Warriors (12 page)

It looked uncomfortably as if that was about to happen. Even if his men were the best fighters in Christendom, to engage with the odds in numbers so massively against them hinted at folly, and it flew in the face of William’s original hopes: he had expected the catapan to do the sensible thing and withdraw,
but there was no mistaking what he was observing, a host moving forward to engage in battle.

He could also see what Michael Doukeianos was going to attempt to do: by spreading his forces out to cover a broad front he was planning to envelop the numerically inferior Normans. If they stood to fight in a central position on their high ground they would be bypassed on both flanks, anathema to cavalry; if they sought to engage one flank, the other would wheel to take them in the rear. It was a very simple manoeuvre, which suited the forces the catapan had at his disposal. Sense dictated, in the face of such a tactic, the Normans retire.

Yet William could also see that, even with an uncomplicated design, the men in command were having trouble in arranging their levies in anything approaching reasonable order. As they advanced their line must be solid: if one body of men got out of step with another they would create a gap and that would be dangerous for those who had stepped out too forcibly. Could he bring about such a thing?

It was an axiom drummed into William from his earliest days to do that which your opponent least expected, whether in single combat, a small group action, or now on a proper field of battle. He also had one priceless asset: the men he was facing, from Michael Doukeianos down, even if they had faced cavalry, had never fought men like him before. The
very least the catapan could hope for was that the Normans would wait till he came upon them to decide their course of action: engage or retire.

What he would least expect would be a Norman assault which would expose the fact that Michael Doukeianos had committed another blunder: he was bringing forward slow and inexperienced foot soldiers to fight men who had an inherent discipline, the ability to manoeuvre, as well as the speed to do so quickly without losing cohesion. Could William force him to compound such an error?

That speed was quickly evident: no sooner had William appraised his brothers of what he wanted to do than they were moving their conroys to execute the first part of his scheme. Fanning out to confront as much of the enemy host as they could they would appear to be spread too thin. Instead of a tight line there was a large gap between each rider, a perfect opportunity for foot soldiers, once the lines clashed, to surround each individual horseman and bring him down.

As soon as William was satisfied they had deployed as he wished he gave the order to sound the horn, dipped the blue and white de Hauteville banner, which was the standard of command, and set off the advance. It was done at a walk first, coming off their high ground and onto the flat valley below, then, at the sound of another blast, the Normans broke into a
trot. William de Hauteville’s banner was the only one held aloft; those of his brothers were dipped.

Faced with this unexpected action, and sensing an opportunity, Michael Doukeianos reacted immediately. He could see before him exactly what William wanted him to see: a cavalry force weakened by its deployment, a chance to annihilate these Normans, not by seeking to envelop them, but by closing up his front to present and overcome them with overwhelming superiority. His horns were sounding, messengers were riding to the individual captains telling them what their general wanted, and soon the outer contingents began to trend inwards.

William, in the centre of his line, was watching that manoeuvre carefully, looking for the least sign of confusion. All it took was one eager captain to urge on his men with too much zeal and it would happen, but where in his line would it take place? There was a chance, of course, it would not, in which case the horn would sound and his banner would wave to order his men to retreat.

The Byzantine levies were holding their discipline better than he expected, though with much beating of men with swords to keep them from rushing ahead. William suspected what men he had who had fought in a battle before had been put out front to aid their captains in setting the pace, a shrewd move, and it looked as if the Normans were about to be faced, in
extended and vulnerable order, with a wall of pikes, behind them eager men with knives ready to come through the front line to slash at horse and rider.

But they could not hold their discipline, even on a field of battle unbroken by gullies or rocks. Gaps began to appear, the greatest opening up before the men led by Drogo, and William knew that he would see it. He dropped his banner and held his breath until Drogo raised his. That was the signal, and breaking into an immediate canter the Norman line began to close, concentrating around Drogo’s
battaile
. Their opponent was no fool: Doukeianos could see what was happening and William suspected it was he who rode forward hard to try to close that gap by halting his troops.

With trained men he might have achieved it, but the actual result was greater confusion, with some men stopping completely while others came on. It was they, partially isolated, who now faced a solid line of Norman lances, and one that would lap round their sides when they met. Compounding what had already gone awry, the captain who led them saw his salvation in an aggressive charge, completely ignoring the horns his general had furiously blown ordering him to halt and retire.

Drogo’s banner was now central and the Byzantines were faced with a solid line of Norman lances. There was no escape, though many tried, making matters worse as the Normans got between them stabbing
and, when a lance was lost, slashing with their broadswords. Inevitably these untrained
milities
broke and sought to run, in doing so getting in among those to their rear who still held some kind of cohesion, setting off a general panic as each body of men saw themselves in danger from these ferocious horsemen.

Soon the field was full of running men, being pursued by a wall of horseflesh and riders that took a weapon to any flesh that came within their reach. Michael Doukeianos was fleeing too: there was no point in standing still to die a glorious death. Those captains who had not perished had surrounded him and were acting as a shield, and in doing so they had left the men they led to their own fate.

It was foolish to try to surrender, though many made the attempt. A small host facing a massively larger one cannot take prisoners, and in any case these were worthless creatures, not rich men who would command a ransom. Wise heads lay down and pretended to be dead, the imprudent pleaded for mercy and died with their plea on their lips, many of them ridden down and trampled by hooves as well as cut with swords.

Soon the field was clear of fighters, the whole Byzantine host broken and in flight, even those contingents that had not faced battle. William de Hauteville, his arms soaked with victim blood, called a halt to the pursuit when the point of any further havoc
had passed. Now he was in among braying donkeys and mules, animals abandoned by the sutlers who had brought them here, they running alongside what women had trailed the host from Barletta.

It was Mauger who found the pack animals that mattered: the beasts which had on their flanks the heavy brass-bound coffers of the catapan, full of the gold with which he had offered to bribe them.

‘Find out where we are, someone,’ William cried. ‘This victory must have a name.’

There were a couple of settlements called Moschella close enough by to provide that.

Arduin was cock-a-hoop when he heard of William’s triumph, though that was tempered by his not having been present to lead the fight in person. Ensconced once more in the great hall of the castle at Melfi, his crows of triumph echoed off the walls.

‘Never fear,’ said William, seeking to bring him back to reality – he was behaving as if the end result of his insurrection was a foregone conclusion: that his enemies would be driven out of Apulia by what had just occurred. ‘You will get your opportunity. Byzantium won’t give up after one reverse, and I will wager it will be harder to beat them next time. The catapan has learnt about the risks of fighting we Normans.’

Those dark Lombard eyes were alight as he replied. ‘They will face a proper army, William, not just you.’

There was some truth in that, for Arduin had been busy: Melfi was already surrounded by encampments full of Lombard volunteers, and more were arriving each day, from Benevento and even parts of Campania, where Prince Guaimar had placed no restrictions on his subjects travelling individually to enlist – not that he would have been attended to if he had. If William had ever doubted the strength of that Lombard dream he had good evidence of it now: they had not seen Byzantium soundly beaten in Southern Italy in decades.

Norman lances came in too, some from Normandy in ones and twos; others were mercenaries who had been in Italy for years, come to swell the ranks of his cavalry, not yet in a flood, but enough to encourage William to believe that more would follow. Non-fighting supporters had come too: farriers to shoe horses and blacksmiths to forge weapons and shape helmets, while men with the right eye for a pikestaff combed the surrounding forests for suitable timber.

There were leather workers and cloth weavers, saddlers and harness makers, cobblers to produce footwear, vivandiers and bakers, along with their women, who would cook and sustain their fighting menfolk on the march. A steady stream of supplies was being brought in by mule and on human backs and, most vital of all, Arduin had found a troop of crossbowmen, not as many as would be needed, but
enough to train up more when weapons became available.

A message of congratulations had also come from Salerno, but – and this William held to be strange – it was a verbal one delivered by a messenger employed by Kasa Ephraim. It was also noticeable that whatever Lombard volunteers had come in from Campania few of them, so far, were from that city and its immediate surroundings, where Prince Guaimar’s inclination to stand aside would be better known and, besides that, they would have been recently engaged in the taking of Amalfi…

The Jew proved as shrewd as ever: as soon as news of Masseria reached Salerno, he reasoned there might be business to transact with the victorious Normans, who needed someone to keep safe their funds, and also to facilitate any transfer of their plunder home to their relatives in Normandy. The message that was returned to him was that it would profit him to journey personally to Melfi where there was already Byzantine gold, and likely to be more to follow.

Sending money home was an arrangement he had provided for years to the likes of Rainulf Drengot. William and Drogo had used his services before. How he did it over such distances, at the constant threat of banditry, was a mystery, and one he was determined to keep to himself, but the funds to bring south their brothers, as well as the coin needed to finance
the construction of their father’s stone donjon, still waiting to be built, had been safely commuted back home by Ephraim, who made substantial fees from the transactions.

Those brothers were not present now. Apart from a garrison to man the walls of Melfi the Normans were out doing that at which they were best: raiding Byzantine territory south of Barletta, taking towns and tribute if they would submit, ravaging the countryside around those places that held out – few of those, since the catapan was too busy training his newly raised levies to interfere. With word spread throughout the province, not only of the recent victory, but the fact that the Normans were raiding at will, Lombards were trickling in from the port cities as well, which provided William and Arduin with good intelligence.

It was from that source they heard of the methods of Byzantine conscription – many had fled from the threat of that – an imposition made more harsh by necessity. No one able-bodied was spared: the whole of Apulia down to Otranto, as well as Eastern Calabria, was being scoured for men. Even if they were unwilling to serve they were being dragged in to make up a host big enough to prevail, and the training was as callous as the recruitment. Even forced to serve, they would be better drilled the next time Michael Doukeianos faced the Normans and, to stiffen them, he also had
trained reinforcements, a body of Varangians recently arrived from Constantinople.

That news was enough to give William pause: he had fought alongside the Varangians in Sicily and he knew how formidable they were. They were of the same stock as the Normans, men from the Viking heartlands who had gone east into the great wilderness rather than south to the land of the Franks and beyond, using the rivers and lakes instead of the sea to penetrate deep, finally setting up a rich and fruitful kingdom on a great river that flowed all the way to the Euxine Sea and, across that great body of water, to Constantinople.

The men sent to Apulia would be uniformly huge, of a size to match any de Hauteville, and flaxen of hair and moustache. The other quality they had was steadiness in battle: they stood their ground regardless of odds and would rather die than retreat. It was they who had killed off the flame of the last Lombard revolt, and the last thing William de Hauteville wanted to do was to face such men with inexperienced levies, however fired up they were by their visions. Time to dampen his general’s enthusiasm.

‘The men you have recruited will be a proper army when they are skilled at war, Arduin. I think our encounter with the catapan proves that men who are not tend to be a liability, and they cannot stand against Varangian axes. In truth, right now, only
we Normans have any hope of countering them.’

The frown that produced came and went in a flash: now that he had a steady stream of volunteers, now that he felt like a proper general in command of a proper army, Arduin did not like to be reminded of how much he depended on Norman support. William saw it come and go and knew the reason; he suspected if he thought he could beat Byzantium without them Arduin would seek to send them back to Aversa, but he could not, so it did not signify.

‘We also move your levies away from Melfi. The countryside around here cannot support them.’

‘It can.’

‘Not without reducing the locals to starvation.’

‘Let them starve; what we have to do matters more than a few famished Italian peasants.’

And they wonder why, William thought, they are not loved, these Lombards. The other thought was the need to give Arduin a pressing reason to fall in with the suggestion he had just made: he would not be coerced into doing the right thing.

‘The country around here is not suitable for training large bodies. Besides, more and more recruits are coming in from the land to the east. It would be best, and might increase the numbers, if we were to go towards them rather than have them come all the way to us. Let us gather in one place, Normans and Lombards.’

‘You want to stop your brothers?’

There was calculation in that too: the de Hautevilles were sending back to Melfi the contents of the coffers from the towns they were taking, and part of that was going to the man in command – Arduin’s little strongbox was filling up as much as was that of the Normans, a reminder that he was not only in this campaign for a dream.

‘I want to go to where they are operating and destroying crops and livestock. If we are going to feed our host let’s do it with produce from the fields of the Catapanate, not those we possess. Let us make our base at Canosa, not here.’

‘We do not have possession of Canosa.’

‘Faced with our entire force under its walls and no sign of help, I suspect it will capitulate.’

‘And if he attacks us there?’

‘Let him break his strength on its fortifications, let him lose men, then let him have the place.’

‘Surrender?’

‘Draw him on Arduin. If we fully exploit Canosa we will leave him nothing in the way of supplies, and nothing in the way of men either. He will then pursue us to a place of our choosing.’

‘I have been mulling over some other plans.’

‘And so you should,’ William replied, sounding emollient, even if he was unsure he was hearing the truth. ‘All I ask is you think on it.’

Pride meant Arduin would not move immediately; indeed he did not do so until the proposed leader of the Lombard revolt, Count Atenulf, arrived. The brother of Landulf, the Prince of Benevento, he was a rather dense young man of no discernible personality and he was certainly no military leader: asked for an opinion on tactics all he produced was a vacuous look and no suggestions. Arduin showed no disappointment, for he was perfect: properly patrician but utterly stupid and malleable.

‘I have decided that we must move closer to our enemies, and let them know that we intend to do battle with them. I hope you agree, Count Atenulf?’ The pause was long, the eyes opaque, if not actually confused, and it was a while before the youngster nodded. ‘Good. We will move two days from now down the Ofanto towards Barletta. We will also examine the possibility of investing Canosa.’

William got no mention for having suggested this course of action, not that he cared. The vanity of other men when it came to making the right decisions was something with which he could easily live.

The wards that William had taken on looked very different from the day he had brought them to the castle, and in the case of the boy the change was more than just the fact that he was clean and had been properly fed for enough time to put flesh on his ribs.
When his sister was not looking he had even smiled at their saviour, unlike her: she had a face like a mastiff sucking a wasp and no words of William’s interpreter, however soft and kindly they sounded before translation, seemed to dent that. Even if she showed signs of some physical charm, albeit as yet undeveloped, her steady, unremitting and hate-filled glare took away any hint of good looks.

They had names too: she was called Tirena and he answered to Listo, and William was sure they understood more of what he was saying now than they had previously, for instruction in Latin had been part of that which had been provided. Instead of being angered by her intransigence, he admired her spirit, and wondered if it was a common trait in these mountainous regions of Italy, hoping that such a thing might be the case.

The reason was straightforward enough: if his longterm aim was to acquire land and possessions here, he would need to understand the nature of the people. That they, both in the mountains and on the plains, hated Lombards, he knew – every Italian native did – just as he knew why. Wherever they had exercised power, they had done so to serve themselves. But they detested Byzantium too: it was distant and cared only for what it could extract in terms of taxes paid in produce and livestock, this gathered by rapacious collectors who bought the right of assessment, then
lined their pockets with excessive demands. His brothers, in their forays, had captured and strung up to the nearest tree a couple of these tax farmers, to the delight of the locals who had witnessed their death throes.

Perhaps the people of Apulia would submit to better rule, laws properly applied and the payment of revenues that did not drive them to starvation, and especially a lordship personal and closely present. The other thing William knew was that, to sustain himself and his house, a reliance on Norman lances, on a steady stream of men coming south, was an unsound policy. Just as now, in league with the Lombards, an army needed foot soldiers. They had to be raised here and perhaps, in time, they could be mounted and taught the same kind of discipline that made the Normans so formidable.

As well as the interpreter, the woman who had been given charge of the pair was present too, a homely creature as broad as she was high, with a face and arms to match, the former red and full, as befitted one who worked in the castle kitchens, the latter more akin to a horseman’s thigh than a female jambe. That she had stopped the girl spitting at him was to be lauded, that they were clean too, but her abilities were limited to such cares, while William was wondering how far he could take this.

‘You will need to be lettered and numerate,’ he said,
quietly pleased that the confusion those two unknown words caused, when translated, at least removed the glare for a second. ‘I will employ a monk for the purpose.’

That made the girl Tirena spit again: even folk of shepherd stock knew monks, and knew that too often they were ignorant layabouts who used their supposed piety to leech off those who toiled for sustenance.

‘You are nothing but a burden now. I would want you of some use.’ He looked at the boy. ‘And you will work with my soldiers, Listo, learning to clean and maintain harness and weapons. Perhaps, if the reports of your progress are good, you will be taught to ride.’