Tony Rothman
The course of fortune - a novel of the Great Siege of Malta
iBooks, 2015

Yes, it’s another novel inspired by the 1565 Great Siege and possibly the longest one ever at over 1,022 pages spread over three volumes.

Rothman, who has made his name as a physicist and is also a novelist, makes it clear he has done his utmost to write a novel based on facts accepted by experts. He lavishes his praise, in particular, on Giovanni Bonello who not only advised him as he researched the book, but also read the completed manuscript before publication.

The subtitle is misleading, for the account of the Great Siege is confined to the third volume. The story starts in the early 1550s and it is narrated by a young Spaniard, Francisco de Barias.

De Barias seeks adventures in the continuous fighting between countries like Spain and France and between the Knights of St John, established in Malta since 1530, and Turkey and the Barbary states.

He is accompanied by his supposed friend, but really secret enemy, Blai Verga, whose treachery pursue de Barias until his is killed during the 1565 siege. The two men meet the Knights of St John, one of whom – Fra Batlthazar de Marans – is learned, liberal-minded and a doughty warrior. For de Barias he becomes a greatly-admired role model as well as a friend who saves his neck a number of times over the years, until his heroic death in Vittoriosa during the siege.

The exploits of the legendary Toni Bajada and the role played by women and children in helping beat back Turkish attacks are given much importance

Rothman makes a great technical mistake by presenting de Barias’s narrative of his life and adventures between 1551 and 1565 as a very long tale told by him, Scheherazade-wise, to Suleiman the Magnificent, to whom he ends up enslaved. This is because he has no personal knowledge of many events he narrates and often tells the sultan words and views that he should certainly find most offensive.

De Barias’s adventures – as soldier, maker of guns in Venice and Constantinople, and as slave – have underlying links that include de Barias’s enmity; his unhappy love for Isabella Guasconi, Grand Master Valette’s ward; his on-off liaison with Flaminia, a Vittoriosa prostitute; and his obsessive determination to kill the great corsair chief, Turgut, known in Malta as Dragut.

De Barias thinks it is he who kills Turgut below Fort St Elmo during the siege when he fires a gun at him from St Angelo, but Rothman acknowledges the record seems to indicate the warrior was killed accidentally when a Turkish gun was fired.

Since the plot covers events happening between 1551 and 1565, the author has to bring in important historical events, such as the 1551 invasion of Malta and Gozo by Turgut and the often impressively successful naval exploits of the great hero Romegas, one of several historical characters who appear in the novel.

But besides, he also has to narrate how and why de Barias spends all these years in Malta and several years abroad as an exile.

Several years in Venice enable de Barias to learn the difficult technology of making guns in the city’s famous Arsenale, a knowledge he will later put to good use during the 1565 Siege.

What is odd is that when he finds himself in Constantinople, helping out with espionage on behalf of the Order of St John, he manages to make himself useful to the Turkish gun workshop. And, odder still, while there he actually manufactures one of the great guns, known as basilisks, that the Turks were to use in Malta in 1565.

Throughout the novel’s three volumes there are scenes of combat on sea and land. On the whole, Rothman rarely brings out the great excitement associated with these encounters.

But there are exceptions. A couple of Romegas’s naval exploits and the account of the disastrous loss of Djerba show skill in developing the various stages of the siege. His most gripping narration of war, its terror and its cruelty, however, is found in the long account of the Great Siege itself. The siege and fall of St Elmo held me with its emphasis on the terrifying damage to the fort and led me to understand the increasing impossibility of continuing to defend the fort after the Turks captured the ravelin, built up its walls and could fire into St Elmo itself.

The fighting becomes vivid as we see historical characters, fighting to the death, side-by-side with the fictional Gozitan Pietru, whose wife had been enslaved by Dragut in 1551 and the heroic knight Balthazar.

De Barias himself does a hazardous job in bringing fresh food and munitions from Vittoriosa but, shortly before the fall of St Elmo he shows his gunnery skill in using a tromba de fuego.

The exploits of the legendary Toni Bajada and the role played by women and children in helping beat back Turkish attacks are given much importance. But above all, the author brings out the great leadership role of the Grand Master, whose refusal to surrender at any price is shown vividly.

Vivid characterisation may not be Rothman’s strong point, but he gives much attention to the development of de Barias’s views on love, war and religion.

He is plucky, single-minded and a wizard in gun technology. His relationship with Isabella, author of elegant poems in Italian, reaches a peak during the siege when the two sleep in each others’ arms without any clear indication of a full, sexual relationship.

Isabella, unlike de Barias, is a historical character. She is not greatly faithful, but her true love is de Barias. The two never marry. However, the historical Isabella not only married an Italian, but was murdered by him.

Readers interested in the early years of the Knights of St John in Malta will enjoy the account of the unpleasant and highly conservative Grand Master Juan D’ Homedes, who had serious clashes with the French knights. Here, the characters include knights, prelates and the historical Mattew Callus, a man with Lutheran leanings who resorts to blackmail not to end up in the Inquisition’s clutches.

The novel could have done with some rigorous proof-reading and some of the English is incorrect, such as the author’s habit of following a preposition by a nominative, rather than accusative pronoun. His use of frequently untranslated foreign terminology can be irritating.