it made an impression on the captains, who stood there embarrassed and taken aback.
And naturally they did what he, d’Amaral, had anticipated. They met the Egyptians on the open sea. There was a magnificent battle. He boarded the Sultan’s flagship. He himself was the first over the gunwale. He still remembered the giant-like Mamluk that he knocked back so hard his head bounced against the deck. He remembered his duel with the young admiral, the Sultan’s own nephew. Brave boy, but what help was that?
Then they burned the timber on the beach, stowed the cargo space full of prisoners and the decks with cannons. Then they manned the boarded vessels with skeleton crews and took the disabled ships in train. They came back almost twice as strong as they sailed out.
But how many remembered that today? If they remembered any of it, it was probably the legend of l’Isle Adam’s nobleness.
The Chancellor looked out over his garden again, down where Ibrahim, the Turkish slave that had become head gardener worked. Ibrahim was a godsend. He had discovered him one summer day on the galley San Giovanni. They had been on caravan longer than expected. The rowers began to get sick from sitting in chains week after week. They had festering sores from sitting and cramps in their legs. They had become incapacitated with lumbago. Then he did something very unusual: He let them go on land in turns in a protected bay with a sandy beach and un-scalable mountains on all sides. Under the observation of expert shots circling with drawn crossbows, they were able to bathe in the warm clear salt water, wash their festering sores, stretch out in the sand, and gorge on grapes from a wild vineyard. When they came back on board, down in the hell after three hours in paradise, he happened to see a Turk who had stuck some small red flowers in his wet hair. This awakened his interest. Not everyone takes flowers with them to hell. He called to the man, who to his surprise spoke very good Greek. He was a gardener from the outskirts of Constantinople, who was taken with a cargo ship of vegetables outside of Mytiline.
So he purchased Ibrahim from the Religion because at the present he needed a gardener. And he never regretted it. He did his job quietly and peacefully, slow but orderly. And if he ever opened his mouth, it was always worthwhile to listen.
Now the campanile’s bell began to ring. The election would begin now. By evening he might possibly have given his first speech as Grand Master. How much would he dare to say? It was best to begin cautiously with the old phrases about sacred memories and an inherited obligation. But then maybe also about some of the victories that were won at the negotiation table by wise predecessors, who understood that it was best at times not to chase after the wind and not challenge fate, all for the goal that stood above all others: to not jeopardize this little kingdom built upon such great sacrifice. But now he had to go . . .
His Own Undoing
The unbearably long procedure had finally ended. The conclave was finished. The langues were called into the church. The sixteen electors sat ceremoniously in the chancel. In the middle stood the admiral, old Paolo d’Acola, short and broad shouldered, the tip of his nose almost touching the powerful split chin reminding one of a parrot. He looked at his colleagues and asked who the Grand Master elect was:
“Signori, tenete per fatto qual che habbiamo fatto?
{“My Lords, Have you legitimately considered what we did?”}
Without a care for the others’ confirmation, he looked straight out in front of him, conscious of the endless tension in the church.
“The forty-third Grand Master of this Holy Saint John of Jerusalem’s Hospitallers—and Knights’ Order has been chosen.”
He enjoyed the endless silence for a second before he continued:
“. . . brother Phillippe Villiers de l’Isle Adam, Priore di Francia.” The rest was drowned out by the roaring assent that went through the church, the spontaneous standing ovation by the French and shows of loyal support from the election’s losers also.
D’Amaral despised playing theater. He turned around and walked out, without looking to the right or the left, straight way through the crowd in the loggia and down the Grand Rue to his own house.
The faithful Blas Diez waited by the door. He immediately saw how it had gone. Without a word, he took the black cloak with the white eight pointed cross, folded it carefully, and took it to the closet under the arches. He was disappointed too. Even a valet in one of the city’s finest houses can dream about moving up as a camarilla in the castle.
The Chancellor went upstairs to his little office on the right, the only one with a fireplace. It was very quiet.
Within the hour the door clapper knocked almost eerily in the dark stair hall, where the twilight already stood thick under the arches, and the first star looked down through the roof opening.
Blas Diez knocked two times before the Chancellor answered.
“What is it?”
“A visitor, Lord.”
“Tell him I won’t be receiving anyone today.”
“Lord, it is Señor Commander Luis.”
It was quiet for a moment. Then he came out, tall and straight, but ominously pale as his seamen feared to see him, il Terribile.
The Commander went up the stairs a little hesitantly.
“What do you want, Luis?”
“Only to bow and say that I revere my prior, my admirable chief from so many caravans, my Chancellor and my friend.”
There was a warmth in his voice that coaxed d’Amaral into asking what he wanted to know most of all and yet wanted least of all to ask about.
“How did the votes fall?”
The Commander looked troubled.
“Nine to seven, if what they say is true.”
The Chancellor took a breath between the discolored lips.
“Madre de Dios, it all hung on two votes. If two fools had a glimpse of reason, Rhodes could have been saved.”
The other looked up curious.
“Yes, just saved,” the Chancellor broke out. “From going under. Today they have elected their last Grand Master. They have chosen their own destruction.”
“Señor Canciller, you can’t say that.”
“Yes, on my honor, I meant it. This will be the fall of Rhodes. It has come to be at last. And they do not deserve better. They are unthankful, dimwitted, clouded by great memories of the past, and helpless as soon as someone rubs them the right way promising that everything will be like the old days.”
The Commander crossed himself. He looked pale in the lifeless winter twilight.
“Señor Canciller, may God preserve you from such thoughts. I will only say that we are many, who are not so unthankful. May I wish my Chancellor a good night under God’s mercy? I ought to go to Compline now.”
He bowed and vanished in the dark.
Compline?
