by Peter Darman
Jordi grabbed Luca’s right arm and hoisted it aloft.
‘L’ovella Negra,’ he shouted, prompting those around him to desist their activities and look in his direction.
They understood the words of Catalan, meaning the ‘Black Sheep’, and after a few seconds recognised the insane young man who had charged the mighty enemy army alone.
‘L’ovella Negra,’ shouted Jordi a second time, to be enthusiastically repeated seconds later by those within earshot.
Sancho stopped and looked around as more and more Almogavars took up the call and began chanting ‘L’ovella Negra’, walking towards a surprised and embarrassed Luca, his arm still being held aloft by Jordi. Sancho squinted at his son with a look of resignation. He had no wish to see his authority undermined a second time, which would surely happen if he took any action against the Almogavars’ new hero. The chants grew louder as more and more men joined in acclaiming Luca Baldi, the shepherd from Rometta who had just entered Almogavar folklore.
Chapter 3
Sancho Rey and Roger de Flor felt like small boys as the Archbishop of Messina, Raniero Lentini, chastised them. He alone of the nobles and prelates in the city had dared to leave Messina in the immediate aftermath of the bloodbath that had taken place outside its walls. Tall, imposing and from a long line of senior Papal prelates, his power rivalled the king he served. And that king wanted the Spaniards gone. King Frederick and his court were located in the city of Palermo to the west. But a courier had reached the archbishop from the king the day after the unfortunate battle, demanding he usher the mercenaries on their way.
‘Do you know what you have done?’ asked Lentini, towering over Sancho and Roger as they sat at the table. ‘You have insulted a close friend of the king himself, and in doing so have insulted King Frederick.’
‘It was unfortunate,’ agreed Sancho.
‘Unfortunate?’ roared the archbishop. ‘Not far from this tent, hundreds of bodies lie on the ground, men who were your allies during the war only recently ended.’
‘Your excellency,’ said Roger, ‘I can only apologise for the behaviour of my men and assure you it will not happen again.’
The archbishop, dressed in a jewel-encrusted mitre and holding his crosier – a tall, hooked walking stick symbolising him being a shepherd of his people – slowly took his seat at the table, a young novice rushing forward to fill his goblet with the wine he had brought with him from his palace. He knew the Almogavar predilection for austerity and pious living, and had no wish to share their meagre living, however briefly. He sipped at the goblet and observed what had become the bane of his life. The flamboyant Roger de Flor contrasted sharply with the severe Sancho Rey. How he would have liked to have had them both arrested and thrown into jail for their gross insubordination. Unfortunately, they had just worsted the best soldiers at King Frederick’s disposal. He stroked the pallium around his shoulders – a circular band of lamb’s wool with long streamers decorated with red and black crosses – and smiled at the two.
‘My friends, God sent you to Sicily to aid the king to rid the island of the French. That task has now been accomplished, but soldiers without a war to fight are like fish out of water. The king, anxious to allow you to fulfil your military obligations, has authorised me to make available ships to take you to Constantinople.’
‘Your excellency is most generous,’ smiled Roger, availing himself of a goblet of the archbishop’s wine, ‘but I already have ships at my disposal.’
‘But not enough to transport all your soldiers in one voyage,’ replied Lentini. ‘The king is generous.’
‘The king wants us gone as quickly as possible,’ said Sancho.
The archbishop pointed a finger wearing a gaudy gold ring holding a large amethyst at him.
‘Can you blame him? Sicily is crying out for peace after twenty years of war.’
‘A war we helped to win,’ Sancho reminded the archbishop.
Lentini sipped more wine. ‘For which you were well paid. But understand that Count Carafa is a proud man who has the ear of the king. You have insulted and shamed him.’
‘He shamed himself,’ spat Sancho, ‘thinking he could appear before our camp and intimidate us, making unreasonable demands.’
Sancho was not angry with Count Carafa, far from it, but he could not be seen backing the Sicilian against one of his own council members. The shepherd friend of his son would have died after launching his one-man assault against the count, but the intervention of Hector had provoked a general assault. The shepherd was still alive. Worse, he had become a hero among the Almogavars, who had nicknamed him ‘the Black Sheep’.
The archbishop examined his ring admiringly.
‘If we wish to talk about unreasonableness, Sancho, then what about your killing a priest in Rometta?’
‘Sancho was rescuing his son, your excellency,’ interrupted Roger. ‘It was a tragic incident born of a misunderstanding.’
The archbishop looked at him. ‘The misunderstanding is still alive?’
‘The shepherd?’ said Roger. ‘Yes, excellency.’
‘Perhaps if he is handed over to Count Carafa,’ suggested the archbishop, ‘then honour can still be saved and all parties appeased.’
‘That is not possible,’ said Sancho firmly. ‘For good or ill, my men have adopted him, like a man adopts a stray dog. And they are in no mood to appease Count Carafa, I can tell you that.’
Lentini shook his head. ‘Then I have to tell you, my son, that your stay in Sicily is fast approaching its end. The count will not tolerate the shepherd remaining at liberty, and he will be lobbying the king personally for the sentence passed on him to be carried out.’
Roger looked at Sancho but the big man’s jaw was set rigid, his eyes unblinking. He knew it would be useless to argue with him. He sighed.
‘If you could convey our gratitude to the king and assure him we will be leaving Sicily as soon as the ships have been assembled at Messina.’
The archbishop stood, prompting Roger and Sancho to do likewise. Lentini made the sign of the cross at them.
‘May God give you the strength to defeat the infidels and remain uncorrupted by the heretics.’
Sancho raised an eyebrow. ‘Heretics?’
‘The Orthodox religion of Constantinople, my son. They have strayed from the true path, which is why they were excommunicated by His Holiness.’
‘What would you prefer, excellency,’ asked Roger, ‘Orthodox Christians ruling Constantinople, or Muslims?’
Archbishop Lentini made the sign of the cross again, turned and walked from the tent to his waiting carriage without answering.
The pair followed, to run into the strutting figure of Hector, still buoyed by the spilling of blood when Giovanni Carafa had unwittingly appeared at the Catalan camp at the head of an army. Sancho waited until the archbishop was in his carriage before turning to confront the Almogavar captain. They were roughly equal in height but Hector was lean in stature, whereas Sancho was broad-shouldered and powerful. But Hector was like a viper: dangerous and quick and not to be underestimated. He tipped his head to Roger and watched the carriage and its escort leave camp.
‘Who’s that?’
Sancho jabbed a finger in his chest. ‘That was Raniero Lentini, Archbishop of Messina and friend of King Frederick. He came with a message for you, Hector.’
Hector’s black eyes lit up. ‘For me? What message?’
‘You are to leave Sicily immediately and never come back.’
Hector’s visage changed instantly. ‘Just as well he is scarpering back to Messina. Men have died for saying less.’
‘If only the order was just for you, Hector,’ lamented Sancho. ‘Unfortunately, we are all leaving with you. You just couldn’t help yourself, could you.’
Hector’s hateful expression changed to one of smugness.
‘That is our way, is it not? Attack first and ask questions later. Besides, I did not start the battle.’
Sancho
rolled his eyes. ‘The shepherd, you mean? Had you restrained yourself, he would have been quickly killed and the whole sorry business would have ended there and then. As it is, you have thrown tinder on the fire.’
Hector looked at Roger. ‘We were leaving anyway, were we not?’
‘True,’ agreed Roger, ‘but now we have to leave straight away, and I had hoped to arrange transport for all our horses. As it is, they will now all have to be sold.’
Sancho gave a semblance of a smile. ‘That will displease the Bastard.’
Hector laughed. ‘The day gets better and better.’
‘Where is the new hero?’ asked Roger.
‘Digging graves,’ answered Sancho. ‘It is a pity one of them is not his own.’
‘Are you upset he stole your spear, Sancho?’ grinned Hector. ‘I can understand that. After all, it might be Carla next. At least the lad can throw a spear.’
‘He missed his target,’ snapped Sancho.
‘Training will rectify that.’
‘He stays with us, then?’ enquired Roger.
‘Of course,’ said Hector, answering for Sancho. ‘The Black Sheep is an Almogavar now.’
The Almogavars, being the victors, usually left the dead following a battle. The corpses would be stripped of anything valuable before being left to rot in the sun, though the inhabitants of nearby towns and villages would often descend on the battlefield to loot the dead of anything useful, such as clothing and footwear. Under pressure from the church, local lords and town authorities would then organise the burial of the corpses, to save pestilence sweeping the area. However, because the brief but bloody battle had taken place near to their camp, the Catalans undertook burial duties themselves.
Luca had been hacking at the hard earth for days, helping to create burial pits in which the dead would be interred. In the immediate aftermath of the battle he had been hailed a hero, the adulation and wine blocking out the pain of losing his parents in such an abhorrent fashion. But then the Almogavar council had ordered that the dead be buried, and so he and dozens of others had been given the grisly task of hauling hundreds of naked bodies several miles from camp to the site of the burial pits. Bodies moreover that were covered in wounds, mostly as a result of spear thrusts and javelin strikes, but also belly and face injuries as a result of being stabbed and slashed by Almogavar short swords.
The facial wounds were the worse: visages made hideous by sliced-open eye sockets, cheekbones smashed by the points of javelins or swords rammed into them with force, and jaws nearly severed in the frenzy of battle. Faces looking barely human were made worse by the flies congregating on torn flesh and blood congealing and turning black in the heat. To complete the ghastly scene, the dead were smeared with faeces as bowels relaxed and opened, to add to the horror and nausea Luca had been plunged into.
Jordi offered his ashen-faced friend his water bottle. ‘Here, drink.’
Luca accepted but the tepid liquid tasted of blood. He forced himself to drink it. Their clothes drenched in sweat and their hands calloused from digging, they and the others had been driven hard to remove the bodies from near the camp and dispose of them quickly. Their own priests and others from Messina had been saying prayers as the dead were being interred in the pits, before they were covered with earth. The pits had been dug deep to ensure the bodies would not be disinterred by wolves and other scavengers, including humans.
‘Watch your heads.’
The voice from above made them look up and seconds later the handcart tipped its dreadful cargo into the pit – two corpses as stiff as boards and covered with flies. Luca and Jordi jumped out of the way as the corpses fell at their feet.
‘It’s deep enough now. Out you come.’
The Almogavar sergeant, an Almogaten, beckoned them from the pit, shouting at the other four with them to ascend the ladder so the grave could be filled with dead. Tired, dirty, their mouths filled with the nauseating stench of dead flesh, they gladly obeyed the order. A steady stream of handcarts was coming from the road to dump their cargoes into the pit, twenty paces away more Almogavars were furiously hacking at the ground with mattocks to loosen the soil so it could then be dug with spades.
Luca saw the pale priest making the sign of the cross at the edge of the pit, trying hard not to retch when fresh corpses were dumped into the grave. He was glad his own parents had been taken back to Rometta to be buried in the town cemetery, a gesture of kindness from the Almogavars who had taken him to their hearts. As he watched the grisly spectacle, he wondered if he would ever see his home again, Jordi having informed him he and the rest of the Catalans were leaving Sicily for Constantinople, wherever that was. And he would be going with them. He could stay, of course, but to do so would mean certain death when the hired assassins of Count Giovanni Carafa came looking for him.
The mood and lifestyle of the Almogavars suited his black mood. They may have been soldiers with a fearsome reputation, but like him they lived austere lives. His initial observations of the Catalans had revealed a people who rarely ate meat, preferring a diet of fish, eggplant, cheese and bread. Indeed, there were over seventy varieties of bread on the island, and it was not unusual for merchants to swear oaths on bread and salt, so integral was it to Sicilian life. To a man, the Almogavars were lean like him, and in the days following he found out why.
Luca was used to an outdoor life, with its attendant hardships, but he had never travelled great distances carrying a weapon, though weapons was the reality. He stood next to Jordi under a warm sun, though not excessively so since autumn was now coming to an end. His favourite seasons were spring and autumn, when the weather was still pleasant but temperatures never reached the furnace of summer. On his head was a helmet identical to the others worn by the hundred men standing in a semi-circle around their commander: Sancho Rey. Like them, he too now wore a zamarra and abarka on his feet. The clothing did not concern him. What bothered him was the spear he had been given, the three javelins slotted into the quiver slung on his back, the shield on the other side of his back, and the short sword in a scabbard dangling from his belt. He might be able to throw a spear and a javelin, but he had no notion when it came to using a sword, especially one that looked very different from the long-bladed items carried by the knights and foot soldiers he had seen during the war. A water bottle also dangled from his belt.
Sancho pointed at him. ‘For the benefit of our newest recruit.’
He stopped when the others began banging the ends of their spears shafts on the ground in a display of admiration. When they had finished, he continued.
‘The Almogavar way of war, which has proved so successful in decades of conflict, from fighting the Moors in Spain to defeating the French and their allies in Sicily, depends on individuals who are courageous, determined, self-disciplined, reliable and physically fit.’
The men raised their spears and cheered and Jordi slapped Luca on the back. For his part, the shepherd temporarily forgot about his grief and embraced the surge of positive emotion around him. Sancho held up a hand to still them.
‘There is no point marching to a battlefield and arriving in a state of exhaustion. Our success is built around mental and physical stamina. We travel light and fast, over any terrain and in any weather. And when we reach our destination, we attack immediately, irrespective of the distance we have covered beforehand. That is the Almogavar way of war. It is unchanged since the first Aragon and Catalan shepherds and foresters descended from the hills of our homeland to battle the Moors, and will still be in existence when our bones lie under the earth.’
More cheering and rapping of spear shafts on the ground followed.
‘Let’s move,’ commanded Sancho.
The first mile was easy enough, Jordi beside him and his father in front acting as a marker. Luca was lean and sinewy and his legs were used to hard usage. But he found the spear cumbersome to wield, notwithstanding it was resting on his left shoulder, and he was constantly aware of the shield and javelin
s on his back, the straps of the quiver rubbing on his shoulders as the march continued. Added to which, the scabbard and water bottle, attached to a leather strap slung over his shoulder, insignificant at the beginning of the march, seemed to gain weight with each passing mile.
They tramped along a dirt track with a surface made rock-hard after a long, hot summer, around them the greenery of the Sicilian countryside. It was quiet and no one made a sound, there was no encouragement from Sancho, only the relentless pounding of a hundred pairs of feet. Luca found the fast-paced walk a hindrance and wanted to break into a run.
‘Do not run,’ hissed Jordi, ‘you will damage your shins, knees and lower back.’
After ten miles, the straps were biting into Luca’s shoulders and his legs were on fire. Jordi tried to help by imparting tips – take short, fast steps, straighten the knee with each step to briefly relax the leg muscles, bend the knees when going downhill to absorb the shock of each step – but it did not help. It felt as though his legs were in a giant vice, which was tightened after every mile. He began to falter.
‘Dig in the heels with each step,’ said Jordi.
The pace was relentless both uphill and downhill. Luca lost track of the distance they had covered when Sancho at last called a halt, the shepherd nearly collapsing with relief, to be held up by his friend.
‘Stay on your feet, Luca.’
‘Horsemen,’ shouted Sancho, pointing to the right, at a line of riders heading towards the Almogavars. ‘It is Count Carafa and his men.’
Luca had had enough. His feet were on fire and his legs ached, but he had just enough energy to flee, dumping his spear and running, or trotting, away from the horsemen.