Son of Blood

by Jack Ludlow

  When men talked, those who had seen Maximian come aboard had much to discuss, for they had not missed the wealth he wore about his person and that led to speculation about what might be available to plunder inside those enemy ships. As the major maritime trading nation in the Adriatic and beyond, the Venetians, from their Doge down, were known to be affluent – how could they not be when they traded in valuable silks and spices of the kind that cost a ducal ransom?

  Carried ashore, that kind of talk had spread in Norman French, Latin, Greek and Saracen, so throughout Duke Robert’s fleet any lingering doubts about the wisdom of taking on the northern seafarers was diminished by the prospect of the abundant plunder to be had, an amount that grew with each exchange until every man was thirsting for a fight that they were sure would make them rich. With the truce in place, they went to sleep with that as the driver of their dreams.

  The ringing of bells brought them from their slumbers and onto the deck, there to find those who had been set as sentinels pointing to the lights of those heavy Venetian dromons, now no longer distant pinpricks but flaring lanterns bearing down on them, their glow lighting the great lanteen sails. The Apulian ships’ masters had to be quick to react, for there was no time to haul their galleys over their anchors and pluck them from the seabed. The cables had to be cut by sharp axes while the rowers were sent scurrying to their oars, this while the men on the transport ships ran to their ratlines and ropes to set some canvas and likewise get themselves under way; in what was coming upon them no one was safe.

  Robert de Hauteville, in company with Bohemund and every other Norman in the fleet, was struggling to get into his mail so as to be fit to do battle, that carried out with an eye on those great sails, which seemed, on a northerly breeze, to be approaching at a speed which would scarce grant them enough time, only to see them disappear as they were furled, ready for the coming battle. In any other fighting force there would have been panic; indeed there was amongst some of his Lombard and Greek levies. Not with the Normans, for all the speed with which they were preparing it was done with the requisite amount of care, each man seeing to his confrère’s equipment, like his leather mail straps to ensure they were as tight and secure as they needed to be for the coming fight.

  There was no time to think about how their duke had been deceived, no time to wonder at the chicanery necessary to break a formal truce, which for all his reputation for cunning the Guiscard had never done. The Normans, Saracens and, once they had been forced into position, his Apulian milities, lined their decks as the galley timbers beneath their feet began to groan with movement, the voice of the oar master loud and the thud of his hammer on the speed block slowly increasing.

  ‘It’s near first light,’ Robert cried out, pointing with his sword at the first tinge of grey in the eastern sky. ‘Geoffrey, try to get us with the sun behind us as it rises.’

  On land, the Normans had a system of commands issued by horn, the number of blasts and their length determining which manoeuvre the conroys were required to perform. This had been adapted for sea by Geoffrey Ridel but it was not the perfect tool and nor was the element in which they were going to have to fight an easy one in which it could be employed; galleys were not destriers, turned by at thigh and a sharp tug on a single rein. Despite the best efforts of rowers and helmsmen they were slow to get up speed and even less adept at steering out of danger. Thus, when the first of the Venetian dromons got amongst the Apulian fleet they were able to take advantage of a great deal of confusion, putting several of Robert’s galleys in danger.

  ‘Look aloft, Father,’ Bohemund yelled from his deck, which was close enough to the ducal galley for his voice to carry.

  Robert de Hauteville followed his son’s pointed gauntlet and it was there he saw why Maximian Palladias had asked for his truce. The Venetians had got to Durazzo just before the Apulians and they must have put to sea in haste, which indicated they had anchored off Durazzo before they were ready for a fight; Maximian was seaman enough to know what he faced and what tactics would be used against his vessels. He had needed time to prepare, time to get in place a weapon that would render all the notions the Guiscard had of how to get aboard the Venetian decks redundant.

  The truce had been a ploy to grant him a huge advantage, for lashed to the high masts of the large enemy three-decked galleys were boats full of archers. The Venetians would have the ability to pin on his decks the men they feared, the Norman warriors, who would be so occupied protecting themselves from the deadly rain of arrows from above that any notion of taking the offensive would be nullified.

  ‘Keep your shield above your head, Bohemund,’ Robert yelled, ‘for that is where danger lies.’

  ‘The rest of the fleet?’

  ‘Each vessel must look to its own, but we must lead them by example. Geoffrey, use that rudder and those oars to get me in amongst these swine.’

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  What followed quickly turned into a confused melee; there were no formal lines as in a land battle, no features such as rivers, forests or hills which could act as protection to a flank or provide cover for infiltration, not a single clear objective to which Robert could direct his men, quite apart from the very obvious fact he had been forced on to the defensive. Nor could he issue commands that had any hope of being obeyed, especially since his own galley was an obvious target for the dromons, massive in size now as they loomed up out of the increasing light, their aim to lop off the head in the hope the body would collapse.

  In essence, while he could fight if they came close, his fate was in the hands of Geoffrey Ridel, and not for the first time in his life fortune favoured him, even if he railed against it, by granting him such a wily seaman, who had the wit to use his speaking trumpet while he could still be heard to ensure that the ducal vessel had around it a screen of fighting ships, one of which carried his bastard son, two of the others the crossbowmen.

  ‘Damn you, Geoffrey!’ Robert yelled, as he saw one of those dromons begin to close in on a galley. ‘Get me into the fight.’

  ‘Arrows!’ yelled Reynard, as he saw the greying sky go black above the masts of the protecting galleys.

  This had every man on deck immediately crouching, the familia knights using their shields to protect themselves, as well as their liege lord, from harm, no more than a trice before the arrows thudded into them to embed themselves into hardwood or clang as they spun off the metal frames or the central boss. A few, overflying and missing the shields, found the open hatches that led below to the rowing deck – there had been no time to put in place the covers – and the cry of more than one wounded man carried up to the deck.

  As soon as he was upright again Robert de Hauteville was marching in fury to where Geoffrey Ridel stood on the poop, right by the great tiller and the men tasked to swing it on the Master of the Fleet’s commands. Right beneath Ridel’s feet lay a slatted hatch and underneath that stood the fellow who controlled the oarsmen, so the man in command could both dictate the speed of the galley and direct the course, if necessary by the use of both.

  ‘Did you hear my command?’ the Guiscard yelled.

  Few people could look the Duke in the eye when he was in temper and even fewer had the ability to question his judgement, for he was a master of battle who could sniff out an opponent’s weak spot before it appeared, or just by some sixth sense define the moment when resistance was about to weaken. That was on land, but being at sea Ridel had the upper hand; Robert could fight, and if age had diminished him he was still more than a match for those he was likely to face. But he could not steer a ship, nor did he have the wit to know when the combination of oars and tiller would work to advantage. This allowed Geoffrey Ridel to address his duke in a voice short on respect, indeed close to a shout.

  ‘My task is to keep you safe, My Lord, just as it is the task of your familia knights.’

  ‘I lead by example, man. I do not skulk in the background like some damned Saracen emir.’

  ‘If your exam
ple is to be seen sinking beneath the waves, what then?’ Ridel pointed to Robert’s personal standard, streaming out from atop the mast, alongside the flag just raised that ordered every ship to engage, as though they had a choice. ‘We must keep that standard flying; if it is cut down or this vessel is overpowered, then there is no hope of surviving to fight another day.’

  ‘Survival? What do you mean, Ridel? We have to win.’

  ‘My Lord Robert, against these great ships you cannot win, all you can do is endure.’

  Bohemund was also blessed with a good hand on the tiller, a man who knew that the smaller galleys only had one advantage and that was their greater manoeuvrability; they could, if properly handled, spin in their own length, as well as swiftly increase and decrease speed. The dromons, with larger hulls and a vastly greater number of oarsmen, needed time to follow, which meant as they closed there was a moment of opportunity in which to avoid their intent to either ram or board, the latter signalled by the sudden withdrawal of the bank of oars facing the Apulian vessel.

  Bohemund’s master timed his tiller turn to perfection, but it owed as much to the quick reaction of the rowers that they managed to spin away from the Venetian bearing down on them: one set of oars held their way, the others backed hard. Not that such a manoeuvre provided security; the raised-aloft boats full of archers had a clear shot at the open deck as well as the warriors who occupied it and it was only a timely command by their leader that had a number of them fall back to the stern and use their shields to protect both themselves, the ship’s master and the men working the tiller ropes. Speeding away from immediate danger brought momentary relief, but it was no more than that, for right in their path lay another dromon, its side lined with screeching fighters waving spears and swords.

  ‘We need to get aboard one of these ships,’ Bohemund cried into the master’s ear. ‘We have to show them they too are vulnerable.’

  The look that got in response was not one to imbue Bohemund with confidence; clearly the man thought he was mad and had only one idea, to avoid contact and stay alive. About to castigate the fellow, albeit with respect for his skills, the sound of his name shouted loud made Bohemund spin round. Ligart, that redhead who had been so troublesome when raiding Capua, now a calmer fellow than hitherto, was madly waving his lance at a sight that no one aboard had ever seen. From the side of the dromon they had just avoided a pipe protruded, its spout inside the line of oars, and from that shot a bolt of flame, not aimed at them but at the hull of another galley that had been to Bohemund’s rear.

  ‘Greek fire,’ screeched the ship’s master. ‘It is the Devil’s work, we are doomed!’

  The vision of the flames punching through water, even staying lit when they made contact, was not one to allow for Bohemund to call the man a fool. Even worse was to observe the side of the galley start to burn below the waterline, with flames rising up to ignite the timbers above sea level. If it brought fear to those who could see it at a distance, it was just as obvious that such a weapon, against which there was no defence, induced panic in those on the receiving end. Men, Norman lances included, were rushing about the deck like headless chickens. Some, easy to call them deluded when not in danger, were seeking to douse the flames with the buckets of water that lined the deck of every ship.

  It was to no avail; the fire was impervious to such actions and soon the whole side of the ship was alight, with the dromon that had inflicted the damage drawing clear to avoid catching fire itself. In distress, the galley master had ordered his rowers to bend their backs, but could not see that by doing so he was creating a wind that fanned the flames and made matters worse. In the end it was not his folly that slowed the rate of fire but the panic of the oarsmen who, realising that they might be fried, let drop their sticks and began to rush on deck. From standing rock-still in amazement, Bohemund reacted to the screams emanating from the victims, many of them men he expected to fight alongside, who would be roasted alive if not saved.

  ‘Steer for the open side, away from the flames.’

  ‘You’re mad!’

  The master had responded without thinking. That he did as the giant before him bent over to press home his command.

  ‘Do as I say or it will not be Venetians or Satan you have to fear.’

  About to protest further, the scrape of a broadsword being pulled from its scabbard was enough to kill whatever objection he had been about to make. Now it was his men’s backs that had to bend as he ordered the oar master to drum for full speed, before he yelled to the tiller men to haul hard and make the necessary turn. With both banks of oars working, that was made in a long arc that took them near the stern of the dromon that had spewed out the Greek fire, now with its oars raised just above the water, content to watch its victim burn and sink. Seeing that, Bohemund began to issue another set of instructions.

  It was those same raised archers who alerted the commanders on the Venetian deck that the more manoeuvrable Apulian galley was about to make its way down their side, its own oars shortened so that it could get close. Bohemund had every man on deck on one knee, shield above his head, and another party with him on the poop to once more protect the master and his steering crew. Going at full tilt, Bohemund’s ship passed the Venetian stern before those on its deck could properly react. The oars on the Apulian vessel disappeared and the master swung the tiller hard over to bring his galley into the line of Venetian oars. The sound of arrows from above thudding home was drowned out by the smashing sound of oar after oar breaking like a weak taper, while through the leather-covered rowlocks from which they protruded came screams as the men holding them, who could not see what was coming, were eviscerated, the ends being ripped out of their unsuspecting hands.

  They could not entirely destroy the greater galley’s ability to manoeuvre, but they did enough damage to reduce the number of oars it could employ, before steering far enough clear to get their own back in use. Bohemund had timed the arrow salvoes, which seemed slow. Then he realised that bows must take longer to load and aim on a swaying boat hanging from ropes, this caused merely by the actions of the bodies it contained. He had his men drop their shields and sling their lances up and over the side to the part of the deck where those commanding the ship would be standing, a crying sound telling them they had done damage to human flesh.

  Getting back to full speed the ship’s master swung his galley, using oars and tiller, past the prow of the stationary dromon, then deployed both again so that his vessel came round on a new course to bring it alongside his stricken consort on the far side. Bohemund was shouting instructions for grappling irons to be thrown so that the burning ship could be hauled close enough to get the warriors and crew off, aware that he had little time, for if he had by his actions slowed that fire-spewing dromon, it was far from ineffective.

  Over the water he could hear the shouted commands to replace oars and oarsmen, to get under way with what they still possessed on a ship that could only have one aim, to close with him and perhaps once more use that Greek fire to set his galley alight. The desire to escape of those he was seeking to rescue did not aid him; some of the rowers jumped too soon, to fall between the closing hulls and be crushed or drowned. The Normans, however, even with roaring flames so close to their backs that their surcoats were being singed, showed great discipline, obeying Bohemund’s command to clear the side and at the same time restrain those in hazard because of their panic.

  Although Bohemund only realised it when they had got clear, what saved them was the way the two galleys came together in a far from gentle crunch, which swung the burning vessel right across the prow of the dromon and that prevented it from getting close enough to once more employ that deadly flame-throwing pipe at a range where it could do damage. The spout of flame shot out as before but it died in the water well away from Bohemund’s galley. In seeking to manoeuvre for another attempt, while again avoiding the danger of catching light itself, the Venetians gifted those seeking to cross to safety the time to do so. As s
oon as the last man boarded, Bohemund’s master pushed off using boathooks, enough to get his oars into use again so they could speed to safety.

  Robert could see three burning galleys, the flames that consumed them rising into a now sunlit sky, black smoke billowing too as the stores they contained inside their hulls went up. Yet what was most hard to bear were the screams of men being burnt alive, oarsmen trapped below and those warriors who delayed too long on the deck. Not that they were gifted a release, for they had only one way to douse themselves and that was to jump into a sea in which a Norman could not but drown; chain mail alone, even if they could swim, was too heavy to allow them to float and would drag them to the bottom.

  Keeping him safe was that pair of galleys into which had been loaded the crossbowmen, originally intended for an aggressive role that had, thanks to Geoffrey Ridel and his speaking trumpet, added to a far-carrying voice, got between him and the enemy. With the longer range of their arrow bolts, added to their deadly accuracy, as well as by judicious and sparing use, they were able to hold off the pair of Venetian ships seeking to break through in an attempt to close with his flying ducal standard.

  Apart from that he was and felt useless, but he could see that in other quarters his men were giving as good as they got; not every Venetian vessel was equipped with Greek Fire and it now appeared that those who did carry it had used up their supply, for no more of his vessels had been set alight for some time. Added to that, his preparations had not been entirely wasted and if one of his galleys could get alongside an enemy the grappling irons were doing good service to force them together at either the bow or the stern of the larger vessel. That achieved, Normans had both the courage and the skill to get themselves up his hooked ladders onto the enemy decks and fight there, and if they could not prevail, due to the disparity of numbers and the constrained area of combat, they could at least occupy the Venetians so that other galleys were allowed to close and support them.