Complete Works of F Marion Crawford

by F. Marion Crawford

  Roger occupied the fortress without delay, and gazed from its ramparts upon the great jewel of the south. It lay there like a new world, divided from him by the narrow strait in which the ancients had seen unearthly terrors, but which to the fearless Norman seemed as easy to cross as any river. There were men with him and with his brother who had doubtless fought before Syracuse and at Troina with Bras-de‑Fer and Ardoin twenty-one years earlier, and they had told what they had seen, and doubtless, too, their descriptions of the island’s wealth had gathered richness in the repetition of long years. And those lordly mountains, ranging hand in hand southward to the dome of snow-capped Etna, were not only the guardians of rich valleys and fertile plains within, but they were also the ramparts of a prison house in which hundreds of thousands of Christian men laboured in captivity under the Moslem rule. There was enough there to stir the adventurous spirits of men who were half Christian knights and still half barbarous marauders.

  In the month of August of the year 1060, three Christian merchants of Messina left their city, pretending that they were bound to Trapani, but they put about at nightfall, and came to Roger at Mileto and entreated him to come over and free their city from the Moslems. Roger believed that they were the representatives of the whole Christian population, and he answered that he would come quickly; but the three Christians sailed back to Messina, and when they entered the harbour, the headless bodies of twelve of their friends were hanging from the walls, for the Saracens had suspected their conspiracy.

  To effect the conquest of Sicily, Roger took sixty knights with him, crossed the straits, and landed near the lagoons of Faro. Instead of being received by the whole Christian population in revolt, the Saracens came out horse and foot to destroy the handful of invaders. But Robert pretended fear and flight, and unexpectedly, when the enemy was in hot pursuit, he halted his men and turned short round, and fought for his life; and when the Normans had slain a great number of the foe, and the rest had fled in panic, he took the enemy’s riderless horses and stripped the rich armour off the fallen dead, and sailed back that day to Reggio; and surely it was as daring a deed as ever Northman did before or since.

  At the very time when Roger was making his reckless raid in Sicily, the Greeks were preparing a final expedition to recover the lost south. A general called Abul Kare, probably a converted Moslem, organized a large army on the eastern shores of the Adriatic, and crossed to Bari. The Norman troops were almost all concentrated at the opposite extremity of Calabria, and when Duke Robert faced his new adversary, with a handful of hastily collected troops, he was obliged to fall back to escape destruction, so that in two months Abul Kare succeeded in retaking Taranto, Brindisi, and Otranto. He even advanced as far as Melfi and laid siege to the Norman capital, a fact which proves that even the Guiscard had been taken altogether unawares. As soon, however, as Robert and Roger were able to unite their forces and make an organized resistance, the Greeks were obliged to give way, Abul Kare was driven back as quickly as he had advanced, and before long his temporary presence in Italy had ceased to cause the Normans any apprehension.

  Roger now turned his thoughts to Sicily again, and an opportunity for making another expedition presented itself almost immediately. A certain Ibn‑at‑Timnah, against whom another chief, Ibn‑al‑Hawwas, had vowed vengeance, came to Roger at Mileto and proposed to him a joint conquest of Sicily. This was the origin of that good understanding which afterwards existed between the Normans and one party of the Sicilian Saracens, for Roger accepted the proposal and soon embarked with a hundred and sixty knights and Ibn‑at‑Timnah. They landed to the west of Messina, with the intention of passing by the city in order to gain the interior. Riding at night towards Milazzo, Roger suddenly saw before him in the moonlight a Saracen in full armour, and though he was armed only with his sword and shield, he rode at him instantly. The chronicle says that the Saracen fell from his horse, literally cut in two pieces; and when the body was examined, it was found to be that of Ibn‑at‑Timnah’s bitterest enemy, no other than that of the man who had married his much-injured wife.

  Roger reached Milazzo without further interruption and collected much valuable booty, which he brought back to Faro in the neighbourhood of the small salt lagoons, and though the Saracens very nearly surrounded him while he was waiting for a favourable wind, he got the advantage by a brilliant movement and put them to flight. Encouraged by this success, he was rash enough to turn again and attack the city of Messina; but he was driven back to his ships by overwhelming numbers, and was obliged to stand at bay during three whole days and nights until the weather moderated. Amari is of opinion that this desperate stand was made on what is now called the Braccio del Salvatore, which is the extremity of the sickle that forms the natural harbour of Messina; but it appears improbable to me that so small a force should not have been driven bodily into the sea from such a point; it is impossible to lie at anchor with ships outside that point in heavy weather, and lastly, Roger could not have reached it with the booty which he ultimately carried away, unless he had passed through the city which he failed to take. He must, therefore, have made his stand on the narrow strip of land which separates the lagoons from the sea, which could easily be defended, and within the curve of which small vessels such as he had can lie with tolerable safety during most storms. Here, being in the last extremity, Roger vowed to restore a ruined church dedicated to Saint Anthony, near Reggio, and as the weather then moderated, he embarked and succeeded in reaching the opposite shore in safety, in spite of an attack made upon him by Saracen vessels. He lost, besides one of his small ships, eleven men killed by arrows, and the news of this loss was enough to decide Robert Guiscard to join in the great enterprise. He called together a council of knights and announced his intention of delivering all Catholic Christians from the Moslem bondage; and the knights answered that they would do battle with him for that cause, and promised by the help of God to subdue the Saracens, and they received grace and gifts of the lord duke.

  In the early days of May in the same year 1061, Robert Guiscard encamped opposite the Faro with an army which the chronicle calls numerous, and which seems to have consisted of about a thousand fighting men. But Ibn‑al‑Hawwas was before him, and sent from Palermo a fleet of twenty-four vessels with eight hundred soldiers to protect Messina. Robert and Roger solemnly invoked the help of heaven, confessed and received communion, and vowed to live more Christian lives, introducing in their prayers the truly Norman stipulation that the Almighty should crown their expedition with success. Roger took two ships, and in spite of the Saracen fleet, reconnoitred the Sicilian coast, easily outsailing his adversaries; and on his return Robert determined to send a part only of his force in advance. Roger landed two hundred and seventy chosen men at the limekilns, •six miles south of Messina, and daringly sent his ships back to Reggio, in order that his men might understand that they were to win or die. Riding fearlessly towards Messina, they came upon a Saracen detachment bringing large sums of money, and having slain the soldiers and taken the booty, they joyously pursued their way. They had not ridden far when they saw their Norman ships sailing back again, and were joined by a hundred and seventy more of their knights. This time the number sufficed; four hundred and forty Normans took Messina almost without striking a blow. Many of the inhabitants followed the Moslem soldiers in their flight, and on the steep hillside that overlooks the straits a tragedy took place which the chronicler thought worth recording. A young Saracen of very noble birth had escaped with his only sister, a girl of the most incomparable beauty. Delicately nurtured, and unused to walking, she was soon exhausted and half fainting with fatigue and terror. Tenderly her brother entreated her to take courage, and he helped her and carried her as far as he could; then, seeing that she could not be saved from rude Christian hands, he drew his sword and killed her, and left her dead upon the hillside. So he went on his way, weeping and vowing vengeance.

  Now came the Guiscard himself and landed in Messina with all his force
. He held the key of Sicily, but he hesitated to unlock the gate until he had fortified the city itself and got possession of the formidable stronghold of Rametta. He took the latter without striking a blow, for the terror of the Norman name was in the air, and the Saracens either surrendered or fled. Turning inland when he was sure of his retreat, Robert went up the Val‑Demone, where there were many Christians who received him as their saviour and liberator. Wherever he found a strong place to take which would cost him some loss, he passed it by and went on, and the Normans ravaged the country like locusts, and the Saracens fled before them.

  At last he came to that great plain whence the twin strongholds of Castrogiovanni and Calascibetta rise side by side like brother Titans; and the Normans were seven hundred men, but within Castrogiovanni there were fifteen thousand Saracen riders. So Robert comforted his companions in arms and, looking up at the fearful height, he told them how Christ had said that if a man have faith like a grain of mustard seen he can remove mountains and the Normans confessed their sins and raised the gonfalon and began to accomplish the impossible. The Moslems charged down furiously, but neither numbers, nor weight, nor sword, nor lance availed them, and the Northmen forced them bodily up the frightful steep, slaying them and climbing upon their bodies; and the rocks ran blood in rivulets; and of fifteen thousand Moslems who had ridden out, five thousand beaten men got back alive within the impregnable walls.

  Sagely Robert left them within, for he would not waste men and steel upon the huge ramparts; but he destroyed the crops and the fruit trees and drove off the cattle and encamped by the shores of that fair lake by which Persephone had strayed in the days of the gods. But by and by he quietly took possession of Calascibetta, and thither the frightened Saracens came up with presents and prayers for mercy, their heads bowed, and their hands crossed upon their breasts. Thither, too, the Moslem admiral of Palermo sent him rich presents, wearing apparel embroidered in the Spanish fashion and much fine linen, vessels of gold and silver, and mules in royal caparison; and he sent also a purse in which there was gold worth twelve thousand pounds of English money.

  Robert now sent an ambassador to Palermo, and he chose for this purpose a certain deacon who spoke Arabic, enjoining upon him to keep his knowledge of the language a secret. So this man spied out the land and brought much precious information, and told Robert that the people of Palermo were but a body without a soul. But Robert, seeing the strength of Castrogiovanni, knew that he could not take it with the few men he had, so he went back to Messina with his vast booty, and three months had passed since Roger had landed with the advanced guard. Messina, Rametta, San Marco, and all the Val‑Demone were subject to the Normans now, and Ibn‑at‑Timnah, their firm ally, was established in Catania.

  Robert Guiscard and Sigelgaita returned to Apulia in the autumn of 1061, and Roger, after a short stay at Mileto, crossed into Sicily again with a small force and harried the Moslem lands as far as Girgenti. Returning towards Messina he came to the strong Greek city of Troina, and the inhabitants, who seem to have been almost entirely Christians, opened their gates and received him with enthusiasm. This place was destined to play an important part in the life of the young conqueror. It stands upon the table-like summit of a steep mountain •almost three thousand feet high; it is often hidden from the surrounding country by clouds, and is excessively cold in winter, when snow and ice sometimes lie on the ground for weeks. The town is dominated by a strong citadel, from the towers of which most of the principal cities and fortresses of Sicily are visible in clear weather.

  Resting here, Roger learned that the lovely daughter of William of Evreux, with whom he is said to have fallen in love on his way to Italy, had arrived in Calabria and was ready to marry him. Judith of Evreux was the great granddaughter of Richard the First of Normandy, and had just escaped from that country with her sister and half brother, the latter having for some reason incurred the dangerous wrath of William who was soon to be called the Conqueror. Judith is now believed to have been the same person as Eremberga, and to have adopted the latter name when she left the convent in which she was brought up.

  Roger lost no time, but returned instantly to Mileto and was married with all the pomp he could afford. A few weeks later he left his young wife behind him and returned to Messina. The chronicler says that she shed many tears, the memory of which perhaps moved Roger to take her with him on his next expedition. On the present occasion he succeeded in getting possession of a fortress on the northern coast near Cefalù, while Ibn‑at‑Timnah pursued the civil war he was waging on his own account, and much to Roger’s advantage. It was now that Roger first placed a Norman garrison in Troina, but the treacherous assassination of Ibn‑at‑Timnah near Corleone soon rendered the possession of such isolated garrisons very unsafe, and in Roger’s absence they hastened back to Messina.

  A deadly quarrel now broke out between Roger and the Guiscard, who had refused to hand over to his brother the lands he had promised him in the treaty the two had made at Scalea. Roger was the more exasperated because he was thus prevented from making a suitable marriage gift to his young wife, and he determined to take by force what was indeed his by right. In one of the first encounters a half brother of Judith was thrown from his horse in the charge and killed, and Roger’s anger rose to the pitch of fury. Robert now besieged him in Mileto and built two rude castles, one at each extremity of the city. Roger responded by invariably attacking the one when he was informed that Robert was in the other, and as Robert was obliged to ride round the city, while Roger could traverse it in a straight line, the advantage always fell to the latter.

  One night Roger took a hundred men and rode down to the city of Gerace, which owed allegiance to Robert, but promptly opened its gates to the younger brother and provided him with means for carrying on the war. Robert therefore left a part of his troops before Mileto and laid siege to Gerace; but being unable to take it at once, he resorted to a stratagem, entered the city alone, disguised in a cloak and hood, and went to the house of one Basil, a man whom he could trust. While he was talking with Basil’s wife Mileta, before dinner, a servant betrayed his presence; instantly the city was in an uproar, and an infuriated multitude beat down the doors of the house; Basil got out and tried to take sanctuary in a church, but was cut to pieces before he could reach the door; the unfortunate woman was dragged out and impaled alive on a stake to die in agony, and Duke Robert, with his hood thrown back, faced the multitude alone and unarmed.

  His natural intrepid coolness did not forsake him; he saw that he must win the crowd by gentle words or die, and his eloquence saved his life. With the utmost skill he laid his case before those who thirsted for his blood. He had come to them unarmed and of his own accord, he said, to them who had sworn to be his faithful subjects. It would be a shameful thing for thousands to tear a single unarmed man to pieces, but they might do it if they chose, there he stood in their midst. They would get no glory for such a deed, nor would it free them from the Norman yoke; he had brothers, friends, an army of soldiers at their gates, and did they think the Normans would not avenge the shedding of Norman blood?

  He persuaded them to spare his life, but not to give him his liberty, and from the threshold of his dead friend’s ruined home the great duke was led away and thrust into prison. Roger soon learned what had happened, and he came into the city with his men and bade the people give him his brother, who was his enemy, bound hand and foot; for he would slay him with his own sword. But when the brothers were alone, they fell into one another’s arms, says the chronicler, and embraced one another like Joseph and Benjamin of old — an affectionate effusion which did not prevent them from renewing their quarrel. It ended only when the danger of a general rising in Calabria brought the brothers to their senses. They met at a bridge in the valley of the Crati, which was long afterwards called Ponte Guiscardo in memory of the day, and there they promised to forget their enmity, and agreed to divide Calabria between them.

  Roger now crossed to Sicily a
gain, taking Judith with him, and accompanied by three hundred men he reached Troina, where he established himself, strongly fortifying the citadel. The town, as has been said, was almost wholly Greek, and a quarrel having arisen between the Norman soldiers and the inhabitants, the latter attempted to storm the castle when Roger was absent on a raid. The Normans defended the Countess Judith with their usual desperate courage, and Roger returned in time to avert a catastrophe. But the castle gates had barely closed behind him when more than five thousand Saracens swarmed up from the valleys, attracted by the news of a quarrel between the Normans and the Greeks, and uniting with the latter, laid formal siege to the castle. During four months Roger and Judith, as well as their men, suffered incredible hardships. The winter was bitterly cold, and they were so ill provided for facing it that the pair had but one mantle between them, and only one could go out upon the ramparts while the other tried to keep warm within. They were so reduced by hunger at last that the beautiful young Judith could find no remedy against her sufferings excepting sleep. Lean and dangerous as half-starved wolves, the Normans made frequent and desperate sallies against the overwhelming numbers of the enemy; and on a certain day, as Roger was attempting to save one of his men who was surrounded, his horse was killed under him, and Greeks and Saracens were upon him in an instant, attempting to drag him away alive, while he resisted ‘like a bull that scents the slaughter house.’ But his sword was out, and lifting it up with both hands he mowed down the foe till their bodies lay in a wide circle around him, and the rest dared not lay hands upon him; and while they looked on in fear, he coolly took the saddle and bridle from his dead horse and regained the castle on foot.

  But now the besiegers themselves suffered from the great cold, and, having wine in abundance, they drank so much of it that they were often asleep upon their watch, while the hungry Normans waked; and so one night, when they were stupefied with drink, the Normans crept out with muffled feet and made an end. Roger hanged the ringleader of the revolt and most of his accomplices, and then, when the slain were buried and he held the city fast, he left his brave young wife in sole command and went over to Calabria to obtain horses; for in their extreme famine he and his men had eaten most of those they had. While he was gone, Judith herself made the rounds of the ramparts by day and night, and she encouraged the sentinels with good words and many promises, so that when her husband came back he found all well and the city at peace.