‘The Normans are behind this,’ Berengara claimed. ‘None of these cockroaches would dare gainsay you if they knew the Normans would back your claim, but did we hear any of them speak?’
‘Do you see a Norman hand in this, Ephraim?’ demanded Guaimar.
‘No. I doubt they care what title you adopt. They care more about what rewards are bestowed on them.’
‘Reward is all they care about,’ Berengara spat.
‘It is they who have fought, Lady Berengara, and it is their skill at arms which has brought such victories…’
‘Don’t forget the Lombards who fought as well.’
Kasa Ephraim merely nodded at her, and addressed his next words to her brother. ‘Only one question matters, honourable one: can Lombards, by themselves, hold Apulia if Byzantium sends a new catapan with an army at his heels to retake it? There is no certainty the Italians will fight to preserve a Lombard state. Who then will ensure security?’
The question that hung in the air was just as potent. Could the Prince of Salerno stand against such a force without the aid of Norman mercenaries? Only they could prevent a reverse, and it had not escaped notice that even the Lombard levies now accepted William de Hauteville as their leader. Guaimar could style himself by whatever appellation he desired; without men to sustain it, a title was worthless.
‘I would also suggest, my Prince, that given the numbers to which they have now risen, to have them back in Campania would be troublesome. Best they are kept away from your domains.’
The Jew did not add what he knew and had discerned in his conversation with William de Hauteville the previous year: the Normans were not going anywhere, they were in Apulia to stay.
‘I must speak with Rainulf. He must bring his men to heel.’
At that moment, it was William who was speaking with Rainulf, and the words he was using were not being well received by the elderly Count of Aversa, who had sought to berate him for his refusal to answer his previous appeals.
‘You stood by while your fellow Normans were massacred by peasants.’
A weary William replied, ‘I was otherwise occupied.’
‘You should be occupied as I direct.’
‘No, Rainulf, you no longer command me or the men I brought to Melfi — I do, for they have been with me too long, both here and in Sicily. As for those who have come of their own free choice…’
‘Many of those men you brought to Melfi are mine and I need them with me north of Capua.’
‘Perhaps some will agree, Rainulf, not many, and I grant you permission to seek them out.’
The explosion was immediate. ‘You grant me-’
‘Yes,’ William replied, in a soft tone. ‘Perhaps the notion of slaughtering poor peasants will appeal to them more than plundering Byzantine treasure.’
That calm interjection was like throwing turpentine on flames: Rainulf was so incensed he could barely breathe and his words were far from easily comprehensible. ‘You swine…you nobody… I raised you up and I can cast you down… I-’
William’s shout stopped him dead. ‘Enough!’
‘You owe me allegiance.’
‘I owe you nothing,’ William replied, with equal force, an act which required much effort. ‘I have seen you in private to do to you that which you would not have afforded me. If you want to be humiliated I will have the horns sounded and every Norman in Melfi gathered for you to address, and they can do so in full sight of everyone else present, Guaimar included. Then you can tell them they are yours to command, Rainulf, which if you are lucky will only gain you a sight of their bared arses. If not, you might pay with blood.’
Rainulf’s hand went deliberately to the hilt of his sword, which got him an icy response.
‘Draw it if you must, Rainulf, and though it will give me no pleasure to kill you, kill you I will.’ There was a moment then when pride fought with good sense, until William, too powerful even in the grip of a fever for the older man to challenge, gave him a reason to concentrate on the latter. ‘If you care nothing for your own life, think of your woman and her child.’
‘You owe me everything.’
‘I did owe you, Rainulf, for you trusted me once, you raised me and named me as your heir. But you took something away from me and I have now taken it back. You have your county of Aversa, you have many lances, if not as many as I, rest content with that, and whatever crumb Prince Guaimar is prepared to throw you in Apulia. I’m sure he will give you something.’
‘You will fly too close to the sun, William de Hauteville.’
‘Better that, Rainulf, than to grovel in the mud for what you would grant me. I will put out word that anyone who wishes to return with you to Aversa is free to depart. I will do no more than that.’
Once Rainulf had departed, William had to sit down: he was weak and he could feel himself shaking, cold even as he could feel the sweat on his brow and in the crook of his back. It was Tirena who led him to his cot, laid him to rest and fetched cold water to mop him down, listening as, in a fever, he went forwards and backwards in his life, cursing sometimes, at others weeping for the sins he had committed. It was near dawn before he fell into a troubled slumber.
Still weak in the late morning, William nevertheless dragged himself to where he needed to be, fully dressed and armed, so that those he led could see their general parade along the battlements of Melfi. Every time a group spotted him he was cheered. If they saw behind him the boy Listo, they knew him now to be a squire. If they also observed Tirena, who was much concerned for her lord and master, that had them nudging each other in the ribs, for it was no secret what she had become.
Beneath and below, Guaimar was struggling with a dilemma. In trying to make the best of bad circumstances, Rainulf could not avoid letting slip how much he had lost control of the mercenary force he had once led, one now massively more powerful, and, in doing so, he forced upon Guaimar a complete change of approach.
The prince had hoped Rainulf, for all the problems he had left behind, still had some authority: he now knew without doubt that he had to deal with William de Hauteville, and that whatever he was to achieve here in Apulia could only be attained by his good grace. Allied to William, he could overawe the others; without his aid, all he had was bluster.
‘I cannot think you could delude yourself into expecting more. The Normans have never done anything else but betray our house.’
‘Berengara, please,’ Guaimar pleaded.
He pointed to the others in the room, not just his courtiers, his wife and children, but Rainulf Drengot as well. She was, as usual, saying things in public best aired in private, yet his sister was seen by those who advised him as more than her station implied. They had been through much together: he had said many times, and in public, that without her by his side in his youth he would not hold his title. She had suffered with him and travelled with him, and used her wiles to charm the emperor who had restored him to Salerno. In short, she was seen to stand so high in his esteem that to command her silence in such a gathering was difficult.
‘Why should I hold my tongue, brother?’
Guaimar nodded towards Rainulf. ‘For propriety if for no other reason.’
‘We are talking of Normans. Surely I do not need to remind you of what they are capable.’
‘Am I to be publicly insulted for my loyalty-?’
There was a sudden wail to break Rainulf’s response, as Sichelgaita, Guaimar’s baby daughter, let everyone know she was unhappy. Looking at her, and not for the first time, her father was given to wonder at her: from where had the girl sprung? Younger than her brother, she already outdid Gisulf in height; her hair was, unlike his own dark locks, the flaxen colour of her mother, her eyes a startling blue, and she was growing at a rate. Her throat was not left behind in this, and her cries, as she struggled with his wife, filled the room.
‘I think my niece wails for our impotence, brother,’ said Berengara maliciously, looking at Rainulf. ‘When a treacherous slug can prate about loyalty…’
‘If you were a man you would be dead by now,’ Rainulf responded, his eyes now so narrowed that they
