Mercenaries

by Jack Ludlow

  Osmond de Vertin, on the night of the new moon, as soon as it was dark, sneaked a troop of his men out of a side gate of the Castello de Arechi. He was in high spirits, for he not only knew that Guaimar was going to seek to get away, but he knew, from a variety of informants, precisely the route he intended to take. He could have stopped him at his own front door, but he decided not only to let him get to the monastery and the ready pack animals assembled there, but to be on his way.

  The Norman wanted to take him when there was no doubt about his intentions, on the road leading to the main pass through the mountains to the east, and with all the possessions he had so carefully accumulated. There would be no return to Salerno for the snotty little swine. Osmond would take him straight on to Capua, to be handed over to Prince Pandulf and his torturers, so that the names of all who had assisted in this undertaking could be dragged out of him.

  As he rode ahead of his men under a starlit sky, he wondered what reward Pandulf would think appropriate for his success. He knew in his mind that, if asked to name what he desired, he had a ready answer. Guaimar would die, either under torture or in a deep dungeon in years to come. His sister, however, would still be alive. She was young, beautiful already, and would ripen superbly under the hand of a lusty husband. That would, to the Norman captain who had once carried her as a child, be a fitting reward.

  * * *

  The man who came at the appointed time said only the password and nothing else. Guaimar had told his sister only minutes before that they were leaving, and when she spoke of packing something suitable he told her she would find the chests that held her better clothes empty, and why. The look she gave him then was one to make Guaimar uncomfortable, which made him realise that Berengara had grown in more than just a physical sense: she was developing a deductive brain as well; she knew he had deceived her.

  They exited in their cloaks, hoods up, to streets that were dark and deserted – people lived by the sun and mostly slept when it was no longer light. Their guide walked just enough paces ahead to be visible but, as Guaimar knew, also far enough to disappear if they were intercepted by the Norman garrison. A tallow wad showed in the odd window, but mostly they made their way, moving downhill to the port, through a silent city.

  Was it quieter than usual? There seemed to be no revellers out at all, and Guaimar knew that was unusual. Had he not been a party to many a noisy drinking bout with his friends in the taverns that lined the edge of the port when still the ducal heir? He found he was sweating, and he knew it was brought on by fear. Odd, when he took Berengara’s hand to reassure her, it, unlike his own, was dry.

  Having reached the edge of the quay, their guide stopped and indicated they should go down in a decked boat bobbing on the very slight swell that came through the harbour entrance. There was no one on deck to greet them; indeed the boat seemed deserted. The last thing their guide did was to press a very small purse into Guaimar’s hand.

  ‘To use when you get ashore in Romania.’ Then he was gone.

  Lord in Heaven, Guaimar thought, even this fellow does not know where we are going. It then occurred to him, given the cunning of the Jew, that perhaps he did not know either. There was little headroom under the deck and no sign of anyone to sail the boat, which induced in the young man a feeling of impending betrayal. Was all this an elaborate ploy; would they sit there till daylight only to find the quayside lined with Normans when the sun came up?

  Time passed with neither he nor his sister having any idea of how long they sat in the dark, but it was hours, time in which Berengara prayed in a soft voice. Then there was shouting, faint but clear, the noise of many voices. The sound of bare feet on the deck above their heads, as well as the way the vessel dipped and moved, made Guaimar’s heart contract with terror, but then he heard the faint creak of ropes, along with whispered instructions and he understood the crew were aboard, having waited a long time to make sure that he and his sister had not been followed; that way, if they were discovered and exposed, they could claim ignorance.

  A lantern was lit, which cast a sliver of light into the space where they were huddled, and immediately after the whole boat began to rock and creak as it left the shore. All the two young escapees could do was imagine every possible scenario. A crack made them jump until Guaimar whispered he thought it was a sail taking the wind. The fishing fleet must be on its way out, and each would have a lantern at the stern. At the end of the mole there was a permanent Norman guard, but this happened every morning except Sunday. Were they too bored to look very hard?

  Lots of shouting went on around them, faint through the planking but raised voices nonetheless, then from above their heads the voices of the men in whose hands their fate lay, shouting insults to the guards on the mole, of the sort that were returned in kind with no hint of rancour on either side. Berengara fell against him as they hit the first real wave, and as the boat began to rock up and down, he whispered in her ear.

  ‘We are safe now, sister, we are safe.’

  That was the first time she retched, but not the last.

  Osmond de Vertin began to fret as the night wore on, then as the grey light began to tinge the sky he began to shout in frustration. By the time the sun was above the Apennines he was raving at his men, cursing them for fools. He had already seen that the undulating road from Salerno, though full of carts going into town with produce, was barren of folk leaving. Mounted and riding furiously, he made for the monastery, to find the monks at lauds, having had their breakfast. There was no sign of Guaimar, his sister, or a loaded packhorse and the response of the inhabitants to his threatening questions met with looks of ignorance.

  Osmond was no fool; he would not have risen to his present position if he had been a dolt. He was well aware that he had been tricked. First he sent off messengers to Salerno; a party was to set off north, and seek information, with the instruction not to be gentle.

  ‘Demand of the peasants if they have seen Guaimar; if they so much as shrug, whip them till they speak.’

  Sensing the monks were secretly enjoying his discomfort, he bade his men dig a pit and start a fire with the monastery’s own logs. The Abbot, a venerable old man, was seized, then roped about his feet, his waist and his chest, before a lance was rammed through the ropes and he was lifted by two strong men who advanced with him suspended towards the now blazing logs.

  What could he tell them? No horses had come from the old duke’s heir, nor any clothing. Osmond was incensed enough not to care; to him the old man represented all those educated swine who could read and write and talk in high Latin while laughing at his ignorance. He ordered him seared, and the two men holding the lance moved him over the flames, which immediately began to burn his flesh amid his hellish screams.

  Half the watching monks were on their knees praying, the rest were crying for mercy for their Abbot. Osmond signalled that he should be taken away from the blaze before the ropes burnt through, not from compassion but so that he could be held up to see what had been done to his mortified flesh. There was his face burnt beyond that which could be recognised, his simple garments scorched off his body to reveal flesh blistered and peeling from his aged frame. Was he dead? He might as well be; there was no recovery from such mutilation.

  ‘Every one of you will face this, unless I get an answer,’ he bellowed. ‘And if you die in the flames I am sure that Christ will welcome you into the Kingdom of Heaven, for you will have faced the fires of Hell on this earth.’

  It was one of the servants who spoke up then, coming forward at a grovel, to say that various people had come from Salerno over the past weeks with horses, but they had taken them away again. Others had come with bundles of clothing, as gifts to the monastery, which were still lying untouched.

  ‘Show me,’ Osmond barked.

  He took his sword to the wrapping, and being sackcloth it parted with little effort. The clothes inside were the garments of a rich woman, dresses and the like, of velvet, one or two trimmed with ermine. For
Osmond de Vertin it was like a stab at his hopes; when the servant, ordered to hold them up, did so, he recognised the garments that had once graced the sylphlike young body of the girl, now grown to woman, he had decided days before would be his wife.

  The servant should not have looked at him questioningly, nor sought to smile in the hope of reward. Osmond saw it as mocking, and with a scream he stuck his sword into the poor fellow’s ribs, and hauled hard to pull it up through his heart.

  By the time he got back to Salerno, having left the roofs of the monastery buildings blazing behind him, and the Abbot dead, he knew that Guaimar and his sister had got away, maybe going north without using roads, probably by sea. The fishermen came in with their catch for the day to be questioned, and even with two who had protested hanging from a warehouse gantry, and the entire day’s catch floating in the harbour, the others, kneeling and pleading for mercy, had nothing they could tell him.

  One fellow was held upside down above the harbour waters and interrogated about the chances of catching a sailing boat that had been at sea since daybreak. Despite being ducked and near drowned half a dozen times he still insisted that the chances of finding a boat at sea were close to impossible. He survived, wet but breathing, too stupid to know that another answer might have saved him his ordeal, without knowing how lucky he was.

  It was the way his men looked at him that really troubled Osmond. Normally respectful, they were now giving him the glances a fellow throws to a dead man. He would have to go north himself and tell Pandulf what had happened. Could he stop at Aversa and plead with his old leader to intercede, and if he did what could Rainulf say to the Wolf to assuage his wrath? The Normans were careful never to sacrifice each other, but was this an error too great to forgive? And there had been bad blood in Aversa at Osmond’s desertion; would Rainulf Drengot, even if he begged on his knees, just throw him to the Wolf, for Pandulf to do with what he liked?

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The plain stretched as far as the eye could see, flat and fertile, dotted with small windmills, the strips of cultivation full of people working to plant their spring crops. The two riders on the road between the River Volturno and Naples attracted attention, but what looks did come their way were far from friendly; to the people toiling in fields they were clearly not of their kind and the differences extended beyond mere occupation. They were tall, blue-eyed and fair in a world where the people were generally dark, small and swarthy. That height difference was more obvious when they dismounted to walk their horses and they towered, one of them excessively so, over those with whom their animals shared a trough.

  Any greetings offered were ignored and not just because they were in barely comprehensible Latin. Habit made the peasants of Campania cautious, and these giants were armed with big swords and sharp knives; if the locals carried anything they were farming tools. Close to, it could be seen that the faces of these strangers did not take well to the climate, and in places the reddened skin had peeled. Both kept a leaf in their mouth to protect them from a burning overhead sun that would blister an exposed lower lip.

  To look at the horses was to know these men. Those on which they rode had the height and fine lines of an animal bred for swift movement. The first-led horses were sleek and well cared for, those behind a last pair of pack animals. As well as the slung pouches containing the riders’ possessions, there were lances, helmets and shields strapped to the animals’ sides, the whole assembly identifying them as men whose trade was oppression. The one word spat out was never said in their hearing, only when they had passed by: Normans.

  Their destination was a square tower of white stone rising out of the waves of heat that made the ground ripple. Soon strips of farmland gave way to green pasture, and endless paddocks full of horses, which were the subject of close scrutiny, for the de Hauteville brothers had grown up surrounded by equines in all their forms. The railed fields each had a thatched byre into which the animals could retire from rain or, as they had now, the mid-morning sun. Haystacks were liberally dotted between these paddocks and the air was full of that sweet smell of piss and dung, which was ever present where horses were kept in numbers.

  Past the paddocks, running towards the tower, there were lines of round huts with pointed thatched roofs set around a huge barn; the inhabitants, if there were any, inside in the shade, that is, with the exception of the tribe of near-naked children who stopped playing to look up at these passing strangers. The cries they emitted brought to the door of one hut a short, round, black-haired woman.

  ‘We seek a knight by the name of Rainulf Drengot,’ said William, in Latin.

  The response was a lazy hand waved in the direction of the tower. It did not get them a greeting of any kind, nor a smile: if anything the look was one of suspicion from a woman with hard eyes and little humour. Long before the sun had caught metal atop the castellated donjon, lance tips most like, and looking hard into the glare, now they were near, the brothers could see the helmets of those set to watch out for approaching danger, men who must have first seen them, on so flat a landscape, a good half a league away.

  The sound of clacking wood and grunting came to them as they cleared the huts and that revealed a large, fenced-off and sand-filled manège equipped with low poles set up as jumps, some followed by deep ditches, and thick upright baulks of timber showing the cuts where they had been smitten by hundreds of sword blows. Lance targets stood at the end of long balancing poles, while in a line shields stood at the height they would be when held by a foot soldier, next to a circular wood target marked with roundels. In the middle, two lines of tough-looking men were practising swordplay with round wooden staves.

  Activity ceased as they rode past, every eye examining these newcomers, stares that were returned, but they did not stop, instead riding on to the square tower. Close to, this donjon did not look so white: the stones were streaked with the effects of age, moss was thick at the base, the mortar at the joins of the blocks was crumbling and there was some blackening around the door to show that at some time a fire had been lit at the base in an attempt to burn out the defenders. This was a fortress that had stood for tens of years, perhaps hundreds, perhaps long enough to have once been occupied by Roman legionaries.

  The heavily studded door, topped by a carved armorial device, was now open; attack the place and the ramp that led to it would disappear inside, while the door would be slammed shut. Several floors below the living quarters of the defenders it would be the well that guaranteed a steady supply of water, stalls for horses and a byre for animals which would be kept alive to eat, just above them the storerooms full of hay, oats, pulses and peas, enough to keep fed the knights who would man the walls.

  As the brothers dismounted a figure appeared in that doorway, which immediately brought half a dozen lean hunting hounds out from under the ramp where they had been dozing, not least because the fellow observing them had in his hand a piece of leg bone on which he had been gnawing. As broad as he was tall, in a fine surcoat decorated with a coat of arms, the man eyed them up through what appeared to be slits in his deep-purple face, making both brothers conscious of how they must appear: weary, dust covered and in garments that, after five months of travelling, were close to threadbare.

  ‘William and Drogo de Hauteville,’ William said in French, his voice rasping in a dry throat, ‘seeking to take service with Rainulf Drengot.’

  The bone was tossed aside, which sent the dogs scurrying to fight over it as the fellow responded in the same tongue. ‘You are Norman?’

  ‘We are.’

  ‘From?’

  ‘Hauteville-le-Guichard, where our father has his demesne.’

  ‘I do not know it.’

  ‘It is in the Contentin.’

  William was aware that some of the men they had passed had left the manège to follow them and were gathering to listen to the exchange. Though he did not turn to look he heard the growl in his brother’s throat and assumed he had. Drogo, amongst his other faults, was
inclined to brawl, almost without cause being given and quite impervious to numbers, so he whispered a caution to tell him to stay still.

  ‘A land of rough folk, the Contentin, I’m told,’ said the fellow at the top of the ramp. ‘Ill-mannered and quarrelsome.’

  ‘Others may have told you that it is a land that breeds good fighting men.’

  ‘What others would they be?’

  ‘Duke Robert thought us the best.’

  ‘How can I ask Duke Robert? He is dead.’

  ‘God rest his soul.’

  William crossed himself as he replied; they had heard in Rome that their one-time liege lord had died on his way back from the Holy Land. They had also heard that the whole of Normandy was in danger of disorder over the succession. It made no difference to him and Drogo; they were too far south and too strapped for the means of existence to think of turning back.

  ‘My father, brothers and I fought under his banner at Bessancourt when he aided the King of the Franks to bring his rebellious brother to heel.’

  ‘Before which, I am told, he named his bastard son as his successor.’

  Even if he had worries about how such things might affect his family, it was not the way William wanted this discussion to go. ‘If you know of that battle you will know that we Normans won it. Henry, King of the Franks, could not have done so unaided. The men of the Contentin were in the front rank.’

  ‘Duke Robert was a fool to name his bastard as his successor and an even bigger fool to die while he was still a child.’ The man waited to see if William would respond to that, in fact, display his own feelings on the matter; he waited in vain. ‘So once you fought for Duke Robert and now you would like to fight for me?’