After a few stern commands in Veneto were given, four swordsmen appeared. They were clearly seasoned veterans.
Raphael turned to me.
‘Your men first, one at a time, then you.’
Wulfric, never shy of a fight, stepped forward. His Venetian opponent bowed politely before launching a ferocious assault with his shield and sword. Wulfric did well, parried everything, and even managed a few heavy blows to his adversary’s shield. After about two minutes, the Duel Master called a halt and nodded his approval to Raphael of Pesaro. Toste and Eadmer also acquitted themselves well.
Then it was my turn. My comrades were experienced soldiers, but I was not. This was my moment of truth. I had been through many training routines, but I anticipated that my opponent would have been told to give me the sternest possible examination. So it proved.
After the perfunctory bow, he came at me like a man flailing wheat. The speed of his blows was such that I found it difficult enough to follow the arc of his blows, let alone parry them. I was in almost constant retreat until my flight was halted by one of the large stone columns holding up the colonnade around the training area. I ducked under the next blow, hearing the piercing crack of a sword blade striking stone. My sudden move, born of desperation, gave me confidence. I was more nimble than my opponent, and I began to move more adroitly and get on to the balls of my feet.
My opponent, a short stocky man at least in his late thirties, began to sweat. I still felt fresh and slowly started to take the initiative and launch my own attacks. Then I must have become overconfident because, in an instant, my sword was knocked clean out of my hand with a vicious swipe from my opponent’s shield. I reached for my axe, which was slung across my back, and used its haft to parry several more lunges and blows.
Again, my adversary began to tire and I was able to start swinging my axe in wide arcs, giving me an advantage and allowing me to advance. But my rival was too clever for me. He swung away from one of my strikes, and as my blade hit the dirt floor of the arena he managed to trap it with his foot, leaving me exposed. To my relief, the Duel Master then cried, ‘Subsisto!’ and brought the contest to an end.
I was mortified, thinking I had failed, but Raphael of Pesaro stepped forward with a broad smile and held out his hand.
‘Congratulations, Harold of Hereford, you and your men will serve the navy of Venice well.’
He could see that I was puzzled.
‘Vitale is one of the finest swordsmen we have. You did well to keep him at bay for almost three minutes, not many have achieved that. You fight well and I can see that your axe can be useful. There are only five of you, so you will have to join a larger squad of marines, probably on one of the battlefleet’s men-o’-war. Your groom will join the mess crew. Your pay will be twenty denari per month, to be shared as you see fit. Come back in two days, when we will assign you to a ship’s captain.’
We celebrated well that night and drank far too much Passum, the local sweet dark wine, which after a while had a kick like a mule. I woke in the morning, still drunk on the excesses of the previous night. Fortunately, the extra day we had been granted by the Master of the Arsenale gave us all time to recover from our revelries.
5. Dalmatian Pirates
Eadmer found his sea legs quite quickly. Toste took a little longer, but within a few weeks our service on the Domenico Contarini, named after a revered doge from the past, became routine. Apart from the privations one would imagine on a vessel that was home to over 120 men, time passed quickly. Discipline at sea was strict: watches had to be meticulously observed, and we had to be vigilant and prepared for attack at a moment’s notice.
What little time we had to ourselves was spent trying to master the rudiments of the many languages spoken by the crew and the marines, so that we could exchange stories and good humour. All orders were issued in Veneto, and it was vital to recognize these quickly.
I was made third in command – the junior knight of three – at the head of a body of twenty-two marines. My superiors were Pietro and Vitale, the former a courteous Venetian, the latter a surly brute from Taranto. Both treated me with some disdain, doubting my worthiness and being patently dismissive of the abilities of my men. In contrast, the ship’s captain, Enrico Selvo, a Venetian from a long line of seafarers, was friendlier and keen to hear about England and its Norman rulers. He had sailed as far as Toulon and knew a little of the history of northern Europe. He had also heard of the exploits of Godwin of Ely and Hereward of Bourne – but of course did not know that they were one and the same man.
For many weeks, all was peaceful on board the Domenico. Life on our long voyages up and down the Adriatic became tedious. It was a monotony that was only enlivened by loading and unloading at Venice and at our destinations, including Tripoli and Alexandria – cities full of fascinating buildings and teeming with exotic life.
The cities of North Africa were even more cosmopolitan than Venice. Some were ruled by Latin Princes and had Norman, German and Norse mercenaries serving there, whose pale faces and fair hair were in stark contrast to the dusky skin of the Arabs and Berbers and the pitch-black faces of the nomads from the deserts of the south. The markets were full of fruits and spices, the like of which we had not seen before, and their animals were of a species unknown to us. Their beasts of burden were tall ugly creatures called ‘camello’, and they had small hairy monkeys for sale as pets that resembled little men, which they called ‘simia’.
At sea, there were storms and squalls to endure and periods of calm when the oarsmen earned their meagre keep. Most of these men were slaves, bonded to Venice for life. Some more fortunate ones could serve ten years on the galleys to win their freedom; a few were thieves and men of violence being punished for their crimes.
The only real threat to our heavily armed galleys were the equally powerful pirate ships. We had seen them in the distance several times off the coast of Dalmatia, stalking our progress, but had suffered no attacks. That all changed in the late summer of 1117.
We were making good progress, homeward bound for Venice, with a strong south-westerly wind in our sails pushing us up the Dalmatian coast, close to the island of Vis. We were especially vigilant: these were the most treacherous waters in the Adriatic, where numerous small and craggy islands offered perfect hidden moorings for pirates. The Domenico was one of Venice’s new and much larger galleys, with powerful oarsmen capable of outrunning most vessels and sufficient marines on board to repel boarders. But we were heavily laden with Sicilian wine and spices from North Africa, and we sat low in the water.
It was late in the afternoon and we could see from the black sky to the east that Vis was experiencing the kind of heavy storm typical of that time of day in the hot summer. Captain Selvo stood aft watching the eastern horizon; he looked calm enough, occasionally ordering small trims to the sails and checking that the oarsmen were ready to row if needed. He then issued the orders that I knew meant we were going to the first level of preparedness for battle.
‘Get the marines on deck and issue water to the oarsmen.’
He spoke quietly. The Domenico became silent, and men began to peer to the east. But the attack did not come from the east.
The Captain had stationed a lookout at the stern, facing south, and he was the first to see the three muddy-brown sails to the south-west.
‘Pirates off the port stern!’
They had obviously tacked round behind us in the night and were now bearing down on us at a rate of knots. They knew that the setting sun would freshen the wind and give them the advantage of speed to our stern.
The Captain ordered the oarsmen to row, and the war drum began to beat its steady rhythm.
The pirate ships were sleeker than o
ur galley and stripped bare to accommodate Venetian booty. Their holds would be empty of cargo and lighter to row. Their oarsmen were free men, happy to row and fight in return for a share of the spoils. Commanded by buccaneer captains who owned their vessels, and sponsored by rich merchants who traded in contraband, every one of their ship’s company would share in the booty. Such men were hard to beat in a fight.
Their strategies were subtle, based on excellent seamanship, but their tactics were brutal, based on the ferocity of greed. If they managed to ensnare their prey, they would fill their hold to the brim and discard what they could not carry. They would kill all survivors on board their stricken victim, then hole its hull, consigning it to the murky depths, and sail for home laden with their ill-gotten gains.
The pulse of the war drum began to increase as Captain Selvo realized that the pirate sails were looming larger and larger on the horizon.
‘Increase to pursuit speed, but hold there. This could be a long haul.’
He began to look at the sun dropping towards the horizon and then back at the encroaching sails. He did this several times, calculating whether darkness might come to our aid.
‘Trim the sails. We need every cubit out of them.’ He then turned to his helmsman. ‘Hold her hard.’
Again, he spoke calmly; the crew followed suit. These were hardy seafarers. There was no need to panic – at least, not yet. We sailed like this for over an hour. Every five minutes, the oarsmen would rest to get their breath. The Captain looked at the sun again to repeat his mental arithmetic, relating the speed of the setting sun against the pace of our pursuers. Satisfied that he knew the grim answer to the equation, he ordered barrels of pitch to be brought on deck and torches lit. That meant only one thing: there would be a fight and fire-arrows would be critical to its outcome.
The pirates arrived within range with the sun low in the sky behind them. The wind was by then gusting and tossing plumes of foam from the tops of the waves. Two of the bandit ships began to move to either side of the Domenico, while one continued to close directly to our stern. The Captain ordered his corps of marines to divide into three to cover the port, starboard and stern. I was assigned to the port side and I summoned Eadmer and the men close to me.
Our bows were at a disadvantage. We were upwind of our hunters; the pirates had made a clever approach. The order came to light our first volley of arrows. We plunged their hemp-covered tips into the barrels of burning pitch and took aim.
As we loosed our volleys, we could see the pirates in their rigging ready to douse any flames with pails of water. Several of our arrows hit their targets, but shooting was extremely difficult into the strong wind and many of our missiles fizzled harmlessly into the sea. Not so the pirates’ arrows. Aided by a following wind, their volleys came straight and true. Soon our mainsail was ablaze and losing shape, without which we were easy prey.
The long slim arrows from the pirates’ Kipchak bows soon began to ricochet into our deck like hailstones. Men fell all around us and I ordered my men to cover themselves with their shields. I could see grappling hooks and ropes being prepared for boarding less than a hundred yards away. The Captain had disappeared from deck – not to desert us, but to prepare a desperate counter-attack.
The pirate oarsmen stopped rowing to arm themselves, ready to board us. Below deck, Captain Selvo used the hiatus to prepare our oarsmen for a fast and furious onslaught. With a huge cascade of water, our oars were plunged deep into the sea and, with a mighty pull, the ship lurched forward. He then shouted his orders.
‘Hard a-port, ramming speed!’
The Domenico swung to the left and the war drum’s cadence increased, making the oarsmen strike faster than I had ever seen them row before.
Half our company of marines were dead or dying on the deck – including my superiors, Pietro and Vitale – and our ship was alight fore and aft. All three sails were in shreds. We were doomed, but Enrico Selvo was determined to take at least one of the pirate vessels to the bottom with us. We were going to hit the scavenger vessel amidships, and I looked around to see how we might survive the impact.
The captain bellowed at his men.
‘Pull for your lives! Pull!’
The impact was like nothing I had ever felt before. The buccaneers’ man-o’-war heaved backwards, forcing a huge swell of water with it, as our bull-nose prow smashed through the side of its hull. We rose in the air, like a dolphin leaping over a wave. There was a cacophony of sounds: the splintering and creaking of oak planks and heavy beams; the shrieks and cries of stricken men; and the roars and growls of a boiling sea.
Most of the men on the pirate ship were already floundering in the water. Their ship, breached almost in half with its belly and keel exposed to us, was taking on water rapidly and sinking fast. I mustered our remaining marines and we formed up behind the helm, gathering together whatever quivers of arrows we could find. We managed to get away several volleys before the two remaining pirate ships were upon us.
As the grappling hooks clattered into the deck and started pulling us towards the pirates, I noticed that the Domenico had been holed in the impact and had already started to list. Eadmer was standing next to me. I felt a rising panic as I began to look around frantically for a means of escape. Thankfully, Eadmer grabbed me by the shoulders and turned me towards him.
‘Hal, think clearly! You need your wits about you.’
It was a timely piece of advice that helped me maintain control. I began to look around again, but this time with a level head. Captain Selvo was lying on the deck; it looked like he had been hit by a grappling iron and was unconscious. I was suddenly in command of the ship at the very moment the first pirates swarmed over our decks. We numbered no more than two dozen fit men: some sailors, and a few marines. Most of the oarsmen had already abandoned ship.
I told Eadmer and Wulfric to drag Captain Selvo towards us, and we formed a redoubt by the helm. The fighting was intense, but we held a confined space, surrounded on three sides by water, so we were able to form a solid wall of shields and swords, not unlike the English shield wall of legend. More importantly, knowing that the fight was won, most of the pirates were preoccupied collecting weapons and armour from the dead and emptying the hold of whatever wine and spices were still above the waterline.
We had one advantage amidst our dire circumstances: our position at the helm meant we could only be attacked from the front, a space of no more than three yards. But in that confined area, it was like a whirlwind of flashing blades accompanied by the thunder of clashing shields. I have no idea how long we held the pirates off. Time seemed to stand still. I took some blows, but they did not seem to hurt. My blood was up. I just kept flailing with my sword, trying to hit whatever was in front of me.
Inevitably, our small band of defenders started to diminish in number as arrows found their targets and swords and lances struck home. Toste and Wulfric were at my feet. It was hard to tell if they were still alive, but neither moved.
We were within minutes of being wiped out altogether when our assailants realized that they had taken all the cargo that was still above the waterline and that the Domenico’s demise was imminent. The pirates started to leave for their ships, taking care to cut the ropes holding the three vessels together. To hasten our doom, they tipped over the barrels of flaming pitch on to the deck and rowed away, leaving us to our fate.
I took a deep breath and looked around, not noticing the blood flowing down my legs. I had been slashed across the midriff by a sword, had puncture wounds in both arms, and had been hit on the side of the head – a blow that had creased my helmet and made me bleed from a badly mangled ear. The frenzy of battle had rendered me momentarily immune from pain. But as
soon as Eadmer steadied me, I started to stagger, convulsed by searing agony.
Alric had taken up arms, as he always said he would, and was trying to help Toste and Wulfric. Both began to move, but they had been badly wounded. Toste had a deep gouge to the top of his shoulder, while Wulfric – the more seriously wounded of the two – had taken a sword deep into the abdomen.
I could stand only with the support of Eadmer, but I still had sufficient wits about me to issue orders. I asked the four remaining fit and able marines to get Captain Selvo to his feet. We were almost engulfed by flames and the heat was beginning to scorch our faces. I told everyone to discard their weapons and armour, save their seax and belt, and made them get into the water that was now lapping at our ankles.
I heard myself shout over and over again, ‘Rope! Cut some rope!’
Eventually, Eadmer shouted back, ‘Hal, I have rope, enough to hang fifty men!’
He helped me into the water, but it was only as we moved away from the flames that I realized darkness had fallen. The water appeared black and threatening, but its cold lick energized me and I shouted to everyone to find floating timbers that we could lash together as a raft.
It was a makeshift affair, on to which we hauled the injured. We were fortunate: the impact when we had rammed the pirate ship had produced enough flotsam to make a flotilla of rafts, so we added more and more timber to give enough space for everyone. Our first priority was to get away from the remains of the stricken ships. Sails that could snag us were drifting on the surface of the water and patches of burning pitch were still alight, creating eerie halos of light in the gloom. We used whatever we could as paddles to pull away, until the glow of the pitch was on the distant horizon.
Captain Selvo came round within the hour, not long after we had managed to stem the bleeding from Wulfric’s wound. Eadmer had taken off his undershirt and bound it tightly around Wulfric’s midriff, using rigging rope as a binding. He had lost a lot of blood, but was calm and breathing normally. My wounds were weeping a little and I felt some pain from my stomach wound, but not as much as from my head, which throbbed as though someone was holding it in a carpenter’s vice. Eadmer, composed as always, checked my wounds regularly to make sure the bleeding was only minor. He used seawater to cleanse them, the sharp stinging confirming its medicinal qualities.
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