turned every head towards him.
‘I think it is proper to report to me.’
William looked up; he had been bent off his horse talking to Drogo, and he gave Rainulf that lazy, amused smile which he suspected might infuriate him, as it had so many others. Judging by the deepening purple of Rainulf’s face, he succeeded. Yet the look at that was fleeting; William dismounted, and bid the Lord of Montesarchio do the same, then, giving orders that all the contents of the numerous packhorses should be deposited safely in the tower, he led his prisoner to and up the ramp, and introduced him.
‘Where’s Odo?’ Rainulf demanded, ignoring the man.
‘In a cot, with a wound in his side that will take time to mend, if it ever does. I left him in Montesarchio with ten men to hold the place.’
‘You left him?’
‘I took command.’
‘I cannot believe Odo gifted that to you.’
William had suspected that, for all his own dislike of the de Hautevilles, in the way he had been treated by his captain, the man might be acting on instructions from Rainulf. He was tempted to ask, just to force his leader to perhaps lie.
‘He was in no position, Rainulf, to gift anything to anyone. I must tell you he may not survive. As for my being in command, the men you engage are certainly fighters, but few of them relish the idea of being a leader.’
‘And you do?’
‘I brought the men back, and your prisoner. What happens now is for you to decide.’
‘Am I to stand here like some peasant?’
Rainulf seemed glad to turn away from a defiantlooking William and glare at the prisoner.
‘Take what treatment you get and be grateful. You will rest here tonight, and tomorrow we will ride to Capua, where you can face your prince.’ Then he turned back to William. ‘And you will accompany us.’
‘The wound is clean,’ said Drogo, sniffing at the bandage in which the mendicant monk had wrapped it. Then he gently probed around the angry cut with his fingers, making his brother wince. ‘Do you know what he used?’
‘An infusion of herbs that stung like the Devil. There was the juice of a yellow fruit that he offered me to suck too. It was hellish sharp, worse than an unripe apple.’
‘You should have asked him to give you some. It has clearly worked on your wound.’
‘These monks share their knowledge. Rainulf’s fellows will know of it. Right now, let the air do its work.’
‘So you’re going to Capua?’
The way Drogo said that did nothing to hide his envy; there had been plenty of that too when William had told him of the fight, even more when he had described the full coffers, stables and food stores of the Lord of Montesarchio, some of which must come to him.
‘I shall ask that you accompany us.’
‘Why?’
‘I want to see if Rainulf refuses. If he does, that will tell us if he intends that we should never ride out together.’
‘And?’
‘If that is the purpose, we cannot stay in his service.’
The head in the doorway was there only long enough to pass on the message that Rainulf wanted to see him. Responding to the summons, William found Rainulf at his large table with the contents of Montesarchio’s coffers spread out before him, piles of coins and valuable objects: plate, jewels and a gold crucifix that might well have been stolen from a church. Of the previous owner there was no sign.
‘I take it you think you have done well?’
William shrugged. ‘That is not for me to decide.’
‘You should have killed him.’
There was no need to ask who Rainulf was talking about. ‘Why?’
‘Look at what is here before you. If only you and I knew…’ Rainulf did not finish the sentence, because the implication of that was obvious too. ‘And having paraded him through half his lands every one of his subjects knows you spared him.’
‘So Pandulf will get to know?’
‘That’s right, and the Wolf will also find out how much he had in his coffers down to the last denier. Dead, we could have had half of this and he would never have known.’
‘He surrendered.’
‘Do you think I did not speak with him? You asked him to surrender, you allowed him to surrender, and all you did to his bonded knights was take away their weapons and send them away. Let me tell you,’ Rainulf continued, his voice rising, ‘William de Hauteville, you have not done well, you should have slaughtered every one of them!’
Given William did not reply, Drengot continued. ‘Such notions as you displayed should have been left behind in Normandy. Here we fight, not for honour, but for profit.’
‘You would cheat Prince Pandulf?’
William knew it was a feeble thing to say, and he deserved the sneering response his remark provoked.
‘I would deceive a man who would sell his own mother. He would have given to me a twentieth of that which we gave to him. As it is, we can only take a tenth of this.’ Rainulf was almost talking to himself, when he added. ‘A man like Montesarchio can be expected to lie about a sum like that, but not half.’ Then he looked hard at William. ‘Learn, de Hauteville. Money!’
To conclude that Rainulf was greedy did not take William very far, after all he had the revenues of Aversa as well, but then he did have a large band of mercenaries to feed and occupy, as well as a paymaster who was no doubt slow to meet his debts. Added to that, from what he had heard of this Pandulf, from the men he had ridden with, and the prisoner they had taken, what Rainulf said about him was an understatement.
‘I wish Drogo to accompany us to Capua.’
Rainulf did not answer for a while, playing instead with a gold coin. ‘Why?’
‘It would be of more interest to me, Rainulf, to know why not?’
The mercenary leader just shrugged. ‘So be it, we leave at first light. Make sure your equipment is clean, I will need to present you to the prince.’
William paid a visit to the scrivener, to have composed a letter to send home to Hauteville. He could read and write, having been taught the rudiments of both by his Montbray cousin, but the fellow Rainulf kept, once a monk, had a gift for composition, which transcended William’s ability to put in a missive words easy to find when speaking. Somehow the fellow seemed able to convey thoughts better than those who used his service, though William had asked him to avoid his more flowery allusions, knowing Montbray would smoke that the source was not his cousin.
There would be rewards from the spoils of Montesarchio greater than mere pay, and he wanted to have in advance the words that would tell his family not only of their progress in the fighting line, but the fact that soon there should be sufficient funds transmitted to pay for the next two brothers to join them. He had no doubt that Rainulf would accept them into his service; they were good fighters. He also urged Montbray to use the service in reverse, and let both him and Drogo know how things progressed in Normandy and, that done, he went to the hut of Odo de Jumiege, to perform a duty he would have undertaken earlier if he had not been summoned by Rainulf. Odo’s woman, the mother of two children, must be told how her man fared.
What he saw in her black Italian eyes was fear, and the way she clutched her children to her reinforced that feeling, for William did not seek to give her false reassurance. Her man may well recover and be what he once was, but the possibility of death had to be accepted, as well as the notion of a wound so serious: Odo might never be able to return to full service. Troubled as he left her, he wondered what became of the concubines of his confreres, for it was axiomatic that when men fought, some were severely wounded or died.
Outside Drogo’s hut, he heard what had become commonplace: raised voices, as his brother sought to control a young and spirited girl, thinking it was remarkable how much, and how quickly, Drogo had mastered
