Sword and Scimitar

Neither spoke at first and then Thomas swallowed nervously and cleared his throat. ‘I am sorry for your loss. Oliver was a good man.’

‘Yes. . . Yes, he was.’ The sadness in her tone was genuine. ‘He was kind to me, until the end. It was your presence that changed him. It could not be helped. I was never able to give him what he wanted from me. What you always had.’ She reached out and tentatively cupped his cheek. Her skin was smooth and cool and Thomas closed his eyes as he breathed in the faint scent of her.

‘I should have been a better wife to him.’ Maria glanced in the direction Richard had gone. ‘And Oliver should have let me be a better mother to my . . . our son. He knows the truth but he ca

Thomas laughed drily and she turned to look down at him with a frown. ‘What?’

‘It’s just that we have all made such a mess of things. Me, you, Oliver, Richard. There is no escaping the past. Not for us. Nor for La Valette or Suleiman. We are all the prisoners of our history, Maria.’

‘Only if we choose to be.’ She leaned closer to him and kissed his brow. ‘There is time to change.’

A shot struck the fort and the impact was felt by all in the room and dislodged some plaster. Thomas could not help a wry smile. ‘Not for those involved in this struggle.’

‘For us, and for Richard, there is still a chance to mend the bonds that were broken. I would have that. I would hold you in my arms again, my love.’

‘Even like this?’ Thomas said harshly as he turned his head for her to see the livid scars on his face and scalp. He flicked the sheet back to reveal his left side. Maria’s calm expression never wavered.

‘Do you think I have not seen your injuries? It was I who changed your dressings and cleaned your wounds. I saw to your most base needs. I know your body more intimately than your own mother ever did. I grieved for your suffering even as I tended you and I prayed each night that you might live. And God, in his infinite mercy, has answered me.’

Maria’s words struck a cold chord in Thomas’s heart. ‘If it is God’s will that we should have endured all that we have, then what does God know about the quality of mercy? I am done with God, Maria. All that now matters to me is you, Richard and the men at whose side I fight.’ He paused and smiled grimly. ‘Though I should say, fought. For I am destined to be a poor soldier now.’

Maria stared at him. ‘You have no faith?’

‘Not in God. And, until recently, precious little in people. Yet I have seen the best and worst in men these last months. I count it a great pity that it takes a conflict over something as insubstantial as faith to test the valour and venality of men.’

‘It is God’s test then,’ Maria countered fervently. ‘His test of our resolve. He still has a purpose for you, Thomas.’

He took her hand and gazed into her eyes. ‘Maria. I am what you see before you and that is all. I would not be a burden to you. I love you, and always have. But I am a changed man from the young knight you once knew. To me, you are still the same Maria and I wish nothing more than to be at your side until the end of my life. But I would not want to be there under any degree of sufferance. Not for my body, or my character, or my beliefs. I would have you think on that before you choose to be my wife, if that is your desire.’

‘But it is, my love.’

Thomas touched her lips with his fingers. ‘Hush now. I would not have you give an answer before you have thought it through. And I am tired. Very tired. Go now and we can speak again when I have rested, and you have reflected.’

She made to speak, then stopped herself. Her lips pressed together in a thin line and she nodded. Maria leaned forward to kiss the puckered skin of his scarred cheek and stood up. ‘Until tomorrow.’

‘Tomorrow then.’ He nodded.

She smiled and left the room hurriedly, cuffing her cheek as she passed through the door and out of sight. The soft slap of her sandals quickly faded and Thomas stared up at the ceiling, his heart heavy.

Until Maria had considered the realities of what he had become, he would not have her. To accept her as his wife, only for her to come to wish she had chosen differently, would be the worst fate of all, Thomas reflected.

‘I see your visitors have gone.’

Thomas opened his eyes and saw Christopher smiling down at him. He held a small wooden tray bearing a bowl, cup, spoon and a meagre hunk of dry bread.

‘The meal I promised you. Can you sit up, or should I help?’

‘I can do it myself.’ Thomas gritted his teeth and eased himself up the bed until he was propped against the wall. The monk placed the tray on the stool beside him and Thomas found that the pleasant odour of the soup made him feel hungry. As he carefully took a few sips with the spoon, the monk looked out of the window.

‘There are clouds to the north. There’s rain coming. A storm perhaps. Yes, a storm, I think. The end of the season is almost upon us. Pray God we hold out until the autumn arrives.’

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

For the next two days Maria returned each morning and on the third day Thomas felt strong enough to venture on to the walls of St Angelo. The air was still and the flags and standards of both sides hung limply. Dark clouds loomed over the island, a sign of the abrupt change in the weather that portended the end of the summer. The enemy guns were concentrating their fire on what was left of the defences that protected Birgu and the walls of the fort were safe to walk, for the moment. Maria had not mentioned the exchange that had taken place between them that first day after Thomas had recovered from his fever, and such talk as there was between them was pleasant enough as they cautiously felt their way towards each other. It only became halting when they spoke of the future.

The last time he had beheld the vista of the harbour and the surrounding landscape from St Angelo, the peninsulas of Senglea and Birgu had been largely untouched by the siege. Now Thomas gazed out over an apocalyptic panorama of death and destruction. The outworks of St Michael and Birgu had been flattened and the main walls were little more than piles of rubble stretching between the battered bastions. Nearly all the buildings in the town of Birgu had been damaged by roundshot and many had collapsed. Masts and rigging emerged from the sea off the eastern shore of the peninsula where La Valette had given orders for ships to be sunk to prevent the Turks attempting to land there. Although it had been a month since the Turks’ failed seaborne assault on Senglea, the cha

Turkish batteries had been sited on every vantage point and kept up a steady fire on the defenders, levelling what remained of the out defences and occasionally lobbing a shot into the town to harass the civilian population and eat away at what was left of their morale. The landscape between the walls and the Turkish trenches was scarred by the passage of ca

Thomas beheld the scene in shocked silence. Even though he had witnessed the savage struggle for St Elmo, that had been on a small scale compared with what now lay before him. It seemed hard to believe that the enemy could not easily scale the rubble that was all that was left of the defences of Birgu. Only the hastily constructed i