Mercenaries (21 page)

William suspected Conrad was just prevaricating; he would know very well that the primary objective was Capua. Everything that followed from the capture
of that and the Wolf would have to be dealt with as and when it needed to be. An added problem he must consider was the very fact that the defenders of the fortress would be Normans, and by reputation they were a race that did not give in lightly; much easier to let them march out and away.

‘Rainulf undertakes to do what you say?’

‘He does.’

Conrad had already decided what he was going to say, but his dignity demanded he appear to think on it for a while. ‘Then return to him and say this. I will be under the walls of Capua in four days. It would be advantageous to our imperial purpose if he was to join me then.’

The journey back was one long whine from Drogo, who chose to harp on about Pandulf’s gold, as though it had actually been offered, enough, he insisted, for their father to build a castle to rival the Duke of Normandy, never mind a stone tower. In reality he was just piqued at being kept in the dark; William had nurtured the plan he had espoused in the company of Rainulf, and Drogo had difficulty in accepting the need he had had to keep it to himself.

Their route took them to the lower reaches of the Volturno, where it ran through a huge flat plain before debouching into the sea. There it was possible to ford the river as long as it was not in spate.

From the outside, the fortress of Capua presented a formidable obstacle. Three sides of the castle bordered the Volturno, which acted like a superior moat, for here the river course narrowed, and fed as it was by the glaciers of the high Apennines, it flowed strong and fast for most of the year and was never low enough to make it easy to navigate. Crossing it by boat was not just hazardous, it was nearly impossible: with the river running in most places along the actual walls there was no ground on which to gather to mount an assault, which allowed the defenders to gather in strength at those few spots where any form of siege tactics could be employed long before the attackers could land there.

Sapping to undermine the walls was pointless: the river would soon flood any work of digging and, besides, it would be too close to the fortifications for safety; tunnellers liked to begin their sapping far away from danger, and be underground when close. Conrad had with him artisans and builders who were adept at constructing ballistae, mangonels and the like, but there was only one wall on which they could be usefully employed: the wide space that had once been, in Roman times, a sort of Campus Martius, and that was quite naturally the point at which the defence was strongest, the walls at their thickest, although they included a double gate. But that was sunk behind twin barbicans full of narrow embrasures,
through which crossbowmen could rain bolts down on any attackers.

Pandulf had been in panic, but that had eased as he saw the work on the walls produce results, and as he listened to his Norman captains explain to him – for he was not gifted with a military mind – how formidable a place he occupied. The whole city and surrounding countryside had been stripped bare of anything that could be used to feed the garrison; the storerooms were full to bursting and the supply of water, that most vital element, could never be cut off.

If Capua had one fault, it was that forays by the defenders were as constrained by the natural defences as were those of the attacking force, therefore there was little use in keeping inside the walls all the horses the Normans usually required for battle, which in turn aided the defence, for the amount of forage required to feed them was much reduced, allowing for the storage of a greater amount of food.

The men he trusted assured him they could hold out, assured him that Rainulf Drengot, whom they knew well and under whom most had served, was a master of the kind of hit, run or ambush tactics that would make the task of feeding the imperial army near impossible. Half Conrad’s men would never be available for the assault: they would have to guard against raids, escort supply wagons and man a perimeter outside Capua to ensure Rainulf did not
make an assault on the town itself.

The gates were shut to Conrad Augustus and the citizenry of Capua well before the first imperial horsemen appeared on the concourse before the great gates. Conrad himself was not far behind, only holding back his entry till his advance guard had made sure no traps had been set and that the inhabitants of the ancient city would welcome him with gratitude. That they did, cheering him through the narrow streets to the echo, priests blessing him while those Pandulf had milked of their wealth prayed alongside that the Wolf would be cast into perdition.

There was the ritual to go through: a message must be sent to Pandulf, ordering him to surrender his castle to his suzerain, one which got a mocking reply.

‘I demand to parley with the emperor,’ Pandulf shouted from through one of the crenels atop the walls, joined, on either side, by most of the garrison, to show the enemy the numbers they faced. ‘Under safe conduct.’

‘And the emperor demands that you surrender your person to his mercy.’

‘That I will not do.’

‘Then by the laws of combat you must suffer pillage and death. May God be with you.’

As this was taking place, the imperial host was marching into position, thousands of lances and
milites led by those mighty nobles, who fanned out to surround the fortress in a seeming flood of martial strength. Next, on the concourse, a mass was said, with a cardinal to take the Host for Conrad, and priests spread throughout the army to do the same for the soldiers. Pandulf and his Normans watched this in silence, each man having already confessed and been blessed by another set of priests within the walls.

Conrad could be seen, very obvious in his bright-yellow surcoat, and by his side stood Guaimar, while Berengara was also visible sitting on a dais outside a hastily erected pavilion; that Pandulf expected. What shocked him, when the imperial trumpets blew a fanfare, was to see Rainulf Drengot, with William de Hauteville by his side, riding slowly out from a narrow roadway that led to the esplanade, then to dismount and kneel before Conrad. If it affected him, and it did, the corollary for his Normans was even worse, setting up a cry of dismay.

The ceremony that followed Pandulf did not witness: he was too busy overseeing the loading of a boat in the water gate that led on to the river, with his wife, his children, his coffers and some hastily gathered clothing, urging his personal servants to hurry, alternately weeping and cursing at the perfidy of Rainulf Drengot and his own foolishness in not beheading Guaimar when he was still a boy.

That young man was kneeling before Conrad
Augustus, swearing fealty for the imperial possessions of Salerno and Capua, his heart nearly bursting with emotion, for he was now styled Prince Guaimar. Rainulf Drengot, in turn, swore fealty both to Salerno and the Holy Roman Emperor, as Conrad invested him with the proud gonfalon, hung from its crosspiece above his head as he took his oath, which was now his to display as the Imperial Count of Aversa.

When Rainulf rose, he made a point of embracing William, bringing him forward to kiss his gonfalon, which was, to those who knew the way of the world, an acknowledgement of his trust and his senior captain’s future. He then led William to Guaimar, and bade him kneel to his immediate suzerain, and finally the heir of Tancred was presented to the Emperor Conrad Augustus in the same manner, which was as good as saying the words, ‘This man will be my heir.’

William, full of pride and thoughts of a brilliant future, then mounted and rode to a point between the twin barbicans, to tell the Norman garrison that they were free to march out with their arms, their equipment and any dependants they might have, on condition that they took service with the newly enfeoffed Count of Aversa, and agreed either to leave Italy by returning to Normandy, or to join Rainulf and Byzantium in their attack on the Saracens of Sicily. Again a ritual had to be observed, as it had to appear as a proposal to be discussed instead of merely accepted.

But when you offer a man the choice of life as against certain death, it is no choice at all. Within the hour, the gates opened and Pandulf’s Norman mercenaries, no longer wearing the blue and yellow surcoats of his colours, emerged, to march between two silent lines of imperial troops. There was noise: the jeering of the celebrating citizens of Capua.

At their heels came William de Hauteville, to cry out to Conrad, ‘Your Imperial Highness, the fortress of Capua is yours.’

On the river, with his servants rowing furiously, Pandulf, the Wolf of the Abruzzi, was wondering where he could go to escape the wrath of those now occupying his castle.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The Bay of Salerno was full of ships, the fleet that would transport the Norman mercenaries to Sicily, the galleys not only of Byzantium, but the ports of the east coast of Italy all the way up to Venice. It was some indication of the way affairs were conducted in Constantinople that the admiral of this armada was an ex-ship’s caulker called Stephen Calaphates, a fellow of outstanding nautical ignorance who had achieved his present eminence because he had married the Emperor Michael’s sister when her brother had been nothing but an obscure soldier, yet to catch the eye and fill the bed of the elderly Empress Zöe.

Guaimar exercised his right as suzerain over the number of Normans to be despatched: he was prepared to send foot soldiers he would recruit from the local populace, but was not prepared to trust the Italians
left behind to protect him or his title. He insisted that the Count of Aversa stay in Campania with enough lances to ensure, should Pandulf reappear or rebellion break out, he had sufficient Normans to subdue any threat.

Thus, the command naturally devolved to William and, in truth, Rainulf was glad; his bones were getting too stiff for what his men were about to face, a campaign that could last years. There was another reason, too: having set aside Pandulf’s niece as his wife – she had been sent to a nunnery – he had taken a new young mistress, and was busy, with hefty bribes, trying to get the Pope to annul his late union so that he could remarry.

Just as William and Drogo de Hauteville had once learnt to bear arms, then had been shown how to fight in everything from a skirmish to a real battle, now they were about to observe the difference between that and a campaign. The mere act of getting three hundred Norman lances, by sea, to where they would fight, was a monumental task, given they had to transport their horses – none would trust to be supplied in Sicily – mounts which had to be got on board ship and once on board, fed, watered and cared for.

Some went up the gently sloping gangplank without trouble, not distressed by its gentle swaying; most reared and bucked at that, as well as unfamiliar sights and smells, setting their forelegs and refusing
to budge. Hooding, so they could not see, was the most common way to overcome their fears, but with many they were obliged to turn to mendicant monks and their concoctions of herbs.

A mix put in the animals’ feed sedated the most troublesome and once on board each was placed in a narrow stall, fitted with sturdy straps so they did not suffer when losing their footing with the motion of the vessel. Kept occupied with quantities of hay, they fared better than the men who rode them, most of whom were green at the gills before the ships made deep water, which led to many a jest about their Viking heritage from the two de Hautevilles, too used to boats and an Atlantic swell to be affected.

With a fair wind and well-worked oars they made the Straits of Messina within two days and were gifted a sight of the ancient city they were about to help besiege, one that gave the channel its name. The straits might look like nothing, just over a league in width at their narrowest point, but it was a formidable piece of water with strong tidal flows, the legendary stretch of sea where the Greek hero Odysseus had faced the twin perils of Scylla and Charybdis. As they sailed down the coast, William, speculating on an opposed landing, was struck by the lack of beaches that were not overseen by high hills on a shore dotted with stone watchtowers. Sicily, for all its proximity to
the mainland, would be no easy nut to crack without local help.

That the Byzantines had and the bulk of their army was already ashore, having landed in the territory of a Saracen emir who saw advantage in cooperation with his one-time enemies. Getting their mounts off their ships was no less hazardous than loading them, worse in many ways without a quay, which meant the ramp to the shore was much steeper, in need of constant sanding to provide a sound footing. Once they had got their horses onto land, William led his knights through a ravine between high surrounding hills, to a valley where the army was assembled. It was there William and Drogo met the man who would lead them.

It was rare for William de Hauteville to have to look up to anyone but, in the person of George Maniakes, he was in the presence of a real giant, a man near half as tall again as he. He had the frame of the biblical Goliath and a manner to match, being brusque in the extreme, with unfriendly eyes under a flat, wide brow and below that a nose which seemed to spread over half his face. Fresh from success in Syria, where he had achieved great victories in command of the eastern imperial armies, something he was keen these Normans should know from his own lips, he was cocksure of his ability. Neither de Hauteville brother was bothered by this display of conceit; they would judge him in battle, not in his pavilion.

Yet it was worrying that he clearly despised his admiral, quite happy to call him an idiot in the presence of strangers. Stephen had the task of sealing off Messina to seaward and it was clear Maniakes did not trust him to do so with any zeal, while the composition of the army did not inspire much faith either, being mainly made up of Bulgars and levies from the cities of Apulia, mostly Italians but including Lombards, both races who bitterly resented their service.

The cream of the force, the anvil on which Maniakes was sure he could crush the enemy, lay in the Emperor’s five-hundred-strong Varangian Guard, the men of Kiev Rus. Huge and blond, with fearsome moustaches, they were fair of skin like their Norse cousins and bore huge axes as their fighting weapon. They were led by Harald Hardrada, a brother to the King of Norway, who could still claim to be a Viking and looked like one, a legendary fighter whose fame had spread far and wide throughout Christendom.

Hardrada had taken service with the guard on his way back from Jerusalem, and rose by sheer ability to the command. It was they who would lead the army to besiege Messina, the first objective, because it would provide, given its harbour and the proximity to the mainland, a secure base for supplies and reinforcements; Maniakes could safely advance from there on to the major emirates of Syracuse and Palermo.

‘I would wager it is the Varangians and us who will do the work,’ said Drogo, as he watched them pass, heading for Messina, their axes across their shoulders.

‘I’m glad they are on our side,’ William replied, and he meant it; these were the very same axemen who had defeated the last great Lombard revolt, including Rainulf and his brother, at Cannae.

As the last axeman passed, William fell in behind them, followed by the companies he now commanded.

It looked as if it would take a year to subdue Messina – it was a city of great strength which had been given much time to prepare – a siege of starvation more than relentless attack or enemy sortie. The sea was blocked to them, so few supplies could get through to the city, and that was a situation in which mounted Norman warriors, doing no more than foraging, were wasted, though it took William several months to persuade George Maniakes of this. He was a difficult man to like: a good general maybe, but a man of sudden temper, so convinced of his own superiority that he saw helpful suggestion as disagreement.

‘Let me take my men and ravage the countryside.’

‘To what purpose?’

William replied with an exasperated growl. ‘We are of little use here if you are not going to try to breach
the walls. Every day we hear rumours of forces being gathered to oppose us.’

‘Rumours,’ Maniakes trumpeted, looking down at William. ‘As if these Saracens can ever agree to combine, they’re worse than Lombards.’

William would have agreed they were little different when it came to tribal loyalty, but that did not obviate the possibility. ‘Left alone they will.’

‘You are paid, are you not?’ Maniakes growled. ‘Be content with that.’

‘My men are fighters and they want more than just pay. If you keep them here they will grow feeble, and when you do need them, when we move from here and perhaps meet an army in the field, you will require them at their best.’

‘I command here, de Hauteville.’

It annoyed William, the way Maniakes used his name; it annoyed Drogo even more, which was why he had been left out of this meeting. Big as Maniakes was, Drogo would still try to fell him. Yet he was right, he was the general in command, able to manage the endless trouble he had with his Apulian, Calbrian and Bulgar levies and keep his army tight as a fighting unit. William did not want to add to his difficulties, to seem insubordinate. He knew, even if he had never personally experienced it, that an army could quickly fall apart if the leadership was not stable.

‘No one disputes that, George Maniakes, but I
command my men. You have your Varangians, who are great fighters, and your Apulian and Bulgar sheep to hold the lines. The garrison shows no sign of emerging to take issue, but if they do, let the axemen deal with them.’

‘I will consider it.’

That having been said with reluctance, William knew he had to press. ‘What are the Messina garrison praying for?’

‘Divine intervention,’ Maniakes hooted. ‘They hope their prophet will send a ball of fire to destroy us.’

‘No. They hope to see you drawn off by the combined force of the other Saracen emirs, Abdullah in particular, and if you just sit here that might happen. Let us Normans guarantee your back, George Maniakes, and take away hope from the city we are besieging. It is the only thing sustaining them.’

‘I cannot do without good cavalry. Just because they have not emerged to fight does not mean it will never happen. You lack experience, de Hauteville, while I do not. In my Syrian campaigns…’

Maniakes was off, listing his victories again, as well as his genius for tactics and strategy, a litany that William knew would brook no interruption. It was like the high spring tides feeding the salt pans back home on the Contentin coast: you just had to wait for them to recede, but it did give the listener the lever he needed. If this giant was so full of himself, it would be
better to feed his vanity than counter it.

‘Then let us lead them out a company at a time, a hundred lances, and you, George Maniakes, who know so much more about fighting than I, will tell us where you want us to go.’

No great genius was required to fix the locations that needed to be subdued, the first being Rometta, sat on a high hill surrounded by mountains, the nearest fortress and littoral large enough to sustain a gathering army. Yet William knew he needed more than a hundred lances to attack such an obstacle, so instead he went for the next important target, the beach below Bàusu, a place where reinforcements could land from anywhere in Sicily or North Africa, and a location close enough to Messina to pose a threat from sudden raids.

Part of what he learnt on that journey was the suitability of the terrain for small-scale operations of the kind he was engaged in. The country was high hills and deep fertile valleys with few plains of any size to support a large mobile force, but it was well watered, so that and pasture were plentiful, which meant mounted men could move with speed and safety without having to carry too much in the way of fodder or food, the greatest constraint on cavalry mobility.

The local population, being Sicilian, had a jaundiced view of armed strangers; in their time they had seen too many invaders to care as long as they were left
to till their fields and tend their vines, groves and orchards. Where he might have expected loyalty to a local overlord there was none; the Saracens had cleansed the land of the previous Greek/Byzantine nobility and, as long as they paid what was due in tribute, the new suzerains left the peasants in peace. The advantage of peasant indifference was that he could move without his opponents being forewarned, with the obvious connected fact that they, too, could do the same. The Sicilian peasant would no more warn him of approaching danger than a Saracen!

If the terrain, plus his determination to stay off the skyline, made the route to Bàusu torturous, imposing frequent halts along the way, it also meant that when they got close there was no risk of their mounts being blown by being pushed too far. William, without surcoat or mail, having set sentinels on the surrounding hills, went ahead on foot with a small bodyguard to reconnoitre the town.

He was careful to avoid being sighted and identified from the watchtower which covered the long open bay, getting close enough to see that the beach was full of small vessels and that from the west, a steady stream of supplies – grain, fruit and the like – was being brought in both by larger boats and, over the narrow roadway in the hills, by donkeys. Yet there was no sign of serious forces to oppose him: his enemies had either grown complacent or were encamped elsewhere.

‘Some of that has to be for Messina.’

‘The siege?’

William barely glanced at the man who had posed that question; no siege was watertight. Laziness, stupidity, indifference and ineptitude meant they leaked, but the greatest source of secret supply would be bribes. Some the ship’s captains Stephen Calaphates had under his command would, for not very much money, turn a blind eye at night to local boats smuggling supplies into Messina. Such trickles of what would be seen as luxuries to a population on short commons helped to keep up the spirits of those who controlled the city. To deny them such, when hope was the weapon which sustained them, was worth a dozen battailes.