by Jack Ludlow
‘Not many would have you as suzerain!’ Borsa shouted, for once stung out of his usual complacency.
‘Whereas,’ Tancred piped up, ‘none would choose you.’
‘Remember who is vassal to whom.’
‘A convenience, Borsa,’ Bohemund responded, ‘and one that will need perhaps to be corrected.’ His half-brother gave Roger a meaningful look, which irritated Bohemund. ‘You cannot hide behind an uncle all your days, like our father, and much as I do not wish it to pass, he will not always be there to protect you.’
‘I can hold my own.’
‘If you mean your pizzle, well all men can do that, but a sword is another matter.’
‘Bohemund,’ Roger interjected. ‘These are words better left unsaid.’
‘Until when, Uncle?’
‘Till the time, perhaps,’ said Tancred with a meaningful look, ‘when words turn into deeds?’
‘You talk of deeds, do you? One day I have a deed that requires to be performed—’
‘Borsa!’
Roger barked this, and if he did not say it, in his eyes he was advising restraint, for words once uttered could not be withdrawn. He had overseen an uneasy peace between his two nephews and sometimes had been forced to tell one or the other they had to accept things they would rather deny; it had ever been fragile, too easy to spin into a fight to the finish.
‘No, Uncle,’ Borsa said in a silky voice. ‘Let it be known that yes, I, the Duke of Apulia, Calabria and Sicily, will put Richard back on his Capuan seat.’
If he had been looking at his uncle instead of Richard, Borsa would have seen that Roger was displeased at the mention of his being Duke of Sicily. It was true that the title belonged to him; Roger had never denied it and had even had him as a guest to tour an island that was, in theory, his domain. But he did not rule, nor could he, and if he tried it would mean war; the fact that Roger was his vassal was one rarely mentioned in public, for the very good reason that he only held his ducal title because his uncle supported him. It was the message sent at Bari and it still held.
‘From which I might choose to dislodge him.’
‘You will suffer if you do, Bohemund, as you should have suffered many times before.’
‘When you have the means I invite you to try.’
‘I have them all around this tent,’ Borsa growled.
Bohemund drained his cup of wine and stood up. ‘Do you? You think them loyal, when they are here for their purse. If they had a better prospect, they would desert you in a blink. It is sad that you do not know how much you are despised.’
‘Do not put it to the test,’ Roger asked, though without much passion.
‘I must,’ Bohemund replied, his face sorrowful. Then he looked at Tancred, who stood immediately. ‘And let me say, it is your continued good health that obliges that I should.’
No one disputed that Bohemund had the right to call for the horns to be blown and the only one who might have stopped him from addressing the host once assembled was Roger, and he was sick to the back teeth of what he had been obliged to do these last ten years, well aware that if he possessed a still-living son of his own instead of daughters, matters might have been very different. Borsa’s raising of his ducal title rankled, and when he was asked to intervene, that was his demand. That his nephew give up the title and free him from vassalage. Roger had always suspected that Borsa saw him as a less than stalwart friend and perhaps even as an enemy; that was what he called the Great Count now.
‘If you see me so, then I leave it to you to contest with Bohemund.’
‘Do not seek to fool me. I know why you do what you do and it is all in your own interest, not mine.’ With that, Roger walked out, to find Bohemund standing on the back of a cart, as if he needed to, beginning to address the assembled Normans.
‘Our Heavenly Father on Earth has called upon all good Christian knights to lay aside their differences and set out to reclaim for God the Holy Places of the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus our Saviour.’
Every man present crossed himself and what followed was a list of crimes committed against the thousands of good pilgrims who had made their way to Palestine for the glory of Our Lord, and horrible they were, even if Roger, listening, suspected them to be untrue: robbery, blinding, rape, crucifixion, limbs cut off, forced conversions – all the litany that had circulated for years and grown in the telling until they had become, amongst the ignorant, suspected truth, while amongst the pious who sought a crusade, Urban included, a means to generate hatred for the adherents of the Prophet.
‘I, with my nephew Tancred, am resolved to join that host, not to seek absolution for my soul, but to serve the God who sees all in our hearts and minds. You, the men of Normandy, know my worth, know that if I go there to do battle with the infidel only doom and hellfire awaits them. I would ask who would join with me.’
The cry that went up was huge and so all-consuming it seemed every one of those lances had resolved to join him. In the end it was not them all; and if proof were needed that the restless were right about the settled, what kept many of their confrères where they were was their wives and children.
‘Gather your mounts and your weapons, pack your goods, for we leave tomorrow.’
If Borsa wept as half his lances departed to the incantations and blessing of the priests in which he stored so much of his faith, no one saw it, for he sulked in his tent. It was the Great Count Roger of Sicily who watched them depart and indeed, given his religious faith, silently prayed for them to both live and prosper. When they had gone, a very long line of the best men, he looked at what was left, and then made for the tent of his nominal suzerain.
‘The siege is over, Borsa. With those that have gone with Bohemund we lack the means to maintain it. And cease to weep, you are supposed to be a Norman.’
About the Author
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 history: from the Roman Republic, to Medieval warfare as well as the naval history of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, which he has drawn on for his many historical adventure novels. David lives in Deal with his partner, the novelist Sarah Grazebrook
By Jack Ludlow
THE CRUSADES SERIES
Son of Blood
Soldier of Crusade
THE ROADS TO WAR SERIES
The Burning Sky
A Broken Land
A Bitter Field
THE REPUBLIC SERIES
The Pillars of Rome
The Sword of Revenge
The Gods of War
THE CONQUEST SERIES
Mercenaries
Warriors
Conquest
Written as David Donachie
THE JOHN PEARCE 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
Enemies at Every Turn
A Sea of Troubles
Copyright
Allison & Busby Limited
13 Charlotte Mews
London W1T 4EJ
www.allisonandbusby.com
First published in Great Britain by Allison & Busby in 2012.
This ebook edition published by Allison & Busby in 2012.
Copyright © 2012 by DAVID DONACHIE
(writing as Jack Ludlow)
The moral right of the author is hereby asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All characters and events in this publication other than those clearly in the public domain are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be othe
rwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent buyer.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978–0–7490–1194–9
