Shadow of God (57 page)

“Philippe?
Chèrie?
” It was Hélène’s sleepy voice coming from the bed. She struck a match and lit the bedside lamp as Philippe relaxed his grip on the sword. He sat at the side of the bed and placed his big hands on her cheeks. She reached up to kiss him, but he guided her to his side and hugged her instead.

“What is it, Philippe?” she asked.

“Who could ever have thought such a thing as this were possible?”

“Tell me.”

“It’s Renato…”

“Is he hurt? Dead?” she said with alarm.

“Far worse than that. A spy. He has betrayed us to the Muslims…”

Hélène gasped and held him tighter. Then he told her all of it. He knew that what Renato had said about the treatment of the Jews was true enough. But loyalty to the Order had overridden everything in Philippe’s life since he was inducted as a teenager. It was almost as if he could not allow himself to hear anything Renato had said after he had admitted his treachery. Nothing could justify betraying his brothers on Rhodes.

But the worst part, Philippe knew, was not the treachery itself, but the part that the Order of St. John had played in its genesis.

Just before dawn, Jean entered the hospital once more. He was completely drained from the events of the evening. As he walked down the aisle of the ward, Melina turned from the patient she was tending and saw the terrible look on Jean’s face. She stopped what she was doing and rushed to his side. “Jean. What is it? What’s happened?”

Jean took Melina in his arms and hugged her close. Then, without a word, he led her to their private little room at the end of the ward. He closed the door, shutting out the commotion from the hospital. The twins were asleep in their nest. Jean held Melina close and told her about Renato.

“It can’t be. Impossible!” she said, pushing Jean away.

Jean held on tightly and pulled Melina back to him. “I am so sorry. But, it’s true. I was there, Melina. I heard him confess every word.”

“But they tortured him! Of course he would confess!”

“No, no. He confessed of his own free will. All the knights heard him. Only after sentence was passed was he taken to the rack.”

“Oh dear God. What will we do without him?”

Melina buried her face into Jean’s chest. Jean stroked her hair and held her even tighter. “You and I seem to be the only ones asking that question. Everyone else is so horrified at his treachery that they’ve forgotten what Renato means to us. They only want revenge. They want to see him hanged and be damned.”

“It will go badly for the knights now. Anyway, Jean, is it true?”

“What?”

“
Are
we nearly finished? Are we about to lose this war?”

Jean thought for amoment. Then, he said, “We still have a strong fighting force. Our supplies are going faster than we had thought. But, there is still hope that some reinforcements might arrive.”

“And, if they don’t?”

“Then, the Sultan might decide to leave when winter sets in. The rain and the cold may drive him away”

“And if he doesn’t leave? What then?”

“Melina, there is always the possibility that we’ll be overrun by the Turks. They nearly broke through last week, and they might again. They outnumber us by hundreds to one. I cannot promise that we will win. But, I’ll fight to the death to defend you.”

“I know that, Jean. I never doubted
you.
But, you are only one man. What happens if the Muslims overrun the city? What will happen to the twins?”

“Melina, look at me. I’ve never lied to you. I won’t lie to you now. In the past, they’ve slaughtered the armies and made slaves of the women and children. Our girls could be taken back to Turkey and turned into Muslims. They could be slaves, or even girls of the harem. Anything is possible. Is death worse? I don’t know.
My
duty is to die if I must, defending this city. Yours is to live, so that you can protect the girls. Whatever you have to do, you must protect them from the Turks. Do you understand?”

“Yes. But, couldn’t we leave before the end? We could slip away in the night. I know this island. We could hide in the forest. Make our way to Lindos. We could be safe until this is over…”

Jean did not answer, nor did Melina expect one. She knew he would never leave his post, never desert his brothers-in-arms. She sagged against him and closed her eyes. Against her own wishes, she fell asleep in his arms. When she woke, the first light was streaming into the ward. The door to her little room was cracked open, and Jean was gone.

Apella Renato lay sprawled on the bare stone floor. The moisture had soaked through his clothes. He was shivering when the priest entered his cell. The priest knelt on the cold, wet stone and spoke gently to the prisoner.

“Would you like to confess your sins now, Doctor?”

“I have confessed before the knights, Father, and I am certain that God heard me.”

“Have you nothing you wish for me to say to God for you?”

Renato had great difficulty talking. His throat was parched, and his body continually shook with spasms of pain and fever. “Forgive me, Father, but I speak directly to God. God understands what I have done. I know you cannot. But, I regret nothing. Not one thing that I have done. I have faithfully served God’s children as a physician. All of them. Christians. Muslims. Jews. Hindus. The Godless, too. Slaves. Knights. Greeks. Turks.” His voice faltered as the dryness in his throat further impeded his speech. “All of God’s children who came to me for help, I helped…as God has taught me. I regret only that God did not see fit to give me a son, so that I could teach him to heal.” He shivered again and closed his eyes.

“But, God requires repentance from you. Think carefully on your words, for God hears everything, and there is little time left.”

Renato whispered, “Father, I thank you for your wishes. Perhaps you would kneel with me in prayer, while I speak to God silently.”

The priest shrugged his shoulders, and faced Renato. He took the doctor’s hands in his and lowered his head. With his right hand, he traced the sign of the cross on Renato and then on himself. Then the two men prayed to the same God in silence.

As the sun reached out from the edge of the frothy sea, Doctor Apella Renato was dragged from his cell into the streets of the
Collachio.
He was escorted by an armed guard of eight knights. His injuries sustained on the rack made walking impossible, so his guards supported him as they took him to the gallows. His legs wobbled and lurched with every painful yard. Though the defenders could scarcely afford the absence of even a single man on the walls that day, the Grand Master had ordered this escort to prevent the mobs in the city from killing the doctor before he was lawfully executed.

But, the Grand Master had little to fear. Word of Renato’s treachery had spread throughout the population. By dawn there was barely a person within the walls who had not heard the story.
Oddly, there seemed little emotion in the streets other than sorrow. There was hardly a citizen alive who had not known Apella Renato as a doctor or as a friend. Crowds lined the path to the place of execution, but there was no trouble. A few citizens turned their backs as the doctor walked past, but most looked with pity and puzzlement upon this man they had come to trust and to love. Had they learned to honor his surrender to the Muslims? Could life get any worse than it was now? Was one foreign ruler any worse than another?

Renato was dragged the last few yards to the gallows. By now his legs stretched straight out behind him. His head sagged, and he did not speak. The executioner took him under the arms and dragged him up the gallows steps. A hood was placed over his head and tied lightly around his neck.

In the heat of the rising sun, the hood admitted very little air, and it rapidly became difficult for him to breathe. In his darkened world, Apella Renato, Doctor of Rhodes, quietly said his last words. Neither the crowd nor the executioner could hear him. With tears slowly falling from his cheeks and disappearing into the cloth of his hood, Renato whispered, “
Shema Yisrael, Adonoi Eloheynu, Adonoi Echod
.” Hear, oh Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Then, without pause, he said in Arabic, “There is no God but God, and Mohammed is his Prophet.”

He felt the noose tighten as he was lifted from the ground. When the weight of his body was fully suspended in the air, he began to choke as the thick rope tightened fractionally. He could no longer even whisper, but in his mind he still heard the words. He could hear them in his ears, and see them written before his eyes. “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned…Hear, oh Israel, the Lord our God…There is no God but God…There is no God but God…Forgive…Forgive.”

As his world clouded, Renato’s body fell to the ground. The rope had been cut. His body struck the wooden platform, crumpling into a shapeless form, his humanity hidden by the hood.

The executioner turned the body on its back and splayed Renato’s limbs. Air slowly entered the doctor’s lungs, and his heart
circulated the refreshed blood to the brain. He began to recover consciousness, and the words formed on his lips again. “Hear, oh Israel, the Lord our God…”

Leather straps were attached to his wrists and ankles. Thongs were affixed to chains. The chains were securely lashed to the wooden traces of the four waiting horses. As the hooded man lay murmuring his prayers, whips cracked, and the horses galloped away in four directions. They were slowed down fractionally as the thongs grew suddenly tight. Renato’s body snapped into the air between the horses, and he screamed as his recently tortured limbs were suddenly torn apart by the enormous strength of the four powerful animals. He screamed again and again as the horses, whipped by their masters, struggled against the leather and chain.

And then he was silent.

The horses were backed down a few feet, and Renato’s body returned to the paving stones. The thongs were cut and the horses led away. The executioner drew his newly sharpened sword, and in less than a minute had cut the body into four quarters as prescribed by the Grand Master. Eight slaves carried the pieces to the walls, where a catapult was waiting, its long wooden arm drawn back and held in place against its powerful mechanism by a single rope.

The body parts were placed in the declivity of the throwing arm. When the slaves were clear, the executioner slashed the restraining rope with his sword, still wet with Apella Renato’s blood. The huge wooden arm swung up in an arc, and slammed against the ropewound crossbar. The remains of Apella Renato flew from the fortress where he had lived for almost a decade, to return home at last among his Turkish friends.