deter them they had come here enough times to make their name a potent and fearful one. But it was what he said next that really hit home.
‘The abbot and monks of this monastery will, in future, work alongside you to seed, plough and grow, and in doing so they will render better service to God than they do now. That will be needed, for the able-bodied men hereabouts must help us quarry stone to build a fortress into which you may flee and be secure should anyone come to despoil your lands. Now go back through the gate and tell that to the others.’
Just about to do as he was bid, Robert spoke again, and these words were chilling. ‘But know this, we can make war on you as easily as we can make war on those who would ravage your lands. You will show us the kind of respect you show these monks, or those lances and swords you see will be used against you.’
In twos and threes the peasants came through the gate, many looking fearful still, and most reluctant to take from the monks they revered or feared that which they had grown to keep them portly. There was no mystery to their caution: simple folk with simple needs, their dreams tended to be fixed on the next life, not this one, and the men from whom they were taking this food had convinced them they had the path to salvation, a message much repeated in the services held in the nearby church which they were obliged to enter through a separate outer door.
Though God-fearing, Robert was of a mind to think otherwise: that if God needed slugs like these to carry his message — and he had met too many well-fed monks in his life not to think of them as such — then he was not the Saviour of Holy Scripture.
‘I think it would be good to have a Mass said for our souls,’ said Gartmod.
Robert burst out laughing, his booming mirth bouncing off the surrounding walls. ‘I think the roasting of some of that beef and pork which is yet on the hoof would do more for our souls than prayer. We have fasted long enough, brother.’
The soubriquet given to Robert, who was busy laying out plans for his castle walls, following on from taking over the monastery, became common amongst the Normans, and was repeated often enough to make those monks who accepted the new dispensation curious. They tended to be young as well as inquisitive, less resentful and, in truth, still retained some of the devoutness that had brought them to Fagnano in the first place. Eventually one of them plucked up the courage to ask Gartmod, who had shown himself to be a pious fellow and less likely to take offence.
‘Guiscard?’
‘It is a word I do not know,’ the monk said.
‘Neither would you, for it is Norman French.’
‘But what does it mean?’
‘It means cunning, which our leader most certainly is.’
When Robert heard it he wondered if he might not be known by a more suitable soubriquet, like that of his eldest half-brother, William. Bras de Fer sounded better than Guiscard, which could also mean weasel-like. Yet he knew no man would dare to use it in that sense and let him know they were doing so. In time he became comfortable with it, even to the point where some of his lances dropped his given name completely.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The multiple assassinations ordered by Argyrus had checked the Normans, but it had not stopped or removed them, underlined by the fact that Pope Leo was in constant receipt of complaints that his territory of Benevento was still being ravaged by roving bands of mailed warriors. Added to that, the grip of the Normans on the principality, despite assurances that they were not encroaching, was increasing. Appeals to the Emperor Henry to come south once more, this time with the whole might of the empire behind him, had produced nothing, leaving the Pontiff at a loss to know what to do — doubly frustrating given his background.
When the envoy arrived from Argyrus asking for permission to come to him, it took no great leap of imagination to conjure up a very good idea, in advance, of what he wanted to talk about. Argyrus had to travel incognito, secretly by ship from Bari to a point further up the Adriatic coast, before journeying inland, with Leo coming east to meet him at a secluded monastery high in the Apennines. They met alone, without attendants and devoid of the trappings of their responsibilities, Leo ostensibly on pilgrimage, Argyrus just an unknown traveller, the latter opening the discussions with a blunt statement of the truth.
‘The Normans are as much a plague to the Church of Rome as they are to Byzantium.’
Considering those words, with fingers arched before his mouth, Pope Leo was also sizing up this Lombard. He saw before him a solid-looking young man of fine countenance, with a direct gaze and a lack of the kind of excessive gestures or eager explanation which denoted insincerity.
‘Does the Emperor Constantine know of this meeting?’
‘No, Your Holiness, the court of the man I represent is not a place for confidences any more than Rome.’
‘Are the Normans not Christians?’
Argyrus knew the Pope was avoiding the point and, he surmised, seeking to find out, before he committed himself, the nature of the person with whom he was dealing.
‘Of a kind, though I sometimes wonder if there is a God, given that what they often do deserves that they be struck down by a bolt from Heaven.’
Leo replied, wearing a thin smile on his pale lips. ‘There is most certainly a God, my son, and should they seek his intercession he will forgive them.’
‘Do you?’
‘For their sins?’
‘For their actions in your fief of Benevento.’
Those arched hands parted to show open palms, and the freckled face took on a querying look. ‘Christ bore a cross to his Calvary, is it not fitting that the heir to St Peter should have the same kind of burden?’
‘So you are saying that you will turn the other cheek.’
‘When I first came to Italy it was as a soldier in the service of the Emperor Conrad — a bishop, yes, but a warrior who would not have recoiled at taking the life of anyone who opposed the imperial host. If I saw before me now a single head that I could remove, and by doing so eradicate a problem, I would be a soldier once more.’
‘That has been attempted.’
If he had hoped to shock Leo by a near open admission of secret murder, Argyrus failed: he was greeted by no reaction at all, so he was left to pose another question. ‘And if you had an army?’
‘Would you be offering me one?’
It was now the Lombard’s turn to smile. ‘Part of one, yes, for if I had the force necessary to defeat the Normans I would not have come to you here, would I?’
‘No. But you must know I do not have an army of my own to bolster yours.’
‘The day may come when you need one.’
‘And you think that day is near?’
‘What, Your Holiness, do you think the Normans will do once they have swallowed all of Benevento?’ That being greeted with more silence, Argyrus continued. ‘I think you must see that is what is going to happen, which will bring them to the borders of your own Papal States.’
Leo leant forward, nodding. ‘This I know.’
‘I cannot see what will satisfy them, can you?’
‘And you are suggesting?’
‘Force is the only thing they understand, and their removal from Italy is the only thing that will bring peace. Get the Western Emperor to join with the forces of his imperial cousin and together we will have an army too strong for the Normans to oppose.’
‘I am not sure Henry would wish to see Byzantium fully in control of Apulia once more.’
‘He would rather have a de Hauteville?’
‘No man relishes the choice of the lesser of two evils when he does not know which is the worse.’
‘We had peace before, we can have peace again,’ Argyrus insisted. ‘And I do not think it should be just the
