‘Serlo,’ he barked, ‘gather your belongings. Robert, you too.’
‘Why me?’ Robert protested.
‘You might have to fight your way out of here.’
‘Horses?’ Tancred said.
‘Will have to be stolen. I will have enough to do to get you through the gate on foot.’
It took a hard slap around the head from Tancred to get Serlo moving, his words as harsh as the blow. ‘Get back to Hauteville-la-Guichard if you can and gather enough to fund a journey.’
‘Where am I to go?’
‘Not south,’ Tancred insisted. ‘That will take you through lands controlled by Duke William, and if word gets ahead of you from Count Hugo’s relatives you will be taken and roasted over a spit. Go to the coast and seek a boat. If you can get to England you will be safe.’
‘Duke William can find me there.’
‘You snivelling wretch, do you think yourself important enough to interest a duke? Perhaps, if you had kept your knife sheathed and risen in his service he might have noticed you, but now, you are nothing, not to him, nor to me.’
‘And where am I to go, Father?’ asked Robert. ‘For I shall not flee to England.’
It was Montbray who answered. ‘The only place is Italy, Robert.’
‘So I must take the risks you will not permit my brother.’
‘The case is different. No man can be condemned for aiding his brother. If any of Count Hugo’s relations took revenge on you, they would face the gallows themselves.’
‘I would rather stay here and face the consequences.’
‘If you do,’ Montbray replied, ‘you will most certainly face the oubliette, and I know that there are men in these castle dungeons who have languished there for years. Come, you must go and go now, there is no time to delay.’
It took all of Montbray’s authority to get the two brothers out of the great castle gates, and they had only just crossed the stone bridge when they saw a procession of torches heading their way, an angry crowd of men in green and blue surcoats, which caused them to run to where they could not be seen. For once it was Robert, not Serlo, who came up with the notion of thievery; they could hardly walk to Hauteville-la-Guichard.
‘At least we know where there are horses, now unattended.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
Arduin of Fassano had a love of making speeches, and no sooner had the entire force made good their entry into Melfi, passing in the process glum-faced peasantry and townsfolk who made no secret of the fact that they knew they had been cheated, than he had them assemble to hear his words. But first Mass had to be said, a prayer made to God to bless this enterprise, and as the priest intoned the ceremony in Greek — Mass being said in the Eastern rite, for there were no Roman clerics in Apulia — it made William think that he would have liked the Mass said in Latin, and by a divine from his homeland.
Norman priests, like his cousin Geoffrey, knew how to fight alongside the men they blessed and confessed. Montbray had wielded his sword and lance alongside his cousins in battle, under the banner of Duke Robert of Normandy, his only concession to his vows the determination to pray for the souls of those slain over their recumbent bodies, while their blood was still warm. Those thoughts were interrupted by the voice of Arduin, who, now that the priest had done with his rite, began his speech.
‘It is time to cease to exist like mice in the skirting,’ he boomed, to an audience who were not at all taken with the reference. ‘How long have you been in this part of the world as nothing but paid swords at the beck and call of others? Yet here before us is a province and wealth under the grip of an empire too distant to rule with wisdom. It is time to reach out with a strong hand and in this I will be your guide. Follow me and I will lead you against men who are as women, who lord it over and exploit this rich and spacious land.’
‘Windbag,’ said Drogo softly, for he was near the front of the throng.
‘Too fond of the sound of his own voice,’ opined Humphrey, managing, in his usual fashion, aided by his sour expression, to lard his words with an extra degree of disdain.
‘Let him speak away,’ William replied, ‘as long as he leads us well.’
‘It is you we will follow, Gill,’ Drogo insisted.
‘No!’ William insisted. ‘There can only be one man in command. Let Arduin be that, and only if he fails-’
‘And now,’ Arduin cried, loud enough to prevent that sentence from being concluded; he had finished his peroration, a mellifluous one in which every one of those present had been promised the Earth, the moon and the stars, ‘let us repair to the great hall, and a feast fit for the men who will humble Byzantium.’
That got him a loud cheer; if there was anything these Norman mercenaries loved it was abundant food and drink.
Prior to sitting down to the feast, William gathered his brothers: he too had something to say, albeit in a quiet way.
‘Make it known, all of you, that we are here to stay.’
That produced looks of surprise on every face but that of Drogo; he was nodding as if some long-held thought now made sense.
‘I want no act by any man to endanger our position with the inhabitants of Melfi. They are to be treated with respect. Anything taken must be paid for and nothing is to be stolen. Their women are to be honoured, even if they are bought as concubines, for their fathers and brothers will form part of the force Arduin must put in the field. That is to be the same for any place that surrenders to our arms. We are in a territory that is not our own, and who knows what our needs will be? We dare not make enemies in our own backyard.’
‘Surely we have the right to plunder?’ demanded Mauger.
‘We have that right with those who will oppose us, not with the people who will rally to our standard. Now let us eat our Lombard friend’s food and drink his wine, and show him all respect, for without him to secure for us a force of milities we will have little.’
Both Arduin and William de Hauteville departed the next day, the Lombard to spread the word of revolt, while William rode out, without helmet, hauberk or lance, to examine the whole area around Melfi with an experienced military eye, aware that, for all he had ridden through these parts, he did not know the terrain well enough.
Formidable castles had fallen before, and to his mind, given equal force, the Norman advantage lay outside stout walls, not within them. Already a piquet had been sent to climb the heavily wooded slopes of Monte Vulture, to man the round stone redoubt on its barren peak, thankfully now clear of snow, which had within it a warning beacon that would tell the Melfi garrison of the approach of any substantial force from the Apulian heartlands, giving them the choice of what action to take to thwart it.
He rode first to the east, which dropped away from the high hills that surrounded Melfi to the fertile lands and rolling landscape which led to the lush plains of Apulia, looking for those places where an army could properly and advantageously deploy, examining each valley to see how it could be used by cavalry to outflank an enemy, with the obvious corollary that it could also be used by them to the same purpose. He also needed to seek out those places where an attacking force could rest: open land, well watered, for no army could exist without that precious resource.
William de Hauteville sought to put himself in the mind of an enemy commander, and a competent one, to see the terrain from their point of view. How would he come to Melfi, how would he sustain a siege? It was obvious that one of the strengths of the place was the lack of ability to do the latter in any true proximity to the fortress, to keep enough force outside the walls, to feed and supply them over broken country that was just too far from that endless fertile plain.
Also, in each well-pastured and crop-sown valley he studied, William calculated what it would take to turn it into a desert, which is what would be required to frustrate his opponents should they seek to invest the Normans: to destroy yields in both field and store room and so deny them to the enemy, forcing them to forage far and wide. The peasants who had toiled to reap and sow the land he examined would suffer, but that was their lot: God must
