months of travelling, were close to threadbare.
‘William and Drogo de Hauteville,’ William said in French, his voice rasping in a dry throat, ‘seeking to take service with Rainulf Drengot.’
The bone was tossed aside, which sent the dogs scurrying to fight over it as the fellow responded in the same tongue. ‘You are Norman?’
‘We are.’
‘From?’
‘Hauteville-le-Guichard, where our father has his demesne.’
‘I do not know it.’
‘It is in the Contentin.’
William was aware that some of the men they had passed had left the manege to follow them and were gathering to listen to the exchange. Though he did not turn to look he heard the growl in his brother’s throat and assumed he had. Drogo, amongst his other faults, was inclined to brawl, almost without cause being given and quite impervious to numbers, so he whispered a caution to tell him to stay still.
‘A land of rough folk, the Contentin, I’m told,’ said the fellow at the top of the ramp. ‘Ill-mannered and quarrelsome.’
‘Others may have told you that it is a land that breeds good fighting men.’
‘What others would they be?’
‘Duke Robert thought us the best.’
‘How can I ask Duke Robert? He is dead.’
‘God rest his soul.’
William crossed himself as he replied; they had heard in Rome that their one-time liege lord had died on his way back from the Holy Land. They had also heard that the whole of Normandy was in danger of disorder over the succession. It made no difference to him and Drogo; they were too far south and too strapped for the means of existence to think of turning back.
‘My father, brothers and I fought under his banner at Bessancourt when he aided the King of the Franks to bring his rebellious brother to heel.’
‘Before which, I am told, he named his bastard son as his successor.’
Even if he had worries about how such things might affect his family, it was not the way William wanted this discussion to go. ‘If you know of that battle you will know that we Normans won it. Henry, King of the Franks, could not have done so unaided. The men of the Contentin were in the front rank.’
‘Duke Robert was a fool to name his bastard as his successor and an even bigger fool to die while he was still a child.’ The man waited to see if William would respond to that, in fact, display his own feelings on the matter; he waited in vain. ‘So once you fought for Duke Robert and now you would like to fight for me?’
‘If you are Rainulf, yes. We were told by those who have returned to Normandy that we would be welcome.’
‘More than welcome,’ hissed Drogo. ‘Embraced.’
Rainulf looked over their heads at the men to the rear. ‘What do you say? Shall we try out these Contentin ruffians?’
‘Try out?’ demanded Drogo.
Rainulf looked past William to his brother, not in the least upset, it seemed, by Drogo’s angry glare.
‘Many men come here from our homeland and claim they are doughty fighters. Most are, some are not. It is best that we find such things out before our lives might be forfeit for an error of judgement. Behind you, in the manege, we can carry out all the tests we need to see what you are made of, both on foot and mounted. So, let us see your mettle.’
William was surprised. ‘Now?’
‘I can think of no better time.’
‘Our horses need rest.’
Rainulf smiled for the first time, but it was not warm. ‘If you can assure me that when I fight I will do so rested, then I will let you have that. But if you ask those fellows behind you they will tell you that Campania is a place of snares and ambush, where trust is a virtue that can get you killed, a place where a morning friend can be an afternoon enemy. So, it is best to be ready to do battle in an instant. You have your swords, and I see your lances and shields. All you need do is don hauberks and helmets and move your saddles to your destriers.’
‘A little time, perhaps till the sun cools?’
Rainulf shook his head. ‘Prepare to show us your quality, or prepare to ride out of here.’
By the time they had donned their mail and helmets, and moved the high-formed saddles to the destriers, Rainulf Drengot had arranged for another eight riders to be made ready. There was no need to explain to a Norman knight what was required — the basic fighting unit, the source of the success of their cavalry arm, was a convoy of ten lances which, unlike the mounted knights of other forces, operated as a disciplined unit and could be multiplied by joining several convoys together.
Drogo and William were separated. On one side of each was the shield of an unfamiliar neighbour, on the other their own shields touched that of another rider, neither of whom looked in their direction. Like the brothers, their animals were especially bred for the task, steady and fearless; they would have been constantly put through their paces against false shield walls so that facing the real thing became familiar.
Back in Hauteville-le-Guichard there was a valley field where they had practised these very same skills. Neighbours had often come to joust and train just as the de Hautevilles had gone to them. No festival gathering at the nearby cathedral town of Coutances had been complete without a show of equine and armed skill that, with spirited young men pitted against each other in what was supposed to be mock combat, had quite often descended into a brawl that drew copious blood.
On top of that there were the endemic disputes with other landholders, the containment of uprisings against ducal authority, on whose side Tancred always placed his duty, and the task entrusted to all the knights in their area when the bells sounded in alarm: the defence of the coast of their part of the Contentin; there was nothing unfamiliar in what they were being asked to do.
William and Drogo had one major problem: their destriers had not been in training for all the months they had been on the road, so they were skittish and harder to control than normal when harnessed, and set next to unfamiliar mounts they did what all horses do: tails stiff and high, stepping like dancers, they tried to assert dominance and that did not go unchallenged, so there was much biting and some flying hooves that, had they made contact with human flesh, would have at the very least broken a bone. Strong hands and many a hard slap on the neck were required to keep them under control and get them into line, and even then they were disinclined to settle.
Thus their performance was far from perfect as they manoeuvred, riding from one end of the manege to the other, first at a walk, then at a trot and finally at a canter. At the command all ten lances should have turned left or right as one, or reversed their course and retreated in unison. The best that could be said was that it was untidy. Norman cavalry could pretend flight, a tactic that often broke an otherwise solid line of pikemen who could not resist the urge to pursue and once the defence was fractured the Normans would swiftly reform and attack again. An attempt at that left William and Drogo lagging behind.
Reformed and cursing, the next manoeuvre went better as a touch of fatigue made their mounts more malleable. The whole convoy attacked the shield wall, first with lances couched, each one hitting a guard of wood and leather in a tattoo of sound before turning to the right and rising on their stirrups so that their shields protected their flank. They could then employ their swords to smash at the same targets and, being upright, their blows were delivered with great force. To follow came the same attack but this time with lances raised above their heads. Again they stood upright, controlling their mounts with their thighs, shields held forward with reins in the same hand, while they jabbed over the shield wall at straw bales, which represented the holders of the line or those who made up the second rank.
In a third attack targets had replaced those bales and they were required to accurately cast their lances as spears. The final mounted acts were individual, hacking at those great baulks of timber as they rode past or aiming their lances at the hanging targets, the one and only time they put their horses into a gallop. By the time that was over the horses were near to being winded.
