Son of Blood c-1

by Jack Ludlow

  The thought that Peter of Trani had been lucky was not paramount but it was there; had Robert read this prior to dealing with him, the fit of temper this scroll induced might have seen his liege lord strangle him with his bare hands. Added to that, all his feelings of partial recovery seemed to evaporate as well, leaving Robert feeling even weaker.

  The receipt of that same news from the East caused deep consternation in the Lateran Palace, home to Pope Alexander and the seat of ecclesiastical power in Western Christendom. Not that it roused much ire in the Pope himself, old as he was and much troubled by the summer heat, which exacerbated the stink such weather and a lack of rainfall brought to the great city of Rome. He was content to leave matters to the man he had appointed upon his accession as chancellor to the Apostolic See, indeed the very man who had secured the highest holy office for him; Hildebrand had more than enough energy for them both.

  For once the truth matched the depiction, for Archdeacon Hildebrand was truly a remarkable creature and an outstanding administrator. Born in low circumstances — many said he was the son of a peasant, the more generous born of a carpenter — he had risen over twenty years in papal service, by sheer ability and force of personality, to his central position, one in which he held within his hands the entire political and ecclesiastical reins of the most potent office in Christendom. The papacy sat at the epicentre of a web of money and influence: tithes, gifts, pleas for intercession to permit or annul marriages, to confirm or deny titles, never without the gold necessary to oil the wheels. This poured in from all over the continent of Europe to fill the Vatican coffers, while pilgrims of high rank and low came to the Eternal City to seek remission of their sins and were encouraged, if not obliged, to make offerings.

  However unbecoming in a supposedly good son of Mother Church, the communication brought from Archdeacon Hildebrand a stream of curses, some of which were downright expletives, for if the message and its revival of a threat from the East had set a cat amongst the pigeons of Robert de Hauteville’s proposed campaign against Capua, the words Hildebrand was reading destroyed at a stroke a carefully crafted and long-brewing policy. The archdeacon had many abiding obsessions, notably internal church reforms, like an end to the crime called simony — the selling of ecclesiastical offices. As well as that he was strong on the enforcement of celibacy upon the priesthood — a married priest was to Hildebrand no priest at all — apart from keeping his own position secure, and the church of which he saw himself as the protector safe from external threats or influence.

  The first and most immediate obsession over those two decades had been to remove permanently the right of the Holy Roman Emperor to have any say in the election of the Pope, and that had been promulgated, if not universally accepted, by Pope Alexander’s predecessor. Nicholas, in his declaration In nomine Domini, had laid out the rule which abrogated to the Church itself the right to decide on how a pontiff should be elected and who he should be. No more should envoys from the Eternal City crawl to Bamberg for the name of an appointee or be held to ransom by the aristocracy of Rome; the decision would be made by those qualified to judge the quality of the candidates: the cardinals, the senior bishops and the abbots of the great monasteries.

  A second abiding desire was to bring back into the fold of the papacy the Eastern Church and to persuade the Patriarch of Constantinople, seen as the head of that communion, to acknowledge on behalf of his flock that in all matters of the Christian faith the Bishop of Rome was infallible and thus had ever been the head of both congregations — indeed there should never have been two — this being a prerequisite to his eventual ambition of a complete reunion. That centuries of dispute had ended in schism only spurred Hildebrand to work harder for reconciliation — at least, that was his term.

  Unbeknown to the archdeacon, the church he controlled was seen as an intransigent bully with its insistence on the use of unleavened bread in the Eucharist; clerical celibacy for all ordained priests in whatever liturgy; that Latin, not Greek, was sole language of the Mass, and that the Patriarch required the consent of the Pope to his position and that same pontiff had the right to nullify his appointments, as well as excommunicate from the faith him and any of his followers, both clerical and lay.

  Emperor Michael Dukas had seemed inclined to take on the difficult task of seeking that reunion, and there had been much communication in search of the form of words that would bring it about. Along with his good religious intentions came that request for an army to undertake a crusade to reverse the effect of the Battle of Manzikert: that knights from Europe should take ship for Asia Minor and form the bulk of the forces needed to push back the Turks. It was an appealing idea to Hildebrand, given it would kill two troublesome birds with one stone by removing the pestilential Normans, who he would ensure took a major part, from Rome’s doorstep.

  Even with the advance of the heathen Turks and the danger to their whole faith, what Hildebrand called reconciliation was not a notion that gained much favour with either the Patriarch or the Greek Orthodox flock, especially in Constantinople itself, where the mob was every bit as large and effective as they were in Rome. For any Byzantine Emperor who sought to impose a set of conditions that would please Hildebrand was to invite for himself instant and violent removal by that same congregation. Yet service to four popes had induced in Hildebrand the kind of flexibility that, once he had calmed his irritation, immediately had him seeking a solution; the overthrow of Michael Dukas was a setback to a policy, not the termination of one.

  His first task was to pen for the Pope an immediate reply excommunicating the usurper Nikephoros — that he would pay no heed to this denial of the sacrament did not in any way diminish its effect in Hildebrand’s eyes. Then his assistants were called, a dozen tonsured monks, the demand from their master that they find everything that was known about this new claimant to the purple. With many spies in Constantinople, plus a need to be aware of the shifting and tortuous politics of that sprawling empire, the details were soon being studied, this just after he had dictated letters to be sent to his eastern envoys to find out if what he had been told about the fate of Dukas — that he had been imprisoned — was true. It was not common for deposed rulers of that polity to retire in peace, indeed to survive at all; the least they could expect was that they would be ceremonially blinded to prevent any hope of restoration.

  Pope Alexander was informed of what had occurred, the problem of the East was discussed and the conclusion of what policy to pursue arrived at. This, apart from the required excommunication, was the paramount need to wait until matters became less opaque. Byzantine was not a commonly used word for nothing; in that particular polity lay a tangled web of alliances and relationships that stood as a mystery to most observers, even those who were relatively well informed by their spies. In Constantinople court intrigue was endemic and had been for centuries, while the succession to the imperial purple was never straightforward — it was too often decided by coup, the secret blade or a doctored potion — and the wearer was often not the real power, for it was many times more necessary to calculate who stood behind the throne as to know who sat upon it.

  ‘And the other inconvenience?’

  ‘Progresses well, Your Holiness — the Guiscard blames his neighbour for his recent difficulties. He is, as we speak, gathering his forces to attack Richard of Capua and has even sent to Sicily asking his brother to support him with lances and foot soldiers.’

  ‘And Capua?’

  ‘Is, thanks to us, aware of the threat and arming at an equal rate to defend himself. Naturally he has been in communication with us to provide him with support, Apulia being the more powerful.’

  The elderly pope gathered his hands before his lips, either in contemplation or prayer — Hildebrand could not discern which. A conflict between the twin seats of Norman power was as tangled with possible outcomes as anything else with which the papacy had to deal. That mutual destruction was the preferred outcome did not have to be stated; both Capua a
nd Apulia were a concern it would be a blessing to be rid of and it had taken much time to manoeuvre both into a position of impending hostilities — the spreading of rumours, the use of Vatican influence, money and its many bishops, abbots and priests to foster and exacerbate an already existing mistrust between the Normans to the point where they were ready to seek a conclusion on the field of battle.

  The hoped-for outcome was that both would be diminished and what the papacy had lost, like control of the fief of Benevento outside of the city itself, could be recovered, the banditti wracking their possessions in the Abruzzi should be thrown out of that province, and that both Norman enclaves should be so beholden to Rome that they would be more supplicants than bullies. Less welcome was the notion that one should utterly subdue the other, thus creating a more powerful single entity. Yet if both Norman overlords presented Rome with a problem, the greatest, at present, was Richard of Capua, for the very simple reason that he was the closest and thus the more dangerous — he could take the city of Rome at will — so it would help if the Guiscard clipped his wings.

  For every time Richard had aided the papacy — and he had in the past acted as a saviour, not least in securing the position of both Alexander and Hildebrand — there were a similar if not greater number of occasions when he had been the most potent threat at the very gates, while his incursions into borderland papal territories to indulge in outright theft were so numerous as to be a commonplace. Yet if the Duke of Apulia crushed Richard completely, would he not become their neighbour and an even greater threat? The elderly pope had to put aside these silent considerations; Hildebrand was speaking.

  ‘I have encouraged Gisulf of Salerno to continue to openly support Capua.’

  ‘He is a feeble prince, Hildebrand; if his deeds matched his boasts it would be him we have to fear, every one of his and our enemies would be as dust.’

  Hildebrand could only agree with that; Gisulf of Salerno was a shoddy prince, both a capricious ruler and a useless warrior who, despite his manifest failings, saw himself as a new Caesar. He was wont to conjure up in his imagination great hosts which he would lead to victory — the means did not exist in either the numbers he could actually raise, or in his ability to inspire them. Gisulf was a buffoon, more of a pawn in the chequered board of South Italian politics than a meaningful entity, and it spoke volumes of the lack of physical force the Vatican could bring to bear that it was necessary to seek his aid. Added to Gisulf’s military weakness was his way of lining his pockets by what amounted to near piracy, the ships of Salerno combing the seas to attack trading vessels from the likes of Pisa and Amalfi, both of whom complained bitterly to Rome but to no avail — even if the papacy despaired of his depredations, Roman trading vessels from the port of Ostia were no safer.

  ‘Whatever the outcome,’ Hildebrand added, reinforcing the thoughts of the Pope, ‘the contest is going to enfeeble whoever is come closest to victor, and that cannot but be a good thing.’

  Bohemund had gathered his band of thirty knights, formed in three conroys of ten each, one of which he led personally, and had left Calore as swiftly as he could muster men, mounts and supplies; he had no trouble recruiting lances, for when it came to plunder, every Norman in the Guiscard’s army was keen to take part and many were disappointed to be left behind. The newly captured town was closer to Campania than Trani and there seemed little point in assembling there and having to retrace his steps. He therefore had no knowledge that events in the East had affected his role; with a new emperor in Constantinople and one whose disposition was a mystery, Duke Robert no longer felt comfort on that flank, which was alone enough to make him cautious about acting aggressively in the west.

  To invade and conquer Campania he would be required to denude the Adriatic coast, so wisdom dictated that matters be delayed until the situation in Byzantium became clear. The notion of an invasion he could discount — this new emperor would have too many other troubles on his plate — but the loss of a possible marital alliance did mean that the Eastern Empire might, once more, be fully active in fomenting trouble amongst his quarrelsome vassals, and that he must guard against. Yet no message was sent to Bohemund; Robert did nothing to rein in his bastard son, keen as he was to see how he fared as well as offering a test of his loyalty.

  Such ignorance of events found Bohemund and his conroys on a small tributary not far from the eastern bank of the River Ufita, about to cross into the rolling and fertile uplands ruled from Capua. The aim was to destroy the smaller and less defensible outposts and watchtowers that owed fealty to Prince Richard, emptying his granaries, removing the stored ampoules of oil and wine, while letting run wild the spare mounts that were kept in his borderland stud farms, the very means by which he could mount and sustain a campaign in defence of his possessions.

  On the first stage of their journey it was natural that when they rested they did so with the Duke of Apulia’s vassals, but as they approached the border that ceased and they camped as if already on campaign. As soon as they crossed the Ufita the alarm would be raised; thirty strange lances and over a hundred horses — for each conroy had a quartet of young squires who would one day be warriors themselves — could not move without provoking a reaction.

  ‘We must anticipate the local forces will gather to hunt us down. They will try to take us before we do any harm.’

  These words had been spoken by Reynard of Eu, who led one of the conroys at Duke Robert’s insistence — if his father had set Bohemund as the leader of these exploits, he was not dull-witted enough to do so without the inclusion of someone of more experience to provide advice; his son was, after all, only just turned seventeen. What Reynard had said could not be gainsaid, for Bohemund knew as well as his father’s familia knight that such behaviour would not be allowed to go on unchallenged, and part of the young leader’s task was to ensure that he took every precaution against being surprised by a superior force of lances.

  That was a thought that had troubled Bohemund since the day they set off and where he could he had sought advice from those who had previously raided these territories, because for all Duke Robert’s precautions, no invasion could be mounted entirely by surprise; Richard of Capua had to be too canny for that, so those border vassals would be on the alert for anything likely to affect both their security and that of their master. Against such a possibility they would, however, have limited strength; such frontier settlements had no great band of knights to protect them. The bulk of the Capuan forces, those Norman lances that would quickly coalesce into a powerful host, lay closer to their major possessions such as Aversa and Capua itself, while those on the extremities would be mainly locally recruited Lombards or Greeks with a small leavening of Normans to stiffen their fighting ability.

  ‘Then let us make sure they seek us out, Reynard, with the certainty they know where we are.’

  ‘You mean to bring them to a contest?’

  ‘If I can do so, yes, but my ultimate aim is to create a period when we can roam freely and at will.’ Before the older man could analyse what he was being told, Bohemund added, ‘So before we so much as torch a farm we must do some careful reconnaissance.’

  The maps Bohemund had brought with him were copies of those made by the surveyors of the Roman Empire, and no group had been more assiduous in ensuring the accuracy of what they recorded. Thus, if the nature of the landscape had changed through human activity — the Lombards had taken to themselves the best land, created bigger farms and also extended a settlement as well as built a strong fortress at Grottaminarda — the contours had not, so every hill and valley was recorded, as well as the locations of open country, forest and the streams that fed the river, the latter two features of paramount value to a marauding band. Thankfully, here in the uplands, those watercourses flowed well even in summer.

  The local magnate, the most potent of Richard’s vassals, would reside in Grottaminarda, for it was through there the trade routes ran east and west and the collection of toll revenues was bot
h easy and profitable. It was a location too well sited and formidable to even contemplate attacking, but even if a force from there sallied forth to put a stop to their activities it would not amount to the whole available strength; no sensible commander would denude his main base of fighting men when it was essential it be defended and held. Policy dictated the man in charge send out a small body of fighters, backed up by messengers to the outlying forts and towers, taking a small contingent from each to make up a force of enough size to hunt down intruders and crush them.

  Initially only a trio crossed the river: Bohemund and Reynard accompanied by a squire and one packhorse, leaving behind mail and helmets, dressed in the kind of dull woollen garments favoured by non-fighting men and walking as much as riding, never doing the latter with anything above a trot. Bohemund studied his maps and employed a natural eye for terrain that seemed bred into him. They stayed out of sight as much as possible, avoiding the lower ground where the farmers toiled, using the ridges to gain a view of their proposed pillaging grounds, which included the identification of places to raid as well as a good location to offer battle to those who would come to stop them.

  A number of the elevated outcrops had a stone watchtower, built on the site of Roman predecessors and so rudimentary they could only be manned by very small parties of armed men, perhaps six or eight, with only half of them mounted, given there was scarce room to stable horses for more, which left them poorly equipped to defend the land around from banditry. That was not really their task outside petty transgressions; they were in place to overawe a less than contented Greek peasantry and also to ensure that a proper portion of what the farmers grew went to their overlord, and through him to their prince.