by Jack Ludlow
‘I am told your men are instructed to respect them too, on pain of dire punishment.’
‘We live amongst them, they grow our food; to despoil them is stupid, and one peasant with a sharp knife, loose in the paddocks or stud on a dark night, could do more damage than a regiment of Varangians.’
‘It would be especially foolish to plunder them if you have ambitions to rule over them.’
‘Like Prince Guaimar, you mean?’
The silence that followed that question, from a man who was not normally short of words, was telling. William could see Tirena was intrigued too, reminding him of what he had noted more than once: she had a sharp native intelligence, on this occasion able to discern an atmosphere which was not quite as it should be.
‘Listo, see to my friend’s goblet.’
‘I wonder,’ Kasa Ephraim said, without looking at William, instead examining his fingernails, ‘if you and I should talk about things until now left unspoken.’
‘The choice is yours.’
William was looking at the Jew with a curious expression: Ephraim was not one to break a confidence for him, nor did he think he would do it for Guaimar of Salerno, but he was clearly ruminating on something profound, fingering his refilled goblet in a way that implied calculation.
‘What, William, do you think are the chances of a Lombard kingdom in South Italy?’
‘I have the same thoughts on that as you.’
Ephraim smiled as though William had uncovered some secret, and he did not pretend surprise or ask a stupid question like how this Norman could know what was in his mind.
‘And even if it could be achieved, it could not sustain itself,’ William added. ‘The Lombards are not good at rule and they are especially not good at acting together. Petty jealousy would tear it apart.’
‘Not even if Guaimar was to declare himself?’
‘Your prince wants the spoils without the blood, which may serve in Amalfi, but is no way to command loyalty in this part of the world. Besides, he was appointed, or should I say restored, to his fief by the Western Emperor, Conrad. How do you think Constantinople would see his attempt to elevate himself from prince to king?’
‘They would see it as imperial encroachment.’
‘More to the point, my friend, the present Emperor of the West would see it as committing him to the defence of Apulia, and I think an imperial edict would come from Germany telling Guaimar to withdraw his candidacy lest he provoke a greater conflict.’
Ephraim nodded: the two remnants of the old Roman patrimony lived in a mutual regard based on never driving the other to feel threatened. Thus, for years, Byzantium had stayed out of Campania, while Bamberg had avoided encroaching on Apulia.
‘Did you know, William, I have a wife and children?’
‘No, but it does not surprise me.’
‘I often think what I will leave them, apart from what I own.’
‘What do you wish to leave them?’
‘That which any son of Abraham wishes to bequeath to his offspring, a secure place in which to live. That is my sole concern, and one I pursue relentlessly. I am minded to go wherever that can be promised.’
William felt the slow smile of understanding crease his face, and oddly, because he was looking at Tirena, she, mistaking it, gave a hint of a smile in return. But he was not really looking at her, he was thinking that Kasa Ephraim had just offered him his support. A bargain had been struck, and it had been done so by a very clever man, because it had been made without a word being said, or a promise made, by either party.
That frame of mind was ruptured by Mauger rushing in, his voice breathless. ‘Count Atenulf has sold Boioannes back to Byzantium.’
‘What?’
‘And he has kept the gold to himself.’
‘He is truly a Lombard,’ said Kasa Ephraim.
‘But that is not the most surprising thing, brother. Wait till you see who is the messenger.’
The figure that filled the doorway made William wonder if he was looking into a piece of polished silver with magical qualities, for it was like looking at a younger version of himself. His hair had some grey now; that of his brother was still pure gold.
‘Do you not know me, William? I was once your squire and watched you fight the brother of the King of the Franks.’
‘Robert?’
The nod was slow, then the deep-blue eyes turned to look at, first Kasa Ephraim, then at Listo and finally at Tirena, who was wide-eyed at this apparition, so like the man who now held her as ward. The voice was as deep and the air of being in command of all around him prevalent too, a self-confidence that was devoid of the taint of arrogance.
‘I have come to make my way, William.’
Unbeknown to Robert, William’s thinking was still taken with the chicanery of Atenulf. Also, selling Boioannes was an act that could not have been carried out without the connivance of his elder brother. Thus he was frowning, and Robert, who had seen that expression too often on the face of his father, reacted to it.
‘Do I warrant a proper welcome,’ he growled, ‘or am I to be treated like an intruder by a man too grand to acknowledge his own flesh and blood?’
William was not accustomed to being addressed so and the frown turned to a glare, the voice taking on an equally angry tone. ‘You say you have come to make your way. Well, when I have seen you fight I might consent to let you stay, but, mark this, you will sit well behind the rest of your brothers and they will prosper before you do, for they have done service.’
‘I should have stopped in Troia, as I was asked to do.’
‘If you wish to return there, do so with my blessing.’
‘William…’ Mauger protested.
Robert did not let that intercession interfere with his anger at a greeting so at variance with his expectations. He had travelled too many leagues to get here and sacrificed too much. ‘What makes you think I require your blessing?’
‘You will starve without it.’
‘I think,’ said Kasa Ephraim, ‘that I had best depart.’
‘If you wish, friend,’ William replied, with a glare that now included Mauger. ‘And you can take these two with you, for I have people whose interest I care about to attend to.’
Turning away from the doorway, William nearly burst out laughing. Tirena was favouring his half-brother Robert with the kind of fierce glare she once reserved for him.
‘Murder?’ said Mauger, shaking his head in disbelief.
‘He was drunk and so was the man he killed. The duke was about to take us into service, but that went by the board as soon as Serlo stuck in the knife.’
‘What about Father?’ demanded Geoffrey.
‘I assume he came home, but I was gone by then.’
‘You left him at Moulineaux?’
‘I did what he commanded me to do,’ growled Robert. ‘I saw Serlo onto a boat in the bay at Granville and came south. I wonder now if it was wise.’
‘You caught William at a bad time,’ Drogo insisted. ‘Perhaps an apology…’
‘If he wishes to give me one I will take it!’
Drogo shook his head: that was not what he meant but there seemed little point in saying so, though he did think this younger sibling of his had an arrogant manner.
‘Do we know if Serlo got to England?’ asked Mauger.
‘How would I? His fate is in the hands of God, and if he has drowned, what of it? He would certainly have seen the end of a rope if he had been taken.’
‘He’s your brother.’
‘He’s my half-brother, just like William, so before you chastise me for a lack of concern, take him to task, or are you all too afraid?’
If there had been any sympathy for Robert de Hauteville then, it evaporated. If he had not been blood, there might have been murder in Melfi.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
In a world where news travelled slowly, normally at the pace of a walking man or a sailing merchant vessel, the death of the Eastern Emperor, Micha
el IV, spread like wildfire, because it directly affected the life of everyone in half of Christendom, as well as having a bearing on relations with the rest. Given the unrest in Apulia, it acted to create as much confusion as it did to engender raised hopes. Michael IV had, from humble beginnings, proved to be a successful ruler, in that he had held together an empire many of his neighbours, all of them ravenous for a share of the spoils, saw as ripe to fall apart. He had also managed to survive in the cauldron of imperial politics to die a peaceful death.
Once a handsome courtier and junior officer, brother to a hugely powerful court official, Michael had become the lover of the fifty-year-old Empress Zoë, and had succeeded to the purple on the death of her first, ageing husband. That was an end replete with all the attendant accusations of assassination: first, it was rumoured, he had been left debilitated by frequent doses of a slow poison and, when that failed to send him to his grave, with a drowning in his bath.
Michael, it transpired, had not only kept Zoë content, but several other concubines as well, though increasingly epilepsy, the affliction from which he suffered, had seriously impeded his abilities as both a lover and an emperor. It was a measure of the authority of self-interested courtiers, not least a brother who acted as the power behind the throne, that a man so distressed by increasing illness could reign for so long.
The succession was always a fraught affair, so to those observing and calculating their own position, the tangled skein of Byzantine politics would now become even more unpredictable as those who hoped to inherit the power of the deceased fought for influence. The news that the heir to Imperial Purple was another Michael, related by marriage to the deceased emperor’s father, Stephen – a one-time ship’s caulker risen to the rank of admiral – arrived hard on the heels of the first, and a steady stream of rumour mixed with fact followed as the drama of imperial succession was played out.
Zoë must have approved of the new Michael, yet he demonstrated scant gratitude for her support. Once installed as emperor, she had been banished from the city to a nearby island in the Sea of Marmara, her head shaved and her wealth purloined, but being much loved by the citizens of Constantinople, as well as heir to the ruling Macedonian house, that had caused riots in the Byzantine capital.
Michael V, appearing for the games at the Hippodrome, had been pelted with stones and shot at with arrows by the mob, causing him to send hurriedly for Zoë to appease their wrath, but, even if he showed her to the crowd to prove she was free, he had acted too late. In yet another twist, Zoë’s hated sister, Theadora, who had been shut away years before, was dragged out and acclaimed as joint-empress. Michael, called the Caulker because of the profession of his father, who had taken refuge in a monastery, was hauled into a public square and had his eyes put out.
Zoë was left to co-rule with her sister, but that did not last: she would rather have shared power with a horse. Within months, and now in her sixties, Zoë had taken a third husband, while Theadora was sent back to the nunnery. The new emperor, to whom Zoë was happy to surrender her power as well as her charms, was a one-time courtier, now styled Constantine IX, leaving everyone who passed on the story of these events to wonder at how such an entity as the Eastern Roman Empire could last.
That last tranche of news, the name and identity of the new emperor, came to Apulia with a nasty sting in the tail, for Constantine, as was usual, had reversed many of the acts of his predecessors, which meant that the favourites of both Michaels had been sent to the dungeons, while many of those they had imprisoned were freed and reinstated to their previous rank. One such was the general called George Maniakes, and he was on his way to Apulia to restore the power of Byzantium. Having escorted Kasa Ephraim back to Montecchio, prior to his onward journey to Salerno, William and Drogo were once more face to face with Prince Guaimar.
‘Height,’ William replied, when asked to describe the man he had served under in Sicily, his palm going above his head by three hands. ‘Arduin will confirm that.’
‘Did he not nearly strangle the old emperor’s brother?’ asked Guaimar, as Arduin nodded.
‘It took three of us to stop him,’ said Drogo, ‘and even then I’m not sure we did by force.’
As an admiral, Stephen, the caulker, had been useless, only in place because of his connection to the ruling house, and George Maniakes had made no secret of the fact that he despised him. An arrogant man of incredible strength, as well as size, that strangulation had been a one-handed attempt at murder, which would have succeeded had he not been stopped; but to lay hands on a man with such powerful connections had not been wise and had led, once news got back to Constantinople, to his downfall. It was a fitting irony that this happened just after he had achieved his greatest campaign successes, the defeat of the main Saracen enemy followed by the capture of the most important city in Sicily, the great port of Syracuse.
Due to that same arrogance, as well as the increasing conceit which came with victory, he had fallen out with William, denying the Normans, as well as a body of Varangians led by Harald Hardrada, the right to plunder a city they had helped to capture, and one which had refused terms when besieged. All knew the laws of war and the citizens of Syracuse were no exception: a walled city offered terms of surrender, that then forced an army to invest and subdue it, forfeited the right to mercy.
Maniakes had claimed Syracuse, once the Byzantine capital of Sicily, as a recaptured city, not one taken from the Saracens, nor was he prepared to compensate Normans or Varangians from the Syracuse treasury for their loss – anathema to men who fought for both pay and the spoils of war. Furious, both William and Hardrada had withdrawn their men from the campaign and left the island, the Normans returning to Aversa, while Harald Hardrada travelled back to Norway, where his brother was king, his now leaderless troops returning to Constantinople.
‘His Achilles heel is that temper,’ added Arduin: he had also suffered from the egotism of Maniakes, treated like a servant rather than a captain, glad to see him replaced, only to find himself so underwhelmed by the capabilities of his useless replacement that he too had come home.
‘He thinks himself the greatest general since Alexander,’ added William.
‘Yet his reputation…?’ hinted Guaimar.
‘He is a good general,’ William replied, ‘and I don’t doubt he will be a formidable opponent.’
Guaimar glanced at Rainulf Drengot, as if looking for inspiration, but none came from that source, and it was obvious to those watching him closely, the two senior de Hautevilles and Arduin of Fassano, that the prince was on the horns of a dilemma. Here was the very situation that had made him originally cautious in his aid for the revolt. He had come to the very borders of his domains, to this ruined castle of Montecchio, in the belief that matters were proceeding to a point of settlement; but Byzantium was not prepared to give up on Apulia so easily.
‘What about the forces he has?’
It was Arduin who replied. ‘Maniakes will have no more men to choose from than either of those who preceded him, but he is a more ruthless recruiter and, I would suggest, he will use them more wisely.’
‘But will he prevail?’ Guaimar demanded, in a voice that showed the exasperation he felt at not being provided with concrete help to make a decision.
‘Nothing is certain in war, Prince Guaimar,’ said William, with a gravity he certainly did not feel. Indeed, without showing it he was amused by the way Guaimar was wriggling, like a worm on a fish hook.
‘I cannot see that we can now achieve anything here,’ Guaimar concluded.
Again he glanced at Rainulf, again in vain: the old Norman warrior was either not willing to help him with a way to extricate himself, or he did not see the problem. As soon as news of the Maniakes appointment had reached Montecchio, those representatives of the Adriatic ports had hurried back to their homes, knowing full well that they would be the primary targets of the new catapan the minute he landed. They had departed with nothing decided regarding the future.
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br /> ‘I think it best that we return to Salerno.’
Those words finally stirred Rainulf Drengot from his torpor. ‘You mean run away!’
As a choice of words it was not only too obvious, too undiplomatic, it was very embarrassing, and even if he had become practised at dissimulation, Guaimar’s cheeks flushed and his response was brutal.
‘I do not mean run away,’ he barked. ‘But nothing can be done regarding the future until the threat of Maniakes has been dealt with, and since neither you or I are likely to engage him in combat we would best serve being out of the path of those who must.’
It was now Rainulf Drengot’s turn to flush, but his cheeks reddened with anger at being so publicly rebuked. ‘Then I ask to be allowed to fight.’
‘In what capacity, Count Rainulf, and who will look after matters in Aversa?’ The use of his title, something Guaimar rarely employed, was as shrewd as the mention of his fief, a sharp reminder of the Norman’s vassalage as well as his dependence on the prince for other matters. ‘This was a question I thought settled.’
‘You are, at present, in no danger,’ said William mischievously. ‘I doubt the new catapan knows of your presence on the border.’
The reply was given with all the creativity required of an imperial prince, and in a voice once more under control. Any irritation was in the eyes alone: Guaimar knew he was being bearded.
‘I do not fear danger, William, but I fear that matters might go to rack in Salerno if I am away too long, and that may be even more true of Amalfi.’
Unbeknown to both Guaimar and Rainulf, that was exactly what was happening in Campania, not in newly conquered Amalfi: a full-blown uprising of the peasantry in the lands around Montecassino – not on those worked by the monks, but those forcibly granted to Rainulf’s lances as demesnes. Uncontrolled by their nominal leader, the Normans had grown more and more greedy, not only bearing down on their own people, but increasingly raiding their neighbours, stealing harvested crops and the produce of the vineyards, creating a dangerous head of fury.
