jostling forward and seeking him out.
That he was a soldier and a good one was obvious: he was a man who fought with his eyes, knowing his arms and feet would obey the commands sent to them by his brain, and he was strong. No orders were given but it was soon obvious that this contest was to be decided between these two and their swords. They swung them against each other time and again in a tattoo of clashing metal, came together then fell apart with a collision of shields, the only thing still their heads as, eyes locked, they sought that one blink or wrong signal that would present an opening.
Stephen Paternos had never fought a Norman in single combat: that he might have coped with, but he had never engaged with a de Hauteville. Roger was in his element: he could have been back at Hauteville le Guichard with old Tancred’s shouted instructions in his ears and it had been the same as every fight since, a reliance on the strong arm and quick brain that were his family birthright.
Paternos moved his round buckler just enough for Roger to get his teardrop shield inside it and fix its position for no more than a blink. But it was enough: Stephen Paternos needed to correct it, his chest was exposed, needed to use extra pressure to free his own shield from the way Roger was holding it. In pushing to his right, his sword arm opened up enough for the hilt of Roger’s weapon to get through his guard and take him on the upper chest — not in itself a telling blow, but one that created both the time and the opening for that blade to be raised and fall on the Byzantine’s helmet with stunning force.
As he reeled back it was the following blow that killed him, a round-armed sweep that took his neck just below where his helmet ended, with a blade so sharp that it could slice through a single horse hair. The light went out in those eyes, with Roger aware that he had been a worthy opponent who never once wavered in his concentration, even when he knew he was probably doomed. Apart from the sound of his own heavy breathing, Roger now heard only the sound of dropping weapons, then, shortly and all around, coming from other ships, cries of loud cheering.
They landed with the enemy ships, bar one, under tow; that last one had broken through to Bari. On the journey back Roger had made Joscelin dress as a high-ranking Greek, in the non-fighting clothes of the man he had slain, whose name he now knew. It was a great pleasure to present Joscelin as a gift to his brother and to hear the wretch plead for his life, but there was little time to gloat.
Word came almost at once that a party of Greeks, having seen that relief was not at hand, in despair and encouraged by Robert’s agent Argirizzo, had seized one of the twin towers on the land wall, calling for Normans to reinforce them. Yet another siege tower, built but yet to be employed, was quickly pushed forward to finally rest against the ramparts. Robert’s best warriors, led by Bohemund, with Jordan and Serlo on his heels, flooded up over the now undefended ramparts and once in possession of that corner tower the city was doomed: at dawn, word came asking for terms.
Robert was lenient: he could afford to be. What soldiers of Byzantium remained, and any Greeks who wished to depart, he let sail away. The Duke of Apulia had what he wanted, absolute control of his domains. The Eastern Empire no longer had a toehold in Italy: on the Saturday before Palm Sunday, banners that had flown over the city since the time of the Emperor Justinian, five hundred years before, were hauled down for the last time to the sound of a Latin Mass being celebrated in the great cathedral.
Palermo suspected the de Hautevilles were coming and they knew that this time the Normans had a powerful navy. Every Byzantine satrap, from the Dalmatian coast to the Bosphorus, was busy strengthening their defences in fear of that fleet appearing off their shores. Yet Palermo had strong walls and surely, after a three-year siege these warriors would want some respite. Not so: the Guiscard, with that power to inspire which was the hallmark of his leadership, had his army enthused and marching to Reggio within a month, Roger insisting there was one task to perform on the way to Palermo. If there was one area where he felt outshone by Robert it was in his cunning — hence his soubriquet — a fact well known to the older brother, so it was with some amusement the Guiscard listened to his younger brother as he outlined his plans and reasons for taking Catania.
‘For all al-Tinnah is long dead we are still well thought of there, and it would not surprise them to have me request some men to aid us in taking Palermo.’
‘You think they will respond?’ Robert asked.
‘I doubt they will welcome the notion. Their late emir might have dangled possession of Sicily in front of us but I never thought he really believed in it. But if I sail into the harbour they will not dare refuse me permission to land. I will then request they allow you to enter with the fleet to pick up their contingent…’
Roger did not finish, leaving his brother ruminating. Even with Palermo, the rest of Sicily was not going to be easy to conquer. It was mountainous, had many elevated and redoubtable fortresses, the Greeks were not universally friendly, and while the natives were not openly hostile, the Saracens, numerous and religioninspired, were. The problems lay in securing the big ports, Catania being one, as well as Agrigento on the south coast, which would need to be secured to stop incursions from North Africa. But biggest of all was Syracuse, the gateway to Sicily since ancient times. To hold that was to deny the island to a resurgent Byzantium; that the Eastern Empire was weak now did not mean it would always be so and Catania was not far up the same coast.
‘If they resist?’ Robert asked.
‘I don’t doubt they will, but they will succumb because we will be inside their walls.’
And so it proved: Roger was welcomed, not with open arms but with grace, and the Catanians were not so foolish as to deny the request he made, for was not the Count of Sicily known to be an honourable man, unlike his brother? They were still unsuspecting when Robert led his fleet into their harbour. His soldiers landed and fanned out through the town, the scales only falling from the Catanian eyes when they found their strong points being occupied and Normans manning the city gates. They fought but it was futile, within a week, Catania had been re- fortified and had a Norman garrison. The brothers who had deceived them were on their way to Palermo, Roger leading the army via Troina, Robert taking his fleet north to round Cape Faro.
Robert made several landings on the way to overawe the coastal settlements, so Roger arrived first and set up his camp to the east of the port on a fertile plain cut with a good river, a place of palaces and summer residences surrounded by orange and lemon groves where the rich traders of Palermo were wont to escape the stink of a crowded city, a teeming metropolis with a population reckoned to be a quarter of a million. All were abandoned, their owners now inside the walls, so the Norman host were free to accommodate themselves in much comfort in houses made of cool marble, escaping the summer heat.
There was a fort called the Castle of Yahya at the point where the river met the sea, running into a good bay, a perfect place in which to anchor Robert’s fleet and disembark his army — the shape of Palermo harbour, lying as it did in a deep gulf, precluded the same tactic he had used to blockade Bari. Taking the castle looked simple, but the Saracens, expected to surrender against hopeless odds, instead came out to fight and suffered much for their bravery. Roger did not realise it, Robert did not know, but this presaged much of what was to come. Those men had fought for their faith as much as for their island and that was to be replicated in the city itself, for there was not a citizen who did not know that what they were fighting for was the honour of the Prophet and the future of Islam in Sicily.
On landing his warriors Robert ordered that a Mass be said, so that all could confess, that to be followed by an immediate assault, the hope being they could take Palermo by a coup de main. Robert sailed his ships round Cape Zafferano and into the great bight on which Palermo stood, while Roger led the army towards the walls to let them see the size of the force they now faced, made up of Normans and Greeks, Apulians, Calabrians and even men from Bari. Those they were intent on subduing had been waiting years for this moment: they had worked on their fortifications and even walled up several of the city gates, gathered arms and trained with them. A hail of stones and arrows met Roger, while the sheer number of vessels that emerged to meet and fight him thwarted Robert. The attack failed both on land and at sea.
Was there a soul in Palermo who thought they could repulse the men who had conquered so much? Did they, in their darker moments, wonder at a race like the Normans, and at a family, the eldest of whom had only arrived in Italy thirty-five years previously and with nothing: bare-arsed knights, as they described themselves? By sheer ability with sword, shield, horse and lance, guile, cunning, political ability and a strong dose of good fortune, they had risen to consort with kings and popes, had come to make emperors fearful. Did they reflect that in the past invasions of these lands it had been an overwhelming force of numbers that had triumphed, yet these de Hautevilles were few, and the men they led never were large in numbers? If they did think such thoughts, it seemed they knew
