The Last Crusaders: Blood Red Sea Read online

  Praise for William Napier

  ‘William Napier tells the bloody and moving story of how its young hero witnesses the collision of two worlds with real style and panache’

  Sunday Times

  ‘A tale jam-packed with epic set pieces, bloody battles, a fair bit of history and the requisite lusty interludes . . . gripping’

  Daily Mail

  ‘Rumbustious and gripping, this story places the reader at the centre of an unforgettable struggle’

  Good Book Guide

  ‘He brings the fifth century back to horrible life and convincingly sets up the major players of the time for the turmoil that will have the world rocking on its axis . . . a winner’

  Sunday Sport

  ‘William Napier’s rattling good yarn . . . tells a great story, complete with smells and sounds, and lots of gore. The battle descriptions are particularly good . . . I couldn’t put it down’

  Big Issue

  ‘Blood-soaked and rip-roaring historical trilogy’

  Scotland on Sunday

  ‘If you think you don’t like historical fiction, you haven’t read William Napier’

  The Times

  ‘Napier has a genius for making the blood-dimmed chaos of ancient history the very stuff of thrilling narrative’

  Tom Holland, author of Rubicon and Persian Fire

  To Ann and Iona

  THE LAST

  CRUSADERS

  BLOOD RED SEA

  William Napier

  Contents

  Cover

  Praise for William Napier

  Dedication

  Title Page

  Maps

  Prologue: Spring, 1571

  Part I: Comrades

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Part II: The Sacrifice

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Part III: The Red Sea

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Epilogue

  Authors Note

  About the Author

  By William Napier

  Copyright

  Since the Dark Ages it had been called the Mediterranean: the sea at the centre of the earth. The Romans had called it Mare Nostrum, Our Sea, and such arrogance was no more than the truth, for it was Rome alone that ruled her.

  Now, in the sixteenth century of the Christian era, the Papacy still called her the Roman Sea, but it was wishful thinking. There was only one great power in the Mediterranean, and it was no Christian power. In its relentless conquests it carried the rayat al-sawda, the black war-banner of Islam. It was the Empire of the Ottoman Turks . . .

  PROLOGUE

  Spring, 1571

  A hush fell upon the gilded audience chamber of the Topkapi Palace in the heart of Constantinople. Every head bowed. There came a swish of silken robes over the polished floor, and then a herald declared, ‘Bow knee and head for the Sultan of the Ottomans, Padishah of the Black Sea, the Red Sea and the White, Guardian of the Holy Cities of Islam, Lord of the Lords of this World, son of Suleiman the Lawgiver: Selim.’

  But first appeared a tall, lean man in a plain dark robe, striding swiftly, his broad forehead and keen eyes betokening the highest powers of observation and intellect. Behind him waddled a much shorter man in gorgeous golden robes and a huge silk turban, beneath which showed puffy eyes, a round nose and plump, sagging jowls. His feet slapped the marble-tiled floor with a sound like a duck on wet flagstones, then he shuffled over the priceless carpets of Tabriz like a slippered octogenarian.

  All eyes followed the commanding figure in the dark robe. His footfall made no more sound than a cat’s. He halted before the Imperial Throne. His plump follower hitched up his skirts, and made his way laboriously up the seven steps to the throne as if ascending Mount Ararat. Thus symbolising his perpetual elevation seven planes higher than the world of mortal men.

  A monkey in a tree sat higher, thought Sokollu Mehmet.

  At the top, Sultan Selim turned and sank back into the throne in an unregal slump. His doughy complexion shone with sweat and he breathed hard. You could smell the wine on his breath at five paces.

  Sheitan, ruler of the seven hells, thought the Grand Vizier, bowing before the panting sultan. Was this truly the sole surviving son of Suleiman Kanuni, The Law Giver, whom even the Christians called The Magnificent? What in the name of Azrael had gone wrong?

  He stood upright again and regarded his Sultan directly, as Ottoman court etiquette expressly forbade. Never in his life had Sokollu dared to look into the eyes of Suleiman the Law Giver. But Selim’s he held steadily, until the Sultan’s own bloodshot, bulging orbs dropped away. Sokollu nodded and stepped back, and Selim took a roll of paper from his inner robe. He unfurled it with pudgy, shaking hands, resting it on the tight little mound of his belly. Sokollu bowed his head to listen to the address along with the rest of the assembled dignitaries. The delivery was hopelessly weak and hesitant, but the meaning strong and clear, as Sokollu knew it would be. He had written every word.

  ‘It has long been Our Duty to carry the religion of the Prophet to the farthest corners of the earth,’ declared Selim in his reedy, diffident voice. ‘Beneath the benign shelter of a single world empire, an Islamic Caliphate, we are called upon by the Just, the Merciful Himself, to save all primitive peoples and idolaters from the error of their ways. To bring mercy, peace and the heavenly law of Sharia to reign from the mountains and deserts of Asia to the Straits of Gibraltar, and from the heart of Europe to the sands of Africa.’

  The court murmured polite assent to this noble plan.

  ‘Muslim merchants, eager to spread their wealth over the globe, have already carried the word of the Koran with them on their voyages to the farthest east, to the ports of Goa and Jakarta and the Spice Islands. We have even heard that there are records of Chinese voyages a hundred years ago, which discovered a vast new continent in the southern ocean, the antipodes.’

  The Lord of the Lords of this World had a sudden attack of coughing, and reached out for a cup. He always drank from a beaker of dark red glass, so that the more orthodox among his courtiers should not see that it was wine rather than water. But everyone knew. The wine-loving Sultan. Selim the Sot.

  ‘The antipodes,’ he resumed waveringly, eyes scanning the page to find his place again. ‘Er. Ah.’ He coughed once more. ‘The greatness of the world, and of our task in bringing light to its darkest corners, is a heavy burden of responsibility upon Our Shoulders.

  ‘And in addition to that, the Truth has many enemies.’

  There were angrier murmurs.

  ‘The Empire of the Persians claims to follow
true Islam, although Shia is mere mockery and heresy. The many kingdoms of Mughal India, although its Emperor Akbar claims to be a true Muslim, allow the worst idolatries of Hinduism to flourish, in the name of tolerance. And in the west, most implacably of all, are the Christians. They have conducted brutal Crusades against Islam and its holy places for centuries, they continue to lord it over lands once and forever rightfully Muslim, from Cyprus to Sicily to Spain, and at the forefront of their aggression have ever been the Crusading Order of the Knights of St John, may their name be accursed.

  ‘The Sultan will not divulge His plans further, for as you know there are spies and deceivers everywhere.’ Selim swallowed at these words, and for one painful moment Sokollu thought he was going to stare around with those bulging hare eyes of his, as if expecting to see a couple of Knights of St John, maybe, standing at the back of the hall in their red surcoats, listening to his every word. But he controlled himself and resumed.

  ‘Yet the Sultan knows that, in his Grand Vizier and closest advisers, he has the wisest counsellors any ruler could wish for. And so it is with them, his admirals and commanders, that he will discuss further plans. Know that the holy war continues. And that the shame of Malta will soon be avenged.

  ‘In the name of Allah, the Just, the Merciful, I give you good day.’

  Then Selim was helped down from his throne by a bodyguard and shuffled from the chamber.

  Sokollu followed close on his heels.

  As darkness fell that day, two of the three most powerful men in the Ottoman Empire met to discuss strategy. Selim was not among them.

  The absent third was Lala Mustafa Pasha, Commander of Land Forces, currently away planning for the coming Cyprus campaign, much to Sokollu’s satisfaction. Both men were ambitious, ruthless, immensely talented, and inevitably the bitterest enemies.

  Grand Vizier Sokollu Mehmet, supreme intelligence and manipulator behind all the doings of the Sublime Porte, was born into a Bosnian Christian family. Taken as a young child into Ottoman service, he had risen to the top by supreme ability. Though never a military commander in the field, yet he could master any discipline he set his mind to.

  With him sat Muezzinzade Ali – Ali, ‘son of the muezzin singer’, born into a humble family in the ancient Ottoman capital of Edirne. Like Sokollu, he too had risen by sheer ability alone. Turkish and Muslim from birth, Muezzinzade was devoted and loyal, with the simplicity of true greatness, and recently appointed Kapudan Pasha: Supreme Commander of the Ottoman Fleet. He was of slight, wiry build, yet powerful enough still to draw the compound bow. Many times Muezzinzade had fought in the forefront of battle – and would once more.

  Sokollu pushed a fruit bowl aside and ordered various maps of that Turkish cartographer of genius, Piri Reis, spread across the table before them.

  ‘As you know,’ said Sokollu, ‘I have long argued for a continued land assault on Christendom, through Hungary, Austria, the Danube valley. Our Janizaries are the finest infantry in the world. Even the Christians acknowledge it. But it seems fate has offered us another chance of victory in the Mediterranean.

  ‘Yet we must wait. Three dangers remain on our flanks, as we look west.’ He moved a long, lean forefinger over the maps. ‘To the east, the Persians are and always will be our enemies, until the blessed day when Allah gives us victory over them. But this victory will not come soon. The Shia rebels in the mountains of Yemen also remain in revolt against us – stirred up by Persia, I have no doubt. And to the north, the Grand Duchy of Muscovy grows ever greater in power. Her ruler, Ivan, with ludicrous presumption, even calls himself Caesar, or Czar in his barbarous tongue. There is no Caesar but Selim.

  ‘We must strangle this new Christian power at birth, or she will grow ever stronger, a constant threat to our northern border. Her potential empire is all of Scythia. We landed forces at Astrakhan, but . . . the campaign was a difficult one, and we were obliged to change course. Instead our trusted ally, the Khan of the Crimea, is even now riding north with his Tatars, carrying the finest Ottoman muskets, arquebuses and guns. He will raze this upstart city of Muscovy to the ground.

  ‘Then, having secured our borders to our satisfaction, all our strength may be turned upon the Inland Sea, and the push west. A Jihad fil-bahr: a Jihad of the Sea. We will take back Cyprus, then the Adriatic coast. Already our galleys rule that sea, and Venice does not stir. We also possess the vital port of Avlona, ruled over by our dear friend, the Black Priest, Kara Hodja.’

  Muezzinzade smiled grimly. The renegade Dominican friar, Kara Hodja: corsair, cut-throat, and now Bey of Avlona. His reputation was so terrible it caused almost as much anxiety to his Ottoman overlords as did the Christians.

  ‘We will take the squabbling city states of Italy piece by piece. Even Venice, and the Papal States.’

  ‘And Malta,’ said Muezzinzade. The very name was like a dark stone dropped into water.

  Sokollu’s expression was unreadable. ‘Yes. This time we will finish it.’

  Muezzinzade shifted in his seat. ‘Grand Vizier, I have heard it said – and I do not wish to believe it – that as we sow discord among our enemies, so they sow discord among us. The work is done especially by agents of the Knights of St John. They seek to harass and weaken us by working in Russia, they have fomented rebellion in the Yemen, they even send secret embassies to the Sultanate of Morocco, encouraging the Moors to view us as enemies.’

  ‘Rumours fly faster than facts,’ said Sokollu tersely. ‘Because they are light and insubstantial. The Christians do not have that kind of intelligence.’

  ‘And the Grand Master in Malta,’ persisted Muezzinzade, ‘Jean de la Valette, sold his Order’s lands in Cyprus just before his death. As if he knew of our coming invasion.’

  ‘Mere chance. His beloved Malta will fall soon. And Morocco is our Muslim brother and ally now. Remember that in ports such as Larache and Rabat, Sultan Abdallah possesses harbours which face not east, but west: out across the Atlantic, where a whole new world lies. From the Moroccan shore, they hear the cries of their oppressed brethren, the Moriscos, in the lost Berber kingdom of Andalus. And to sharpen the insult, they see an endless stream of Spanish treasure ships returning from the New World. The trade winds carry them from Havana to Cadiz in little more than twenty days, laden with all the silver of the inexhaustible mines of Potosi.

  ‘Which brings us to the greatest prize of all.’ Sokollu spread his fingers wide over another map. ‘Spain. And her vast new territories in the Americas.’

  Here Piri Reis had truly excelled himself, showing the coast of Europe, Africa and the Americas enclosing the mighty Atlantic Ocean. Upon the coast of Brazil there were images in pen and ink of elegant beasts and fowl, and also men with their faces in their chests. Piri Reis himself did not credit such far-fetched travellers’ tales, but they made for amusing illustrations.

  ‘With this unimaginable wealth,’ said Muezzinzade, his eyes roaming over the Americas as if he could devour them, ‘we will reign over earth and sea.’

  Sokollu said, ‘Do you not feel the force of destiny?’

  Muezzinzade nodded, slow and solemn. ‘Yet if all the kingdoms of Christendom were to stand together against us – the powers of Spain and Portugal, the superb soldiery of the German princes, French chivalry, the armies of the Papacy, the vast resources of Genoa and Venice—’

  ‘Perhaps aided by some small contribution,’ Sokollu interrupted sarcastically, ‘by that rain-lashed little island, England, ruled over by a woman . . .’

  Muezzinzade smiled.

  Sokollu waved his hand. ‘Perhaps then the Sublime Porte might have something to fear. But it will not happen. The Christian princes fight amongst each other like scorpions in a sack.

  ‘The French hate the Habsburgs. The Genoese and Venetians hate and mistrust each other. And that is only the Catholics. Germany and the Netherlands are riven by Protestant rebellion, France massacres its own Protestants, England begins to persecute its Catholics. Christendom is now in a p
ermanent state of low-level war with itself. It would take some man of genius to unite her. Yet’ – he reached out for the fruit bowl – ‘the hour is come, but not the man. Christendom is a fruit close to rottenness, and overripe for picking.’

  He pulled a grape from the stalk and crushed it between his teeth.

  Part I

  COMRADES

  1

  The sun burned white in a cloudless sky, and spangles of sunlight danced on the placid sea. Occasionally dolphins broke the surface, their oilskin flanks darkly gleaming, before curving back into the green silence below. Away to the south, on the distant horizon, the sky was a dusty ochre over the burning deserts of Africa.

  Tiny fluttering shapes of flying fish skimmed over the small waves, disturbed by a long dark shadow cutting through the water behind them. And the clean sea air suddenly soured with the stench of a Barbary slaver.

  It was a low-slung black galley with a single mast, little more than a brigantine. The wind was so light the sail was furled. Fast, light and nimble, made for lightning raids on sleepy villages and lumbering merchantmen. A hawk of the sea.

  They said you could smell the stench of a slave galley a mile away, and a downwind gust from this one would surely make any man tighten stomach and craw as he fought the urge to vomit. It was the stench of fifty men chained and rowing under the lash, the bilge water around their rotting feet a stew of salt water, urine and faeces. For slaves like these lived on the rowing bench until they died. But it was also the stench of permanent exhaustion, and despair so deep that death was all they longed for.

  The Barbary slaver was some sixty feet in length and carried a single centre-line gun at the bow. Her primary armaments were the crew of twenty or so corsairs who lounged at the stern under the sun-blanched canopy, naked to the waist, flashing teeth and eyes, hooped gold earrings and elaborate henna tattoos. And armed with every variety of knife and dagger, mace and club, scimitar and half-pike imaginable.