Pawn in Frankincense - Dorothy Dunnett [136]
He had been hasty, he realized it. And the Scotsman he had got them from had been right. When he complained; when he took his story to the reputable Knights who would listen, they had shrugged their shoulders in disbelief. His reasons for discrediting Gabriel were too plain. And even de la Valette, approached in the end, had said gravely, ‘It demands investigation: you are right. While the Grand Master lives this is impossible. You must possess patience; and watch; and so shall I. Under the eyes of us both, he can surely do no great harm meantime; if you are right.’
So he had watched. And of the several mishaps which had occurred during that season, none so far as he could see were attributable to Gabriel. The Carrack, sailing to Sicily, had been unexpectedly waylaid by a considerable force of corsairs and but for pure accident might have been lost; but how could Gabriel be responsible for that? Twice, ships bringing them supplies had been sunk without warning, despite absolute secrecy as to their schedule, and for a while their wheat supplies had run short; but again, this could be nothing but mischance. In fact, their supplies from the East, which were under Gabriel’s direct control, had come in with smooth regularity, and they had lacked neither wine nor fruit; which was a pity, Leone considered, as on the whole the Knights regarded the possession of bread as a matter of slightly lesser importance.
The only untoward happening since he had arrived, in fact, was the unexpected death of the little Scots dragoman in Gabriel’s house the other week. He had come on a cargo vessel from Zakynthos, and had been for a long time in the Lazaretto before that, so it was plainly a matter of foreign disease, and for a while there had been a minor panic in case it was an outbreak of plague, and the poor man had been given a hasty burial at sea. But after that, Strozzi thought, Graham Malett had been a shade abstracted through his pretentious posturings during the weeks of planning this raid; and although he was here now, behind Strozzi’s Admiral ship, sailing with de Guimeran in one of the Order’s four galleys, La Catarinetta, he had been, thought Strozzi, remarkably subdued.
It was as well. Now, with the Grand Master’s death surely imminent, Leone Strozzi was about to achieve a small but dazzling coup for the Order. Thirteen miles east of Djerba on the North African coast, Zuara was not a great city. But because of a good harbour it had become rich in commerce and also a profitable lair for all the Barbary corsairs east of Algiers.
He was going to reduce it. He was going to give the Moors inside the town such a fright that they would think long before they allowed Turkish or renegade ships to shelter again; and he was going to teach the corsairs that they had their own depots and harbours and ships to defend before they could freely rove the seas plundering others.
Slaves in Malta had described the fortifications to him. They were all on the north. The land side of Zuara, they said, was both unguarded and unfortified. They had only to advance to the ditch unseen through the palm trees, and Zuara was theirs.
So the Moorish slaves said. He had no reason to disbelieve them: they had too much to lose. He was taking several of them with him as guides; and the Order’s galleys, and his own brigantines fully armed. And aboard he was carrying twelve hundred men, including the three hundred best Knights of the Convent. Three-quarters of all the Knights on Malta were sailing with and under Leone Strozzi: de la Valette was under his command; Graham Malett must look to him for orders.
They had already made