Son of Blood (14 page)

‘Surely we would do that in concert with Constantinople?’

‘Right at this moment, they could not swat a fly, never mind a Moslem.’

‘With our help—’

Robert asked his next question gently, in a tone that he had to force upon himself. ‘Tell me who is going to pay for this great expedition, for the Pope will not, in which, I will point out to you, there can be no plunder to meet the bill. We cannot sack Jerusalem as if it was any other city.’

That made his son think, which is what the
Guiscard
intended; he knew which levers to press in that penny-pinching breast.

‘And when it comes to Sicily and letting Moslems worship in their mosques, ask Gregory how a few hundred Norman lances, which is all your uncle has, are going to rule a population in the hundreds of thousands if we force them into a form of piety they dislike?’

‘So giving succour to the pilgrims of Jerusalem is impossible?’

‘No, but it cannot be done in the way Rome proposes.’

That got an intrigued look from
Borsa
, who wondered what
it portended; he knew his sire as well as his father knew him. He was aware, if not of the whole purpose, that one of the
Guiscard
’s vassals, Count Radulf, had been sent as an envoy to Constantinople, ostensibly to enquire after
Borsa
’s sister. That was a tale in which it was hard to believe, given his father had shown scant interest in her welfare since the overthrow of the man who had promised her his son in marriage. That he was part in ignorance did not surprise the heir to Apulia; he was used to that, as was everyone who dealt with his father.

E
ver since he had received that despatch regarding the overthrow of the Emperor Michael Dukas, as well as the transfer of his daughter to a convent, the
Guiscard
had kept Byzantium in his sights as a crumbling edifice ripe for future exploitation. In the time since, other matters had kept him fully occupied: first his preparation against Capua, the siege of Benevento and then his need to put down the revolt Jordan had helped to engineer. He had, of course, made protestations about the fate of his daughter, but they were not heartfelt – as far as Robert was concerned her continued presence in Constantinople gave him every excuse to push a problem into a rupture at any time of his choosing.

Now, with peace restored throughout his domains, he could at last concentrate on what to him was a prize of immeasurable potential – nothing less than the overthrow of the Eastern Empire, which with him at the head would become the greatest centre of Norman power
in Christendom. He had fought and triumphed over Greeks, a race he despised, all his fighting life, so there was little doubt in his mind he could achieve such a great object. That it was what he hankered after had never been in any doubt, and while many might wonder at such vaulting ambition no one even thought to ask the Duke of Apulia whether such intentions were either wise or necessary.

The wellsprings of that were many and varied; no Norman warrior worth his salt saw what they held as sufficient, which explained the trouble Robert constantly had with his vassals, and he was no exception. As a race they were by nature’s design committed to expansion and that was down to their Viking blood. Byzantium was a prize to tempt a saint, never mind a sinner, rich in a way that made even the
Guiscard
’s present possessions look feeble, and they used part of that endless stream of gold as a means to carry on a proxy war against him. Right now those like Abelard, who had rebelled and fled, both Lombard and Norman, were safe on the imperial soil of Illyria, just across the Adriatic, able to cock their noses at his demand that they be sent back.

Other reasons abounded, a less than noble one his desire to send a letter to William of Normandy as King of England, with the signature and seal at the base telling the upstart that he was being addressed by an imperial de Hauteville, which would pay back in bezants the insult the father of the Bastard of Falaise had heaped on his own family. Yet in truth the time was ripe; the Eastern Empire was weak both internally and externally, troubled on its borders by the pressure of Kiev Rus, the Magyars of Hungary and the Turks of Asia Minor.

Control from the centre was weak, with the man who had usurped Michael Dukas faced by constant intrigues seeking to depose him, this allowing the various satraps who ran the provinces to behave
with a degree of independence, sometimes so barefaced as to have them acting like separate sovereign powers as they manoeuvred for an attainable imperial throne. If it was open to them, it was also exposed to the ambitions of the powers that pressed on its borders; someone might bring it crashing down – better that was himself, Robert surmised, than that he face a more potent power in its place.

The Duke of Apulia also had an unemployed army, a dangerous tool to leave idle in his own domains, as well as a fleet that he had built up to help subdue the numerous ports he had been required to blockade; that could so easily be transformed into an offensive weapon. Yet deep in his soul there was another pressing motivation and that had to do with his eldest brother, William. For all he had conquered and all he now held, Robert had still not matched in his own estimation the achievements of Iron Arm.

It was William who had founded their family prosperity, he who had created the base upon which successive de Hautevilles had constructed the holdings over which Robert now held sway, William who had defeated the Byzantines when they were a force to be reckoned with on the ancient battlefield of Cannae, so that he stood comparison with Hannibal, the previous victor on that field who had destroyed the legions of Rome. For all the songs made up in praise of his deeds, none, to Robert’s mind, matched those dedicated to the warrior actions of William and that was a situation he strongly desired to change.

As ever, anything he desired to do was beset with problems that had nothing to do with combat, the first of which surfaced when he proposed to send an advance party across the Adriatic to secure for him a base for his fleet.

‘Your rightful son should have the command,’ Sichelgaita demanded. ‘Not your long-legged bastard!’

For Robert this was tricky; how could he say to his faithful helpmeet and wife that he did not trust
Borsa
to lead the expedition? Even less could he intimate to a doting mother that the men who would go under Bohemund in his advance guard might not readily follow his heir with the same confidence?
Borsa
was not, as far as his sire could see, a leader of men; he lacked the ability to either inspire them or to instil such fear that they would obey his every command. In administration he showed ability – the appointment of officials, not least satisfying Rome with his clerical placements, added to an assiduous collection and accounting of revenues. These were his forte, so that his father had a bulging treasury – but then money had always been an attraction to the boy.

‘It is not without risk,’ he replied in a voice that lacked its usual force.

‘What fight is not, husband?’

He could not help but think, even when being castigated, that an angry Sichelgaita was a magnificent sight to behold; near eyeball to eyeball with him, her hair was still burnished blonde, her shoulders square and her protruding breasts magnificent in their size and outline and even after the bearing of eight children she was a fine-looking woman. How he wished he still had the powers in his loins to engage in the kind of ferocious carnal coupling with her that they had at one time enjoyed, but that had not survived his near-death illness at the level he had once known. He had reached a point in his life where his vital spark required to be coaxed.

If, at sixty-five years of age, he felt his sword arm was still strong, the other parts of his body were subject to the terrors of old age. There
was a stiffness in the joints when he rose from his bed of a morning and he was aware that in the manège he was no longer a figure of fear to the younger knights as he had at one time been; it was respect that permitted him to overcome them, not a superiority of arms. From now on he knew that, while he could still fight, his task was more to command than engage and not to lead by sheer example, which required that someone in whom he reposed faith should undertake that role.

In his son made a bastard he recognised those abilities he had for much of his life possessed: raw courage, a terrifying strength with any weapon he chose to employ, the cold blood and concentration needed to kill without mercy. But most important of all Bohemund had the ability to arouse in the Normans he led a passion that made them outdo even their known and famed skills. Added to that, he engaged in a way with Lombards and Greek
milities
which, his father had to admit, was superior to his own. Robert found it hard to disguise his antipathy to races he considered feeble, a disadvantage in a host in which increasingly they outnumbered his Normans.

‘You would expose our son to the risk of death for the sake of an excess of pride? What if he was lost?’

‘Then Guy would become your heir and he in turn will lead your army.’

That was a jest, but not one Robert dared laugh at; if Sichelgaita had a mote in her eye about
Borsa
, it was nothing to the regard in which she held his younger brother. Robert too was fond of him, for he was hard to dislike; Guy was a joy to be with, clever, witty, a bit of a rake, who had a legion of scrapes on his bedpost and a natural courtier manner, being well versed in the arts of diplomacy. But he was no soldier.

‘No! Bohemund will lead.’

‘And how will that be seen?’

‘Sichelgaita,’ Robert said, unusually for him almost pleading, ‘
Borsa
will have my titles, all of them, as well as what lands I possess, and if my planned expedition prospers that might be the imperial purple. But if he is the person destined to rule when I am gone, he is not the one to lead an army all the way across Romania and to capture Constantinople.’

‘And Bohemund is?’

‘Yes! As much as I am myself.’

Robert de Hauteville stood under the twin marble pillars that marked all that remained of a temple once dedicated to Neptune, as the galleys of a good proportion of his fleet manoeuvred to make their way out of the narrow neck that closed off the natural harbour of Brindisi. The temple had stood at the very end of the Appian Way since the time of Ancient Rome, a sacred place where the pagan gods had been beseeched to grant safe passage to both war galleys and trading vessels as they set out for the East from the Empire’s premier southern port.

From here great Roman generals had sailed, much the same as Bohemund was doing now, to war and possible conquest: the likes of Pompey, Caesar and Mark Antony. Was it not from Brindisi that Octavian, soon to be Caesar Augustus, had set out for the decisive Battle of Actium and was not that an omen of some kind? Given this expedition had been blessed by the Bishop of Brindisi and all of his assembled clergy it was very hard not to feel so, to wonder if he too would rise to imperial magnificence?

‘Right now, I think I need a slave to whisper in my ear that all glory is fleeting.’

‘Only now, Father? I would have said you needed that in your crib.’

From feeling proud and regal, Robert’s mood was reduced to a feeling of ongoing irritation. Bohemund’s sister, Emma, come to see her brother off on his first independent command, had always possessed the ability to get under his skin. He turned to chastise her, only to find himself staring into the still, blue eyes of her six-year-old son, Tancred, which killed in his throat the shout he had been about to utter. What was it about grandchildren that so softened a man? He had never feared to bark at his own offspring, nor employ the back of his hand if they went too far, but somehow the gap in years made such a thing impossible.

‘Give me the boy,’ he growled.

Emma’s reply was biting. ‘Only if you assure me you are not hungry.’

Robert reached out for Tancred, who was given up without resistance and then raised to perch on his grandfather’s shoulders, first kneeling, then standing.

‘There, my boy, from such a height you can see the East and the future. Out on that galley is your Uncle Bohemund, the man to help me make it for us.’

Bohemund, as ever dressed in his family colours and standing on the poop of the galley, had a feeling that to look backwards was unlucky – Lot’s wife came to mind – but he could not help but do so, for he wanted to feel that he had his father’s confidence and somehow hoped it would be able to travel the distance between them like some raw animal spirit. He saw clearly Robert lift a boy on his shoulders, knew it had to be his nephew and that induced a pang of regret; he
could not recall that ever being gifted to him, for if it had, he had been too young to recall it. Abruptly he cast his eyes to the harbour mouth, aware that such a sight actually pained him and made him jealous of a child of whom he was very fond.

There was much bellowing and oar work needed to get out safely, and when they finally emerged there was a moment of slight anxiety as the vessel hit the swell of the sea, for like all landsmen Bohemund feared to be sick; his shipboard experience to date had been the short trip across the Straits of Messina, another from Amalfi to Salerno Bay, both on very calm water. Here it was not truly rough – they would not have weighed if it had been – but there was a noticeable north-westerly breeze, which whipped up choppy waves that made the ship shudder when they struck. It made no difference that sailors often suffered from such an affliction; it was, especially to a warrior, too diminishing to be borne, too much of a blow to pride. With half his mind on his stomach, he addressed the sailing master, Lamissio of Viesti, the man who would control the whole fleet, as much to distract himself as to seek information.

‘It would be of interest to me to be told the meaning of your commands. I am eager to learn the ways of the sea.’

The immediate if silent reaction to that request was one of scorn, quickly replaced by faux eagerness, for the thought, to the sailing master, of seeking to distil a lifetime of experience into few enough words to instruct one bound to be utterly ignorant bordered on the risible. Against that, this Norman was a Goliath, while he was a Lombard and, like most of his nautical breed, obliged to sail in cramped vessels, of necessity short and stocky even by the standards of his race. This fellow could pick him up with one hand and chuck him over the side. Quick as his change of expression had been, Bohemund
had spotted it; the master was aware of the fact and he sought to head off the blast he knew was coming. Normans were bad-tempered by nature, yet Lamissio was surprised by the calm voice.

‘It will not suit either of us if I am totally in ignorance, will it?’

‘No, Eminence.’

The gentle chuckle was even more unusual from a Norman. ‘I am not yet eminent, fellow, so Bohemund will do.’

‘I was about to send up the pennant that would have the fleet set sail, sir. With the wind on our quarter it favours us.’

‘You do not require my words to make it so?’

‘No,’ Lamissio replied.

At Bohemund’s nod he raised a wide-mouthed trumpet to his lips and bellowed his command, which could be heard on the nearest vessels, those more distant relying on the chequered flag that was run up to the masthead. Bohemund left the poop for the deck so that he could closely observe the men hauling on the lines that raised the great square, blood-red sail, and was even more keen to see how they lashed it off to the side of the ship at an angle so it billowed out as it took full advantage of the breeze. The heel as it did so nearly caught him out, the canting deck forcing him to hang on to the bulwark, the only sound to add to the wind whistling through the taut ropes the noise of a fair number of his knights voiding their guts.