The Knights of Rhodes. Bo Giertz

      Shooter-Frans

      Brother Françoise cautiously brushed the only black cloak he owned. It was so threadbare in the stitches that he had to brush softly. He was happy today, happier than he had been in a long time.

      Really, he wasn’t ever called anything but Shooter-Frans. He didn’t think anything of it. It was a stamp of inferiority that he bore through life as if he didn’t have the strength to end it.

      He belonged to the serving brothers of The Order of Saint John of Jerusalem—or “the Religion,” as they were always called on Rhodes. He would never be a knight because he was a commoner. He almost wasn’t allowed to become a frére servant, a serving brother. His mother was Greek, his father—whom he had never seen—was a French sailor on the Religion’s ships. They married at the last minute and with great haste. Then the men of San Giovanni—the flagship—suddenly had to go out on caravan, and all furloughs were ended. Brother Françoise met with both annoyance and trouble when he tried to be taken on as a serving brother. Essentially, a man had to be of legitimate birth—if he didn’t have a count or the like for a father. Luckily, the old priest Eusevio was still alive, and with his help he was able to prove that his mother was in a Christian marriage when he was born.

      His father was always gone on caravan, and because of this his mom was among the poor, who ate in the hospital at the Religion’s expense. He had gone in and out of the hospital, the splendid sick house directly across from the great Church of Mary, ever since he was a boy. It was there that he began to help the serving brothers as an assistant, taking buckets out, sweeping the yard, and then gradually making beds and taking food to the sick.

      So he developed the desire to become a monk. He never had any luck with the girls. He had no business sense. Always browbeaten, he couldn’t speak clearly. He always stammered and blushed. It wasn’t hard for him to promise obedience.

      In the order, he was considered a Provençal, though he was born on Rhodes. However, the only language he was at home with was Greek. When he spoke French, it was a blend of Provençal and Italian, many different Italian dialects mixed with Castilian, Catalan, and Portuguese. Many spoke with the same blend of languages here, not the least the merchants. But no one laughed at them.

      Why should they always laugh at him? He couldn’t help the fact that he walked with one foot out. That he was short and stout. That he easily blushed or that he lisped and sputtered when he talked.

      He really wanted to prove that he was capable of doing something. So he tried to go from the hospital to military service. He was successful in that endeavor and it became his undoing. Had he stayed at the hospital at least he wouldn‘t be called Shooter-Frans.

      They put him in the artillery. There it didn‘t matter that he was somewhat crippled: the pieces stayed right where they were. He slowly advanced in the common progression from the ammunition basket to the load pole and then to the match. It was a great day when he let loose his first shot. He had blundered, so it jammed and the huge twenty-four pounder hopped backwards. Then they laughed at him as usual.

      Then he was commandeered to the Grand Carrack, the Religion’s pride, the Mediterranean’s biggest boat. And on the day of his misfortune, he stood a little proud, if still a little nervous, with the match at the culver furthest back on the starboard side. It was on the deck, in under the half deck. It was roofed and smelled of pitch, sweat, and dirty clothes. They had hunted a Turkish parandia, a wide freight ship, headed for Karpathos. They had gained on her, and now they were bearing down on her at full sail, hoping to board. It had been a little dot on the starboard tack. Now they were almost side-by-side. Yet the Turks didn’t want to heave to, so they were going to give the ship a broadside. Brother François stood there with his smoking match. He meant to lay it to the touchhole just a moment before the muzzle pointed right at the Turks. The sea was heaving high and the carrack dived, rose, and dived again. Then the order came, and he fired the shot. But Brother François wasn’t able to determine whether or not the moment was right. He shot after the others, and when the shot finally cracked, something inconceivable happened. A block as big as a horse’s head came sweeping across the deck with a rope trailing after it. It hit the helmet of brother Preian de Bidoulx, who was standing at the ready to lead the boarding party. The rope took three rail pieces with it, knocking over a powder fourth and two artillerymen. Then it smashed into the pots in the cook’s sandpit, spilling the afternoon’s soup before it shot out with a report like a gigantic whiplash over the forward battlements with the great sail following it like a banner fluttering in the hard wind.

      The carrack righted itself. The wind took in stern castle and, windward as she was, she laid herself across the wind so that the sails smacked and hit all corners, while the Turks laughed and thumbed their noses as they got away.

      There was an investigation. It found that Shooter-Frans had done what one had one chance in a hundred to do: he had successfully hit the main sheet, which came from the flap of the sail far out before the gunwale to its little black hole in the planking above the stern.

      After this master shot, he had been transferred back to shore again. Ever since that day he had been called Shooter-Frans, and it would stay with him for life.

      But today was his great day, a day when no one could deny him his importance.

      He would choose the Grand Master.

      The tenth of January the Old Carretto had died. On the eleventh, he was placed in the black clothed council hall, in a high black catafalque with the knights on taborurets by the four horns and an honor guard clothed in black with halberds. The burial was on the twelfth, and Shooter-Frans had his special place in the procession, understandably behind the knights and the chaplains, but before all the civil lords, even the famous fortress architects, the papal galley captains, and all the rich merchants. It still meant something to belong to the order of Saint John of Jerusalem’s Hospitallers and Knights.

      And today, the twenty second, he would choose the Grand Master.

      Ever since the burial, this choice had been discussed. It was discussed in all auberges by the whole knighthood, by Grand Crosses and commanders, by God’s chosen and common knights. Up to now, even the novices had poked their noses into everything, though they had no right to vote.

      But he had it, Brother Françoise, frére servant of the Provençal langue, and it was noticed. Every one spoke politely to him about the vote, both knights and chaplains.

      There were three parties that quickly demarked themselves. As usual the Frenchmen kept together—and there he himself ought to have been counted. They wanted the Grand Prior of France, Phillippe Villiers de I’sle Adam. He was a heavy name.