them, so few supplies could get through to the city, and that was a situation in which mounted Norman warriors, doing no more than foraging, were wasted, though it took William several months to persuade George Maniakes of this. He was a difficult man to like: a good general maybe, but a man of sudden temper, so convinced of his own superiority that he saw helpful suggestion as disagreement.
‘Let me take my men and ravage the countryside.’
‘To what purpose?’
William replied with an exasperated growl. ‘We are of little use here if you are not going to try to breach the walls. Every day we hear rumours of forces being gathered to oppose us.’
‘Rumours,’ Maniakes trumpeted, looking down at William. ‘As if these Saracens can ever agree to combine, they’re worse than Lombards.’
William would have agreed they were little different when it came to tribal loyalty, but that did not obviate the possibility. ‘Left alone they will.’
‘You are paid, are you not?’ Maniakes growled. ‘Be content with that.’
‘My men are fighters and they want more than just pay. If you keep them here they will grow feeble, and when you do need them, when we move from here and perhaps meet an army in the field, you will require them at their best.’
‘I command here, de Hauteville.’
It annoyed William, the way Maniakes used his name; it annoyed Drogo even more, which was why he had been left out of this meeting. Big as Maniakes was, Drogo would still try to fell him. Yet he was right, he was the general in command, able to manage the endless trouble he had with his Apulian, Calbrian and Bulgar levies and keep his army tight as a fighting unit. William did not want to add to his difficulties, to seem insubordinate. He knew, even if he had never personally experienced it, that an army could quickly fall apart if the leadership was not stable.
‘No one disputes that, George Maniakes, but I command my men. You have your Varangians, who are great fighters, and your Apulian and Bulgar sheep to hold the lines. The garrison shows no sign of emerging to take issue, but if they do, let the axemen deal with them.’
‘I will consider it.’
That having been said with reluctance, William knew he had to press. ‘What are the Messina garrison praying for?’
‘Divine intervention,’ Maniakes hooted. ‘They hope their prophet will send a ball of fire to destroy us.’
‘No. They hope to see you drawn off by the combined force of the other Saracen emirs, Abdullah in particular, and if you just sit here that might happen. Let us Normans guarantee your back, George Maniakes, and take away hope from the city we are besieging. It is the only thing sustaining them.’
‘I cannot do without good cavalry. Just because they have not emerged to fight does not mean it will never happen. You lack experience, de Hauteville, while I do not. In my Syrian campaigns…’
Maniakes was off, listing his victories again, as well as his genius for tactics and strategy, a litany that William knew would brook no interruption. It was like the high spring tides feeding the salt pans back home on the Contentin coast: you just had to wait for them to recede, but it did give the listener the lever he needed. If this giant was so full of himself, it would be better to feed his vanity than counter it.
‘Then let us lead them out a company at a time, a hundred lances, and you, George Maniakes, who know so much more about fighting than I, will tell us where you want us to go.’
No great genius was required to fix the locations that needed to be subdued, the first being Rometta, sat on a high hill surrounded by mountains, the nearest fortress and littoral large enough to sustain a gathering army. Yet William knew he needed more than a hundred lances to attack such an obstacle, so instead he went for the next important target, the beach below Bausu, a place where reinforcements could land from anywhere in Sicily or North Africa, and a location close enough to Messina to pose a threat from sudden raids.
Part of what he learnt on that journey was the suitability of the terrain for small-scale operations of the kind he was engaged in. The country was high hills and deep fertile valleys with few plains of any size to support a large mobile force, but it was well watered, so that and pasture were plentiful, which meant mounted men could move with speed and safety without having to carry too much in the way of fodder or food, the greatest constraint on cavalry mobility.
The local population, being Sicilian, had a jaundiced view of armed strangers; in their time they had seen too many invaders to care as long as they were left to till their fields and tend their vines, groves and orchards. Where he might have expected loyalty to a local overlord there was none; the Saracens had cleansed the land of the previous Greek/Byzantine nobility and, as long as they paid what was due in tribute, the new suzerains left the peasants in peace. The advantage of peasant indifference was that he could move without his opponents being forewarned, with the obvious connected fact that they, too, could do the same. The Sicilian peasant would no more warn him of approaching danger than a Saracen!
If the terrain, plus his determination to stay off the skyline, made the route to Bausu torturous, imposing frequent halts along the way, it also meant that when they got close there was no risk of their mounts being blown by being pushed too far. William, without surcoat or mail, having set sentinels on the surrounding hills, went ahead on foot with a small bodyguard to reconnoitre the town.
He was careful to avoid being sighted and identified from the watchtower which covered the long open bay, getting close enough to see that the beach was full of small vessels and that from the west, a steady stream of supplies — grain, fruit and the like — was being brought in both by larger boats and, over the narrow roadway in the hills, by donkeys. Yet there was no sign of serious forces to oppose him: his enemies had either grown complacent or were encamped elsewhere.
‘Some of that has to be for Messina.’
‘The siege?’
William barely glanced at the man who had posed that question; no siege was watertight. Laziness, stupidity, indifference and ineptitude meant they leaked, but the greatest source of secret supply would be bribes. Some the ship’s captains Stephen Calaphates had under his command would, for not very much money, turn a blind eye at night to local boats smuggling supplies into Messina. Such trickles of what would be seen as luxuries to a population on short commons helped to keep up the spirits of those who controlled the city. To deny them such, when hope was the weapon which sustained them, was worth a dozen battailes.
Yet it was also a place where a force could gather and be supplied, exactly the kind of thing about which he had spoken to George Maniakes, and some of those supplies would be for them. There was no doubt in William’s mind that he could stop the present flow, but he did not have with him enough men to hold the place in the middle of hostile terrain. That such a thing might be needed in future had to be left to that; his task was to destroy what was here now, so the leaders of Messina would find this lifeline cut and the enemy soldiery likewise. He had another notion, but it was one which would have to wait until Bausu had been destroyed.
Back in his encampment his men were eating dried strips of beef and fruit; no fires or cooking could be allowed and, once he had fed himself, William called together those in command of the various convoys to outline the tasks he had for each one. The first would depart by moon and starlight to cut the road to the west, the most likely route by which any relieving force could approach; others would, after he had begun his assault, block the two trails out of Bausu he had identified to ensure no one escaped. William needed time to do what was required.
That night, they slept in their mail, swords close by, as they had done since leaving the siege works of Messina, under the stars, close to their snuffling and snorting mounts tied in lines. William did the rounds of the sentries himself to ensure they stayed awake and oversaw the first change. He slept little and was up before the first of his sleeping knights stirred. On a day in which they knew they would be fighting prayers were said first, the ritual each man followed of commending his soul to God, the first convoy mounting and departing long before the sun had touched the horizon.
They were tasked to ride quickly, so as to be astride the trail before the first traveller appeared. William led his remaining men more slowly forward on foot, horses softly plodding on the rein, seeking forest cover where it could be found, aware that if the men on the watchtowers were alert they would see, even in nothing but the prevailing gloom, that something substantial was disturbing the birds in the trees, yet without sight they would be unsure if it was a friend or a foe.
The point was reached where subterfuge no longer served, so William had his men mount, set themselves
