‘What would I take?’
‘Take?’
‘Sire,’ William said, with a glum expression. ‘No emissary can just turn up with nothing.’
That wiped the smile off Pandulf’s face. ‘No.’
‘There must be some kind of offer, one that Conrad will find so persuasive he will accede to your request.’
‘The abbot?’
‘A sick and undernourished man, as he must be, despite your care, may not impress the emperor or his advisors.’
Pandulf suddenly lost his temper. ‘This is all that little swine Guaimar’s doing, him and his whore of a sister. She’s probably had Conrad inside her shift while she whispers lies about me in his ears. I should have strung the viper up, and once I was done with her, stuck her in a nunnery. Or maybe I should have just thrown her to my Normans…
With some effort he recovered himself; the brothers could see him fighting to control his breathing and when he spoke, the reason for the sudden outburst was obvious.
‘We must bribe Conrad to go away,’ he said, in a voice now flat. He waited for a response, but neither William nor Drogo obliged. ‘I have gold, let him have that and perhaps he will leave me in peace.’
‘How much gold?’ asked Drogo.
It was a telling indication of Pandulf’s character and rapacity that he could answer the question without hesitation. ‘I could give him three hundred pounds in weight.’ He looked keenly at the brothers. ‘For my title and my freedom.’
‘A telling offer,’ said Drogo; in fact it was a fortune.
The Wolf was looking at William. ‘Will you agree to carry this offer to Conrad?’
‘You will, of course, free your prisoners?’ asked William.
‘Of course,’ the Wolf insisted, then obviously, the thought of handing over so much gold made him change his tack. ‘But, you must not just make this offer of my gold unless you see it as necessary. Find out first what we need to know, see if we can contest with this imperial fool. Do not just say I will gift him my riches, and should you feel you must, add that there will a contribution from Rainulf too.’
That got them another suspicious look. ‘I am sure Rainulf would not fail me and the revenues of Aversa are splendid, not to mention all that I have given him.’
‘Never,’ Drogo replied, with deep sincerity. ‘He is your friend and you are his liege lord.’
‘Good. When will you go?’
William said, ‘As soon as our mounts are rested, but…’
Pandulf did not like that. ‘But?’
‘I fear we must have, sire, some token of your esteem, perhaps some part of what it is you are prepared to offer, to gift the emperor immediately, so that he will accept our bona fides. He does not know us and, besides that, he will be surrounded by his court. We may have to pay a bribe just to gain a hearing.’
Pandulf thought on that for some time, but it made sense: two strange knights just turning up with nothing would not be acceptable. ‘I will arrange for you to take enough with you to impress both him and any others you need to bribe.’
‘We must see to our own needs before we go,’ Drogo insisted, ‘and I think we should find out if the abbot is fit to travel, and the archbishop still of this world. The emperor is bound to ask after his welfare.’
‘Do you need someone to escort you to the dungeons?’
‘No, sire,’ said Drogo, ‘we know the way.’
The abbot was shrunk in his body, but he had the stoicism of his calling; the Archbishop of Capua had fared better, given the man attending the oubliettes was easily bribed by the local clergy, but he was weak. When William asked after Osmond de Vertin that got a raised eyebrow.
‘Release him as well, and get a mendicant to look at him.’
They had to lift Osmond out, a stinking wreck soiled by his own filth, but a cot was arranged and when they left he was at least breathing in air that was less fetid than that to which he had been accustomed. Fed themselves, William and Drogo took possession of that gold crucifix and a heavy purse of Pandulf’s gold, and back on their mounts, leading the old Abbot on a palfrey, to the good wishes of their confreres, they made their way out of the fortress and across the old Roman bridge that led north.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Approaching the imperial encampment on the River Sacco brought back to William the experience they had had in the Vexin — that stench on the breeze of too many humans and horses in too small a space — only this host was greater than that assembled by Duke Robert. The hillsides were studded with pavilions, each with its own huge armorial banner — the imperial levies, both foot and mounted, encamped over miles of landscape, but again there was no doubt as to where the power lay. The massive imperial tent lay at the centre of what a Roman would have recognised as a triumphal way, surrounded by huge flags that bore the Salian device of a standing black griffin on a yellow background.
William and Drogo led the old Abbot towards the centre of the camp, soldiers standing to observe them as they passed. Odd, not one of them would know this elderly divine, bent with age, but somehow they saw in his person and his simple black Benedictine habit a man of holiness, and many crossed themselves, some even dropping on one knee. Others looked at the de Hauteville brothers, and judged them by a different standard.
William had talked with Theodore on the way, and had been impressed by the old man’s concern, which was not for his own person — though he was glad to be at liberty — but for his monastery and the monks that had once inhabited the buildings and worked the farms, now scattered to the four winds and driven to living in penury by the depredations of Pandulf. William and Drogo had met a lot of monks and friars in their time, not all of them good men; this abbot was the exception.
Outside the great pavilion, the brothers helped the old man off his palfrey. By the time he was on the ground and steadied, a whole host of mailed men had emerged to observe this, including in the centre a striking-looking fellow of stocky build and greying hair, wearing a bright-yellow surcoat with a griffin device to match the fluttering ensigns. It was him William addressed.
‘Sire, we bring you the Abbot of Montecassino.’
‘Abbot Theodore,’ said Conrad, coming forward to embrace the old man, ‘I am glad to see you well.’
‘Your Highness.’
The reply was weak, as was the speaker. Even although the imperial host, hogging the River Sacco as a source of water and supply, had moved closer to Capua, it had been a long journey; riding for hours was tiring for a fit man and it had exhausted him.
‘Come inside and rest. You must eat, you must drink, and you must tell me what Pandulf has been up to and what I must do to put it right.’
Theodore waved a feeble hand towards the de Hauteville brothers. ‘Then, sire, you need to talk with the men who brought me here, for what is needed is the stuff of conflict, and I am a man of peace.’
Conrad looked beyond the abbot to the brothers, standing, hands on their sword hilts, eyeing them up. Neither wore a helmet, so that their colouring could be seen, and that branded them as Normans, while their red and black surcoats identified them as mercenaries serving Rainulf Drengot.
‘They come with good in their hearts.’
‘That will be an unusual thing for a Norman,’ Conrad said.
Drogo bridled, as he always did when he perceived an insult, but it was William who replied.
‘To a Norman that sounds odd on Frankish lips, sire, given we have had scant reason to extend our trust to them.’
The way the men around Conrad stiffened, each no doubt a great lord in their own domain, implied danger, which had Drogo taking a firmer grip of the hilt of his sword. The emperor was indeed of that descent, from his
