you want the services of a Norman you buy it.’ She pressed the bag towards his hands. ‘Do so with these.’
About to tell her she was wrong, Guaimar stopped himself, but in doing so he wondered at what he had become. Ever since he had spoken with Kasa Ephraim he had been forced to examine the past both of himself and his house. If his father had business with the Jew that gave him funds, what were they for? Secret pleasures, possibly, but more likely his dealings provided money with which he could bribe people. To find out what? Local dissent, information of plots being hatched, even the placing of spies in the households of his perceived enemies and, even more troubling, those he called friends. What would Berengara say to find out the father she thought a saint was almost certainly very far from that?
He loved his sister in a way that was not possible of expression, and he also felt a duty to protect her that went with his position as her elder sibling, but he must hold to caution, as surely his father would have done. Could he trust her not to let something slip to Bricee, a woman who had been with the family for decades and had served Berengara as almost a surrogate parent when her own mother died? He could not even tell her she was coming with him, so he held out his hand and took the jewels.
‘Thank you.’
‘It is no more than my duty,’ Berengara replied, with a determination that made her look younger, not older, than she was. For a long time, Guaimar had not seen that face; it was one he remembered well, of the sister who never hesitated to stick out her tongue at him just after it appeared.
‘If you need directions to the Jew,’ she added, ‘Bricee will give them to you.’
Again he questioned what he was turning into, for he knew, as a subterfuge, he would indeed ask her maid that question.
The last note from Kasa Ephraim came two days before the new moon, and told him that all was in place, while he was off to Capua to present himself to Prince Pandulf, with the hope of becoming the Wolf’s man of veiled and discreet business. He did not say that, when the absence of Guaimar and Berengara became known, there could be no safer place to be than in the man’s actual lair. The last two figures on the note were an eight and a bell, to tell him at what time to expect his messenger to call.
Osmond de Vertin, on the night of the new moon, as soon as it was dark, sneaked a troop of his men out of a side gate of the Castello de Arechi. He was in high spirits, for he not only knew that Guaimar was going to seek to get away, but he knew, from a variety of informants, precisely the route he intended to take. He could have stopped him at his own front door, but he decided not only to let him get to the monastery and the ready pack animals assembled there, but to be on his way.
The Norman wanted to take him when there was no doubt about his intentions, on the road leading to the main pass through the mountains to the east, and with all the possessions he had so carefully accumulated. There would be no return to Salerno for the snotty little swine. Osmond would take him straight on to Capua, to be handed over to Prince Pandulf and his torturers, so that the names of all who had assisted in this undertaking could be dragged out of him.
As he rode ahead of his men under a starlit sky, he wondered what reward Pandulf would think appropriate for his success. He knew in his mind that, if asked to name what he desired, he had a ready answer. Guaimar would die, either under torture or in a deep dungeon in years to come. His sister, however, would still be alive. She was young, beautiful already, and would ripen superbly under the hand of a lusty husband. That would, to the Norman captain who had once carried her as a child, be a fitting reward.
The man who came at the appointed time said only the password and nothing else. Guaimar had told his sister only minutes before that they were leaving, and when she spoke of packing something suitable he told her she would find the chests that held her better clothes empty, and why. The look she gave him then was one to make Guaimar uncomfortable, which made him realise that Berengara had grown in more than just a physical sense: she was developing a deductive brain as well; she knew he had deceived her.
They exited in their cloaks, hoods up, to streets that were dark and deserted — people lived by the sun and mostly slept when it was no longer light. Their guide walked just enough paces ahead to be visible but, as Guaimar knew, also far enough to disappear if they were intercepted by the Norman garrison. A tallow wad showed in the odd window, but mostly they made their way, moving downhill to the port, through a silent city.
Was it quieter than usual? There seemed to be no revellers out at all, and Guaimar knew that was unusual. Had he not been a party to many a noisy drinking bout with his friends in the taverns that lined the edge of the port when still the ducal heir? He found he was sweating, and he knew it was brought on by fear. Odd, when he took Berengara’s hand to reassure her, it, unlike his own, was dry.
Having reached the edge of the quay, their guide stopped and indicated they should go down in a decked boat bobbing on the very slight swell that came through the harbour entrance. There was no one on deck to greet them; indeed the boat seemed deserted. The last thing their guide did was to press a very small purse into Guaimar’s hand.
‘To use when you get ashore in Romania.’ Then he was gone.
Lord in Heaven, Guaimar thought, even this fellow does not know where we are going. It then occurred to him, given the cunning of the Jew, that perhaps he did not know either. There was little headroom under the deck and no sign of anyone to sail the boat, which induced in the young man a feeling of impending betrayal. Was all this an elaborate ploy; would they sit there till daylight only to find the quayside lined with Normans when the sun came up?
Time passed with neither he nor his sister having any idea of how long they sat in the dark, but it was hours, time in which Berengara prayed in a soft voice. Then there was shouting, faint but clear, the noise of many voices. The sound of bare feet on the deck above their heads, as well as the way the vessel dipped and moved, made Guaimar’s heart contract with terror, but then he heard the faint creak of ropes, along with whispered instructions and he understood the crew were aboard, having waited a long time to make sure that he and his sister had not been followed; that way, if they were discovered and exposed, they could claim ignorance.
A lantern was lit, which cast a sliver of light into the space where they were huddled, and immediately after the whole boat began to rock and creak as it left the shore. All the two young escapees could do was imagine every possible scenario. A crack made them jump until Guaimar whispered he thought it was a sail taking the wind. The fishing fleet must be on its way out, and each would have a lantern at the stern. At the end of the mole there was a permanent Norman guard, but this happened every morning except Sunday. Were they too bored to look very hard?
Lots of shouting went on around them, faint through the planking but raised voices nonetheless, then from above their heads the voices of the men in whose hands their fate lay, shouting insults to the guards on the mole, of the sort that were returned in kind with no hint of rancour on either side. Berengara fell against him as they hit the first real wave, and as the boat began to rock up and down, he whispered in her ear.
‘We are safe now, sister, we are safe.’
That was the first time she retched, but not the last.
Osmond de Vertin began to fret as the night wore on, then as the grey light began to tinge the sky he began to shout in frustration. By the time the sun was above the Apennines he was raving at his men, cursing them for fools. He had already seen that the undulating road from Salerno, though full of carts going into town with produce, was barren of folk leaving. Mounted and riding furiously, he made for the monastery, to find the monks at lauds, having had their breakfast. There was no sign of Guaimar, his sister, or a loaded packhorse and the response of the inhabitants to his threatening questions met with looks of ignorance.
Osmond was no fool; he would not have risen to his present position if he had been a dolt. He was well aware that he had been tricked. First he sent off messengers to Salerno; a party was to set off north, and seek information, with the instruction not to be gentle.
‘Demand of the peasants if they have seen Guaimar; if they so much as shrug, whip them till they speak.’
Sensing the monks were secretly enjoying his discomfort, he bade his men dig a pit and start a fire with the monastery’s own logs. The Abbot, a venerable old man, was seized, then roped about his feet, his waist and his chest, before a lance was rammed through the ropes and he was lifted by two strong men who advanced with him suspended towards the now blazing logs.
