Violent Mediterranean sunlight striped the main ward of the hospital through the high windows. Here the best and worst of the knights’ pastimes were banned. There was neither gambling nor reading aloud. But for the groans of the dying and the ramblings of the delirious, the long ward was silent. Martelli led Caravaggio into the hospital. At the head of the aisle, Wignacourt ceremoniously stripped himself of the tokens of his power with the aid of the noble knights gathered around him. He laid aside his chain of office and handed Fabrizio the purse representing the Grand Master’s charity, as he took on the role of an ordinary penitent ministering to the patients. Beside him, Roero rolled a trolley of broth and vermicelli. He filled a silver bowl and, with a grave nod, handed it to Wignacourt. The man whose titles included Guardian of the Poor of Jesus Christ carried the food to a wretch babbling under stained sheets, as every Grand Master had done since the crusading knights founded their first hospital in Jerusalem five centuries before.
