Under The Chain

Malta, summer 1565: Pietru Azzopardi, a harbour diver chained to a Hospitaller galley oar for selling silver he salvaged from a Knights' wreck, is unchained the day the Ottoman armada lands — because the Order needs men who can swim messages through enemy water and fight knife-to-axe beneath the surface at the Senglea stake-palisade. Hold the harbour until the relief fleet comes and he walks free; desert or fail and his sister, who put her own neck up as his surety, hangs from the walls of Birgu.