Sword To The Heart (Bantam Series No. 13) - Plot & Excerpts
They wended their way through the silver birch trees which were just coming into bud.A strong wind was blowing the waters into silver ripples and the clouds were heavy on the tops of the mountains.But Natalia could only listen enthralled to the story her father was telling her about the Crusaders.It was one of his favourite subjects, and because he had a Scholar’s command of words he could make her feel the excitement which fired the noblemen of England and other Christian countries when they decided they must defend the Holy City of Jerusalem from the infidels.Natalia used to imagine crowds of men assembling in the Castles of their Liege Lords.There, inspired with the desire and the will to go on the long and dangerous journey, they left behind them their wives, families and everything familiar.She could visualise the ships setting out in style filled with horses and men, flying pennants and bedecked with flags.Their Commander, King Richard the Lion-Hearted, led the British contingent on what must have seemed to many a hopeless mission.It was thinking of the courage of those that attempted such a feat which made Natalia’s eyes shine and her blood quicken as she learnt how much over the centuries they had achieved.Her father told her about the hospital in Jerusalem which had been founded more than a hundred years earlier to care for Christian pilgrims.He told her how the Knights Hospitallers had been driven out first to Rhodes and from there to Malta.He described their ceaseless fight from that small island against the Barbary pirates who infested the Mediterranean and who held at one time more than twenty-five thousand Christian prisoners in Algiers alone.He made Natalia see as clearly as if she had been there the magnificent Auberges built in Rhodes and Malta to house the Knights of each country, men not only of great courage, but of culture, intelligence and breeding.Then the Reverend Adolphus had said sadly:“Napoleon overran Malta sixteen years ago, dispersed the Knights and stole all the treasures they had accumulated over the centuries.”“Oh, Papa!
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