The Lady for Ransom

by Alfred Duggan

  ‘There is a way out,’ Matilda continued. ‘It isn’t safe, but if safety is what you desire I can’t think why you became mercenaries in the first place. One part of the world would be glad to see us. In Armeniakon and Sebaste there is food and a friendly population. Amasia has forges and smiths, who can make you fresh mail. It’s four hundred miles by a dangerous road. But when we get there we can begin all over again.’

  Those were the magic words which persuaded us. We would have undertaken any task for the chance of a fresh start; we hated and despised ourselves as we were. But even after we had accepted the idea we would never have started if Matilda had not taken us in hand. All that evening she went about and spoke to men individually, flattering each by assuming that he would do his duty, even if his comrades failed. We went to sleep with fresh hope, and in the morning began our preparation.

  Metabole had been provisioned for a siege, so if we started at once we should have food to carry us through the worst of the barren stretch which Artouch was preparing for his sheep. Apart from that food we had nothing to carry, neither arms nor treasure; which was just as well, since we had no transport.

  At first we were hampered by the very large proportion of followers to able-bodied men (alas, we could not call them armed men). But that difficulty solved itself when the women learned our intention. We had been three years in Romania, which is longer than most mercenaries keep the same mate; many concubines were native Romans, and when they knew that our plunder was gone and there was a hard march in prospect they deserted of their own accord, taking refuge in Nicomedia or chancing a lonely journey to the Bosphorus. Apart from those women who still had living protectors we were left with only a handful of Italians, who clung to any Frankish community in the alien east.

  There were a few baggage-animals, enough to carry the small children; the rest must walk, and search on foot for food. We were unused to walking, but we had no mail to bear us down. The project was possible, and Matilda’s energy drove us to attempt it.

  Messer Roussel did not recover from his surrender. What makes a Frankish knight formidable in the charge is his conviction that he is invincible, and my lord had lost that. He was still courteous and good-tempered; but he seldom gave orders and never compelled us to carry them out. My lady was our captain. She allotted the few donkeys and pack-ponies, distributed the available weapons, and divided her force into scouts, foragers, and a main guard. When on the fourth day we set out, thirty armed sergeants, two hundred warriors in their shirts, and about four hundred women and children, she led the main body, with a little picture of the warrior-saint Theodore tied to her staff; she had found it in the castle, and it consoled us in some degree for the loss of our banner.

  The plan was to make ten miles every day, to cover the four hundred miles to Amasia before the cold weather. That doesn’t sound very hard marching, but we were cumbered with children on foot and we might have to detour to avoid Turkish bands. A great road runs from Nicomedia to Amasia, in fact the most important road from Europe to what used to be the eastern frontier. We could not miss the way.

  We set out about the Feast of St Giles, with a week’s biscuit and bacon to last us for a six-weeks’ journey. The outset of a march is always cheerful, even such a desperate journey as this, and I sang as I strode down the great road. Naturally, since I knew the language, I had been assigned to the scouts; I had a good staff, with a sling on the end, and a handful of pebbles in my bosom; homeless dogs escaped from ravaged farms were beginning to attack men.

  Already the whole pattern of the land was changing. You have all seen wasted fields, but even in the most harried parts of Sicily the ploughmen hide in the woods and try to make a fresh start next year; land that has not been weeded or cleared for more than two years looks quite different; thorns grew everywhere, and blocked ditches had turned patches of level ground to swamp; the whole country was well on the way to becoming the sheep pasture the nomads desired.

  We hastened along the great road, for such a desert, where grass already peeped between the flagstones, seemed safe for unarmed travellers; not even the smoke of a distant cooking-fire marked the sky, or a fresh hoofprint the dust. With a stone from my sling I knocked over one of a covey of partridges dusting in the road; it was a young bird, and perhaps I was the first man it had seen. It was hardly worth while to scout ahead, and I was striding along with my eyes on the ground when I heard a patter of hoofs behind me, and my lady rode up on a little donkey.

  ‘Don’t fall asleep, Messer Roger,’ she said as she reined in beside me. ‘This country looks deserted, but there may be outlaws in the swamp. I want to find a walled village, well off the road, where we can rest for the night without keeping half the men on guard. There should be plenty of ruined villages to choose from.’

  ‘Yes, my lady, we shall be safer off the road, but it may not be easy to persuade our people to climb a hill at the end of the march. Will they obey if my lord commands it?’

  ‘My lord won’t give orders. He doesn’t care what happens to him, which is all right if he feels that way. But he doesn’t care what happens to the decent Franks whom he brought to Asia, and that is neglect of the first duty of a leader. Don’t spread it about, but if anyone is in command I am.’

  ‘We could not have a braver leader, my lady. Your courage saved us from captivity. I shall willingly obey you.’

  ‘Stuff and nonsense. It wasn’t my courage, but your skill in plunder. I only offered Artouch the spoil of Chrysopolis; if he had been unwilling to sell I don’t know what would have happened.’

  ‘You might have returned to Italy a rich widow. In fact you might have done that anyway. Since we are alone, and you graciously address me as an equal, will you take it without offence if I ask why you bothered to ransom us?’

  That was a searching question; ladies always ransom their lords, but then gallant knights always fight to the death rather than yield to infidels. Messer Roussel had broken the rules, and I was genuinely anxious to know why Matilda had not. Her character puzzled me. She took my impudence in good part, and answered with a smile:

  ‘My first thought when I heard the news was that now I might go home and rule a Lombard city as it should be ruled. Why didn’t I? I can’t tell you. The habit of responsibility is hard to break. Here were Franks without a leader, and they looked to me for orders. If the future is hopeless it is a great relief to do what obviously needs doing. Risking my life in the Turkish camp took my mind off my worries. When you were freed we had to go somewhere, and Amasia is as good as the next place. Tonight I must find shelter and fuel, and tomorrow I must get the laggards on the road. These are all self-evident necessities, which must be done by me if they are to be done at all. Presently we shall meet some difficulty where I can’t see an obvious way out, and that will be the end. But until then we shall march, as sailors stick to the steering-oar while the ship fills with water. I don’t know why, but it is the honourable way to meet disaster.’

  ‘Then you don’t think we shall be welcome in Amasia?’

  ‘Oh yes, we shall be welcome, but how long can we hold it?

  The infidels have beaten us in the field, when all our men were mounted and clad in western mail. One of these days they will get into Amasia in spite of our swords. But that’s no reason for giving in now.’

  ‘I understand, my lady. The Romans take the same view. They believe the city will eventually fall.’

  ‘Precisely. But it doesn’t stop them inviting their friends to gay supper-parties. When the end comes I am sure they will die gallantly in the breach, and of course it may not come for centuries. Theirs is a good life, and the knowledge that it must end in defeat makes it all the better.’

  ‘What a pity we didn’t stick to the Emperor’s service. We might be holding Nicomedia under the Labarum, instead of wandering as outlaws in this desert.’

  ‘They would have made our life impossible, sooner or later. Romans don’t like Franks. If I had been in Caesarea when they hanged R
obert de Hal I would have done my best to smooth things over, and perhaps my lord would have continued in his obedience. But then they would have done something even more unpleasant, to force a break. You realise it was all part of a plot? Oh, those devious Roman politics that no Frank can understand! A Comnenus was Domestic, and the Ducates would do anything to disgrace him. They have succeeded, and no one will ever trust Isaac Comnenus with another army. But the Ducates are beaten too. Holy Michael, I wonder if Basil Malases was acting for the Comneni when he persuaded us to set up the Caesar?’

  ‘I never thought of that, my lady, though it sounds plausible now you point it out. Since Franks are the best warriors in the world I thought we had only to charge our enemies, and we would die rich and respected. But the east is too complicated for our thick heads.’

  ‘Well, there it is. I love the city, and it’s closed to me for ever. But I am in charge of six hundred Franks, and that will keep me too busy for idle repining. There’s a walled village on that hilltop, and it must be deserted since the fields lie untilled. Lead off to the right’

  So we continued for a week, across the Sangarius and then through the wasted Theme of Bucellarion. The great road was in excellent condition, though for more than a year no travellers had used it. We marched swiftly, for men on foot, and must have covered a hundred miles while our food lasted.

  Then our troubles began. The great road still stretched before us, smooth and level, running straight through the empty plain. But in that plain nothing lived. On the eighth day we pressed forward, hoping to find peasants or at least deer or wild cattle which we might kill with bows; but there was nothing, and that evening we camped fireless and hungry. In the morning we killed a few donkeys, enough to carry us through one more march. But that was the last resource. Before starting my lady called a council of leading knights.

  Messer Roussel squatted in the place of honour, as though presiding over the meeting; but he held his head in his hands and said nothing useful, merely muttering that we were all near death, and deserved it for yielding to the infidel. ‘We should have died sword in hand,’ he declared. ‘That surrender will make us infamous to the end of time, and all we gained by it was two more weeks of a very miserable existence.’

  My lady would have none of it. ‘It was nothing disgraceful,’ she said stoutly. ‘You were all dismounted and more than three-quarters had been killed. What would be really shameful would be to lose heart now, when we have escaped from our enemies. The business of this council is to find food, not to curse God and die; even Job didn’t do that when it came to the point, though he had lost his wife and children while you still have yours. Now here is my plan. The Turks have ravaged all this plain, which was only to be expected. But they are horsemen; with all the world to choose from they naturally stick to open country. Over there in the north lies a range of hills. It’s broken and rough, and I bet the infidels never bothered to ravage it.

  We shall march there at once, and work east along the ridges. Any objections? Right. Then we start in ten minutes.’

  No one else spoke, even to express agreement. But so it was decided, because Matilda alone knew her own mind.

  When I picked up my staff and began to trudge northward my lady walked beside me, as though it was the most natural thing in the world for an unarmed woman to scout through hostile country. Her donkey had been slaughtered for food, and she had given her little image of St Theodore to comfort a dying woman.

  She spoke to me crossly. ‘You might do something to help, young Roger. You sat silent in council and left the work to me. If they hadn’t all been thoroughly discouraged they would have refused to march, out of sheer manly pride and dislike of following female advice. Next time I have a good idea I shall tell you beforehand, and you will propose it. You are supposed to be a man; at least you have more spirit than my wretched husband.’

  ‘Why bother, my lady? Why not go on alone? You will get through, I am certain, and then you may end your days in a Roman household.’

  ‘Yes, in a Roman household. But in what capacity? Do you think I look forward to life in a kitchen? Of course any sensible householder would realise that I am cut out by nature to be a groom. But even Romans are hidebound about what is man’s work, and what woman’s.’

  ‘Shall we be enslaved by fellow-Christians? Is that the best we can hope for?’

  ‘If we straggle, that is what will become of us. But if we look like an army someone may hire us to fight. I have thought of pressing on alone, and it may come to it if you all sit about and do nothing when you ought to be marching; but then I must leave my children. I’ve had all the bother of rearing them, without help from my lord or anyone else, and I don’t want to abandon them just when they are old enough to be amusing companions. I hate babies, always crying to be fed and dragging you home from the hunt; but even little Osbert is now doing his share; he shows more courage than most of those dreary dispirited grown-ups round him.’

  I suddenly realised what Matilda had to bear; we had only ourselves to look after, though that was a burden which had proved too heavy for some of us; she planned for the whole party, setting an example of courage and activity; yet at the end of the day, when we sat down exhausted, she had to clean three rowdy children, and find something for them to eat. Without thinking I spoke my admiration, forgetting the courteous forms of address.

  ‘My dear, you should have been a warrior.’

  ‘What’s the use, little Roger,’ she said with a sniff of contempt. ‘My father was a warrior, until he died in the breach with three Norman swords in his guts. I’m a woman, and that’s all there is to it. But you understand horses. You know that a mare inherits the mettle of her sire. Did it ever cross your mind that women have the courage of men? For three hundred years my forebears were lords in Benevento. With the average luck that everyone expects I would have married some noble Lombard and helped him to rule his town, guarding the walls while he raided his enemies. But the Weasel broke in and my old life was ended. It was luck, and none of my contriving, that what came next was honourable marriage, instead of rape by the whole army. That encouraged me, and I picked up as many of the pieces as I could. I set to work to make Messer Roussel de Balliol a great man. Like all you bloody Normans, he’s brave while he sits a good horse with a good sword in his hand. And he’s a jolly companion, so it was never difficult to keep his band up to strength. But if I hadn’t taken charge he would still be following that landless Roger fitzTancred. I was the one who saw that for a mercenary a change of lords is the way to promotion. Then we had this wonderful chance, to get away from that gang of Norman land-pirates; to a country where women may take part in great affairs; a country where they are not interested in barbarian pedigrees, and our grandchildren might be Roman nobles. After all, three generations ago the Comneni were Thracian peasants, unless they were Armenian bandits, which is their own story. If only we could have kept out of politics! But Romanus Diogenes got himself beaten, and then every magnate in Romania began to intrigue for his own hand. Well, I must begin again. In Armenia there are petty chieftains who have come to terms with the infidel; they pay tribute, but otherwise they rule undisturbed, as my father ruled undisturbed after paying tribute to the Catapan. Among those mountains there is a chance for my children to live free, and I’ll take it if I have to drive my lord with a stick when he sits down in despair.’

  There was nothing I could say in answer. We trudged silently for the rest of the morning. My lady occasionally looked curiously at me, and I think she regretted her frankness. But I had been a page, and pages are trained to discretion.

  At midday we halted, though rather from habit than for any better reason, for we had nothing to eat. When we resumed our march the way led uphill. The range ran clearly east and west; it was heavily wooded, and in spite of the haze I could make out threads of smoke on the skyline. This was not the sort of country Turks would choose to raid, when all the plains of Asia lay open and undefended. A few sergeants grumbled at hav
ing to climb a steep hill, going north, when we knew our refuge lay to the east with a good road leading to it. We might have dispersed then and there, for Messer Roussel was too listless to assert his authority; but luckily a woman, searching for a strayed donkey, climbed a ridge and found the beast feeding in a pocket of ripe barley. Men who grew barley might give us food. We pressed on in better spirits.

  That night we slept in a village of the mountaineers, friendly people who had paid tribute to the Emperor; but no tax-gatherers had come among them since the disaster of Manzikert, and they had grain to spare. They used a language of their own, and claimed to be the Galatians whom St Paul converted; but one of their elders spoke Greek and told us we might reach Amasia by following the range to the eastward.

  Asia is a land of wide plains, which until the Turks came were closely cultivated by Roman peasants; but as soon as you get into the hills you find communities of a different race. These live apart, not inter-marrying with the Romans, and whenever you talk to their Greek-speaking elders they tell you at once that there was a time when their ancestors ruled the whole land. It is not a bit like Italy, where the peasants are all of the same race and language; here you can walk up a steep hill, leaving some densely inhabited town of the Romans, and in three miles you are among a people with strange traditions, another language, and even a different way of practising religion.

  So it was with these Galatians. Looking down from their heights they could see the road, the great road which until recently had been crowded with the retinues of Roman officials; until the Turks came they had hardly heard, for many generations, of any ruler except the Equal of the Apostles; the Empire surrounded them for hundreds of miles on every side. But they never considered themselves to be part of it. They paid tribute, unless the sum demanded was so great that it was cheaper to abandon their fields and start again in some other valley; occasionally, when their young men robbed the rich villages of the plain, soldiers would come and burn their huts; sometimes a serious dispute would be judged in the lawcourts of the alien officials. But they kept to themselves, talking over in the evening the great days when their ancestors ruled the lowland; they heard Mass once a week, but never confessed or communicated; there was good and bad luck bound up with various boulders and high peaks, and that sufficed, when it was properly controlled, to bring the right weather for their harvests. All this I learned that first evening, talking with the headman of the village. It gave me a new picture of Romania, which I had previously regarded as a community of Christian Romans. Now I saw it resembled a great vessel of gilded bronze; the gilding was the Roman cities, the bands of the Themes and the educated officials; but the strong metal which gave shape to the structure was composed of alien mountaineers; over most of Asia the gilding was wearing very thin, and the metal was ready to be melted and cast into another shape.