by Jack Ludlow
‘They never believed I would press the siege so long,’ Robert insisted, changing an uncomfortable subject and since it was approaching three years, that was an understatement. Robert’s brow clouded, making him look devilish. ‘But I am here till Bari falls, Roger. I will never give this up.’
‘It could be another year.’
‘Then let it be that,’ Robert growled, before he brightened a little. ‘But, you know God is on our side, brother. He will make something happen.’
* * *
And happen it did. Argirizzo had sent word that Paternos had gone himself to Constantinople to plead for support and news soon came back that he had been successful. An army was marching to Durazzo on the Dalmatian coast, a couple of days’ sailing from Bari. The prince of that Byzantine fief had given sanctuary to the traitorous Joscelin of Molfetta, who was also raising malcontents in Robert’s own domains, making it a genuine threat. Roger was sent to sea to keep watch, though he was soon back on shore.
‘You cannot just keep ships at sea, Robert. If you do, they will suffer such wear they will be useless when they are truly needed.’
‘Why do you never do what I command you to do?’ Robert yelled.
‘Let me take charge, Father,’ Bohemund demanded.
‘You?’ Roger scoffed. ‘You are barely breeched.’
‘I am as good a soldier as you.’
‘Which is damned useless when what is needed is a sailor.’ Turning back to Robert, Roger continued, ignoring the black looks he was getting from Bohemund. ‘And before you say it, neither am I. But Geoffrey Ridel is and I am taking his advice.’
‘There’s an army coming and I need to stop it before it tries to land.’
‘Then we must find a way to tell when.’
‘How?’
‘Try your spies.’
In the end, it was the people of Bari who gave the answer. The populace, even the most loyal, were getting desperate: everyone knew this was the last throw of the dice. If Paternos came back with an army, Bari would hold out, if not, it might not submit immediately but fall it would. The idea was that the fleet of ships would seek to make their landfall on a moonless cloudy night, so the Normans would be blind. That the relieving force would also be blind was to be solved by the Bariots lining their sea walls with torches.
The intention was that those torches would number just enough to do what was required, but the citizens, in their enthusiasm, crowded the ramparts in their hundreds, setting up a blaze of light and that alerted Roger. He manned his ships and went to single anchors, until he received a signal of his own from a piquet boat he had left out in deep water. The enemy had been sighted and he was at sea within half a glass of sand, sailing out at the head of thirty warrior-laden ships to where he suspected his enemy must be. Soon he saw what they had to have aloft to avoid colliding with each other, lanterns at their mastheads.
‘Light the ship,’ Roger ordered, ‘let them see what they face.’
Men ran to carry out that command, one that was repeated on every vessel Roger led, each turning from a ghostly shadow to a lit deck, which showed their strength.
‘Double lights on one mast,’ Ridel said, pointing ahead, ‘I’ll wager it’s the lead vessel and that will be carrying Paternos.’
‘Close with it,’ Roger shouted, before picking up a speaking trumpet and passing the same command over the water to the other captains. Capture the enemy command ship and the rest should succumb.
The tragedy that followed could not have been foreseen. It was brought on by an excess of zeal, though some felt, in retrospect, it was more to do with a lack of caution from warriors unaccustomed to fighting at sea. On one deck every man rushed to the side to catch a view of the vessel Roger had indicated. With horror he watched its own lights dip towards the water as the weight produced a list. Yet it did not stop and correct itself, it carried on until it hit the sea, lanterns fizzing out as the vessel capsized, throwing in excess of a hundred fighting men, all in heavy mail, into the water. Even if they could swim, and few would be able to, their mail must weigh them down; they would all drown.
Roger had to turn away and he also had to put out of his mind any thought of rescue, not that it would have been easy. There was a battle to fight and winning that was paramount, notwithstanding he had to shout to stop those on his own deck from rushing to view the loss and bringing about another disaster. Thankfully the gap was closing fast, so his men could see where their duty lay.
‘Grappling irons,’ he yelled, as their movement restored the trim of the ship.
He ran to the prow so that he could control the time of contact, using a set of hand signals he had worked out with Geoffrey Ridel that would bring his vessel alongside the enemy to best advantage. All along the bulwarks men were waiting for his signal to throw the triple-hooked grappling irons, and when he gave the command they snaked out to clatter aboard the opposite deck, to then be hauled hard so they would grip. Not all held, some were cut, but three dug into timber and were pulled taut.
Hauling hard, the Normans pulled themselves towards their enemies and they, seeking to defend their ship, erred in rushing to one side, causing it to list, not as badly as the vessel which had capsized but enough to ensure when the two vessels came together the Normans, standing on their bulwarks, had height on their opponents and were thus able to jump on top of them to engage, the weight of the fall the first thing to gain them an advantage and room to fight. The sound of crashing timber was soon replaced by that of clashing metal, as swords and axes were employed by both sides in a melee that compacted men into the constricted fighting space of the ship’s deck.
As ever, Norman skill told here: they knew to form a wall of shields without instructions, knew what steps to take to protect their neighbouring warrior to the left, knew to use their shields to block any blows from that quarter. With Roger in the centre they kept that line, inching forward against opponents giving ground, a strake at a time, small amounts but significant, for to be retreating was to be losing.
By the great tiller Roger could see a man he knew well, Joscelin of Molfetta, and the sight of that ingrate, who had been granted so much by his brother, urged on his arm and that alone added force to the battering the men defending the ship were receiving. The Normans were obliged to step over the bodies of the slain, careful to avoid slipping on their blood. A fellow Roger did not know, but one dressed in fine armour, stepped into the fray, jostling forward and seeking him out.
That he was a soldier and a good one was obvious: he was a man who fought with his eyes, knowing his arms and feet would obey the commands sent to them by his brain, and he was strong. No orders were given but it was soon obvious that this contest was to be decided between these two and their swords. They swung them against each other time and again in a tattoo of clashing metal, came together then fell apart with a collision of shields, the only thing still their heads as, eyes locked, they sought that one blink or wrong signal that would present an opening.
Stephen Paternos had never fought a Norman in single combat: that he might have coped with, but he had never engaged with a de Hauteville. Roger was in his element: he could have been back at Hauteville le Guichard with old Tancred’s shouted instructions in his ears and it had been the same as every fight since, a reliance on the strong arm and quick brain that were his family birthright.
Paternos moved his round buckler just enough for Roger to get his teardrop shield inside it and fix its position for no more than a blink. But it was enough: Stephen Paternos needed to correct it, his chest was exposed, needed to use extra pressure to free his own shield from the way Roger was holding it. In pushing to his right, his sword arm opened up enough for the hilt of Roger’s weapon to get through his guard and take him on the upper chest – not in itself a telling blow, but one that created both the time and the opening for that blade to be raised and fall on the Byzantine’s helmet with stunning force.
As he reeled back it was the following blow that killed hi
m, a round-armed sweep that took his neck just below where his helmet ended, with a blade so sharp that it could slice through a single horse hair. The light went out in those eyes, with Roger aware that he had been a worthy opponent who never once wavered in his concentration, even when he knew he was probably doomed. Apart from the sound of his own heavy breathing, Roger now heard only the sound of dropping weapons, then, shortly and all around, coming from other ships, cries of loud cheering.
They landed with the enemy ships, bar one, under tow; that last one had broken through to Bari. On the journey back Roger had made Joscelin dress as a high-ranking Greek, in the non-fighting clothes of the man he had slain, whose name he now knew. It was a great pleasure to present Joscelin as a gift to his brother and to hear the wretch plead for his life, but there was little time to gloat.
Word came almost at once that a party of Greeks, having seen that relief was not at hand, in despair and encouraged by Robert’s agent Argirizzo, had seized one of the twin towers on the land wall, calling for Normans to reinforce them. Yet another siege tower, built but yet to be employed, was quickly pushed forward to finally rest against the ramparts. Robert’s best warriors, led by Bohemund, with Jordan and Serlo on his heels, flooded up over the now undefended ramparts and once in possession of that corner tower the city was doomed: at dawn, word came asking for terms.
Robert was lenient: he could afford to be. What soldiers of Byzantium remained, and any Greeks who wished to depart, he let sail away. The Duke of Apulia had what he wanted, absolute control of his domains. The Eastern Empire no longer had a toehold in Italy: on the Saturday before Palm Sunday, banners that had flown over the city since the time of the Emperor Justinian, five hundred years before, were hauled down for the last time to the sound of a Latin Mass being celebrated in the great cathedral.
* * *
Palermo suspected the de Hautevilles were coming and they knew that this time the Normans had a powerful navy. Every Byzantine satrap, from the Dalmatian coast to the Bosphorus, was busy strengthening their defences in fear of that fleet appearing off their shores. Yet Palermo had strong walls and surely, after a three-year siege these warriors would want some respite. Not so: the Guiscard, with that power to inspire which was the hallmark of his leadership, had his army enthused and marching to Reggio within a month, Roger insisting there was one task to perform on the way to Palermo. If there was one area where he felt outshone by Robert it was in his cunning – hence his soubriquet – a fact well known to the older brother, so it was with some amusement the Guiscard listened to his younger brother as he outlined his plans and reasons for taking Catania.
‘For all al-Tinnah is long dead we are still well thought of there, and it would not surprise them to have me request some men to aid us in taking Palermo.’
‘You think they will respond?’ Robert asked.
‘I doubt they will welcome the notion. Their late emir might have dangled possession of Sicily in front of us but I never thought he really believed in it. But if I sail into the harbour they will not dare refuse me permission to land. I will then request they allow you to enter with the fleet to pick up their contingent…’
Roger did not finish, leaving his brother ruminating. Even with Palermo, the rest of Sicily was not going to be easy to conquer. It was mountainous, had many elevated and redoubtable fortresses, the Greeks were not universally friendly, and while the natives were not openly hostile, the Saracens, numerous and religioninspired, were. The problems lay in securing the big ports, Catania being one, as well as Agrigento on the south coast, which would need to be secured to stop incursions from North Africa. But biggest of all was Syracuse, the gateway to Sicily since ancient times. To hold that was to deny the island to a resurgent Byzantium; that the Eastern Empire was weak now did not mean it would always be so and Catania was not far up the same coast.
‘If they resist?’ Robert asked.
‘I don’t doubt they will, but they will succumb because we will be inside their walls.’
And so it proved: Roger was welcomed, not with open arms but with grace, and the Catanians were not so foolish as to deny the request he made, for was not the Count of Sicily known to be an honourable man, unlike his brother? They were still unsuspecting when Robert led his fleet into their harbour. His soldiers landed and fanned out through the town, the scales only falling from the Catanian eyes when they found their strong points being occupied and Normans manning the city gates. They fought but it was futile, within a week, Catania had been re-fortified and had a Norman garrison. The brothers who had deceived them were on their way to Palermo, Roger leading the army via Troina, Robert taking his fleet north to round Cape Faro.
Robert made several landings on the way to overawe the coastal settlements, so Roger arrived first and set up his camp to the east of the port on a fertile plain cut with a good river, a place of palaces and summer residences surrounded by orange and lemon groves where the rich traders of Palermo were wont to escape the stink of a crowded city, a teeming metropolis with a population reckoned to be a quarter of a million. All were abandoned, their owners now inside the walls, so the Norman host were free to accommodate themselves in much comfort in houses made of cool marble, escaping the summer heat.
There was a fort called the Castle of Yahya at the point where the river met the sea, running into a good bay, a perfect place in which to anchor Robert’s fleet and disembark his army – the shape of Palermo harbour, lying as it did in a deep gulf, precluded the same tactic he had used to blockade Bari. Taking the castle looked simple, but the Saracens, expected to surrender against hopeless odds, instead came out to fight and suffered much for their bravery. Roger did not realise it, Robert did not know, but this presaged much of what was to come. Those men had fought for their faith as much as for their island and that was to be replicated in the city itself, for there was not a citizen who did not know that what they were fighting for was the honour of the Prophet and the future of Islam in Sicily.
On landing his warriors Robert ordered that a Mass be said, so that all could confess, that to be followed by an immediate assault, the hope being they could take Palermo by a coup de main. Robert sailed his ships round Cape Zafferano and into the great bight on which Palermo stood, while Roger led the army towards the walls to let them see the size of the force they now faced, made up of Normans and Greeks, Apulians, Calabrians and even men from Bari. Those they were intent on subduing had been waiting years for this moment: they had worked on their fortifications and even walled up several of the city gates, gathered arms and trained with them. A hail of stones and arrows met Roger, while the sheer number of vessels that emerged to meet and fight him thwarted Robert. The attack failed both on land and at sea.
Was there a soul in Palermo who thought they could repulse the men who had conquered so much? Did they, in their darker moments, wonder at a race like the Normans, and at a family, the eldest of whom had only arrived in Italy thirty-five years previously and with nothing: bare-arsed knights, as they described themselves? By sheer ability with sword, shield, horse and lance, guile, cunning, political ability and a strong dose of good fortune, they had risen to consort with kings and popes, had come to make emperors fearful. Did they reflect that in the past invasions of these lands it had been an overwhelming force of numbers that had triumphed, yet these de Hautevilles were few, and the men they led never were large in numbers? If they did think such thoughts, it seemed they knew they were doomed, yet they fought, not with despair, but with faith that when they died, all the promises of Paradise made to them would be theirs.
The Greeks of Bari had stayed behind their walls, but the Saracens of Palermo came out to fight and, if they paid a high price for their courage, they extorted a fair one in exchange, for they matched the men Roger led in sheer brio. They applied cunning too, opening gates to entice their besiegers forward, then coming out to fight in massive numbers, falling back to heavily manned walls from which their companions could inflict casualties with boilin
g oil, fire, rocks and arrows while their fellows slipped back into the city.
Nor were they shy at sea: a combined Sicilian and African galley fleet appeared off the Gulf of Palermo intent on destroying Robert’s ships, each one with a thick awning over its deck to protect the rowers from crossbow bolts and lances, each vessel full to capacity with men so willing to die that if they lacked leadership it mattered little. A battle begun near dawn was still raging as the sun began to dip, and it took that long for the Guiscard’s ships to gain the upper hand. In the end, though, such stalwart resistance contributed to their undoing.
Finally breaking off the action and fleeing for safety, with their exhausted oarsmen collapsing over their sticks, the Saracen fleet made for the harbour. Pursued by Robert’s ship they sought to secure the entrance with a great chain, a device that had kept them safe for decades, only to fail to secure it in enough time to stop him breaking through. Once in the confined space of the harbour, and using fire to set light to those protective awnings, the destruction of the Saracen galleys was total.
Now Robert had what he wanted, a city cut off from supplies and he also sent men to secure the mountain passes that led to Palermo, so no relief could come from the landward side. Famine was his weapon; it had aided him before and it must do so now. Yet there was hope for the besieged: news came from Apulia of yet another revolt, this time backed by Robert’s powerful brother-in-law, Richard of Aversa, Prince of Capua, who had made common cause with that miserable slug, Gisulf of Salerno.
Would Robert scuttle back to the mainland, as he had been obliged to do so many times previously, to suppress such puissant enemies, taking with him most of his army? For days they waited for the sign of his departure, but they waited in vain. Robert knew he would never have such a chance again, but it was obvious to the Saracens and Normans alike that any decision, for him, must be a swift one. Palermian hopes rose: would one more hard fight convince the Guiscard that time was against him?
