my sole concern, and one I pursue relentlessly. I am minded to go wherever that can be promised.’
William felt the slow smile of understanding crease his face, and oddly, because he was looking at Tirena, she, mistaking it, gave a hint of a smile in return. But he was not really looking at her, he was thinking that Kasa Ephraim had just offered him his support. A bargain had been struck, and it had been done so by a very clever man, because it had been made without a word being said, or a promise made, by either party.
That frame of mind was ruptured by Mauger rushing in, his voice breathless. ‘Count Atenulf has sold Boioannes back to Byzantium.’
‘What?’
‘And he has kept the gold to himself.’
‘He is truly a Lombard,’ said Kasa Ephraim.
‘But that is not the most surprising thing, brother. Wait till you see who is the messenger.’
The figure that filled the doorway made William wonder if he was looking into a piece of polished silver with magical qualities, for it was like looking at a younger version of himself. His hair had some grey now; that of his brother was still pure gold.
‘Do you not know me, William? I was once your squire and watched you fight the brother of the King of the Franks.’
‘Robert?’
The nod was slow, then the deep-blue eyes turned to look at, first Kasa Ephraim, then at Listo and finally at Tirena, who was wide-eyed at this apparition, so like the man who now held her as ward. The voice was as deep and the air of being in command of all around him prevalent too, a self-confidence that was devoid of the taint of arrogance.
‘I have come to make my way, William.’
Unbeknown to Robert, William’s thinking was still taken with the chicanery of Atenulf. Also, selling Boioannes was an act that could not have been carried out without the connivance of his elder brother. Thus he was frowning, and Robert, who had seen that expression too often on the face of his father, reacted to it.
‘Do I warrant a proper welcome,’ he growled, ‘or am I to be treated like an intruder by a man too grand to acknowledge his own flesh and blood?’
William was not accustomed to being addressed so and the frown turned to a glare, the voice taking on an equally angry tone. ‘You say you have come to make your way. Well, when I have seen you fight I might consent to let you stay, but, mark this, you will sit well behind the rest of your brothers and they will prosper before you do, for they have done service.’
‘I should have stopped in Troia, as I was asked to do.’
‘If you wish to return there, do so with my blessing.’
‘William…’ Mauger protested.
Robert did not let that intercession interfere with his anger at a greeting so at variance with his expectations. He had travelled too many leagues to get here and sacrificed too much. ‘What makes you think I require your blessing?’
‘You will starve without it.’
‘I think,’ said Kasa Ephraim, ‘that I had best depart.’
‘If you wish, friend,’ William replied, with a glare that now included Mauger. ‘And you can take these two with you, for I have people whose interest I care about to attend to.’
Turning away from the doorway, William nearly burst out laughing. Tirena was favouring his half-brother Robert with the kind of fierce glare she once reserved for him.
‘Murder?’ said Mauger, shaking his head in disbelief.
‘He was drunk and so was the man he killed. The duke was about to take us into service, but that went by the board as soon as Serlo stuck in the knife.’
‘What about Father?’ demanded Geoffrey.
‘I assume he came home, but I was gone by then.’
‘You left him at Moulineaux?’
‘I did what he commanded me to do,’ growled Robert. ‘I saw Serlo onto a boat in the bay at Granville and came south. I wonder now if it was wise.’
‘You caught William at a bad time,’ Drogo insisted. ‘Perhaps an apology…’
‘If he wishes to give me one I will take it!’
Drogo shook his head: that was not what he meant but there seemed little point in saying so, though he did think this younger sibling of his had an arrogant manner.
‘Do we know if Serlo got to England?’ asked Mauger.
‘How would I? His fate is in the hands of God, and if he has drowned, what of it? He would certainly have seen the end of a rope if he had been taken.’
‘He’s your brother.’
‘He’s my half-brother, just like William, so before you chastise me for a lack of concern, take him to task, or are you all too afraid?’
If there had been any sympathy for Robert de Hauteville then, it evaporated. If he had not been blood, there might have been murder in Melfi.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
In a world where news travelled slowly, normally at the pace of a walking man or a sailing merchant vessel, the death of the Eastern Emperor, Michael IV, spread like wildfire, because it directly affected the life of everyone in half of Christendom, as well as having a bearing on relations with the rest. Given the unrest in Apulia, it acted to create as much confusion as it did to engender raised hopes. Michael IV had, from humble beginnings, proved to be a successful ruler, in that he had held together an empire many of his neighbours, all of them ravenous for a share of the spoils, saw as ripe to fall apart. He had also managed to survive in the cauldron of imperial politics to die a peaceful death.
Once a handsome courtier and junior officer, brother to a hugely powerful court official, Michael had become the lover of the fifty-year-old Empress Zoe, and had succeeded to the purple on the death of her first, ageing husband. That was an end replete with all the attendant accusations of assassination: first, it was rumoured, he had been left debilitated by frequent doses of a slow poison and, when that failed to send him to his grave, with a drowning in his bath.
Michael, it transpired, had not only kept Zoe content, but several other concubines as well, though increasingly epilepsy, the affliction from which he suffered, had seriously impeded his abilities as both a lover and an emperor. It was a measure of the authority of self-interested courtiers, not least a brother who acted as the power behind the throne, that a man so distressed by increasing illness could reign for so long.
The succession was always a fraught affair, so to those observing and calculating their own position, the tangled skein of Byzantine politics would now become even more unpredictable as those who hoped to inherit the power of the deceased fought for influence. The news that the heir to Imperial Purple was another Michael, related by marriage to the deceased emperor’s father, Stephen — a one-time ship’s caulker risen to the rank of admiral — arrived hard on the heels of the first, and a steady stream of rumour mixed with fact followed as the drama of imperial succession was played out.
Zoe must have approved of the new Michael, yet he demonstrated scant gratitude for her support. Once installed as emperor, she had been banished from the city to a nearby island in the Sea of Marmara, her head shaved and her wealth purloined, but being much loved by the citizens of Constantinople, as well as heir to the ruling Macedonian house, that had caused riots in the Byzantine capital.
Michael V, appearing for the games at the Hippodrome, had been pelted with stones and shot at with arrows by the mob, causing him to send hurriedly for Zoe to appease their wrath, but, even if he showed her to the crowd to prove she was free, he had acted too late. In yet another twist, Zoe’s hated sister, Theadora, who had been shut away years before, was dragged out and acclaimed as joint-empress. Michael, called the Caulker because of the
