Mercenaries

by Jack Ludlow

  He heard his captain order one man forward with him, and as they rode towards the base of the causeway, Odo dropped his lance and attached to it a strip of white cloth. Walking his horse halfway up he stopped and began to shout, the words he used floating back to be just audible to his company, who had emerged from the trees, most leading their mounts, to show their number – to William, another error: they should have stayed hidden so that the defenders had no idea of what they faced.

  Odo’s demand was straightforward: surrender the fortress and the body of the Lord of Montesárchio, and the garrison would be spared; refuse and they would face siege and assault, and no quarter would be given once the inevitable happened. In time-honoured fashion, when refusing such a demand, Odo was greeted with boos and whistles, while several of the defenders climbed onto the parapet and turned to bare their arses.

  ‘Then I ask to be allowed to collect the bodies of my men,’ he called.

  A single voice answered, and the men at the edge of the woods strained their eyes seeking to see the man whose surrender they sought. It was a high voice, near girlish, that told Odo his wish was granted. That brought from him a wave of an arm and, obviously prearranged, four of the still-mounted men detached themselves and rode forward. Odo himself had dismounted and gone to look at the bodies, perhaps hoping that one man was still alive. Following that, he went to the horse with the broken leg, and gently lifting its head, he took out his knife and cut its throat.

  ‘Looks like we’re here for a while,’ said one of the men beside William.

  ‘Let’s hope there are some decent women in the town, then,’ replied another. ‘I’m sick of that bitch I bought last year.’

  ‘There’ll be a few bitches in this Montesárchio sick of us afore this be over.’

  ‘Best get digging first, to bury our own, and we’ll need a priest.’

  ‘Two men dead an’ for a daft notion.’

  ‘That’s Odo. If he has a brain, it’s in his arse.’

  Saddened as he was, William felt a stirring of relief in overhearing that conversation: he was not alone!

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Guaimar did not like Ascletin, and he liked even less being cooped up in a travelling coach with him for days on end. The Pierleoni son had only one topic of conversation: himself, and it was one he was happy to talk about endlessly. All his actions were brilliant, all his friends adored him, his family were amazed at his perspicacity, his fellow clerics at his grasp of the intricacies of Holy Scripture and, of course, his parishioners were in awe of so elevated a personage holding the office of bishop.

  His diocese was the mountain town of L’Aquila, perched in the high Apennines, on the direct route from Rome to the Adriatic. He had never actually visited the place, though he was happy to take what revenues came his way to help fund his true purpose in life, which was to pursue the Papacy and thus elevate the name of the Pierleoni to rank amongst the highest in Christendom.

  In this he was naturally backed by his family’s wealth, but Guaimar soon discerned that the Pierleoni, when it came to money and influence in the city of Rome, were way behind the other leading families who could trace their roots back not decades, but centuries. Ascletin might call them arrogant; they probably behaved as if he and his tribe barely existed.

  He also seemed acutely aware that his family’s conversion from Judaism to the Latin faith was a drawback; he felt he needed to stress their adherence to Christianity and he did so relentlessly, and always with praise for the far-sightedness of his grandfather, a wise, nay brilliant, man from whom he had, of course, inherited those desirable attributes. It was all too desperate in its constant repetition and insistence, made worse by the slow rate at which their convoy was travelling and by his continuing habit of treating Guaimar as if he was a youth in the presence of an adult.

  The road to the imperial heartlands of Germany was the best maintained in Italy, and one of the most travelled, studded with comfortable inns and religious establishments where those who had the means were happy to stay. This was diminished somewhat by the fact that they were buffeted about in a coach; on horses the party could have managed twenty leagues a day, with a stop every fourth day to rest the animals. In this caravanserai, with teams of six animals per coach needing constant replacement, ten leagues was a matter of some exhilaration, a lot less being more common, which promised a month cooped up with this terminal bore.

  On their too frequent halts, nothing but the best was good enough for the party: the Pierleoni son was intent on impressing everyone with his fabulous wealth, and he planned his stops in advance, sending ahead a rider to the next place of rest to ensure that they knew who was coming, and also to make certain that food of the required standard was produced.

  He had another worry, one he was gnawing on now: Ascletin had designs on his sister, and being the self-centred creature he was saw none of the disapproval in her eyes that his slimy attention produced. He was the type to think everyone smitten by him, and not just the fair sex. Every owner of an inn, every abbot at the monasteries at which they rested, all the monks, and even the Archbishop of Milan, when they had stayed at his palace, was expected to be stunned by this paragon.

  It was in a tavern in Verona that he had overheard Ascletin telling one of his family retainers, one of a tribe of valets brought along to see to his personal needs, in a voice brimming with confidence… ‘I will have the lovely Berengara, who is so clearly attracted to me, but not until I see how her brother stands with the emperor.’

  Passing outside the door of the buffoon’s chamber, Guaimar had to stop himself from pushing open the door and thumping him on his clerical ear. Berengara, though polite, loathed him, and even if she had not, the assumption that he could have his way with her at a proverbial click of his fingers made her brother’s blood boil. But he had to calm himself – Berengara would be polite because they needed his aid; he could do no less. This restraint was made more difficult by Ascletin’s next remark.

  ‘No point in wasting my charms on a nobody. I will only grace her with my seed if her brother stands in some regard with Conrad Augustus. If the emperor shows he is inclined to aid the young booby, he will be a person whose support might be worth a lick of attention. At present he is nothing but a bore and I am stuck in my coach with him all day. The blessed fellow will just never shut up!’

  ‘The Papacy must be brought into the present age,’ Ascletin insisted, at the end of a long repetitive diatribe.

  Guaimar had only been half listening, but the remark dragged him away from his concerns regarding Berengara, to leave him wondering if this was the first or the fiftieth time he had heard this in the last three weeks. He had developed a look and a persistent nod that persuaded Ascletin he was paying attention when actually his mind, as it had been just now, was elsewhere, and it was easy to pick up the thread if his fellow-traveller ever posed a proper question; all he had to say was ‘But surely you have a solution’ to set him off again.

  ‘This notion that a Pope cannot be elected unless he is approved by the Western Emperor is absurd!’ Guaimar waited for what was sure to follow, and he was not disappointed. ‘Not, of course, that I would ever allude to that in the presence of the present incumbent. It would not do to have him in opposition to my ambitions for Holy Church.’

  Why is it, Guaimar wondered, that this pompous fool thinks me so indebted to his family that I might not tell Conrad this myself? But, of course, he would not, for the election of a Pope was such an affair of arcane rights and privileges – as well as an occasion for an outbreak of furious violence from competing centres of power – it was a field best kept well out of.

  ‘Do you not agree, Guaimar?’

  Forced by the directness of that question to look at Ascletin, he altered his stock response slightly. ‘But I know you have the solution.’

  ‘Holy Church must elect the man to lead it,’ Ascletin declared, ‘not a lay emperor. Only then can the factions come together to agree on the candidat
e.’

  ‘Absolutely,’ Guaimar replied, moving aside a heavy curtain to look at the snow-capped mountains that enclosed one side of the Brenner Pass.

  He also saw the faces of those peasants, male and female, holding large, flat, wooden shovels, whose task it was to keep the road clear of snow, and he wondered if that was a feudal service demanded of them or one for payment. Very likely it would be the former: in these parts there was no planting and sowing the fields in the winter season and he had already observed their cattle were kept out of the cold in barns, so whoever was their lord and master would not want them idle. Peasants with nothing to do became troublesome.

  How different this was from Campania, where in parts near Vesuvius you could sow and reap four harvests a year – two was common throughout. Here, they depended on one. That blessing of climate and soil was, of course, part of Campania’s curse as well. Being so fertile it was also a land that produced much in the way of riches, a territory people would fight over to control. He was on his way to bow the knee to Conrad, but he could just as easily be on the way to Constantinople on the same errand.

  ‘A convocation of cardinals, abbots of the great monasteries, and archbishops, should elect a Pope.’ Ascletin was asserting this, as though such an idea was original and his own, instead of one advanced by everyone who opposed imperial intervention. ‘And there should be no intrusion into the deliberations by the factions of Rome.’

  Even that blatant piece of hypocrisy – he meant everyone except the Pierleoni – could not divert Guaimar from the thought which had hit him like a thunderbolt. It is not pleasant to realise you have made an error, and one so profound as to undermine your entire purpose. The Emperor Conrad had to be persuaded to come to his aid, made to see that the removal of Pandulf was essential, and the only solution to that problem was a military one. Strictures not backed by force would carry no weight whatsoever, but what would persuade the emperor to act when he had not done so in the past, even although the depredations of the Wolf could not be a secret.

  Guaimar was now back in the archbishop’s palace in Salerno, and he realised he had acquiesced too easily in the cleric’s insistence that seeking help from the Eastern Empire was anathema. Both the courts of Bamberg and Constantinople were content to protest their rights as suzerain as long as neither sought to enforce it and the air of seeming harmony which they projected was a mask. There was deep mistrust between the two halves of the old Roman inheritance, but inactivity was the response: you stay out of South Italy and so will we; you ensure stability on one side of the Apennines, and we will do so on the other.

  Conrad had made an error in releasing Pandulf, and before he would do anything he would have to first admit that. He had not done so up till now, even if it was obvious, so what would change his mind? Conrad would not move unless he felt threatened!

  Guaimar nearly said those last words out loud, so obvious was it to his now troubled mind. He should have sent to ask the Eastern Emperor for help as well, and damn the fears of his archbishop, for there was one truth that never evaporated: both emperors would dearly love to take over the whole region, east to west, if they thought that they could do so and hold it without endless conflict. The next problem to surface was how to alter what was a cardinal error.

  ‘… No, I must take care with Conrad Augustus to give him no inkling of my thoughts.’

  God Almighty, is he still talking? Guaimar wanted to scream.

  ‘This, of course, will not be a problem. When he sees the power of the intelligence he has to deal with, I am sure I will have this so-called Augustus eating out of my hand.’ Ascletin leant forward over his chest of money to impart, again not for the first time, his conclusion. ‘I do not expect, of course, to be the next holder of the papal office, but the one after that, young Guaimar. That I think will be mine.’

  Looking into Ascletin’s face, Guaimar thought he might have a solution.

  The cries of the escorts were enough to alert everyone to the approach of their next stop and his fellow-traveller began to preen himself in a plate of highly polished silver; he wished to be seen at his best.

  When told of Guaimar’s plan, Berengara was entranced, but was wise enough to insist they rehearse the thing before carrying it out, and her brother was, although initially sceptical, made wise to the fact that she was correct when he stumbled on the words he needed to use. The other thing his sister said was equally true: just because he had realised his error, there was no need to correct it that second.

  If sitting listening to Ascletin’s witterings had been hard before, it was doubly so when impatience was added. The temptation to blurt out what had to be delivered with guile was nearly overwhelming, and lasted until they reached Innsbruck, where they were once again the guests of an archbishop. In a palace that would not have disgraced an emperor, the perfect setting was found for the argument Guaimar and Berengara needed to construct. The rooms were vast, and so were the connecting corridors, high ceilinged and given to echo. Placing themselves within earshot of the apartments allotted to Ascletin and ignoring any passing servants, their raised voices carried a long way.

  ‘I absolutely forbid you to mention it.’

  ‘For what reason?’ Berengara demanded.

  ‘Telling Conrad such a thing will ruin what we are trying to do.’

  Berengara had placed herself so she could see Ascletin’s door, and she nodded sharply to her brother to let him know it had opened a fraction, so she cried, ‘It is dishonest!’

  ‘It is necessary. If the emperor finds out we have sent a mission to Constantinople as well it will ruin everything.’

  ‘Why?’

  Guaimar dropped his voice, hoping he had done so enough to have their eavesdropper straining. ‘The archbishop was adamant. Only the Western Emperor should be approached. To send for help from both could render useless our hopes. I need you to swear you will say nothing.’

  ‘Swear? Do you trust me so little?’

  ‘Berengara, a chance remark, a word let slip, and we will be undone. Conrad Augustus must come south with his army and get rid of Pandulf.’ Now he raised his voice again. ‘There is no chance of him doing that if he thinks we will take help from the Byzantines as well. When I swear allegiance to him, as I must, he will have to be convinced that it is inviolable.’

  ‘What if help comes from the east as well?’

  ‘What do we care who rids us of Pandulf, as long as we have Salerno?’

  ‘You will have Salerno.’

  ‘And you, my dear sister, will have a husband that goes with your station as my relative.’

  They began to walk away from Ascletin’s door, still arguing, their voices fading until they were far enough away to collapse in a fit of giggles.

  Ahead lay many more days of having his ears assaulted by his travelling companion, but it had been noticeable on that first morning after their ruse that Ascletin wore an expression on his face even more smug. They came to Bamberg eventually, through a week of snow, to find a town smaller than half a dozen they had passed through. Conrad had set up his court here because it was a fief of his own house and the palace of his predecessor and uncle, a move probably not popular with those who had to gather to elect and anoint a Holy Roman Emperor: the great magnates of church and state who represented half of Europe.

  As a court it was far from magnificent, and away from the blazing fires that filled every chamber it was freezing. Outside the trees sagged under the weight of snow, and every morning, if the sun shone, great sheets would fall from the steep roofs of the buildings. Every one of Conrad’s courtiers dressed in heavy fur-trimmed garments indoors – including his chamberlain, from whom Guaimar had requested an audience – and thick furs if they ventured out of doors, which they had to do often, given their master was a slave to the hunt.

  Guaimar found himself mounted and chasing stags, wild boar and wolves as Conrad and his fellow madmen raced their mounts across a snow-draped landscape or through dense forests, hoping
that by doing so he would circumvent the strict protocol of the court and win a face-to-face meeting with Conrad. He hoped in vain: the emperor was always way out in front, and rode his mount with a total disregard for his own well-being. Many a fellow hunter found the going too hearty, and some who tried to keep up paid for it with badly broken bones. It was the weather that saved Guaimar from this: a week slightly warmer which produced a thick mist, one that simply would not clear. Finally, Conrad found time to welcome him officially.

  Whatever else the imperial court lacked it was not servants and the chamberlain was as efficient an official as the job demanded. Guaimar had been greeted by his ducal title as well as all the family claims, however arcane, and because of the rank both he and Berengara held, much to the chagrin of Ascletin, had been awarded the kind of apartments that went with superior status. Now, emerging from those, both were dressed in their very best clothes, and Guaimar could look at his sister, nearly a full year older than she had been at the time of their father’s funeral, and see that his suppositions had been correct. Her figure had filled out and her face had lost what trace of youthful puppiness it had retained. She looked wonderful.

  He was nervous; so much depended on what was about to take place, and try as he might he could not disguise it. This time it was Berengara who tightly held his hand, as they made their way through the chilly corridors of Conrad’s castle to the imperial audience chamber. Two pikemen in steel helmets and metal breastplates stood guard at either side of the closed door – no one in freezing Bamberg left a door open – and as they composed themselves to enter, as though by some osmosis the doors opened and a voice rang out.