Free The Last Crusaders: The Great Siege by William Napier Page B

time, you will return.’
    ‘I mean to.’
    ‘And where do you and your man make for meanwhile? Are there uncles, cousins?’
    ‘There are,’ said Nicholas, ‘but none will want to take in the children of a traitor.’
    ‘Your father was no traitor, and such would be hard to prove before a court.’
    Nicholas shrugged. ‘I’d not burden any distant kin, nonetheless. We make for Bristol.’
    ‘Bristol?’
    Nicholas looked at him steadily. ‘To take ship for Malta.’
    Slow, uncomforting smiles spread over Smith and Stanley’s faces.
    ‘Malta?’
    ‘Malta of the Knights,’ said Nicholas.
    ‘Well.’ Smith tore off a large chunk from the hare’s thigh and chewed it slowly, savouring this childish fantasy as much as the sweet spring meat.
    ‘Malta, you say. And how exactly do you propose, you and your steadfast manservant here, to pay for your passage to Malta? Do you imagine Bristol shipmen have charitable hearts? And once at Malta – I presume you’re not going there to grow pomegranates, but to wage noble war upon the Turk – how do you propose to arm yourself? Do you have any idea of how much armour costs? A sword? Or perhaps you’re taking your catapult – the terror of all the sparrows in Shropshire?’
    Stanley coughed sharply. It wasn’t right to mock the boy overmuch. He had lost a father, his family estate, given up his sisters, taken to the road – and they themselves had some part in it. Young Ingoldsby had nothing left, but still this boyish dream. It was not so contemptible, though ludicrous.
    But Nicholas needed no defending, and his voice was steady.
    ‘We go to Malta with your aid or without. Your sneers cannot hurt me. The death of my father before my eyes, the lash of a whip, winter’s hunger, dishonour, these can hurt me. But not your sneers and mockeries. Hodge is no longer my manservant, since I have no money to pay him. But he is my companion still, and goes where I go.’
    He tugged free a shoulder of the roast hare, glistening with dark meat, and ate. The boy had self-possession, no question.
    ‘You might help us on our voyage, but you cannot hinder us.’
    Even Smith looked at the boy’s set expression with a faint, grudging respect.
    ‘Besides,’ said Nicholas swallowing, ‘here we will never be safe. This country is cursed for me.’
    ‘Never curse your country, lad,’ said John Smith. ‘You might as well curse your mother that gave you birth and suck.’
    Stanley stoked up the fire. ‘Times are evil in all Christendom. In Holland they have slaughtered Huguenots by the thousand, and in France. In England they begin to persecute Catholics. The Body of Christ is divided and cut in pieces once again.’
    ‘All the more reason to flee such troubles for Malta,’ said Nicholas.
    Smith snapped a thin bone and sucked at the marrow. ‘We might as well lead you into an abattoir, boy. Into a firestorm, the mouth of a volcano.’
    ‘Are there no women and children on Malta too?’
    ‘Aye. That stubborn and mulish peasantry will never leave their barren rock of an island, not if all the Legions of Hell were sailing on them.’
    ‘Well, if women and children are preparing themselves to face your firestorm and your terrible Turk, so can we.’
    Stanley and Smith were silent. The boy was speaking some skewed sense, damn him.
    Meanwhile the boy sounded ever more like a man.
    ‘Do not mistake me. You came to my father’s house, and I do not mean to … to turn that into a weapon against you. Yet you will agree that your coming to my father’s house was the origin of my misfortunes.’
    ‘We owe you nothing,’ growled Smith.
    ‘No. Nor do I mean to blackmail you. My father would roar me out of the house for such a thing.’ He smiled faintly. ‘I can hear him roar now. Nevertheless, the start of our troubles was your coming. So could it be that now we are meant to go with you? What else has providence got for me? Beatings and beggary. What would my father wish from