Son of Blood (2 page)

‘Reynard, tell the Master of the Host to make camp, though I doubt he needs to be so informed. It seems we must prepare for a siege. Bohemund, when my tent is erected I require you to attend upon me so we can talk. Ademar, we will ride round the walls and when that food is ready my son and I will dine alone.’

‘What about your prisoner?’

‘Lash him to a tree, facing the sun, with no food and no water.’

‘My Lord,’ Peter of Trani protested.

That got him a hard look. ‘Think yourself lucky I do not strap you to an anthill and leave you to rot, which is what you deserve.’

The ride around Corato was made to the accompaniment of endless jeers from the battlements, the usual insults heaped upon the supposed attributes of Robert’s mother and the various creatures
she had lain with to produce him, that added to imperfections of his own being, not one of which he had not heard flung in his direction time and again from stouter walls than these. Compared to some of the fortified places he had captured – Bari, Brindisi, Palermo and just a week previously Trani – Corato amounted to no more than a nuisance, yet it was an irritant that could keep his army here for an age.

The
Guiscard
had no doubt he could take the place, but the building of siege towers took time, ladders less, but they were not likely to be as quickly successful. This revolt by a number of his own barons had cost him too much time and money already and added to that high summer was coming, which in this part of the world meant a dangerous time to be campaigning, for nothing sapped an army like debilitating heat and the diseases that went with it. They would not come out to face him and Robert knew and told Ademar he needed a quick way to get them to surrender.

‘Though I am damned if I can think of one.’

Ademar could only agree, though he did have a suggestion. ‘Peter is their suzerain – perhaps he can persuade them to open the gates.’

‘And what would he demand in return, Ademar? He would not do it without naming a price, which I would be honour-bound, once promised, to meet.’

The way Robert de Hauteville suddenly pulled up his horse surprised Ademar, who, looking at him, saw a twinkle in those bright-blue eyes, as well as the smile playing around the
Guiscard
’s lips. It was a look he had seen before, the point at which some stratagem occurred to his duke that would hasten him to the result he desired. That it was quickly and wholly formed was made obvious by the way Robert spun his mount and began to canter back to where his tent was being
erected, the shouted commands to desist called out well before he made his ground.

‘Gather the woodcutters and have them bring every animal skin that they have on their carts.’

Another known trait of the
Guiscard
was that he never explained his trickeries before they were employed, so all his fighting followers watched with deep curiosity as those woodcutters constructed, with saplings and lashings, throughout the morning and into the heat of midday, a long and wide frame, which they then covered with dried animal skins. Robert was in his element, overseeing the design, which he insisted required a strong central panel as well as grips at the rear so it could be lifted and borne forward. Completed, it lay on the ground, looking as flimsy as it undoubtedly was.

If he was happy, not many of those he led shared his joy, for it seemed obvious that their duke was constructing an object behind which he expected them to advance on the walls of Corato. It was true that animal skins, at the point where an arrow was losing its forward force, would stop the point penetrating to wound or kill those behind it, but that was a diminishing protection. Close to and just released from their bows, the arrows had such a high velocity they would punch through the hides, with those to the rear, unable to see them coming, in no position to take action with their shields to deflect them.

Duke Robert’s whole army was not happy and that was only assuaged when he called forward his familia knights to tell them they would have the honour of carrying out the assault. There were no leaders as such in this group of elite warriors, but some had the ability to voice an objection, chief amongst them Reynard of Eu.

‘As you know, My Lord, it is our duty to follow you wherever you go.’

Robert knew the meaning behind those words, which made his grinning response all the more worrying. ‘And so you shall, Reynard, for I shall lead you from the very epicentre of the line we shall form up behind our wall of skins.’

That set up a murmur of doubt amongst them all, but again it was Reynard who articulated their concern. ‘How can we protect you?’

‘You will not be required to, Reynard, for I can call upon a much better safeguard than your swords and shields.’ The
Guiscard
was in high spirits, amused, and he called to Bohemund, his tone larded with humour. ‘Perhaps my son would care to join with me?’

Bohemund doubted the wisdom of doing so and it was evident from his expression; that he had no choice, that he knew he was being challenged to risk his body, was made plain by the way he stepped forward with purpose. ‘I am at your command.’

‘As is everyone here present,’ Robert replied. ‘But your first task, Bohemund, is to go to yonder tree, untie that wretch Peter who once had Trani, and bring him to me.’

The young man was confused, which altered his countenance, not that anyone else was much wiser. As he went to carry out his father’s bidding he could hear him chuckling and, far from finding that annoying, he for some reason felt reassurance. He was not descended from a fool, not the offspring of a man given to uselessly sacrifice his person or the blood of others, but from someone famed for his guile, so it was with less concern he untied the prisoner and brought him to where his father stood.

‘Those walls yonder are your walls, Peter, are they not, granted to you by me?’ Peter nodded, unsure of what was coming. ‘And those holding them are loyal to your title, for if they were not they would scarce hold them against me?’ Another nod. ‘Then I require you, in
duty to me, to order the defenders, your men, to open the gates.’

That allowed the one-time Lord of Trani, whose face had been concerned, a hint of a relaxation. ‘You think they would obey me?’

‘Have they not sworn an oath to do just that?’

‘They have.’

‘Then, of course,’ said Robert in a jocular tone. ‘You did the same to me and yet you broke it. Perhaps you feel your knights will treat you in the same manner.’

‘They will not just yield to my entreaty, unless, My Lord, you offer them something in return.’

‘Your body in freedom?’

‘Would suffice if I would agree, but I do not.’ Peter paused, as if what he was about to say had just occurred, which it had not; the thought had come to his mind almost on the first words spoken. ‘Restored to my possessions once more, I might be able to persuade them.’

‘Oh, Peter, I think you do not do yourself justice. Reynard, Bohemund, lash this wretch to the front of the frame, right in the centre where I have made it strong enough to bear the weight of a man.’

The laughter broke out as this command was obeyed, to reach a gale of amusement by the time Peter was tied hand and foot, spreadeagled over the front of the now raised frame like the blessed St Andrew on his singular cross. He was bleating before they even moved, but that turned to screams for mercy as the whole frame was lifted to progress towards the gates. The defenders, confused at first by the apparition, fired off arrows at long range, which landed in the ground before the lashed victim, to whom it was very obvious that they would soon be hitting the screen, and naturally his unprotected body.

His pleas for mercy from Robert turned to loud entreaties, and he ordered in increasing panic that those on the walls should desist and open the gates to the Duke of Apulia. The men carrying the frame walked right up to those gates and, crouching down, laid Peter at an angle from which he could look skywards and address his followers. They had only two choices, to kill him in seeking to force his enemies to retreat, or to open the gates and throw themselves and him on the Duke’s mercy.

‘You see, Bohemund,’ Robert said, as the creaking sound announced that the gates were being opened, ‘there is always more than one way to skin a cat, so that when we dine, it will be in Peter’s great hall and in company.’

‘But we will speak in private?’

‘Later, yes,’ his father replied. ‘But for now I command you to go back and bring forward enough men to secure Corato.’

T
he need to examine the state of the defences in the company of Ademar of Monteroni was an excuse; Peter had spent his revenues wisely, the walls were in decent repair and Corato was not a really strategic and important location, more a secure castle with a small garrison to keep the local Greeks and Lombards in check and ensure no trouble when it came time to collect the taxes that filled the ducal coffers. It was also a fortress in which to store the things an army on the march might require to speed their progress on campaign. Robert wanted, before his private meeting, to ask Ademar about his son, to fill out in person those things regarding his upbringing he had received by written communication from the man in whose home Bohemund had spent his formative years.

‘I have often wondered if he hates the very mention of my name,’ he said eventually.

With the sun slowly setting, they walked the battlements. Ademar,
smaller than Robert by two hands, had to lengthen his stride to keep pace with him, and with the night being warm and humid, felt his skin leak. Yet he replied with confidence.

‘Not so, My Lord; if you were to question him about your exploits you would find he knows of your actions in detail and also that he recounts them to others with pride.’

‘Your wife has not turned him against me, then?’

That induced a temptation to smile, which Ademar took care to hide, for it was a question he was disinclined to respond to; if anyone fulminated against the way she had been rendered illegitimate by annulment it was the Lady Emma of Monteroni. She was a woman who wore every opinion on her sleeve added to a disinclination to hold them to herself. Every time she encountered her father Emma would remind him, without anything in the way of grace, of the way he had abandoned her and her younger brother. Hence she was not called into his presence very often and invitations to visit his capital of Melfi were even more rare.

Robert pushed hard with both hands, feet splayed, at a stone block to check the strength of the mortar, satisfied that it did not yield. ‘Yet I hope she allows that I found her a good husband.’

Ademar was known throughout Apulia as the ‘Good Marquis’; a sturdy warrior, a captain careful with those he led, uxorious in regard to his wife and just as faithful to his liege lord in a world where the
Guiscard
’s vassals were endemic in complaint about anything they saw as a slight to their prerogatives, not least the need to pay him the assessments rightly levied on their lands. Too many were like Peter of Trani, now locked up in his own Corato dungeon, prepared to engage in outright insurrection rather than cough up their dues in either goods or gold. Ademar was the opposite: a steady fellow, content
with that which he held and always quick to answer the call to aid his father-in-law and to put his possessions at his disposal.

The notion that Robert had found his daughter a good husband was risible; they had found each other in a genuine love match, the only curious actuality that her father had acceded to his illegitimate daughter marrying a man whose station at the time – no more than an ordinary lance – was scarce grand enough for the union. That had been rectified by the granting of his title and made more so by an extension of his present holdings around the old and at one time important Roman town of Licea, Lecce to its inhabitants, which having fallen into disrepair, Ademar was now reinvigorating as a regional centre.

‘So tell me about Bohemund and not what you have sent by letter.’

In dealing with the
Guiscard
, Ademar had realised many years before that he was not a man for idle gossip; if he posed a question, as he had now, there would be motives behind the enquiry that he would keep hidden. What was he asking and what was he after? Ademar’s first response was to be circumspect.

‘The word I would use to describe him best is “diligent”.’

‘A quality, certainly, but is it enough of one in the times in which we live?’

That rejoinder gave Ademar a clue; Duke Robert had many who would oppose him if they could, and not just fractious barons. There were enemies aplenty bordering his domains and even more troubling ones further off in Rome, Bamberg and Constantinople, as well as Saracens in Sicily and North Africa. He was probably seeking to find out what use his bastard son could be to him in such a situation; in short, was he as good a fighter as had been said, was he a leader and most importantly could he be trusted to be loyal to his sire?

‘He is much admired, even if he does not engage in debaucheries
like his fellows. Out in the field he has, like you, an almost mystical ability to discern what cannot be seen beyond a hill, and when he hunts his eye for locating game is superb.’

Ademar had lost his wager the day they went hunting, but talk of forfeited skins of wine was not appropriate; he stuck to answering the question.

‘Men, often those in advanced years to his own, come to him for his views and he is the arbiter of right and wrong with those of his own age and younger. In the training manège your son is paramount, an opponent even his seniors seek to avoid having to contest with, for he is not gentle in mock combat. At the same time he is the first to raise up and praise those he has bested and it seems there is little resentment for the heavy blows and bruises he hands out.’

‘He sets an example, then?’

‘I would say so.’

‘You say he has followed my progress?’

‘He closely questions anyone who has ever fought with you. I think you would be astounded by the depth of his knowledge of both your victories as well as your setbacks.’

The thought of the latter clouded the
Guiscard
’s brow for a moment; he hated to think of anything other than victory. ‘There must be anger too?’

‘If there is, it is well concealed. Your son is the master of his emotions, not a slave to them.’

Robert stopped walking and looked Ademar right in the eye. ‘Even when it comes to my wife, the Lady Sichelgaita?’

Ademar took refuge by being ambiguous; he knew if Bohemund loathed anyone, it was a woman he saw as his own mother’s usurper, to the point of never referring to her by anything other than an
insulting soubriquet, the ‘much-larded sow’ being his favourite.

‘I have never heard his opinion of her – it is not a name that he mentions.’

‘I am minded to relieve you of the duty of raising him and take him under my own wing.’

Ademar had the satisfaction that he had guessed right. ‘I can think of no place where your son would be happier, and as to raising him, Bohemund is now grown to manhood. Certainly there is bulk to come with added years but he needs no instruction in combat. Leadership, perhaps, but not how to fight.’

‘You never call him by his given name of Mark?’ the
Guiscard
asked, in an abrupt change of subject, as he began walking again, his shoulders hunched; the impression created was that he had been too open and revealed too much.

‘It is not one he would answer to, even with his sister. You gave him the name of the mythical giant when he was a child and he wears it with pride.’

‘He was a giant of an infant all right,’ Robert said, stopping to face Ademar with a smile of reminiscence. ‘Damn near killed Alberada bearing him. Too narrow in the hips, I think she feared to bear another like him.’

They had come full circle to a point above the kitchens and the great hall, from where they could see, now that the sun was near gone, the flickering fires that illuminated the main encampment which had been set up outside the walls, temporary home to the mass of Robert’s forces, each blaze under a spit of roasting meat, the smell of which permeated the whole atmosphere.

‘Then we shall talk, my son and I, but not yet, for my nose, as well as my grumbling belly, tells me it is time to eat.’

The great hall of the castle of Corato was neither grand nor overly spacious; this meant, given the number of knights needing to be fed in the presence of their lord, it was crammed. Added to that it was exceedingly noisy, rowdy voices echoing off the bare stone walls as men who felt sure their campaigning was over indulged in the copious supplies of the wine that had been hoarded to quench the thirst of the recently surrendered defenders. They would have consumed to excess anyway, but with no enemy to face the next dawn it was likely to end up with many rendered insensible.

At the high table, set on a dais to dominate the assembly and to his father’s left, sat Bohemund, his expression benign and uncritical of what was happening before him. He nursed his half-empty goblet and was quick to put a hand over it when a servitor came from behind ready to refill it from the heavy clay ampoule. Likewise his father was careful in his consumption, if not as abstemious as his son, aware that if he was surreptitiously watching Bohemund, then the examination was mutual.

In between responding to the shouts of his followers, the Duke was working out in his mind what to say to this paragon and he had come to a reasonably swift conclusion that to seek to employ subterfuge, to make excuses or to dissemble would not serve. The boy had no reason to trust him and that was what he required, along with blind loyalty, so he would tell him the truth and watch closely to gauge how he reacted.

Before that could happen, both were obliged to sit through the acclaim heaped upon the mighty Duke of Apulia for his warrior prowess, as his knights sang his praises in drunken orations, their words interspersed with shouted toasts from their companions, each of which had to be responded to. Bohemund observed how his father
allowed his goblet to be filled time and again and, just as obviously to one sat close to him, poured the contents on to the flagstones at his feet before rising to drain what was a near-empty vessel in a show of excessive participation. Hours passed as the hall filled with the smoke from torches and their heat added to the crush of bodies, as well as the high night-time temperature, to leave the diners, even in light clothing stained with spilt wine, drenched in sweat.

Robert maintained his place, beaming and returning shouts, as some of his followers began to pass out, while others voided their belly so they could keep drinking and eating. One or two had begun to slip away, the attraction of a waiting concubine greater than the desire to stay and partake of the feast, and still the Duke sat there in what was a deliberate attempt to break his son’s calm demeanour, to see him show even a hint of impatience. That he failed was half a cause for salutation, as much as being an irritant to a man who was known to have no fortitude in that area at all. Bohemund stood as soon as Robert did, underlining that he was waiting with some eagerness for what was to come.

The private chamber Robert had chosen was at the top of one of the corner towers, well away from prying ears, accessed by a trapdoor set in bare wooden boards, now closed, with
balistraria
on three sides and lit by tallow wads that smoked enough to hopefully keep at bay any biting insects. Peter of Trani’s bowmen had manned these arrow slots earlier in the day; now they allowed a welcome breeze to run through and over the simple cot on which the Duke would sleep, for the
Guiscard
was not a leader who craved luxury.

His first act was to abandon his blue and white surcoat, which bore his ducal coat of arms, then the sweat-stained cambric shirt, to leave him bare-chested, the first and most obvious thing his son
observed being the number of red-to-blue weals and scars added to the dents of healed wounds that covered the flesh of his trunk. Then he went to stand by one of the
balistraria
, allowing the air to cool his body.

‘You may sit on my cot if you wish. I have no need for you to stand in my presence.’

Bohemund’s response was to half park his backside on the angled stones of an embrasure, his bulk completely blocking it, yet the crossed opening too allowed a draught of air to cool his back. Turning and observing where he sat his father frowned, as though he was witnessing an act of disobedience, then his face cleared and he waved his bile away. It was plain to Bohemund he was searching for a way to begin talking and when he did so it was several leagues away from the point the young man thought they must come to.

‘When I was your age I was still in Normandy.’

‘Driving my grandfather to chew his boots I have heard.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘Your brother Roger related the tale of your upbringing to my sister. He says Tancred saw you as a sore trial.’

The
Guiscard
grinned at that. ‘Roger blathers too much, though what he says is true – my father and I never saw eye to eye.’

‘Roger has it that you were too much alike.’

‘Does that same blabbermouth tell you why I had to leave?’ Robert demanded, leaving his son to wonder at his irritation; was it Roger talking too much or memory? ‘Not that I was overly inclined to stay where I was scarce welcome and there was little chance of advancement.’

Bohemund did not reply, which made Robert curious, for the lad could hardly have failed to have heard that the leaving of Normandy
had been forced upon him, nor could he be unaware of the dearth of opportunity that had brought his uncles south beforehand. Having been thinking of a way to approach Bohemund throughout the feast, his father now saw a route to entice him into a better understanding of his own life and actions, which might bind him to his cause.

How much of that family narrative did the boy really know, and was what he had heard accurate or part of the same embellishments shouted at him as Duke of Apulia in the great hall? If he had been at war with his father, Robert de Hauteville had not enjoyed one easy relationship with his numerous brothers, at home or in Italy, yet for all of the sibling disputes he was strong on family. Despite all their arguments, when danger threatened they hung together to avoid dangling apart, and to that, more than any other characteristic, could be ascribed their success.

Robert had faith in that as the means to keep secure and expand his possessions, but he was down to a single brother now: the others who had come to Italy had all passed over, while those who had stayed behind in Normandy showed no inclination to travel. In recent times the mixture of disputes and cooperation had been with the aforementioned Roger, the youngest in the family, and he had been leant on heavily when it came to fighting Byzantium, especially in Calabria. Now fully occupied in Sicily, he would only leave the island if the circumstances were so dire it was essential to protect their joint holdings and his line of communication.