It seemed an unlucky enterprise, haunted wherever they went by the memory of earlier failure. Bohemond, though still nominally second in command, found himself shut out from the family councils. Sigelgaita treated him as a mere hired expert, and Guiscard was more and more influenced by his gallant wife. The younger boys, with more of the Lombard in them than of the rapacious Norman Hauteville, seemed to forget that he also was a member of the family.
But Guiscard was still all Norman and all Hauteville. During December, when all prudent warriors lie up in warm winter quarters, he prepared to drive the blockading fleet from the harbour of Corfu.
There was a long day of fighting among the cold wet squalls of the harbour. At sunset the Apulians sailed back to their beach on the other side of the island, while the victorious Venetians mocked them. In the council that night Guiscard explained his plans.
“All our big ships are damaged, so we must waste tomorrow in repairing them. A pity, though it will pay in the long run. So the next attack on the harbour must be postponed until the day after tomorrow.”
“My squadron will be ready,” said Bohemond curtly. Once he would have helped his father to make these plans; now he learned of them at the same time as baby Guy, aged sixteen.
“Isn’t that a bit strenuous?” piped up the squeaky voice of Roger the Purse. “This is the middle of winter. My ships can’t be repaired in a single day.”
“I pay sailors to fight, not to loiter in winter quarters,” Guiscard boomed firmly. “We are Hautevilles. When we are beaten we fight again, and again until we win. Before Bari, I remember—but you don’t want to hear that again.” At mention of the famous leaguer of Bari an expression of glazed boredom had settled on the faces of all his family.
Two days later there was another sea-fight, in even worse weather. Once again the Apulians were beaten.
“One day for repairs, I suppose?” said Bohemond at the usual evening council. “It’s lucky this island has plenty of timber.”
“One day,” his father assented. “Get this into your heads, all of you. We fight three days a week until all our ships are sunk, or until the Venetians leave Corfu, whichever comes earlier.”
Sigelgaita’s three sons grimaced with disgust.
Next day, while their carpenters were busy, they saw Venetian ships sail north, and hoped this was the beginning of a retreat. But their own shipmasters explained that it was nothing so gratifying. On the contrary, it showed that the Venetians were resigned to fighting all winter. These were their light fast scouting ships, dromonds and such, which were usually laid up for the winter in the dockyard at Venice. The big sailing battleships remained in Corfu harbour.
“So they fight with big ships only, while we have every kind. That ought to give us an advantage. I shall attack with all we’ve got. Think out a plan, someone: fireships, ramming with galleys. Third time lucky, or so they say.” Guiscard was in good spirits.
The third time was indeed lucky. When night fell five Venetian battleships had been taken and two sunk with all hands. At last the siege of Corfu was lifted.
By Christmas, when even the most predatory Hauteville thought it too late for campaigning, Guiscard had his army in winter quarters on the mainland.
It was quite a good camp, on the shore facing the Corfu Channel ; but there was something wrong with the water supply. The Sickness of the Host struck suddenly.
Whenever an army sat down for some time in one place the Sickness of the Host made its appearance. Men suffered from pains in the stomach, with diarrhoea and vomiting; it was especially disabling that the victim could not ride. Some died within a few hours, of violent cramps in the stomach; others faded slowly away, apparently because they could not keep down enough food to sustain life; a few recovered, though it took them a long time to get back their strength. Nobody knew what caused the Sickness of the Host; though it was usually more deadly when troops, short of food, were eating anything they could find. It was just one of the unavoidable difficulties of warfare. Commanders seldom allowed it to interfere with their plans.
During this winter the sickness in the Apulian army was very bad indeed. Luckily there was nothing urgent to be done before spring, so they could just stay where they were. They buried the dead and nursed the invalids. The Greeks did not bother them.
One evening Bohemond felt pain in his stomach, and knew the disease had attacked him. At once he sent for his confessor, so that all could be put in order while his mind was still clear. But when it came to the point he had very little to confess.
He had never been very strongly tempted by sins of the flesh. He admired pretty girls, as he admired everything beautiful; but his enormous and handsome body was in fact undersexed. At thirty he was unmarried. He had never been in love, he kept no concubines.
He was intensely avaricious, of course; but no more than was natural in a Hauteville. He had always paid his due tithes. He gave adequately to the support of religious foundations. In battle he had killed many men, but he took no pleasure in cruelty and never tortured captives for his own amusement. On the whole he kept his sworn promises, as much as could be expected from a man in his position. In the struggle against the German Emperor he had been wholeheartedly on the side of his overlord the Pope.
The confessor asked some probing questions, and was agreeably surprised by the answers. On his deathbed even a great lord tells the whole truth. Bohemond was absolved, and told he had little to fear in the next world. The pain in his stomach was still very great, but he felt encouraged.
Then his father arrived, bringing a Greek physician who had a great reputation in Durazzo. Guiscard flapped about foolishly, repeating unanswerable questions and demanding that the physician do something at once, bleed the patient or cup him or scarify him. The Greek said only that Bohemond must expect to feel worse before he felt better, but that there was a fair chance of recovery. He must be kept warm, and washed whenever he dirtied himself. If the next foraging party should bring in a cow they might see if he could swallow a little warm milk.
The thought of swallowing anything seemed so intolerable that Bohemond fainted, and presently fell into a high fever. For many days he was delirious. But the Sickness of the Host was not invariably fatal. In the end he awoke, in his right mind.
He was so weak, from continued weakness and starvation, that he could not lift his head. His valets nursed him lovingly, for it irked him to have women by his bed. The Greek physician pronounced that one day he would come back to his full strength, but that it would be a very slow business; he must rest for all the coming summer. In fact, since he could play no part in the campaign he would be wise to return to Italy. At Salerno was the best medical school in the world, and nearby were hot springs which would help his recovery. Bohemond sailed as soon as he was strong enough.
On a scorching July afternoon Bohemond lay on a pile of cushions under a trellised vine. He gazed down from the hillside on the pleasant bustling town of Bari. The sun glowed in the sky. Even in the shade of the arbour he could feel his body taking in new strength from its dry heat. Italy was the best land in the world, especially now that it was ruled by Normans. In the cold damp north he would have recovered more slowly, if at all. There was only one thing to be said for ancestral Normandy; there, so he had been told, Normans ruled without a rival. Here the Pope was inclined to claim the rights of his tenuous suzerainty, and the German Emperor was always trying to displace the Pope. The ideal land would have a hot climate, like this; an industrious and obedient population, like this; and no famous potentates to covet it. Perhaps there was such a land somewhere, beyond Romania for example; one day when he felt more energetic he would get on a good horse and find out.
Two sergeants of his bodyguard were bringing a messenger, a common trooper covered in dust and sweat. He was sorry to be interrupted in his reverie, but of course they had done right. If a man had ridden hard to bring news he must be heard at once; if the news turned out to be unimportant he might be flogged for his foo
lishness, but he must never be delayed. This man, a cheeky Italian, had evidently thought out his approach.
“Important news, my lord, secret news, bad news, news that affects you closely. In all Bari no one else knows it. What reward will you give for my secret news?”
“How important? Worth a piece of gold?”
“Twenty, my lord. If you don’t think so when you have heard it your guards may flog me.”
“That’s fair enough. Twenty pieces of gold to a flogging, after I have heard what you have to say. Go on.”
“My lord, your noble father the Duke of Apulia is dead in Corfu, dead of the Sickness of the Host while his army waited to sail against Cephalonia.”
“God rest his soul. But he was an old man and his time had come. Such news is not worth twenty gold pieces.”
“His army was left leaderless. They would not follow Roger the Purse, though the lady Sigelgaita proposed him as their next commander. All the Normans and the Lombards and the Italians are packing their baggage to sail back to Italy. They will bring with them the body of the mighty Duke Robert.”
“Come, that is more important. So the men wouldn’t follow Roger? I can’t say I blame them. Not a competent commander, though he tries hard enough. Alexius will be encouraged. You can have your twenty gold pieces.”
“Thank you, generous lord. Then the worst news will be given free, as it should be. When the lady Sigelgaita asked that her son Roger should command the army she added that by the will of the mighty Guiscard he was to be the next Duke of Apulia. The soldiers agreed. They have recognized him as Duke, though they did not trust him to lead them against Alexius. The new Duke of Apulia, at the head of his great army, will now be setting out for Bari. That’s bad news, and it’s important news, and it concerns you, my lord.”
“God’s teeth but it concerns me. Hey, guard. Fetch my steward, and tell him to bring my purse. Unlike my brother Roger I don’t know how much I have in it, but you may keep the lot, my man. That’s in addition to the pay you will draw in the new army I shall be raising. Duke Roger of Apulia indeed! We’ll see about that. Where do I come in, Bohemond fitzRobert, Guiscard’s eldest son? Those soldiers who are running away from Corfu would have been safer if they had stayed in Romania. Hey, you, the other guard. Go and fetch the constable and the commander of my mercenaries.”
Hautevilles stood together against the outside world, but if there were no external menace they could fight one another like tom-cats from the same litter. For the next four years war raged through Apulia, Calabria and Sicily.
Bohemond recognized accomplished facts. Guiscard had not inherited Apulia, he had conquered it with his own sword; therefore he might bequeath it wherever he would, disregarding his legitimate heir. That was in accordance with the new feudal code, already thought of as immemorial custom. Just so had the great Duke William left his ancestral duchy of Normandy to his eldest son Robert, but his conquered Kingdom of England to his second son William, the heir of his choice. Roger the Purse was undoubted Duke of Apulia, by the nomination of his father; even though that nomination had been procured by the undue influence of Sigelgaita, bullying a dying man in his last hours on earth.
But, though Roger must remain Duke, Bohemond might hold land as a vassal of his younger half-brother. By the time peace was made, in the summer of 1098, Bohemond was recognized as lord of Taranto and Bari, and of many other fiefs in Apulia and Calabria. He was so rich and powerful and famous that most people called him the Count of Taranto. He preferred to use a simpler and prouder title: on legal documents his seal called him merely Bohemond son of Duke Robert.
The town of Bari was en fete. Following the old Greek custom the burgesses, mostly Greek in language and manners, had hung gay woven cloths from their upper windows. The cobbles outside the cathedral had been covered with flowers laid in a neat pattern. It had been arranged that a fountain, a marble lion’s head set in the wall of the Exchange, should spout a jet of wine; though as yet it had not begun to flow, and the cistern at the back was guarded by two sergeants with drawn swords. Burgesses in their best clothes, many of them wearing tunics of bright Greek silk, crowded the pavements, while their wives leaned from the decorated windows above. As the great doors of the cathedral were flung open the high nasal sound of a Greek processional hymn swelled louder above the shuffling of many feet. First emerged the choir, and a number of clean little children scattering rose petals; then came most of the clergy of Apulia and Calabria, walking two by two; then the canons of the cathedral, with their bishop behind; last of all, which is the place of honour at a religious function, the Pope, God’s Vicar on earth, walked beside Count Bohemond, his host, ally and protector.
The new Pope Urban could carry off these stiff ceremonial occasions with genial ease. He was middle-aged and vigorous, so that he walked with dignity. By birth he was a north Frenchman of knightly stock, which meant that he shared the origin and ancestral background of the Hautevilles. It was only a year since he had been chosen to fill the See of Peter, so that he still took unfeigned pleasure in the deference accorded to him.
The two great men walked right across the square, so that the crowd could see them and cheer. But the Pope’s white mule and Bohemond’s most showy warhorse were waiting at the head of the street to carry them up the hill to the castle. A King or an Emperor might walk beside the Pope to lead his mule; Urban understood that a Count of obscure family must be a more careful of his dignity in public. He had ordained, through his Master of Ceremonies, that Bohemond should ride at his right hand whenever he himself was mounted.
As they clattered gently up the street he made polite conversation.
“This is a handsome town, and obviously you keep good peace in it. I like those eastern carpets, and the silk tunics of the burgesses. I am glad they have chosen such a holy patron. Now his body is lodged splendidly, and I pray that it may remain in your new shrine until the Resurrection. Better not inquire whether all the people of Myra were willing to part with St. Nicholas; but I gather your merchants bought the relics from someone, they did not steal them or take them by force. Myra now lies open to the ravages of infidel Turks, and St. Nicholas will be safer in Christian Italy. He was a very holy Bishop, though some of the stories about him may have been garbled in the telling. The fame of Bari will increase, though we must do something to appease the injured feelings of his Greek flock. I should like to talk to you about that, after dinner.”
“If you say so, Holy Father. I get on well enough with these Italian Greeks. In Romania they don’t like me. But then why should they?”
Bohemond himself hated nobody, but the behaviour of the Greeks of Romania irritated his tidy mind. They would be much better off under the rule of competent Normans, and their struggles against the Hautevilles seemed to him more obstinate than courageous.
Pope Urban did not dine with his host, for reasons of etiquette. Wherever he might be Christ’s Vicar must take the head of the table, yet the lord of Bari would not wish to sit second in his own hall. When dinner was over Bohemond was invited to walk with Urban in the walled garden.
The pope at once began to talk business. “You may think I give myself too many airs, but in my position I have to insist on the full ceremonial. Just as you, my dear son, cannot demean yourself by leading my mule. A King may do that, but not a Hauteville. In all Christendom I am obeyed as Pope only in Norman Italy; even my bishopric of Rome is held by the Emperor for his absurd antipope. I must not give scandal by appearing as the tame bishop of the Hautevilles.”
“Of course, Holy Father. I am proud to be the most obedient of your subjects.”
“Soon I shall have more subjects, in France and Spain and England. It’s only the Emperor and his people who are obstinate against me. One of the reasons why I came here was to tell you that. You have been faithful to the rightful Pope; soon I shall be the recognized Pope. That ought to comfort you. The other thing I want to say is this: Couldn’t you patch up a peace with Alexius of Romania? In hims
elf he is a good man, a brave warrior and a wise ruler. He has a very keen nose for approaching failure, like all Greeks. He sees that the German Emperor must be beaten in the end. I have heard through third parties that the Emperor Henry will get no more golden bezants from Constantinople. Alexius dare not offer me full submission, because his own clergy would not stand for it. But his Patriarch will make some sort of promise of obedience, a first step to reunion. All that stands in the way is his fear of the Normans of Italy. It isn’t a matter of faith or morals, so I can’t command you. But I beseech you.”
“Why pick on me, Holy Father? I am only a mesne vassal. My uncle Roger is head of the House of Hauteville, and my young half-brother Roger the Purse is Duke of Apulia and Calabria.”
“That’s lawyers’ language. I am talking about real things. Where the famous Bohemond leads all the other Normans of Italy will follow. Alexius doesn’t fear either Roger, he fears you. You are Bohemond the giant, the hero of those nursery tales. Set his fears at rest.”
“Yes, I am Bohemond the giant, the mightiest of the mighty Hautevilles. And I don’t own a foot of land anywhere, except as the vassal of my younger brother. My stepmother cheated me out of my inheritance. I want land of my own, land somewhere oversea. I can get it only by attacking Romania.”
“Oh no. You could get it by defending Romania. Alexius must fight constantly against infidel Turks on his eastern frontier. Why not help him to win land from the Turks? There will be enough for both of you. The people of that land are Greeks, like the people of Bari whom you govern so well. They are used to paying taxes in money. Their ruler will be richer than any ruler of the Franks.”
Bohemond hesitated. But Pope Urban was famous for his wisdom, and the thrill of a complete reversal of policy appealed to his adventurous spirit.
“Very well, Holy Father. I will make peace with Alexius and thus unite Christendom,” he said after a pause. “But I won’t help Alexius, at any rate not just yet. Let him fight his own infidels. Perhaps one day, who knows, I shall win a great realm in the east.”
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