they went down so did any cohesion, and what started as a slight retreat soon turned into a rout.
There was no order in the Norman line now: it was each man riding as fast as his tired horse would carry him, to employ a swinging weapon upon the fleeing necks and backs of the men who had come so confidently to fight them. Behind them came Robert’s levies to ensure that anyone who fell was quickly despatched, so that when they crested the opposite mound the field behind was littered with dead bodies, few of them Normans.
At their centre, covered from head to foot in blood, as was his horse, now with its head lowered and its flanks bellowing to suck in air, stood Robert de Hauteville and he turned to look up at the ramparts of Enna. He could not see Ibn-al-Hawas but he guessed him to be there, just as he knew the Saracen emir would have him in view. Taking his banner from the herald who bore it into battle at his side, he raised and pointed it at the fortress as if to say, ‘These men have died and you will be next.’
CHAPTER NINETEEN
A month later the whole Norman army could see that for what it was, idle boasting. Though great honour could warm the breast of every lance he led, they had not been able to prevent the bulk of the defeated army from retiring into the town and castle. Given such a defence, taking the outworks that protected the town would be hard enough, never mind the fortress, and it was as plain as a pikestaff that the attacking army was dangerously overexposed, far from a secure base as well as suffering in the heat of high summer.
There was to their rear no easily defendable stronghold to which they could retire, no source of men to replace the losses they suffered, more from disease than in battle. The land around Enna, standing as it did on a high rocky plateau, was not fertile as it was in valleys and coastal plains, while to top all that, Robert seriously lacked the kind of strength and equipment needed to take one of the most formidable bastions in Sicily.
Attempts to bring Ibn-al-Hawas to a parley by burning his fiefs produced no results either. From his high elevation he could see how many manor houses and watermills the Normans could burn, how much light could be generated by glowing night-time fields of smouldering crops. If many of his subjects, in order to appease the invaders, came to the Duke of Apulia with tribute and offers of allegiance, Robert knew them to be only as strong as his presence; once he had departed they would renege.
Relations with Roger wilted in the debilitating heat: if Robert could not admit they were static to no purpose, Roger could. After much squabbling the younger de Hautevilles were sent to foray beyond the confines of Enna. Roger and Serlo rode out at the head of three hundred lances and raided all the way south to Agrigento, plundering in lands that had not seen conflict for decades. They were thus, on their return, laden with spoils and it did nothing for Robert’s temper to have them distribute enough booty to satisfy his whole army, given such generosity only underlined the uselessness of what he was about.
Added to this was the news from Apulia, sent by Sichelgaita, of the Byzantines he had chased into Bari preparing to sally forth and set his home province alight once more, that accompanied by an urgent request that he return. Stubborn, unwilling to admit to the truth, increasingly short with a brother who hinted it was long past time to go, even the great Guiscard had to admit a check to his ambitions. The leaves had begun to fall, winter was the coming season and if he had been ill-equipped to campaign up till now, here, in high country, his lack of resources would be compounded by increasingly inclement weather.
‘We leave in darkness,’ he told his grim-faced captains, his eyes fixed on Roger for any sign of a gloat, he too wise to show any such emotion. ‘I do not want to hear in my ears the cheers from the walls of men we have beaten in battle.’
Doubly galling was the very simple truth: he could not hold on to what he had taken either in lands or strongholds. This was, Roger’s contingent apart, an army he had brought from Apulia. Too many of his lances, with wives, children and landholdings to consider, hankered for a return. Even if they retired in good order and their enemies were too wary to trouble them, the Normans had to bypass and abandon places they had fought hard to subdue. Close to Enna, the locals were jubilant to see the Normans depart, not so once they left the high inland plateau and entered territory mainly Christian and Greek.
Sure that Ibn-al-Hawas would take advantage of the retreat they were strong in their persuasion, offering land and comforts in exchange for protection to the more itinerant knights, those with nothing in either Calabria or Apulia, a chance to settle and prosper. Robert was not about to abandon Rometta, which protected Messina from the south-west, but he was persuaded the northern coastal route was vulnerable. Thus he gave permission for fifty knights to stay and make their home in a town with a broken-down citadel, standing atop a mound from which they could see well to the west and which gave them sight of the northern shoreline, naming it San Marco in honour of his god. When he and the remainder of his army moved on, it was to the sound of hammers on rock, as those he left behind began to construct a proper Norman castle.
‘We have learnt much, Robert.’
That got Roger a basilisk stare as his brother took a harder grip of the ratted rope he was holding, part of the rigging of the ship taking them back to Reggio. Over the stern they watched Messina diminish, becoming an indistinct line of white buildings on a long green shore. That, at least, was safe, with a strong garrison commanded by Serlo de Hauteville, made up of men who knew that whatever they had in Apulia could not be matched by what they could gain in Sicily. There would be ships plying in the other direction soon, bringing over their families.
‘We have learnt that the Saracens do not know how to fight Normans,’ Robert replied.
‘They may not repeat the mistakes of Enna.’
Nor, Roger was thinking, would his brother repeat the error of trying to subdue an island like Sicily in one campaign.
‘They will, brother, never fear. No one learns lessons after one defeat. Even the Byzantines have still not learnt.’
‘A little time out of the saddle will be welcome.’
Robert responded with a humourless laugh. ‘I will exchange a wearied arse for a troubled brain.’
That acknowledged what he was returning to, not just domestic harmony in his wife and child but the needs of his title: fractious barons, endless jealousy-inspired claims for preferment, the doing down of a neighbour or rival and the problem, yet unsolved, of Bari and the machinations of Argyrus. What he was not about to mention was how to deal with Roger himself, and it showed in Robert’s ire when Roger brought the subject to the fore.
‘You have Calabria,’ Robert growled.
‘I have oversight of your holdings in Calabria, brother. Outside of Mileto and a couple of other fiefs I have nothing, not even a title.’
‘Such a thing is naught but adornment.’
‘Which is why you are so proud to be addressed as a duke.’
‘Have I not earned it?’
‘I could ask you the same question.’
‘You will get your rewards, Roger, never fear.’
‘When?’
That sharp demand got a typical response, barked as Robert moved away from an interrogation he found uncomfortable. ‘When I am good and ready.’
The parting was amiable enough; it could hardly be otherwise with Judith present. Robert admired her as a true Norman wife and a beauty with it, uncomplaining to see her man away at war, a creator of domestic bliss when he returned, as ready to breed as the most fecund mare — there was a new male child called Geoffrey.
The Guiscard would never admit that Judith stirred memories of his own childhood. The first child of Tancred’s second wife, he had been raised with more love than Fressenda mere allotted to those of his half- brothers she had inherited from the deceased Muriella. Also, at Mileto, there were none of those troubles of which he had been so aware aboard ship, that is, if you excluded how to deal with a brother who was every bit as good a soldier and administrator as he, a man who might need to be curbed lest ambition sour his soul.
‘We have yet to discuss a new campaign in Sicily, Robert.’
‘As I have yet to decide what to do. I cannot move lest Apulia is at peace.’
‘Will it ever be that?’
