besieged it, while the dull Stephen brought his ships from Messina to blockade the great bight of a bay.
Syracuse was, by its very nature, a tougher challenge than either Messina or Rometta. The land access was constricted, the main part of the city located on the island of Ortygia, that part of a peninsula but with a wide channel separating it from the mainland. The defenders held stout defences on the landward side of that but could, at any time, retire behind the water barrier. The walls of the old city had first been constructed in ancient times, then added to, and were formidable, surrounding the whole island and making any attack across water fraught with peril.
The approach from the sea was to a wide bay full of fighting ships which would emerge from the fortified harbour, and on the seaward side a long coastline on an unpredictable stretch of sea made close blockade awkward. History abounded with sieges that had lasted for years: it took the Romans three years and they only succeeded because of treachery. Syracuse, unless betrayed, or some stroke of luck intervened, could only be starved into submission.
George Maniakes was not a patient man, and a dozen attacks were launched, none of which even dented the defences. He tried attacking across the bay only to find the vessels he was employing destroyed by fire ships, watching as they were consumed and the men who had manned them either frying in the flames or drowning in the sea as they leapt overboard from fear of a more painful death. He tried to attack at night, only to find his foes waiting for him with boiling oil and flaming balls of tarred hay, and while all this was happening, his shock troops, the Varangian Guard, stood idle.
Over six months the Normans ranged far and wide in the interior, in companies of a hundred lances, all the way up to the mountains which cut Syracuse off from the interior hinterland, yet that too was frustrating. No army of relief appeared, in fact no enemy fighters showed at all; it was as if they had decided that the ancient capital of Sicily must fend for itself. Just as exasperating was the way the Saracens had stripped the countryside of anything valuable. There was no need for Normans to destroy olive groves and vineyards, fields of sugar beet and wheat. That had been done for them.
Returning from another fruitless sortie, William joined up with the company led by Drogo and together they rode into the siege lines, sharing their irritation. That their men were dissatisfied they knew: pay was a thing which became the norm and was not inspiring; booty of the kind they had acquired from Messina and Rometta was what elevated their spirits and there was none of that unless the city fell, and it was clear from far off that nothing much had changed since they last rode out.
Making their way to the general’s pavilion to report, they could hear the raised voices from a hundred paces, or rather one, that of George Maniakes. Added to that, many of the senior commanders, including Harald Hardrada, were gathered outside with glum looks on their faces, and the brothers soon learnt the reason. If Syracuse was to be starved into submission then it was paramount the naval blockade was rigorous; nothing should get through. Still under the dense Admiral Stephen, it had failed: a convoy of grain ships had broken through his line of galleys to bring in relief supplies. What they were hearing was the verbal drubbing Stephen was getting from George Maniakes.
He was the son of a whore, his wife no better, which, unsaid, meant that Emperor Michael was from the same grubby stable. His fitness to do anything other than shovel shit from a pit was questioned, and it was clear that half the looks of worry on the faces of those around William and Drogo were caused by the fact that their general was going too far. Stephen might be an idiot, but he was the emperor’s brother-in-law and in a hothouse court like Constantinople the words Maniakes was using, reported into those ears, would not be taken lightly.
‘He needs to be stopped,’ said William, ‘for his own good.’
‘Physically?’ Harald Hardrada, who had posed the question, grinned and looked at the two de Hauteville brothers; he was as big and as broad as they, and a doughty fighter, yet he knew that George Maniakes was bigger and stronger. ‘After you.’
‘I think,’ Drogo murmured, ‘it might take all three of us.’
That was when they heard the gasping sound. Maniakes was still shouting but his words had become near incomprehensible, and it took no great foresight to deduce that the general had laid hands on the admiral. In William’s mind was the way he had strangled that smuggling ship’s captain. If he did that to his admiral the consequences would be incalculable.
All three leaders rushed into the pavilion to find Stephen, off his feet, held in the great mitt of Maniakes, and he was clearly in distress, already fighting just to breathe. William jumped on the giant’s back, Drogo and Harald got hold of one upper arm each and struggled to get him to release his victim, all to no avail. It was only when William got his ear between his teeth and bit hard, threatening with his jerking head to tear it off, that Maniakes let go, and that was with a bellow.
It was William who was now in trouble, with Maniakes swinging his body to get at him, his only hope to stay glued to his back, while Harald and Drogo tried to subdue him from the front. Stephen had fled, screaming that he had been near to murdered. It was Drogo who solved the problem, because he burst out laughing. He was still trying to assist his brother, but the sight was too much for him, and soon Harald Hardrada was laughing too, which meant his efforts were rendered feeble.
‘Stop giggling you two and help me.’
That only made things worse for Drogo. He was laughing so much he had to let go of Maniakes, still bellowing like a blinded Cyclops, and Hardrada was soon reduced to the same. It was the sight of that, two fierce warriors in fits, which stopped the general trying to dislodge William. He was breathing heavily from his exertions, but soon he was laughing too, his body heaving. William slid off his back and made sure he was out of arm’s reach. All he could manage was a nervous smile because he could see the blood dripping from the general’s ear.
‘Here he comes again,’ said Drogo as a fanfare of trumpets blew, words addressed to his brother and the Varangian commander, Harald Hardrada.
The city gates opened in what had become a daily ritual. The Emir of Syracuse, Rashid al Farza, would ride out in all his finery to goad the attackers, calling out to them in Greek his challenge to George Maniakes to come and fight him. It was a telling challenge for he was not far off the same size and everybody in the camp knew he had a fearsome reputation as a fighter. It was said he had personally killed over a hundred men in single combat and, while all took that with a pinch of salt, there was no doubt he was a formidable opponent.
Maniakes declined to accept, not from fear, but because a victory over this Saracen would not bring about the surrender of his city, while a defeat might severely damage the prospects of that, which was the only thing that mattered: the Byzantine host was here to subdue Sicily; personal insults its general-in-command could live with.
‘He’s beginning to annoy me,’ William replied, shading his eyes from the low sun to take in the emir.
‘Perhaps,’ Hardrada suggested, ‘I should take out my axe and chop off his arrogant head.’
Back and forth Rashid rode on a beautiful horse, just as beautifully caparisoned in fine-coloured silk. He wore a plumed helm and an old Roman cuirass designed to demonstrate that his chest beneath was just as muscled, greaves with fine silver decoration and the lance he carried had a long fluttering pennant. From time to time he would jam that into the ground as a challenge then haul out a great sword and wave it about his head, straight bladed instead of arced like the normal Saracen weapon, with one serrated edge which would cut through mail with ease.
The words that floated towards the siege lines left no insult unspoken, and eventually the soldiers would be goaded into yelling insults back at him, which he seemed to enjoy mightily as proof he was succeeding. After half a glass of this farrago he turned his horse, and since he had taught it to prance, it danced its way back into the defences, its tail stiff and high as if to apply equal denigration.
Both the de Hauteville brothers were itching for activity: it had become plain that with nothing to raid and no one to fight there was little use in their sorties, and they had been stuck in camp since the incident in which they had subdued Maniakes. The general laughingly jested that William owed him an ear, and one day he was going to collect his due. William did not laugh; he had seen too often the way the man lost control.
‘What are you doing?’ demanded Drogo the next morning, when he saw his elder brother mounted and mailed and bearing his lance and with it the de Hauteville blue and white pennant.
‘When our friend comes out, Drogo, I am going to shut him up.’
