Disorderly Knights - Dorothy Dunnett [57]
‘Left!’ said Jerott, whipped from his sulks by the window.
‘They have gone back to Gozo. Wait!’ said Gabriel quickly; and his resonant voice for once was formidable. ‘Wait before you judge. We have an obligation here: to all the people of Birgu and L’Isla, all the villages in east Malta, all the women and children who fled here the other day when we thought the Turk had arrived. And even that obligation we must dishonour if—as seems certain to me—Dragut attacks on his way back. He won’t waste guns on Gozo; don’t think it. His blow will be struck against us, the Order, where we are accessible to his ships. I would wager my hope of heaven if I had any such,’ said Gabriel deliberately, ‘that Sinan Pasha and Dragut mean to destroy us, here at St Angelo. You know our exact resources of food, our full store of water. We shall die fighting, I hope, of honourable wounds. The women and children with us will die of hunger and thirst, or will fall helpless to the Turk. The Order’s duty is to fight Islâm, and in a last extremity, for the Religion, the Order has first claim on all reserves to survive.… They are better on Gozo.’
He had satisfied them, but he had not turned them from their new thought. De Villegagnon voiced it again. ‘Lead us,’ he said.
For a moment Graham Malett was silent, collecting his thoughts. Then with unaffected patience he answered. ‘The Grand Mastership is dissolved only by death; and new Masters are made by the full Council, the Emperor and the Pope. This is an old, sick priest, given way a little to selfish concerns; unable now to bring balanced thought to his problems; unable to find comfort in prayer. To begin with, pity him.’
‘Pity us!’ retorted Jerott bitterly.
‘Why?’ said Gabriel swiftly. ‘Because you are in your twenties and young and importunate, and the Order is four hundred years old and patient? The Order has survived weak leadership before. It will again. If we have complaints—’ he held up his hand against the comment—‘the time to make them is after we have driven Dragut from Malta, and the place to make them is in full Council, in the presence of the Viceroy. I beg you …’ he looked round, half rueful at his own rhetoric, half in pain with the sheer urgency of his wish to persuade, ‘I beg you, do nothing now. Can you not see? The best leader in the world could not in the last weeks have forced the Emperor to give us ships and troops. The best soldier in Christendom, given our defences as they have stood this last month, could do little now to improve them. There is nothing material to be gained by rebellion now, and every possible loss, physical and spiritual. We should be accused of personal ambition, subversive nationalism, panic and cowardice in the face of danger, How could you deny it? Jerott—Nicholas—Brother Nick—dearest children in Christ.… Did you not say once, as I said, “I vow to God. …” ’ And the tall, fair-haired knight quoted suddenly in his remarkable voice.
‘I vow to God, to Saint Mary, ever a Virgin, Mother of God; to St John the Baptist, to render henceforth and for ever, by the grace of God, a true obedience to the Superior which it pleases him to give me, and who will be the choice of our Religion.’
Sir Graham Malett paused, and in the shared silence added the words heard for the first time by each of them on the day of his initiation. ‘ “Receive the yoke of the Lord, because it is sweet and light … under which you will find repose for your soul.” Receive with humility, Jerott, the lessons you are taught, and do not lightly forget that we have a Leader who will not fail us.
‘Let us go to Church,’ said Gabriel quietly. ‘And then work as we may on the defence of our island, to the last shred of our strength.’
*
On the morning of the 16th July, before the sun was more than a mellow radiance outside the white, sleeping walls of Birgu, the bells of St Lawrence