passionately proud of his unruly brood.
To Roger, his youngest and very much his favourite, he had been a paragon, entertaining in his storytelling, easily forgiven when he had consumed too much apple wine and became maudlin about his past deeds, a man of fair dealing and strong friendships, that attested to by the number of neighbours who came to any family celebration. How far they had come, those boys of his — even his daughter was married to the Norman Count of Aversa, the greatest power in Campania, while his nephew, raised as another son after his father’s death in battle, was now the incumbent bishop of the nearby see of Coutances.
‘Can I make him proud?’ Roger asked himself, speaking out loud, before looking to the sky and the god he worshipped, who saw all things. ‘I ask for no more than to live as he lived, to fight as he fought and to be as honourable as he was in both.’
Looking down to the grey-stone manor house in which he had been raised he saw that his horses were ready, the saddlecloth in the blue and white chequer of his house loaded with his weapons: lance, great broadsword, his suit of chain mail and his helmet, a scene he had witnessed when his brothers had departed, each one swearing an oath to their father on the hilt of their sword, the one thing on which Tancred insisted: that, in a world where violence was the norm, no son of his should raise his weapon against a brother.
There was no vow for him: Tancred was long in the ground now and it was different in so many ways. His brothers had left alone and with little: a small amount of coin, salt to trade with in its place, taken from the family pans that lay on the Atlantic shoreline, destined to seek shelter in the pilgrim hospices that lined the route to Rome, to sleep in discomfort and just as often under the stars, heading towards an unknown destination and an even more obscure future.
Not Roger! It was his mother who would weep to see him go, but he would travel as a person of consequence attended by twenty lances, other young sons eager for an Italian adventure, waiting now by the roadway to join him, who would testify to his position. He would send in his name to every great property he passed and that would open the gates. He would be entertained, fed well and given good wine to drink, such was the power of the de Hauteville name. Yet when he got to Italy, albeit he would be given opportunity, the same predicament would face him as faced every one of the Normans who had preceded him.
He must make his own way, carve out his own success, face his travails and overcome them, fight whatever enemies presented themselves and conquer. His name would get him into battle but it was his own sword arm, his own lance and the aid of his own trusty mounts that would raise his name to equal his brothers. Standing on the parapet of that stone donjon, it was as easy to imagine failure as success: there was only one certainty — whichever it was, glory or ignominy, it was not to be found here in the Contentin.
CHAPTER ONE
Robert Guiscard, Count of Apulia, knew that the enemy commander, Argyrus, would be obliged to sortie out at some time: it was his only hope of raising a siege now approaching a year in duration. Brindisi had stout walls that had withstood much in the way of ballista, and many hands to repair any breeches made by the huge, flying stones, so that all his assaults had failed to get the besieging army into the great port city, one of the last of the Byzantine bastions left in Southern Italy; in a lightning sweep the previous year he had taken the other cities of Apulia and Eastern Calabria, leaving the two greatest outposts, Brindisi and the even more formidable Bari, isolated.
But those numerous hands repairing broken stone needed to be fed and the siege had cut off any hope of forage from the surrounding countryside, while hired Venetian galleys blocked off any supplies from the sea. Populous and crowded, Brindisi would be fast approaching the point of mass starvation: the moat and the harbour that bordered the city were already filling up with the bloated, decaying cadavers of the weakest inhabitants: the elderly, the sick and children.
There is a point in an invested city where a good commander must decide whether to feed his horses — necessary for a sortie — or eat them, then distribute the oats needed to keep them healthy to the starving inhabitants: Argyrus was at that point. Delay too long and there was a risk that the citizens, driven by fear and hunger, at a time when there were no more dogs, cats or rats to eat, would take matters into their own hands. Many a leader had waited too long and found himself overthrown, forced to flee or even murdered by those he was tasked to defend, thrown as a corpse from his own walls before the gates were opened to surrender the city.
‘I need news,’ Argyrus insisted. ‘I need to know if any of my stratagems are bearing fruit.’
The men to whom he spoke — his senior subordinates — were also aware of the approaching crisis: they also knew they needed to appear confident before their commander, lest by an expression of doubt they forfeit their own lives, this necessary to destroy any hint of defeatism in the higher echelons of the defence. Argyrus was a man much dependent on spies — he had his informants in the city, some in the Guiscard’s camp, yet others dotted around the provinces seeking to stir up trouble in the Norman rear, acting either for gain or from conviction — but getting in and out of the city was difficult: his messengers were being intercepted too easily.
‘We will be gifted but one opportunity, so we must make sure it is final in its outcome.’
‘We could offer to buy him off, My Lord. Normans are always grasping for gold.’
‘Not the one outside our walls! The Guiscard seeks power and will not be content with Brindisi. He will have Bari as well if he can. If the imperial court would realise that they would have reinforced me long ago, but there are more fools in Constantinople than wise heads.’
No one would meet the Catapan’s eye then: it was not a good idea to question the decisions of the emperor or those who advised him; the dungeons of Constantinople were brimming with those who had dared, no doubt betrayed, as they would be now, by those they trusted. Argyrus had, like his predecessors, never had enough troops to beat the increasing power of the Normans, yet he had kept them at bay for years by intrigue and bribery, provided with gold in abundance. Where that had worked in the past in terms of divide and rule, it was of less use now.
‘One day,’ Argyrus carped, ‘if they are not careful, this count they so disdain will turn up outside their own walls. He seeks the purple and has too much wealth already to be distracted by more. You do not know these de Hautevilles as I do, for I have been close to them. They are of a different breed to their bandit confreres. I saw in William Bras de Fer and his brother Drogo…’
That induced a pause and recollection of another failure: it was by intrigue that Argyrus had ensured both those brothers fell to the secret knife. He had tried to do the same to Robert in the early stages of the siege, only to find the man sent to do murder fired bodily and alive over the city walls — an act he was not meant to, nor did he, survive — leaving the instigator unsure of why the attempt had failed.
‘They are truly a plague. Kill off one and another rises to take his place, each one more dangerous than the last.’
It was gold Argyrus was relying on now, spread about the provinces to foment revolt in the Guiscard’s rear. Not all the Normans of Italy were outside his walls or happy with de Hauteville hegemony; not all of Robert’s Apulian subjects were loyal. There were many who might, even if they owed vassalage to the Count of Apulia, see some advantage in revolt. That would draw Robert off and, because he would need to move swiftly, he would have to take with him the men Argyrus feared most, his conroys of mounted Norman warriors, the most feared fighting men in all Christendom.
‘Go out into the city,’ Argyrus commanded. ‘Search for the hoarding of grain and livestock and seize anything you can find.’
‘We have done that once already, Lord Argyrus.’ The fellow who spoke, one of his senior captains, got a stare that made him feel cold on what was a hot day. Likewise the voice that responded was icy in tone. ‘Do it again, there is always more hidden than you can find in one search. If nothing else, let the citizens see we are not close to capitulation. I need more time.’
Robert de Hauteville knew the Byzantine Catapan had spies in his encampment, just as he was sure it would be necessary to employ guile to draw the fellow out. Never comfortable in siege warfare, no Norman was, he was as eager as the leader of the Greeks to get Argyrus and what forces he could muster out into the open. There, superiority in Norman cavalry would count for more than any static assault by his Italian/Lombard levies. Robert’s
