Shadow of God (49 page)

“What will keep us from blowing down our own walls? Doing the job for the Turks?”

Tadini smiled at his pupil. “You see these vertical shafts in the ceiling? They’re spirals that vent to the outside. They will disperse much of any blast set off down here. Theirs or ours. I have dug these ventilating shafts all over the city. When the Turks set off their blasts, the charge just goes up, following the path of least resistance, like water. Right out the shaft. It dissipates the energy. Saves the wall. Also, I use a directional charge. We blow this wall
horizontally,
into the enemy tunnel. It will kill the men on the other side and bury their tunnel at the same time. It’s a smaller charge than the one they use to blow up our walls. Doesn’t take a big charge to kill men in a tunnel— not as much as they need to bring down a wall. So it’s important that I set off my charge before they get theirs in place. Otherwise, I might set off their charge for them and destroy my own walls.”

At the thought of burying the Turkish miners, Jean found himself breathing hard again. He was feeling their pain, their suffocation. “Is this new? Did you always do it this way?”

“It’s very new,” Tadini whispered. He was alive now with the excitement of training a new student, and the energy of his real
passion. “The enemy miners used to dig tunnels under the walls and support them with heavy wooden beams. Eventually they had excavated the whole foundation of the city. Huge tunnels. Massive! Then they would set fire to the timber and get out before the fire suffocated them, or buried them alive. If all went right, the timbers would burn down and the walls would collapse. But, that gave us much more time to find them and to counter-mine them.” Jean looked puzzled. Tadini explained, “The old mines and their support structures were much more extensive. They had to be. They held up the whole weight of the walls. So, we had more time to find them and set off our counter-mines. Now we have less time, because they use the gunpowder charges to blow up the walls instead of burning the supports to make them collapse. That’s why I developed my little noise detector. It gives me the edge. A tiny margin in my favor, but crucial.”

Jean nodded, still staring at Tadini’s invention. He kept thinking of the poor souls of the other side of the wall. Could they guess what death awaited them a few yards from where he and Tadini were now sitting?

“
Eh bien
, Jean. Now we wait while my drums listen for us.” Tadini was whispering. None of his men spoke. All were staring at the bells. Waiting.

Tadini shifted his position until he was sitting against the wall, shoulder to shoulder with Jean. Without taking his eyes off the little bells, he said, “This is not your style, is it?”

“No, Gabriele. Not all. I’d much preferred to be up on the walls looking the Muslims straight in the eye. I like to face my enemy. See whom I slay.”

“Quite so. I’ve fought on the walls too, Jean, and I will again. I’ve cleaned my sword with gallons of Muslim blood. But, this job is critical. So I will dig these tunnels, and destroy the vermin before they make breaches in the walls too big to be plugged by the swords of the knights.”

“And for that we are all grateful, Gabriele.”

Tadini sat quietly nodding. He kept his eyes fixed on the tiny bells. He willed them to move; to vibrate from a minuscule tremor
in the earth. But, there was nothing but silence. The bells would not move for him.

“How are Melina and the little angels, John?” Tadini whispered, breaking the tense silence in the cave.

“As well as I can hope. Melina is strong, but she works too hard. Too long. Ekaterina and Marie are fine. They are the only ones in the city getting absolutely
fat
.” Jean laughed. “Only
they
sleep through the noise and the blasts. It’s amazing. When this is over, I’m sure nothing will awaken them. But, I’m worried about Melina. It’s nice for her to have a new friend in Hélène. They’ve become very close in just a short time. Hélène looks after the babies from time to time when Melina is busy.” He paused, thinking for a moment of the right words. “She is in awe of the doctor, Renato.
Á la folie!
She tells me he does miracles in there. He seems never to sleep or rest as long as there are patients who need his care. And, there is a never-ending supply of casualties. Apparently, he’s very well educated. Seems to know all the latest from the doctors of the East and the West. Makes no distinction, I’m told, between Christians and Muslims; Jews, Greeks, and Turks. They’re all the same to him, people who need his help. Wouldn’t do for a knight to behave that way. But, I suppose it’s appropriate for a doctor.”

Tadini listened to Jean, but did not take his eyes from the bells.

Jean looked at the Italian engineer. He realized that he knew almost nothing about Tadini, except that he seemed brave beyond reason. Apparently, Tadini had wanted to be a doctor. But, the fortunes of war had intervened and his career took another path. Nothing seemed to frighten the man. On the walls, he carried out his duties in the face of terrible danger. Always skillfully, always calmly. In the tunnels he showed no fear either. His breathing never accelerated. With a sword in his hand, he waded into the enemy with a fury and disdain that had become a legend among the other knights. His behavior after the attack on the earthworks was already a legend.

But, who is he? He never speaks of his family. Never talks of the past. Only the siege. The tunnels. The battles.

They sat in silence for a few more minutes. Jean strained to hear digging. But, there was nothing. Then, after a few minutes, a little bell began to ring. It was a tiny ring, but Jean jumped at the sound of it, banging his head on the ceiling of the tunnel. More little bells began to chime.

“Quick! Out! Out!” Tadini whispered as he lit a phosphorous match. He reached out and touched the flame to the long fuse coming from the directional charge set against the far wall. Then he pushed Jean ahead as they scrambled from the tunnel. “
Vite! Vite! Vat-en! Va-t-en!
It’s going to blow soon, Jean. You don’t want to be here.
Ni
moi, non plus!”
Me neither!

The men scrambled from the tunnel. Just as they emerged from the opening a tremendous blast rang in their ears. Tadini jumped up and down and slapped Jean on the back. “
Eh bien!
Now you are,
vraiment,
a counter-miner! Truly.”

Ismail heard the little bells. He had been backing out of the shaft to make way for the sappers who would set the charge. After crawling back about ten feet, the ringing registered in his ears. He stopped. He had no idea what the tinkling sound meant. None of the Turks had seen Tadini’s invention. Those who were close enough to hear the tolling of the little bells never survived long enough to tell anyone about it. Ismail thought it might be something wrong with his ears, too many blasts, too near. He hesitated for a moment, and then tried to turn in the tight space so he could crawl out faster. He didn’t know what it was, but something was wrong.

He scrambled along on his knees, shouting ahead of him. Within only a few yards, his way was blocked by another miner facing him in the tunnel. The men became entangled in the darkness as they struggled in the small space. Panicked shouts filled the air. What candles remained were accidentally snuffed out in the confusion.

As the tunnel became darker, the confusion increased. Miners further down the line did not know what was happening ahead of them. An oil lamp was overturned and began a small blaze. In the tight space, the little fire turned into a major catastrophe. The oil burned poorly in the oxygen-deprived atmosphere, and black
smoke replaced the dusty air. Ismail and his fellow miners began to cough and choke on the fumes. Those men on Ismail’s side of the fire began to scramble for the fortress walls, trying to escape the fire and the fumes. The miners fleeing from the interior crawled headlong into the others. A pile-up ensued, and miners were fighting each other for space. The quality of the air plummeted and a panic of suffocation overwhelmed the men. Soon the tunnel was completely clogged with a writhing mass of humans, moving nowhere at all.

The blast tore through the mineshaft. On the knights’ side of the tunnel, the explosion vented through the vertical shafts and blew harmlessly into the air. The main charge shot outward horizontally away from the walls and smashed the miners flat. Several men further down the line were caught by the full force of the blast and were killed as well. The remaining miners felt the shattering blow, and then realized to their horror that the worst had happened. As the flames seared their flesh, the roof fell in, crushing some to death beneath its immense weight. The remainder were buried alive, burned and slowly suffocating in the black grave that they, themselves, had dug.

Ismail felt the blast. Heat seared his face and sucked the breath from his chest. He tried to wipe the dirt from his eyes, but the earth poured down around him, binding his arms to his sides. The wet, thick soil wrapped his body and squeezed the air from his lungs. He opened his mouth to cry out, but the dirt rushed in before he could utter a sound. Involuntarily, he inhaled deeply to answer the call screaming for more air, but he only sucked the heavy, wet earth into his lungs.

Then Ismail saw the hot bright sun over his farm in the hills of Bosnia; he smelled the freshly cut hay and waited for his sister to bring him a cool drink of water.

Jean shook the dirt from his cape and wiped his hand across his face to clear the sweat. He left a streak of mud from his left cheek to his right. Tadini laughed and grabbed the hem of Jean’s cape. “Here,
amico,
let me help you.” He wiped the dirt from Jean’s face and
grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him. “Good work, eh? Now take a few minutes to see your wife and the babies. Then come back and we’ll blow up some more Turks.”

Jean nodded and smiled. “I think I’ll do just that, Gabriele. But, I may stay at the hospital and help
Il Dottore
. I think he needs my help more than you.” The two knights shook hands and turned in opposite directions. Jean began his walk from the walls of Provence through the Jewish Quarter to the Hospital within the
Collachio
. Tadini stayed to survey the negligible damage to his walls. Satisfied, he turned to see where else he might be needed.

Jean reached the hospital in a few minutes. The streets were emptier than they had been when he entered the tunnels with Gabriele, some hours before. He mounted the wide staircase and went directly to the ward. There were crowds of people waiting to be seen by the doctor and his assistants. Knights and citizens lined the corridors, crowding into every space. There were some groans and crying. But most of the people silently, resignedly, waited their turn. Nobody protested when Jean pushed his way to the front and walked into the ward. He saw Renato immersed in treating the wounded. A knight was on the table and the doctor was wrapping a dressing around the young man’s head. Blood covered the floor, and several knights were moving back and forth in the wards bringing more supplies to the doctor.

Jean’s chest tightened. He saw one of the knights from his own
Langue de France
lying on the table. It was a man he had known since he, himself, had joined the Order. Now, the knight lay there, his leg covered in bloody rags. Jean watched with a sad heart as another knight heated a cauldron of oil over the coal brazier. It could only mean that the doctor was preparing to take yet another limb from one of the brave knights. This time it would be from a close friend of Jean’s.

Just as Jean was about to ask for Melina, Renato looked up from his work and saw him standing in the ward. He motioned toward Melina’s room, then tilted his head sideways and closed his eyes. “
Elle se dors, Jean,”
She’s sleeping.

Jean made his way through the bodies and the debris and gently pushed open the wooden door. He felt a great lump in his throat
as he saw the peaceful scene. Melina was fast asleep in a makeshift bed on the floor, her back propped on a pillow against the stone wall. Ekaterina and Marie were in her arms, their faces flushed from the warmth of the small room. The three angels of his life were safe. He sat on the floor, and quietly removed his armor. He placed his broadsword against the wall and removed his gauntlets. Jean covered Melina with the woolen blanket. He rolled up his cape and made a pillow for his head. Then, he leaned back and quickly fell asleep.