Redfalcon, page 9
‘You’re supposing then that they rowed in from a ship that kept out of sight,’ said Jaikie.
‘Either that or a submarine,’ I said.
‘And what about the car?’ Dougal wondered. ‘Where did that come from?’
‘Chief Stark checked up on that,’ Jaikie informed us. ‘It seems it was stolen during the night from the home of one of the native Gibraltarians who works at the supply depot. From all accounts he’s completely trustworthy and has nothing to do with the enemy operation, other than being a victim of car theft.’
‘The Italians!’ A cold anger blazed in the Greek girl’s large eyes. ‘First they attack my country, and when the resistance is too fierce, they call in their friends the Germans to help them. And now, even here, when I am far from home, even where the British stand firm, they dare to attack me again.’
‘From what I hear about you braining one of them with an oar,’ grinned Dougal, ‘they’ll not try that again in a hurry.’
The girl directed her gaze at me. ‘It seems you were right,’ she said, tapping herself on the temple. ‘There is something up here that they want.’
‘And you’ve now had more than ample proof of the danger you’re in, Dr Adriatis,’ I told her.
She waved a dismissive hand. ‘No, no more Dr Adriatis. We are not taking tea with the king at Buckingham Palace. If we are to be allies, you will call me Karrie. And I will call you’ – she pointed to each of us in turn – ‘Richard, John and Douglas.’
‘That’s Dougal,’ the red-haired young Scot objected.
Karrie raised an admonitory finger. ‘Douglas, you really must not contradict me over matters of little importance.’
I was surprised that Dougal chose not to argue the point any further. I could only imagine that from the moment he first beheld her on the moonlit beach, the beautiful Greek archaeologist had cast an enchantment over him.
‘Well then . . . Karrie,’ I said, ‘now that we’re all agreed that whatever information you have is of serious value to our enemies, perhaps you’d like to share some of it with us.’
‘You need to tell us about these Knights of St John,’ said Jaikie.
‘Yes, who is this Redfalcon,’ Dougal pressed her, ‘and what is this dratted weapon of his that’s got everybody so fired up?’
‘Patience, Douglas, patience,’ she chided. ‘The tale must be told in its proper order, then shall all be explained.’
She sounded now much more the conventional academic preparing to deliver a lecture, but she was right – we needed the fullest possible understanding of what this business was all about.
‘To begin with, the Order was founded in Jerusalem by a certain Brother Gerard who was the head of a hospice for pilgrims. With the arrival of the Crusaders, the humble hospice grew into a great hospital and the Order gained the favour of popes, kings and nobles. Their endowments allowed it to establish new centres all over Europe, while in the Holy Land they took on a new duty – the protection of pilgrims passing through their territory. This involved the development of a military arm, knights serving under the monastic rule of St Benedict.’
Jaikie frowned. ‘I’m sure this is all very interesting, but does it really answer any of our questions?’
Karrie fixed him with an implacable stare. ‘If you do not understand these men, how can you hope to ever penetrate their secrets?’
‘You’re right, of course,’ I said appeasingly. ‘Please go on.’
‘Over time the kingdoms established by the Crusaders crumbled before the relentless assaults of their Muslim foes,’ Karrie continued. ‘Acre was the last of the Christian strongholds to fall and with it the Hospitallers were driven from the Holy Land. Now they took on a new role. Instead of charging across the desert plain on their great horses, they took to the sea, harassing the merchant ships of their infidel enemies. They established themselves on the island of Rhodes, aided by the native inhabitants who were already skilled sailors. From this lush and fertile island, the swift galleys of the Order continued the war begun in the Crusades.’
‘So now they were just soldiers and sailors,’ I suggested.
‘Not at all,’ Karrie corrected me. ‘Wherever the Knights made their home, there would always be at its centre a great hospital for the care of the sick and the help of the poor.’
‘But what about Malta?’ Dougal cut in impetuously.
Karrie gave him a glare that I imagined had cowed any number of obstreperous undergraduates. Jaikie jogged his friend’s elbow and gave a warning shake of the head.
‘Twice the great sultan of the Turks laid siege to the Order on Rhodes. The first time the attackers were repulsed. The second time, after a long a weary struggle, the Knights accepted the terms offered. They could leave the island unmolested, taking with them their arms and their ships: an honourable withdrawal. So the leaders of the Order wandered now from place to place until they were granted the sovereignty of the island of Malta.’
I saw my two young friends lean forward intently at the mention of that name. Now, it seemed, we were coming to the part of the story that held the key to the mystery that had brought us here.
‘Compared to the beauty of Rhodes, this new island was a barren rock with little to recommend it and no adequate defences. The Knights set to work, erecting castles, thick walls and strong bastions, as they had done back in the kingdoms of the Crusaders. They enlarged the harbours and continued to wage their campaigns by sea. In time the sultan Suleiman decided he had had enough of these piratical Christians and he resolved to utterly destroy them once and for all.’
‘I’ve heard something about that siege,’ I said. ‘It was a long and bloody struggle.’
‘It was indeed,’ said Karrie. ‘A huge Ottoman army landed on the island and the inhabitants withdrew inside the stout walls of the twin towns of Birgu and Senglea, which were defended by the Order. The Turks first invested Fort St Elmo, a small fortress isolated at the end of a rocky promontory. They expected it to fall in a matter of days, but they had underestimated the determination of its defenders. During the attack the fort was so engulfed in fire and smoke that it looked like a volcano, but the banners of the Order continued to fly above the inferno. Knights who were too seriously wounded to stand were placed in chairs with their swords in their hands to defend breaches in the walls.’
She clenched her hands in front of her, as though gripping the hilt of a great sword, and the dramatic intonation in her voice seemed to conjure up the scene before our eyes. It was little wonder that her people were famed as a nation of storytellers from the days of Homer onward.
‘Finally, after thirty-one days, the fort was taken,’ said Karrie, ‘but only at the cost to the Turks of many thousands of their men and some of their most famous commanders. It was something of a hollow victory, for shortly afterwards reinforcements arrived, finding a way around the enemy arms to join the defenders within the city walls. The twin towns were on promontories extending into the great harbour, and both came under assault by land and sea.’
Dougal nodded approvingly. ‘Those Knights of yours were a tough crew, right enough.’
‘After many weeks the Ottomans launched their climactic assault,’ said Karrie. ‘They were on the point of overrunning the defences when suddenly the retreat was sounded. Their camp, far to their rear, had come under attack, and they feared a fresh Christian army had landed to march against them. In fact it was just a small Maltese raiding party, but the panic they caused saved the Order from being overwhelmed.’
These scenes of battle as she related them were only too vivid for me. I knew what it was like to hold a line against overwhelming odds, clinging to the desperate hope of reinforcement, and I could envisage the terrible struggle only too easily.
‘Was that the end of it, then?’ asked Jaikie.
‘No, there were another three months of hard fighting,’ said Karrie. ‘By that time the resources of the invaders were dwindling, while the toll of casualties from battle and disease had become intolerable. They were forced to clamber aboard their ships and sail back to the east, where the wrath of their sultan awaited them.’
There was a pause, during which all of us drew breath.
‘Well, it’s quite a tale,’ said Jaikie at last, ‘but I didn’t hear anything that suggested any sort of secret weapon.’
‘Right,’ Dougal agreed. ‘It seems to have been mostly swords, crossbows and suchlike.’
‘They had cannon,’ said Karrie, ‘and early forms of musket. There was also Greek fire.’
‘I’ve heard of that,’ I said. ‘Wasn’t it developed by the Byzantines?’
‘Yes. It was a form of liquid fire used to ignite the ships of the enemy. The Knights often used it in the form of incendiary grenades.’
‘That’s not something that could threaten Malta now,’ said Jaikie. ‘Not in the face of modern weaponry.’
‘The references to this supposed weapon are few and couched in deliberately vague language,’ Karrie explained. ‘They do, however, connect it with the name Redfalcon. Armand Lasalle had a certain suspicion about who he might have been, and I was able to confirm it through my own researches.’
‘And are you ready to share that information with us now?’ I prompted.
Karrie shifted in her seat and her grey eyes swept over all three of us. ‘The key to the thing lay in heraldry.’
‘That’s all about family crests and suchlike, isn’t it?’ said Dougal. ‘A way for rich nobles to show off.’
‘More than showing off,’ Karrie corrected him. ‘It was very important that knights be able to identify each other. Bear in mind that they did not wear uniforms, and in their armour it was difficult to tell one man from another and friend from foe. Each man therefore had his own heraldic symbol painted on his shield. It could be something as simple as a tower or a lion, but was often a combination of several elements each carrying its own meaning with regard to the knight’s lineage.’
‘And where does this lead us?’ Jaikie pressed.
Karrie raised a finger, as though to point to the object of her reasoning. ‘To a man whose family bore the heraldic crest of a crimson bird of prey. It was a common enough practice to refer to a man by his heraldic symbol. In this case the man was Sir Thomas Easterly, a Knight of St John who hailed from England.’
‘And that is the man Lasalle suspected all along,’ I surmised.
‘Yes. He was not only a holy knight, he was an expert in the construction of fortifications and in casting cannon.’
‘But if he’s long dead, how could he have any influence on our war today?’ Jaikie wondered.
Karrie allowed a dramatic pause before answering the question. ‘Because he left behind a record of his great weapon which was not only for defence. He said that if Malta should fall to the Turks, he had the means by which the Knights could retake the island.’
‘And that’s what the Germans are after,’ I said. ‘The means to capture Malta.’
‘I still don’t follow,’ Dougal grumbled. ‘If this man Easterly was a knight of Malta, what is your pal Lasalle doing in Morocco?’
‘Because that is where the secret of Redfalcon lies.’ Karrie slammed her palm down on the table as though closing a coffin lid. ‘It is buried with him in his tomb.’
15
THE FOURTH KNAVE
‘I take it there’s another story behind this,’ I guessed.
‘You are correct. It is a tale recorded by one of the Order’s chroniclers.’
Dougal wriggled in his seat to make himself comfortable and Jaikie took a long swallow of coffee as they prepared themselves for another period of enforced and attentive silence. I was already fascinated by the story, and only hoped that we were on the trail of something tangible and not chasing after some legend that would dissolve through our fingers like mist.
Karrie took a swallow of her personal tonic and resumed her discourse.
‘Even though the Knights had won their great victory over the Ottomans, the traffic of the Mediterranean was still harried by the Barbary pirates operating from their North African strongholds. Six years after the siege, Redfalcon was aboard one of the Order’s ships when it was damaged in a pirate attack. Forced off course, it was caught in a storm and wrecked on the shores of present-day Morocco. Barely twenty crewmen survived and most of those were captured and made into slaves. Three escaped inland, however, all of them Knights of the Order. Redfalcon was one, Guy de Melancourt, a French knight, was another, and the third was a Spaniard, Rodrigo d’Alcantara.’
‘This is all starting to sound a bit Robinson Crusoe,’ Dougal commented under his breath.
Karrie continued her tale as though she hadn’t heard him. ‘They found refuge with a small Christian community which had managed to survive by making their home among the caves and clefts of the mountains. Redfalcon had been badly injured in the wreck, and though his fellow Knights tended him with all possible care, he died only a few weeks after reaching the hidden refuge. With the help of their fellow Christians, Melancourt and d’Alcantara created a tomb inside a cave to house the body of their brave companion.’
‘Given how long ago all this was,’ said Jaikie, ‘and in such an inaccessible spot, how is it that anybody knows about this tomb?’
‘I was about to explain that,’ Karrie answered curtly. ‘After a year the two surviving Knights set out on the hazardous journey back to Christian lands. Along the way Melancourt was taken by a fever and died, but d’Alcantara made it home to Spain and resumed his duties with the Order. The Hospitaller chronicles record the account he gave of his adventures and tell that the greatness of Redfalcon was buried with him in some distant place.’
‘Greatness?’ I said. ‘That could just mean a record of his achievements.’
Karrie shook her head. ‘It’s very unlikely they would leave a perishable manuscript account of his deeds, or go to the great effort of inscribing them on stone.’
‘So you take it to mean that it’s this mysterious weapon itself that’s buried there,’ said Jaikie, ‘or some record of what exactly it might be.’
‘As so often in history we are dealing with probabilities,’ Karrie declared in her scholarly fashion. ‘We must hope that the truth lies ahead of us. Dr Lasalle believes it was in the mountains to the south-east of Casablanca that the Knights took refuge and he has searched there as best he can without more detailed guidance.’
‘And that’s what he wanted you to find for him,’ I supposed.
‘Correct. I learned that in addition to the tale recorded in the Chronicles, Don Rodrigo d’Alcantara also wrote a private letter to Sir Thomas’s brother Frederick Easterly. In this he gave certain clues as to the location of the tomb, so that one day the family might make a pilgrimage there and pay homage to their illustrious kinsman.’
‘And you were able to find it?’ Dougal prompted.
There was a flash of triumph in Karrie’s eyes. ‘Yes, among the family records that had been preserved at Dronford Abbey near Exeter.’
‘So what are these clues?’ Jaikie asked eagerly.
The Greek girl sat back in her chair and folded her arms. ‘That information is for Dr Lasalle, not for you.’
‘You cannot be serious,’ Dougal exclaimed. ‘We’ve come all this way to find you and saved you from being kidnapped.’
‘I am very serious, Douglas,’ she retorted. ‘Whatever it might have to do with the war, this is a scientific expedition, a search for an important historical discovery. It is the business of scholars, not soldiers and adventurers.’
Dougal slammed his hands flat on the table in frustration. ‘Well, there’s hardly much point in us going to find Dr Lasalle without these clues of yours.’
‘Exactly.’ Karrie’s whole demeanour expressed a fixed resolve to have her way. ‘Which is why you must abandon any notion of leaving me behind.’
It was clear to me that she had thought this all out before our meeting, and it was going to prove difficult to dissuade her.
‘You must appreciate that this is a very dangerous mission,’ I cautioned. ‘We’ll be going into Vichy territory, and if we’re caught there they might well hand us over to the Germans. We could be shot as spies.’
‘Do you expect me to be afraid?’ Karrie unfolded her arms and struck a defiant pose. ‘My ancestors defeated the Persian armies of Darius and Xerxes, we threw off the yoke of the Turkish Ottomans, and we shall see off these latest invaders. Greece will always be free in the end because we carry our history with us here.’
She struck a fist against her heart and her whole body seemed to blaze with an almost supernatural fire. At that moment she seemed to me to embody all the glories of Greece, from the age of gods and philosophers to the golden empire of Byzantium.
Abruptly she stood up and pushed her chair back. ‘You will let me know when you have arranged passage for us to Morocco, so that we may join Dr Lasalle in Casablanca.’
With that she strode off without a backward glance.
Dougal shook his head ruefully. ‘Who does she think she is? Helen of Troy?’
‘I hope she won’t stir up as much trouble as that,’ I said.
‘Speaking of ships,’ said Jaikie, ‘do you think the governor could provide us with a boat of some sort for our crossing to Africa?’
I rubbed my jaw in thought. ‘I’d like to keep this as unofficial as possible. We need to travel as civilians and avoid any encounter with the Vichy authorities.’
‘And what will we do about the lassie?’ Dougal wondered darkly. ‘She acts like the boss of the whole business.’
‘I’m not any happier about taking her along than you are,’ I admitted, ‘but it seems that she has us over a barrel.’
‘I suppose she’s right when she says that she’s on a scientific expedition,’ Jaikie conceded, ‘and we’ve sort of shoved our noses into it. We can’t really blame her for refusing to be left out.’
‘Look, why don’t you two go and rustle up the kit we’ll need for this trip,’ I suggested. ‘I’ll see if I can work something out about transport and figure out how we’re going to handle our stubborn Dr Adriatis.’
