Blood of the Knights, page 13
‘There must be a list of members of these societies. Perhaps with the inquisitor,’ said Gracchus, spearing a vegetable. ‘If there is a link between the murders and the membership of a particular sect, the grandmaster or the bailli will have to act.’
‘So, what will you do?’ asked Eva, placing figs and barley bread beside him.
‘Obtain the lists, and watch the knights,’ said Gracchus simply.
‘And what can we do to help?’ asked Don Stecchi.
‘Co-operate with the sbirri in their investigations,’ said Gracchus, chewing methodically. ‘Both of you were in the Maddalene or nearby when von Seeau was killed and will fall under suspicion. And perhaps you can start to think about motive before our phantom choker strikes again. Who were the enemies of these two Bavarians and what linked them?’
Eva looked down at the tablecloth. ‘For my part, I feel helpless,’ she said. ‘I shall protect the children and Franca, I can do no more.’
Gracchus inclined his head. ‘You could also oblige with a very few more of those preserved apricots.’
* * *
Haintlet was waiting for Vanderville at the auberge and conducted him to the salle d’armes which was in a cellar gallery that doubled as the armoury of the langue. As they proceeded down the stairs, he teased Vanderville about his forthcoming poetry bout with the grandmaster.
‘It will be at His Eminence’s country house at Sant Antonio I expect. I went there once.’
‘I have heard the countryside is more verdant than this sun-baked rock and look forward to seeing it. Is it far from Valletta?’ asked Vanderville.
‘Not much distant. A nice little place, with a pretty bridge and many prettier country girls. I left it more fertile than before my passing.’ He laughed roughly, ‘Time for the salle d’armes! Let us see what the French fencing masters have forgotten to teach you.’
The walls of the practice room armoury were lined with antique arms and armour, but there were also ranks of modern French muskets. Haintlet unfurled some small swords and proficiently added protective tips to their points.
‘You have been observed frequenting a certain house in Strada della Ficara. A word of advice to you Tirdflingen – though there are no longer witches at sea to raise a tempest and untie the wind, there are vixens on this island, potent in raising storms within it. From such, not even a bachelor’s good fortune can always secure him.’
Vanderville tested his weapon, ‘We are not unacquainted with the temptations of the fair sex, even in the French army.’
Haintlet chuckled, but his face was serious. ‘A friendly warning, which is all. The French ballet dancers at the opera also caught my eye, but it is all a trap; you have to stay on the lookout, or you will be a purse or two short, or worse, end up like poor von Seeau.’
Vanderville nodded vaguely, the man bored him as soon as he strayed from imparting useful information, and he was ready to exercise. His shoulder felt much recovered, and he stretched his arm speculatively. ‘Was von Seeau a Francophile then?’
‘Von Seeau a French sympathiser?’ He chuckled. ‘No, that is ridiculous. He hated the French. Even if he had not contracted a social disease after a sojourn in the Palais Royale and contrived a lifelong distaste for Paris as a result, he was passionately addicted to the Order. He lived for it.’
* * *
He soon found that Haintlet’s style of sword practice was unorthodox. Vanderville had seen the rules of the salle posted on the back of the door, and Haintlet showed a casual disregard for these, breaking all those about safety, blaspheming and low talk with a bewildering rapidity. He shunned masks or quilted jackets, which was common among experienced fencers, but even more unnerving was his ability to conduct conversation throughout their bout.
Although the substance of this monologue was gossipy drivel of the most uninspiring sort, the combined effect of hard exercise and responding to a parallel though entirely separate exchange of nonsense, unsettled Vanderville. When he paused, sweating, to remonstrate, Haintlet insisted that by forcing Vanderville’s mind to concentrate on his words, he was freeing his heart to communicate with his sword arm without the conscious mind getting in between them. Was that the secret to his diabolically skilled swordplay, wondered Vanderville?
They recommenced, and Vanderville knuckled down, but he had no tricks that Haintlet was not privy to, and his one vain attempt at novelty ended in humiliation and disarmament.
‘You have potential, but you need to work. Your posture is too settled,’ explained Haintlet, as Vanderville retrieved his blade. ‘Against an opponent who needs time to think, it may serve, but allowing your man time to form an opinion is a mistake. Never rest in any single guard, you will be broken. Motion is all.’
They set to again, and Haintlet picked up his chattering, harping on a now familiar theme. ‘Once in a fit of enthusiasm, I took an apartment for one of these Maltese enchantresses, whose mother proved most tractable. It was an expensive way of taking pleasure, but at least she was so young that there was no risk of disease. I have no desire to ruin my health for a poppet.’
Fluidity, always fluidity, remembered Vanderville; attack and parry are not sequential, but interchangeable and transferrable. His regimental fencing instructor had taught him that the ability to move and alter without thought was paramount against a master. Although the man Haintlet was an idiot, and a gross one at that, Vanderville was learning more than he thought possible to digest. He resolved to begin his studies in the martial arts anew at the first opportunity.
‘One day she confessed that she loved me, and that I could ask for her hand in marriage. I told her that the thought had never crossed my mind. She assured me that I had pleased her best of all the knights of other langues who her family had introduced her to, and she enumerated their number and various qualities. Remarkable in a girl of her tender years. I had to turn her out of course.’
Vanderville chose that moment to unleash his best combinations, and with some fortunate improvisations made up a deal of ground. He still failed to touch Haintlet, but at least the knight too was panting hard now, and less composed. His monologue dried up as a result.
Vanderville meanwhile, was thinking of Granchio. ‘I grant you our protection,’ Granchio had said to him earnestly. It was pathetic and touching. The child had nothing, he would never have anything, and was condemned to a life of servitude and hard knocks, and yet what he had, his knowledge of the streets and hard-earnt tricks of survival, he had placed freely at Vanderville’s disposal. His loyalty and affection to Duccio touched Vanderville deeply too, and absurdly he found himself vowing to be worthy of Granchio’s trust. Forced back against the wall again by a low trick, he kicked Haintlet hard between the legs, and the knight staggered back panting and snorting like a donkey.
Vanderville slumped down against the wall to catch his breath. ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘Baron Pellegrew says that you were at the Maddalene complex when von Seeau died but have refused to cooperate with the sbirri’s investigations.’
Haintlet snorted as he massaged his damaged portion. ‘I see no need to account for my movements to you or anyone else.’
‘That leaves you in a weak position. Even Donna Mifsud has someone prepared to vouch for her movements. A priest no less.’
‘Don Stecchi?’ sneered Haintlet. ‘He knows that when she dies, half her property will go to the Maddalene. It is the law – dead whores pay for the hospital. Should she die convicted, the state takes everything, and the hospital is left high and dry.’
Vanderville gazed aimlessly at the monstrous Gobelin tapestries that swathed the cellar walls. Amid the kings and courtiers depicted there, he saw a court dwarf, cavorting for his liege lord’s amusement, and he tried to imagine the life of the deformed Granchio, reduced to the role of curiosity and jester. It was a hard road, he thought, and his thoughts continued in this earnest vein until an unwelcome lascivious vision of Franca at her toilette dispelled them and he found himself comparing her with Paolette Bonaparte, whose person had occupied the vastest part of his affections over the previous months, and whose place in his regard no one had seriously threatened until now. He called himself back to the present with a stern and disproving admonition to put both women from his mind. He went to slap himself and was conscious suddenly of Haintlet clambering to his feet and calling out.
‘Had enough? Good. Me too.’ He laid aside his small sword and took down another from the wall, ‘Now – sabre!’
In sabre Vanderville tended to lead with his wrist too much, exposing it to counters, and Haintlet exploited this ruthlessly, warning, ‘You are exposing your wrist to a cut!’ the first time, and in the second bout he hit him hard with the flat of the blade, and shrugged apologetically. But his eyes were wolvish. Haintlet started at a low pace and waited for the first exhaustion to hit, before accelerating the energy of his movements enormously. This reflected his supreme fitness and his cunning equally, thought Vanderville, and they soon abandoned the game.
‘How much training do you think is necessary?’ said Vanderville as he recovered.
‘Three or four hours a day, I suppose. More when needed to learn a new weapon or technique.’
Vanderville blinked, ‘It doesn’t leave much time for anything else,’ he suggested.
Haintlet stared at him, his gaze level, ‘You need to decide if you are going to earn your place as a lion. Or become prey.’ His small pin-shaped head made him look like a visitor from another species, and Vanderville was so busy considering this, that they were off and into a bucket bath before he knew where he was.
* * *
The Auberge of Bavaria was a substantial handsome-looking building; but so full of dusty state rooms and malodorous offices that, for both privacy and the benefit of the air, the knights assembled for the evening were obliged to lay their mess table on its very summit, on a lofty terrace open to all the winds. This terrace commanded half the roofs of Valletta, and all lay below them, except where here and there a bell tower shot up from among the roofs, rivalling their own elevated peak. The velvet azure of the sky, the cages of carrier pigeons gently cooing, and the softness of the air inclined Vanderville to think of some magical city of Persia.
The company was composed of a train of high-spirited young knights, rapping out the broadest oaths, as they quaffed their flowing cups of iced lemonade heightened with rum, and playing off each other in not exactly the most decorous specimens of practical wit. But everyone was magnificent in regimentals for the occasion, and pregnant with anticipation for the feast. Before long, their faces were glistening with sweat, so overdressed were they all despite the warm evening.
The mess table sparkled with silverware under a blaze of candlelight, and the fish dishes, especially, were splendid. Vanderville regretted Gracchus’s absence. He would have dearly liked to carry his friend something of the fruits of the sea, but Gracchus had been adamant that he would retire early, so as to meet Vanderville early the next morning at the grandmaster’s palace for an interview with that worthy.
Probably as well, thought Vanderville. Gracchus had never quite grasped that soldiers’ bacchanals represented a communion, and had even been dismissive of them upon occasion, suggesting that excessive consumption of wine blunted the faculty of taste.
Vanderville had explained before that wine was merely the sacrament chosen when the members of the mess remembered and emphasised the past glories of their peers. In doing so they affirmed their commitment to communal values and identity. Gracchus had wondered aloud what sacrament was represented by officers crawling under the table to vomit, and since then, by mutual assent, Vanderville had ceased to issue invitations to his heretical companion.
The presidency of the mess was rotated among the knights, and this evening it fell to Haintlet who seated de Rechberg and Vanderville on his flanks.
‘I am the mess knight of the mess night,’ he announced proudly to Vanderville.
‘How very democratic that you take turns.’
‘Nonsense,’ said Haintlet, who had already drunk deeply from his silver cup. ‘Democracy would be letting the servants preside. Here we operate on merit, which is easily adjudged.’ He poured more wine for them all. ‘You see, the thing is, there are two sorts of young officers: intelligent ones, and the stupid. They can be further subdivided into hard workers, and the lazy. So, there are only five types, and no more.’
Much of the evening passed in this fashion of amiable nonsense, and gradually there was introduced a pseudo-masonic air to some of the proceedings, consisting of the usual tired allusions, hints at secret knowledge and plain gibberish. Vanderville was alert to any hint of irregular rites, or mention of the Minerves, but found none in the formality that reigned as long as relative sobriety endured. The sole advantage of this fraternal window dressing was that the whole table was sub rosa, even to the extent that an actual drab garland of roses was in place above the president’s chair. As such Vanderville was implored to dispense with his alias as Tirdflingen and relate once more how he leapt from the Carrère to assail the bastion of Fort Sant’ Elmo.
‘How camest thou here?’ intoned de Rechberg in the approved fraternal masonic formula, and the table listened gravely as Vanderville recounted yet again his stirring story.
‘You will not live long in this manner,’ said one of the visiting knights approvingly.
‘A light cavalryman should aspire like our good Lord not to live past thirty-three,’ responded Vanderville. A tired republican trope, but one which provoked a general riot of cheers and raising of glasses. As the warm bonds of drunkenness enveloped the company, their tongues loosened with the easing of cravats and buttons.
‘I thought I saw one of Carpegna’s men in the courtyard earlier,’ Vanderville mentioned to his neighbour at the table.
De Rechberg shrugged off his coat. ‘It could be,’ he said. ‘The priest known as Canon Gatt who took a ducking at the docks haunts this place. Some of the brethren actually allow him to confess them, although one suspects he has more to be forgiven than most.’
‘But not you?’ asked Vanderville.
‘That oaf?’ sneered Haintlet, picking his nose industriously with a corner of his napkin. ‘He is from I forget which university; I hope not Bologna. He told me that one of the nuns of the Convent of the Maddalene, having intrigued horizontally with old Beelzebub in propria persona, had been sent to the inquisition, and the window through which his infernal majesty had entered upon this gallant exploit, walled up and painted over with red crosses. The same precautionary decoration, he explained, has been bestowed upon every opening in the nun’s facade, so that no demon, however sharp set, can get in again.’
‘A man who enjoys his work,’ said de Rechberg.
‘He seems keen on exposing the fraternal societies,’ opined Vanderville.
De Rechberg filled Vanderville’s glass and his own inexpertly. ‘We have been guilty of playing up the whole Minerves thing to annoy Carpegna, because for some reason, he has a grudge against the Langue of Bavaria. It is so much nonsense, the brotherhood was effectively dissolved years ago.’
‘So, there is nothing in it?’ pressed Vanderville.
De Rechberg leaned in closer. ‘A few still promote the secret societies as a cover for debauchery,’ he whispered. ‘The worst of the knights in some auberges abuse women too young even to be married. I cannot tell you how foul they are to the people here.’
‘Are you talking the Order down again?’ belched Haintlet, whose movements and judgement were becoming increasingly erratic with wine taken. He leaned forward across the table to address Vanderville, his face just a little too close for comfort.
‘The fact is, that the Maltese are cattle. Their so-called nobles are nothing of the sort, they would not even enter society back home. They are corrupt and offer their daughters up to us as concubines, so how can we be expected to extend them courtesy when they contaminate themselves in this filthy way?’
De Rechberg averted his eyes, but Haintlet, whose own eyeballs were glassy now, continued. ‘The merchants are what they are everywhere, so we take what we want from them, and they are grateful that we notice them. As for the Public Women and street children, you may choose to contaminate yourself by associating with them, but they live as beasts, and like beasts they are hunted for sport, or culled to keep down a nuisance. They are not worth a dot of your misplaced compassion, and you lower the fraternity of this sacred table by pleading for them.’
‘Peace Fra’ Haintlet,’ muttered de Rechberg. ‘Remember you may not insult a guest or brother at the mess table.’
Any offence was curtailed by another round of toasts, and Vanderville hazily contemplated the magnificent antique silver centrepiece that dominated the table. It represented a walled height where an armoured knight stood astride a breach, clasping the head of a Turk in one hand, and brandishing a sword in the other. Two dead turks were sprawled at his feet, their pallid argent faces turned to the sky. The glister of the silver was reflected in the perspiration of the faces around the table.
‘Why do you suffer Haintlet?’ Vanderville whispered to de Rechberg.
‘He is coarse it is true,’ he whispered back. ‘But you must understand – we are bound to each other by the Order. It is forbidden to us to betray a brother knight. Loyalty to one’s auberge, to the Order itself is everything; it overmasters all other considerations – including those of creed, lodge, language, or nation.’
One of the younger knights had been recalling the tale of the Great Siege to Vanderville, who listened with one ear as he observed his fellows. He felt sure that he would be required by Gracchus to describe their various qualities in the morning, with particular reference to Minervan tendencies. But the softness of the evening breeze had emboldened him to quaff too freely in pace with the brethren, and he found himself enveloped in the gossamer threads of drunkenness that were settling their web over the heads bowed at their trencher work. As the endless details of the siege continued to be recounted to him, he realised that in performing the acts of inebriate communion, by toasting their predecessors and their exploits, those present expressed their wish to achieve something good and great in common with the past. They wanted a magnificent event to be part of. Their wish for a siege comparable to the Great Siege might soon be granted, he reflected. Although he hoped it would find him outside the walls looking in rather than confined here under the hail of fire.
