A Knight of the White Cross: A Tale of the Siege of Rhodes by G. A. Henty (free novel reading sites .txt) 📖

“I like better to go by way of the roofs, Gervaise. The streets are badly lit, and although they are busy enough in some quarters, they are so narrow that one gets jostled and pushed. On the terraces everything is quiet. You have plenty of light and music, and it is pleasant to see families sitting together and enjoying themselves; and if one is disposed for a cup of wine or of cool sherbet, they are delighted to give it, for they all are pleased when one of us joins a group. I have quite a number of acquaintances I have made in this way while you have been working away at your Turkish.”

“Very well,” Gervaise said. “If such is your fancy, Ralph, let us take one of the paths across the roofs. I might walk there twenty years by myself without making an acquaintance, and I do not pledge myself to join in these intimacies of yours. However, I shall be quite content to amuse myself by looking on at the scene in general, while you are paying your visits and drinking your sherbet.”

“There are plenty of fair girls among the Rhodians,” Ralph said, with a smile; “and though we are pledged to celibacy we are in no way bound to abstain from admiration.”

Gervaise laughed.

“Admire as much as you like, Ralph, but do not expect me to do so. I have scarcely as much as spoken to a woman since I entered the House in London, and I should have no idea what to say to a young girl.”

“But it is part of the education of a true knight to be courteous to women. It is one of the great duties of chivalry. And you must remember that we are secular knights, as well knights of the Order.”

“The work of the Order is quite sufficient for me at present, Ralph. In time I may come to like the society of women, to admire their beauty, and possibly even to wear the colour of some one, for that seems to be the fashion; though why we, who are bound to celibacy, should admire one woman more than another I cannot understand.”

They had by this time descended from the castle, and were taking their way along one of the broad paths that led over the flat roofs of the houses by means of the bridges thrown across the streets.

“These are some acquaintances of mine,” Ralph said, stopping at one of the walls, some three feet high, that bordered the path.

Beyond was an enclosure of some fifty feet square. Clumps of shrubs and flowers, surrounded by stonework some eight or ten inches high enclosing the earth in which they grew, were scattered here and there. Lamps were hung to cords stretched above it, while others were arranged among the flowers. In the centre a large carpet was spread, and on this some eight or ten persons were seated on cushions. A girl was playing a lute, and another singing to her accompaniment. She stopped abruptly when her eye fell upon the figures of the two young knights.

“There is Sir Ralph Harcourt, father!” she exclaimed in Italian, which was the language most used on the Island, and spoken with more or less fluency by all the knights, among whom it served as a general medium of communication. “Are you waiting to be invited in, Sir Knight?” she went on saucily. “I thought that by this time you would know you were welcome.”

“Your tongue runs too fast, child,” her father said, as he rose and walked across to Ralph. “You are welcome, Sir Ralph, very welcome. I pray you enter and join us.”

“I will do so with pleasure, Signor Vrados, if you will also extend your hospitality to my friend Sir Gervaise Tresham.”

“Most gladly,” the merchant said. “I pray him to enter.”

The two knights passed through the gate in the wall. All rose to their feet as they went up to the carpet, and greeted Ralph with a warmth which showed that he was a favourite. He introduced Gervaise to them.

“I wonder that I do not know your face, Sir Knight,” the merchant's wife said. “I thought I knew all the knights of the Order by sight, from seeing them either at the public ceremonies, or observing them pass in the streets.”

“For the last nine months Sir Gervaise has been an anchorite. He has been learning Turkish, and has so devoted himself to the study that even I have scarce caught sight of him, save at meals. As for walking in the streets, it is the last thing he would think of doing. I consider myself a good and conscientious young knight, but I am as nothing in that respect to my friend. I used to look upon him as my little brother, for we were at the House of the Order in London together. He is four years younger than I am, and you know four years between boys makes an immense difference. Now the tables are turned, and I quite look up to him.”

“You will believe as much as you like, Signora, of what Sir Ralph says,” Gervaise laughed. “As you have, he says, known him for some time, you must by this time have learnt that his word is not to be taken literally.”

“We learned that quite early in our acquaintance,” the girl who had first noticed them said, with an affectation of gravity. “I always tell him that I cannot believe anything he says, and I am grateful to you, Sir Knight, for having thus borne evidence to the quickness of my perception.”

By this time the servants had brought some more cushions, and on these Ralph and Gervaise seated themselves. Wine, sherbet, and cakes, were then handed round. The master of the house placed Gervaise on his right hand, as a stranger.

“You have been among our islands, Sir Gervaise? But indeed, I need not ask that, since I know that you and Sir Ralph were knighted together for your valour in that affair with the ships of Hassan Ali. We come from Lesbos. It is now eighty years since my family settled in Rhodes, and we have seen it grow from a small place to a great fortress.”

“'Tis a wonderful place,” Gervaise said. “I know nothing of the fortresses of Europe, but it seems to me that no other can well be stronger than this—that is, among places with no natural advantages.”

“The knights have always had an abundance of slaves,” the merchant said; “so many that they have not only had sufficient for their work here, but have been able to sell numbers to European potentates. Yes, Rhodes is wonderfully strong. That great fosse would seem as if it could defy the efforts of an army to cross; and yet the past has shown that even the strongest defences, held with the greatest bravery, can be carried by generals with immense armies, and careless how they sacrifice them so that they do but succeed. Look at Acre, for example.”

“I was looking at it five days ago,” Gervaise said, “and thinking that it was beyond the might of man to take.”

“Do you mean that you were at Acre?” the merchant asked, with surprise.

“Yes. I went there to hand over a captive who had been ransomed. Of course I had a safe conduct, and I was glad indeed of the opportunity of seeing so famous a fortress.”