Warriors (27 page)

‘They can call me any name they like,’ Robert insisted. ‘If we let our opponents set the terms of the battle they will do so to suit their purpose, which is to wait for Argyrus. If we want a chance to win we must suit ours.’

‘Is it honourable?’

‘Honour, Humphrey, goes to the victor.’

They were lined up and ready to do battle before the sun tipped the eastern sky, but their enemies were not in disorder: they, too, had disposed their forces for a fight. Humphrey had split his army into three divisions: he held the centre, before a small hill that part-masked the enemy centre, and left, which judging by their visible standards comprised of Italians, with the Swabians on the papal left. Richard of Aversa was on the Norman right, all cavalry, while Robert commanded the mixed horse and infantry on the left wing.

The formation the papal army had adopted, strung out in a thin line, was that required to attack, sensible given their numerical superiority. Robert had insisted the Norman host could not wait for such an eventuality – their power lay in assault – they must initiate the contest, and after much discussion, given that had been agreed, Richard of Aversa moved forward on the right to hit the Italian line.

It was true they had probably never faced Norman lances advancing on them steadily and in an unbroken line; it was also true that their military skills would not have been of the highest, but they should have held until at least the assault made contact. They did not: the Italian levies broke before the Norman horsemen could even cast a lance at their running backs, and
with a great yell Richard ordered the pursuit, which took his men, slashing and killing as they went, all the way to the Fortore River, into which they drove what Italians remained to drown or swim.

Behind them, matters had developed against Humphrey, assaulted by the Swabians who had attacked him before his lances could get moving, and they were formidable enough to remind those who had fought Varangians of the quality of those Norsemen – they were big men, on foot, who would not fall back before repeated mounted assaults. They began to push Humphrey’s division back. With Richard of Aversa fully engaged, that threatened to turn the battle into a Norman defeat.

It was Robert who saved the day: ignoring what opposition remained before him he wheeled his division to the left and attacked the Swabian flank, driving it in. They did not break, but they were forced to retire, falling back in solid formation to the crown of the small hill at the middle of the battlefield. With the return of most of the men led by Richard of Aversa, and the fact that everyone else had fled, they were surrounded and doomed, but a call for them to surrender with mercy was thrown back in Humphrey’s face.

The Swabians died, as Normans and Varangians would have died, fighting to the very end; the men who slew them, on foot too, slipping and sliding on
a grassy bank so soaked with blood it had turned to mud.

That section of Richard Drengot’s men who had forded the Fortore and rode into Civitate found Pope Leo in a state of shock. All around him were men fleeing past, including those who had led the papal army, heading out of the town to the west to get away from the Norman sword blades. Faced with a pope, and being Christian soldiers, the men who came upon him were in awe, the leader actually kneeling before Leo to give a kiss to his proffered pontifical ring.

‘I must ask you, Your Holiness, to accompany me back to the camp of Count Humphrey.’

‘No, my son. Tell your count I will remain here. Tell him I will not flee, for God has made a judgement this day, and as his Vicar on Earth, I must bear the consequences.’

‘I will leave men to guard you.’

‘Against whom?’ Leo said, angrily. ‘Even my bishops have fled.’

‘We have the Pope in our grasp,’ crowed Humphrey, having taken over the tent of the leaders of the now defunct papal army; he had also taken over the papal treasury. ‘How I long to laugh in his face, the red-haired Alsatian swine.’

‘It must be blasphemous to call a pope that,’ said

Mauger.

‘I will make him eat dirt, brother.’

‘You have not said anything, Robert,’ enquired Richard of Aversa. ‘I cannot believe you have no thoughts on this.’

‘None that anyone will listen to.’

‘What do you mean?’ Humphrey demanded.

Robert half threw up his hands in a gesture of frustration. ‘Take your revenge, Humphrey, and enjoy it.’

‘Why should I not?’

‘Because it will not serve, brother.’

‘Serve what?’

‘Our interests. If we humiliate the Pope, do you think the Emperor Henry will let that pass? No! He will not and we will find ourselves facing an even bigger and better army within a year.’

Richard Drengot spoke up again. ‘What would you do?’

‘I would go to the Pope in all humility,’ Robert replied, ‘and ask his forgiveness.’

‘What!’ Humphrey yelled.

It was in Humphrey’s nature to explode: he could not help himself, being a passionate man, but he was not stupid, and once Robert had explained his thinking he began to see the sense of the argument, as did the others, Geoffrey included, who had come to join them now that Argyrus was fleeing back to Bari.

No military force, Robert insisted, however powerful, could stand against the authority of the Pope, and as they talked, these Norman warlords, it became obvious, at least to Richard of Aversa, that there was a shift in where the power lay. The more Robert de Hauteville talked, the more it became apparent how far-seeing he was in his thinking. Apart from that, the quality of command oozed from his every pore, as it had once oozed from William
Bras de Fer
.

‘The men Leo assembled had one aim, to kick us out of a land in which we are determined to stay. How do we avoid another coalition being formed next year, or in the years after that, with the same aim? We cannot, unless we make an ally of the one man who can bring such a force together.’

‘What about the Emperor Henry?’ asked Humphrey.

‘I was not in Rome long,’ Robert replied, ‘but I heard and saw enough to know that not only do the people of that city resent imperial interference in papal elections, every high cleric does, too. The day must come when Rome stands up to Bamberg and tells whoever is Holy Roman Emperor that it is the task of the Church to anoint its leader, not of a lay emperor to appoint one.’

‘That is an argument a hundred years old,’ Geoffrey pointed out.

‘Which means it’s an argument unresolved, but there is more.’

‘My head is sore already,’ Humphrey moaned: he was a fighter, not a thinker.

‘Byzantium in Italy?’ Robert asked, his mind back in Calabria and the services he had attended, all conducted in the Eastern Greek rite.

‘What has that got to do with it?’

‘I suggest we go to Pope Leo, and offer to him Apulia and Calabria as provinces owing allegiance to the Holy See.’

‘Give up what we have fought for?’ asked Geoffrey.

‘No, gain title to what we have fought for. No pope can hold them without military force. Let us become the arm of the Vicar of Christ.’

Leo, expecting to be humiliated, was utterly thrown when the de Hauteville brothers and Richard of Aversa entered his chamber and immediately fell to their knees before him. Humphrey, as the commander of the army that had defeated his, was the one to speak, but all present knew the ideas were Robert’s.

‘Your Holiness, we beg you to step outside this palace and give your blessing to our host assembled.’

‘Bless them?’ He had been thinking of excommunicating the lot.

‘There is not a man amongst them who does not fear eternal damnation for taking up arms to oppose Your Holiness.’

‘And that,’ Robert added, since Humphrey had seemingly forgotten, ‘includes us here before you.’

‘Amen to that,’ added Richard.

‘I…’

Knowing that Leo did not know what to say, Robert rose, which brought to their feet the others, and indicated he should follow. The square before the Episcopal Palace of Civitate was crowded with Normans, and as soon as Pope Leo appeared all fell to their knees, and the sound of their request for
forgiveness rippled through the multitude.

‘You see before you,’ Robert said, ‘soldiers willing to die in the service of their faith. They are children of a Christian God and they are yours to command.’

‘To what purpose?’ Leo asked.

‘To wrest from Byzantium, and bring into the fold of Rome, the misguided peoples of Apulia and Calabria.’

Leo was no fool. ‘You are offering to serve me?’

‘We are offering to acknowledge you as our suzerain, and to hold in your name – and those who succeed to the mitre – as your vassals, the lands so described.’

Robert could almost see Pope Leo’s mind working: here was a man who thought he would have to forfeit Benevento, being offered not only the retention of that but also two huge provinces instead.

‘We see our task as building churches to the glory of our God, but we cannot do that with you against our enterprise.’

‘I must think on this,’ Leo said.

‘It is yours to take or deny.’

Suddenly, Leo raised his hand and gave a papal blessing to the still-kneeling Norman army, muttering in Latin the words that went with that, which had the men, once they had crossed themselves, rising to their feet to cheer.

Robert whispered to his brothers and Richard, ‘Try kicking us out of Italy now!’

Jack Ludlow is the pen-name of writer David Donachie, who was born in Edinburgh in 1944. He has always had an abiding interest in the Roman Republic as well as the naval history of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, which he drew on for the many historical adventure novels he has set in that period. David lives in Deal with his partner, the novelist Sarah Grazebrook.

By Jack Ludlow

T
HE
C
ONQUEST SERIES

Mercenaries

Warriors

Conquest

T
HE
R
EPUBLIC SERIES

The Pillars of Rome

The Sword of Revenge

The Gods of War

Written as David Donachie

T
HE
J
OHN
P
EARCE SERIES

By the Mast Divided

A Shot Rolling Ship

An Awkward Commission

A Flag of Truce

The Admirals’ Game

An Ill Wind

Blown Off Course