irritable, his nature would allow of no other mood, but he still kept himself in a positive frame of mind, even if, at this moment, he was trying to cheer up Bohemund, a favourite son mired in deep gloom. Inside Bari he had support, also he had methods by which information and bribes were passed to and fro, so he knew the exact state of the city storerooms and could thus calculate the time it would take to starve the defenders out. He also knew that opinion within the Greek community was moving in his direction: the rise of the Normans had been so inexorable and over so many years that many now believed their supremacy to be inevitable. Better to make peace than face a bloody end fighting what could not be gainsaid.
Set against that, Bisanzio had managed to slip out of Bari and Robert suspected he was on his way to Constantinople to seek reinforcements. Even if he doubted he would succeed he had put some ships out in deeper water to watch the approaches, with orders to intercept any vessel making for the port.
‘They ridiculed me, bringing up their most precious treasures of gold and silver onto the ramparts and waving them.’ Robert laughed then, a deep rumble. ‘They do not do that now, do they, so what does that tell you?’
Bohemund had another concern: how they were ever going to get a siege tower close to the walls without it being burnt? Ten had been built, ten had trundled forward and ten had been set alight by jets of Greek fire and there was no other way to surmount the walls, given their height.
‘I want to try to sap,’ he said.
Robert looked hard at him, thinking Bohemund was not a jolly companion, he was too concentrated on fighting to enjoy a jest and he was a mass of impatience, this being his first siege.
‘The city is built on rock.’
‘There must be soft earth somewhere.’
‘Yes there is,’ Robert growled, ‘and you are likely to be buried in it.’
‘I am sick of doing nothing or building towers so that the Bariots can warm their arses.’
‘How many times have I told you not to fret, time is our friend, not our enemy.’
‘I’ll be a greybeard before I see inside that damned city.’
Robert’s heir, Roger, came bursting in, as enthusiastic as a boy of his age should be, soon followed by his doting mother. Sichelgaita exchanged a sour look with Bohemund, one that the father of both boys, even as he allowed Roger to jump on him, could not avoid observing.
‘I take it,’ Sichelgaita said, ‘the great general is still trying to tell you that you know nothing about how to fight a war?’
‘I would not dream of usurping your position,’ Bohemund spat.
‘Can I have some money, Papa,’ Roger cried, ‘for my purse?’
Sichelgaita had been glaring at Bohemund with loathing, but that changed to a maternal beam as she looked at Roger: she doted on the child and was, with a motherly mote to cloud her vision, looking forward to a day when he was a match in height and build for his disenfranchised sibling. Robert was fond of Roger, whom he had nicknamed Borsa for his love of money, not the possession of it but his habit of endlessly counting coins. However, it took no great genius to see if there was an inheritance in his blood it came from his wife’s family rather than his own: Roger Borsa looked like Sichelgaita’s brother, Gisulf — thin, with dull, fair hair and no glint in his eye of anything martial.
‘You always think my coffers are full, Borsa.’
‘Are they not, Papa?’
‘Maybe, I do not know, for I have to go to them often to pay my spies.’
‘Then you must let me tally them for you.’
‘And, my little Lombard, pocket a few,’ Bohemund sneered.
‘If he does,’ Sichelgaita hissed, ‘it is only because he has a right to it! And if you mock, it is because you have not.’
‘Enough, wife,’ Robert sighed.
The Duke of Apulia could silence most people, but not his wife.
‘Enough!’ she cried. ‘You let this popinjay insult your heir and say and do nothing.’
‘It was naught but a jest.’
‘It was a slur.’
‘That it most certainly was,’ Bohemund added gaily: Sichelgaita upset was one of the few things that made him happy. Roger Borsa had turned to look at him and if, in the boy’s eyes, was a kind of pleading affection, it was not returned. His half-brother was looking at him as a fox looks at a caged chicken, a stare that was broken by one of Robert’s servants entering the main tent.
‘Sire, a messenger from Geoffrey Ridel.’
Robert nodded, put his son on the floor, glared at both his wife and Bohemund and turned to face the man who had come in to tell him that a fleet of ships had been sighted heading for Bari, and Geoffrey Ridel suspected, by their lack of flags, they were from Constantinople.
‘Thank the good Jesus Christ,’ Robert boomed, which got him a hard look from Sichelgaita, who did not like the Lord’s name taken in vain when her son was in earshot. He hauled himself upright. ‘I have an enemy to fight that I can deal with.’
Bohemund, ever keen for a scrap, had gone before the messenger had finished his delivery, as if to be on the shore was to see this approaching hazard, which must be many leagues away in the open sea; Ridel, in command, had sent in a small, swift boat to carry the news.
‘You must curb that swine,’ Sichelgaita growled. ‘He is too free with his tongue.’
Robert looked at her wearily: if Bohemund was too free with that, he was not alone. ‘Right now I am concerned that Bisanzio is returning to Bari and if he is doing so in a fleet that means he has brought reinforcements. That I must deal with — and now.’
‘And Bohemund?’
‘Is my flesh and blood, just like little Borsa.’
‘Whom he hates. I have asked you before and I ask you again, send Bohemund away.’
‘Where?’
‘To Sicily, to Normandy or to England. Let him make his way in another land, not here.’
‘He will not harm our child, Sichelgaita,’ he said in a tired fashion, given it was something he was called upon to repeat often. ‘And before you ask how I know, I will see to it.’
‘And if you do not, will his Uncle Roger?’
‘He has told me he will. More than that I cannot do. Now please help me fight my enemies, not my family.’
Bisanzio was the first to admit he was no soldier — which had hampered his efforts to contain the Guiscard. Always having to rely on others for military advice he was never sure if the steps being taken were correct. His plea to the Empress Eudoxia for more troops — her husband was away fighting the Turks — was only part of his submission: the defenders of Bari needed a soldier, a man they could respect to take charge of thwarting the siege.
Stephen Paternos was that man, highly regarded and a proven success, so when he suggested splitting the relief force in two, separating the grain convoy from the ships carrying the fighting men, Bisanzio was happy to agree. Thus, as he approached his city and the Norman barrier, on a strong following wind, he was unaware that the grain ships had been intercepted; all he knew was what he could see, an endless stream of fighting men crossing those plank gangways from ship to ship, forming up in its defence. On the Byzantine decks, the warriors were crowding up from below, likewise preparing for battle.
‘Steer straight for them,’ Paternos ordered, ‘All sail set.’
‘They are stout bottoms, Excellency,’ the captain of the lead vessel replied — his ship was hired and thus he was more careful of its preservation than if it had been an imperial war vessel.
‘Not the ships, fool,’ Paternos barked, ‘the planks joining one to the other.’
‘The other vessels?’ Bisanzio asked, though softly: he did not want to be seen to question the military tactics and so undermine Paternos.
‘Will follow in our wake, that is if the dolts in command of them have a brain.’
The Catapan had met many military men in his time and it seemed they all talked in that fashion, an abrupt delivery that took no regard of the pride of the person being addressed, not something he, being in essence a
