The Blood-Red Crescent Henry Garnett

®

SOPHIA INSTITUTE PRESS Manchester, New Hampshire

The Blood-Red Crescent was originally published in 1960 by Doubleday and Company, Inc., Garden City, New York. This 2007 ®

edition by Sophia Institute Press contains minor editorial revisions to correct infelicities in grammar and punctuation. Copyright © 2007 Sophia Institute Press All rights reserved Cover artwork and design by Theodore Schluenderfritz Printed in the United States of America No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Sophia Institute Press® Box 5284, Manchester, NH 03108 1-800-888-9344 www.SophiaInstitute.com Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Garnett, Henry, 1905– The blood-red crescent / Henry Garnett. p. cm. Summary: In 1570, as Christians throughout Europe unite in a Holy League to defeat Turkish invaders, fourteen-year-old Guido of Venice, taly, leaves the safety of a monastery to serve on a ship his wealthy father has contributed and fights in the Battle of Lepanto. ISBN 978-1-933184-33-3 (pbk. : alk. paper) [1. Coming of age —

iction. 2. Christianity — History — Fiction. 3. Islam — History — iction. 4. War — Fiction. 5. Lepanto, Battle of, Greece, 1571 — Fiction. 6. Family life — Italy — Fiction. 7. Italy — History — 1559–1789 — iction.] I. Title. PZ7.G18434Bl 2007 Fic]—dc22 2007033600 07 08 09 10 11 12 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This book is for Frances, Dominic, Mary Clare,and, last but not least, except in years,Mark Aelred, in the hope thatthey may sometimes think of “OY”

To Set the Scene This is a historical novel, and if you, my readers, are at all like your author, you will want to know which parts of the book are true, which people in its pages really existed, and which events and which characters were born in the writer’s imagination. Here, then, is a short description of the work that will satisfy your curiosity. The action in the book takes place during the years 1570 and 1571, and England then, as now, had a Queen Elizabeth on the throne. The first Queen Elizabeth was a convinced Protestant. You may remember that it was her father — King Henry VIII — who had closed the English monasteries and made himself, and his descendants, head of the Church as well as head of the state. Of course, there were many Catholics left in England, and their lives were very difficult. Perhaps because they really thought it the best for England, Elizabeth and her ministers made the laws against Catholics more and more severe. It was in 1570, in fact, that the Pope excommunicated Queen Elizabeth. Many English Catholics went to live in sympathetic countries on the continent of Europe. Others, like Michael Selwyn in this book, traveled away from their country whenever it was possible and gave what help they could to Catholic causes. At this time in history, Spain was the richest and most powerful country in Europe, and her king, His Most Catholic Majesty Philip II, as he was called, also ruled in the Netherlands. Italy was quite different from what it is now. It was not a united country, but was made up of papal states, principalities, dukedoms,

and republics. Of these last, Venice was the richest and most independent and was known as the Serene Republic. Now for a word about the Turks. For years, Turkish armies had been invading Europe. You will today find many of the words they used surviving in Central European languages. Moors had conquered and lived in parts of Spain for a long time until their last revolt against King Philip was crushed in 1568. It is quite true, as you will read in this story, that Moors, corsair pirates, and Turks — for the purpose of the tale, they may be regarded as one and the same, since they were all Moslems and united against Christendom — continually raided European coasts. Now you may see why Pope Pius V — now St. Pius V — became alarmed at the spread of Islam in Europe. He knew, too, that the Turkish Sultan Selim, who was a drunken tyrant, was building a great fleet of galleys in Constantinople, or Istanbul, as we now call it, and that he intended to use this fleet to extend his empire in Europe. That is why the Pope conceived the idea of a confederation of Catholics to fight against the Turk, and he called it the Holy League. Of course, the Pope, as the originator of the idea, was obliged to provide some galleys and men, so he made the fair division of one-quarter to be found by himself, one-quarter by Venice, whose trade in the eastern Mediterranean was most affected by the Turkish pirates, and a half by the richest member of the League, Spain. The Pope asked Spain to provide the supreme commander of the fleet and forces, and King Philip chose his half-brother, a handsome gallant young man, Don John of Austria. If ever you go to Messina in Sicily, where the fleet assembled as is told in the story, you may see his statue. It shows him wearing the Order of the Golden Fleece, about which you will hear more shortly. And so we come to the people. The Callatta family of Venice is fictitious, but it is quite sure there were similar families living in the Venetian Republic at the time. Luigi is a Venetian sailor, and of course, there were many. Although Guido is imagined, the Cardinal

Acquaviva, whom he meets in the Tuscan hills, is not. He really was a sick young man, and he had been sent by the Pope to explain about the plans for the Holy League to King Philip of Spain. This young Cardinal did, in fact, bring Miguel de Cervantes, now known all over the world as the creator of Don Quixote, back into Italy as his teacher of Spanish. The monastery at Genazzano and its inhabitants are largely imagined. The picture, or icon, of Our Lady of Good Counsel is not. The story is that sometime in the thirteenth century, this picture was in a Balkan church. When this church was threatened with destruction by the Turks, the picture miraculously flew through the air to Italy and came to rest in the church at Genazzano. Throughout the centuries, Our Lady of Genazzano has acquired the reputation of giving good counsel. Modern pilgrims make their way to Genazzano to pray to her for advice. Michael Selwyn and his travels have already been mentioned. He and Barnabas Butter, the master gunner, are the English dream children of the author. They are typical of English Catholics of the period, who traveled abroad for adventure, to make their fortunes, for devotion to Mother Church, or just to sell their swords to Catholic kings and princes. May you become as friendly with the brave and gentle Barnabas as your author was! You will not, in the course of the story, get to know the commanders of the Christian and Turkish fleets and squadrons very well. It may interest you to learn, however, that they are correctly named and that they really lived. The movements of the two fleets during the battle are as near to the truth as it is possible to get when four hundred years have passed since the great fight was fought. You will note in the story that Don John, the supreme Christian commander, is described as wearing the Order of the Golden Fleece. You should try to imagine the scene as he stood with the Pope’s ambassador on the quay at Messina. He was tall and slender, and he

stood bareheaded, with his soft brown hair lifting in the breeze. He wore a polished steel cuirass decorated with silver, and around his neck, over this armor, hung the insignia of the Order of the Golden Fleece. This was a richly jeweled chain that winked in the sunshine. It hung down over his chest, and from it depended a small golden sheep. It denoted that King Philip of Spain had made him a member of the second-oldest order of knighthood in the world — the oldest is the Order of the Garter in Britain — for the Order of the Golden Fleece was founded by Duke Philip the Good of Burgundy in 1429. At the time of this story, King Philip was the Grand Master of the Order. The agony of body and the heartbreak that wars bring in their train are unchanged from the sixteenth century to now, so you will find the fighting men in this story very like the soldiers of today. Your author believes they were. Henry Garnett London, 1959

A New Crusade The great cathedral church of St. Mark in Venice was crowded with a gaily dressed throng on a bright, sunny morning in October of the year 1570. The priest turned from the high altar and began to bless the congregation. His words were barely audible above the chatter of the excited gathering. It seemed to Guido Callatta, kneeling silently by the side of his father, and looking at the backs of his mother, his sister Julia, and the serving woman Magdalena, that the family formed the only listening group in the whole cathedral. He peered sideways from the corners of his eyes into the dimness. He was wrong, he saw. By the base of one of the pillars were a half-dozen proud, silent Spaniards. Their ruffs were starkly white above the sober black of their doublets, and they appeared to stand aloof from the colorful Venetians and the even more gaily appareled Genoese. “May Almighty God bless you, the Father, the Son” — Guido heard the priest’s words faintly and crossed himself — “and the Holy Ghost.” Others must have been listening too, for the excited chatter was stilled for a moment and a deep amen echoed from the high roof. Immediately, talk broke out again. Guido rose to his feet, dusted the dirt of the flagged floor from his knees, and offered an arm to help his mother to rise. At the age of fourteen, Guido was almost fully grown. The years to come would stiffen his supple body and destroy his youthful slenderness, but now, to the ten-year-old Julia, he seemed to smile

down from a great height when she slipped her hot and sticky hand into his. The Callatta family threaded their way between groups of gesticulating gallants and their ladies and emerged from the gloom into the shock of the autumn sunshine. Guido glanced up, as he always did, to above the pillared doorway where the carved horses prance eternally beneath the winged lion of St. Mark, and his heart was filled with pride — pride in the Republic of Venice and her achievements — pride in his own family. The little company of Spaniards passed, their gait and manner showing contempt of all that was not under the dominion of their master, His Most Catholic Majesty, King Philip II. Guido returned their casual glances scornfully. Julia pulled at his sleeve. “Guido,” she whispered, “what did the priest mean when he talked to us? It wasn’t an ordinary sermon, was it? Are the Turks going to fight us?” “Sh!” Guido replied quietly. “You know Father doesn’t allow us to talk after Mass. Not till we get home.” Julia tilted her head back and poked out the tip of a very pink tongue at him. “Pig!” she whispered. “You’re like the English.” Guido shook his head at her without speaking. Julia’s teasing abuse drove from his mind the message from His Holiness Pope Pius V that had come to them through the mouth of the cathedral priest. He remembered the English letter that crackled faintly beneath his doublet as he put his hand to his breast — the letter that he must show to his father very soon. Magdalena carried the last empty dish away from the table and set the flask of wine and a tall, intricately decorated glass before

her master. Signor Callatta carefully wiped his knife on a table napkin and thrust it back into the sheath dangling from his belt. “You all heard what the priest had to tell us this morning,” he said. “Julia did not understand what it was all about, sir,” Guido put in. Signor Callatta looked down the table to where his small daughter was perched on her thickly cushioned stool, and his face grew tender. “She is too young for these things,” he said. “But perhaps I can put it simply. During the past few years, the Turk has been getting stronger and stronger. The new Sultan in Constantinople has been building more and more galleys. We hear that shipyards work every daylight hour and that new galleys are clustered in his ports more thickly than the flies in the Turkish markets. Why does he want so many galleys?” Signor Callatta paused and glanced at Guido. “What do you think, Guido, my son? I hear that you spend much time in ships and talking to sailors. Time, doubtless, that should be spent with your books or in my factory, learning the craft and mystery of glass-making.” Guido flushed beneath his tan. “The sailors say that he intends to conquer Cyprus and then move west. They say that even Venice will not be safe from him, and that the Sultan Selim has boasted that he will set the Turkish crescent above the dome of St. Peter’s in Rome,” Guido answered. “If he does, it will be a blood-red crescent. Red with the blood of Christendom,” Guido’s father replied. “And who knows? Already the Turkish armies are halfway across Europe.” “But, sir!” Guido looked up sharply at his father. “Where can the Sultan find the rowers for so many ships? I keep asking the sailors this, and they only laugh and say that they grow in the fields, ready for the taking.”

“And the sailors are right,” Signor Callatta said. “The Barbary corsairs — the infidel pirates from North Africa — gather them every day. There is not a village on the coasts of Italy, France, or Spain that is safe from their raids. There is not a family in these villages that hasn’t a father or a son whose body is being broken in the chains of Turkish rowing benches. Not a family that hasn’t a daughter breaking her heart in an infidel seraglio.” He paused for a moment, his face grim, and then sighed deeply. He charged his wineglass. “Then, of course, there are the galleys that are captured. In the last few months, two galleys, carrying the finest decorated glass that my men have ever made, have been lost to pirates. Glass designed for the courts of England and France is now defiled by the Mohammedan’s sherbet. The galleys are gone. Such rowers as lived now serve under the banner of Islam — by force!” “But, Father,” Guido put in, forgetting in his eagerness the formal address due to him, “why must we always lose our galleys to the Turk? Do we never beat him in battle? Our men are as brave as his, aren’t they?” “We lose frequently because Christendom is divided,” Signor Callatta said. “The galleys of Genoa sometimes sail with those of Venice, but in battle, who knows whether they will obey the orders of a Venetian commander? Spaniards trust neither Venetian nor Genoese. Then the Barbary pirates attack in force, and their leader, Uluch Ali, Lord of Algiers, is a very fine seaman.” “I see,” Guido said thoughtfully. “Then that is what the priest meant when he talked to us this morning. The Holy Father wants us to combine to beat the Turk.” “Yes. He wants a fleet to be formed. Of all the Catholic countries and republics in Europe, Spain is the richest. Think, Guido, my son, of the American gold that pours every day into King Philip’s coffers. Then

there is our own Serene Republic of Venice, with a bigger trade in the Mediterranean than any other. So His Holiness suggests that Spain should find half the fleet and Venice a quarter. The remaining quarter the Holy Father will provide himself. Of course, there will be other vessels — from Genoa, for example, and doubtless the princes of Italy will find some. You will see, I think, that fighting men will volunteer from all over the Christian civilized world. The combined forces of Spain, Venice, and the Pope will be called the Holy League. It is a new crusade the Pope is preaching.” Signora Callatta stirred uneasily in her chair. The hour of the siesta had come, and Julia’s eyelids were heavy with sleep. Her husband gestured with his hand in dismissal. He himself sat on, fingering the stem of his wineglass, and Guido waited. “Yes,” Signor Callatta said at last. “I suppose it could be done — with the right leader.” “Is there no one else to help the Holy Father except Spaniards and Venetians?” Guido asked. “Who?” his father demanded in return. “France, perhaps.” “France is too torn with her own troubles. Catholics and heretics are at one another’s throats. No, there’s no help to be had from there.” “What about England?” Guido began. Signor Callatta laughed a quick, short bark of scornful amuse ment. “England?” he said. “That country of heretics? With their cold queen, Elizabeth, just excommunicated by the Holy Father, and all faith in the Catholic Church forgotten in that fogbound land? What Englishman would join this Holy League? For that matter, what

Englishman cares what happens to Venice or the Vatican? Why, if the crescent were being flaunted from the dome of St. Peter’s, Englishmen would be there selling their wool to protect the infidel from the rigors of the Roman winter. No, my son, no!” “I should have thought English Catholics might have helped,” Guido said. “How?” Signor Callatta asked. “Such Catholics as are left in England are persecuted by their queen, Elizabeth, who calls herself head of the church, and their government. They’re harassed and fined until they have no substance left. How could they do anything for the Holy League?” “I know of one Englishman who’s going to help,” Guido said, and drew from his doublet a letter that crackled in his fingers. “What’s that?” Signor Callatta asked sharply, and held out his hand for the paper. “Pah! It’s written in English. You’ll have to translate it for me. Now I understand why you insisted on learning that barbarous tongue.” “It’s from Michael Selwyn,” Guido began. “That taciturn young Englishman you made friends with when he was visiting his cousin, who is a priest in Rome, last year? It was last year you met him, wasn’t it?” Signor Callatta interrupted. “H’m, at least he’s a Catholic, and has suffered for it, doubtless, since England broke away from Mother Church. He’s a lot older than you, isn’t he?” “He’s twenty-four, sir. He’s written to say that he’s bringing his sword to give what aid he can to the Holy Father’s cause. They’ve heard about it in England. He says, as well, that his father’s so poor now, he must do something to help him. He’s bringing the master gunner from one of his father’s ships — that he used to have, I mean — and

he begs me to ask if you can help to find him, and his man — Barnabas Butter’s his name — a place in a Venetian galley.” “Is he coming here, to Venice?” Signor Callatta asked. “No, sir. He’s going to Genazzano. He used to go before, when he was in Rome, to ask for help from Our Lady of Good Counsel in the monastery there. He says I can write to him at Genazzano.” “H’m. I must think about it. Now, Guido, off to your room. I’ll think about it.” Guido rose and bowed to his father. As he walked quietly from the room, he heard his father mutter, “Genazzano! Yes . . . that might be the place. Thirty miles behind Rome . . . And the help of Our Lady of Good Counsel . . . Heaven knows we need it — all of us . . . Yes!” Guido stood silently in the shadowed coolness of his room until he heard his father’s heavy steps on the marble treads of the staircase. He waited until the latch of his father’s door clicked home and then, slowly, he began to count. “One. Two. Three . . . One hundred.” For a second more, he listened. The house was quite silent. Guido stole across his room, skillfully avoided the board that creaked in the floor, and stepped onto his balcony. He threw a leg over the protective iron railing, and his toes slipped, almost without direction, into an accustomed foothold. A moment later, he dropped lightly onto the gently sloping roof of a porch. The heavy leaves of a fig tree spread their fans over the tiles. Guido disappeared among them and descended the ladder of the tree’s branches to the sun-warmed flags of the patio. Five minutes later, he was seated, dangling his legs over the edge of the dock. Immediately below him, a sailor, who had been sleeping on the poop of a galley, opened heavy eyes and yawned. “There again, young Guido, are you,” the sailor said. “Hallo, Luigi,” Guido said. “May I come aboard?”

“Come aboard and welcome,” Luigi answered. “As long as you don’t disturb me for a few minutes. Haven’t got the sleep out of my wits yet.” He yawned prodigiously, showing blackened stumps of teeth. “Nobody on board but me, so make yourself at home.” Guido jumped lightly down on the poop and sat on the breech of one of the two brass guns that pointed aft. From that position, he could look down the length of the ship. The sail was furled, and all the oars had been taken inboard and arranged in neat rows, fore and aft, on the rowers’ benches. Guido rose to his feet and began to walk down the center gangway. As he went, he saw the gleam of the chains that were used to secure captive Turks, or Christian criminals, forced to labor at the heavy oars. He wondered what it would feel like to heave at a Turkish oar, to feel the lash of a Turkish whip across his own quivering naked flesh as he helped to drive a galley to the destruction of his own countrymen. Unbidden, the thought came into his mind that a Mohammedan chained to a Christian oar might think as he was thinking. Wasn’t there room in the world for both Christian and Turk, and why must they destroy one another, he asked himself, and then firmly put the thought out of his mind. It was not Venetians who were marching about the world with fire and sword, killing, torturing, enslaving, and plundering, and had not the Holy Father preached a crusade? Somehow, a little of the brightness had gone out of the day. Guido climbed up on the high foredeck. Five guns presented their black muzzles to the slimy waters of the dock: a pair to starboard and a pair to port, both light and easy to handle; amidships a heavier cannon pointed forward, aligned with the heavy spur that ran like an iron-pointed bowsprit from the center of the galley’s bows. To ram an enemy ship, Guido thought, and stood pondering with his chin in his hand. He looked aft. Luigi had risen to his feet and was stretching his arms upward in the late afternoon sunshine. “Luigi!” called Guido. “Can you tell me something, please? Something about the galley?”

Luigi came rolling up the gangway with his doublet unbuttoned, showing a chest thickly matted with black hair. “Always wanting to know something ’bout ships, you are,” he said when he had climbed onto the foredeck. “What is it now?” “Have you ever been in a naval battle?” Guido asked. Luigi scratched the stubble on his chin with a broken thumbnail. “Well now, that depends,” he said slowly. “If you mean, have I been in a battle with dozens of ships on either side, or maybe hundreds, the answer’s no, and I wouldn’t tell you no lies. But if you ask if I’ve been in a sea fight, then the answer’s yes. There was that time we was attacked by pirates off Sicily . . .” “Please tell me about it,” Guido said excitedly. “Sure I will,” Luigi answered. “Half a minute, while I nip down to the kitchen and get some bits of wood they use for kindling.” Luigi rolled down the gangway into the ship’s kitchen amidships and came back with a handful of fresh, sweet-smelling chips from some shipwright’s adz. He squatted on his heels, and Guido sat crosslegged before him. “ ’Twas like this,” Luigi said and laid out two chips of wood side by side and some inches apart. He pointed to the left-hand chip. “I was in this galley, steering, see? We were sailing abreast with this other about a quarter of a mile apart. Sailing, I say? Under oars, I mean, because the wind was dead against us and the rowers were pulling their hearts out. There was another of our galleys here,” and he placed a third chip about six inches behind the other two. “Now I’ve got to tell you what we were carrying, so as you’ll understand. We’d got a cargo of general merchandise — some of those big barrels your father packs his glass in, as like as not amongst it

— and this galley by the side of us was loaded the same. There was a few gentlemen on board, and their ladies too.” Guido interrupted. “You won the fight, didn’t you?” he asked. “I’m here to tell the tale. But not so fast. The joke of it was that this galley behind — about two miles away, she was — had on board three hundred or so Spanish harquebusiers. You know, those chaps who shoot them newfangled muskets. On their way to Barcelona, they were.” He threw back his head and laughed. “Funny that was! Johnny Turk didn’t know anything about those harquebusiers. Anyway, we were plowing along, taking it green over the bows every now and again, and the rowing master cracking his whip and the drums thumping regularly to set the stroke, all peaceful like, except for the poor devils at the oars. Then, all of a sudden, our lookout yells that there are two sails coming up over the horizon. A minute later, he shouts out there are two more!” “Turks?” Guido asked. “Yes! Those Barbary pirates, as we could see for ourselves within minutes. Fast — you ought to have seen them! No sooner did we sight the sails than they were on us, or so it seemed. Actually, I suppose it must have been nigh on an hour because our captain issued crossbows from the store to the seamen, and pikes and axes to the rowers. He even had the chains struck off the Christian rowers, but the Mohammedan slaves he put handcuffs on, as well as their leg chains.” “Would the Christian rowers fight for you?” Guido asked. “ ’Course they would. Think they’d want to be captured by the Turks? Up the pirates come, bold as brass, sailing fine with a spanking fair wind, not really needing their oars. Line abreast they were.”

Luigi laid four slivers of wood before the two leading Christian galleys. In his mind, Guido could hear the creak of oars in their thole pins and the thump of the timing drums. He smelled the decay of the Venice dock, and in his nostrils, it was the scent of a spray-laden Mediterranean wind. “Our gentlemen had put on their armor,” Luigi continued. “And there they stood, some on the poop and some on the foredeck, like it might be where you’re sitting now. Pretty as a picture they looked, with the sun winking on the polished steel and silver, with their swords in their hands. The gunners were busy loading their guns, and the stink of their smoldering matches was like the breath of hell. Then our captain orders us at the tillers to bring her a point or two to starboard.” He moved the two chips that represented the Christian galleys nearer together, and the four Turkish ships a little closer. “That was to stop two of the Turks running between us, see? Then they were on us. One of the Turks came between the two of us, like this, smashing our oars, and her spur came grinding down our bulwarks to the fourth bench of rowers. I saw one of our rowers pulling and pushing at an oar for all he was worth, only he hadn’t got a blade on his oar, and he hadn’t got a head. Then another Turk came crashing against our port side, and I caught a glimpse of brown men in turbans throwing grappling hooks. Our guns were roaring, and I saw a way open in the Turk’s rowers that was like a path in corn, red in the sunset.” Luigi paused and thoughtfully moved the bits of wood that represented the galleys into position. Screams of the wounded, fierce yells of the Turks, curses of Christian fighters echoed in his ears. “Please go on,” Guido begged. “Ah!” Luigi wiped the back of his hand across his forehead. “I tell you I saw this, and I mean no lie. I believe I saw this, and sometimes of nights when I haven’t had enough wine, I get a nightmare about it and

see it again. Turks, some of the proper soldiers — janissaries, they calls them — in their silly skirts, pouring over our sides. Christian rowers were standing up and wielding their axes. And when a man who’s pulled an oar for years puts all his muscles behind an ax, he can split a man . . . Oh, well, it doesn’t matter. I suppose our other galley was in much the same pickle as us. I don’t know! I didn’t see! Busy, I was. There’s one thing I am sure about. I had a crossbow lying by my feet, and there wasn’t much to be done with the tiller just then. Then I caught sight of a Turk in a green turban. Grinning he was, with the flash of white teeth in his brown face. Grinning at me! And taking aim with a crossbow! I bent down to pick up my bow, and just as I did it, he shot. The wind of his bolt raised the hair on the back of my head, and the smack of it going into the deck sounded like a thunder clap in my ears . . .” “That was lucky,” Guido said breathlessly. “Lucky for me. It wasn’t for him! When I straightened up, he was just reloading his bow. I shot him through the neck, and the bolt stuck out at the back, carrying away his turban so that it hung down. Just like a piece of rag hanging on a hook behind a door. He stood there for a second or two, looking at me. I can see the look in his eyes now. It was sort of surprised and a bit like a mother looks at her bambino. As if — if you see what I mean — he’d just found out there wasn’t any quarrel between us. Ah, well, I fancied it, I reckon . . .” Luigi stopped speaking and picked up the wood that marked the position of the third, and following, Christian galley. He played with it in his fingers; his unseeing eyes fixed on the blood-red colors of the sunset. “Please, Luigi,” Guido said. “You can’t stop there. Do go on! What happened?” Luigi looked down at the boy. Slowly his eyes focused. He placed the wood from his fingers in position.

“Ah! ’Twas funny, like I said. Of course, with three against two, we should have lost. Three Turks grappled with two of us, fighting it out, hand to hand. Another Turk lying off, waiting his chance to come in and finish us. Then up comes our third galley with all those Spanish harquebusiers aboard. She stops near the Turk that’s grappled to our port side, and the dons loose off their muskets. I reckon there wasn’t a man left on his feet on that galley, unless it was some rowers who’d crawled in their chains under their benches. Then she pulls off while the harquebusiers reload, and ’round the other side she goes and does the same thing to the Turk lying there. It was all over then. The Turkish galley who’d been waiting his chance made off as hard as he could go. A few chasing shots were fired after him, but he was out of range. Got clean away.” “What happened to the pirate who was lying between the two of you?” Guido asked. “Oh, him? Well, as soon as they saw what happened, our Christian rowers were on board of him. I saw some of them cutting through the chains of his slaves. After that . . . well, there’s no need to say what happened. It wasn’t pretty . . . I looked over the side, and there was a crowd of little fishes feeding.” Guido sat silently for a full minute. Then — “Thank you for telling me, Luigi,” he said. “But there’s something I don’t understand. Did you have five guns on the foredeck, just as you do on this ship?” “We did that,” Luigi answered. “Four culverin, two on either hand, and a cannon.” “The cannon was fixed to fire forward, I suppose?” Guido asked. “Of course! They always are!” “Then what I don’t understand,” said Guido, “is why you couldn’t fire the cannon at the Turks and sink them with the heavy shot before they ever got at you?”

“Use your eyes, boy,” Luigi answered. “See, this long pole that sticks out from the bows, with an ironshod end — the spur we call it — it’s right under the cannon. You can’t depress that gun. It isn’t intended for that sort of thing.” “It seems to me that the cannon might be more useful than the spur. If you hadn’t got a spur, you could use the gun,” Guido said. “Hadn’t got a spur? What you talking about? Galleys have had spurs since the days of the old Romans. Why, I bet you Julius Caesar had a spur on his galley. ’Course he did, come to think of it. I’ve seen them on the carvings when I went to Rome. They were lower down — on the waterline, in fact — but they were spurs, all right. Don’t you get ideas like that, young Guido. Flying in the face of your fathers!” “All the same,” Guido said thoughtfully, “I shall talk to Barnabas Butter about it when he comes.” “Barna — Barnabas Butter? D’you mean that?” Luigi asked. “Just a master gunner who’s coming with a friend of mine. He’s an Englishman.” “Phoo!” Luigi answered. “Englishman! ’Course I know. All they think about is sails and more sails. And guns! Sticking out of the sides of their ships like the quills of a porcupine! No oars, either. What they’d do in a sea like the Mediterranean I don’t know. But as for Barnabas, I know him. Sailed with him, as a matter of fact.” “Did you really? When was that?” Guido asked. “Sailed ’round the coasts of Spain with more sails than half a dozen galleys. Going in ports, burning and plundering. Pirates, that’s what they are, the English! Worse than the Barbary corsairs, if you ask me, even if I did go with them! Unnatural it is, too, with all those sails and no oars. Well, I ask you . . . Barnabas Butter or no Barnabas Butter. When’s he coming?”

Before Guido could answer, the high, clear voice of his sister Julia came from the dockside. “Guido! Guido!” she called. “Please come home. Father sent Magdalena to find you, and she couldn’t. She looked everywhere. He’s cross!” Guido rose to his feet and stretched his cramped legs. “Thank you, Luigi, for telling me about the fight,” he said. “All right! All right!” Luigi answered. “But sail me no sails. Oars it was and always will be. No spurs . . . pah!” But Guido had climbed to the quay and was trotting away with Julia’s hand in his before Luigi had finished muttering. Back in the Callatta house, Guido’s father sat, impatiently tapping his fingers on the table. Papers lay scattered on the boards before him. He looked up sharply at Guido’s tap on the door and called a brusque command to enter. “Well, my boy,” he said when Guido stood before him. “You weren’t to be found. Away with your sailor friends again, I’ve no doubt.” He raised his hand for silence as Guido opened his mouth to speak. “No! Not a word!” he continued. “There’s something more important than that. I’ve had word of it who is to command the forces of the Holy League. It’s to be Don John of Austria! What do you think of that?” Guido thought of the stories he had heard of the tall, handsome, and gallant half-brother of the King of Spain and of his victories against the Moors of Granada. “Very good, sir,” he said.

“Never mind,” Signor Callatta continued. “I don’t suppose you really know anything about His Excellency Don John. What concerns you more nearly is that I have come to a decision.” “A decision, sir?” Guido asked. “Yes! You see, I have been thinking what I should do if I were commanding the Turkish fleet. Quite a lot of the ships of the Holy League will be built here in Venice. If I were the Turk, I should at tack while I’ve got great superiority.” “Attack Venice?” Guido asked, horrified. “Yes! Attack Venice! And burn the shipping!” Signor Callatta answered. “And that would be followed by an attack on the city. Therefore, Guido, my son, I am going to send the Signora your mother and your sister away . . .” “Send my mother and sister away, sir?” Guido repeated. “Yes. And you will go in charge of them with some of my men.” “But where to, sir?” “It was you who gave me the idea. For the moment, to Genazzano. You can continue your education in the monastery there. You’ll go in about a week.” Guido saw the days that he spent with Luigi and other sailors fading with many dreams of boyhood. He had a vision of stern monks and sterner tutors. “Yes, sir,” he answered dutifully and dully. Signor Callatta nodded for Guido to leave him. When Guido had laid his hand on the latch of the door, Signor Callatta spoke softly to him.

“Guido,” he said, “I’m going to build a galley of my own to join the fleet of the Holy League. When it is finished, you may come and see it. What is more, you may bring your English friend Michele — or whatever he is called — and his master gunner, whose name is so barbarous that I cannot even remember it. Does that please you?” Guido drew himself erect and looked at his father with shining eyes. “Yes, sir,” he said, and marched with a firm tread from the room.

Cardinal to the Rescue It was a week of bustle, during which Guido had little time to visit the galleys made fast at the dockside in Venice. The tailor, the dressmaker, and the bootmaker came and came again to the Callatta home. There were horses to be bought and mules hired for the baggage. Guido traveled to Padua to buy for himself a mare that could carry him and Julia through valleys and across mountains, up and down precipitous rocky paths, through fords hidden in the spate of autumn rains, to Rome and Genazzano. He found her in the Padua horse market. She was a delicate creature, but powerful, as her muscles showed when they quivered in the first cold blasts of winter blowing from the mountains. On her forehead, a white star shone, and she had a new-washed stocking, pale on her left forefoot. When Guido came to her, she whinnied quietly and pushed her muzzle into his armpit, sniffing the scent of him. He knew then that they would work together, and he counted out the sequins that were her purchase price without bargaining. She gazed after him as he left the market to return to Venice. Signor Callatta came to Padua to give his blessing to the travelers on the day of their departure. The mules were loaded and led away by one of the Signor’s men. Signora Callatta and Magdalena followed on their horses. Then came Guido on his mare with Julia riding pillion, and behind trudged four lusty men with steel caps on their heads and armed with sword and crossbow. So began the month-long journey to Rome and Genazzano.

Across the wide valley of the Po, the little company traveled cheerfully, through Ferrara to Bologna, staying at tiny inns by the way where the summer of 1570 still lingered. After Bologna, the road, rough and strewn with boulders, wound up into the mountains, and the travelers were buffeted by cold winds, and their cloaks often hung heavy from their shoulders, soaked with icy rain. The four men who formed the guard trudged behind. The weary journey from Bologna to Florence was barely half done and the November afternoon very young when Julia plucked at Guido’s doublet. He reined in his mare. The pack mules were out of sight around a spur of the mountains. Signora Callatta and Magdalena were plodding on, a hundred yards ahead, and the four guards struggling behind. Guido turned in his saddle and looked down at his sister. Her face was flushed, and her teeth were chattering. “Why, Julia,” Guido said, “what is the matter?” “I — I —” Julia tried to answer and swayed in her seat. Guido swung a leg over the mare’s ears and dropped to the ground. He reached up and put his arms round Julia’s waist. “I’ve got a fever, I think. The same as I had last winter. Please help me, Guido. I can’t bear the horse’s movement. I do feel so ill. All my bones ache . . . Oh, dear . . .” Guido looked closely at her and gently put a hand on her forehead. “Yes,” he said. “You aren’t at all well.” The four Venetian guards came trudging around a corner of the track. Their appearance was very different from what it had been when they strode jauntily out of Venice. Their shining steel caps were dulled and spotted with rust. Lines of fatigue furrowed their faces, and their weapons drooped listlessly from their hands. They stopped when

they saw Guido standing, dismounted, in the midst of the way. The leading man muttered into the thickness of his beard. “What did you say?” Guido asked sharply. The man avoided Guido’s eye and shuffled in the loose pebbles on the road with the toe of his shoe. “This isn’t good enough,” he grumbled. “The country isn’t civilized. Tuscany, this is, isn’t it? We’re Venetians, and the Tuscans have always been our enemies. Who knows what we’re going to meet ’round the next corner. Marching to our deaths, we are, as like as not.” “You were engaged by my father as guards,” Guido said sternly. “And you’re being well paid. Venetians, are you? Or Venetian rats?” The man shot Guido a look of venom from the corners of his eyes. “Tired of it, we are,” he said. “Marching, marching day after day, and not knowing what’s lying in wait for us. Don’t we never get any rest?” Julia whimpered and laid her head on Guido’s shoulder, half-lying on the saddle. “And a lot of good you’d be if there were bandits in these mountains,” Guido said. “At this moment, the Signora could be murdered, and what could you do about it, straggling along half a mile behind?” The man muttered inaudibly, and his companions stood listlessly with their eyes on the ground. “Enough of this,” Guido continued. “The Signorina Julia is not well. Take my mare, and ride on until you overtake my mother. Tell her the Signorina has a fever, and we must stop at the next inn. The rest of you, go on as quickly as you can. I shall follow. I have no

fear of Tuscan bandits, even if they exist — except in your cowardly minds.” Guido unbuttoned his cloak and wrapped it tenderly around Julia’s shoulders. He gathered her into his arms. The leading guard grinned at his companions and swung a leg over the mare’s empty saddle. He clattered away, and the others, mending their pace, marched after. Guido began to climb steadily with Julia’s slight body cradled on his breast. A thin rain began to fall, and the mountain peaks were hidden in mist. For two miles, Guido tramped on, and in spite of the chilling rain, sweat formed on his forehead and ran down his face and neck beneath his soaked ruff. Occasionally Julia shuddered convulsively and talked wildly of her friends in Venice, addressing them as if they were playing with her in the sunshine. Then she grew quiet again, and once she looked up into Guido’s face and whispered, “You will be so tired, my Guido. Let me try to walk.” Guido gathered her more closely to him. “In a few months, I shall be fifteen and near enough a grown man,” he said. “This is nothing to me. A good many the same age as I am are pulling oars in the galleys.” Julia reached up a hot hand and touched his cheek. Her eyes closed. “Never mind, little one. Our mother and Magdalena are getting everything ready for you at the next inn. They’ll soon have you comfortable.” Another two miles went by before Guido saw through the rain the first mean hovels of a mountain village. The pack mules were tethered outside a barn, standing dejectedly while the rain dripped steadily down their flanks. There was no sign of his mare. The inn was little better than the other ramshackle dwellings and provided only one room, where Signora Callatta and Magdalena were waiting for Julia.

The grubby blankets of the one wide bed were turned back, ready for the sick child. While Julia was being cared for, Guido wandered out into the village street, glad to have his sodden cloak about his shoulders once more. The few huts of the peasants were closeshuttered against the weather, and there was no one to see Guido going down on his knees in a puddle before the village shrine to beg the aid of the Mother of God for his sister. His prayers done, Guido made his way to the barn where the mules were tethered. The muleteers had persuaded a small fire to burn in the doorway and were cooking their afternoon meal. “Where are the guards and my mare?” Guido asked. “One of them rode up on the mare,” a muleteer answered, “and spoke to the Signora. Then he came on to us and told us to stop at the next inn. Said he was coming back to you, he did.” Guido walked to the end of the village and whistled shrilly in the hope that he would hear an answering whinny from his mare. The only sounds that came to his ears were the steady drip of the rain and the plash of a mountain stream. “Deserted! The rats!” he muttered and turned sadly back to the barn to find warmth and comfort in the sweet-smelling hay. For five days, the mountain hamlet dripped with rain and low clouds pressed down on the rooftops. Julia’s fever rose and at last abated. Guido, when he was not seeking help at the village shrine, sat dejectedly in the barn, listening to the continual clack of dice on the muleteers’ backgammon board and wondering whether he dare continue the journey without guards or whether he should travel on alone to Florence to find more and to buy himself a new mount. On the sixth day, the clouds lifted, patches of blue appeared in the sky, and by noon, the sun was shining, making the raindrops suspended from cottage eaves, and from twigs of trees, sparkle like diamonds. Guido’s heart rose, and a muleteer burst into song.

With the coming of the sun, Julia’s fever disappeared and she lay, weak and pale, rejoicing in the air that flowed into her open windows. Guido came from his morning visit to her and walked to the end of the village, as he had done every day, in the vain hope of hearing the clatter of his mare’s hoofs on the stones of the track. In the absence of the steady drip of rain that had dulled his hearing for so many days, the voice of the mountain stream seemed unnaturally loud. Guido, listening, thought there was an undercurrent of another sound that had not been there before. It was merely a murmur punctuated by sharper noises that might be, Guido thought, the clink of iron on stone. He looked across the valley to where the track wound around a mountain spur and caught the flash of polished steel in sunlight. The sounds crystallized, and Guido heard what he had longed to hear — horses’ hoofs and the voice of a man encouraging his steed. A young man rode around a bend in the path. A high-crowned brimless hat was set jauntily on dark chestnut curls. A narrow white ruff, rising from the high collar of a black doublet, framed a firm chin. His breeches were black, too, slashed, with a scarlet lining showing through. He rode a powerful roan. Guido had no eyes for the horseman’s youthful elegance, for attached to his saddle by a leading rein was a delicate mare with a white star on her forehead and a new-washed stocking, pale on her left forefoot. “Sir!” Guido said as the rider came near to him. “‘How do you come to be leading my mare?” The black and scarlet elegance pulled his horse to a halt. His eyes twinkled. “Your mare?” he said with an accent that marked him as Spanish. “Your mare, indeed. Has she not run at my saddlebow these many days? Or is it that you, dismounted, see a man with two horses and think to share?”

“Sir,” Guido said fiercely, clapping a hand to his sword hilt. “Are you suggesting I am a horse thief? Or that I don’t know my own mare when I see her?” The young horseman jumped lightly to the ground. His eyes lit up as he smiled. “Ho, ho, my cockalorum,” he said. “Is there to be bloodletting over a mare, lovely as she is? No, save your bodkin for the Turk, or to fight for the name of a fair lady like the knights of old. Now — I was thinking as I rode up that path that I might round the corner and find a dragon about to devour a maiden chained to a tree. And what do I find? A dragon, indeed, even though he is a very youthful one. But no maiden, unless we can count this one who wears a chestnut coat and is tied to my own saddlebow.” Against his will, Guido smiled. “Look,” he said briefly, and he whistled softly. Immediately the mare stepped daintily to him and thrust her muzzle beneath his armpit. She whinnied and sidled alongside him. “Now I see that it is you who have rescued the maiden, and it is I who am the dragon keeping her in captivity.” The gentleman sighed in mock sorrow and spread his hands wide. “There is nothing to do but ride on and seek adventures new.” “How did you find her, sir?” Guido asked. The black-clad gentleman grew serious. “I found her cropping grass by the roadside some four or five days ago. She was very nervous. A crossbow was hanging from the pommel, and the saddle was stained with blood. Look — you may see the mark even now. I thought some mischance, perhaps . . .”

Guido explained how his guards had deserted and he and his company had been kept in the hamlet by Julia’s illness. The gentleman looped his reins around his right arm and put his left about Guido’s shoulders. He began to walk toward the village. “There is perhaps something I can do to help. But first let us introduce ourselves. I am Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, a Spaniard, as you will have guessed, in the service of His Youthful Eminence the Cardinal Acquaviva.” “I am Guido Callatta of Venice,” Guido answered. The two talked together for a time as if they were old friends, while the murmur that Guido had heard grew and resolved itself into the noise of a large company on the road. The first ranks of men at arms appeared. Their cuirasses and steel morions were shining as if there had been no rain and mist to dull their polished surfaces. Cervantes drew Guido and the horses to the side of the road to let them pass, and the half-dozen mounted gentlemen who followed. Next in the cavalcade came a litter carried by eight giants of men. Cervantes and Guido doffed their caps. Beyond the looped-back curtains, Guido could see the frail, scarlet-clad form of the youthful Cardinal who, although he was only in his mid-twenties, had been sent by the Pontiff to plead the cause of the Holy League with King Philip of Spain. Cervantes handed the horses’ reins to Guido and paced by the side of the litter. Guido heard the murmur of Cervantes’s voice and saw the Cardinal look sharply at him. Opposite the village inn, a halt was called and the Cardinal’s litter was set gently on the ground. His Eminence beckoned to Guido to approach and extended a thin, white, blue-veined hand for his ring to be kissed. Guido sank on one knee.

“Don Miguel de Cervantes tells me you are in trouble, my son,” the Cardinal said. “Your sister has been ill, and your guards have deserted?” “Yes, Your Eminence,” Guido answered. “You see, sir, it was like this . . .” and Guido told how he had arrived in the village and how he had waited, petitioning the Holy Mother in the shrine daily for Julia’s recovery. When he had finished, the Cardinal lay quietly for a few moments. At last, he raised his head and smiled at the boy still kneeling in the roadway. “I am a sick man, Guido Callatta,” His Eminence said, “and I know what it is to travel in discomfort. Bring your sister to me, and she shall ride in my litter. I am going to Rome, and that’s near enough to Genazzano. Gather your company together, and let us join forces. Go now, and let me sleep a little, while this infernal contraption is still.” He blessed Guido and lay back exhausted on his pillows. An hour later, Julia lay by the Cardinal. Guido led his horse by the side of the litter for the first few yards of the resumed journey and listened to the Cardinal speaking to his sister. “So I went to see the King of Spain, little one,” he said. “The king pretended not to understand me and spoke Spanish, making it sound like Latin, so that sometimes I thought I understood and then I knew I didn’t. It was a trick, of course. Then I knew I must learn this language, so I brought Don Miguel de Cervantes to teach me. But he always will tell me tales of knights and ladies. A romantic that one, I think . . .” Guido laughed silently to himself and mounted his mare. As he cantered forward to join Cervantes, he breathed a silent prayer of thanksgiving to Our Lady of the Village — the name of which he never knew — for the protection of the Church and the help of His Youthful Eminence.

At Cervantes’s side, Guido rode knee to knee. “Tell me, Don Miguel,” he said, “your tales of knights and ladies to while away the miles.” “Signor Callatta,” Cervantes replied, bowing from his saddle, and with a twinkle in his eye, “it shall be as you command. Now — once upon a time, there was a knight riding a lonely road in Spain and . . .” So, as he listened, Guido ceased to be conscious of the noise of the Cardinal’s cavalcade; forgot his mother and Magdalena riding among His Eminence’s gentlemen; forgot even Julia lying comforted by the side of a gentle Prince of the Church. He was lost in the dreams of Miguel Cervantes, listening to the story of a lean and foolish knight who forever rode a straggling road in Spain . . .

The Arrows Flew Straight The Cardinal’s cortege reached Rome. Outside the Venetian Palace, near the Corso, Don Miguel de Cervantes, still leading the column, called a halt. The men-at-arms broke their ranks thankfully and squatted on their heels against the palace walls, the many narrow windows staring blindly above their heads. In the manner of soldiers of all time, they began to chatter immediately of the city’s wine shops and of what they would do when they were released from duty. Cervantes dismounted and stretched his cramped limbs. He held the mare’s bridle while Guido slid to the ground. “Guido, young Guido,” he said gently, “think of me sometimes when you are in Genazzano and pray for me. We shall meet again, but how or where I don’t know. I’m quite sure of it.” “Oh, Miguel,” Guido said, “I don’t want to go to the monastery. Can’t I stay with you? I’m sure the Cardinal would have me if I asked him. The soldiers could teach me something about the trade of arms so that I could help to fight the Turk when the time comes. I could be a — a page, or a squire, like those in the stories you have told me. You know my father is building a galley to go with the other Venetian ships?” Cervantes laughed at the boy’s eager face. “Life will be dull in Rome, Guido. I shall be busy giving the Cardinal his Spanish lessons and running errands for him. Yes — he uses me as a messenger. There’s nothing very knightly about that, you know.”

“Oh, yes there is. It’s the duty of a squire to do everything he can for his lord, however menial. You’ve said so yourself many times,” Guido answered. “I think I might have taught you too well for these rough times,” Cervantes said. “No, Guido, there’s more to be learned than how to cross swords and polish armor. Shall I be the worse soldier, do you think, because I like to write Latin verse and dream of knightly deeds that are out of place in this modern world? No, you must go on to your monastery and learn your Latin as you have learned the rough English tongue.” “But I learned English so that I could read the letters of my friend Michael Selwyn. We became friends when he was in Rome last year, and we’ve exchanged letters ever since.” “And you must learn Latin so that you can understand your friend Miguel Cervantes and exchange letters with him. Besides, when you read Latin, you will find stories of knightly deeds in the Roman books. Do you know the story of the eagle-bearer of the Tenth Legion? No? Then read about it, and remind me when we meet again.” “Must I?” Guido asked. “Yes, I’m afraid you must,” Cervantes answered, and suddenly his eyes twinkled. “But I tell you what. Take the crossbow and the bolts that once belonged to your guard, and when the peaceful monks are at their office, slip away into the woods and practice. I want to see you pick off a sparrow on the wing when next we meet. Will you do that for me, Guido?” “For you and for the Holy League,” Guido said gravely. “I think it would be better if you said, ‘For Christendom.’ Now,” Cervantes added briskly, “you must go and thank His Eminence the Cardinal. He has been very kind. One of the soldiers will look after the mare.”

Guido walked back to where the Cardinal’s litter was resting. He found his mother and Julia just making their farewell curtsies. The Cardinal was smiling at them, but Guido saw, after the fatigue of many weeks’ travel, he could barely raise his head from the pillow. He beckoned feebly for Guido to come nearer. Guido went down on one knee by the side of the litter. “I must thank Your Eminence, for your kindness . . .” he began. “Say no more, Guido. I have liked having you with us, and especially the little one, Julia. She reminds me of my own childhood . . .” The Cardinal’s eyes clouded, and Guido waited for a full minute. “Listen,” the Cardinal continued, his voice little more than a whisper. “I think you should leave the Signora and Julia here in Rome — in the Venetian Palace. It is not suitable at Genazzano in winter for the little one. You will be able to visit them. Then, when the spring comes again, you may take her into the hills and bring the roses back to her cheeks. You may write and tell your father I said so. You have money, Guido?” “My father has made arrangements . . .” Guido began. “Good. Then give my greetings to the Abbot. I will write to him. Goodbye, Guido. Work hard!” The Cardinal extended his thin, white hand in blessing. As Guido raised his head, His Eminence said, “Has Don Miguel filled your head with dreams? No, don’t answer. I, too, have my dreams. Now tell Cervantes to get the men moving again. Bless you, my son.” Guido took charge of his mare again and stood aside while the ranks of men-at-arms were re-formed. Cervantes barked a sharp order, and the column began the last and shortest part of the journey to the Vatican City. As the front ranks turned the corner into the Corso, Guido caught the flash of a naked sword blade. Miguel de Cervantes was saluting him as one knight salutes another.

Guido turned sadly to stable his mare and to join his mother and Julia in the Venetian Palace. He was thinking of his lonely journey to Genazzano on the morrow and wondering when Michael Selwyn would arrive to keep him company. Slowly the winter days passed in the monastery of Genazzano. Life for Guido fell into a pattern. There was Mass to attend every morning; his tiny cell-like room to clean; lessons with Brother Emmanuel, a novice who had once been a professor in the University of Bologna; exercise among the flowerbeds of Brother Stanislaus, the German lay brother and gardener; and his weekly examination by the novice master, Father Raphael. Once a fortnight, Guido rode his mare into Rome to pay his respects to his mother and to talk for an hour with Julia. Occasionally, a letter arrived at the Venetian Palace from Signor Callatta, telling of the progress of the new galley and how he had engaged Guido’s acquaintance Luigi as sailing master. Otherwise, news from the outside world was sparse. Fastened to the ropes stretched from side to side of Guido’s bedframe, underneath his mattress, and out of the sight of Father Raphael’s prying eyes, was Guido’s crossbow. Guido had been less than a week in the monastery when, as he paced the garden paths muffled in his cloak, he noticed an ancient espalier pear tree growing against the wall. It was long past the age of bearing luscious fruit and its limbs had grown thick and gnarled. He stopped, turned as if absorbed in the repetition of his lesson, and walked the way he had come for a few yards. There was no one to be seen behind him. He turned once more. The path was empty before him. Seconds later he had mounted the tree as he might have climbed a ladder and was peering over the coping. On the other side of the wall, ancient ivy grew between a buttress and the irregular stones. There was foot-and handhold and to spare for a nimble youth. Guido returned to his sober pacing on the garden paths, and a little smile played around the corners of his mouth.

Had there been a sharp-eyed monk abroad, early the following afternoon, he might have noticed a suspicious bulge beneath Guido’s cloak. He would certainly have been horrified to see Guido rapidly climb the espalier pear tree and disappear over the wall. But there was no monk to see. There was none to watch Guido deep in the woods. While there was light enough, he worked, shooting level shots from various distances at a clod of turf balanced on a fallen trunk. He climbed an ancient oak and practiced shooting downward. He fixed the turf in the branches of the same oak and taught himself to raise his bow quickly and shoot upward. At first, Guido lost bolts that flew wide. By the end of February, it had been weeks since he had failed to send his arrow quivering into the center of the thick turf. Jauntily, after long practice, he returned to the monastery and, with his next meeting with Cervantes in mind, threw a leg over the wall coping, forgetting to spy for watchers in the garden. As his feet touched the earth he was seized in a powerful grip, and turned about to face his captor, the crossbow still in hand. “Fool of a boy,” Brother Stanislaus growled. “Did you think you could use the same way out of this garden day after day without leaving traces? Look!” Brother Stanislaus pointed to where the grass had been bruised and worn by the passage of Guido’s feet, and to where the moss on the ancient bark of the espalier had been smoothed away. Guido hung his head. “What have you been up to? Been to the shop in the village, I’ll be bound. I know you boys!” “No, Brother Stanislaus,” Guido answered indignantly. “It’s nothing like that. I’ve only been learning to use this.” And Guido held out his crossbow. Brother Stanislaus took it lovingly in his hands, smoothed the stock, and tested the relaxed tension of the string. He raised it to his

shoulder and carefully sighted it. “H’m! Not a bad weapon,” the monk said. “I remember the time when I was not unskilled . . . Har! H’m! Har!” The sentence ended in a chorus of throat-clearing and grunts. “So! Can you use it?” “Middling fair,” Guido answered. “We’ll see how that is. And it’ll be the worse for you if you lie. Come with me.” Brother Stanislaus led the way along the smooth gravel paths to a small door that, in summer, would be almost hidden by a mauve cascade of wisteria. He produced a massive key and turned it in the lock of the door. Guido hardly noticed that the key moved between the well-oiled wards without a squeak. They passed through, and the monk locked the door behind them. Without a word, he turned and walked until the path led into an avenue, bordered on either side by high hedges of yew, close-matted with the years. The walk was floored with turf. “This is the Abbot’s garden,” Brother Stanislaus said. “But Father Abbot is old and infirm. He never comes here except in high summer. Even then it is a secret place. Wait here.” The monk walked away from Guido, stopped some twenty-five yards from him, and peered into the depths of the yew — once, twice, and a third time — and plunged his hands among the foliage. He withdrew his hand, and in it was a bird’s small nest, abandoned since last mating time. Then, with his knife, he cut a slender branch from low down in the yew. This wand he thrust up right into the turf and balanced the nest upside down on it. “Now,” the brother said. “Shoot at that.”

Guido peered anxiously at his target. The light was fading fast, and to his disgust, he felt a slight tremble in his hands. He selected the best bolt in his quiver. Carefully he pulled back the lever and set the bolt in place. He aimed and the bowstring twanged. The nest spun around and around on its stick like a child’s top and slowly came to rest. “H’m,” Brother Stanislaus said. “You pulled a shade to the left. You would be more sure if your hands were placed like this — and this.” He adjusted Guido’s grip on the bow. “Remember that,” he continued. “Now let me try.” He pulled back the lever, took a bolt at random, and raised the bow to his shoulder. Without apparent pause for aim, he shot and the bird’s nest disintegrated. Pieces of straw and feathers flew into the air and fluttered to the ground. “Ha!” the monk said. “The hand has not lost its cunning, Meet me by the gate tomorrow afternoon, and I’ll see what I can do for you. I’ll take care of the bow. Off with you now — and, for a penance, I’ll look for you at Compline tonight.” Suddenly Brother Stanislaus smiled. “Good boy, Guido. We’ll make an archer of you yet. You’ve done well. Run, now!” Guido ran. The next afternoon, Guido was anxiously waiting outside the door leading to the Abbot’s garden. Brother Stanislaus appeared, carrying a trowel and a basket. He nodded to Guido and opened the door. In the yew-bordered avenue, the monk set down his basket and took from it wicker casings that had once protected wine flasks. A log of wood had already been placed in the midst of the walk. At last, the monk spoke.

“Here are your targets, Guido. I have filled the wicker with sand so that, if you are not foolish, no bolts will be lost. And here’s the bow.” He stooped and took from beneath the yew hedge a parcel wrapped in canvas that was heavy with oil. Inside was the bow, polished and its metal parts shining. “Take it, boy,” Brother Stanislaus continued. “Hold it as I taught you. No — don’t load it. Aim — pretend to shoot. Now load — without a bolt. Shoot! Again! You see, if you can load quickly, what an advantage you have over the harquebusiers. Try again, and keep your head!” At last, the monk was satisfied and set a sand-filled wicker case on the log. “Now, Guido. I want a bolt into that target every half minute. I shall count. One, two, three . . . thirty! Shoot! Again! One, two, three . . .” That afternoon, Guido missed three times. A week later, he did not miss at all, and Brother Stanislaus varied his training. This time, he carried an armful of his wicker targets to the other side of the hedge and tossed one high in the air. It was Guido’s duty to transfix the flying target with a bolt before it fell behind the yews out of sight. The new training began on Monday. On Saturday afternoon, Guido stood, feet apart, near the entrance to the avenue. His bow was ready loaded. A target came flying into the air; he followed it for a second, taking aim, and squeezed the release. The target jumped in its flight and spun, transfixed by the heavy bolt, to the ground. A second time Guido’s arrow found its mark, and a third. Guido was just about to lever back his bowstring for the fourth shot when there was a gentle clapping of hands behind him and a quavering old voice said, “Well shot, Guido! Well aimed!”

He spun about on his heel, and his jaw dropped. The aged Abbot was standing a few yards behind him. A fourth target flew into the air, unseen by Guido, and fell untouched. ‘‘What’s the matter with you, boy?” Brother Stanislaus shouted. “Am I to waste my time here, sweating for you? Look out for another!” “Ah, ha!” said the Abbot gently. “You have a talking machine to toss your targets for you, I see.” The Abbot peeped around the yew hedge and caught the eye of Brother Stanislaus. “Ach! Gerechter Himmel! Der Alte!” Guido heard Brother Stanislaus exclaim. “Yes,” the Abbot answered, “the old man himself. Come here, Brother.” Guido’s instructor approached and bowed humbly before the Abbot, his hands meekly folded in the wide sleeves of his habit. “Brother, I fear we shall never make a monk of you. There’s too much of the old soldier, and for that matter, the old Adam, in you,” the Abbot said. “Nevertheless, we must talk together. You have kept this boy from his studies, and you know the rules of this house.” “Please, Father Abbot, it isn’t Brother Stanislaus’s fault. I was practicing with the bow before he knew.” Guido said. “He only helped me.” “I shall talk to you, too, my son,” the Abbot replied. “Tomorrow, after Compline. Give me your bow. And you, Brother, come with me.” The Abbot walked slowly away, with Brother Stanislaus following. As the Brother passed Guido, he glanced sideways and smiled selfconsciously.

Into the small hours of the morning, Guido tossed on his narrow bed. With sudden despair, he felt that all the world, and perhaps Heaven too, was against him. His friend Luigi the sailor left behind in Venice! His friend Miguel de Cervantes forced to carry messages for a Cardinal in Rome! Now, his new friend, Brother Stanislaus, with his rough voice and uncanny skill with a bow, marched away from him to some unspecified punishment as a reward for his help! And day followed day without news from Michael Selwyn. Guido rose from his bed and looked from his narrow window. A myriad stars twinkled in a clear, cold sky. Somewhere over there in the east, underneath these same stars, Guido thought, the Turk was preparing the greatest fleet ever known. He muttered under his breath, “Someday soon it will come sweeping westward, and what do we do? We listen to the words of His Holiness the Pope preaching a new crusade, and what do we do? Give Spanish lessons to Cardinals or sit about in monasteries learning Latin!” Knightly deeds in Latin books! Cervantes had said so, and, of course he was right. Quietly, Guido repeated to himself the words from Caesar’s Gallic War that he had learned by heart for the sake of Miguel Cervantes: As the Romans still hesitated, owing chiefly to the great depth of water, the eagle-bearer of the Tenth Legion, with a fervent appeal to the gods that what he was about to do might turn for the good of the regiment, shouted to his comrades to jump overboard unless they wished to see the eagle in the hands of the enemy. “I, at any rate,” he exclaimed, “shall not be found wanting in my duty to my country and general.” With these words, he flung himself out of the ship, and, eagle in hand, made straight for the en emy. This act roused the legionaries from their stupor, and

as one man, they leapt into the sea. “Perhaps Christians have gone soft,” Guido muttered. “Perhaps men were braver under the pagan gods.” His eyes slid sideways to the crucifix over his bed, and his conscience smote him. Before he slept, he prayed for forgiveness of his treachery in thought and that Christians should unite to dispel the shadow of doom that hung over Europe. Guido climbed into bed and slept like a child until he was awakened by the clamor of the early bell. At High Mass the next morning, Guido looked down from where he knelt in the gallery and saw Brother Stanislaus lying flat on his face on the cold, stone flags of the chapel floor before the steps of the sanctuary. If that is the Brother’s penance, Guido thought, what is going to happen to me? The hours of the day dragged slowly by, and it was with relief that he heard the knock of a novice on his door, summoning him to the presence of the Abbot. The Abbot was seated at his table with a mass of papers before him. He looked up abstractedly as Guido bowed before him. “Well, my son,” he said, “what can I do for you? Ah, of course, I remember.” The Abbot placed the tips of his fingers together, his elbows on the table, and gravely regarded Guido. “The Cardinal, whom you know, wrote to me and asked me to find out if you would like to enter the Church. But I think you have no vocation for the religious life.” It was more a statement than a question, but Guido answered, “No, Father Abbot, I’m sure I haven’t.”

“How old are you, my son?” “I shall be fifteen this year, Father Abbot. On October 7,” Guido answered. “Almost a grown man! At the age of sixteen, Brother Stanislaus was fighting for the Faith in Flanders,” the Abbot said thoughtfully. Guido’s resentment rose again in his breast. “But you punished him for helping me to learn to use the bow,” he said. “Gently, my son, gently. I punished Brother Stanislaus for breaking a rule of the Order. He bears me no ill will. I must think what is the best for you and pray about it. What do you want yourself?” Guido forgot his awe of the Abbot and spoke impulsively. “Oh, Father Abbot, I want to help in the crusade the Holy Father has preached. I want to help in my father’s galley. I couldn’t bear it if my horses — I mean the carved horses — were no longer over the door of St. Mark’s, nor the winged lion. Please understand, Father Abbot.” “Of course, I do. Perhaps it would be better if you said you wanted to help to save the kingdom of our Lord, but youth always thinks of material things. Well — we shall see. In the meantime, I have news for you.” The Abbot shuffled among the papers on his table and took one in his fingers. He glanced rapidly through the writing. “I hear that your friend Michael Selwyn has sailed from Genoa in a galley. He will land at Anzio tomorrow on his way here to pray to our Lady of Good Counsel for help in England. I thought a short holiday might do you good. If you ride from here early in the morning, you should meet him near Aprilia the following day. Will that please you?”

“Oh, yes! Thank you, Father Abbot! Thank you!” Guido answered. The Abbot reached down to the floor beside his chair. “Here, take your bow. I have told Father Raphael you may keep it.” The Abbot coughed and hid his mouth with his hand. “And tomorrow Brother Stanislaus shall ride with you for company. Very well, my son.” Once more, Guido thanked the Abbot and turned to the door. When his hand was on the latch, the Abbot spoke again. “Of course you mustn’t forget that no one breaks the rules of the Order without punishment, not even guests in the monastery, so . . .” Guido turned from the door in consternation. “ . . . So, at dawn tomorrow, you will repeat the prayer of St. Bernard seven times in the church. After that, you may saddle the mare. Now go, my son.” The door closed softly, and the Abbot listened to Guido’s footsteps receding. He heard the boy break into a run and chuckled quietly to himself.

Skirmish on the Beach His penance done, Guido knelt for a few moments before the miraculous picture of our Lady of Good Counsel in the Genazzano church, and thoughts ran through his mind that were half memories and half prayers. He remembered his father in Venice and offered a prayer that Luigi should be the best seaman in the fleet. His mother and Julia, in Rome, came into his mind. Rome reminded him of Cervantes, and he put up a petition that they should meet soon. Inevitably he thought of his English friend, Michael Selwyn, and he glanced up at the high windows of the church. They were beginning to show gray in the dawn. He recited a Hail Mary, rose to his feet, and made his way to the monastery stables. Brother Stanislaus was there already, and the mare and a large rawboned horse were saddled. Guido’s bow hung at his saddle. And there was another in Brother Stanislaus’s hand. The Brother grinned. “Horses, weapons, food and to spare — bless Father Raphael’s kind heart — and a fine, fresh morning. What more could a man ask?” he said. They mounted and rode down the hillside into the valley and began to climb the steep paths to the south of the monastery. It was the first day of March in the year 1571. The air was fresh, the damp chill of winter had gone, and there were signs that the sap was beginning to rise and spring was not far away. The earth was stirring in her sleep. That night, they lay at Velletri. After two hours’ riding the next morning and when the sun was well up, they came to a hilltop from where they could see the shine and

sparkle of the sea far away and below. Brother Stanislaus called a halt, and they dismounted to eat bread and olives and to drink from a flask of wine. Near to them, the smoke from the little town of Aprilia rose to a clean-washed blue sky, but the stretches of road that could be seen winding among the hills were empty. “Is that Aprilia?” Guido asked, pointing to the waft of wood smoke, and when the Brother nodded in reply — “I thought the Father Abbot said we should meet Michael near Aprilia.” “Who knows?” Brother Stanislaus answered. “He was coming by galley from Genoa. There may have been contrary winds. Anything may have delayed him.” He did not mention that the sea they could glimpse far away was the most dangerous west of Cyprus. The galleys of the Barbary corsairs sailed there without hindrance, and the dwellers in towns as far inland as Aprilia kept daily watch for Turkish raiding parties. Brother Stanislaus did not think that any galley would sail south from Genoa except in convoy, but then he remembered that the English, with their usual arrogance, regarded the sea as their particular element and were, as well, sufficiently foolhardy to ignore the possibility of attack by Algerian pirates. They traveled on the waters as if they were English highways, and the wonder of it was that so few of them became the slaves of Islam. Mentally he shrugged his shoulders. It was all part of the business of living and traveling, and if some Englishman liked to risk spending the rest of his life tugging at the oar of a Turkish galley, it was no business of his. Brother Stanislaus still had the fatalism of the old soldier. Brother Stanislaus had no fear for Guido and himself. He knew that if there were any Turks about, near the coast, they would advertise their presence with screams, yells, and fierce battle cries as they advanced to the attack, as they always did. With two well-fed horses between their legs, he and Guido would have no difficulty in outdistancing any man landing from a galley.

Guido and his companion lay and rested for a while after their meal, and then mounted and rode on. They clattered through the cobbled streets of Aprilia and took the road for Anzio. When they had reached the coastal plain, Brother Stanislaus reined in his horse. A thick column of dense black smoke was rising from the beach some distance away. The wind whispered in the reeds on the sand dunes, and underneath the lonely sound was a deep diapason made up of hoarse shouts of men. Brother Stanislaus sat rigid in his saddle and listened. “There’s something I don’t like going on,” he said at last. “You stay here, Guido, and hold the bridle of my horse while I spy out the land. If anything goes wrong with me, you must turn and ride — ride like mad for the hills, taking both horses!” “Let me go and see,” Guido said. “No!” Brother Stanislaus said fiercely. “You will do exactly as you are told. The first duty a soldier must learn is to obey.” He pulled back the string of his bow, set a bolt in the slides, and strode away through the sand to climb the nearest dune. With his heart beating fast, Guido watched the Brother go and saw him climb, on hands and knees, to the top of the sand hill and cautiously peer over. For a long minute, Stanislaus lay motionless and then backed away from the reed-clad crest of the dune. The din of battle rolled over the sand. “Guido,” the Brother said when he reached the horses, “there’s as pleasant a piece of bickering as ever you saw going on over there.” “Turks?” Guido asked excitedly. “And Christians. If we creep to that hill and shoot through the reeds, the surprise might just turn the day — although there are only the two of us. We must hobble the horses . . . Load your bow. Come!”

Side by side, Guido and Stanislaus crept to the reedy summit, and Guido had his first glimpse of the inhumanities that may be wrought in the name of religion. At the edge of the tideless sea, two galleys were beached. One was burning fiercely, and dense clouds of black smoke, shot with the scarlet of flame, rolled upward from it. The flotsam of war floated in the little sluggish waves — broken oars, spars, splintered bulwarks, and the bodies of men. On the beach, Christian and Moslem strove hand to hand for mastery. The bodies of those who no longer needed to fear loss of liberty lay spread-eagled. Guido saw one man, wounded, crawl on hands and knees from the melee, leaving behind him a dark trail of blood on the soft sand. The opposing forces seemed evenly matched in numbers, but most of the Christians appeared to be half-naked rowers wielding pikes, axes, and clubs. They were led by a tall, slim man in shining steel cuirass and helmet whose slender rapier flickered in and out with the rapidity of a serpent’s tongue. Grouped before him was a crowd of turbaned Turks in flowing robes, whose slashing scimitars failed and failed again to ward off the deathly sting of the flashing sword. At his feet, bundled like old clothes, lay the dead. Pairs of weaponless men fought with their naked fists, Turkish thumbs gouging at Christian eyeballs, Christian fingers tearing at Turkish throats. Apart, a gigantic Christian fought alone amid a group of screaming Saracens. He was dressed in doublet, and his head was bare; his only protection a long, broad sword that rose and swept and fell. His enemies rushed on him, and for a moment, Guido could see nothing but a heaving, struggling mass of men. Then the Christian’s head appeared as the head of a diver rises from the waters, and with a shake of his long blond hair, he raised his great sword again and cleared a space about him.

All this Guido saw in a single glance. Brother Stanislaus plucked at his sleeve. “You take the man in the jeweled turban fighting with the Christian in armor. I’ll take the one in green,” he said and sighted his crossbow. “In the name of the Lord . . .” “And the Holy League,” Guido added. The bowstrings twanged in unison. Guido saw his own heavy bolt embed itself in the Turk’s right shoulder and the scimitar fall from a strengthless hand. “Still pulling a thought to the left, my Guido,” Stanislaus said. “It’s different shooting at men. Not like targets in the Abbot’s garden!” The bows were loaded again, and Brother Stanislaus chose those doomed to die by unexpected arrow. Guido’s hands trembled with the effort of levering back his bowstring until the butt was firmly cradled in his shoulder, and then his aim was steady. It seemed to Guido that hours passed with the voice of Stanislaus murmuring in his ear, loading, aiming, discharging . . . and at last there were but three quarrels left in his quiver. He shook the sweat out of his eyes, looked for his target, caught a glimpse of a Turk running, crouched, to take them on the flank. Ignoring Brother Stanislaus’s instructions, he swung his bow about, and remembering the flying targets in the Abbot’s garden, sighted while his bow was still moving and squeezed the release. The bolt took the Turk between the eyes, and he spun about like a shot rabbit. He crashed to the ground and lay, black beard pointing to the sky, arms outflung and fingers convulsively opening and shutting. “Well done, Guido,” Stanislaus said. “He must have spotted where the arrows came from. Pray Heaven no more of them have.”

Then — suddenly — it was over. The armored Christian had maneuvered his little company until they had their backs to the sea and the light of the setting sun shone into the eyes of the Turks. He raised his visor and shouted to his companions to charge. Guido looked at the lean, handsome face framed in the helmet. “Michael Selwyn!” he said in a loud voice and would have jumped to his feet if it had not been for the restraining hand of Brother Stanislaus. Gentlemen, seamen, and rowers swept forward with a howl like wolves descending on a wearied prey, and there was not a Turk left on his feet. A little apart, the fair Christian giant leaned on his sword. The heathen dead were sprawled about him. Guido and Brother Stanislaus lay quietly side by side. The half-naked Christian rowers were already rifling the bodies of the fallen. One approached the Turk Guido had shot between the eyes. He placed a foot on the dead man’s face, took the quarrel in his hand, and with a mighty heave pulled it clear. He turned it in his fingers and looked with interest at it. Guido rolled on to his side and vomited into the sand. Stanislaus left Guido alone until his retching was over and then roughly pulled him to his feet. “Come along,” he said. “You’ll get used to it. I know it isn’t pretty. Don’t forget, the only good Turk is a dead Turk. Now — let’s go and meet the men we won the battle for.” “They did something for themselves,” Guido answered, smiling tremulously. “I’m sorry, Brother Stanislaus, for not being well.” “Think nothing of it, boy,” the Brother boomed. “Why I remember when I . . . Ha! H’m! That’s another story. Now come.”

Guido and Stanislaus, crossbows tucked underneath their arms, slithered their way down the seaward slope of the dune. Michael Selwyn was cleaning his rapier in the sand. He looked up as the two approached; saw, in a glance, the bows and empty quivers; saw Guido’s half-smile. “So it was you!” he said, and leaving his rapier stuck in the sand gently swaying from side to side, he held out a hand. “Guido! To meet you here! Did you . . . ?” He gestured with his hands to indicate the tumbled corpses. Brother Stanislaus answered. “Yes, we did our best to help. I’ve heard about you, Signor Selwyn, from the boy Guido here. It was fortunate we came along. In fact, the Father Abbot sent us to meet you.” “Ha!” Michael Selwyn said. “Making a soldier of him, are they? That’s what monasteries do in Italy, is it?” Suddenly he smiled. “I’m grateful for what you did. Thank you.” “What happened?” Guido asked. “How did you get mixed up in this, Michael?” “Don’t know,” Michael Selwyn answered. “The galley came up out of the blue. We saw a sail on the horizon, and within the hour, they were on us. Calling us to surrender. Huh! Surrender! Barnabas was ready for ’em! That reminds me, you don’t know Barnabas, do you, Guido?” He called to the blond giant who was leaning on his long sword, watching Christian rowers deck themselves in Turkish finery. Barnabas Butter plowed through the bloodstained sand toward the three. Michael introduced him by name and added that he was as fine a gunner as ever trod a deck. Barnabas smiled, and his smile was gentle and sweet — startlingly so to those who had watched the fierceness of his swordplay.

“Yes,” he said. “Gunner, I am. Guns is me pride and joy. If we’d had a dozen or so of harquebusiers along with us, this’d have been over the sooner.” Brother Stanislaus snorted, and Barnabas’s smile deepened, the network of seaman’s wrinkles patterning his blue eyes. He pointed to the weapons of the Brother and Guido. “Bows, eh?” he said. “Crossbows. Old fashioned, that’s what I say. Not that they haven’t got their points. But give me guns every time.” Stanislaus opened his mouth to retort, but Guido interrupted quickly. “You seem to be pretty good with that mighty sword you’ve got,” he said. “Oh, that,” Barnabas said. Without effort, he tossed the great weapon into the air and caught it deftly by the hilt as it fell. “That’s a claymore. Took it off a Scotsman I met. Called MacDuff, it is. That’s what the Scotsman was called, and I thought the name might as well be carried on — when I took his sword. Glad of a sword, sometimes you are, when there aren’t any guns to be had.” Brother Stanislaus snorted again. This time Michael Selwyn broke in. “It’s always guns for Barnabas. Powder smoke’s the breath of life for him. Ah well, I must send the sailors about their business before we do anything else.” Michael Selwyn strode down the beach and stood talking to the weary seamen. He returned and, in the glory of his burnished armor, looked down at Guido and Brother Stanislaus. “All fixed,” he said. “The ship’s going on its way, when the men have cleared this mess up. We can get on the road to Genazzano. What about horses? Can we get them in the nearest town?”

“In Aprilia,” Guido answered. “Right! Off we go, then.” Guido and Stanislaus released their hobbled mounts and, with bridles looped over their arms, walked with Michael and Barnabas to the tiny township. As they went, Michael Selwyn told how he and Barnabas had taken ship from Genoa; how they had been attacked by the Turkish pirates, and — Barnabas Butter took up the tale. “Ar! Saw ’em coming up, I did. Then I got all the guns loaded, as is me duty. Sailing close in shore, we was, when they come in range. Then I let ’em ’ave it. Could ’ave sunk ’em if I could have sighted the cannon on ’em. As it was, they got set on fire and we drifted ashore. Had to fight it out then . . .” “Ha! H’m,” said Brother Stanislaus. “If you’d had men with crossbows . . .” “Crossbows,” barked Barnabas. “Crossbows! What I wanted was guns . . .” So the argument, in friendly fashion, went on, and the following day, when the travelers saw the walls of the monastery at Genazzano stark against the sky, the last words Guido heard were “Guns is what you need . . .” from Barnabas. “Three times I can load my crossbows for every once you can load your musket . . .” from Stanislaus. Father Raphael, the novice master, appeared at the monastery door. He smiled as the riders dismounted. “Signor Selwyn,” he said, “and Guido, my son. The Father Abbot would like to see you. After you have eaten. You are all welcome to our humble home.”

Michael Selwyn bowed to the monk and took his discarded helmet from his saddlebow. Barnabas Butter unhitched his sword belt and handed it with the sheathed heavy claymore to Father Raphael. “Into the keeping of Mother Church,” he said. “Until the time comes. But what we’ll want is guns . . .” Guido went down on his knees. “Your blessing, Father,” he asked. “For us and the League. And Masses for those who died . . .” The monastery bell began to toll, solemnly, for the last office of the day.

In a Monastery Garden March 1571 dragged on its way with leaden feet. At last, April came and, with it, the stronger heat of the sun. Guido — unwillingly — labored at his Latin with Brother Emmanuel and spent the evenings with his friend Michael Selwyn, who seemed quite content to live the peaceful monastery life. Guido could not persuade him to become excited about the efforts of Venice and the formation of the fleet of the Holy League. The Abbot now allowed Guido and Michael to use the yew-bordered alley in his garden for practice with crossbow and sword, and often came himself to watch the exercises. One evening toward the end of April, he sat quietly on the stool Stanislaus placed for him every day, as Guido and Michael, sweating, sheathed their rapiers after half an hour’s vigorous swordplay. He beckoned them to stand before him. “Guido, my son,” the old man said, “I think these games you play with Signor Selwyn make you impatient with the quietness of our life here. Ought you not to spend the evenings with your books?” “Oh, please, no, Father Abbot,” Guido answered. “Not that! There’s a lot that I want to learn about fighting from Michael. I must be ready to help on my father’s galley when the time comes. It can’t be long now, can it?” “Who knows? The Holy Father has preached a crusade. Therefore, I must believe in it. At the same time, I pray for peace between nations.” The Abbot sighed. “Am I helping the Holy Father or opposing him? I don’t know.” He was speaking half to himself.

Suddenly he smiled at Guido. “I suppose I must let you go on with your warlike games. But don’t be disappointed if you wait a long time — before they stop being games.” “That’s what I say,” Michael Selwyn said. “It’s no good worrying. Getting ready for war always takes a long time.” “Why is it going to be a long time?” Guido asked the Abbot. “Has something gone wrong?” “News from the outside world does reach me now and then,” the Abbot continued, “and nothing has gone wrong as far as I know. But most of the vessels and men have to be provided by Spain, and His Catholic Majesty, King Philip, is a cautious man. He considers every request, even those from the Holy Father, for weeks, before he makes a decision. Sometimes I think he thinks first of Spain and of the Holy League afterward.” “Human nature,” Michael Selwyn said brusquely. The Abbot twinkled up at Michael. “When people try to explain away some action by saying it is due to human nature, they are usually trying to excuse some sin of the flesh — or spirit. Would you accuse King Philip of sins, Michael?” “Of course,” Michael answered. “He’s a man, isn’t he? He’s flesh and blood like all of us.” “There speaks the Englishman. To the Spaniards, he isn’t exactly a man, like all of us,” the Abbot replied. “He’s much more than that, and he knows it. However — time will show.” “But the fleet will be ready soon?” Guido insisted. “Yes, soon. But what is ‘soon’ in the lives of men? There are galleys massing at Messina. Others in Civitavecchia. The Genoese have

many ready, I hear. And Venice is crowded with new ships. Your father’s among them, Guido.” “Then the people in the villages near the coasts don’t have to be afraid of raids any more?” Guido asked. “No . . .” The Abbot hesitated. “No, I don’t think so. There shouldn’t be any reason for fear — not much longer, at any rate.” “Then we can thank the Holy League for that,” Guido said. “Thank God,” the Abbot said. The three became silent. The garden was darkening and the many birds were raising their last song of praise before the end of the day. The Abbot waited, engaged, perhaps, in his prayers. Guido and Michael waited also, standing humbly before the frail figure of the old man. At last, the Abbot spoke. “My son,” he said to Guido. “When did you last visit your mother?” “Three weeks ago, Father Abbot.” “Then I think you should go again tomorrow. Perhaps Signor Selwyn will ride with you. And a few hours in Rome will do no harm to that man of yours — er, Barnabas Butter, is it not? — who argues continuously in the kitchens with Brother Stanislaus. Now — let me go. Your arm, Guido.” The Abbot, with Guido’s help, rose stiffly from his stool and, with his lean hand on the boy’s forearm, made his way slowly to his austere quarters. Michael Selwyn, left alone, scratched the back of his neck and grunted. Then he, too, turned away and walked in the gathering dusk toward his narrow room in the guesthouse.

The next day, Guido came to the Venetian Palace in Rome. Julia flung her arms about his neck and whispered in his ear. ‘‘Won’t you stay with me, Guido?” she said. “I’m not happy with no one to talk to and no one to play with.” “I do so wish I could,” Guido answered. “Here’s Michael. He’ll look after you while I talk with our mother. Signor Butter, too.” Julia looked up into the gentle blue eyes of the gigantic blond Englishman. “Will you play with me?” she asked. “With my colored balls in the garden?” “Ball or fireball. All the same to me, missy.” And Barnabas stooped, lifted the small girl to his shoulder, and strode to the garden. Michael Selwyn followed. Guido made his way to his mother’s apartments. When Guido had paid his respects to his mother and was seated by her side, she laid a hand gently on his knee. “Guido,” she said quietly, “I don’t want to stay here much longer. It isn’t good for Julia. If it comes to that, it isn’t good for Magdalena. Don Miguel de Cervantes — your friend — came to see us a few days ago. He asked after you. He’s fond of you, I think. He says that soon — very soon — the fleet will be ready. And we shall have no need to be afraid of the Turks attacking Venice. Oh, Guido, I want to go home.” “My father says . . .” Guido began. “Your father is cautious,” the Signora interrupted. “Very cautious. He is afraid for us. But there is no need for him to be afraid any more. Ask Signor Selwyn. Go on, ask him. Don Miguel thought it was all right, too.”

“There’s the journey,” Guido said. “It’s such a long way for you from Rome to Venice.” “I rode here, and I can ride home again.” Guido considered. “I don’t know if my father will let me go away from Genazzano to come with you,” he said. “Then we can go without you. Signor Selwyn wants to go to Venice. He and his man, whose name I can never remember — Butter or something like that — want to join your father’s galley, don’t they? They could ride with us and look after us on the road.” Guido felt that all the weight of the family’s responsibilities was bearing down on his shoulders. “What I thought,” Guido’s mother continued, “was that we could ride by way of Civitavecchia to Grosseto. Your uncle lives in a village near there. We could stay with him for a few days and rest. I haven’t seen him for years. Anyway, Guido, I’m determined to go.” “In that case, there’s nothing more for me to say, is there?” Guido answered. “I can only ask the Abbot if he will let me come with you.” “Of course, do that. Now call Signor Selwyn in. We’ll see what he thinks of it.” Guido went out into the burst of sunlight where the two grown men were solemnly tossing balls for the small girl to catch against a background of flaming, blood-red bougainvillea. Julia stopped her game and looked up into Guido’s troubled face. “Is everything all right, Guido?” she asked. “I think so,” Guido answered, and then to the others, “Michael, Barnabas, will you come and speak to my mother? There’s something she wants to ask you.”

The four of them passed into the cool shadows of the Signora’s apartments, leaving Julia’s colored balls lying on the grass like jewels glowing in the sunshine. The Signora Callatta explained her plans to them as she had to Guido. “Do you think it’s all right?” Guido said to Michael when his mother had finished. “Do you think the Abbot will let me come, too?” “One thing at a time,” Michael answered. “Do I think there’s any danger? Well, there shouldn’t be. The seas are thick with Christian galleys.” “You ran into danger,” Guido insisted. “That was two months ago, and a lot has been done since then. No, I shouldn’t worry. The Signora and Julia will be all right with us.” Barnabas Butter was standing in the shadows near the doorway, holding Julia by the hand. “Them Algerian pirates is cunning,” he said. “Slip through a fleet at night, they would, bold as brass — if they wanted something.” “Right enough,” Michael answered. “But a fleet’s one unit and its movements are predictable, if you understand. The ships keep together. Now, the sea’s dotted with small groups, all making for the rendezvous at Messina. Their movements aren’t predictable. No, I don’t think there’ll be any danger — not even on the coast road.” He turned to Guido. “I don’t know about you. You’ll have to ask the Abbot.” Julia began to cry quietly. Guido went to her, knelt, and put his arms around her shaking shoulders. Through the mist of her hair over his face, he heard Michael Selwyn continue.

“If we’re going, we’ll have to buy horses. The best thing for you, Barnabas, is to go to Genazzano with Guido — tomorrow. Bring our things back with you, and Guido, if the Abbot’ll let him come. Then we’ll start on Saturday, if that’s all right with you, madame.” Signora Callatta smiled a satisfied smile and held out her hand to Michael. Guido began to stroke Julia’s cheek to comfort her. When Guido sought the Abbot during the following afternoon, he found him sitting on his stool at the end of the yew-bordered alley. The old man smiled at the boy. “Well, Guido, my son,” he said gently. “Back safely, I see. You know, I miss watching your games. Curious, isn’t it? I miss them, and I’m a man of peace. And Brother Stanislaus has been like a bear with a sore head since Signor Butter went away. Yes — I’m glad you’re back.” Guido’s heart missed a beat because he had to ask the Abbot’s permission to leave — perhaps forever. He took his courage in both hands and poured out all that had happened, and all that had been said, in Rome. “Oh, please, Father Abbot, may I go with them? Heaven knows I don’t want to leave you, but my place is with my mother and Julia. And I must join my father’s galley. Please let me go.” The Abbot took Guido’s hands between his own thin palms. He held them as if he were absorbing the warmth of youth into his frail body. “Your father gave you into my charge, Guido,” he said very gently. “I cannot let you go without his permission. I know you will miss your mother and sister, but I must have your father’s permission before you leave us. I will write to him, never fear.” “But — but,” Guido said, his voice trembling, “if my father gave permission, how could I get to Venice alone? The others will have gone by Saturday.”

“We’ll solve that problem when we have to, my son,” the Abbot answered. “You must be happy with us. There’s a lot of quiet amusement to be had here, you know . . .” He held up his blue-veined hand. From the other side of the wall bounding the Abbot’s garden came the voices of Brother Stanislaus and Barnabas Butter raised in excited argument. “Give me the guns and the men to serve ’em and I’d . . .” Barnabas was saying. “And I’d stick ’em as full of arrows as a pincushion’s full of pins, before they could put match to touchhole,” Stanislaus shouted. “As full as a pincushion’s full . . . I mean as full as St. Sebastian.” The Abbot smiled. “I fear we shall never make anything of Brother Stanislaus. You hear? The monk always takes second place.” But Guido’s heart was too full of misery for him to listen. The blackshadowed yew hedges rose on either side of him like the stone walls of a prison. That night, as he lay on his narrow cot, Guido thought of Cervantes and of the Roman eagle-bearer leaping into the sea. But, he thought, how could the eagle-bearer leap into the sea if there’d been an Abbot holding him back. Only they hadn’t any Abbots then . . . His cheeks were wet with the mixed tears of anger, disappointment, and self-pity. He cursed himself for his lack of manhood and tried to turn his thoughts to other things. A Hail Mary came glibly to his lips, but when he tried to seek comfort from the gentle Mother of God, he felt alone in the darkness.

A Warning from Our Lady Guido awoke the next morning with a salt taste of bitterness on his lips. It persisted all that day and the next, and when he had to take leave of Barnabas, the saltness seemed to solidify in his throat. His mouth was dry, and there was a catch in his voice as he looked up at the mounted man. Barnabas smiled down at him with his incongruously gentle smile. “Be of good heart, Master Guido,” he said. “Tell you what! Speak to your father, meself, I will, in Venice. And come and fetch you, if needs be. Don’t you worry! Barnabas won’t let you down. There, boy! There!” “You’ll look after my mother and . . . and Julia, won’t you?” Guido gulped. “Look after ’em. Ar! Don’t you fear for that. Me and old MacDuff here.” He slapped the long, heavy claymore that hung once more at his side. Guido watched him ride down the hillside, saw the puffs of dust thrown up by his horse’s hoofs whirl in the breeze and settle, and then turned with a heavy heart to his labors with Brother Emmanuel. All the remainder of that day, he felt hard and resentful. Defiantly he sat on a stone seat in the cloisters and kicked his heels as the monks filed past on their way to Compline. He was even resentful that no one stopped to remonstrate with him. All his world was awry. On the following day — Saturday — his mind was fixed in Rome. As clearly

as if he were present, he could visualize the cortege assembling outside the Venetian Palace — his mother, Julia, Magdalena, and all the pack mules; Barnabas, mounted, dwarfing the horse beneath him; Michael barking orders in his staccato manner; perhaps even Miguel de Cervantes gaily whispering tales into Julia’s ear in the intervals of making courtly farewells to the others. Julia, he thought suddenly! Where was she riding? Was she behind Michael or Barnabas? He felt the pressure of her young arms about his own waist and a knife turned in his heart. That night he could not sleep. He lay on his cot; he rose and paced the few yards that his cell allowed him; he gazed through the narrow window at the starry skies; he sat on the edge of his bed with his head between his hands. In his mind was a turmoil of emotions. Somewhere on the road between Rome and Civitavecchia, perhaps in Civitavecchia itself, his family and his friends were sleeping peacefully, and he was imprisoned, as securely as any prisoner in castle dungeon, in a monastery. More securely, he thought, because prisoners have broken through stone walls and escaped, but he was surrounded by an adamantine barrier of promises and obedience. In Genazzano. Obedience. Obedience to the Abbot. Obedience to the Church in Genazzano. Unbidden, there came into his mind the image of Our Lady of Genazzano — Our Lady of Good Counsel. He began to breathe a prayer to her. Without any conscious thought, his legs swung onto the bed and he lay down. Within a second, Guido was deep in a dreamless sleep. He woke in the first gray light of the false dawn with his mind clear of the turmoil of the day before, but within it a sudden desperate urgency that he did not understand. He remembered his despair — of how he had thought suddenly of . . . That was it! That was his present worry. He must go and say thank you. He slipped out of bed, dressed, and, buttoning his doublet as he went, stole silently through the guesthouse passages to the church. Inside was nothing but blackness, except for the glimmer of light from the tiny lamp burning perpetually before the miraculous picture of Our Lady of Genazzano.

Still on tiptoe, he walked toward it and knelt. Immediately his mind was flooded with a premonition of danger, so powerful that it was like a physical blow, forcing his upright body backward until he squatted on his heels. He glanced fearfully over his shoulder. The church was quite silent. He struggled, trembling, until he was again upright and joined his hands. The warning rushed into his mind again and rang there like a fearful trumpet call, so that a cold sweat broke out on his forehead and body and trickled down his chest. He rose to his feet and ran from the church. All day long, the feeling remained with him, and every time he thought about the moments when he had knelt before the picture of Our Lady of Genazzano, the little hairs rose on the nape of his neck. He tried to soothe his quivering nerves by attending all the services of that bright Sunday, but even the pure, sweet Gregorian chant of the monks failed to give him rest. Slowly, slowly the sunlit hours dragged by until, after Compline, Guido walked unwillingly, as if pushed by invisible hands, into the church and knelt once more before the picture. Immediately he had the same strong feeling of dread, and this time it was near terror. He couldn’t understand it, but ran from the church, fumbling in his fear with the door latch so that he broke his fingernails. He stumbled, half-blind, to the monastery, brushing unceremoniously past monks he met, and burst without knocking into the Abbot’s room. The Abbot was sitting in his carved chair with a rosary dangling from his fingers. Guido ran to him and flung himself on his knees with his head on the old man’s lap. He was trembling violently in every limb. The reproof froze on the Abbot’s lips, and he began to smooth Guido’s hair. Some ten minutes went by before Guido could, coherently, tell of his experiences in the church. The Abbot heard him out silently and sat for a moment longer in thought. “You were very disappointed at not going to Venice with your mother, weren’t you?” the Abbot said at last.

“Yes, Father Abbot, but this can’t be anything to do with that. It was so — so real!” Guido answered. “Then we will go back to the church together . . .” “No, Father Abbot! No! I’m . . .” Guido hung his head in shame. “I’m frightened,” he finished dully. “What? Frightened of Our Lady? Come, Guido, do you think she would harm you? No, come with me. Or would you rather go with bow and sword?” The Abbot smiled at him. “No, Father Abbot, of course not. I’ll come with you.” With the Abbot leaning on his shoulders, Guido retraced his steps and knelt once more before the picture. This time, the old priest’s arm was about his shoulders. The feeling came rushing into his mind again, but this time he was not frightened. Now it was as if a bell rang through his thoughts, pealing out the syllables of “Danger. Danger. Julia. Danger.” The Abbot crossed himself, rose from his knees, and led Guido back to the monastery in silence. Outside his own door, he stopped, and Guido stretched out a hand to raise the latch for him. “No, Guido, not in there,” he said. “I, too, felt what you have been experiencing, but I must pray. I shall take you now to the Father Infirmarian, and he will brew you a potion that will make you sleep tonight. Meanwhile I shall pray. Come to see me first thing in the morning. By then, please God, I shall know the answer. Come!” Soon after dawn, Guido awoke from a deep unconsciousness and, with his mind still a little confused by the drug he had taken, hurried to the Abbot’s door and knocked. Guido looked with concern at the old

man, for his face was white and drawn and there were deep purple circles underneath his eyes. The Abbot had spent a night of vigil in his own chapel. The Abbot rose to his feet, and his hands trembled as he placed them on Guido’s shoulders. He kissed Guido on the cheek. “Who knows how God chooses His instruments and for what purpose,” he said. “That He has chosen, I am sure. You must go and ride after your mother’s party. Ride hard and ride fast, but sleep, and keep your strength for what lies at the end. You will be in time, I know. Get food. Now go, and my blessing goes with you.” Half an hour later, Guido clattered out of the monastery stableyard. His crossbow dangled from his saddle, and a rapier hung at his side. The Abbot watched from a high window until Guido’s dust cloud dispersed and the rider was out of sight. The Abbot joined his hands and bowed his head.

The Turk Came First At peep of daylight on the first Saturday in May, Signora Callatta’s party gathered outside the Venetian Palace in Rome. Servants had secured the baggage on the pack mules, and Michael Selwyn had tested the strappings and the saddle girths of the horses. Julia, as there was no light Guido behind whom she could ride pillion, had been given a pony, but in spite of her pride in her first horse, her cheeks were wet with tears. She knew how desolate Guido was feeling in his loneliness at Genazzano. She was to ride between Barnabas Butter and Michael, who held the pony’s leading rein in his right hand. Michael swung himself into the saddle and faced the company. “I don’t think we’ll run into danger,” he said. “There doesn’t seem any reason we should. But we must have a plan just in case we do. Remember, we’re taking the coast road. If we sight Turkish galleys, we turn and ride inland as fast as we can. It should be easy to outdistance them!” “Your pardon, Master Michael,” Barnabas said. “I have heard tell as how, sometimes, these here Turks carry horses in their galleys. So’s they can raid further inland, see? What if we meets some of them? Looking on the black side, so to speak.” “H’m. True! We must still turn inland. And ride fast. If they’re overtaking us, we’ll release the pack mules. It would be a pity, but it would delay some of them. The ladies ride on. You and I, Barna bas, would take on the rest.”

“Ha!” Barnabas said, and patted MacDuff the claymore. “We’d win through. All the same, I don’t think it will happen. Now let’s go,” Michael answered. Signora Callatta and Magdalena led the way and set the pace. Behind them came Julia, riding between Michael and Barnabas, and last the pack mules, linked together, with the first made fast to Barnabas Butter’s saddlebow. They clattered over the cobbled streets of sleeping Rome and, leaving the Vatican Palace on their right hand, emerged into open country. They rode gently so that Julia had time to be comforted by the green land, smiling in the freshness of the May sunshine. Michael rode almost in silence, only occasionally putting a word into Barnabas’s chatter to Julia. The gigantic gunner told her tales of his voyages in ships that had no oars, and of an English seaman called Francis Drake who planned to sail round the world. So, with friendly talk, the miles passed pleasantly and, by evening, the travelers were two-thirds of the way to Civitavecchia. As the sun dipped near the deep blue of the Mediterranean, they turned off the coast road into the hills to spend the night in the inn of Cerveteri. Soon after their arrival, Magdalena took Julia in charge, and she lay tucked in her bed, listening to the deep voices of the men, talking in the courtyard below. As she rested her tired muscles, already stiffened by the day’s ride, she recounted to herself, like a halfremembered tale, all the events of the day’s ride. She thought of Rome and of the pleasure she had found in the garden of the Venetian Palace. She thought of Guido’s visits. She remembered the spring sunshine of the early morning and the gentle breeze smelling of the sea. An image of Guido in the hills about Genazzano came into her mind, and she wondered if the spring came much later there. The talk of Barnabas Butter stirred in her memory, and she smiled secretly to herself. She must remember, she thought, to ask Guido if what he had said was true. Her most recent recollection was of riding

into the village and of seeing the ruins of houses plundered and burned by the Turk. This, she said to herself, was what made Guido so angry and so fierce when he talked about the work of the Holy League. The priest in the village church was surprised to see at his early Mass the following morning five well-dressed strangers and one of them a little girl. He was even more surprised to observe, when the ritual demanded that he turn to his congregation, that the child was looking about her with little fists clenched and that her eyes were filled with tears. He could not know that the sight of broken images and fireblackened murals, the result of the last corsair attack, was beginning to make Julia understand the growing spirit of resolution in Christendom that for her was personified in Guido with his highhearted determination. The strangers departed before the priest could unvest and speak to them. After their meager breakfast of wine, bread, and olives that was the best the inn could provide, Signora Callatta insisted on taking to the road again. Once more, they rode gently, and as they neared Civitavecchia, Julia saw that the sea was indeed dotted with little squadrons of galleys approaching or leaving the port. From where she rode, they looked like water beetles crawling across the surface of a pond. The sun flashed on the oar blades of those that were making their way, canvas furled, against the wind. In others, the arched sails gave only a hint of the colors of the emblems embroidered on them. They passed through the city of Civitavecchia without resting, sitting on their horses while Magdalena bought food and wine. The second day’s ride was longer than the first day’s, and they did not dismount until they came to the township of Moltalto di Castro, through which the coast road ran. Julia’s stiffness had increased, and for an hour, she twisted and turned in her bed before sleep came to her. Then it seemed that she had slept for only a few minutes before

she was visited by a vague but terrifying nightmare. She screamed aloud, and Signora Callatta came running. “What is it, my child, my little one?” the Signora asked. Julia sobbed as her mother rocked her in her arms. “Tell me what it is, dear heart. Tell your mother.” “I don’t know. I was dreaming,” Julia answered. “Something about Guido. It was all dark. I didn’t understand.” Signora Callatta gathered Julia close in her arms. “Everything’s all right, my darling,” she whispered. “Guido is quite safe in the monastery. You mustn’t worry about him. Just be happy. Just be happy . . .” And she began to sing a lullaby that countless Italian mothers had sung to their children through the long years that had to go to the growth of a nation. Julia slept. Early the next morning, the party set out again. To her surprise, Julia found that the stiffness of her muscles was disappearing. She began to take pleasure in the journey. As the city of Orbetello, perched at the end of the neck of its isthmus, came in sight, she was talking happily to Barnabas. “But, Barnabas,” she said, “how is it that you can talk Italian? I know it sounds funny when you talk, but I understand what you say. Where did you learn it?” “Oh, well, to understand that, you’ve got to understand the lives of sailormen and the ways of ships.” Barnabas chuckled. “ ’Tain’t easy. Not by a long chalk. But you gets times when everything’s going sweet. Sweet as nut. Sails drawing. Water lapping under the forefoot, and the forecastle rising and falling against the sky . . . See what I mean? Maybe you don’t.”

“Guido’s crazy about ships. He’s told me,” Julia said. “Rightly,” Michael put in from Julia’s left hand. “They’re fine things, are ships. Almost alive, I always think.” “Ar!” Barnabas said, acknowledging his master’s remarks. “Anyways, at such times, sailormen lie about on the deck — when the weather’s fine. Good luck to ’em. They need it. Terrible hard life they have. But me — I’m a gunner — and not used to hanging about. So in one ship I was in — Antelope she was called, though I never knew why, seeing as how antelopes don’t go to sea . . .” “Neither do bears. They aren’t all white either,” interrupted Michael. “Right enough,” Barnabas said. “Master Michael’s talking about a ship in the English Navy — The White Bear. Anyways, as I was saying, on board the Antelope, we had a seaman who was Venetian, and a fine seaman he was. Luigi they called him . . .” “Not Luigi Passoti?” Julia asked. “Ar, that were his name.” “But he’s the sailing master of my father’s new galley. How strange!” “These things happen. I’ll be happy to meet him again,” Barnabas continued. “Good shipmates, him and me was. And will be again. Spent our time, we did, when we wasn’t at work, by teaching one another our languages. I’d say a word in English, pointing to the thing, and he’d say it back in Italian. That’s how we started. Got on like a house on fire. Must say he learned more English than I did Italian, but it’ll serve.” “Guido likes Luigi,” Julia said. “Ar, good man that. Looking forward to it, I am . . .”

They passed near the harbor of Orbetello and saw it crowded with galleys, swarming with sailors and shipwrights. “Getting ready fast,” Michael said laconically. For some reason, Julia’s heart was light in her breast. She felt that she would like to sing at the top of her voice. By afternoon, the tiny town of Fonte-Blanda was only a mile away. Signora Callatta called back, turning with a hand on her horse’s haunch, saying that she would like to go no further that day. Michael saluted her cheerfully and said that he, too, was happy to have a long evening free from travel. They drew rein at the inn. The innkeeper was surly and unwelcoming. His house contained only the barest necessities. Everything but heavy furniture had been taken and hidden in the mountains because a rumor had reached him that the corsairs had established a base in the island of Elba from where raids on the mainland were being organized. Michael Selwyn laughed at him. “Have you seen the ships in the harbor of Orbetello?” he asked. “It’s crowded! If you look out to sea, you’ll see galleys coming and going all the time. They’re Christian galleys.” The innkeeper growled and shook his head. Julia thought she heard him mutter that it didn’t matter how many Christian galleys there were, nobody could beat the Turk. God had forsaken Italy, and before long, everybody left alive would be turning to Mecca to pray to Allah. Michael grew angry. “Faint heart,” he said. “Every day we become stronger. Every hour! Every minute! Men like you hold us back. The Signora wishes to stay here, so here we stay. You must give us rooms!” The innkeeper grumbled that he had no sheets. Michael leapt down from his horse, tossing the bridle to Julia to hold.

“Sheets?” he shouted. “What are sheets? Give us beds. That’s all we ask!” He turned to Barnabas. “You get what we want from our luggage. We’ll cook our own food. I’ll buy it in the town.” Barnabas sat quietly on his horse. “Master Michael,” he said slowly. “Maybe the man’s telling the truth. It’s just the thing the Turk would do. He’s no coward. Maybe it would be suicide, but a small squadron of galleys hidden away on Elba could do an awful lot of damage before it was found and destroyed. It mightn’t be suicide, either. It’s just the thing you would do yourself, Master Michael.” Michael looked up at his man with a steely glint in his eye. “Nay,” Barnabas said before Michael could speak. “I’m no coward, and you know it. I’m thinking of the child.” Michael Selwyn relaxed. “All right. I don’t forget her,” he said quietly. “What else can we do? The Signora wants to stay here. So what are we to do? Are we to ride on in darkness or turn back — just because of a rumor?” “No! Stay if you want, and never mind about sheets. Let them sleep in their clothes for once. It’ll do no harm. I’ll keep watch,” Barnabas said. Michael smiled at him. “Right! Wise Barnabas, my friend,” he said. “I’ll be with you. Keeping watch and watch. Eh?”

He held up his hand, and Barnabas solemnly clasped it in his great fist. That night, Julia slept in her underskirt with her head pillowed on a pack from a mule and covered with Michael’s own cloak. She slept happily, secure in the knowledge that either Barnabas or Michael was awake and watchful below. In her heart was a feeling of peace and happiness that she could not understand. As Signora Callatta’s party neared Fonte-Blanda, Guido was grumbling to himself at the slow pace he was caused to keep in the crowded streets of Rome. Once he was free of the city, he urged his mare to a gallop and pounded purposefully along the coast road all day. Every hour that passed saw the distance between him and his family decrease. The mare was exhausted. Her flanks were lathered with sweat, her chest heaved painfully, and her legs trembled. Guido was obliged to stop for the night in a hamlet that clustered near the road. He slept like the dead for six hours, but it was another two before the mare was fit to continue the journey. He was more than fifty miles from Genazzano, but he could not tell how far ahead were his mother, Julia, Michael, and Barnabas. He only knew that he must press on. The night at Fonte-Blanda passed without incident, and Michael and Barnabas kept their guard without alarms; nevertheless they left the town soon after dawn and rode the fifteen miles to the safety of the city of Grosseto before breakfasting. There they lingered until the afternoon while Signora visited old friends. Her brother’s house, and her old home, was little more than an hour’s ride away. She was reluctant to leave the country of her girlhood and the streets and shops that she had known so well before her marriage. At last, she unwillingly gave the word to start, and the little cavalcade wound its way out of the city toward the mountains. The sea was becoming further away, appearing now like a flat sheet of pale blue without movement, and the breeze had lost its tang of salt.

Five miles afterward, Barnabas was laughing at his own feeble efforts to imitate Julia’s Venetian pronunciation when his horse stumbled, recovered, and limped a yard. He swore in English under his breath. Shining in the dust of the road among the pack mules lay a cast shoe. Michael called to the Signora riding in front. She and Magdalena came back to the men as Barnabas was dismounting. “Must get a smith,” Michael said. “Get Barnabas’s horse reshod. Best go back to Grosseto. What do you think, Madame?” Signora Callatta was happy to go back, but Michael grumbled quietly to himself as the company rode very slowly back to the city, keeping pace with the walking Barnabas. It was long past noon the next day before the Signora could be persuaded to mount and take the road toward her brother’s village. At the moment of their departure, Guido was riding through FonteBlanda, no more than fifteen miles behind. Twilight was falling as the travelers came in sight of the cluster of houses that formed the village of Ribolla. It clung to the steep hillside, looking down to the river, surrounded by terraced vineyards. The soil seemed dry and dusty, but the vines were brave in their new coats of green. No workers could be seen. Signora Callatta reined in her horse and, with Magdalena, waited for the others to overtake her. They sat grouped in the midst of the way with the mules strung patiently like a tail behind them. “Look, Julia,” the Signora said. “Do you see where the roads winds up into the forest?” Julia’s eyes followed her mother’s pointing finger. Beyond the village she could glimpse the gray ribbon of road climbing between the vines. She saw how it curved and was lost, beyond the yards, in the darkness of massed pines. It looked deserted and lonely as if it were forced to venture alone into mysterious gloom.

“All the vineyards from the village to the trees on this side of the road belong to my brother,” Signora Callatta continued. “At this time of the year, he will be working up there. I can’t see him, but he’ll be there. Can you see him? Your eyes are younger than mine.” “There doesn’t seem to be anybody at all, anywhere,” Julia said. “He’ll be there. When we get to the village, you and Magdalena ride on up the road and find your uncle. Tell him we’re here. He will be so excited. Come on — I can’t wait to get to the house.” She shook her bridle, and the horses moved on. “There isn’t an inn for you to go to,” the Signora said to Michael. “But anyone will be glad to give you and Signor Butter beds. I know them all. There’s room in my brother’s house for the rest of us. I remember when I was a girl, no bigger than Julia . . .” Signora Callatta chattered gaily on until they came to the fork where the road curved up between vineyards toward the forest, and a track, rutted with cart wheels, turned to the left down to the single village street. They were near enough now to see that a few wisps of smoke were rising from the houses, but there was no sundown bustle and no shrill calls of children in the air. Barnabas had a feeling that he had come to a place of ghosts, and his scalp prickled. He opened his mouth to speak, but the Signora was before him. “There you are, Julia, up there. You’ll find him. Don’t be long. I shall want Magdalena’s help soon. Off you go!” She pulled her horse around to follow the downward track.

“That’s my brother’s house there — the first we come to,” she continued. “The tall one with white walls.” She hesitated. “I remember it so well, but — somehow — it looks different. Why, Signor Butter, whatever is the matter? What are you doing . . .” Barnabas was forcing the leading rein of the mules into her hand and growling in his throat. Michael was already riding ahead; his naked rapier was flashing in the last of the light. Automatically, Signora Callatta took the rope from Barnabas, and the moment his hand was free, his claymore came out with a “hush” that was a whisper of doom. He spurred after Michael. The Signora encouraged her mount to a trot, her mouth a round of shock and surprise, and the protesting mules followed after. The two men stopped before the house that had been pointed out to them. The smoke was not rising from the chimney, but from the wide aperture where the roof had been. A flutter of white cloth in the deserted street caught Barnabas’s eye, and he wheeled sharply and galloped between the blind houses, dust spurting from his horse’s hoofs. A thin squeal came, like that of a rabbit caught in a trap. A moment later Barnabas was at Michael’s side. Blood dripped slowly from the point of his sword. “The Turk came first,” he growled. “There was one still looting down there.” Michael nodded. The two men dropped their bridles on their horses’ necks and dismounted. Together they peered through the empty doorway of the house. The charred ends of partially burned rafters choked the floor, and among them was the vague shape of what had once been a man. “The Signora,” Michael said. “Keep her away.” But he was too late. Already Signora Callatta was looking over their shoulders. With a deep sigh, she sank to the ground.

Julia and Magdalena trotted away from the rest of their party until the increasing steepness of the way forced their mounts to a walk. All about them was a stillness — a stillness that was pulsating with life. Julia was conscious of the vitality in the soil; of the vines beginning their yearly striving toward the fulfillment of the harvest. She was conscious of the movement of the little creatures of the earth and forest undergrowth, and, always above them, the massed trees brooded. When the two reached the last ranks of vines in their terraced beds, Julia stopped. She had seen no sign of workers. “Hold my pony, please, Magdalena,” she said. “I’ll go between the vines and see if my uncle is anywhere about.” She slipped to the ground and began to walk along the open space between the last row of vines and the forest trees. When she had gone a matter of fifty yards, she stopped and gazed down over the vineyard. There was no sign of human life. She stood peering into the swiftly gathering darkness. Behind her, a tall, white-robed figure rose from the undergrowth like an apparition coming from the ground. A brown hand clamped itself firmly over her mouth and a brown arm swung around her body and pinioned her arms to her sides. A shrill scream rang in her ears. Back in the village, Michael and Barnabas lifted the crumpled figure of the Signora from the dust and laid her unconscious body alongside the wall that was still warm from the fires that had raged within. “The child!” Barnabas growled. “Yes. Go!” Michael answered. Barnabas caught the bridle of his waiting horse, swung a leg over the saddle, and galloped into the dusk. The dulled blade of his claymore pointed before him like the slender bowsprit of a ship. He turned from the track into the road and began to climb, encouraging his horse with heels and voice. Suddenly he flung his head back, nostrils quivering. A

shrill scream made the still air quiver, and a riderless horse and pony thundered past him.

Village of Desolation Guido could force his mare no further than Grosseto on Tuesday afternoon. He felt that he himself could have ridden on indefinitely, but he knew that it was as necessary to conserve the mare’s strength as it was to conserve his own. It was not, therefore, until Wednesday morning that he began the last short stage of his journey, expecting, in less than two hours, to find his mother gossiping in the village and Julia at play among the vines. As Guido drew near to Ribolla, like Barnabas before him, he became conscious of a haunted desolation, and his skin prickled to goose flesh. He drew rein at the top of the steep village street and looked about him. There was no sign of man, woman, or child. He hitched the mare to the post outside what had been his uncle’s house and looked inside. The fire-scorched ruins, sordid in the sunlight beating down between roofless walls, hid from him for a moment the horror that lay beneath. He staggered back to his mare, flung his arms across the saddle, and laid his head down, shuddering convulsively. A thought came into his mind, and he forced himself to look once more through the empty doorway. There was no figure there that could be Julia, or his mother. He knew that if the bodies of Michael or Barnabas lay in the village they would not lie alone. Guido left his mare where she was, and with strung and loaded crossbow, he crept along the walls, peering in each house in turn. Everywhere the same tale was told. Some houses were fire-gutted shells, as was his uncle’s. In others, furniture was smashed, cupboard doors hung open, and the holy shrines in the corners were

desecrated with filth, or smashed. A nauseating smell of death and decay hung like a miasma everywhere. The village shrine stood awry as if an attempt had been made to overthrow it, and the body of the tortured Christ was stuck full of arrows. The shadow of the Turk lay dark. At the lower end of the village street, before the threshold of the last house, lay the body of the only Turk Guido found. Its head was covered with a mass of flies, and when Guido waved them away, he saw the man’s head was split from crown to chin. For a moment his sick and heavy heart lightened, and the thought of Barnabas and his great sword came into his mind. Guido retraced his steps, his eyes alert and his bow ready. With a heave of his shoulders, he set the crucifix, in its ruined shrine, upright again and gave a minute to gathering a few spring flowers from a trampled garden to lay at the feet of the twice-martyred Christ. The arrows were too deeply embedded for him to remove. He said a brief prayer for the souls of all the dead about him and, in that moment, understood the mysterious force that had driven him from Genazzano and sustained him for many weary miles. His mare, when he reached her, snorted. Her nostrils were dilated and her eyes staring. She pulled hard at the bridle that held her fast to the post, anxious to be gone from the place of death. As Guido was about to release her, he noticed for the first time several piles of horse droppings before the ruins of his uncle’s house. He stooped and laid the back of his hand against the nearest. It was quite cold, but fresh. “About last night,” he said to himself. “Rescuers? No, or there would be more dead Turks — unless they came too late . . .” Could it be his mother’s party? He had no means of knowing. Thoughtfully he mounted and rode away. At the fork where the road track joined the highway, he turned left and began to climb toward the forest. His bow was unstrung and hung once more at his saddle, but he had seen that his rapier was loose in its scabbard. As he went, his

eyes darted from side to side and he half-expected an arrow to strike him with sickening force and to bury itself in his youthful body. He turned a corner and reined back his mare sharply. A horse and a pony were peacefully cropping grass by the roadside. Guido stopped and searched the vineyards with his eyes. The only movement was that of young leaves swaying in the gentle breeze. Cautiously he rode on. When he was near to the two free horses, he jumped to the ground and looped the mare’s bridle around his forearm. The horse and pony came quite willingly to him when he called softly. They seemed glad of the company of another animal and glad of Guido. He caught their trailing reins. Both, he saw, carried women’s saddles. The horse was speaking softly to him, and Guido stroked his nose and looked into its limpid brown eyes. In that instant he recognized it for Magdalena’s. The pony he did not know, and it was more shy of him. He coaxed it with soft and sibilant whispers until it stood quietly by him and he could plunge his hand into a saddle bag. He drew out a wallet containing needles and colored silks for embroidery that he had seen in Julia’s hands a thousand times. His heart missed a beat. Guido stood in the dust of the road a full five minutes, considering, while the animals stamped and tossed their heads around him. At last he made up his mind. Magdalena and Julia, he decided, would not willingly leave their horses. Therefore, they had been forced to leave them. They might be dead and their bodies lying between the vines. He crossed himself and thought a wordless prayer. Or they might have been obliged to abandon their horses and hide. Where? In the vineyards or in the forest? They might have been captured by the Turks. He shuddered, and the sweat of a wild anger broke out on his forehead. For the absence of his mother, Michael, and Barnabas he could find no reason. Decisively he turned off to the right, making the three horses follow him among the vines that had belonged to his uncle. When he was far enough from the road for the horses not to be easily noticed by any passerby, should there be any, he drew a length of cord from his own

saddlebag and hobbled the three of them. He thought grimly of the last time he had hobbled his own mare before the battle on the beach near Anzio. Guido took his bow and quiver and began a weary march on foot up and down the serried ranks of vines, seeking for signs of a struggle. Or, which God forbid, he thought, the bodies of Julia and Magdalena. The ground was too hard and dry to carry footprints. The search was unrewarded until he reached the last row of vines before the forest began. He caught his breath when he saw the sign he sought. Lying on the rough earth was a little rag doll that he had often seen in Julia’s belt. He cast about him for further signs, leaving the doll where it lay, in case Michael and Barnabas were alive and free and doing just what he was doing. Near at hand, he found a place where the undergrowth, fringing the forest, was trampled and broken as if some heavy object had lain there. Underneath the trees, the forest floor was clear and bare, softly carpeted with needles that for generations had drifted slowly down from the branches above, like occasional snowflakes. Near the crushed undergrowth, the dry needles had been disturbed and kicked aside. Scattered needles made a distinct trail leading into the gloom of the forest. Guido stopped and strung his bow. With a last glance around him at the sunlit vineyards, he stepped cautiously between the trees. Guido walked slowly on, following the trail of scuffled pine needles. He did not march boldly onward along the trail that was so clear before him. He kept to the side of it and dodged from tree to tree, knowing that every trunk could conceal an enemy. Underneath the pines, the silence was emphasized rather than broken by a continuous murmur of insects busy in the treetops. To Guido, it seemed like the drumming of blood in his ears. Suddenly the trail became less marked, as if those who had passed had, at that point, decided to walk lightly and without resistance. A patch of white ahead caught Guido’s eye. It was, he saw when he

reached it, a woman’s — or girl’s — tiny, lace-edged handkerchief. He left it where it lay. The faint marks that he was following disappeared in a wide track of disturbed pine needles where, evidently, a small company of people had passed. Guido walked more cautiously, pausing behind each tree trunk to listen. The trees became more widely spaced and the slope of the ground less steep. He came to an open glade where no pines grew and where grass, encouraged by light and air, had clothed the soil. Tangled brambles bordered the forest. His nose was assaulted by the smell of rancid cooking fat. Guido dropped flat on his face and listened. The insect hum that he had noticed before took on a new note. It had become more staccato, more shrill. He realized that he was listening to human conversation, dulled by distance, and confused so that no word was understandable. Cautiously he raised his head until he could see through smaller twigs of the brambles. The glade stretched before him, open and rejoicing in the sunshine, until it ended, on the far side, in a sudden rocky escarpment. Some age-old upheaval had pushed up the cliff sideways from the hill, and the strata ran obliquely up to where the undulating top cut the sky. Ferns and slender birches had taken root between the stones. At the base of the cliff, the strata separated and a black shadow indicated the mouth of a cave. Undergrowth clustered about the base of the rocks and scrambled upward until the bare stone provided no more roothold. A small wood fire smoked near the opening of the cave, and over it hung a copper cauldron. Two turbaned Turks sat on their heels watching the reeking pot. Guido realized that the scrambled conversation he could hear came from the cave. Guido lay prone and considered the situation. Evidently the Turks were guarding prisoners in the cave, waiting, perhaps, for the return of their galleys that had departed, laden with Christians and loot.

They were so sure of their supremacy, Guido reflected, that two men felt at ease in a Tuscan forest. Well, they should see. Silently he fitted a bolt into the slides of his crossbow and levered back the string. He had no doubt that he would find a vital spot in one Turk with his first bolt and he counted on the shock of surprise to keep the other where he was while the bow was reloaded. Guido rose to his knees. The men continued talking, ignorant of the approach of silent death. Guido sighted. Then — without warning — he knew that he could not do it. It was one thing to kill men in battle, like that on the Anzio beach, when Christians were striving manfully for the mastery. It was another to kill swiftly in cold blood men who were but guards. Gently he lowered his bow to the ground and laid himself down to think. Time and time again, Guido peeped at the Turkish guards. He watched them scoop food from the pot and ladle it into the inside of hollow, pancake-like loaves of Arab bread. When they began to eat, the confused sounds of conversation from the cave rose to a shrill scream. Guido knew, at that moment, that the men were guarding the women from the sacked village. The Turks paid no attention, but continued their meal, their beards wagging as they ate. Eventually one of them belched, combed his beard with his fingers, and rolled over onto his side and slept. The other squatted with arms round his knees, head nodding. Guido’s opportunity had come. Guido drew his rapier from its scabbard, unbuckled his sword belt, and laid it beside his crossbow beneath the bramble. Then, naked blade in hand, he began to crawl, inch by inch, behind the brambles, toward the rocky cliff. Once, when the noises from the cave became more shrill than before, a guard gave a deep-throated shout and Guido stopped, rigid, as if he had been turned to stone. The noise subsided, and Guido crept on. When he reached the rock wall, Guido found that he had some six yards to go before he could reach the cave. The brambles grew close to the cliff, entwined with wild convolvulus, and there was no means of passing behind them. Guido

peered at the squatting guard. He appeared to be sleeping with his head resting on his knees, half-turned from Guido’s hiding place. For five long minutes, Guido waited and the Turk did not move. He slept peacefully, his curved scimitar lying in the grass before him. The second guard was stretched motionless. Guido rose to his feet, ran lightly over the grass, and disappeared into the darkness of the cave. The chatter of the women stopped abruptly as his slight figure appeared silhouetted against the sunshine, and then one, seeing the drawn sword in his hand, screamed. “Go on talking,” Guido hissed. “As you were before.” His first rapid glance had shown Guido that there were a half-dozen or more women in the cave and in the midst of them — Julia! Their hands were tied behind them and their ankles bound with cords. Guido smiled at his sister. “Talk, for Heaven’s sake,” he said to her. Julia, in a trembling voice, began to speak. Her words had no more meaning than the clucking of hens in a farmyard, but they were sufficient to bring the others to their senses, and the chatter began again. Guido stepped between the women and lay behind them in the deepest shadows of the cave. Julia shuffled a little backward and spread her skirt over his face. Other women grouped themselves more closely before him. A Turkish guard came to the mouth of the cave and growled something in guttural Italian that sounded like “Peace, in the name of Allah” and retired. With his rapier, Guido cut the cords that bound Julia’s hands. She rubbed her wrists and began to free her ankles while Guido passed from woman to woman, releasing each from her bonds. As Guido cut

the ropes, he whispered in the ear of each captive, “Stay just as you are for a moment. I want to speak to you. Go on talking — just as before.” When all the women were free of their bonds, Guido stood at the back of the cave and spoke to them. “I think,” he said, “that there are only two men guarding you. Please keep up your chattering as if nothing had happened.” There was silence for a half-second in the cave, and then Julia led the talk that had not been stilled since the village of Ribolla was raided. As an actor on the stage will talk above a background of noises, Guido continued: “For all of you, there is great unhappiness . . . but at least you may be saved from the harems of the Turk. Outside, there are two men. You must deal with them.” “Kill them,” an old woman from the village said. “They’ve killed our men, or taken them away. The devils!” “I can’t kill men in cold blood,” Guido said. “Don’t move yet. Run on them suddenly before they can use their weapons — all together. Take them prisoner. They can spend the rest of their lives in our galleys, regretting what they did to Bibolla. Take them to the nearest town and get help for yourselves.” “Yes, he’s right,” one woman said. “Death is too merciful.” “Don’t forget,” Guido said. “All together. Now!” An avalanche of women poured from the cave and fell upon the two guards. Guido followed, naked blade in hand, with Julia close behind him. He saw the wakeful Turk look in amazement and his hand stretch out toward his scimitar in the second before he was overwhelmed by a billowing mass of screaming, tearing, scratching women. The sleeping Turk presented no problem. Guido waited until he saw the old woman who had cried, “Kill them,” capering with a scimitar in each hand, and the heaving mound over the one who had been

awake grew still. Then he took Julia by the hand and sped lightly across the clearing. As he stopped to gather up his belt and crossbow, Julia saw his shoulders shaking violently. “Poor Guido,” she said, accepting his presence without question, as if he had just stepped across the road to her rescue. “Were you so very frightened?” “Frightened? Yes, of course,” he answered. “But that isn’t what’s the matter with me now. I was laughing!” Once more, he took Julia’s hand, and they began the journey through the pine forest toward the vineyard. Guido showed Julia where the handkerchief lay. “Yes, I dropped it on purpose, but I didn’t think anybody would find it,” she said and bent to pick it up. When she saw her little rag doll, she flew to it with a cry of pleasure, and looked up at Guido to see him standing with a hand raised to his mouth and an expression of horror in his eyes. “What’s the matter?” Julia cried. “Oh, Guido, what is it?” “Magdalena,” he said. “I forgot about Magdalena.” Julia’s eyes filled with tears. “They brought her to the cave soon after I got there. She’d been fighting, I think, because her face was terribly bruised. She couldn’t speak to me. They’d tied a piece of cloth around her mouth. Then, when it was quite dark, some Turks came and took her, and some of the other women, away.” Guido stood silently in thought for a moment.

“Well,” he said at last, “I think the first thing is to get you back to our mother. Then we’ll see what can be done. How did you come to be separated from her?” Julia explained how she and Magdalena had been sent to find her uncle, while Signora Callatta stayed with Michael and Barnabas. “They didn’t go back to Grosseto, or I’d have met them on the road. We’d better go on to the next town.” He led the way between the vines to the hobbled horses. Five minutes later, they were riding slowly up the hill toward Roccastrada. Before they were clear of the pine forests through which the road ran, a confused noise that seemed to be made up of shouting, singing, and wailing, ahead of them, made Guido pause. “It’s the women from the cave,” Julia said. Guido was struggling to control Magdalena’s horse and to prevent it breaking away from the leading rein. He was too occupied to look at the marching women until he was alongside them. Some were weeping, others singing and laughing hysterically. In the van staggered the two Turks, encouraged in their progress by the old woman with the scimitars, who, whenever the men faltered, used the weapons as goads to prick the captives along. They were half-naked, and their arms had been bound with strips of their own clothing. One looked up at Guido with bloodshot eyes and pursed his lips to spit at the Christian, but an extra-fierce prod from his own weapon caused him to shrink and forget the insult he intended to offer. About an hour later, Guido and Julia walked their horses into Roccastrada.

The Spoils of War In the garden of the best inn the small town of Roccastrada could boast, Signora Callatta sat alone with her sorrows. Wine, bread, cheese, and a dish of eggs lay on a small table before her, but she touched none of them. For a sleepless night and most of a day, she had lived in a world that seemed to be composed of waves of mental pain. Now her mind was dulled with suffering, and only occasionally did the thought of her dead brother, of Julia, and of Magdalena force itself on her and ring in her thoughts like the clamor of a passing bell. Michael Selwyn had brought her and the string of mules to the hotel in darkness and then had ridden away. Barnabas Butter had not appeared. And Julia . . . Julia, where was she? Signora Callatta could not help remembering that she herself had insisted on this journey, and with what result? She bowed her head in her hands and tried to pray. Guido stopped the horses outside the inn. “Our mother may be here,” he said to Julia. “Even if she isn’t, we must have food and rest. Get down, and we’ll tie up our horses.” Julia dismounted as a servant came to the door. “Signora Callatta?” Guido called to him. “Have you seen a Signora Callatta here?” “But, yes, signor,” the man replied. “She is here — in the garden, poor lady . . .”

Before he could finish, Julia had slipped past him like a shadow on her way to the garden. She paused for a moment as she emerged into the sunshine and watched the mourning figure of her mother. Lightly, feet barely bending the grass, she ran to her. Signora Callatta raised her dull eyes. “Julia! Julia!” she said huskily. “Where did you come from? Oh, my dear . . .” She burst into a passion of weeping. Julia laid her head in her mother’s lap. Guido followed and knelt by his mother’s side. Signora Callatta gazed at him with wonder. “Guido! How did you get here? This is a miracle!” she said, raising her eyes to Heaven. “He came to rescue me,” Julia said simply. “But — Genazzano? We left you behind . . .” So Guido told the story of his adventure, beginning with the time the Abbot refused him leave to travel with his mother and ending with the freeing of the women in the cave. In his heart was a feeling of sadness and frustration because he had failed to restore Magdalena to her mistress. When the bright sunlight began to fade into the brief Italian twilight, Michael Selwyn appeared and shared the Signora’s wonder and joy at the presence of Guido and Julia. He had ridden most of the night and all day, seeking for traces of the Turkish raiders, and found nothing. All the valley of the Bruna River seemed deserted. Fear of the Turk had cast a blight over fields and vineyards, and years of attacks by corsair pirates had taken their toll of men, women, and children so that the heart had gone out of the people. Michael set a serving man in the street to watch for Barnabas while there was light in the sky, and when he did not come, Michael

engaged a room in the front of the inn and illuminated it with many candles. There the Signora, Guido, Julia, and he sat, waiting. “Barnabas knows,” Michael said. “We go through Siena and Florence. We can’t go back, so he’ll come through here. If he’s still alive and free.” Guido refused to believe that the gigantic Barnabas Butter with his great claymore could be overwhelmed by Turks, however many there were. In his eyes, Barnabas was invincible and might well have stood as a symbol of the power of the Holy League. “He’ll come,” Guido said with conviction. “Sooner or later, he’ll be here. I know it.” “I pray that you are right,” Signora Callatta answered. At that moment, there came the answer to her prayer. Those in the brightly lit room heard the voice of Barnabas calling in his curious Italian for the services of an ostler. A minute later, he marched in and, with a crash of steel that reverberated throughout the building, flung three scimitars on the floor. He groped in his doublet and produced two jeweled brooches, set with magnificent rubies. The blood-red fires in the gems glowed in the candlelight. “For you, Madame,” he said to Signora Callatta, placing a brooch before her. “And one for Miss Julia, who was, I thought, in the hands of the heathen.” He looked about him, and his eyes widened with surprise. “Guido!” he said. “You here? How did this happen?” While Guido briefly explained his presence and Julia’s rescue, Michael Selwyn picked up a scimitar and examined it. He looked at Barnabas with raised eyebrows.

“Loot?” he asked. “The spoils of war,” Barnabas answered. “Owners hadn’t got no further use for them. No, nor for them jewels they had in their turbans neither. Comes to that, they hadn’t got no use for turbans.” He drew up a stool to the table. “I suppose there wouldn’t be such a thing as a cup of wine,” he asked. “Proper parched I am.” Guido ran to call a servant and returned to hear Michael Selwyn urging Barnabas to tell his story. Barnabas took a great draught of the wine and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “When I left you in the village, Master Michael,” he said, “I rode up toward the forest — the way Madame had sent Julia. Some way up the road, I heard a woman scream and then Miss Julia’s pony and Magdalena’s horse come galloping by me — with empty saddles. Well — I let them go. There was more on hand, I reckoned, than catching horses. When I got to where the trees come down to the sides of the road, there wasn’t anything to be seen. It was pretty dark by that time, mind you. Of course, I suspected the Turks had got hold of Miss Julia and Magdalena — poor woman! But I couldn’t tell which way they’d gone, and I might’ve searched that forest from now till kingdom come without finding them in the dark. Anyway, I rides away from the forest a bit — not having no more liking for an arrow between my shoulder blades than the next man — and thinks. I reckoned that the Turks had got to get back to their galley, if you see what I mean, and the best way was down the river valley. ’Tain’t a river I know, but I thought it possible they might have got a galley into the river where she’d be hidden from the sea.” “Sensible!” Michael muttered. “What I ought to have done myself.” “ ’Twas a bit of a job across country in the dark, with only the starlight to see by, but by and by, I gets to the river and rides downstream a

bit. There was a well-worn path on the bank, and I reckoned the Turks’d be as likely to go that way as any. As far as I could see, it was a pretty secret place.” “You’re right. It’s lovely, as well, in the spring,” the Signora said sadly. “I know it well.” “Ar! I found a good place where I could hitch my horse, out of sight, and sat down to wait. It seemed a terrible long time before anything happened, but I could see by the stars that it wasn’t much after midnight. Then I heard a noise. Faint, it was. So faint I wouldn’t have heard it at all if I hadn’t been all keyed-up-like. Then eight Turks went by in line. I don’t mind reasonable odds, but eight to one’s a bit much even for me and MacDuff. The funny thing is some of them was different. From most of the Turks I’ve seen, I mean. I could only see them black against the starshine on the water, but they looked different somehow.” “Those would be the first lot of women they took from the cave,” Julia said. “Magdalena was with them.” “Women?” Barnabas said. “Your pardon, Miss Julia, but that couldn’t be. Captured women, in my experience, makes more noise than a flock of geese. These was going in dead silence.” “They had cloth tied around their mouths,” Julia said. “Gagged, eh?” Barnabas looked crestfallen. “Trust old Barnabas to make a mess of things. How many Turks was with them?” “Two or three,” Julia said. Barnabas bowed his head in his hands and groaned. “Fool that I am,” he said. “I might’ve known. I might have guessed.”

“How could you know?” Guido said. “Anybody would have thought the same in the dark.” “Well, I did let them go,” Barnabas said. “And I’ll never forgive myself till my dying day.” “Please go on,” Guido begged. “There ain’t much more to tell. Nothing happened all night. Nothing stirred — nothing human, I mean. Then, soon after dawn, I hears men talking. Along come three of them, coming up the riverbank. Up, mind you. So I guessed the galley wasn’t far away. Two had got them pretty baubles in their turbans. Well, I walks down to the bank and greets ’em civil-like, asking polite after the pigs they had for fathers. One of them spits at me — a habit I never did like — but the other laughs, and all three takes out their scimitars. Of course, they didn’t know MacDuff.” “Did you kill them?” Julia asked. “Well — they was in no condition to stop me talking these things away, as you might say.” He stirred the scimitars on the floor with his foot and continued. “Cruel hard he is, is MacDuff, when he gets down to business. After that, I rides down the river a mile or so, and there was the galley snug as a bug in a rug. All the rowers was on their benches — chained, I’ve no doubt — and about thirty men, free, about the decks. The gunners was ’round their guns as smart as if they’d been . . . er . . . well, you know what I mean. If I’d had some guns ashore . . . as it was, what could I do?” “Nothing — alone,” Guido said. “No, nothing. If only I’d had some guns . . . Anyway, I didn’t see any captives. Below decks, no doubt. Then I came away. What else could

I do — I asks you.” Michael clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Nothing,” he said. “Nobody could have done more.” “I don’t know. Anyway, I rode all about this countryside, look ing for Miss Julia if, by any chance, she wasn’t on the galley. Then I thought it was time to find Master Michael. So I came this way. Tried every place I could find. There wasn’t no sign of Miss Julia — nor, for that matter, of Turks. Grateful, I am, all the same, she’s here.” “Guido rescued me,” Julia said. “As so I understand, and so I might have expected,” Barnabas said, “had I known he was about. Smart, that youngster is — smart.” Signora Callatta was quietly crying with sorrow for the loss of Magdalena and because of her fatigue. Julia was half-asleep on her stool. “Bed,” Michael said. “For everybody. Tomorrow we’ll get to Siena. There’ll be no more trouble.” It was nearer noon than dawn when the party mounted and began the journey to Siena, Florence, and Venice. Guido rode happily by Julia’s side. The clean fresh breezes of May washed from his mind all the conflicts of the past days.

Plan for Battle Days of riding, nights in inns came and went monotonously. The travelers met with no further adventures by the way. They arrived in Mestre. With a great sigh of relief, Signora Callatta slipped from her horse and, leaving unloading to the men, engaged a boat for Venice. The same night, for the first time in many months, Signor Callatta sat at the head of his table, his wife opposite him, with friends and family around him. When the meal was finished, he toyed with his glass and looked with piercing black eyes at Michael. “I said to Guido some time ago that you might like to sail in my galley.” “Please. Yes. If I may,” Michael answered. “I shall be delighted,” Signor Callatta said. “I’ve engaged a man — Luigi Passoti’s his name — to look after the seamen’s side of the business . . .” “Barnabas knows him. He’s sailed with him before,” Michael put in. “That’s all to the good, then. Well — as I was saying — Luigi looks after the sailing part. Now, there’s a number of friends of mine, here in Venice and elsewhere, who’ve put money into this venture. Frankly, Signor Selwyn, we’re tired of being harassed continually by these Turkish pirates. The Serene Republic of Venice has had some valuable trading treaties with the Turk in the past, but now — you see for yourself how it is — he’s getting above himself. I believe the

Sultan — Selim the Sot, they call him — has dreams of the conquest of Europe.” “They’d snuff out Christendom, like snuffing out a candle,” Michael said. “That’s why I came to lend a hand.” “Yes, I understand. Well, all this business has got to stop and, as I said, friends of mine have put up money. In return, a number of them have asked if their sons and cousins, young men of about your age, can sail in the galley. In fact, they’ve a right to send them.” “We’ve got to have fighting men,” Michael said. “Yes. Now, if they were all Venetians, I should be obliged to put a Venetian in command. But they’re not. These confounded jealousies between nations and states make things awkward. I thought if we had someone who is quite independent, it might help. What I mean is, would you, Signor Selwyn, take command?” “How many of these fighting men will there be?” Michael asked. “At the moment, there’s about thirty. But I think you’ll find that number’ll be doubled before the ship’s ready to sail.” “I’m flattered,” Michael said. “And I’m glad to help. We might hear what Barnabas has got to say.” “Of course. First, I think the Signora might retire — and Julia.” Julia kissed her father and curtsied. Before she joined her mother at the door, she nudged Guido in the ribs and gave him an impertinent wink. “Well, Signor Butter?” “Better call me Barnabas, master. These fighting men of yours, how’re they going to be armed?”

“I imagine they’ll provide their own arms. Poniard and rapier, of course,” Signor Callatta answered. “Fair enough, master, fair enough, but ’twon’t do, if I may say so. ’Tain’t enough. Look — what happens? A Turk comes alongside. Never mind his guns. We’ll have guns too, I take it?” “Of course. Four culverin and a cannon forward and two or more on the stemcastle.” “Right. He’s got guns, we’ve got guns. All right — I can out-shoot any Turk, any day, given the chance of training me men. But he still comes alongside. The next thing we gets is a flight of arrows. Turks is good with crossbows. Old-fashioned weapon, but got its points. Your young men — they going to defend themselves against arrows with swords and daggers?” “I hope you’ll take the initiative and board the Turk before he gets the chance to board you,” Signor Callatta said. “Of course, we’d try, but nothing’s certain in war. Suppose it goes like I said. There he is alongside us, picking us off one by one, like putting arrows in the gold at the butts. What do we do?” “They’ll have body armor,” Signor Callatta answered. “Pish! Begging your pardon, master. Put ’em inside steel boxes with sides half an inch thick and they’d be safe — and no use! No, ’tain’t enough. Got to have harquebusiers.” “All right, Barnabas,” Michael said. “Let’s learn from your experience. Heaven knows you’ve had plenty.” “First of all, then,” Barnabas continued, “what about rowers? They going to be slaves? Captured Turks and criminals?”

“I don’t know. They haven’t been recruited yet. You must speak to Luigi,” Signor Callatta admitted. “All right, I will. Now, what I say is this. We want three men on every oar. No sweepings of the prisons, no captives — all volunteers. They’ll have to be paid. Can it be done, Master?” “There’s no difficulty about money,” the Signor answered. “Good! Then these rowers. The outside man has a pike and an axe. He keeps them lying alongside the ship’s sides. The middle man has a crossbow, which he keeps under the bench. The inside man has a musket, stowed under the center gangway. See? They got to be soldiers as well as rowers and paid as such. Nobody chained!” “It could be done.” “Right! Now, as well as these, there ought to be at least thirty harquebusiers. Ten forrard, ten aft, and ten amidships. Trained, all of ’em.” “By you,” Michael said. “Ar, by me,” Barnabas said truculently. “But ’tis you gives the word, Master Michael. Now then, what happens? Along comes a Turk. First thing he gets is a broadside — no, not a broadside ’cause we haven’t got ’em, more’s the pity. He gets a nasty lot of shot. ’Course, we gets the same from him, but not so bad ’cause he can’t lay his guns so well as . . .” “As you can,” Michael put in. “Ar, and you know it’s true, Master Michael,” Barnabas said. “It is true,” Michael admitted.

“Right! Then our harquebusiers pour their first round into him. They got to reload and it takes time, so up gets our middle rowers, on the side the Turk is, and picks him off with arrows. ’Course, a lot of our oars are smashed by this time. Seamen are throwing grappling irons. Maybe we board, led by your young men, Master Callatta. Maybe we can’t, because he’s got too many men, and he tries to board us. Before he’s tight alongside us, his boarders are massed along his bulwarks. Up gets our inside rowers and pours musket fire into them. Any left tries to get on board us. We’ve still got pikes and axes waiting for them, and the harquebusiers are reloaded by this time and can choose their targets. Then your young fighting men lead a boarding party onto the Turk. Taking it by and large, I reckon it would be best to let him try to board us.” “And the sons of my friends?” Signor Callatta asked. “What are they doing while this is going on? Being picked off like sitting birds, as you said?” “Keep under cover till Master Michael gives his word. Turk doesn’t know they’re there, see? Great thing, surprise,” Barnabas said. “What do you say about all this?” Signor Callatta asked Michael. “He’s right, and it can be done. With trained men, it would work like a machine. They must be trained though. What Barnabas didn’t say is, all the time he’s serving his guns. We’ll beat the Turk every time.” “All right. I’ll find the weapons and do my best to help with the men. You must talk with Luigi, though,” Signor Callatta said. “With pleasure,” Michael answered. Guido sat quietly on his stool while the conversation was going on, his bright eyes turning from speaker to speaker. At the first lull in the talk, he looked toward his father. “Sir . . .” he said.

“What, Guido, are you still there? You ought to be in bed.” Signor Callatta twinkled affectionately at him. “Never mind. But be quiet for a moment. There’s another matter. I hear from very reliable sources . . .” He looked over his shoulder as if he feared to see a Turkish spy lurking in the shadows. “I hear that the fleet is going to meet in Messina later in the summer. What are we to do? Make the long voyage to Sicily, or join the fleet when it sails east?” Both Guido and Barnabas looked to Michael for a reply. He sat for a long minute before answering. “If our galley is ready in time . . .” he began. “Finished in another month,” Signor Callatta interrupted. “. . . then I would say join at Messina. This will give us time to train on the way. And we must exercise with the other ships. Don John knows that’s necessary. He’s no fool.” “Right, Master Michael,” Barnabas added. “ ’Course, we must exercise. The fleet’s got to fight like one man, if it can be done.” “Very well. Then I’ll see the ship is provisioned for Messina first and then the voyage east. Now, there’s one last — and very important — matter to discuss. It is . . .” Signor Callatta leaned forward to put his elbows on the table and carefully placed the tips of his fingers together. He pursed his lips. “It is — what are we to do with the boy, Guido? He will be of great use to me, here in Venice, and I can make arrangements for him to go on with his Latin . . .”

“Oh, sir . . .” Guido protested. “Ha! Latin!” Michael said. “It’s as well to know your Latin. Couldn’t bear it myself. It’s a good thing, nevertheless.” Barnabas’s gentle smile puckered his eyes. He reached out a massive fist and covered Guido’s hand. “Did he tell you, master, what happened at Anzio? Did he tell you about his hours of practice with bow and sword? I take it he didn’t keep his mouth shut about the church in Genazzano? Nor about Miss Julia’s rescue?” Barnabas asked. “I’ve heard a little,” Signor Callatta answered. “Then you’ve heard enough, if I may say so,” Barnabas said. “With respect.” Suddenly Signor Callatta smiled. “All right,” he said. “He may come with you. But I rely on both of you to take care of him. I don’t want to lose him, you know.” “Oh, Father,” Guido began. “Thank you . . .” “No, not a word. Time you were in bed. Off you go. If it comes to that, it’s time for all of us.” In the bright early morning, Guido, Michael, and Barnabas made their way to the dock. The new galley was afloat in the iridescent scum of the water, the fresh varnish on her top sides already fouled with floating refuse. Gilders were at work, laying gold leaf on the carving at her prow and stern, and carpenters were busy among the rowers’ benches. As yet, there were no oars lying in neat rows on board and the single mast was innocent of standing or running rigging. Ring bolts for the gun tackle in the decks of forecastle and stern were the only indication of where the vessel’s heavy armament would be. As the

three stood looking down on her, admiring her long, clean lines, Luigi came from below, yawning and stretching, with his doublet unbuttoned as if no long months had passed since Guido saw him last. “Guido! Guido!” he shouted. “Welcome home.” His eyes passed to the two men and rested on Barnabas. “Barnabassanio!” he shouted again. “Barnabassanio! If it isn’t my old shipmate! Body of Bacchus! It’s good to see you, old friend.” Luigi climbed to the quay, ran to Barnabas, and flung his arms around the gunner and kissed him on both cheeks. Barnabas blushed a bright red like a maid. “Phew, Luigi. Breakfasted on garlic as usual, did you?” Barnabas said disgustedly, but his eyes smiled. As the sun climbed the heavens, the four of them explored every corner of the newborn ship. At the shrine, by the break of the poop where the image of the Blessed Virgin would stand, Guido stood for a moment, and although no statue had been placed there yet, he prayed to the Holy Mother that the ship would be a worthy unit in the fleet of the Holy League. Michael and Luigi were earnestly discussing the problem of finding suitable rowers, harquebusiers, and seamen when Guido pulled Barnabas by the sleeve of his doublet. “Barnabas, will you come with me on to the forecastle — please?” he said. “There’s something I want to ask you about.” Together they went along the catwalk running above and between the empty rowers’ benches, and climbed the ladder to the foredeck. Guido led the way as far forward as he could go, to where the

vessel’s bows swept gracefully and joined their curves to continue, united, in the long outward-thrusting spur. “Look, Barnabas,” Guido said. “One day, months ago, on board another galley, Luigi was telling me about a fight they had with corsairs. They couldn’t use the cannon in the middle of this deck when the enemy was near because the spur got in the way. I wondered then which was the more useful when galleys are close together, the gun or the spur.” “Don’t be silly,” Barnabas said. “How can a wooden spur be more useful than a gun?” “Why have a spur at all, then?” “Because galleys have always got spurs. Always have had, for that matter . . .” “That’s exactly what Luigi said. He said Julius Caesar had spurs, but he didn’t have guns, did he?” Guido said. Barnabas stood looking down at the spur and then took a few paces backward to stand in the midst of the ringbolts that waited for their cannon. With his eye, he estimated the distance from where the muzzle of the cannon would be to the angle of the bows. At last, he looked earnestly at Guido. “We’ll make a gunner of you yet,” he growled. “And I’m a dunderheaded old fool. Why I didn’t think of it, I don’t know, or, for that matter, why hasn’t anybody else thought of it? It’s just plain common sense. I suppose nobody thought of it because it had to wait for you.” He began to get excited and held an arm out stiffly before him, moving it slowly up and down and then from side to side. “Why, look what a field of fire we’ll get. Marvelous, Guido, my boy. I’m proud of you. We’ll soon whip that off.”

“Luigi won’t like it,” Guido said. “Luigi? Pish! Who cares? Comes to that, who’s the gunner aboard this ship — him or me?” Michael called to them from where he was standing with Luigi amidships. “Guido,” he said when they reached him, “the galley hasn’t got a name. Can you think of one? Luigi says you might.” Guido smiled shyly. “I’ve thought of one already. You see, Our Lady of Genazzano helped me to rescue Julia, so I thought if we called the galley Julia, Our Lady might look after her too.” “Julia. That’s a good name. We’ll ask your father. Come along.” They climbed the ladder to the quay. As they went, Guido heard the voices of Barnabas and Luigi raised in furious argument. “Idiot of a garlic-eating Venetian! Can’t you see it’s in the way? Can’t you see . . . ?” Barnabas shouted. “Thick-headed giant pig-dog Englishman!” Luigi shouted back. “Can I sail a galley without a spur? Would you have me laughed at from Venice to Genoa!” “They’re good friends, all the same.” Michael said, and smiled down at Guido. Guido began to tell him about the spur. That night, Luigi made a round of the wine shops, telling the plans of the Holy League and of Signor Callatta’s need for volunteer rowers and of the rates of pay. He painted a rose-hued picture of the loot

that would be taken from the Turk, and the shares that would come to the crew. The following morning, Guido walked around the dock area, where there seemed to be a hundred galleys preparing for war. Shipwrights, carpenters, and riggers were busy about them, but there were few sailors, or men who might become rowers, to be seen. Finally, he made his way to where the Julia lay. As he drew near the dock, he became conscious of a murmuring like the sound of a gargantuan swarm of bees. The noise grew louder, and Guido found that the whole neighborhood of the Julia’s resting place was blocked by a mass of men, whose excited chattering filled the air. Slowly Guido struggled between the packed bodies. Some of the men recognized him and squeezed themselves closer together to give him passage. Others saw in him one who was trying to take advantage unfairly to force his way to the front and aimed cuffs at his head. It was a breathless and disheveled Guido who finally won his way to a clear space where Barnabas was sitting on a bollard, with Luigi standing by his side. Luigi questioned in rapid Italian. Barnabas scrutinized, sometimes asking a question in his queerly turned phrases, and making the last decision with a curt “Yes” or “No.” Dusk was falling over Venice before Barnabas was satisfied with his choice of seamen, harquebusiers, and gunners, and the rejected turned, grumbling, away. Day after day went by in a continual round of work and training. Stores of arms, ammunition, and spares began to arrive. Luigi ran perpetually from bow to stern supervising the stowing of equipment. Barnabas was in charge of training and grumbled continually at the difficulties of instructing men in the restricted spaces of Venice. “Wait till we get to sea, Guido, my boy,” he said. “Then I’ll put ’em through their paces. Got to teach ’em what we’re going to do, and the part every man jack plays in it. See? Gunners especially. Guns is me

pride and joy, as you well know, and the men behind ’em got to behave like clockwork. Tick, tock — load! Tick, tock — ram! Tick, tock — present! Tick, tock — fire!” Michael stood everlastingly, it seemed, on the poop of the new galley, answering the complaints of other ships’ masters, who thought it unfair that Signor Callatta should offer such generous rates of pay and so get the best of the men. Somehow, in spite of the brusqueness of his talk, Michael sent them away calmed but still envious of the Julia and determined to imitate her organization. Eventually the day came when the Julia was able to move, under oars, into the lagoon. She went raggedly at first, but with Luigi’s boundless energy and constant exhortation, it was not long before the rowers moved in unison and obeyed the orders of their sailing master as one man. Guido thought it was the most exciting time of his life when the Julia was rowed straight through the lagoon into the Gulf of Venice to spend a whole day at sea. He was not so sure when he returned in the evening, deafened and his head ringing with the explosions of guns and the bawled orders of Barnabas. Week passed into week until both Luigi and Barnabas thought the galley was ready to sail for Messina. Then began the final flurry of activity. The young fighting gentlemen began to arrive. Barnabas snorted at their armored elegance, and Luigi cursed as they postured about the decks and hindered him with patronizing questions. Michael bided his time. At last, Guido made his farewells to his parents and to the tearful Julia, and the galley sailed, followed by the others of the Venetian squadron. The slow, heavy gunboats of the fleet were to join the forces of the Holy League later, on the way to the eastern Mediterranean. The cheers of the Venetians gathered on the quays followed the galleys to sea, but for Guido, there were no sounds except the thump

of timing drums keeping the rowers in unison, the creak of oars, and the plash of water as the blades dipped. The galley was his whole world. He walked forward and lay on the deck in the angle of the bows so that he could see how the Julia’s forefoot cut proudly into the water. She rose in the slight swell and, it seemed to Guido, pressed her deck planks against him lovingly.

The Fleet Assembles The Venetian squadron traveled slowly to allow the muscles of the rowers to become accustomed to the heavy work at the oars. When the wind was favorable, they sailed. So, in easy stages, frequently anchoring near to the shore for the night, the Julia and her companions passed southeastward through the Adriatic Sea and rounded the “heel” of Italy into the Gulf of Taranto. When the Julia was off Cape St. Maria di Leuca, the southernmost point of the “heel,” Luigi laid a course that would take the ships straight across the gulf. Slowly the land faded behind them until it was just an indeterminate blue on the eastern horizon. During all the days in the Adriatic, Guido had become unconscious of the noises that made up the life of the ship. Creak of oars and complaining of timbers disturbed him no more than did the grunts of the rowers and the frequent clack of dice as the gentlemen volunteers played backgammon. He no longer took interest in the hoarse commands of Michael as he tried to instill some sense of discipline and united action into these same gentlemen. When the shores of St. Maria had disappeared below the horizon and the galley was progressing gently, rolling slowly in a long swell, Guido became aware of a difference. Barnabas was standing by his side and smiling down at his puzzled face. “Wondering what’s wrong, Guido?” he asked. “Why, yes,” Guido answered. “There’s something different, and I don’t know what it is.”

“I’ll tell you. It’s Master Michael’s young gentlemen.” He chuckled hoarsely. “We’re out of sight of land, see? And they don’t like it. It’s the first time they’ve stopped their chattering since we sailed.” Guido looked around. There was nothing to be seen in the whole circle of the blue sea but the beetle-like shapes of the other galleys. “Now, if Master Michael knows his business, he’ll get ’em on the job before they start calling for their mammies.” Michael did know his job, for at that moment, Guido heard him shout. “Turks attacking! Gentlemen-at-arms, take formation!” Several young men glanced wildly about them and scuttled into their places as they had been taught. “Take cover!” Michael shouted again. “Stand by to repel boarders! Wait for the word!” For the first time, the gentlemen volunteers entered into the spirit of their training and acted as one man. “See! They gets a bit of a shock, and they want to hang together. They’ll be all right now. Shan’t have any more of one being better than another. Tomorrow morning you’ll see ’em sitting like lambs, polishing their own armor,” Barnabas said. The squadron made its landfall, as Luigi had calculated, off Cape Colonne. From there, the course to Messina was the same as they would have to follow, in the opposite direction, after the fleet had assembled and Don John of Austria had taken command. It was the twenty-first of August 1571 when the Venetian galleys anchored in the great harbor of Messina. Many others were there before them, and Luigi thought himself lucky to be allotted a berth not far from the jetty.

Workmen were busy on the mole, putting the finishing touches to a vast triumphal arch, decorated with silver shields and Latin mottoes. Guido leaned over the bulwarks, translating them, as best he could, for the amusement of Barnabas. A flight of stone steps ran from water level to a point on the quay beneath the center of the arch. Every day more galleys joined the fleet until the masts rose as thick as tall reeds on the banks of a pond. Small sailing frigates scurried from ship to ship, carrying messages between captains, and ferrying crews ashore for riotous nights of amusement. From the Julia’s berth near the jetty, Guido saw men returning from their shore leave, staggering and bleeding from sword or dagger wounds. In the wine shops, Spaniards fought with Genoese, Genoese picked quarrels with Venetians, German mercenaries from the papal galleys drew their weapons on all who would not give them precedence. It seemed to Guido that the spirit of the last crusade lived only in the heart of the Holy Father, Pope Pius V, in Rome, and in the hearts of but a few gathered in Messina. During the afternoon of the twenty-second, several great ships, towering above the galleys, lumbered into the harbor. As they rolled ponderously to their anchorages, Guido called excitedly to Barnabas. “Look, look,” he said. “Galleasses, aren’t they? What a help they’ll be.” “Ah, maybe,” Barnabas answered, rubbing the back of his head with a calloused hand. “Only see, Guido boy, they’re too heavy for the sails they’ve got. Can’t maneuver, even with oars as well. Now, Francis Drake’s ship . . . Ah, well, never mind about that. ’Course, their guns is good. They’ve got broadsides, see, as well as bow guns and stern chasers. Heaven help any Turk as gets in range. Only they’re too slow to go after galleys, easy to avoid, if you see what I mean.” “Sort of floating forts,” Guido said.

“Exactly what they are, boy. Well, let’s hope plenty of Turks gets in range. Only — only I’m not so sure there ain’t too much hoping in this business. I wish Don John’d come and get some discipline in this here rabble.” Don John came, with more Spanish vessels, on the following day. He was received with a thunderous boom of salutes from cannon and a ragged, prolonged rattle of musketry. Barnabas was keeping a stern eye on his gunners serving the Julia’s culverin, when he suddenly took Guido roughly by the shoulders and pushed him to the deck. “Take cover — everybody,” he bawled. His gunners looked at him in bewilderment. “Yes, you too. Cease firing blanks.” He dropped beside Guido, between him and the ship anchored on their right. “Whatever is the matter?” Guido asked. “Them fools of harquebusiers, aboard that ill-found, weed-grown hulk alongside of us are firing ball instead of blank.” As if to confirm his words, another ragged fusillade of shots came from the neighboring galley, and a shower of splinters flew from the Julia’s mast. Don John’s flagship, the Royal, came to rest and the eyes of every man in the great fleet, near enough to see anything at all, turned toward the tall, slender figure on the deck. As Guido looked at the handsome, elegant young man with his high forehead, straight nose, and soft, waving hair, he felt an upsurge of confidence within him. He turned to speak to Barnabas, but the gunner’s back was turned toward the Royal, and he was shaking both fists at the cheering, laughing harquebusiers lining the bulwarks of the nearby galley, and mouthing silent curses.

Guido’s new-found confidence began to wane as day followed day and there were no exercises for the fleet. The only amusement for those confined in the narrow space of the Julia was to watch the triumphal progress of Don John to the shore, where he was met by cheering crowds of Sicilians and mounted on a charger tricked out in silver harness and brightly emblazoned trappings. The great commanders came and went between their own ships and the Royal. Luigi named them for Guido, and their titles rang in his ears like the roll and thunder of the Odyssey. Antonio Duodo of the galleasses, Barbarigo of the yellow, Andrea Doria of the green pennants. Sebastian Veniero of Venice, Marco Antonio Colonna for the Pope, Don Alvaro de Bazan, Marquess of Santa Cruz, of the white, and Don John of Austria of the blue. The first day of September came — ten days passed in idleness — and at last, Michael Selwyn called his gentlemen-at-arms and his harquebusiers together. “Orders,” he said. “From His Excellency, Don John.” A subdued cheer rose from the company. “There’s no need to get excited. These orders say that if any harquebusier loads with ball when firing salutes, his captain’ll be hanged. That mean you, Barnabas Butter? Or me?” “You, Master Michael,” Barnabas growled. “Only any harquebusier of mine that loaded with ball’d have been hung long before this, and they know it.” Michael waved the paper in the air. “This sounds like you, Barnabas. Is it your doing?” “Nay, Master Michael,” he said, and hung his head. “I did but

pass the word.” Michael laughed. “That’s all,” he said. The company broke up, muttering. Five more days passed. Luigi was perpetually grumbling in his beard about the autumn gales and asking the empty air if there were any seamen in the fleet except himself. Barnabas watched Guido’s growing restlessness with concern. At last, he took Guido by the shoulder and led him to Michael. “Permission to go ashore, Master Michael, and take Guido with me. The boy needs exercise,” he said. Michael turned to them with eyes dulled with disappointment and tired with the strain of keeping his crew content in their inactivity. “Of course,” he said. “Don’t forget it’s rough there, though. There are men killed ashore every night.” “Don’t you worry. I’ll look after him.” Barnabas laughed. “Not that he can’t look after himself pretty well.” So Guido and Barnabas walked the narrow streets of Messina all the afternoon, avoiding the groups of brawling soldiers and sailors who had spent the day in wine shops. They climbed the hills above the town and breathed the fresh sea breezes with relief after the stench of the tideless harbor where three hundred vessels had lain too long. In the cool of the evening, they returned to find food and drink at an inn. Barnabas sat a long time after their meal was finished, talking with Guido. “You mustn’t feel too bad about all this waiting, boy,” he said. “Fact is, I think, Don John’s having trouble. If what they tells me is right, the King of Spain, Don John’s half-brother, appointed a Council of War, and Don John hasn’t got as much authority as he ought to have. The way I see it is, Don John and some of ’em wants to fight now; others want to put it off till next year.”

“But nobody could keep all these men together for a whole year,” Guido said. “True enough, but these here dons and lords don’t think about the men like we do. To them, gunners, bowmen, rowers, and what have you aren’t men — they’re cattle to be driven this way or that.” “I wish Don John would do something . . .” Guido began. “Let’s hope so. Ah, well — you’ll find out that all war’s made up of being frightened to death some of the time and bored to death the rest of the time. Let’s get back.” The narrow streets of Messina were dark except for splashes of candlelight from wine shops and taverns. A glow in the sky showed where the harbor was transformed into a bright fairyland by the myriad lanterns of the ships, illuminating masts and decks, and uneasily reflected in the dark water below. Guido and Barnabas walked slowly through the streets, passing quietly on the other side of the road when bursts of song or shouts of quarreling came from drinking houses. Near the entrance to a side alley, Barnabas stopped and laid his hand on Guido’s arm. “Listen,” he said. From the alley came the sound of grunting men and the rasp of steel on steel. Guido and Barnabas peered around the corner. In the light of a flaring torch set in a sconce beside the door of one of Messina’s greater houses, they saw three men fighting. Facing them was a slim young man dressed in black with a narrow white ruff framing his chin. He was defending himself, as best he could in the flickering light, against the murderous attack of two broad-shouldered ruffians. The rapier in his right hand flickered with the quickness of a serpent’s tongue, and with the poniard in his left, he parried cuts and thrusts from the heavier swords of his opponents.

“Can’t have this,” Barnabas said. “Keep you behind me.” He tiptoed into the alley. The eyes of the soberly dressed gentleman flashed toward Barnabas and returned to his two attackers. The blond giant’s massive hands shot out and took the two ruffians by their necks. His powerful arms swung inward and brought the heads of the footpads together with a crack like a musket shot. A second time he crashed the heads together, and the bodies of the two men went limp. He dropped them on the cobbles and dusted the palms of his hands together. The young man in black began to put away his weapons. “That, my friend, whoever you may be,” he said, “was a very chivalrous deed. I should be honored to learn your name, Sir Knight of the mighty arms.” Guido slipped around the side of Barnabas. “Don Miguel! Don Miguel! What are you doing here?” The elegant Spaniard put a hand under Guido’s chin and tilted his face to the torchlight. “My very perfect, gentle squire, Guido Callatta,” he said. “I might ask you the same question. Except that I know you are here to win your spurs. Tell me, who is my gallant rescuer?” “This is Barnabas Butter, master gunner of my father’s galley, the Julia.” “Named doubtless after the fair little lady Julia. Sir Barnabas, I thank you. I am Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, a humble soldier in the service of Sir Marco Antonio Colonna aboard the papal galleys.” He held out a slim hand, and Barnabas grasped it in his great fist.

“Aah! Leave me my sword hand,” he said, massaging his crushed fingers. “What shall we do with this carrion?” Cervantes stirred the body of the nearest ruffian with his foot. “Leave ’em where they lie,” Barnabas said. “They’ll wake in time and put their headaches down to witchcraft. Now, with your permission, master, we must get back to our ship.” “Then I will come with you, Sir Gunner, and on the way examine my friend and squire, Guido, as to his progress in Latin.” Guido groaned and then laughed. “Shall I tell you the story of the Roman who carried the eagle of the Legion?” “Another time. Tell me first of the little lady Julia and the Signora her mother.” Chattering lightly, the three of them took a boat from the jetty steps and were rowed to the Julia. “You must come aboard and meet Michael Selwyn,” Guido said. “Another Englishman? Have the inhabitants of that cold and fogbound island woken up to the terror of the Turk?” Behind him, in the boat, Barnabas growled. “We know the right when we see it as well as the next man, and better than most.” Cervantes turned and laid his hand on the gunner’s knee. “I meant no offense, my friend,” he said. “I learned my first lessons in chivalry from an Englishman — Sir Thomas Malory, who wrote of

King Arthur and his knights. I think, perhaps, I met one of them tonight.” Barnabas’s broad, red face grew redder than ever with embarrassment and pleasure. He was glad to be the last to climb the Julia’s side. In the cabin, Guido, Michael, Barnabas, and Cervantes were drinking a cup of wine together. Guido’s eyelids were heavy with sleep, and only some sentences penetrated to his consciousness. Words of Cervantes jerked him wide awake. “. . . Then I will ask Signor Colonna for permission to join you in this galley. I’m sure he will raise no objection. He has too little accommodation.” “We shall be glad to have you,” Michael said. “Are you sure what you said is right?” “Quite sure. On the morning of the fifteenth, priests will come aboard all vessels that have no chaplains, and Mass will be said. Then the Papal Nuncio will announce an Indulgence from the steps under the arch — the same that was given to the Crusaders when they set out to liberate the tomb of our Lord. Then he will present to His Excellency Don John the banner of the Holy League, blessed and given by the Holy Father himself. We sail on the sixteenth day, and Heaven grant us fair winds.”

Conference in Corfu The presence of Miguel de Cervantes cheered all aboard the Julia. He went among rowers, sailors, and fighting men with his extravagant tales of knights and ladies, and left them laughing. But Guido saw that the crews of neighboring ships grew more rowdy and ill-disciplined. Time dragged by on leaden feet. Don John spent the whole of the fourteenth of September passing in a small boat among the vessels of the fleet, speaking to the men. He told them again of the purpose of the Holy League and reminded them of how the future of Christendom was in their hands. The fleet grew a little quieter after his visit. Shore leave was stopped; stragglers in the town were rounded up and brought back to their ships; all vessels were cleaned; and the quiet waters of the harbor became covered with a thicker layer of filth and refuse than before. At sundown, chaplains and priests began moving among the crews, speaking the words of the Holy Father in Rome, and exhorting the men to prepare for the Masses on the morrow. Lamps were lighted before the statues of the Blessed Virgin in their shrines on the quarter-decks. Silence fell over the fleet. Guido, kneeling on the deck of the Julia between Barnabas Butter and Miguel de Cervantes, with Michael Selwyn immediately before him, waiting for the Mass to begin, felt a spirit descending, bringing quietness to all the tumultuous men in galleys and galleasses. The silence was so profound that the cocks could be heard crowing ashore. His own heart was filled with high endeavor, and he knew that the time had come when every rower and every fighting man would

go forward calmly to destroy the evil that had, for years, been creeping over Europe from the East. Perhaps, he thought, it had been the will of Heaven that rough men should brawl ashore and those who could not resist the temptations of the flesh should desert. The men who were left were those of stronger faith. Responses made to the priests’ versicles rose from the throats of the men in three hundred ships like a roll of distant thunder. When the last blessings had been given, sailors, soldiers, and rowers went about their tasks, or just waited for the word for action, with the same spirit of quiet determination as had descended on the fleet the evening before. Aboard the Royal, Don John appeared from his cabin, dressed in complete body armor. His burnished steel cuirass was secured by silver rivets. About his neck hung the Order of the Golden Fleece, and his head was bare. As Don John descended the side of the Royal into a waiting boat, the Nuncio — the Ambassador of the Pope — approached the triumphal arch on the jetty with a great retinue of Church dignitaries and nobles of Sicily. The boat carrying the Supreme Commander approached the jetty steps, and the Nuncio stood waiting at the head of them. Eighty thousand men watched silently as Don John disembarked and mounted the steps until he was immediately below the Nuncio. There he knelt for a blessing. The Nuncio laid his hand on Don John’s soft hair, then lifted his head and, in a ringing voice, read aloud the Holy Father’s Indulgence giving to each man serving under Don John the benefits that had been received by the knights of old who had fought to free the tomb of Christ from the Saracen. Guido heard Cervantes take in a deep breath and glanced up at him. The Spaniard’s face was shining with pride and devotion. The Ambassador of the Pope — the Nuncio — bent and raised Don John to his feet. The Supreme Commander received the banner which each one present prayed would float before them to victory. He

unfurled it and held it out for all to see. The banner was of blue damask, as blue as the garments of the Queen of Heaven, and embroidered on it was a great crucifix, symbol of all that the fleet was to fight for. Beneath the crucifix were the arms of the powers who had poured forth their wealth to furnish the last crusade; those of Philip of Spain, Venice, and the Pontiff himself. They were linked together by a chain to represent the Holy League, and from the center of the chain depended the arms of Don John of Austria. Don John stood proudly by the side of the Nuncio, holding out the gleaming unfurled banner, and a thunder of cheering broke out from all the three hundred anchored ships. He returned to the Royal, and as his feet touched her deck, the most seaward ships weighed anchor and began to put to sea. All was ordered bustle as ship after ship moved out and the forest of masts, to which the citizens of Messina had become accustomed, thinned. Hours later, the last galley sailed, leaving behind an empty harbor fouled with the refuse of men and ships as if those who had departed had sloughed their past sins and left them behind to be swallowed in the blue water of the Mediterranean. Off the coast of Calabria, a fierce gale blew from the north and the fleet anchored, stormbound, in the shelter of Cape Colonne for three days. At last, the wind dropped and the seas abated. On the twentyseventh day of September, the galleys anchored in the safe harbor of Corfu. Even while the sailing masters were making sure their ships were safe, little frigates came scurrying from galley to galley, calling captains to the flagships of their squadron commanders. Michael Selwyn was summoned to Don Alvaro de Bazan, Marquiss of Santa Cruz. Guido, Barnabas, Miguel de Cervantes, and Luigi gathered on the deck, anxiously awaiting the return of their captain, Michael.

“What about these exercises we’ve heard so much about?” Luigi asked. “When are they coming off — if ever?” “If you want to know what I think, never,” Barnabas said. “We’ll just be told our places and that’ll be that, if you see what I mean.” “The knights of old rode into battle knee to knee,” Cervantes said airily. “Each knight selected his opponent and charged. So the battle broke up into a series of duels. Then, of course, when the knight on the winning side had vanquished his enemy, he selected another, challenged him, and began all over again. I suppose we’ll fight like that.” Barnabas looked at the Spaniard pityingly. “D’you really believe that, master?” “Of course I do. It’s the proper chivalrous way to go about it,” Cervantes said proudly. “And I suppose,” Barnabas persisted, “that when the knight on the winning side had knocked his opponent off his horse, the poor fellow on the ground couldn’t get up again. Weighted down with two or three hundredweight of old iron, wasn’t he?” “It was an honor to wear knightly armor. I don’t like to hear you speak of it like that, Sir Gunner.” “All right, let that go. The winning knight then gets down from his horse, bends over his fallen enemy, and takes his sword. Then he whispers the terms of the ransom in his lily-white ear, and starts to help him to get up again?” Barnabas asked with a dangerous innocence. “Just so. A most knightly action and one that would bring the doer merit in the ranks of chivalry,” Cervantes answered.

“And I suppose nobody comes along and gives the bending knight a mighty blow on the backside while he’s doing it?” “Sir Barnabas, you shock me. Only a traitor knight could do such a thing.” “Then let me tell you a thing or two, Master Don Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra,” Barnabas said through clenched teeth. “I like you as well as any man aboard this ship, but I don’t want the job of protecting you against yourself when we go into battle. I’ll have enough to do as it is. Just you think of these things.” Barnabas ticked off his points on his fingers. “First! The Turks ain’t knights and, come to that, no more are we. Turn your back on a Turk, and he’ll stick a knife in it before you can repeat a Hail Mary. And don’t you forget it. “Second! The Turk’ll do his best to have more galleys than we’ve got, so it can’t break up into — what did you call it? — a series of duels. “Third! What happens if the galley next to us chooses to attack the same galley as we do? We bump halfway into him. A pretty shambles that’d be, wouldn’t it? “Fourth! How’d your knight know he was on the winning side? Let me put it like this. We choose our galley and beat him. Right — we pulls off. In the meantime, two Turks has beaten two of our galleys. They — not knowing they’re the losers, mind you — then come for us, one on either side. What do we do? We takes off our helmets, I suppose, and we bows. ‘Excuse me, Sir Paynim Knight,’ we says, ‘this ain’t according to the rules!’ See what I mean?” Cervantes laughed. “You put it crudely, my friend.”

“I put it as it is. This is war, and war ain’t pretty. We got to win, and, to win, every man’s got to know what he’s doing. He ought to know what his neighbor’s doing so he sees how he fits in. The men at the top have got to see the whole picture. They’re in the center of it. The little men have got to see the picture they’re in the middle of. See? That’s been done aboard this ship. But what do we know about those on either side of us? Tell me that! I don’t need to know. I’m a gunner. But Master Michael does, and, come to that, so does Luigi here, with the sailing to see to.” “Won’t Michael bring back plans?” Guido asked. “No doubt he will,” Barnabas said. “All writ out lovely. With little cherubs puffing out their cheeks, drawn in the corners. And smiling angels at the top, looking down. What we wants is practice. Then, after that, more practice. Shall we get it? No!” “Please, Barnabas, don’t be cross. You don’t think we’re going to lose, do you?” Guido asked. “No, Guido boy, I don’t. And for why, you might ask. Because I don’t believe Johnny Turk’s going to be any better with a big fleet than we are. He hasn’t had any more experience than we have — except that Uluch Ali, the Algerian. He’s handled fleets of a hundred galleys before this, and they’ve moved as if they was tied together with ropes. Watch him — if he’s there. And he will be! No — I think this battle’s going to be won by the courage of each individual galley, but it could be won so much more easily, as I see it.” “Barnabas, my friend and rescuer,” Cervantes said gently. “You have thought about this. You have had so much more experience of fighting at sea . . .” “No more than Luigi,” Barnabas growled.

“Well, both of you. Don’t worry about me. I like to play with dreams, but I know, as well as you do, that they are dreams. Now, tell me truly why you think we’re going to win.” Barnabas relaxed and smiled. “ ’Twould be easier, Master Miguel, to tell you why I think we ain’t going to lose, if you see the difference. What’s been the trouble in the past? No, don’t tell me. I’ll tell you. You see, the nations and the republics have always had one eye on their own interests — before this, I mean. If Spain has fought — begging your pardon — Spain has fought for herself first and for Christendom after. The same goes for Venice. Comes to that, it goes for England too. The Turk, as you knows better than I do, swept half across Europe, and halfway over Spain. How did he do it?” “Because he had better soldiers than . . .” Guido began. “Don’t you believe it,” Barnabas interrupted. “You can make a sailor out of a Devon yokel, and you can make a soldier out of a mincing Frenchman — if you give ’em something to fight for! I mean something more than a few coins to put in their pockets. Something more than making a king more powerful than he was before.” “This is a dangerous doctrine, my friend,” Cervantes said. “Ar! Dangerous to enemies! The Turk did all that he had done because every man jack of ’em — pashas, beys, janissaries, right down to slaves — thought it was right. It didn’t matter whether they was Moors, Algerians, Turks, or what. It was right to bring their Prophet and their cries of ‘There is no God but Allah’ into Europe. They’d got the same idea; all of ’em. See what I mean?”

“But, my dear and chivalrous friend,” Cervantes said, “haven’t we done the same? Haven’t our priests carried the cross into the Americas? Haven’t the Jesuit Fathers preached the gospel in your pagan England? At the risk of their lives?” Barnabas glared at him, gulped, and spoke meekly. “You know very well what I mean, and it’s no good pretending you don’t. You’ve done it. You’ve gone into the Americas — all right, you brought this up — crying in your minds ‘There is no God but gold.’ We’ve gone about the world crying ‘There is no God but trade.’ The crucifix came after.” “Where did the Turk go wrong then?” Cervantes asked. “He went wrong because he stopped believing ‘There is no God but Allah’ and thought instead ‘There is no God but Conquest, and the Sultan Selim is his prophet.’ Sultan Selim the Sot! Master of the world! Pish!” Barnabas spat vulgarly over the side of the galley into the waters of Corfu harbor. He continued. “Now we are going into battle for the freedom of men. So the cross will stand over the churches. So the priests will stand in safety at the altars. When we have won, the old quarrels and jealousies will come to the top. But we shall have won. I thought — and mark you this, master — that we weren’t going to, when we lay week after week in Messina. Then, that last night in that harbor, something happened. Don’t ask me what it was, because I don’t know. I can tell you this, though. When we meet the Turk, as we shall very soon, I shall fire my guns. And I shall fire them to the Glory of God, and the Devil take the glory of Barnabas Butter.” The tiny lamp, lit in the harbor before that statue of the Mother of God on the quarter-deck, suddenly flared high, and the carved lips seemed to smile. Michael Selwyn came over the side. Under his arms was a roll of parchment.

Order of Battle Guido, Barnabas, Cervantes, and Luigi followed Michael into the cabin, and as many of the gentlemen volunteers as could pack themselves into the tiny space crowded in behind them. Michael unrolled the paper and spread it on the table. He straightened his back and looked sternly about him. “We sail tomorrow,” he said. “The frigates are out scouting. One came in a short time ago to say that the Turkish fleet is in the Gulf of Lepanto. He says they’re not so strong as we feared, but I don’t believe it.” Barnabas was bending over the paper, studying the diagrams roughly sketched on it. “Have all the galley captains got papers like this here?” he asked. “No. Don John had seven copies made. One for himself and one for each of the six squadron commanders. I asked my lord of Santa Cruz for permission to make a copy. I like my officers and men to know what’s going on, as I’ve told you.” “What did the other captains do?” Luigi asked. “Said they’d remember. They would keep it in their heads.” Barnabas snorted. “Another thing we got to hope for. There’s a lot of ’em now,” he said.

“H’m. Look at the paper. The gentlemen-at-arms needn’t bother. I’ll have them in later. When you’ve seen it, explain to the gunners and harquebusiers, Barnabas, and you, Luigi, explain to seamen and rowers. Now ask questions if you wish.” “As I see it,” Barnabas said, “the galleasses is going to be in the front, supported by seven galleys.” “Right,” Michael answered him. “The galleasses will be commanded by Antonio Duodo. Some galleys, under Don Juan de Cordova, will help tow the galleasses to positions that may be necessary.” “Then our front line’s split into three squadrons. Fifty-three galleys on the left under Barbarigo?” Barnabas continued. “Flying yellow pennants.” “Yes,” Michael said. “Good man, Agostmo Barbarigo,” Luigi put in. “Then, on the right, there’s fifty galleys, flying green pennants, and their commander’s Doria.” “Ah,” Luigi said. “Gian Andrea Doria’s a man I wouldn’t want to be up against, with his wolf ’s eyes and wolf ’s teeth. Crafty he is, too. Hope he isn’t too crafty.” “You know ’im,” Barnabas said to Luigi, and continued. “Then, in the center, there’s Don John himself, with blue pennants. How many galleys has he got?” “Sixty. His flanks will be protected by Colonna on the right and Veniero on the left,” Michael said. “What d’you know about them?” Barnabas asked Luigi. “Colonna, I don’t know . . .”

“Marco Antonio Colonna’s a Roman noble,” Cervantes said. “Sure to be all right.” “Veniero’s the one with the long white beard right down to his chest,” Luigi said. “Bit impulsive perhaps.” “Trust you to back the nobles,” Barnabas said to Cervantes with a smile. “Then we come to what concerns us. The white pennants — that’s us, isn’t it?” “Yes,” Michael said. “Thirty galleys in reserve under the Marquess of Santa Cruz. Reckon we aren’t supposed to sit in the rear and wait till somebody calls us, are we?” Barnabas asked. “No. We shall be directed by the Marquess as help in force is needed. Or we can take independent action if my lord is engaged.” “Ha! That ain’t so bad. Tell you what,” Barnabas said. “We’ll have young Guido up the mast, keeping an eye on the action. Then, if he sees somebody in trouble — and he will — off we go. We’ll show ’em what training and discipline can do.” Barnabas rubbed his hands together with glee, but Guido looked glum and Cervantes put an arm about his shoulders. Luigi bent and whispered in his ear. “I’ll get a barrel fixed up there. You can take your crossbow. Fine place for a bit of sharpshooting that’ll be.” “Everything clear?” Michael asked. “Right! Now — about the next few days. Tomorrow we sail across to Gomenizza. That’s a harbor, about fifteen miles from here on the Albanian coast. Don’t know it myself.” “I do,” Luigi said. “It is a fine harbor. Plenty of room for all of us in there.”

“Good. We stay there for three or four days. Each squadron will practice sailing — and rowing — in formation.” “Exercises at last,” Barnabas growled. “When we’re almost in sight of the enemy. Better late than never.” “More frigates go out to confirm the Turk’s still in the Gulf of Lepanto. They will go to the entrance of the gulf, and if the Turk’s bottled up there, we attack,” Michael said. “There’s just one little thing,” Barnabas added. “We’ve got these fast little frigates sneaking into the Gulf of Lepanto, spying on the Turk. You said one brought news they wasn’t as strong as we expected, Master Michael?” “Yes, he thought there were about two hundred. It seemed, though, they had more men on each galley than we have. It’s difficult to sort out the truth.” “Reckon you’re right not to believe him. He wouldn’t get close enough to be sure and risk getting captured. If I was Johnny Turk, I’d keep some of my galleys hidden. He knows we’re spying on him. Just as we know he’s spying on us.” “Is he?” Guido asked. “How do we know?” “ ’Cause it’s common sense. He can send out frigates at night, the same as we do. But he doesn’t need to, I reckon. We’ve met plenty of fishing boats, haven’t we? Do you think they’re all our friends? Why, some of those fishing boats that used to sail between us in Messina could’ve been Turkish spies. Out here, it stands to reason fishermen are friendly to the Turks. There wouldn’t be any fishermen left if they weren’t. No — he knows to a man what our strength is, or he’ll find out.” Barnabas stopped, smiled his gentle smile, and continued.

“He’s probably heard young Guido Callatta’s aboard the Julia and sent for reinforcements.” The men laughed at the embarrassed Guido. “We can put half as much again on what the captain of that frigate said, to my way of thinking. And we can keep our eyes open for any fishing boats that come sneaking ’round us.” “Another thing,” Michael said, “I put that idea about spurs to the Marquess, and he told Don John. Every captain who wishes can remove them. It was a good idea, Barnabas!” “Not mine. It was Guido’s.” “Of course. Are you pleased, Guido?” Michael said. But Guido had not heard a word. He was deep in thought and started when Michael repeated his question. “Oh, yes, of course,” he said. “I’ve got an idea. If they’re spying on us, they’ll know exactly when we move, won’t they?” “Soon after,” Michael answered. “Then why don’t we stop them?” Guido asked. “How? Tell me that,” said Barnabas. “Well,” Guido continued, “we can’t stop them sending frigates, but it ought to be easy to recognize them. Even if they look the same as our frigates, their crews’ll be different, won’t they? If we had some of ours out some miles away — when we’re in harbor, I mean . . .” “That’s it!” Barnabas broke in. “Screen of frigates! Half a dozen’d be enough. They’ll only send ’em singly. Our frigates sight a stranger, and off they go to see what he’s about. Either they drive him off or capture him. See what the boy means?”

“Go on, Guido,” Michael said. “Well — I was only thinking. If we can stop their frigates spying on us, there’s only one way for them. That’s to get the fishing boats to take information. When we’re in this harbor — what’s it called?” “Gomenizza,” Luigi said. “Yes, Gomenizza. He’ll want to know how many ships we’ve got and when we sail. We can’t stop fishing boats coming in and out . . .” “We can,” Michael said. “But if we do, the people on shore’ll go without food, and that’ll make them angry with us.” “I see what Guido means,” said Barnabas. “The people in the villages have been forced to help the Turk. We want ’em on our side. Wouldn’t be decent to . . .” “Chivalrous is what you mean,” Cervantes said with a smile. “Call it what you like . . . to make their lives harder. They’re Christians, and we want them to be with us. It’s common sense.” “What I thought was,” Guido went on, “it’d be easy for the Turks to send a fishing boat. We shouldn’t know it was a spy. It could sail right between our galleys, and we’d be none the wiser.” “True enough,” Michael said. “Go on.” Suddenly Guido became shy with the four pairs of eyes holding him intently in their gaze. He hesitated and lost confidence in his own thoughts. Cervantes saw his confusion and put a slender hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Go on, Guido, my squire. You’re talking sense,” he said.

Guido flashed a quick smile of gratitude at him. “Well — I don’t know if it’s silly or not, but suppose we gave every fishing boat a . . . say, a red pennant, not to fly all the time, of course, but just when we wanted to know if they came from the harbor we were in. Then, when we get to Gomenizza, or wherever else it is, instead of all clustering as near the shore as we can get, some galleys stay at the mouth of the harbor . . .” “Yes,” Barnabas muttered to himself. “Boom ships.” “. . . and when fishing boats go out, or come in, they’re challenged. They hoist their red pennants. If they can’t hoist a red pennant, we know they’re strangers.” “What do we do then?” Cervantes asked. “I know the answer to that,” Barnabas said. “I’ll have a gun ready loaded.” “Only the trouble is, I’ve just thought of a difficulty,” Guido said. “If the wind got up, boats from another harbor might take shelter where we were. We shouldn’t want to shoot at them.” “Easy!” Barnabas said. “Easy as kiss your hand. If they don’t hoist a pennant and don’t stop, I fire a shot across their bows. That’ll bring an innocent fisherman up, all standing. If he’s a Turk, spying, he’ll go about and try to get away. And the second shot won’t be across his bows. See?” There was silence in the cabin for a full minute. Then Michael stirred himself and straightened his doublet. “Luigi, a boat. I want a boat,” he said. “Now, master?”

“Yes. Immediately.” “Where are you going, Michael?” Guido asked. “To see my lord of Santa Cruz and tell him about your idea.” From the deck, Guido, Barnabas, and Luigi watched Michael go. Miguel de Cervantes sat sideways on the bulwarks, swinging one leg. He smiled at Guido. “A good knight should be full of stratagems and resource,” he said. Barnabas’s eyes puckered, deepening his seaman’s wrinkles. “So he should be, or he’d be full of arrows as well.” It seemed an inconceivable time before the watchers saw Michael leave the squadron commander’s vessel. He did not return immediately to the Julia, but was rowed on to Don John’s ship, the Royal. The following day, the fleet sailed to the harbor of Gomenizza. The Julia and two other galleys lay at anchor in the mouth of the harbor. The ship tossed uneasily in a short, choppy sea, and the rowers cursed the discomfort. Their curses turned to laughter as they watched Guido climbing to the barrel fixed to the masthead and saw him, green-faced, describing wide arcs across the sky. Guido thought that it was a poor return for having thought of an idea to prevent espionage and for which he had been commended by His Excellency Don John. But Barnabas knew it was necessary for Guido to become used to the swaying mast before he took on the duties of lookout when the battle was joined. Guido kept watch in spells of two hours all that day and gradually conquered his sickness. He was on watch when, one by one, the fishing boats returned to harbor. He heard the challenges ring out from the guarding galleys and proudly watched the red pennants

flutter to the mastheads. Below him on the foredeck, Barnabas stood by a loaded cannon, a match smoldering in his hand. A little group of watching gunners stood nearby. The sun had begun to sink behind the island of Corfu, black against the western sky, when Guido saw a solitary fishing boat scurrying for the harbor. He saw her first as a triangle of brown sail and then he picked out the dark hull. She was sailing fast with a flurry of white foam at her bows. He watched for a minute and saw her change course so that she would pass close to the Julia. There was no other sailing craft in sight. He hailed the deck. “Fishing boat coming! It’s the last!” Luigi jumped onto the bulwarks, supporting himself with a hand on the shrouds. Gunners ran to the loaded cannon and swung it around, obeying as one man Barnabas’s sharp orders. Every man in the galley held his breath. Luigi’s voice rang over the waters. “What ship are you? Show your flag!” A faint hail came in return, but no red pennant jerked upward. Luigi shouted again, and the fishing vessel sailed on without answering. Guido saw Barnabas bend, sighting his cannon. He put the match to the touchhole. The cannon boomed and a white column of water rose from the sea some yards before the boat’s forefoot. Men ran furiously about the decks, hauling on sheets and halliards, and the little vessel spun around on her heel in a flurry of slatting canvas and boiling water. The Julia’s gunners were already sponging, loading, and ramming home the shot. The gun was trained before the stranger had settled to her new course. Once more, it barked its message of death and destruction, and Guido saw the boat’s mast leap into the air, then gently, it seemed, bow itself over the side to lie, half in the water, in a tangle of canvas and cordage.

The Julia sprang into life with all the ordered confusion of trained men. Anchor cables rattled in, as seamen hauled in unison; rowers bent to their oars, tensely waiting for their first order; harquebusiers ran to their appointed place, the smoke from their matches spreading a thin haze over the decks. The rowing master shouted, and the great oars swung. The Julia glided gracefully toward the crippled vessel while Guido, in his masthead barrel, bent and loaded his crossbow. There were some half-dozen men on the fishing boat’s deck, dressed as Greek fishermen, but their faces were black-bearded and swarthy. Dull-eyed, they watched the Julia approach, and Guido, looking down, saw that there were no weapons in their hands. Orders were shouted below him, and the great oars rested from their regularly swinging arcs. The galley slid forward until she came to rest with her bows high over the small vessel’s stern and with a narrow gap of two feet between them. Barnabas was standing on the Julia’s foredeck, his massive figure dwarfing those of the gunners grouped around cannon and culverin, observing with pride the effect of the first shot fired in the name of the Holy League. Cervantes was ready on the bulwarks, one hand on the shrouds and the other clasped around the hilt of his unsheathed sword, ready to lead a boarding party of gentlemen-at-arms. He was preparing to leap the narrow gap between the two vessels when a sudden movement aboard the dismasted ship caught Guido’s eye. A Turk, half-hidden by the splintered stump of the mast was raising a heavy crossbow to his shoulder and sighting upward at Barnabas. Guido’s own bow was ready, and in the instant that Cervantes jumped, Guido’s bowstring twanged. The Turk’s weapon fell with a muted clatter to the deck, and grasping with both hands the feathered end of the heavy bolt half-buried in his chest, he staggered backward, tripped over the tangled rigging, and fell with a splash into the sea. Barnabas’s eyes followed the staggering Turk until he disappeared. He looked upward and, with an exaggerated travesty of the manners

of the gentlemen volunteers, made a leg and bowed to Guido. His face split into a wide grin. “Old-fashioned things, bows,” he called. “But they have their uses. Thanks, boy.” Cervantes’s party shepherded the remaining Turks aboard the Julia while seamen passed a heavy towing rope from the galley’s stern and made it fast around the stump of the fishing boat’s shattered mast. One of Luigi’s sailors took the tillers of the prize, and the Julia got underway, rowing slowly toward the clustered riding lights of the fleet, to hand her prisoners to His Excellency Don John. The swift Mediterranean twilight was fading into night, and over the hills of Greece, the red planet of war began to climb the empurpled sides. For four days, the power of the Holy League exercised in the narrow waters off Gomenizza and, in the first light of dawn on October 3, sailed for the island of Cephalonia. From there, galleys and galleasses groped their way in the first of the autumn fogs, and against foul winds, to Viscardo. The fog cleared during the night of October 6, and before the sun came up to herald Sunday, the seventh day of October, Don John’s ships rowed in bright moonlight, against a half-gale from the east, into the Gulf of Lepanto. By midmorning, galley hailed galley, voices of callers made ragged by the wind, and a thrill ran through the fleet. Enemy sails had been sighted on the eastern horizon. Priests made ready for Mass. The celebrants elevated the Host, and sanctus bells tinkled throughout the silent squadrons. The easterly gale that had slapped waves against Christian bows dropped to a dead calm. As the words Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc et in hora mortis nostrae — “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death” — seeped into the souls of eighty thousand kneeling men, a puff of air came from the west. The

waves in the gulf were smoothed under the hand of God. The fitful breeze grew to a gentle, but steady, wind. Throughout the fleet, sails were set, and on the enemy galleys, twelve thousand patient Christians sweated at the oar.

Green Banner and Blue Slowly the Christians — aided by the wind — approached the Turks. Rowers on both sides were keeping a deliberate steady stroke to conserve their strength for the struggle to come. The ships of the Holy League sailed in silence. In the mind of every man was the thought of the high purpose before him — the triumph of the cross over the crescent. The Turks advanced, making the day hideous with screams, yells, and maniacal laughter. But even this was calmed for a time when they saw the force arrayed against them. The jeers burst forth with renewed violence when the azure banner of the Pontiff was broken at the masthead of Don John’s Royal. Ali Pasha, the Sultan’s admiral, replied by flaunting the great green banner of Islam, embroidered with a thousand verses from the Koran. The Turkish fleet advanced in a wide crescent. The horns stretched from the north shore of the gulf to within a few miles of the beaches of Greece. To Guido, perched in his lookout at the masthead, it seemed that the line of enemy ships reached into the haze of the horizon. Swift-sailing frigates dashed between the enemy vessels, and, as he watched, the line split into three parts. A Turkish squadron now faced each Christian division, except that the ponderous galleasses rolled in the van of the force of the Holy League. At noon, the fleets were just within range of one another. The Turkish admiral fired his first gun, and the ball, flying high, struck the pennant from the mast of Don Juan de Cordova, for his galleys were still towing the cumbersome galleasses into position. In the Julia, behind the main line with the reserve forces of the Marquess of Santa Cruz, Barnabas raised his head at the shot and his nostrils spread like

those of an old war horse sniffing the smoke of powder. Guido, aloft, watched for an answering salvo, but none came for long minutes. At last, he saw a puff of smoke from a galleasse, and seconds later, the boom of the cannon beat in his ears. His eyes flashed to the flagship of the enemy fleet, and in the same instant, one of the great gilded lanterns that decorated her stern castle disintegrated and flew in fragments through the air. The first shots in the battle of Lepanto had been fired. The canvas of the Royal was lowered, and the other ships followed suit. Even as the seamen gathered the billowing folds of the sails in their arms, the Turkish rowers quickened their stroke and the massed galleys of Islam forged ahead, a mere three feet separating the dripping, flashing oars of neighboring vessels. The Turks forged onward, their gunners standing ready on the foredecks, the guns pointing upward at an angle, as they were forced to do by the protruding spurs. The guns of the Sultan fired. In the rear, Barnabas listened to the explosions and hailed Guido. “Any ship hit?” he called. “No! Not that I can see,” Guido shouted. Barnabas leaped into the shrouds. From there he watched the cannonballs of the Turks fly over galleasse and galley and splash harmlessly into the sea. He had just regained the deck of the Julia when a thunderous roar from the cannon of the galleasses tore to shreds the silence of the defenders of the cross. The heavy guns of the galleasses had at last opened fire. “By St. George!” he shouted. “Let us get near enough.” Michael strode down the catwalk and laid a hand on his shoulder. Guido, in the crow’s nest, could see what destruction the guns of the galleasses had wrought. Pagan galleys that a moment before had been sailing in their pretentious pride were sinking by the bows and

listing crazily on their sides. Dead rowers — many Christian slaves among them — lay, grotesquely sprawled, over the shattered stumps of their oars. It seemed that a shudder ran through the whole of the Turkish fleet. On board the galleasses, gunners were feverishly reloading. The ships of the reserve squadron, their oars stilled, were quietly rocking in the little waves of the Gulf of Lepanto. Barnabas stood, biting his nails, on the Julia’s foredeck. A second wave of the Sultan’s ships approached. This time, they scattered to avoid the murderous fire of the galleasses. The line of Turkish galleys became confused, captain yelled to captain, and there was no coordination between the vessels. Again the guns of the galleasses roared. The slight timbers of the Turkish ships fell apart under the hail of heavy iron, and the sea around the galleasses became strewn with splintered oars, limbs, and bodies of men — and the waterlogged hulks of proud ships. The reserve squadron of the Marquess of Santa Cruz was standing by. Guido called down from his position, high on the mast, the progress of the battle. Those of the Turkish galleys in the center squadron that had escaped the murderous hail of metal from the galleasses drew off and reformed. Scattering to right and left, they rowed around the gun ships. The galleasses on the flanks fired their broadsides again, but with the increased range, only single balls found their mark, plowing splintered furrows in decks and splashing benches and bulwarks with the blood of rowers. Once the galleasses were behind them, the Turkish line reformed and rowed furiously toward the ships of Don John’s squadrons. From his high perch, Guido could see burly Turks and Ethiopians running along the catwalks, flaying with their whips the naked rowers straining at the oars. The flagship flying the green banner of Islam

headed straight for the Royal. Don John, sword in hand, stood calmly on his quarterdeck, while his rowers kept the same steady stroke of the morning. Cannon and culverin from both ships opened fire, and the whole center of the line disappeared beneath bellowing clouds of smoke into which Guido peered in vain. From the densest part of the smoke, there came a terrible grinding crash punctuated with the shrill screams of desperately wounded men. The heavy guns ceased firing and the continuous rattle of harquebuses began. The smoke clouds dispersed, rolling away to the east before the wind that favored the Christian ships. The reserve squadrons, including the Julia, still rocked gently, awaiting the need for help by hard-pressed crews. Guido was now able to see the desperate hand-to-hand fighting that was going on aboard and about the Royal. The Moslem flagship had crashed alongside her, bow to bow, so that the Turkish spur had forced its way as far as the fourth bench of Christian rowers and was entangled in the Royal’s rigging. A second Turk lay on her other side, grinding against her planking in a confusion of splintered oars. Don John’s unfettered rowers — his Turkish captive oarsmen were chained by the legs and manacled to their oars — were fighting furiously with axe and pike to beat off the waves of janissaries that poured over the galley’s bulwarks. Some were wielding the stumps of their shattered oars. Janissary after janissary fell back, dead or wounded, onto the decks of their own ships or into the narrow channel of sea left when the ships drifted a little apart. Wounded who fell into the strip of water screamed like beasts when the ships surged together again and they were crushed as eggshells are crushed in a giant hand. But reserves of janissaries scrambled over the decks of the attackers from other Turkish galleys and forced their way past the few remaining rowers of the Royal and came faceto-face with Don John and his gentlemen-at-arms. The rasp of steel on steel as Christian rapier parried Moslem scimitar rose above the screams, shouts, and curses of men.

The rigging of the Turks was thick with pagan crossbowmen, and a murderous hail of arrows poured into the Royal so that mast, deck, benches, and bulwarks bristled with arrows like the spread quills of a porcupine. The body armor of the gentlemen protected them from glancing arrows, except those that, by chance, found a joint in the harness, but harquebusiers on fore and stern castles dropped like flies. Guido saw Ali Pasha himself, dressed in a flowing white robe, and with a jeweled green turban over a polished steel cap, calmly walk down the gangway of his own flagship, crossbow in hand. He raised it, took aim time and time again, and every quarrel found its mark. Guido, grinding his teeth with rage at the Julia’s inactivity, sighted his own bow on Ali Pasha and shot. The range was too great for his bolt to take effect, and he lost sight of the flying missile. Below him on the Julia’s deck, Michael Selwyn was quietly walking among seamen, soldiers, and rowers, exhorting them to remain calm and to await their chance. Even as he spoke, he kept one eye on the Marquess of Santa Cruz’s galley for the expected signal to move into battle. Luigi, equally calmly, stood by the tillers, carefully conning the ship and ordering every now and then a half-stroke by port or starboard rowers to keep the Julia in position. Barnabas had conquered his earlier impatience and busied himself among gunners and harquebusiers, looking to their matches and priming. By some freak of chance, in spite of the din and clamor from a hundred fifty ships of both faiths locked together in the struggle, in spite of the rattle of musketry and the occasional boom of bigger guns, Michael heard the twang of Guido’s bow. He looked at Guido, held up his hand, and shook his head. Guido bit his lips in chagrin, and at that moment, saw the Marquess’s galley and the neighboring

vessel spring into action. He hailed the deck below with the news. Michael ran up the ladders to the foredeck and stood with Barnabas, watching carefully. Guido turned his eyes to the center of the battle, where the Royal lay between the two Turks. Janissaries had forced their way aboard so that they occupied two-thirds of the decks from forecastle to the stern. Abaft the mast, Don John and his gentlemen held their own against vastly superior numbers, and, if they yielded a foot, they left crumpled corpses of Janissaries behind them. The Marquess and his neighboring captain gently slid the bows of their galleys alongside the stern of the Royal. Immediately an ordered crowd of Christian fighting men poured onto her stern and charged to the aid of Don John. The ranks of the tiring gentlemenat-arms opened to let the reinforcements pass, and the fresh fighters met the janissaries with a clash of steel that rang above the thunder of the battle. The Turks gave ground, and so crowded were they on the Christian decks that the pressure from the front forced some of those dealing destruction with crossbows from the Royal’s forecastle into the sea. The janissaries wavered, retreated, and rallied. Before they could make good their stand, a second wave of reinforcements attacked, and surely, steadily, the Moslem soldiers were forced back. The remnant of them, at last, leaped onto the decks of their own ships. Turkish seamen struggled to free their ships from the Royal, but the grappling irons thrown by Don John’s sailors held fast, and the Christian fighters, in their turn, boarded the enemy. Now the poop of the Royal was occupied by harquebusiers from the Marquess of Santa Cruz’s squadron, and they were steadily loading, firing into the janissaries on the grappled Turkish galleys, and reloading as calmly as men shooting at targets. Guido’s eyes were wide and fixed in fascination on Ali Pasha’s flagship. He saw a Christian fighter, with a fierce cut and thrust, disable two janissaries and spring forward to where Ali Pasha fought

with his crossbow. He aimed a slashing cut that would have severed the Christian’s head from his shoulders, but the man-at-arms dropped to one knee and the scimitar whistled harmlessly through the air above him. His sword flashed out and upward. It passed through the Pasha’s silken garments, through his body, and stood out behind a full hand’s breadth. Ali fell with a crash as an elm falls in a tempest, and his jeweled, turbaned helmet rolled into the blood-filled scuppers. The Christian soldier snatched the scimitar from the hand of the dying Turk and, with two swift strokes, removed his head. He snatched up a discarded pike from the deck and stuck the bleeding, grisly trophy on its point. A ragged cheer rose as he lifted it aloft. From that moment, Turkish resistance to the center squadron of Don John began to decrease. A sailor from the Royal ran to the poop of the Turkish flagship and hauled down the proud green banner inscribed with its thousand verses from the Koran. He ran to where Don John, leaning on his sword, stood panting, and offered his prize on bended knee. Everywhere throughout the center squadrons, Turks were trying to break away from Christian ships. When they succeeded, shot from cannon and culverin was poured into them. Of the ninety-five galleys that Ali Pasha had led against Don John’s center squadron of sixtytwo, not one escaped. Sailors, soldiers, and Christian slaves, liberated from the Turkish ships, gave themselves over to massacre and pillage. The blue banner of the Pontiff floated unharmed above the Royal. And throughout the action, the Julia had rocked peacefully in reserve. Not a shot had been fired from Barnabas’s guns; not a bowstring, with the exception of Guido’s, had been drawn.

Battle by the Shoals Michael Selwyn leaped into the shrouds and called to Guido, “What’s happening on the flanks?” He shouted through cupped hands. Guido gazed through the trailing wisps of smoke from guns and the heavier clouds from burning ships. “Doria’s squadron’s a long way away,” he shouted, pointing southward to the right. “I can see smoke, so they must be fighting.” He turned about and peered under his hand to where Barbarigo’s squadron had sailed on Don John’s left hand. “The yellow pennants are still fighting. It looks to me as if they’re surrounded . . . yes, they are. There are some ships ashore.” “All right,” Michael answered. “Come down, and get some food.” Bread, cheese, and wine had been placed in readiness about the ship, and seamen and soldiers had already refreshed themselves. While Guido was eating, Michael gave his orders to Luigi. The rowers backed water with their oars, and the Julia slid from her place in the line, turned, and moved to the north. The rowers pulled a long steady stroke that sent the Julia foaming on her way. The water chuckled at her forefoot. Guido, still chewing, climbed to his post again. Unknown to anyone aboard the Julia, the northern squadron had sailed in their appointed position to the left of Don John.

Ships on the northern flank of this squadron had sailed as near as they dared to the shoaling waters near the Albanian coast, but Turks more familiar with the Gulf of Lepanto than any Christian seamen had slipped between Barbarigo’s outermost ships and the shore. They had then turned, and the squadron of the yellow pennants found themselves attacked from front and rear. Their battle started at the same time as the ships of the center engaged and was still continuing fiercely. Barbarigo, the squadron commander, early in the battle had raised the visor of his helmet that his orders might be heard more clearly, and had received an arrow through his eye. The battle of the northern squadron was evenly matched. A few more than fifty Christian galleys faced the same number on the other side. The terrible gunfire from galleasses had not given the first advantage here to the Holy League, and the Turk, with his superior knowledge of the shoals, maneuvered more freely than the Christians. As the Julia approached, Guido saw that some of the Christian galleys were huddled together so closely that they no longer had freedom of movement. This happened as some of Barbarigo’s ships tried to turn from their line to meet the attack from the rear. Now this confused mass of ships was suffering a galling fire from Turks who were free to sail, fire, and pull away for reloading. Christians were so crowded that many of their guns could not be used for fear of harming friends. On the outskirts of this melee, other galleys were locked together, fighting it out hand to hand, as had Don John’s men and the Sultan’s janissaries. Guido heard Michael shout to Barnabas. “Free some that are grappled to Turks. Take the nearest.” Barnabas waved a hand in acknowledgment. Luigi skillfully timed the stroke so that when he gave the order to cease rowing, the Julia slid on and came to rest a cable’s length from a Turk. The enemy galley was grappled to a Christian ship, and

janissaries were swarming on her decks. It was evident that Barbarigo’s men had first boarded their attacker, for the armored bodies of Christian gentlemen lay on her decks. Guido looked down almost vertically, it seemed, and saw that the Turkish decks had been greased to prevent the heavily clad men from keeping a foothold. Barnabas’s cannon, unhampered by a protruding spar, traversed and fired. A wide jagged-edged hole appeared at the water line of the enemy. The culverin fired in unison, killing and maiming many chained rowers. The galley began to list. At first, the battling janissaries had paid little attention to the Julia, but after the second salvo, as Barnabas’s gunners were sponging out their guns and reloading, many of them came tumbling back into their own ship, snatching up bows. The first flight of arrows thudded into the Julia. An harquebusier squealed shrilly like a snared rabbit, and seamen ran to carry him below. Barnabas calmly surveyed the soldiers now crowding the enemy’s sides. “Harquebusiers,” he shouted, “present your muskets. Fire!” As grass falls before a scythe, the soldiers of Islam bowed before the bullets fired at point-blank range, and lay in swathes about their decks. The Turkish ship listed more heavily. Michael leaped onto the Julia’s poop. “Cut free! Cut free!” he shouted to the Christians and, in the same breath, flung a word to Luigi. The Julia’s rowers backed water, and, stern first, she moved away from the stricken Turk. Aboard the Christian galley, cheering seamen slashed at the ropes of grappling irons with knives and axes. As the last rope parted, the Turkish galley shuddered, heaved as if she were drawing a last breath of the free Mediterranean winds, and turned on her side. Her mast hit the water with a resounding smack. For a

moment, she lay there while oars, weapons, and bodies slid from her vertical decks into the sea, and turned turtle so that her barnacleencrusted keel was presented to the sky. Slowly this disappeared, and the vessel was gone, carrying with her dead, wounded, and living rowers still chained to their benches. Guido leaned on the edge of his barrel, fighting against waves of nausea. He recovered to see two of the enemy vessels that had been circling like vultures around the confused Christians bearing down at speed on the Julia. He swallowed hard, hailed the deck. “Two galleys . . . attacking.” The Julia swung about at a word from Luigi to meet the danger bows on. Barnabas depressed and sighted his cannon. It boomed, and, for an instant, Guido was enveloped in acrid smoke that stung his nostrils and throat. As it cleared, he saw that a red lane had opened among the starboard rowers of one Turk, and the oars trailed useless in the water. The port rowers automatically continued their stroke, and the galley swung around through a right angle across the course of her companion. This second galley, with too little sea room to turn, and too much way on her to stop, crashed into her friend, smashing oars to matchwood and splintering bows. Stem-faced, the Julia’s gunners poured cannon and culverin shot into the wallowing vessels, and the harquebusiers fired, loaded, and fired again, until Barnabas barked a sharp order. From his perch high on the mast, Guido saw that shackled rowers were snatching weapons fallen from the hands of dead or wounded janissaries and were hacking at their chains. Already some were free and ranging about the galley, taking a terrible revenge on their former captors. “We can leave the rest of the dirty business to them,” Barnabas growled. “Hola, Guido boy! Where next?”

Guido looked around the scene of battle. The Christian galleys that were not too badly damaged were re-forming their lines. Some Turks who had been hovering on the fringes of the struggle, darting in to strike and pull away, were rowing toward the shore, as if they intended to creep between the shoals and their enemies and so escape. The tide of battle had turned. “Some Turks trying to get away,” Guido shouted, pointing. “After ’em, Master Michael,” Barnabas bawled. “Easy to turn a retreat into a rout. With your permission.” He rubbed his hands together. “Now we’ll have some pretty shooting.” The Julia’s oars began to swing in the wide arcs that look so effortless and are really the result of long training and the perfect coordination of the muscles of many men. She forged through the water, overhauling the vessels whose rowers were exhausted by hours of maneuvering and now only drove their galleys forward when forced by prick of scimitar and lash of whip. Rapidly the range shortened. Barnabas bent to lay his beloved cannon himself. Guido, behind the cannon, followed the ball in its trajectory, saw it rise and fall into the sea so close to the nearest enemy that the men on her poop were drenched by the splash. “A thought more powder, gunner, in the next charge,” Barnabas said, and stood aside to give his men room to serve the gun. Barnabas’s second shot fell amidships. As rapidly as the gunners could sponge and ram home the charge and ball, Barnabas sighted and fired. Five more fell into the fleeing Turk before she faltered and fell out of her aftermost place in the Turks’ rowing line astern. Barnabas danced on the foredeck with glee. He saw that the Julia on her present course would pass quite close to the wounded enemy. “Load with fireball!” Barnabas shouted to the gunners at the culverin.

The men packed the heavy, hollow perforated balls with combustible material and rammed them in their guns. “Harquebusiers stand by! Give ’em a volley as we pass! Culverin men, fire as you bear!” The Julia forged on, slapping her bows into the little waves, sending the music of her progress up to Guido’s ears in the few moments’ silence before the first culverin spoke. “Present muskets!” Barnabas yelled. “Foredeck harquebusiers — fire!” The Julia slid by. A few janissaries raised crossbows and sent a thin shower of arrows toward the Christian galley. In the second before Barnabas shouted again, Guido heard a plunk near his head. He forgot it in his excitement. “Waist harquebusiers — fire!” The volley from the men amidships rang out as if one man had fired. “After harquebusiers — fire! Now, culverins aft. As you bear! As you bear!” Barnabas was dancing again in his excitement and pleasure at the result of his training. The Julia swept on, and Guido remembered the curious sound he had heard. He looked up. Firmly embedded in the mast a foot above his head was a heavy crossbow bolt. He grinned to himself, all his earlier sickness forgotten, and hung his hat on the arrow. Men below, watching him as they rowed, burst into laughter. The line of Turkish galleys rowed on with the Julia creeping up behind. Barnabas prepared again to fire. Guido’s eyes left the galleys

ahead and swept the sea from side to side and behind as he had been taught to do. He saw the galley they had attacked with fireballs. Dense clouds of smoke were rising from her. Even as he looked, a long tongue of flame shot upward and the shock of a terrific explosion compressed his lungs. Guido gasped for breath and shut his eyes. When he opened them again, there was no galley; there was only a rain of black twisting objects falling from the sky. Barnabas was looking up anxiously at him from below. “Powder magazine,” he shouted. “Fireball,” and bent to his gun. Barnabas lobbed cannonball after cannonball into the scurrying Turks until they broke their line and scattered, eager to escape from the wasp that followed so persistently and stung so repeatedly. Several turned toward the shore, and Guido saw them crash among the shoals and the men pour over the sides to endeavor to swim to land. Others turned again toward Barbarigo’s squadron, and Luigi, on Michael’s orders, swung the Julia onto a new course to the south. Michael called Guido down from his crow’s nest. It was not until Guido was seated on the deck, nibbling a hard biscuit soaked in wine that he remembered seeing puffs of smoke from the Turkish stern chasers. He looked about him. The Julia was untouched; not a single Turkish ball had found its mark. It was three o’clock in the afternoon, and the battle of Lepanto had been raging for three hours. Michael stopped the ship to rest the rowers and called Barnabas, Luigi, and Cervantes to him. They squatted on the deck by Guido. The ship rocked in a swell, and a bank of clouds was gathering in the west.

Aid to Green Pennants As the Julia came to the scene of the great fight between the central squadrons of the fleets, the galley of the Marquess of Santa Cruz was just getting underway. The Marquess himself hailed Michael from his poop, and Luigi slackened the ship’s speed. The two galleys sailed as near as they could without the oars of the one fouling those of the other. “Doria’s been in trouble to the south,” the Marquess called. “Uluch Ali lured him away. Uluch Ali sailed southward, and Doria thought he was trying to outflank the fleet. Doria followed. When they were well away from the main battle, Uluch Ali turned and cut off Doria’s stragglers. He’s captured the flagship of the Knights of Malta. Now he’s sailing northwest. Doria’s after him. It’s up to us to intercept him. Understand?” Michael signified his understanding with a salute. “Then off you go, and God go with you. We’re following.” When they were almost out of hearing, the Marquess hailed again. “Give my compliments to the boy, Guido. If he has any more ideas, I’d like to hear them.” A deep-throated laugh came from the crew, and Guido blushed a fiery red. Cervantes laid a hand on his shoulder. “I think I shall stop calling you my squire,” he said with twinkling eyes. “You ought to be known as Ulysses, for he was a man of many

guiles.” Once more, Michael called his lieutenants around him while the Julia drove on to the south. “Remember what I said. Gunners, seamen, and rowers have done excellently, but I must give the gentlemen a chance, and that means boarding. Give us a chance, Barnabas.” “Right, master,” Barnabas answered, “if, by that, you mean I’m not to blow Johnny Turk out of the water before you gets at him. I’ll deal gently with him, if you see what I mean.” “Then to your posts — all of you. We’ll be on him soon.” Rather wearily, Guido climbed to his crow’s nest and began his scanning of the sea. Behind, the water was full, it seemed, of craft, but there was no smoke or din of battle. The central and the northern squadrons had fought their fight and vanquished the Turk. There remained the notorious Uluch Ali — the Christian renegade, Bey of Algiers, ruthless corsair raider and the finest seaman the Mediterranean had known since the days of the Phoenician traders. Guido looked ahead. Excitedly he hailed the deck. “They’re coming! Dead ahead!” He counted aloud. “Thirty of them. No — nearer forty. Rowing fast! We’ll be on them in ten minutes.” Barnabas smiled gently at Michael. “Still want me to go easy, master? Considering the odds?” he asked. Michael gave him a bleak smile. “The Marquess and the others are close behind.” Barnabas gathered his gunners about him.

“Now, boys, listen to me. We ain’t got much time. The captain’s made up his mind to board a Turk. Wants to give the gentlemen a chance, see? Then there’s the matter of loot. Shouldn’t be surprised if he’s got that in mind, and why not? ’Course, we all share in that. What we’re going to do is tempt a Turk to board us. We put the plan into action I’ve told you about. The gentlemen volunteers’ll get aboard all right. They’re proper fighters, but we can’t expect ’em to have the qualities of gunners, so, when they’ve boarded, no Turk’s going to board us the other side. If he tries it, it’s ball, chain shot, fireball, give him the lot. Right! Back to your guns — and on your toes.” Barnabas’s men ran back to their heavy weapons. They were ready. The leading galley of Uluch Ali’s squadron was bearing down in a flurry of foam, and Luigi played his part. With deft movements of the tiller and curt orders to the rowers, the sailing master made the Julia appear to hesitate. She seemed to veer to port, undecided, and then make a quarter turn in the opposite direction. When she came on course again, her speed was diminished and the rowing was ragged. A derisive cheer came from the Turks, and their cannon boomed. The shot passed harmlessly over the Julia’s decks. Like an echo, Barnabas’s cannon replied. His shot flew high, merely carrying away the Turk’s starboard shrouds as it went. The Turk was close on them, and Luigi was steering the Julia so that the shock of their meeting would be as slight as possible. Rowers on the forward benches released their oars and crouched so that the swinging butts when the oars were smashed would do them no harm. Michael shouted to Guido the one word, “Here,” and Guido came sliding down a backstay to land lightly on his feet on the poop. The ships met, the Turk’s spar protruding far over the Julia’s decks. Grappling irons flew through the air, and a crowd of janissaries, white teeth gleaming from brown faces, lined the enemy bulwarks. Barnabas barked, and the concentrated fire of the harquebusiers poured into them. Turkish arrows thudded into Christian decks.

Barnabas barked again, and the rowers whose crossbows were hidden beneath their benches rose to their feet. The bowstrings twanged in unison. Once more, Barnabas’s voice was heard above the clamor and the rower-harquebusiers poured a second volley into the lightly clad enemies. True to their tradition, the remaining janissaries, a mere third of their original number, came on to board, only to be met with thrust of pike and swing of axe. Bewildered by the organized resistance, the Turkish soldiers fell back and Turkish seamen tried to work their ship free, but Luigi’s men had firmly secured the spar to the foot of the Julia’s mast. At that instant, Michael shouted his order to his boarding party, and, led by Cervantes, the gentlemen-at-arms ran from their hiding place and poured onto the Turkish deck. Guido, sword in hand, ran behind Cervantes. Barnabas, on the foredeck, had an eye on the approaching Turkish galleys, many of them now hotly engaged with other ships of the Marquess’s squadron. There was no immediate danger to the Julia. He turned and looked down on the corsair’s deck. Then happened two things that Barnabas had not foreseen. Cervantes gave a gasp and bent double, with his left hand gripped between his knees. He straightened his back and smiled a twisted smile down at Guido from a white face. “Nothing,” he said, but a stray ball from a Turkish harquebus had smashed the bones of his hand. In spite of it, he engaged a janissary, and Guido found himself fighting off another who swung a crossbow at his head and then attacked with a short sword. The janissaries gave way and retreated toward the stern of their craft. Suddenly there burst from the forecastle cabins a company of Turkish soldiers who, with blood-curdling screams, ran at the backs of the Julia’s gentlemen. Guido found himself back to back with Cervantes, surrounded by flashing steel. He saw with surprise that there was blood on his own sword and wondered for a brief instant

whose it was. Then it was an urgent matter of protecting his own skin. Barnabas on the Julia’s foredeck took in the whole situation at a glance. Michael was engaged with three. Cervantes was swaying on his feet, but his sword still flashed and darted. Guido seemed to be overwhelmed. Barnabas gave a bellow of rage and drew his great claymore. In a series of bounds, he went from the Julia’s bows to the deck, from deck to bulwarks, and from there to the Turk’s. The great claymore swung around him, cleaving through pike hafts and shattering the finely tempered steel of scimitars. No human flesh and bone could stand in its way. He raised his blond head and bellowed, “St. George and MacDuff.” The Julia’s gentlemen rallied to him, and Guido came crawling, unharmed, from underneath the body of a janissary. In ten minutes, it was all over and Luigi’s prize crew on board and in charge of the captured Turk. Christian captive rowers were white for bliss and stunned for liberty. The battle of the south was over. The Marquess of Santa Cruz had recaptured the flagship of Malta. It was burdened with its captain, the fighting Prior, who had seven arrows in his body, and the corpses of three hundred Turks. Uluch Ali was speeding northwest with two dozen of his ships and bearing with him the banner of the Knights of Malta. The Julia and other vessels of what had been the reserve squadron followed in pursuit. Once more, Barnabas laid and sighted his guns, as did the other Christian galleys, and so harassed the fleeing ships of the enemy that seven of them were driven from position and, in despair, drifted ashore on the shoals of the northern waters of the Gulf of Lepanto. Uluch Ali escaped into the wide Mediterranean with only seventeen vessels left of the proud fleet that had laughed and tricked Doria of the green pennants only four hours before.

In the shoal waters, Turkish galleys lay abandoned, timbers stove in, some burning, others unanchored, pounding up and down in increasing waves built up by a chill wind strengthening from the west. The bank of clouds had climbed from the western horizon, and a thin haze had spread over the clear blue of the sky. An occasional grumble of thunder came, borne on the wind. The Julia lay close in shore, and Michael, Barnabas, Cervantes, and Guido stood in her bows, watching the few Turks who had survived the watery passage from abandoned ships to beach clamber through sand to sloping cliffs. “Master,” Barnabas said, “a few gunshots in the right place and we’d bring a lot of them soft cliffs down on the men. Finish the job off, so to speak.” “No, my friend,” Michael answered. “I’ve had my fill of killing. Today the cross has triumphed. The crescent will worry us no more. Let them go.” A party of six figures, black against the sky, appeared on the cliff top. They began to clamber down, and over them floated a white cloth. They reached the sand and plowed their way to the water’s edge. “What d’you make of that?” Barnabas said. “What are they, Guido boy?” “Janissaries . . .” Guido began. “No . . . they’re women.” “Captives,” said Michael. “Can we get closer in?” Guido asked. “Might.” Luigi set the rowers to work with a slow, steady stroke, and men in the shrouds heaved the lead and called the depths they found to their

sailing master. Fathom by fathom, the Julia crept forward until Luigi said that they could go no further. There was little more than four feet under the galley’s forefoot. “Look,” Guido said. “They are women! And they’re Christians! They’ve made a crucifix out of two pieces of wood! We must rescue them! We must!” The men remained silent, looking at the waste of shoal water between them and the beach and thinking of the hidden dangers it could conceal. “Oh, Michael, we must get them on board. We can’t leave them to the Turks,” Guido continued. Suddenly he smiled at Cervantes, who was standing with puckered brow, his bandaged hand tucked into the bosom of his doublet. Guido chuckled. “Remember the Roman eagle-bearer?” he said and ran lightly to the Julia’s side and jumped over. The water came up to his neck. The men stood watching Guido make his way to the beach. They saw him speak to the women, and the one with the crucifix put an arm around him and kissed him. Cervantes removed his hat. “A perfect, gentle knight,” he said. “He’s won his spurs.” Guido returned to the Julia leading a string of women, each holding the hand of the one before. Many willing arms stretched over the side to help them aboard. Guido stood dripping on the deck. “Michael, Barnabas, Miguel,” he said. “You remember Magdalena? And these are the ladies of Ribolla.”

Quest for Counsel As the Julia’s rowers backed water with their oars and pulled away from the shoals, the first vivid flash of lightning flickered across the clouds weighting the western horizon. Seconds passed before the rumble of thunder was heard. It sounded like the growl and jar of distant guns, and Barnabas flung up his head. Guido and Michael shuddered. Luigi studied the skies and the waters of the gulf that were now disturbed by short, vicious waves that slapped the galley’s sides. He set a course for the harbor of Petala at the northwest entrance to the inland sea. Other Christian vessels were doing the same, but many rocked where they lay with stilled oars, while their small boats rowed about the bloodstained waters, seeking floating corpses and robbing the dead. Cervantes leaned against the bulwarks, his face drawn and wan. A thin scream drew his attention, and he saw a Christian pike, wielded by a man in a small boat, send to his Moslem paradise a wounded Turk who was clinging to a floating spar. “The spirit that was the glory of the cross is going from us,” he said. “Will men never learn?” Guido, by his side, made no reply. He was more tired than he had ever been in his life, and his heart was heavy within him. There was a long silence before Guido stirred himself. “What are you going to do about that wound of yours?” he asked. “Just let it get better,” Cervantes answered.

“But your hand will be deformed.” “Yes. It will be deformed. But if I went to the barber-surgeons, what would they do? Do you know? I do! They’d cut it off. No, I’d rather keep it, and in years to come, I’ll show my scars and say, proudly, these scars I got at Lepanto. Perhaps then, I, at least, shall not forget the miracle of rough, untutored men acting together to kill the evil that came to us out of the East.” “I’ll remember today all my life,” Guido said. “I’m sure you will.” “The more easily because today is my birthday. I’m fifteen today.” “You have nearly become a man in years, and you have in experience.” Miguel de Cervantes paused while a spasm of pain from his wound shook his body. He smiled gently. “From this day, to me, you are no longer my squire, nor Ulysses, nor an eagle-bearer. You are Sir Guido de Lepanto, Knight of the accurate bow, gallant and gentle.” With his good hand, he removed his hat, made Guido a deep bow, and stumbled below. Guido stood looking after him with his mouth open, while the Julia sailed on through a sea littered with the flotsam of war and stained with the blood of brave men, toward the storm clouds gathering in the west. In the evening of October 7, 1571, Luigi anchored his vessel in the harbor of Petala. She lay there for three days while a violent tempest raged and thunder echoed continually from the hills of Greece. Torrential rainstorms lashed the galleys, and outside the harbor,

mountainous waves rolled into the Gulf of Lepanto, cleansing the seas of the stains and shame of war. The weather cleared and the Julia, in company with the remaining Venetian galleys, sailed for home. A month later, Guido, Michael, Barnabas, and Cervantes sat at Signor Callatta’s table. Julia insisted on sitting at Guido’s side, and she reluctantly released his hand to allow him to use his dagger to cut his meat. Magdalena had slipped back into her old habits as if she had never been a prisoner in the tents of the Turk. She placed the flask of wine in front of her master, and Signora Callatta rose from the table to withdraw and held out a hand for Julia. “No,” Signor Callatta said. “Stay with us tonight; my little one, too. Who knows when we shall all sit together again?” He passed the flask of wine to his left, and the men charged their glasses. “Well, Guido,” the Signor went on. “Have you thought what you would like to do? More Latin, perhaps?” Guido smiled at his father. “No, I don’t think so, sir. Except perhaps for pleasure, now and then. I have thought a lot about what to do while we were coming home. May I tell you? I’d like my friends to hear, and, of course, my mother and Julia, too.” “Go on, Guido.” “Well, sir, I should like to ride to Genazzano in a few days and stay there until the spring.” “You want to become a monk?” Guido’s father asked.

“No, Father, I think I have no vocation for that. But there are things in my mind I want to get straightened out. There are miracles — I mean the miracle of the warning Our Lady of Genazzano gave to me, and the miracle of how, overnight, a mob of brawling, unruly men became welded into an instrument to work for the Holy League. Then I don’t understand how these miracles come to be mixed up with death, cruelty, and suffering. Eight thousand Christians died at Lepanto, and perhaps three times as many Turks. I can’t help thinking of their wives and families. How do these things go with the purpose of the Holy Father? I should like to talk to the Abbot about them, and, remember, Our Lady of Genazzano is also Our Lady of Good Counsel.” “In the days of chivalry, knights suffered. I think they always knew to what purpose,” Cervantes said half to himself. “Now I see that you really have become a man,” Signor Callatta said to Guido. “What then?” Guido took up his wineglass. He held it up in the candlelight and looked at the flecks of color in its twisted stem and at the diamond flashes from the deep cuts in its decorated bowl. “I should like to come into your factory, sir, and learn to make things like this. If we can’t do much about the suffering and cruelty, at least we can give the world beauty.” “You have spoken my heart’s desire,” Signor Callatta said quietly. “And you, Don Miguel?” “I must go to Rome, so I will ride with Guido. After, to Spain. I want to write a book to show that chivalry is not dead in all men’s hearts. It will be about a knight, a foolish knight — and I shall call him Don Quixote de la Mancha. He will . . .” Cervantes’s voice faded, and he became lost in his dreams.

“I want to go to Genazzano too,” Michael said curtly. “I think like Guido. Not that I believe there are any answers. If there are, nobody knows them. But I can but try to find out. Then I must go to England, and perhaps to sea with Francis Drake . . .” Signor Callatta nodded his head so that his shadow danced on the wall tapestries. “If anybody’s going to ask me,” Barnabas said, “I reckons you’ve all been talking some sort of sense. Can’t say I understand rightly what Guido boy’s worrying about. Of course, where Master Michael goes, I goes too. I must say I’d like a bit of a chat with that Brother Stanislaus. Him and his crossbows! And I reckons Francis Drake’ll have some work for me — me and MacDuff.” Signora Callatta insisted on taking Julia away. Before she left, Julia put her cheek against Guido’s and whispered, “You won’t stay away long, will you, Guido?” “No, not for long. Then I’ll come back forever,” answered Guido. Julia kissed him and danced from the room, forgetting to curtsy to her father from the door. Signor Callatta smiled, filled his glass, and passed the flask. “We’ll drink to our future, and our happiness,” he said. It was almost Christmas when three weary travelers drew rein at the door of Genazzano monastery. They had been seen while they were still afar off, and in spite of the chill wind blowing from the snowcovered hills, the Father Abbot himself was waiting for them. Brother Stanislaus stood behind him. “Come in,” he said when they were dismounted and the horses were being led away. “There’s supper waiting for you in my room

— just for tonight.” Barnabas was pumping the hand of Stanislaus. “Your father wrote to me, Guido. You are welcome. You too, Si gnor Selwyn,” the Abbot continued. He laid his hand on the latch of the door and stood for a minute listening to the voices of Barnabas and Brother Stanislaus as they made their way to the refectory. “. . . So we laid the guns and made ’em all ready. The harquebusiers was standing by . . .” Barnabas said. “But, my friend, I say again, if you’d first used crossbows . . .” Stanislaus interrupted. “Crossbows! Pish! If we had, we’d be there now, and what’s more . . .” The voices faded. “We all have problems. Some simple and some not so simple. Come and warm yourselves,” said the Abbot. He opened the door. For a moment, the light from the dancing flames of his fire and from the candles illuminated the stone walls of the corridors. The latch softly clicked home, and the monastery was wrapped in silent peace.

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