The lockbar went back and the door swung slowly inwards. At first the others didn’t even realise it had happened. Father Matthew was still settling himself down in the hole, muttering about the dignity of the priesthood, Hodge standing by holding the panel.
    Only when they heard the rising howl of the wind and felt a gust of chill air from the hall and saw the solitary candleflame lean and flutter did they freeze and stare.
    His father cried, ‘What the devil?’
    Nicholas could only stare back aghast, as if it were somehow his fault.
    In the open doorway stood two hulking, thuggish men, their hoods concealing their faces, the wind whipping their travel-stained cloaks about