chance.’
These words were uttered by Geoffrey, his older brother, though with a twinkle in his eye: he knew Robert too well to be entirely fooled by what was happening, but held his tongue until those given orders had rushed off to execute them, leaving them alone, not speaking, and softly when he did so, until he was sure there were no servants in earshot.
‘So, brother, what is really afoot?’
That produced an immediate frown on the face of the Guiscard. He hated to be questioned, while there was also the fact of Geoffrey’s greater age, which, if he deferred to Robert in leadership and title could not be gainsaid. The command of the Apulian Normans had come down through the line of de Hauteville brothers: first William, then to Drogo and Humphrey and, on the latter’s death Geoffrey had been next in line. But it was clear who the men they led wanted, just as irascible Humphrey, who openly disliked Robert, knew who would hold what had been gained. Robert was popular as well as a brilliant general, and since each in turn had been chosen by acclamation, it became obvious that, put to the men, he would be the one elected.
Geoffrey, who knew his limitations and was happy with the title he held as Count of Loritello, acquiesced in this: he was by far the most good-natured of the brood with an equanimity unusual in a Norman, never mind in the de Hauteville family. The second brother, Mauger, was more typical: he had served longer in Italy than Robert and had not been happy to bow the knee. So he had gone off with a large group of eighty lances, the men he had led for years, to seek his fortune elsewhere. He had just taken the land of a Lombard noble south of Salerno and was now ensconced in his stout castle of Scalea.
‘I need to draw Argyrus out.’
‘Obviously.’
‘Is it obvious?’ Robert snapped. ‘I see no evidence of anyone doing much thinking other than me.’
‘What would be the purpose, Robert, when you are the man who commands?’
‘I am open to suggestion.’
Geoffrey actually laughed, which got him a black look. ‘Let us leave aside the truth, that you are not and that you are secretive. Tell me what your plans are.’
Even with a man he trusted with his life, Robert hesitated, leaving Geoffrey to wonder what had happened to that bellicose jester who had first arrived from Normandy. Then he had been too open, too free with his opinions, nettling his elders with his denigration of their abilities, not least William, the man who had created opportunity for all. Robert had been banished to the most barren part of Calabria for that attitude and Drogo, equally disapproving, had not brought him back when William died. Only the threat of the combined forces of the Pope, with levies from nearly all of northern Italy, and his alliance with Byzantium, had obliged Humphrey to recall him and he had sent him back to Calabria as soon as he could.
With a glance around to ensure no one could overhear him, Robert, much to his brother’s amusement, came close and whispered in his ear.
Watching from the highest point on the walls, having with him a fellow whose eyesight he knew to be exceptional, Argyrus watched as the Normans, two thousand lances, departed in a cloud of dust, heading due north along the coast, marking the addition of the number of spare mounts, which indicated the distance needed to be travelled was great. Those on whom he relied in the countryside to the north, east and south would keep watch and, once they were out of sight would, that night, provided they were sure they had continued on their way, light small beacons on the higher hills to mark their passing.
‘You must rest now,’ he said to his trusted lookout, ‘for you will be needed once darkness falls.’
Then he fell silent, wondering how long he should wait before calling for an assembly of his soldiers. Too soon, with so many spies in the city, and word would leak before the Guiscard was gone. But he could not wait too long: opportunity was a fickle thing — it could evaporate in an instant.
CHAPTER TWO
Surprise was essential for Argyrus and it was a nervous two days while he waited for his chance to strike, a period in which the besiegers had to be kept in the dark about his preparations. It would take time to get his men ready, then they would have to deploy as they issued from the gates of the city to form up outside, that being the moment of maximum danger. He had a limited cavalry screen to protect his levies and keep them from an immediate counter-attack, so the decision to employ them in what might be a suicidal encounter, an all-out charge to pin down his foes, was forced upon him. If the battle were lost they were useless anyway.
Normally foot soldiers took time to deploy and it had to be done in daylight: their level of training precluded any attempt by torchlight. Present his enemy with too much of a chance by their being disordered and the whole enterprise might falter, leaving him weaker than he was now. So they would wait till the first hint of morning light; what they would face could only be a partly known fact — infantry long in the siege lines and thus, he hoped, not ready to do all-out battle.
More important was the lack of the leadership at which the Normans excelled plus their prowess in ensuring that when their milities met an enemy army, that force had been badly disrupted and often broken in spirit by the vigorous attacks of their mounted confreres. Vital to his hopes was one factor: they had become so accustomed to Norman support they would wilt for the lack of it, yet whichever way he examined the problems, more ifs surfaced than definite conclusions.
His system of hilltop beacons had seen the Normans pass beyond the point at which they could interfere in the coming battle and, on prior instructions, more fires would be lit if Robert Guiscard reappeared. The night before the battle was the worst, and not only for the watch being kept to the north: if Argyrus was a clever and skilled Catapan, he thought himself a far from competent general and thus he was prone to fret. He remembered his first night before a battle, outside the port city of Trani, many years previously, and recalled how calm William Iron Arm had been, just before the assault Argyrus had betrayed and rendered impossible.
Iron Arm had been preparing to lead his Norman warriors onto the walls of the city by means of a wooden siege tower, which meant meeting their enemies in almost single file, one sword against many, surely the most dangerous form of assault in creation. The titular leader of the attack might have been a Lombard but it was really the eldest de Hauteville who was the man in charge. How tranquil he had been, unconcerned that death might come with the morning sun. How different was he, Argyrus, who must now address his troops to put fire in their bellies. It was that last thought that gave him the possible key to inspiration: they needed not fire in their guts, but food.
‘Out on the plains before us are storerooms bursting with grain, as well as cattle and sheep on the hoof, an abundance of everything we lack.’
Looking down from the top step of the stairway that led to his citadel, he peered into the torch lit sea of faces, trying to discern the mood.
‘I know I can tell you about the need to be brave, to heed your captains, keep your discipline and to do battle with deadly purpose. I can invoke the threat to your hearths, for many of you have wives and children in the city, just as I can say to you who are Greek that beyond those walls are those we call barbarians: the Normans. I do not demean those amongst you who are Italian or Lombard, for you see as well as any the benign nature of imperial rule.’
That set up some murmuring: it was gilding it to say Constantinople was benign, more truthful would be to say it was greedy. As long as the revenues of this great trading port flowed east the empire did not bear down too heavily on its subjects, nor did largesse flow the other way to what was a distant fief. Argyrus knew it was not love of Byzantium that would make the Italians and Lombards fight: it was fear of Norman-led revenge on them and their families. The city had been offered terms a year past and he had turned them down, so Brindisi, by the laws of war, was open to pillage. Once those walls were breached, once the enemy was inside, no one would be safe from rapine or murder.
‘And I promise you this. There are, in our midst, many men of wealth, those who have grown rich on the trade of Brindisi, many Greeks who have settled here over the centuries. No doubt these prosperous folk will willingly give up their possessions to be shared once our city is free of the siege. But this I say to you, for I know
