Mercenaries c-1

by Jack Ludlow

  ‘On your knees, pig.’ Both the brothers eased their grip and the man sank to his knees. ‘Now on your belly and kiss my foot.’

  ‘My Lord…’

  ‘My foot,’ Pandulf insisted, sticking out a soft leather boot.

  ‘I seek forgiveness.’

  ‘Perhaps the abbot here will forgive you.’

  Montesarchio extended his body to kiss the proffered foot, only to be kicked hard in the face. William was watching him, at the same time wondering if his brother was thinking the same as he: that for all the smiling they were looking at a man who took pleasure in base cruelty.

  ‘It will be some time before I do.’

  Rainulf spoke up, his voice loud and confident. ‘We have the contents of his coffers out in the courtyard, Prince Pandulf.’

  The eyes shot up in mock horror and the tone of voice matched that. ‘My dear Rainulf, I have omitted to greet you. Can you forgive me?’ Then he stepped forward and embraced the Norman.

  ‘You need no forgiveness.’

  William had to stop himself from smiling then, not only because of the honeyed tone of Rainulf’s voice, but in remembrance of his willingness to cheat the man he was no doubt flattering. They seemed a well-matched pair.

  ‘But I do, Rainulf. What would I be without you as my support?’

  Now it was a case, given the number of men he had of his own, of who was flattering whom.

  ‘And you have come at a most fortuitous time, Rainulf,’ Pandulf added, putting a lazy foot on Montesarchio’s neck, then pressing hard. ‘I have here, as you can see, Theodore, the Abbot of Montecassino, in the hope of reminding him of his obligations to Capua, and do you believe it, he denies it is owed. Some nonsense about the Pope in Rome and the emperor in Germany, leaving me at a loss to know what to do about it.’

  ‘Perhaps our business,’ Rainulf replied.

  ‘Yes, my friend.’ Pandulf turned, looking directly at the abbot, and said in a calm voice. ‘You must take precedence over a mere monk, however much he thinks himself elevated by his office.’

  ‘I am proud to be a mere monk, Prince Pandulf,’ the Abbot Theodore replied. ‘If I have any elevation it is only that given to me by my fellows of Montecassino who honoured me by electing me to lead them.’

  ‘How humble, Theodore. I have a feeling that perhaps your humility could do with a touch of assistance. But that must wait, we have a recalcitrant vassal to deal with, who at least knows his place.’ Turning back to Rainulf, the smile came onto his face like the light from a lantern. ‘Let us see what this wretch has been seeking to keep from me.’

  The wretch was left kissing the floor, with one of Pandulf’s Normans, at the prince’s instructions, pressing a lance into his back.

  It was in another, more private chamber that William and Drogo emptied the contents of the panniers they had brought from Aversa, and though the treasure was enough to please any man’s eye, it was telling the way it affected Pandulf. He grasped and caressed the gold in a manner almost sensual in its intensity. As he was doing this Rainulf was relating what had occurred, making sure to claim any credit for himself, leaving William to wonder why he had not done as he had said: he had quite deliberately not introduced either him or Drogo. His next words solved that question.

  ‘I have left a small garrison at Montesarchio awaiting your pleasure.’

  Pandulf observed the way Drogo looked at his brother, and his eyes registered the surprise in the younger de Hauteville face, and that made him look next at William, who was wearing that amused half-smile.

  ‘It can be held?’ he asked.

  ‘Easily, though it may need more men, which I am happy to provide…’

  ‘I shall provide them, Rainulf,’ the prince said quickly, picking up the gold crucifix and kissing it. ‘After all, given this, and what look like healthy revenues, keeping a garrison there will not be a burden.’

  ‘No,’ Rainulf growled, clearly not happy. ‘And the Lord of Montesarchio?’

  ‘Can taste my hospitality and learn his lesson. One day I may restore him, we shall see.’ Then he looked up at William, who towered over him. ‘Who are these fellows you have brought with you, Rainulf?’

  ‘New recruits, the brothers de Hauteville.’

  ‘And you were at Montesarchio?’

  ‘One was,’ Rainulf said hurriedly, ‘William here.’

  ‘I know of the place. Not an easy one to capture.’ His hand swept over the table. ‘I had not expected to see this for many months.’

  ‘We were lucky, my Lord. The defenders sought to surprise us on the very first night. They forgot we were Normans. We managed to fight our way into the castle before they could reclose the gate.’

  ‘Truly, Rainulf,’ Pandulf said, his eyes still fixed on William. ‘You are a wonder.’

  ‘I know who to pick and when, sire,’ the mercenary leader replied, which was as close as he was going to get to an admission he had not been present.

  ‘This must go to my chamberlain to be counted. I cannot reward you until that is done.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘But,’ Pandulf said, picking up a clutch of several gold coins, ‘I think your valiant fellow here deserves an extra reward.’

  ‘Very generous, Prince Pandulf,’ Rainulf said, without any conviction whatsoever, as William accepted the money. As a message it was as plain as a pikestaff: should the brothers seek service in Capua, they would be welcome.

  ‘Now, Rainulf, I must return and see what I am to do about this damned abbot. We will speak later.’

  When they emerged from the private chamber, instead of following Pandulf, Rainulf silently indicated they should follow him. He took them through the castle to one of the outer walls, and then down a winding set of stone steps, which became increasingly damp. The smell of rot increased as well, with Rainulf telling them, in a voice that echoed off the now dripping walls, that through the green slimy one they were passing lay the River Volturno.

  At the bottom of the steps they came to a chamber into which daylight would never penetrate, with cells along the inner wall and, in the floor, square openings covered with heavy bars. A partially crippled individual grovelled to Rainulf, who bid him take one of his keys to lift the grill of one of these oubliettes, and then to fetch a torch. That brought and the grill lifted, Rainulf beckoned to them once more, bidding the brothers move forward to peer in.

  The creature chained to the wall was naked, his body a mass of open sores. At his feet was a flat board on a rope that went up to a pulley where the floor joined the grill, obviously the method by which he was fed. The man looked up with pleading eyes sunk into an emaciated face, his hair, which would have been white had it not been so full of filth, hanging down his back.

  ‘This is Osmond de Vertin.’

  ‘Norman?’ asked William, as Rainulf nodded. ‘What has he done?’

  ‘He failed.’

  ‘You?’

  ‘No. He was my captain once, in a post of honour, but he elected to leave my service and join Prince Pandulf. Osmond failed his new master. He sought his own advantage and as you see he has earned his own reward.’

  ‘Why are you showing us this?’ demanded Drogo.

  Rainulf was looking at William when he replied. ‘You are ambitious, you two, I can smell it. I thought it would do you good to see the cost of failing a man who has just tried to bribe you to join him.’

  ‘The men he employs?’

  ‘Many of them were once in my pay, yes.’

  ‘You have influence with this prince. It shames you that he has this man in here.’

  ‘It pleases Pandulf, and that is all that matters. Now I must go and see what the Wolf intends to do with his troublesome abbot.’

  William and Drogo, once they were back above ground, were sent to the kitchens, to get food and wine, so missed what happened in the great hall. Rainulf told them on the way back to Aversa.

  ‘Abbot Theodore can argue till his face goes blue, and quote Holy Scriptu
re all day. The Prince of Capua claims he is the rightful suzerain to the monastery lands, so he will be forced to agree.’

  ‘And if he does not?’ asked Drogo.

  ‘Then he will need all the faith he has in God. Pandulf will not be gainsaid. He will have the revenues of Montecassino, whatever it takes.’

  Rainulf was right: the news filtered down to Aversa. The Abbot of Montecassino, having made a second visit, was thrown into Pandulf’s dungeons, stripped by the prince of his title. The monks voted for another abbot, but Pandulf just ignored the appointment. Word also came from Capua that men were needed to help Pandulf assert his rights to the property of the abbey, the reward promised being in sequestered land instead of money payment. This request was not put to Rainulf, indeed much effort was made to keep him in the dark, but he knew what was afoot when men began to leave his band and head north.

  ‘The promised rewards are good,’ said Drogo, as he groomed a horse; he always with an ear closer to the ground than his brother.

  ‘You think we should join Pandulf?’

  ‘Do we owe loyalty to Rainulf?’

  ‘No, Drogo, but a man who throws into a dungeon an abbot of such age is not one I would wish to take employment with.’

  ‘Not even for land of your own?’

  ‘No.’

  As a conveyance, a servant-borne litter was a rare enough sight to raise the eyebrows of William and Drogo, though it was noticeable that many of their fellow mercenaries knew what it portended: the arrival of the Jew. Those with no interest in the services he provided shrugged and carried on with their training, but others began to put away their weapons, the first of those making for their huts.

  The arrangement meant that the Jew, after he and Rainulf had sorted out their own business, took over Rainulf’s quarters, and was given a list of what was due to each man. If they had acquired any extra of their own they tended to exchange that in Aversa, and as long as it was not property that should have been declared to their leader, nothing was said. The Jew would then undertake, for a fee, to get an agreed sum back to Normandy, by methods regarding which no one enquired. No doubt Rainulf knew, and that sufficed.

  The Jew, who introduced himself as Kasa Ephraim, William found a pleasant individual, with a relaxed, reassuring voice, a man accustomed to calming the fears of fellows nervous of parting with possessions seen as hard won. He had his fee from Montesarchio, which was substantial, added to the gold with which Pandulf had sought to bribe him and Drogo, which should meet the obligation he had made in the letter he had had composed by the scrivener, yet he would have been the first to admit that the handling of money was to him a strange thing. Coin had been rare in Normandy; barter as a means of exchange was more common.

  ‘Will they actually see gold?’ he asked.

  ‘They will, as long as they journey to Rouen to collect it, for the people I deal with would not travel with such in a place where they could be robbed. The risk of that must fall to those you send to. All they will get is a message saying there is a sum to collect.’

  ‘No one will rob them!’

  Having counted out what William gave him, Ephraim responded with a slip of paper on which he had written the sum that would be commuted. ‘If you take this to the scrivener, he will tell you what my charge is for the service.’

  ‘I can read it,’ William replied, in a voice that showed he was not entirely happy to see a third of his funds go in payment.

  ‘You read?’

  ‘And write.’

  ‘Many of your fellows do not,’ Ephraim smiled, ‘so I see I must explain to you the price of the service I offer. Understand that all these messages must be sent many leagues, and those who carry them must be paid. The person who will give out the money on my bond must also earn from his endeavours. However, if you are unhappy, I will happily give you back what you have brought and leave you to seek some other means of transacting this business.’

  ‘No,’ William replied. There was only one other means: he or Drogo going all the way back themselves.

  ‘I did forget to add, that I too am a man of business. Some of what you pay will come to me.’

  ‘You have others waiting,’ said William, determined not to show gratitude.

  He was summoned to attend upon Rainulf once the Jew had left, not just in the litter now but with a strong escort as well, given the accumulated funds of the mercenaries was considerable. Sitting at the end of his table, as usual with a goblet of wine in his hand, Rainulf eyed him for a few seconds before speaking, and when he did his voice had in it a tone William had not heard before: the man was not gruff this time, he was almost friendly.

  ‘It will not surprise you to know, William de Hauteville, that if correspondence can go to Normandy, it can also come back.’ William shrugged, not sure how to respond. ‘When new men come to me, I make a habit of sending home with my Jew to find out about them.’

  ‘And this you did with Drogo and me?’

  Rainulf nodded. ‘I do not care if a man is a murderer, but I do care if he is a thief, for a man who steals once will do so again and that means trouble in a company like mine.’

  ‘So you have found that you have no fears with us.’

  Rainulf sat forward. ‘But I have found out other things.’

  William could guess what they were. ‘If they do not trouble you, I would put them out of your mind.’

  ‘What, your bloodline?’

  ‘My bloodline is my affair.’

  ‘Did you run away, de Hauteville, you and your brother?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Yet when you heard of the death of Duke Robert you came on. Why not turn around and go home, or were you too afeared of a seven-year-old bastard?’

  William smiled, which he was glad to see upset Rainulf as much as it had upset others. ‘You said I should leave honour behind, Rainulf. That I will never do.’

  ‘How noble.’

  The smile vanished. ‘The business you have mentioned is that of my family and it is none of yours, and think on this Rainulf: if I am not given to the betrayal of an oath my father made, one that I will not explain, my honour is an asset to you, as it is to any other lord.’

  With that, William spun on his heel and stomped out.

  The next piece of news to arrive told of the death of Odo de Jumiege, and here the brothers discovered that, although Rainulf had a say in who stood to replace him, it was the men he would lead who had the final word. William was unsure if he was put up because there was no choice, or because Rainulf thought him qualified, but stand he did and his election was unanimous, word having spread of his leadership at Montesarchio.

  Both brothers would have said that their relations with Rainulf were subject to a certain amount of strain, yet it seemed this elective elevation changed matters. Or perhaps it was the knowledge he had gleaned from Normandy, added to the fact that even after Pandulf had tried to bribe them, and the carrot of land had been dangled before them by secret messages from Capua, he and Drogo, unlike some fifty others, had stayed with the Lord of Aversa.

  ‘Well, William de Hauteville, my Contentin ruffian, I long to see how you will handle your battaile.’

  ‘I see nothing in the offing, Rainulf, that will give me the opportunity.’

  The sunken eyes in that purple face looked serious then, and Rainulf looked over William’s shoulder to the road that led north.

  ‘Did I not tell you the day you arrived? Peace in these parts is a rare commodity, and my bones tell me that for a certain lord not too far distant, I might have come to be seen as a less than complete friend.’

  ‘And Montecassino?’

  Rainulf understood the nuances of the question; they did not have to be openly stated, but he did not reply, instead posing a question. ‘What would you do?’

  ‘I think the answer to that is obvious.’

  ‘And if I ordered you to take part in its dismemberment.’

  ‘Then I would refuse.’

  Rainulf slapped
William on the back. ‘Good. I am glad to hear it.’

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The Bamberg weather had cleared, the mist lifting as the temperature dropped on an icy east wind, and Conrad was off on his hunting again, dragging with him many of his advisors, which meant that the business of the imperial court, never rapid, slowed once more to a crawl. Several weeks went by while Guaimar waited for a chance to talk properly; all he got was the odd exchange in a chance encounter. Yet each night, in the great hall, lit by flaming torches and heated by blazing fires, a great crowd gathered to eat at the board of their regal overlord, a noisy affair in which normal conversation was impossible.

  This Guaimar had discovered on sitting at the high table with Conrad Augustus before, especially when the emperor’s attention seemed to be concentrated on his sister, who was always close enough to his person to hold a shouted conversation. Her brother was not quite below the salt; indeed he was seated at the high table, but so far from the centre as to drown out any plea to Conrad. In the end, he had to appeal to Berengara to see if she could arrange a private interview, since when she called upon the emperor in his private part of the palace, he did not decline to receive her.

  ‘I do hope, sister, that you have not gone too far in charming Conrad,’ he said, when she confirmed that the emperor would see him the next day after mass, which, being Palm Sunday, meant not even he could justify going out to hunt.

  ‘I do not know what you mean.’

  It was the fact that she would not look at him which made him sound harsher than he intended. ‘Yes, you do.’

  The look he got in reply made him feel uncomfortable. Her eyes flashed with anger and her pursed lips were those of the spoilt child he so well remembered; if Berengara had anything of which she had reason to be ashamed, she was not going to gift him the right of chastisement.

  ‘Why are we here?’

  ‘You know that very well.’

  ‘And what weapons do we have to bend Conrad to our hopes?’ Guaimar did not answer; it was his turn not to look at his sister. ‘Few, if not none at all, so we must employ what little we have which favours us. I am as wedded to the removal of the Wolf as you, but if you wish to know my every move, and imply that I am misusing what gifts God has given me, I am forced to ask you why you brought me here.’