Conquest c-3

by Jack Ludlow

  ‘The Saracens took it from Byzantium. It is not impossible.’

  ‘They took it after a two-year siege by sending men crawling up the main sewer through decades of shit and that, you can guarantee, has now been blocked off. They will have strengthened the place since, as would we.’

  ‘Are you saying we cannot take it, Uncle?’

  ‘Not with what we have, Serlo. We need a more secure rear and thousands more milities just to seal it off, as well as to mount the kind of repeated assaults that will be needed to wear down the defenders.’

  Serlo nodded. ‘What about Robert’s plan to pester the forces outside?’

  ‘It’s not only sound, it’s essential. All al-Hawas has to do is sit still. It is we who will get weak, not he.’

  ‘You did not say this when you had the opportunity.’

  Roger wondered how to reply to that, then it occurred that Serlo might be young but he was no fool. ‘Do I need to say why?’

  That got him a grin. ‘No, Uncle, you do not.’

  ‘Robert has favoured you as I did. Make good use of it.’

  That Serlo did over the following days. Having located the Saracen host he first established where they were strong, around the main command tents, then where they were weak, on the flanks. His probing attacks were just that, sorties designed to annoy and spread panic, to force the enemy to be alert at all times, for if they were not they would find a fast-moving Norman band inside their lines, slashing and cutting at often unprotected flesh.

  Stronger cohorts were moved out to stop these raids, weakening the main concentration, so his final incursion was launched there when the leaders were in their tents at their evening meal. Using the swiftest mounts as well as the terrain, Serlo seemed to appear from nowhere, driving through the central camp roadway. If a flashing sword or swinging axe was not used to kill or maim, then it served just as well to cut the guy ropes and bring the canvas down about the leaders’ ears, the dent to their pride doing more to rouse them to action than any number of their followers being killed or maimed.

  The horns blew the following morning, the sound faint but clear in the warm air. Robert soon had sentinels riding in from their outposts to tell him that the whole host was on the march, heading straight for his position. In anticipation, the orders had already been given: Roger was on the right flank with a hundred and fifty knights, Serlo on the left with the same number and for once the Guiscard was clear that they should act as they saw fit. He commanded six hundred lances and the eight hundred milities.

  ‘Serlo puts our enemies at seven thousand in number, with at least fifteen hundred horses. Those, if the Saracens act as they usually do, we will have to face first.’ Seeing the look in many an eye, for Robert had never fought a Saracen army, he added, ‘Today I will follow the advice of my brother William, who did battle with these men many times in his life. Do not be troubled by the numbers, for they are but levies, poorly trained. The horsemen are the elite; kill them and the exposed fellows on foot will break at the first sight of our advance.’

  Faint now, they could hear the drumbeats setting the pace of those coming to fight them, a deep timbre that seemed to resound within their hollow bellies, for, not yet shriven, they had not broken their overnight fast. Quickly the priests moved to their allotted places, calling on these bands of warriors to kneel, captains at the front, each with his sword before his eyes as a makeshift cross.

  Each man now looked to his own soul and his own sins, seeking forgiveness for much transgression, while the priests moved amongst them, dispensing the body and blood of Christ crucified. Cleansed of sin they could eat a hasty breakfast, then see to the horses on which they would fight, the sturdy destriers, fed early so they would have well digested their oats. Now they were tied with their heads on a short halter that ensured they could not graze.

  Having chosen the crest of a hill they saw their enemies debouching over the opposite rise, each eye keen in examination. Robert had deliberately waited so that his deployment would be visible: he wanted the enemy to see how disciplined were his men, desired they should observe the orderly way they formed their lines. In the centre, under his personal command, he drew up his lances in three lines of two hundred men but kept them still, as the sun rose to fully light the valley in which the contest would be decided.

  Aware that al-Hawas was not leading his army in person, and close enough to the fortress of Enna to be overlooked, Robert guessed the emir would be watching from the ramparts, no doubt praying to Allah for a victory this day. He would see the mass in the centre and the way the other de Hautevilles had taken up their positions and spread out in a single line to deny his men the chance to outflank the main Norman force, puny in number when he gazed upon his own army, now all visible and covering the ground so it had disappeared from view.

  Robert wondered if he might be invited to parley, with the offer that he could withdraw peacefully. When no sign came he was pleased: al-Hawas wanted to see him crushed and, if he had passed on such a command to his captains, it might make them rash. Right now there was no evidence of that: they were stationary, if you discounted the flurries of activity designed to get them into reasonable order.

  ‘Look at us, Ibn-al-Hawas,’ he said softly to himself, ‘and see what it is you would dearly love to command.’

  There was movement in his ranks, but it was slight, as horses were troubled by their neighbours and the men astride them were obliged to use a sharp tug to keep their heads facing to the front. Robert surmised he would have to initiate any action and he did not want his enemies to deploy in peace. He ordered the horns blown and the first line of two hundred lances, under his personal command, moved forward. No directive was needed for the second line to move, which it did when the requisite gap had opened up, a manoeuvre repeated by the third line. The ragged mass of foot soldiers, pikemen in the main, stood their ground, something obvious to those in the fortress, but hidden from those to the front. Had they seen it they might have wondered why.

  Trotting forward Robert’s men rapidly closed the gap and, though the odd horseman broke the Saracen ranks while many had trouble keeping their horses still, the enemy line seemed solid. There was no horn for Robert’s next command, merely the dipping of his ducal banner and, as if on some kind of parade, all three of his mounted lines spun round and began to trot away from their foes.

  Horses, even well-trained mounts, are excitable; men wound up for battle and a possible death are likewise taut so it took few of the Saracen cavalry to break ranks, either through their own excitement or a disinclination for the remainder to keep their horses under control. Once one horse began to race it was very hard to stop the others from doing likewise, and the more that broke ranks the harder it became for the mass. The ground beneath the Norman hooves began to tremble as, in ragged groups, the Saracens began to charge, each horse and rider seemingly determined to be the first to engage, and within no time at all the whole of the enemy cavalry was in motion.

  Robert’s banner dipped again bringing round his lines to once more face their foes. That completed, the blowing horn set the lances into a canter. To the watching eye it must have seemed like the first line would be swept away by the now hurtling enemy. Did al-Hawas see how close these Normans were to each other, understand that, with each knee nearly touching that of his nearest confrere, the Normans presented an unbreakable line of sharp-tipped lances aimed forward and held in arms that had the power to keep them there even when struck?

  The two groups clashed, one screaming, the other silent. When the Saracens struck Robert’s line it seemed, given their pace, not only should it break, the edges must be overlapped to surround him. Ripple it certainly did, for the Normans faced a furious attack and it was impossible for the strongest knight to avoid recoiling when either a rider or his horse became impaled on their lance point. Within moments it was sword and axe work as men hacked at each other, the figure of Robert Guiscard prominent and murderous in his action.

  T
he instruction to break was not his to give; that came from Ralph de Boeuf, commanding the second line and as soon as his horns blew, Robert and his men disengaged and moved away to the right and left, fighting to get clear, only just in time. De Boeuf’s men now struck the disordered enemy with their fresh line of lances, riders who were not charging now but milling about in an unruly mass, which cost them dear. Yet soon the engagement became a repeat melee, requiring replication of what had gone before when Robert, having taken command of the third line, ordered de Boeuf to break off his attack.

  Roger and Serlo de Hauteville seemed of one brain in the way and the time at which they moved, both coming forward, as disciplined as their confreres, to take the Saracens in flank and drive them towards an ever more crowded centre. As the mass increased, fewer and fewer of the enemy could properly deploy their weapons, leaving those at the perimeter exposed and outnumbered, the greatest aid to their survival being the bodies of men and mounts either dead or writhing beneath the hooves of those fighting.

  Whoever commanded the army of al-Hawas, knowing his cavalry were in difficulties, ordered a general advance to aid them, but by the time they came up, the first Norman warriors had broken through to confront them, this compounded by the men led by Serlo and Roger having come round the flanks to the enemy rear. Behind the still-fighting Normans Robert’s milities too had come forward and were either piking their enemies or slashing at the horses’ fetlocks with knives to bring the rider down, those same weapons employed to kill, their task to ensure the mounted Saracens could take no more part in the battle.

  Without commands, the conroys facing the enemy foot soldiers had formed a single line and were once more cantering forward to engage across the whole field of battle, their swords and axes, already dripping blood, ready for more work — Roger on one end and Serlo on the other. The sight made the untrained bands hesitate, which was fatal to their endeavour, for the Normans hit them like a tidal wave, rolling them back onto their fellows. Brave men commanded them and tried to effect a rally but to do so was to be identified and singled out for a swift death. As they went down so did any cohesion, and what started as a slight retreat soon turned into a rout.

  There was no order in the Norman line now: it was each man riding as fast as his tired horse would carry him, to employ a swinging weapon upon the fleeing necks and backs of the men who had come so confidently to fight them. Behind them came Robert’s levies to ensure that anyone who fell was quickly despatched, so that when they crested the opposite mound the field behind was littered with dead bodies, few of them Normans.

  At their centre, covered from head to foot in blood, as was his horse, now with its head lowered and its flanks bellowing to suck in air, stood Robert de Hauteville and he turned to look up at the ramparts of Enna. He could not see Ibn-al-Hawas but he guessed him to be there, just as he knew the Saracen emir would have him in view. Taking his banner from the herald who bore it into battle at his side, he raised and pointed it at the fortress as if to say, ‘These men have died and you will be next.’

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  A month later the whole Norman army could see that for what it was, idle boasting. Though great honour could warm the breast of every lance he led, they had not been able to prevent the bulk of the defeated army from retiring into the town and castle. Given such a defence, taking the outworks that protected the town would be hard enough, never mind the fortress, and it was as plain as a pikestaff that the attacking army was dangerously overexposed, far from a secure base as well as suffering in the heat of high summer.

  There was to their rear no easily defendable stronghold to which they could retire, no source of men to replace the losses they suffered, more from disease than in battle. The land around Enna, standing as it did on a high rocky plateau, was not fertile as it was in valleys and coastal plains, while to top all that, Robert seriously lacked the kind of strength and equipment needed to take one of the most formidable bastions in Sicily.

  Attempts to bring Ibn-al-Hawas to a parley by burning his fiefs produced no results either. From his high elevation he could see how many manor houses and watermills the Normans could burn, how much light could be generated by glowing night-time fields of smouldering crops. If many of his subjects, in order to appease the invaders, came to the Duke of Apulia with tribute and offers of allegiance, Robert knew them to be only as strong as his presence; once he had departed they would renege.

  Relations with Roger wilted in the debilitating heat: if Robert could not admit they were static to no purpose, Roger could. After much squabbling the younger de Hautevilles were sent to foray beyond the confines of Enna. Roger and Serlo rode out at the head of three hundred lances and raided all the way south to Agrigento, plundering in lands that had not seen conflict for decades. They were thus, on their return, laden with spoils and it did nothing for Robert’s temper to have them distribute enough booty to satisfy his whole army, given such generosity only underlined the uselessness of what he was about.

  Added to this was the news from Apulia, sent by Sichelgaita, of the Byzantines he had chased into Bari preparing to sally forth and set his home province alight once more, that accompanied by an urgent request that he return. Stubborn, unwilling to admit to the truth, increasingly short with a brother who hinted it was long past time to go, even the great Guiscard had to admit a check to his ambitions. The leaves had begun to fall, winter was the coming season and if he had been ill-equipped to campaign up till now, here, in high country, his lack of resources would be compounded by increasingly inclement weather.

  ‘We leave in darkness,’ he told his grim-faced captains, his eyes fixed on Roger for any sign of a gloat, he too wise to show any such emotion. ‘I do not want to hear in my ears the cheers from the walls of men we have beaten in battle.’

  Doubly galling was the very simple truth: he could not hold on to what he had taken either in lands or strongholds. This was, Roger’s contingent apart, an army he had brought from Apulia. Too many of his lances, with wives, children and landholdings to consider, hankered for a return. Even if they retired in good order and their enemies were too wary to trouble them, the Normans had to bypass and abandon places they had fought hard to subdue. Close to Enna, the locals were jubilant to see the Normans depart, not so once they left the high inland plateau and entered territory mainly Christian and Greek.

  Sure that Ibn-al-Hawas would take advantage of the retreat they were strong in their persuasion, offering land and comforts in exchange for protection to the more itinerant knights, those with nothing in either Calabria or Apulia, a chance to settle and prosper. Robert was not about to abandon Rometta, which protected Messina from the south-west, but he was persuaded the northern coastal route was vulnerable. Thus he gave permission for fifty knights to stay and make their home in a town with a broken-down citadel, standing atop a mound from which they could see well to the west and which gave them sight of the northern shoreline, naming it San Marco in honour of his god. When he and the remainder of his army moved on, it was to the sound of hammers on rock, as those he left behind began to construct a proper Norman castle.

  ‘We have learnt much, Robert.’

  That got Roger a basilisk stare as his brother took a harder grip of the ratted rope he was holding, part of the rigging of the ship taking them back to Reggio. Over the stern they watched Messina diminish, becoming an indistinct line of white buildings on a long green shore. That, at least, was safe, with a strong garrison commanded by Serlo de Hauteville, made up of men who knew that whatever they had in Apulia could not be matched by what they could gain in Sicily. There would be ships plying in the other direction soon, bringing over their families.

  ‘We have learnt that the Saracens do not know how to fight Normans,’ Robert replied.

  ‘They may not repeat the mistakes of Enna.’

  Nor, Roger was thinking, would his brother repeat the error of trying to subdue an island like Sicily in one campaign.

  ‘They will, brother, n
ever fear. No one learns lessons after one defeat. Even the Byzantines have still not learnt.’

  ‘A little time out of the saddle will be welcome.’

  Robert responded with a humourless laugh. ‘I will exchange a wearied arse for a troubled brain.’

  That acknowledged what he was returning to, not just domestic harmony in his wife and child but the needs of his title: fractious barons, endless jealousy-inspired claims for preferment, the doing down of a neighbour or rival and the problem, yet unsolved, of Bari and the machinations of Argyrus. What he was not about to mention was how to deal with Roger himself, and it showed in Robert’s ire when Roger brought the subject to the fore.

  ‘You have Calabria,’ Robert growled.

  ‘I have oversight of your holdings in Calabria, brother. Outside of Mileto and a couple of other fiefs I have nothing, not even a title.’

  ‘Such a thing is naught but adornment.’

  ‘Which is why you are so proud to be addressed as a duke.’

  ‘Have I not earned it?’

  ‘I could ask you the same question.’

  ‘You will get your rewards, Roger, never fear.’

  ‘When?’

  That sharp demand got a typical response, barked as Robert moved away from an interrogation he found uncomfortable. ‘When I am good and ready.’

  The parting was amiable enough; it could hardly be otherwise with Judith present. Robert admired her as a true Norman wife and a beauty with it, uncomplaining to see her man away at war, a creator of domestic bliss when he returned, as ready to breed as the most fecund mare — there was a new male child called Geoffrey.

  The Guiscard would never admit that Judith stirred memories of his own childhood. The first child of Tancred’s second wife, he had been raised with more love than Fressenda mere allotted to those of his half-brothers she had inherited from the deceased Muriella. Also, at Mileto, there were none of those troubles of which he had been so aware aboard ship, that is, if you excluded how to deal with a brother who was every bit as good a soldier and administrator as he, a man who might need to be curbed lest ambition sour his soul.