Warriors (16 page)

That frame of mind was ruptured by Mauger rushing in, his voice breathless. ‘Count Atenulf has sold Boioannes back to Byzantium.’

‘What?’

‘And he has kept the gold to himself.’

‘He is truly a Lombard,’ said Kasa Ephraim.

‘But that is not the most surprising thing, brother. Wait till you see who is the messenger.’

The figure that filled the doorway made William wonder if he was looking into a piece of polished silver
with magical qualities, for it was like looking at a younger version of himself. His hair had some grey now; that of his brother was still pure gold.

‘Do you not know me, William? I was once your squire and watched you fight the brother of the King of the Franks.’

‘Robert?’

The nod was slow, then the deep-blue eyes turned to look at, first Kasa Ephraim, then at Listo and finally at Tirena, who was wide-eyed at this apparition, so like the man who now held her as ward. The voice was as deep and the air of being in command of all around him prevalent too, a self-confidence that was devoid of the taint of arrogance.

‘I have come to make my way, William.’

Unbeknown to Robert, William’s thinking was still taken with the chicanery of Atenulf. Also, selling Boioannes was an act that could not have been carried out without the connivance of his elder brother. Thus he was frowning, and Robert, who had seen that expression too often on the face of his father, reacted to it.

‘Do I warrant a proper welcome,’ he growled, ‘or am I to be treated like an intruder by a man too grand to acknowledge his own flesh and blood?’

William was not accustomed to being addressed so and the frown turned to a glare, the voice taking on an equally angry tone. ‘You say you have come to
make your way. Well, when I have seen you fight I might consent to let you stay, but, mark this, you will sit well behind the rest of your brothers and they will prosper before you do, for they have done service.’

‘I should have stopped in Troia, as I was asked to do.’

‘If you wish to return there, do so with my blessing.’

‘William…’ Mauger protested.

Robert did not let that intercession interfere with his anger at a greeting so at variance with his expectations. He had travelled too many leagues to get here and sacrificed too much. ‘What makes you think I require your blessing?’

‘You will starve without it.’

‘I think,’ said Kasa Ephraim, ‘that I had best depart.’

‘If you wish, friend,’ William replied, with a glare that now included Mauger. ‘And you can take these two with you, for I have people whose interest I care about to attend to.’

Turning away from the doorway, William nearly burst out laughing. Tirena was favouring his half-brother Robert with the kind of fierce glare she once reserved for him.

‘Murder?’ said Mauger, shaking his head in disbelief.

‘He was drunk and so was the man he killed. The duke was about to take us into service, but that went
by the board as soon as Serlo stuck in the knife.’

‘What about Father?’ demanded Geoffrey.

‘I assume he came home, but I was gone by then.’

‘You left him at Moulineaux?’

‘I did what he commanded me to do,’ growled Robert. ‘I saw Serlo onto a boat in the bay at Granville and came south. I wonder now if it was wise.’

‘You caught William at a bad time,’ Drogo insisted. ‘Perhaps an apology…’

‘If he wishes to give me one I will take it!’

Drogo shook his head: that was not what he meant but there seemed little point in saying so, though he did think this younger sibling of his had an arrogant manner.

‘Do we know if Serlo got to England?’ asked Mauger.

‘How would I? His fate is in the hands of God, and if he has drowned, what of it? He would certainly have seen the end of a rope if he had been taken.’

‘He’s your brother.’

‘He’s my half-brother, just like William, so before you chastise me for a lack of concern, take him to task, or are you all too afraid?’

If there had been any sympathy for Robert de Hauteville then, it evaporated. If he had not been blood, there might have been murder in Melfi.

In a world where news travelled slowly, normally at the pace of a walking man or a sailing merchant vessel, the death of the Eastern Emperor, Michael IV, spread like wildfire, because it directly affected the life of everyone in half of Christendom, as well as having a bearing on relations with the rest. Given the unrest in Apulia, it acted to create as much confusion as it did to engender raised hopes. Michael IV had, from humble beginnings, proved to be a successful ruler, in that he had held together an empire many of his neighbours, all of them ravenous for a share of the spoils, saw as ripe to fall apart. He had also managed to survive in the cauldron of imperial politics to die a peaceful death.

Once a handsome courtier and junior officer,
brother to a hugely powerful court official, Michael had become the lover of the fifty-year-old Empress Zoë, and had succeeded to the purple on the death of her first, ageing husband. That was an end replete with all the attendant accusations of assassination: first, it was rumoured, he had been left debilitated by frequent doses of a slow poison and, when that failed to send him to his grave, with a drowning in his bath.

Michael, it transpired, had not only kept Zoë content, but several other concubines as well, though increasingly epilepsy, the affliction from which he suffered, had seriously impeded his abilities as both a lover and an emperor. It was a measure of the authority of self-interested courtiers, not least a brother who acted as the power behind the throne, that a man so distressed by increasing illness could reign for so long.

The succession was always a fraught affair, so to those observing and calculating their own position, the tangled skein of Byzantine politics would now become even more unpredictable as those who hoped to inherit the power of the deceased fought for influence. The news that the heir to Imperial Purple was another Michael, related by marriage to the deceased emperor’s father, Stephen – a one-time ship’s caulker risen to the rank of admiral – arrived hard on the heels of the first, and a steady stream of rumour mixed with
fact followed as the drama of imperial succession was played out.

Zoë must have approved of the new Michael, yet he demonstrated scant gratitude for her support. Once installed as emperor, she had been banished from the city to a nearby island in the Sea of Marmara, her head shaved and her wealth purloined, but being much loved by the citizens of Constantinople, as well as heir to the ruling Macedonian house, that had caused riots in the Byzantine capital.

Michael V, appearing for the games at the Hippodrome, had been pelted with stones and shot at with arrows by the mob, causing him to send hurriedly for Zoë to appease their wrath, but, even if he showed her to the crowd to prove she was free, he had acted too late. In yet another twist, Zoë’s hated sister, Theadora, who had been shut away years before, was dragged out and acclaimed as joint-empress. Michael, called the Caulker because of the profession of his father, who had taken refuge in a monastery, was hauled into a public square and had his eyes put out.

Zoë was left to co-rule with her sister, but that did not last: she would rather have shared power with a horse. Within months, and now in her sixties, Zoë had taken a third husband, while Theadora was sent back to the nunnery. The new emperor, to whom Zoë was happy to surrender her power as well as her charms, was a one-time courtier, now styled Constantine IX,
leaving everyone who passed on the story of these events to wonder at how such an entity as the Eastern Roman Empire could last.

That last tranche of news, the name and identity of the new emperor, came to Apulia with a nasty sting in the tail, for Constantine, as was usual, had reversed many of the acts of his predecessors, which meant that the favourites of both Michaels had been sent to the dungeons, while many of those they had imprisoned were freed and reinstated to their previous rank. One such was the general called George Maniakes, and he was on his way to Apulia to restore the power of Byzantium. Having escorted Kasa Ephraim back to Montecchio, prior to his onward journey to Salerno, William and Drogo were once more face to face with Prince Guaimar.

‘Height,’ William replied, when asked to describe the man he had served under in Sicily, his palm going above his head by three hands. ‘Arduin will confirm that.’

‘Did he not nearly strangle the old emperor’s brother?’ asked Guaimar, as Arduin nodded.

‘It took three of us to stop him,’ said Drogo, ‘and even then I’m not sure we did by force.’

As an admiral, Stephen, the caulker, had been useless, only in place because of his connection to the ruling house, and George Maniakes had made no secret
of the fact that he despised him. An arrogant man of incredible strength, as well as size, that strangulation had been a one-handed attempt at murder, which would have succeeded had he not been stopped; but to lay hands on a man with such powerful connections had not been wise and had led, once news got back to Constantinople, to his downfall. It was a fitting irony that this happened just after he had achieved his greatest campaign successes, the defeat of the main Saracen enemy followed by the capture of the most important city in Sicily, the great port of Syracuse.

Due to that same arrogance, as well as the increasing conceit which came with victory, he had fallen out with William, denying the Normans, as well as a body of Varangians led by Harald Hardrada, the right to plunder a city they had helped to capture, and one which had refused terms when besieged. All knew the laws of war and the citizens of Syracuse were no exception: a walled city offered terms of surrender, that then forced an army to invest and subdue it, forfeited the right to mercy.

Maniakes had claimed Syracuse, once the Byzantine capital of Sicily, as a recaptured city, not one taken from the Saracens, nor was he prepared to compensate Normans or Varangians from the Syracuse treasury for their loss – anathema to men who fought for both pay and the spoils of war. Furious, both William and Hardrada had withdrawn their men from the campaign
and left the island, the Normans returning to Aversa, while Harald Hardrada travelled back to Norway, where his brother was king, his now leaderless troops returning to Constantinople.

‘His Achilles heel is that temper,’ added Arduin: he had also suffered from the egotism of Maniakes, treated like a servant rather than a captain, glad to see him replaced, only to find himself so underwhelmed by the capabilities of his useless replacement that he too had come home.

‘He thinks himself the greatest general since Alexander,’ added William.

‘Yet his reputation…?’ hinted Guaimar.

‘He is a good general,’ William replied, ‘and I don’t doubt he will be a formidable opponent.’

Guaimar glanced at Rainulf Drengot, as if looking for inspiration, but none came from that source, and it was obvious to those watching him closely, the two senior de Hautevilles and Arduin of Fassano, that the prince was on the horns of a dilemma. Here was the very situation that had made him originally cautious in his aid for the revolt. He had come to the very borders of his domains, to this ruined castle of Montecchio, in the belief that matters were proceeding to a point of settlement; but Byzantium was not prepared to give up on Apulia so easily.

‘What about the forces he has?’

It was Arduin who replied. ‘Maniakes will have
no more men to choose from than either of those who preceded him, but he is a more ruthless recruiter and, I would suggest, he will use them more wisely.’

‘But will he prevail?’ Guaimar demanded, in a voice that showed the exasperation he felt at not being provided with concrete help to make a decision.

‘Nothing is certain in war, Prince Guaimar,’ said William, with a gravity he certainly did not feel. Indeed, without showing it he was amused by the way Guaimar was wriggling, like a worm on a fish hook.

‘I cannot see that we can now achieve anything here,’ Guaimar concluded.

Again he glanced at Rainulf, again in vain: the old Norman warrior was either not willing to help him with a way to extricate himself, or he did not see the problem. As soon as news of the Maniakes appointment had reached Montecchio, those representatives of the Adriatic ports had hurried back to their homes, knowing full well that they would be the primary targets of the new catapan the minute he landed. They had departed with nothing decided regarding the future.

‘I think it best that we return to Salerno.’

Those words finally stirred Rainulf Drengot from his torpor. ‘You mean run away!’

As a choice of words it was not only too obvious, too undiplomatic, it was very embarrassing, and even if he had become practised at dissimulation, Guaimar’s cheeks flushed and his response was brutal.

‘I do not mean run away,’ he barked. ‘But nothing can be done regarding the future until the threat of Maniakes has been dealt with, and since neither you or I are likely to engage him in combat we would best serve being out of the path of those who must.’

It was now Rainulf Drengot’s turn to flush, but his cheeks reddened with anger at being so publicly rebuked. ‘Then I ask to be allowed to fight.’

‘In what capacity, Count Rainulf, and who will look after matters in Aversa?’ The use of his title, something Guaimar rarely employed, was as shrewd as the mention of his fief, a sharp reminder of the Norman’s vassalage as well as his dependence on the prince for other matters. ‘This was a question I thought settled.’

‘You are, at present, in no danger,’ said William mischievously. ‘I doubt the new catapan knows of your presence on the border.’

The reply was given with all the creativity required of an imperial prince, and in a voice once more under control. Any irritation was in the eyes alone: Guaimar knew he was being bearded.

‘I do not fear danger, William, but I fear that matters might go to rack in Salerno if I am away too long, and that may be even more true of Amalfi.’

Unbeknown to both Guaimar and Rainulf, that was exactly what was happening in Campania, not in
newly conquered Amalfi: a full-blown uprising of the peasantry in the lands around Montecassino – not on those worked by the monks, but those forcibly granted to Rainulf’s lances as demesnes. Uncontrolled by their nominal leader, the Normans had grown more and more greedy, not only bearing down on their own people, but increasingly raiding their neighbours, stealing harvested crops and the produce of the vineyards, creating a dangerous head of fury.

Worse, they were inclined to treat their womenfolk as chattels to be used as and when they wished, and that was doubly the case when they went pillaging. Even if he knew little of what went on around Montecassino, it was an attitude William had observed and disliked since his arrival in Aversa: the way his confrères treated the locals, as if they were raiding the land instead of living in it. His notion that they should remember how their forbears had settled Normandy, and how they had come to live in harmony with those over whom they exercised lordship, when mentioned to others, seemed to have no impact and had fallen on deaf ears.

To be seen as worse than the Lombards was stupid, but it was brought on by the mercenary status of the Normans. When gathered, and especially when in their cups with too much wine, they would wax nostalgic about the land they left and the one to which they were determined to return, which flew in the face
of experience. Some did travel back to Normandy, but most left their bones in Italian graves, and had the prayers paid for by their compatriots said by priests or monks who knew nothing of their antecedents, but were well aware of the way they had lived their lives, one in which their redeemer had much to forgive.

Retribution came at the monastery itself, where a captain called Rodolf had stopped at the monastery church to pray, in the company of some fifteen of his men. No Italian, indeed few Lombards, would seek to challenge a Norman when he was wearing his weapons, but there was one occasion when even these warriors were obliged to divest themselves of their swords, for it was sacrilegious to take those into a church; bloodthirsty they might be, but they were also deeply pious, many never letting a day go by without Mass being said so they stood in good stead with God, and this day was no exception.

The monastery servants had seen those gathered weapons and seized them, ringing the church bell as well, a signal that the monastery was in danger, to summon all within earshot to its defence. When Rodolf sought to lead his men out, curious as to the cause of this commotion, he found the church doors barred, that was until the peasants who had come to the aid of their church entered, using those same swords left behind to slay men who, for all their prowess, only had their knives with which to defend themselves. By
the time the monks arrived to seek to mediate, all the Normans had been slain.

From that, the revolt spread, so that no Norman, by the very nature of their existence, living in small isolated bands, was safe; nor, given the number of people committed to this revolt, was Rainulf Drengot when he rode out with a larger number of his men. A hurried plea came to Melfi for support, a request that some of his lances be returned to help him regain control; that was an appeal William was ready to turn down, and for two good reasons: Rainulf had brought this upon himself and, quite apart from that, he had, in George Maniakes, an enemy much closer, who to his way of thinking was a more potent threat, especially given the tactics he had chosen to employ.