sweltering plains, easily visible below, the rippling heat haze obvious even from this elevation. ‘Matters are not going to improve down there and you are not going to get as much as a bronze follis from those who are hoarding their coin until it is pacified.’
Looking at his older brother, big, blond, red-faced and wearing a look of fury, Roger wondered how long it would be before the dam of that anger burst. Tancred might have made Robert swear never to use a weapon against a brother but that did not extend to fisticuffs. Robert was capable of a mighty buffet round the ears and he had seen him administer a few, so he kept his distance: fighting Robert with lance and sword was just possible — wrestling or boxing with him was not.
The sudden roaring laugh that emerged, the throwing back of the head and the holding out of the arms was typical Robert — it was in his nature to go from fury to humour in an instant, leaving the recipient unsure if either emotion was sincere. The men he had brought with him as escort, who had been frowning at Roger, were now grinning at him, partly, he suspected, from relief: with a mercurial master it was not often they knew what was coming next.
‘My God, Sprat, you have grown,’ he roared. ‘It can’t be from residing with Mauger, that ditherer. There are castles out there, and towns, needing to be reminded to whom they owe their fealty. Take them back for me and you can have as title any one of them you like, letters patent and your gonfalons from my own hand.’
‘The revenues?’
‘Yours to keep for ten years.’
It was a generous offer: Roger was being given permission to depose the existing lords of the fiefs in revolt and become the overlord himself — better than what he had gained in the past, really only one fief and one self- built fortress. The previous campaign, still incomplete, had been about money and who was suzerain: to whom did these lords owe their taxes, Byzantium or the Count of Apulia? This would be about taking lands and titles from the intransigent for personal gain, a much more alluring prospect.
‘What do you say, brother, do I have your support?’
Roger hesitated, suspecting that such generosity was prompted by a revolt that was more serious than he knew, one which would be that much harder not only to contain but to put down in a way that would last. The cause was starvation: desperate people would fight in a reckless way, which might mean a campaign of more than one year. He could have fires breaking out sporadically behind him as he passed onto another rebellious vassal. Would he have to kill so many who tilled the fields as to render the region a continuing desert?
‘Let me think on it.’
The humour evaporated as quickly as it appeared. ‘You mean you might say no?’
Roger grinned. ‘I might, but not on an empty stomach.’
It was while eating and drinking — there was no shortage of food in the well-watered mountains — that Roger saw a possible solution. The question which had troubled him was how to separate the peasants from the lords they had toiled for all their lives, to whom they had a loyalty that often transcended good sense: there were good landowners but more were not, most exploited them to the hilt. Certainly he could massacre the peasants in their thousands: untrained levies wielding pikes could not stand against proper warriors, exposing those overlords, many of whom had probably eaten well while their serfs starved. But within that lay the seeds of future revolt: the sons of the dead would harbour a deeper hatred than their sires, a dangerous legacy in a land as yet not wholly conquered.
‘Robert, I accept.’
His brother, gnawing on half a sheep’s leg, replied in a voice muffled by mutton, ‘I never thought you would refuse.’
‘I want five hundred of your best lances here within the month. Ralph de Boeuf will see to their mustering.’
‘And you?’
‘I must go to the coast and take a boat.’
‘To where?’
Roger just grinned and tapped the side of his nose.
The journey to Salerno was made by sea for one very simple reason: it was too risky for a de Hauteville to travel alone by land, especially carrying gold. On arrival he ordered the captain of his boat to anchor out in the bay, staying aboard and sending a message ashore, waiting with some impatience until Kasa Ephraim came out to answer his request for a secret meeting. It was odd, given his office of collector of the port, how uncomfortable the Jew looked in a boat: he had all the appearance of a man only secure on land and that did not relent when he made it from rowing boat to the deck of the ship. Leading him into the little cabin, an arm ready to catch him should he stumble, Roger was not surprised when the man refused a drink.
‘I fear if it went to my stomach,’ he replied, sitting down with alacrity, ‘it would not stay there.’
‘I like the sea,’ Roger replied. ‘The journey here was most pleasant.’
Ephraim looked at him as if he were mad, but his voice did not betray that when he spoke. ‘There are few who could tempt me to take to the water, but your message did intrigue me.’
‘No one knows you are here?’
‘No, the men who brought me out to you are smugglers who know they would face being stoned by the mob if they betrayed me. So, how can I, a trader, put down a revolt in Calabria?’
‘A revolt triggered by famine.’
‘Yes.’
‘Help me feed them.’
For all his discomfort, Ephraim, after a brief moment, smiled. Roger had suspected the man to be shrewd; that expression proved it, for he required no explanation of what was far from obvious. Roger had deduced the only way to assuage famine and bring peace, instead of soaking the parched earth with blood, was to feed the hungry. The lord who saved their hearths and children would have their gratitude for ever, instead of generations of enmity.
‘When I saw you as clever, I was not mistaken.’
‘Grain, shiploads of it, to buy, as well as seed for the spring planting.’
‘The cost will be immense.’
‘I have gold but nowhere near enough.’
‘So you require me to provide more?’
‘At a proper rate of interest. My brother Robert has promised me land and titles, and the revenues of Calabria will be mine for a whole decade, so I know I can reimburse you whatever the cost.’
‘For a Norman you are acting in an unusual manner.’
Roger’s response betrayed his impatience. ‘Can it be done?’
Hands on his lap, the Jew sat silently, thinking, his eyes lowered and Roger waiting anxiously: this he could not do without help, money and lots of it, the only other source of that being Robert. But the price his brother would extract for such aid would be too high; he certainly would not give it for nothing, regardless of how sensible the notion, and Roger could not fault him for that. You did not get to be and stay a great magnate without certain abilities and habits of character, and extracting the best from any negotiation was as central to that as the ability to fight and win.
Ephraim lifted his head and spoke in an even tone, surprising given what he had to say.
‘I have often found that in commerce a man must speculate, and sometimes profit must be put aside for a long-term aim. I said before I saw William in you, but it may be that you will surpass him in wisdom.’
‘A tall order,’ Roger replied.
‘I will support you and for mere repayment of that which I advance plus any interest I have to pay on borrowings.’
‘No interest on the principal, which has to be your own?’
‘My interest is long term. I think by aiding you I will prosper mightily in the future. Now, if you will be so kind, let us find a place on land where we can transact the finer points of that which you seek. I have a villa at Paestum, which is on the shoreline to the south. I will proceed there this very evening, and so shall you to meet on the morrow. Tell whoever sails your boat to question the fishermen as to where to land.’
Not even an extremely wealthy Jew could transact that which Roger needed, but he had what the supplicant
