Conquest c-3

by Jack Ludlow

  ‘Serlo, get our men ready. Ralph, ride back to the landing beach. When Robert sets foot ashore tell him he is not to delay but to come on with every man he can get astride a horse.’

  Seeing the disappointment in de Boeuf’s face, Roger added, ‘It has to be someone of enough standing so he will believe what he is being told is true.’

  ‘Which does not provide much comfort.’

  Roger’s lances exited the trees as one continuous line, spread across the wheat fields through which they rode, trampling the corn that ran to the shoreline. At their rear, Roger had his men bring forward their other mounts to the forest edge so that they would be visible, hoping that, from a distance, it would appear as an even greater number waiting to attack. There was no rush to his advance: it was carried out at a walk and he himself made no effort to move forward separately as if seeking to parley. If there were any fighting men in Messina, he wanted them to flee for the safety of their Saracen army before the gates were slammed shut. Thus would the place be more vulnerable later.

  ‘They must know,’ he explained to his nephew, ‘Robert’s whole army is about to descend on Sicily and they will be acquainted with his reputation. Like al-Hawas they will be surprised to see us here, approaching from the south. News travels, and much as it pains me to admit it, I am using my brother’s reputation as a weapon. I want them to think he is close by, to think he will be around their walls before the people they depend on to keep us out can get back to their aid, so they risk being locked in to face a soldier who has taken more walled towns than anyone in Christendom.’

  Roger called upon his horns to blast a command, and his long line of lances broke into a trot.

  By the time Ralph de Boeuf got back to the landing bay the light was fading, Robert had arrived and was ashore, bellowing loud orders. Though he was pleased by the news of no substantial forces lying between him and Messina, he was less so by Roger’s unexpected absence, and utterly disinclined to warm to his brother’s notion of an immediate siege with an enemy army still in the field. Basic good sense said the right tactic was to first defeat al-Hawas.

  ‘If Roger sees any sign of al-Hawas,’ de Boeuf insisted, ‘he will send word to tell us. Messina looks totally undefended.’

  ‘I seem to recall it was totally undefended the last time you saw it and look what happened then. Now, help me get my lances ashore so we can get them marching to where they need to be, facing the enemy’s main force.’

  ‘You will have to bypass Messina anyway.’

  ‘Where,’ Robert growled, ‘I had better be joined by a brother who was supposed to await my arrival before undertaking anything.’

  Disembarkation took most of the day and they could not march at night, so it was dawn on the third morning before they set off, Robert hoping that if al-Hawas had made his dispositions as Roger outlined he could not move any quicker. He led his army through fields of growing wheat mixed with vineyards, and lemon and orange groves. No one working in the cool of the morning lingered at the sight of these strangely clad horsemen who rode by in what seemed like an endless stream.

  As Robert rode through the same line of trees that had hidden his brother previously, the shore on which Messina stood came into sight, but there was no sign of Roger, no tethered horses and a view of the plain showed only where the crops had been crushed by his advance hooves; in the shimmering heat of the middle of the day it looked as if he too had been swallowed up.

  ‘Damn Roger, where is he?’

  ‘He must have bypassed the town to seek out al-Hawas,’ Ralph de Boeuf said.

  The reply was an angry shout. ‘He should have waited!’

  Those who surrounded the Guiscard, his senior captains, de Boeuf included, watched him in silence as he surveyed the deserted landscape before him, leading up to those pinkish walls and, even from here, the dark blob of the now firmly closed gates. For all his barking about Roger, Robert knew him to be a good soldier and he would not just dismiss any of his suggestions: to do so out of pique was foolish.

  His companions guessed Robert would be working out where to place his siege lines, wondering about supplies of wood, water and forage, also how to thwart his enemies who must surely be on their way south to meet him, added to the problem of how to do battle with al-Hawas while instituting a siege, in no way forgetting the alternative, which was to seek out the Saracens and defeat them first. Such ruminations were a commonplace for a leader like the Guiscard, who knew as well as anyone that even carefully laid plans rarely survived the first point of combat.

  ‘Keep the army in the shade until the sun has softened a touch,’ Robert commanded, finally, his next words nailing his decision. ‘While I go forward and offer Messina terms.’

  Reposing scant confidence in what he was about to do and not yet having made up his mind about his next course of action, Robert de Hauteville called for his standard-bearer, his herald and his personal knights. He then rode forward with panache, magnificently mounted, clad in his blue and white surcoat, under a banner bearing the devices of his titles, his head crowned with a helmet that had long since ceased to be plain metal, but now was gold-decorated so that he could be seen to be what he was, a rich and powerful duke, come to claim that with which the Pope had enfeoffed him.

  The walls seemed deserted, it was as if no one had stayed behind in the place, ridiculous given this was one of the most populous settlements on the island. Nodding to his herald, the man rode forward and began to shout up at the point above the gate.

  ‘The most noble Robert, by the grace of God, Duke of Apulia, Calabria and Sicily, does hereby call upon the citizens of Messina to open their gates to their rightful suzerain, on pain of dire penalties should this claim be denied. The laws of war are plain: surrender and open your gates and all will be spared in peace and prosperity. Fail to do so and you will face the wrath of your liege lord and none, down to the meanest creature, will be spared a bloody death.’

  No reply came, no one spoke, which had the herald looking back at his master, wondering what to do. A long silence was finally broken by a creaking sound, as slowly one of the great oak gates, studded with metal, swung open and Roger walked out.

  ‘Do forgive me, brother,’ he said, ‘but I was at my place of easement.’

  The laughter broke out slowly but rose quickly to roars of amusement as Roger’s lances stood up from where they had been hiding behind the parapet, to look down on a far-from-smiling Guiscard.

  ‘You made me go through that farrago because you were having a shit!’ he cried.

  ‘I was going to invite you into my city of Messina, Robert,’ Roger gloated, ‘but if you are going to adopt that tone maybe I will force you to take it after all.’ When his brother looked set to explode, Roger added softly, ‘Let me have my joke, Robert; after all, you have Messina without a drop of blood being spilt. I have assembled the elders before the cathedral. They are waiting to meet, greet and do homage to their new suzerain.’

  ‘They did not even try to resist. Al-Hawas stripped the city of every able-bodied man and I suspect they thought him already defeated, so, with a Norman army at their gates, their position was hopeless. I rode up, demanded entry, and the Greeks opened the gates to prostrate themselves before me, while the Muslims fled. I let my men loot what they abandoned.’

  Following on from his triumphant entry, and the ceremonial acceptance of his title, both brothers repaired to a palace that had accommodated governors from as far back as Ancient Rome. Looking over one of the best harbours in the Mediterranean, port to a city that could not be taken without the aid of a powerful blockading fleet, Robert was full to bursting with exhilaration: he had come to beat an enemy army, to clear the coast so that he might be able to build a defensible castle and this changed everything. The only problem he had was his determination not to show either pleasure or gratitude.

  ‘You know what this means, Robert?’

  ‘Oh yes, brother, we are here to stay now. There is not a force on the island
sufficient to push us out of Messina when I have done with fortifying it.’

  Roger waited for the words, ‘Thanks to you.’ He waited in vain.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Ibn-al-Hawas, on hearing of the fall of the city, fled to the west, taking his army and the Muslims of Messina with him, so the immediate threat was gone. Much as Robert wanted to meet and defeat him the pursuit must wait — the first task was to make his new port city impregnable: for all it was strong it had been taken more than once in the past, and the Guiscard knew that if he was ever to conquer Sicily then this was a foothold he could not afford to lose. Whatever happened out in the field, if he had Messina to retire to and a strong enough garrison to hold it, he was secure.

  The men he led were horse-trained warriors but they were also builders and soon they were toiling in the heat on the walls and towers, or supervising the locals in the digging of a great ditch to surround the walls, one that could be breached to let in the sea and create a deep moat, rendering ten times more difficult any future assault. The harbour was easier to secure, being in a deep bay with a narrow access, which in time of trouble could be sealed off by an underwater boom of chain-linked logs. To leave a sufficient garrison to back up these measures was to diminish his strength, yet that was a price he knew he must pay.

  Roger oversaw as much of this work as his brother, still wondering at the way he was behaving: nothing was allowed to hint at a split in their relationship, yet he could sense an underlying lack of trust, as if, in acting as he had, even in being successful in taking the city, he had somehow created doubts regarding his judgement; or was it his ambition? At other times he would berate himself for being oversensitive: Robert was mercurial in his moods, always had been, growling or bellowing angrily at one moment, booming with laughter in a twinkling.

  Ibn-al-Tinnah soon appeared, singing Norman praises, offering that which he had previously promised, not in the least bit abashed at the way he had so quickly detached himself from Roger after the debacle at Cape Faro. In fact, while polite, al-Tinnah paid him little heed: the Saracen emir had come to see the new power in the land, the only man who could protect him from his enemies — Robert Guiscard.

  Watching his brother in conversation with a man he knew he mistrusted was instructive: nothing of that was allowed to surface for, like Messina, Robert needed al-Tinnah. He held the eastern seaboard of Sicily and protected the city from the south and was also a source of essential supplies: weapons, very necessary replacement horses and even, if he could be persuaded, foot soldiers. Was Robert treating his own brother in the same manner, keeping him close but hiding a lack of faith in him?

  ‘Ibn-al-Hawas you must destroy,’ the Emir averred, in a theatrical and passionate manner, unnecessary histrionics with a calculator like Robert. ‘You will have no peace while he lives.’

  ‘And you also, Ibn-al-Tinnah.’

  ‘I acknowledge your wisdom, Duke Robert, but kill him and there is no other power with the means to oppose us. We can take Palermo, which will give you rule of the whole island.’

  Much time had already been spent with al-Tinnah, he explaining the complexities of Sicilian politics, a lot of it known but both brothers more than willing to admit to ignorance. The capital of the island and the greatest city was Palermo, a distant object in the west, with many an obstacle in between, and while al-Tinnah painted a picture of great and easy conquests, both de Hautevilles, without communicating, were independently assessing their situation in a more realistic fashion and homing in on one very pertinent fact: the Saracens were numerous and they were not.

  Such knowledge did not daunt them: Normans rarely fought a battle in which they were not outnumbered, but the sheer ratio, as well as the difficulties that must be overcome, like the terrain itself, was sobering. There was one point of agreement: despite the distance and what lay in between, Ibn-al-Hawas, now in his fortress of Enna, had to be their first objective: to allow him to come to them was too risky. Al-Tinnah would join them at Rometta, then concentrate on harrying those areas he and Roger had raided months before. His task was to keep the Normans supplied and protect their northern flank.

  Down to a thousand lances, with some local support and levies from Calabria just fetched across the straits, they set off from Messina, heading into the first of the endless mountain ranges that defined the island. Rometta, standing on a volcanic plug, which had risen sheer from the surrounding foothills, was a formidable objective that had troubled many an invader in the past. Roger and al-Tinnah had secured it previously, having been welcomed as liberators, but with al-Hawas back in his own lands, Robert anticipated a siege. It came as a pleasant surprise to find the Muslim castellan al-Tinnah had left in command had remained faithful to his overlord, so they were able to enter the citadel without a fight.

  Robert immediately ordered a Mass to be said in the Greek church — the population was overwhelmingly of that race — though with his own Latin priests officiating, for it seemed once more that God had blessed his cause. He was now safe in the fortress that protected the passes that led to Messina, rendering his base even more secure. Later he and Roger walked the ramparts over which their brothers William and Drogo had fought twenty years before, seeking to take Rometta as mercenaries of Byzantium. It had been a bloody fight then, they knew, and few had seen the place finally fall without the scars of ferocious combat.

  ‘Enna will not be easy like this, Robert,’ Roger said. ‘I am told it stands even higher.’

  ‘Then it would be best we get there quickly, before it becomes an even harder nut to crack.’

  ‘The Saracen governor?’

  That raised a tricky problem. Robert wanted to leave behind a Norman contingent on the grounds he had to protect his line of retreat, when in reality they were a garrison of what he now considered to be a fortress he, not al-Tinnah, held.

  ‘It will be a test of the emir’s truthfulness, Roger. If he objects we will know he plans to play us false once we have dealt with al-Hawas.’

  ‘I would not send him north, brother, I would keep him close.’

  ‘But, Roger, it is not your decision.’

  That sharp reminder broke the mood and Roger walked away, muttering that he would get his men ready to depart, while wondering if he should beard his brother and demand of him what doubts he harboured. Part of the problem, he knew, stemmed from his own nature: he was not a natural subordinate but a leader in his own right, while Robert was not one to allow his domination to be challenged in any way. That he did not understand Roger had no desire to issue such a challenge mattered less than what he believed and would not discuss. It would have to be resolved but this was not the time: they had a campaign to finish and one that was going to spill much blood.

  Al-Tinnah parted company, leading his forces north. Robert marched west, driving his cavalry hard, pushing on ahead of his foot soldiers, moving out of the fertile Greek-populated valleys and on to the high central Sicilian plateau, aiming for Centuripe, the next fortified place on his route to Enna, the whole journey dominated by the towering presence of Mount Etna, the snow-capped volcano spewing smoke by day and glowing red at night, as if to warn anyone close by that they were but mere mortals in the presence of a greater power.

  Up till now the local populations, mainly Greek and Christian, had seen him as a liberator from Saracen hegemony. Once in the high hills, the people were either Muslim or the kind of indigenes who had been here since the time of the Phoenicians, hostile to Saracen and Norman alike. Thus care had to be taken with his lines of communication, further weakening a strength already depleted by what he had left behind at Rometta.

  Centuripe, like every other Sicilian township, was set on a high hill and dominated by its citadel, this a fortress on a conical outcrop so steep it was near impossible to assault. The Normans needed the garrison to surrender, but whoever was in command, a vassal of al-Hawas, was wise enough to discern that this walled town was not the main target for these invaders. He refused to eve
n parley, forcing Robert to call off what was in any case a half-hearted attempt to invest it. Yet Centuripe could not be just left on his line of march so he shifted that to the east and took the less formidable town of Paterno, detaching even more of his limited strength to garrison that. Given there was no sign of the great army al-Hawas was reputed to have gathered to oppose him, a further thrust brought him eventually to the plains below Enna, the most fearsome fortress in Sicily.

  ‘God save us if we don’t win here,’ groaned Serlo de Hauteville, looking up at the fortress, standing high above what was already an elevated plateau. ‘Any Mass said will be a requiem.’

  Enna was in a position that could not have been improved upon: nature had already set it apart. The town was clustered along an elevated, impressive table, while at the highest end stood the castle, the only approach along the narrow ridge of the walled town, the other three sides of the escarpment falling away into the valley.

  ‘His army is not in there,’ Robert barked, ‘and it is they we have to beat.’

  Roger spoke to support Serlo. ‘If it is anything like the size of the rumours we have heard it would be wise to choose our ground to fight.’

  ‘I will not attack them,’ Robert replied, just as angry with him, ‘and before you point it out, we cannot just sit here either, we must get them to attack us. Serlo, this is something you will enjoy: get out there, find them, and prick them until they can stand it no longer.’

  ‘And me?’ Roger asked.

  ‘You, brother, have got to help me choose where we are going to bring them to battle.’ Then he pointed up, as if to the sky. ‘And once we have scattered them, how we will besiege that damned fortress.’

  It was well away from Robert’s ears that Roger voiced his opinion to Serlo. ‘He is praying for divine intervention when he talks about taking Enna.’