In Germany, a man rode on winter roads to the diet in Worms. Curiosity had peaked before the meeting with the Emperor, and possibly even more at the prospect of seeing brother Martin from Wittenberg. He had received the Emperor’s safe-conduct, and everyone knew that he was thinking about coming. But what would happen if he did was anyone’s guess.
In Rome, Pope Leo X hurled the final condemnations against the rebellious monk on the third of January. At forty-five years old, Leo was already an old man, out of shape, fat, shortsighted, in debt up to his ears, and spoiled since his childhood when he began using church income for his own needs, made happy with an abbot’s diocese at eight years old, a bishopric at eleven, and an appointment to cardinal at thirteen. He was soon well positioned in the Holy City, but tragically incapable of understanding men who treated the question of their salvation with deathly seriousness.
That same January three men skied through the snow covered Swedish border forests on the way to Mora. Two of them had fetched the third, a twenty-six year old of the Vasa dynasty. None of them thought that that name would one day have the same fame as Valois, Tudor, Habsburg, and Medici.
Beyond the borders of Christendom, yet another youngster took the lead. At the same time as Carl V was crowned in Aachen, the tenth Sultan of the Ottomans ascended to his father’s throne. He too was twenty-six and was named Suleiman. Ruler of one of the world’s most powerful kingdoms, he was also an unknown quantity. In Rome, in Paris, and Madrid, people breathed a sigh of relief. Selim, his father, had been the old threat from the east, towering over them with the dreaded crescent moon. Now everyone hoped for breathing space, to plan their festivities, engage in intrigue, and cultivate old mutual grudges.
On Rhodes
On Rhodes, the Grand Master, the old Frabrizio del Carretto, lay dying.
He breathed heavily behind the curtains in the great bed of carved Cypress wood. It was dark in the room and cold. The wood shutters in the window squeaked and creaked in the wind; one could hear the rain patter on the windy side.
On the second day of the year, the Grand Master began to have the shivers. It was now the seventh day, the fever only climbed, and he began to realize that he would never again go down the great stone stairway to the fortress garden. He had selected his successor as the rules prescribed, the Chancellor d’ Amaral. And now he lay there feverish, coughing and wheezing, while memories passed by in the border between delirium and consciousness.
Where was he now, really? Certainly, he was on San Nicolò, the night of the great year 1480, when everything hung by a thread. There he lay now, among the stone blocks, commander of the little battered fort that could not be allowed to fall. Day and night the Turks’ frightful bombards belched out their fire over the bay, out of mouths so great that one could crawl into them. They came dangerously, howling and roaring like hounds from the abyss, these stone balls so huge that a grown man could just barely get his arms around them. They crashed into the gathered piles of broken stone. Far away, on the other side, the impact felt like a punch in the chest. Everything lay in ruins, but in the middle of the ruins they gathered the splintered blocks with their chafed and broken hands making new walls. There they hid, just a handful of knights and about two hundred slaves, who would do the impossible. He would do it. He, Fabrizio del Carretto, had received the honor of leading the command in the hold that could not fall in this final trial of strength with the Grand Turk.
It was quiet in the night, for three days and three nights the stone balls had mercilessly plowed their furrows in the stacks of ruins. Now the cannons were quiet over there on the other side of the Mandraki’s black water. He knew what this meant, and he waited. It was a July night, warm and humid with a wind from the sea that made everything wet and gave no relief. He had not been out of his armor for many days. The sweat ran in small rivulets down his legs. It burned and itched under the back plate. The stones under him were hot like an oven.
The Grand Master tossed and turned under his wet sheets, one leg burning the other . . . May they come soon.
And here they come! Long black bodies against the cape, rowing with cautiously dipped oars. One, two, four, six . . . There was no point counting: the whole surface of the sea was covered with galleys. They were spread evenly, gliding each in their own place into the Mandraki and across to the pier on the other side. They came in a great pincer maneuver, like a dragon opening his black mouth. His teeth were ships.
No alarm was needed, only a whisper that went from man to man among the heaps of stone. The matches were already glowing red behind the blocks. All orders were given. No shot would be fired before La Bella Batteria, the thick German cannon sitting here next to his side, opened fire.
Now the time had come. He only needed to give Master Gerhard a glance and lift his forefinger. Then flames would spew out of the cannon’s wide mouth. Then all hell would break loose with fire out of every black hole in the blood-drenched piles of stone. The black smoke was colored red with new flashes. Salvo after salvo broke out from the French wall far behind them. The black water heaved with jetsam and flotsam. The boats lifted, rolled and sank. But they still came on, perpetual new rows of oars glittering in the cannon flash. As a powerful swell, the Janissaries rolled in over the block in the beach line, a crest that broke and sank only to come again.
And now it was hand-to-hand combat. Hacking and slashing with the heavy two-handed swords that cleaved the Turkish mail with the in sown metal plates as if they were cotton jackets. Hacking and slashing—always a hairsbreadth before their sweeping scimitars. The Frankish sword had the advantage. It had two edges. It bit back and forth. It could both slash and stab. But it was a heavy job. Hacking and slashing—and protecting the eyes. There was no protection under the helmet’s visor. They tried to strike there. And it was there that the sweat ran down from the forehead. It ran into the eyes filling them and hindering their sight.
He groaned and tried to dry his eyelid. He was conscious of the fact that he might not be there in another minute. Time had come.
“Luigi.”
“Your Eminence??”
A furrowed face looked in through the slit in the bed curtains.
“Tell the Prior that it is the time for him to come with the sacrament.”
“Yes, Your Eminence.”
Now he only had to wait. In a little bit, the great bell would ring in the campanile. All the knights would stream out from their auberges. The Prior of San Giovanni would hurry to put on his bishop’s garb. They would come in procession through the loggia into the courtyard, in front of the great stairs, and there they would stand and wait, all eight of the langues, each one led by its Pilier, the aldermen and as many knights as could be found in the city with torches in their hands while their Grand Master was prepared for death.
He began to thank God. What a life he had led . . . exciting years in the galley ships, the blue sea, sun-drenched islands, quick raids in between service in the castle with the smell of the pine forests around them, and the deep blue sea on the horizon. The great year 1480 . . . “Thanks, Lord, we held out. The Grand Turk was forced to retrieve his hundred thousand, filled with shame and disgrace. We were suddenly known and honored throughout all of Christendom. And then, Lord, you gave me these seven years as the Grand Master.”
They had been laborious and worrisome years. The Grand Turk had more than doubled his power and horrifying resources during these years. Now, he was not very far north, within sight of Rhodes, doing just as he had done over centuries. In a sweeping military expedition, he had taken all lands in the east and south, Syria, Damascus, Jerusalem, and all of Egypt. Rhodes was now in the middle of this world power, Christendom’s last and most defiant outpost.