The Lady for Ransom

by Alfred Duggan

  2. Romania

  The Catapan was a senior commander, empowered to conclude agreements without reference to Constantinople. His official title was Catapan of Langobardia, which had once, before the sons of Tancred visited St Michael, included all Italy south of Rome. In 1069 he held nothing but the town of Bari, and two years later, while we were in Romania, even that fell and there were no more Catapans. We were only just in time to negotiate with the last Imperial official who had a staff of clerks able to write in both Latin and Greek. Nowadays you young pilgrims will find it much more difficult, for Latin is almost unknown in the great City.

  By Christmas we had Roger fitzTancred’s permission to leave Italy, and negotiations could begin openly. Messer Roger was probably glad to be rid of us, for Messer Roussel was now so popular that he might have ousted his lord from even his subordinate position under the Weasel. Our band camped in a fortified ruin a few miles from Bari, and the lady Matilda with her three children entered the town as hostages for our good faith; in return they sent us the sons of some prominent burgesses, for the Catapan was unmarried. My lady was a willing hostage; she liked to meet distinguished foreigners, and since her husband valued her she knew he would not imperil her life by a treacherous attack. The negotiations were concluded in three weeks, and on the second Sunday after Epiphany we entered the town of Bari to embark for Romania.

  The agreement specified that for every two men, mounted and in full mail, whom he could show to the paymaster, my lord would draw three gold pieces on the first day of each month; with half-pay for the sick or wounded who possessed horse and arms but were not at the moment fit for duty, up to a total of three hundred men and four hundred and fifty gold pieces. This, we were told, was a high rate in the Roman army; it should enable us to live like gentlemen. There would also be bread, meat and wine for a thousand persons all told, but no pay for anyone who lacked the full equipment of a Frankish warrior. So my lord discharged the javelin-men and horse-archers who had been our scouts and skirmishers in Sicily, and engaged a few more Norman sergeants; our women and servants easily made up the thousand, and in fact a number were weeded out, for the men hoped to pick up prettier girls in Romania. But the lady Matilda would not permit them to abandon wives who had been genuinely married before a priest; married women always stick together, and make it as hard as they can for any husband to evade his obligations.

  I myself had no concubine. I won’t pretend I remained a virgin until I entered religion, but I never met a woman whose face I wanted to see first thing in the morning every time I woke up; my lord’s servants cooked for me and mended my clothes, and I was more at ease with my lady while I lived chastely.

  It was taken for granted that I would go with Messer Roussel, for my knowledge of Greek would be very useful. But my lord, with his usual kindness, arranged that I should also draw pay. ‘Young Roger,’ he said to me one evening, ‘when we are oversea I shall still want you to look after my weapons, though since western warhorses are scarce in Romania I cannot spare a second charger to wait behind the battleline. But the Emperor won’t pay you unless you are armed. Would you like my spare armour? It’s good mail, worth all of twelve gold pieces. Give me one gold piece a month and at the end of the year it is yours. You will still draw a gold piece every two months, which is more than your father ever earned at his forge.’

  I was delighted to close with this generous offer. It is always difficult to get hold of good mail; no smith would spend months making such an elaborate piece of metalwork without a definite order, and even if you order it good smiths are busy men, and you may have to wait a year. That is why mail is usually got by stripping a dead man on the field, though probably it won’t fit the new owner and may have an ugly hole in it. But we were to make war on men who did not wear armour of our fashion.

  I had only three days for practice before we embarked, but I found I could ride in mail quite easily, once I was accustomed to the enormous weight above the waist which makes it unsafe to lean sideways out of the saddle. My father had taught me the warrior’s way of riding; if I touched the reins with my right hand he made me get off and lead the horse home. In the Hippodrome of Constantinople I have seen acrobats perform feats that no Norman could accomplish; but they had nothing to do but ride, with one rein in each hand. A Frankish warrior is fixed in his seat by the high wooden guardboards on his saddle, his right hand holds the lance, and the weight of the shield hampers his left arm. He must control his horse with the fingertips of one hand. The Romans admit that this style of riding is beyond them, and the highest compliment they can pay to one of their own nobles is to say he rides like a Frank. The fact that the Emperor was hiring us at such a high rate reminded us that we were, by universal consent, the best warriors in Christendom. We embarked for Romania determined to prove our value.

  We sailed in Venetian ships by the short passage to Durazzo, because a long voyage means loss among the war-horses; though since Thessalonica was our destination we could have avoided a toilsome march by sailing the whole way. The country round Durazzo is very like Apulia, a little more mountainous and even more thoroughly harried, for masterless Sclavonians slip over the hills on foot and retreat with their plunder by ways no horseman can follow. All this district is very lightly attached to the Empire, and the Romans hold only the great road to Italy and the west.

  My lord was nervous about entering the strong walls of Thessalonica. (They resemble in outline the walls of Rome, but are continually kept in repair; no vegetation grows in the cracks, and if a stone decays it is immediately replaced by a fresh one, cut to the right shape and set in good mortar. They look as steep and sharp as when they were first made; a strange sight to our eyes, accustomed to mighty buildings patched with clay and timber.) But my lady told him he must make up his mind, once and for all, that Romans were comrades to be trusted; or go back to Italy if he lacked courage to trust anyone at all. I was there and heard her say it. Not many ladies would dare to speak so to their lords, and most husbands would beat a wife for such frankness; but my lord has an easy temper and would always heed advice, no matter how strongly expressed; to my knowledge he never lifted his hand against my lady in all his wedded life. He laughed, saying she was quite right; but begged her never to appeal to his courage, or he would do something cowardly to show he was not a child who could be dared to pull the tail of a mule. We entered the city unarmed, and took up the quarters assigned to us.

  The town of Thessalonica is unlike any place in the western world. It is crammed full of people, who live, without ploughing, by the practice of various crafts; on every day of the year it looks like a holy shrine on a feastday. At first I expected it to empty tomorrow, when the fair ended; but presently I discovered that the fair did not end, and that all these people were dwelling in their permanent homes. The other odd thing about it, and about all the towns of Romania, is the way money continually changes hands. My father was hardly ever paid cash for his ploughs; the peasants would split a tally with him, and at harvest discharge the debt in flour and wine. But everyone in Thessalonica goes shopping with a purse full of small coins. I don’t mean that everyone is rich; the lower classes spend their little copper coins as fast as they earn them; but all this money floats about in the market-place, continually changing hands in a way to make you dizzy. At first some of our men grumbled; when they explained who they were and promised to settle by Christmas the stallkeepers would not part with their goods, and that seemed a reflection on the honour of respectable Frankish sergeants. But we had been given one month’s wages before we left Bari, so that with money in our purses we should not plunder friendly villages; we found that these magnificent gold coins, of very pure metal and all the same weight and size, went a very long way; for the Catapan spoke truth when he said our pay would keep us in comfort. It is the only gold in the world which bears Christian symbols; the Emperor of Romania is the only Christian prince who can afford to mint gold, and those other pieces, covered with squiggly marks, are struc
k by the chiefs of the infidels.

  Thessalonica is not a place where Franks feel at home. There are foreign merchants in plenty, but they come from the unknown north; some are even heathen Lithuanians who journey south because they will not trade with their German neighbours; they speak no Frankish tongue, and the Christians among them follow the Greek rite. As for the Romans themselves, they never speak anything but Greek, and despise all foreigners who have not learned the only language in which civilised men can converse. Our people could not make themselves understood in the wine-shops, and sometimes got into trouble with the watch for wandering near forbidden parts of the fortifications. Of course I was all right, and some of our women knew enough Greek to haggle over a lettuce; but it was only because my lord kept good discipline that the first few days passed without a riot.

  We landed on a Tuesday, and by Sunday the men were so discontented they refused to attend Mass, saying all the priests in the town were bloody Greek excommunicates. This was nonsense, as they knew very well. One Patriarch has been excommunicated, but he is dead and in Hell; the Eastern Church as a whole is not affected, and you young gentlemen must attend eastern Masses while you ride through their country. Luckily, Messer Roussel found a western church down by the harbour, where a Latin Mass was said for the Venetian sailors. The Romans build good seagoing ships, but they never voyage west of Corfu; ostensibly because they fear the pirates of the Adriatic, but really, I suspect, because the Emperor does not like his merchants to sail beyond the control of his tax-gatherers. Our band rode in state, but unarmed, to the Italian Mass; and that evening, since the horses were not fit after their journey, my lord went to sup with the Strategus of the Theme, to discuss the coming campaign.

  Although there was business to be discussed this was also a party at which it was hoped we would make friends with our employers and allies. My lady came also, and the ten knights who were gentlemen by birth. I went as cupbearer to my lord; that is usually the work of a boy and I was rather big for it; but I was needed, because I could understand confidential asides which the official linguists did not choose to translate, and my lord told me, as tactfully as possible, that he did not think my manners and the natural awkwardness of my disposition would allow me to pass as a knight.

  By this time we were all very puzzled about the composition of the Roman army, and the position of this Strategus of Hellas. In the force that was gathering there were other bands of mercenaries, Sclavonians and Patzinaks, though we were the only Franks; they served for gold as we did, and there was no mystery about them. But there were also native bands, horsemen who wore mail of a kind, though it was lighter than ours; they carried bows as well as swords. These sergeants, though they served their natural lord, lodged together in barracks and held no land; or if they did they must neglect it shockingly. The Strategus himself lived in the middle of the town, and we had seen his servants buying food in the market, as though he too were landless; which was absurd, for he was the equal of a Count. My lord told me to find out as much as I could, especially what made the sergeants live together all the year round and appear on parade every day; he might have asked these questions himself, but he thought that would seem too inquisitive.

  The party was held in the great hall of the Strategus, a fine room with a vaulted roof and a floor patterned in precious marble. There are places like that in Italy, but all have been repeatedly sacked and burned; this hall stood exactly as its designer had planned it. There were long tables ranged on three sides of a square; about thirty guests sat on the outside, and waiters carried dishes and distributed wine on the inner side, without confusion or crowding. The more important guests had each his own cupbearer standing beside him, on the outside where in fact there was nothing for us to do. But we would be handy to carry messages if needed, and the real, though unacknowledged, reason for our presence was to guard our masters against assassination.

  My lord had the place of honour on the right of the Strategus, who was named Nicephorus Bryennius. When everyone was talking loudly I chatted, under cover of the noise, with the cupbearer beside me. The lad answered readily, but with a slight accent, and when I mentioned it he said at once that Greek was not his native tongue. That introduced the first surprise of the evening. He told me, as though he were proud of it, that he was Russian by birth, and had been captured in childhood and sold into slavery; he had recently been promoted to be cupbearer to the Strategus, and evidently considered himself a personage, worthy to chat on a footing of equality with a freeborn Frank. As tactfully as possible I made some remark about the treatment of slaves in the Sicilian sulphur-mines; he took my point at once, for he was quick-witted, and explained that in Romania some slaves, at least, were as good socially as anyone. This was because there are strict laws for their protection; so strict, in fact, that if you want someone to do hard and unpleasant work it is cheaper to pay wages to a free man; thus no one makes a profit from the labour of slaves, and since they are nothing but a sign of the wealth and luxury of their masters they are treated as pets, even as friends. He clinched the argument by reminding me that he had been captured when he was seven years old, too young to defend himself; though he agreed that it would be dishonourable for a grown man to accept mercy and servitude.

  Once he had put himself in the right he was eager to answer my questions. He was delighted to astonish a foreigner from the barbarous west. I first inquired about the ladies among the guests, for I remembered my mother had told me that in her home there were separate female apartments. She had been quite accurate, but I had misunderstood her; the Romans do not keep their ladies hidden away in the infidel manner. There was a Gynecaeum in this house, as in all respectable houses; but that meant a place whither ladies might retire if they wished to be alone; no one might enter it, but the ladies might come out whenever they wished.

  By this time the party was going well. Neither my lord nor my lady were in the habit of getting drunk, except on occasions like Christmas when custom makes it practically obligatory; our knights also stayed sober, out of respect for their lord. But everyone took enough to be talkative, and the two or three linguists were busy translating toasts and banal expressions of goodwill; while the Chartularius of the Theme, a dignified old gentleman who sat on my lord’s right, explained in Italian the plans the Strategus had made for the campaign. Even the Romans were enjoying themselves, for they do not habitually feast like Franks and to them the party was a rare treat; though they made a complicated business of their eating, for each held a pronged instrument in his left hand and used it to transfer small portions of meat to his mouth, never touching the food with his fingers. You can’t really enjoy a meal if you eat in this finicky fashion; for one thing you can’t get your mouth properly full; but undoubtedly it is a very courteous custom. After each course servants carried round bowls of scented water, but only the Franks needed to wash their hands thoroughly; the Roman ladies, and even some of the smart young men, dipped their fingers very gingerly; for their faces were painted in a rather attractive, though startling, manner, and a drop of water on the cheek would have spoiled the effect. My lady’s crimson nose and wind-cracked lips stood out in this dainty company, but I don’t think it worried her.

  Occasionally I leaned over my lord’s chair as though to take a message, and listened to what was said. But each time the Chartularius was repeating in Italian exactly what the Strategus said in Greek; the interpreting seemed honest and there were no revealing asides. I continued my questioning of the slave who was my equal and companion.

  I was anxious to clear up this business of great leaders who bought their food instead of growing it on their own land. I was polite, but I hinted that the Strategus could not be a very important person, since he lived in a town instead of on his own fief. This got the slave boasting about the glories of the house of Bryennius, which was what I had intended; he told me that the lord Nicephorus was head of his family, and owner of wide lands in the district of Adrianople; the Emperor never appointed a no
ble to rule the Theme where lay his own castle, for fear of rebellion. This was the first I had heard of the appointment of a Strategus; I had taken it for granted he inherited his place. I suggested that an Emperor who feared rebellion would choose men of low birth to serve him. The slave agreed that this might be true in theory, but said that the present ruler, the brave Romanus Diogenes, was a mighty warrior, beloved by all the army; he appointed great nobles, and the Bryennii were very noble indeed; ‘not like some officers of the late Emperor Constantine, who weakened the army to please the Treasury’. This was interesting. To us in Italy, where half a dozen bands squabbled over the taxes of every village, the Empire of Romania seemed a very united realm, though we knew that if an Emperor misgoverned he was swiftly overthrown. Here was a hint that there were two parties in the state. A civil war is more profitable to a mercenary than a straightforward foreign campaign, because he can threaten to change sides unless his pay is increased. I determined to find out more about the recent history of the Empire; though not at this banquet, in case I aroused suspicion of my lord’s fidelity.

  I was still not at all sure the Strategus was really a great man by birth, since all servants exaggerate the importance of their masters to increase their own standing. I asked again how it was that a nobleman who held a great fief had to send to the market to buy mutton. The answer was a surprise; it appeared that the tenants of the lord Nicephorus paid a fixed sum of money every year, and held their land by that tenure only, without suit of court or any other service! So instead of getting ox-carts laden with his own provisions the Strategus received this money from his tenants, and used it to buy food, or anything else he needed, in whatever market was convenient.