the ruler of Apulia.
Obviously, having come to this whole enterprise through the Prince of Salerno, there had to be some secret agreement between Guaimar and Arduin, but William doubted it would satisfy this Lombard. It was more likely that Arduin dreamt that somehow, despite his lowly status in the hierarchy of his people, he would come to rule over Apulia himself and, if that were the case, it was also interesting to wonder how he saw himself dealing with the Normans. Would he seek to use them to fulfil his ambitions, or would he try to get rid of them?
Messengers seen from the ramparts to be riding sweating, chest-heaving horses, conveyed danger before they ever spoke and the one who came clattering into the great keep of Melfi was no exception. The shouts that heralded his approach had the entire command of the Norman-Lombard forces awaiting him as he came through the gate.
‘Boioannes is outside Venosa with the whole of his host, my Lord, but shows no sign of wishing to instigate a siege.’
‘He called on the garrison to surrender, surely?’ demanded Arduin, even although the messenger had addressed Count Atenulf.
‘He did, then he rode back to his camp, which was in long sight of the walls, and there he stayed, though it is suspected he was making preparations to move on.’
‘Then he is coming to Melfi.’
Arduin looked to William, who nodded, knowing that Venosa meant nothing to this new catapan, Melfi everything, and he had no doubt heard that his enemies were weakened. He could also guess at what he planned: if Boioannes could bottle up what forces remained in the fortress, especially the Normans, then he could prevent any of those farmers from coming back to serve after the spring sowing, and behind him, even if it would be difficult to supply an investing army, he had the whole of Apulia to draw on for the supplies necessary to endure a long siege. Thus he would have achieved one major goal, and an immediate tactical advantage.
For the Byzantines such a course of action made perfect strategic sense as well: having lost two battles in open country they had to deny their enemies the luxury of movement. Boioannes might not take Melfi, but he would put an end to that and snuff out the enthusiasm for revolt the previous victories had created. He would also deny his enemies the opportunity to reconstitute their army and, who was to know he would not, in the long months while he was outside the walls, acquire fresh troops from Constantinople and swing the whole campaign in his favour.
‘He’s more astute than we gave him credit for,’ said Drogo.
‘And devious,’ William added. ‘He lulled us into a feeling of security. All that marching to and fro was just to bring about this very thing.’
‘He cannot take Melfi,’ Arduin insisted, looking at the walls of the castle as though they would somehow bear out his words. ‘It is too strong.’
‘He knows that, Arduin.’ William watched as Arduin took time to get to a conclusion, which with him had been near to instant, one which met his dislike of the notion of being bottled up in a castle, an absolute negation of the advantage of cavalry.
For once the Lombard deduced the same as his mercenary commander. ‘And he could not take it even if it is held by only a small garrison.’
‘Just as he cannot safely besiege it if he has hundreds of Norman lances waiting to raid his siege lines and kill his foraging parties.’
‘Let us consult the maps,’ Arduin snapped.
He turned quickly to re-enter the great hall, followed by the Normans. Halfway up the steps he stopped and turned, then spoke, for once, in a terse voice and with a thunderous look, to Atenulf, calling on him to follow. Even that took time for the dense brain to sift, and it was Humphrey, the last to move, who pushed him hard and with little ceremony to get him to obey.
Examining the maps, it was obvious there were many directions in which they could go: towards Campania, which offered a safe line of retirement, should that be required; the least favourable was to the east; the one impossible to think on, to head south into the catapan’s line of march. Arduin, with his depleted forces, knowing that on this occasion, while not wholly dependent, he needed the Normans more than ever, asked William to decide.
‘North to here,’ William replied, placing his finger on an area he had ridden over when first he came to Melfi, close to the spot where Tirena and Listo had rolled that boulder down on him. The high hill that rock had come off, which he now knew to be called Monte Siricolo, gave a good view of the approaches to the fertile valleys over which it towered. There was ample pasture in those, with hayricks left over from the last cutting, and at this time of year the mountain streams were bursting with snowmelt, while the forests would provide wood to both construct shelters and keep them warm in the cold high-altitude nights should they have to winter there.
Added to that, the longer they stayed there the stronger they would become, for if it cut them off from Campania, that was the main path for the return of the levies who had gone back north to Benevento, and any supplies they needed to sustain themselves could come by that same route. It was easy from there for cavalry to raid south, using the numerous trails through the mountains to achieve surprise. Any siege of Melfi would suffer mightily from constant attacks and the decimation of parties sent out to forage.
‘William,’ Arduin insisted, ‘Boioannes cannot just leave us there.’
‘No, my friend, he cannot.’
He did not often use such a term with Arduin, but he did now. There should be nothing in the way of the Lombard seeing what was possible, and that was a place he got to with commendable speed.
‘So once more we bring him to battle at a field of our choosing.’
Normans were used to moving at short notice, less so the Lombard levies that had remained, but all were long gone, accompanied by the locals, by the time the catapan’s banners were sighted from the battlements. Given the constraints he had laboured under, the losses suffered by his predecessor and the difficulties of recruitment, he had assembled an impressive host, and it was soon obvious he had brought along not just fighting men but artisans skilled in the construction of ballista and the like, who immediately set to work, so that the sound of hammering and sawing floated up to the stout walls.
Left in command at Melfi, with a stiffening of Normans, but mainly a garrison of Lombards, it fell to Humphrey and Mauger, standing on the curtain wall which overlooked the narrow entry bridge, to refuse to accept terms. They listened in silence as the normal threats regarding no quarter were shouted up at them, restraining the men they commanded from any overt displays of either jocularity — showing their bare arses — or expletive-loaded insults, merely acknowledging the message and telling the Byzantines to do their worst.
By the time the party sent to present those terms had returned with the expected refusal, Basil Boioannes knew that his enemy had flown the coop. The men he feared most were outside those walls, not inside, and he was also committed, far from his base at Bari, with a set of shrinking options, the least palatable of which, given the fate of Michael Doukeianos, was withdrawal.
The next morning, he issued instructions that his artisans should keep toiling, with enough men to keep them safe staying behind. Then, once his host had been fed and blessed, he marched them away from Melfi, heading north, knowing that his approach would be observed. So be it: let them stand or flee, but the Normans had to be beaten or driven away.
That his enemies had come so quickly threw Arduin off balance: he had worked on the assumption that Boioannes would at least make some kind of assault on Melfi before seeking to cancel out the external threat. William was less unnerved: again their young opponent was showing sound judgement, his deduction that the peril would only increase with time, not diminish. Also, when he came face to face with his foes, below the great mound of Monte Siricolo, he did not make the same mistake as Doukeianos: he did not attack, he stood on the defensive and set his men to digging a ditch before the line on which he intended to fight, to slow down, and perhaps kill off, any Norman cavalry assault.
But he did not control the high ground, and could not, therefore, see what his enemies were up to. He tried, sending strong assaulting parties through the low forests and up above the treeline to the barren slopes of Monte Siricolo, but they were beaten back by the same kind of boulders which had so nearly done for William. Because he
