by Jack Ludlow
Drogo moved forward, shoulder hunched and threatening. ‘You and who else…?’
‘Enough!’ William barked, his hand pointing to the smoke still rising into the sky. ‘We have enough fighting on our hands over there.’
‘Are we going to fight?’ asked Mauger.
‘Let us say, brother, we are not going to withdraw. So whether we fight or not is up to the catapan.’
If the message returned by his envoy was not delivered with clarity, there was no doubting the sentiment, and it presented Michael Doukeianos with a real dilemma. What he had with him was not a force any general would choose to take into battle: few, if any of those he led, had served before and they were not suffused with enthusiasm. The rest were new levies, but to withdraw was impossible.
Even if he had known his enemies had possession of Venosa and Lavello, it would not have changed his dispositions: that was an action he would have undertaken had he been in the place of the Normans. Such thinking had been built into his plan to outflank them, to get between them and the fortress. It was Melfi he was after, yet without surprise or a properly trained army, taking it would be near impossible.
As he paced his tent, watched by the captains he had fetched with him – none of them with much experience – he was aware he had to act, yet he suspected outright victory to be beyond his grasp. Up against mounted men, if he prevailed, and he thought he could do that – he outnumbered them by ten men to one – he could not inflict on them the kind of defeat that would force them out of his territory.
It was more likely they would see he was too strong and retire slowly before his advance, taunting him for his inability to pursue at sufficient pace to crush them, drawing him towards Melfi while inflicting the kind of losses on his army that would make it too weak to invest the place. That would leave him at the mercy of a combined Lombard-Norman force, far from safety and short on supplies.
The proper military course of action, now that surprise was gone, was to withdraw to the coast, send out his conscripting parties, set up training for those recruited and those to come in, build an army too formidable for his enemies to withstand, then begin a proper campaign to take back territory piecemeal. Never mind that the Lombards would join the Normans: Byzantium had beaten them too many times in the past to fear them. The Normans would stay in Melfi only as long as they were paid; the trick was to isolate them so that such rewards would be cut off.
Just as he knew that was prudent, he also knew it was impossible: those very Normans were in front of him now and they needed to be overcome, given the reputation for near invincibility which preceded them. The morale of his own host was a major consideration but there were others. To retire before some kind of success had been achieved would lead to a loss of face too great to stomach and it would not go down well at an Imperial Court where he would already be in bad odour.
The solution came to him in time, a tactic that would preserve his reputation, keep up the spirits of his men, without risking any serious loss in their numbers.
‘Prepare your levies. We attack immediately.’
‘Dawn would be better, Catapan, with the sun behind us to blind the enemy.’
‘And let them get away?’
Doukeianos said those words with a jeer, just before he proceeded to outline a plan of attack that would bring about that very thing. Once he had chased the Normans from their positions he could safely say he had achieved all that was possible on this field of battle, that being mounted they were too fleet to pursue. What followed on from that would depend on many factors, but he could rightfully claim to lack the resources to carry on and besiege Melfi.
Watching from the high ground overlooking the Byzantine encampment, with his men mounted, lined up and ready, the shoe of what course to follow was now on the other foot. Prior to assembling they had knelt to pray, with William again deliberating, in between his devotions, on his lack of a priest from home. In Normandy, where clerics bore arms and fought alongside their flock, there would have been someone to bless the men and confess them, then go into battle by their side, ready to deliver the last rites to any who fell: no good son of the Holy Church wanted to go into battle and face death with sins unforgiven.
It looked uncomfortably as if that was about to happen. Even if his men were the best fighters in Christendom, to engage with the odds in numbers so massively against them hinted at folly, and it flew in the face of William’s original hopes: he had expected the catapan to do the sensible thing and withdraw, but there was no mistaking what he was observing, a host moving forward to engage in battle.
He could also see what Michael Doukeianos was going to attempt to do: by spreading his forces out to cover a broad front he was planning to envelop the numerically inferior Normans. If they stood to fight in a central position on their high ground they would be bypassed on both flanks, anathema to cavalry; if they sought to engage one flank, the other would wheel to take them in the rear. It was a very simple manoeuvre, which suited the forces the catapan had at his disposal. Sense dictated, in the face of such a tactic, the Normans retire.
Yet William could also see that, even with an uncomplicated design, the men in command were having trouble in arranging their levies in anything approaching reasonable order. As they advanced their line must be solid: if one body of men got out of step with another they would create a gap and that would be dangerous for those who had stepped out too forcibly. Could he bring about such a thing?
It was an axiom drummed into William from his earliest days to do that which your opponent least expected, whether in single combat, a small group action, or now on a proper field of battle. He also had one priceless asset: the men he was facing, from Michael Doukeianos down, even if they had faced cavalry, had never fought men like him before. The very least the catapan could hope for was that the Normans would wait till he came upon them to decide their course of action: engage or retire.
What he would least expect would be a Norman assault which would expose the fact that Michael Doukeianos had committed another blunder: he was bringing forward slow and inexperienced foot soldiers to fight men who had an inherent discipline, the ability to manoeuvre, as well as the speed to do so quickly without losing cohesion. Could William force him to compound such an error?
That speed was quickly evident: no sooner had William appraised his brothers of what he wanted to do than they were moving their conroys to execute the first part of his scheme. Fanning out to confront as much of the enemy host as they could they would appear to be spread too thin. Instead of a tight line there was a large gap between each rider, a perfect opportunity for foot soldiers, once the lines clashed, to surround each individual horseman and bring him down.
As soon as William was satisfied they had deployed as he wished he gave the order to sound the horn, dipped the blue and white de Hauteville banner, which was the standard of command, and set off the advance. It was done at a walk first, coming off their high ground and onto the flat valley below, then, at the sound of another blast, the Normans broke into a trot. William de Hauteville’s banner was the only one held aloft; those of his brothers were dipped.
Faced with this unexpected action, and sensing an opportunity, Michael Doukeianos reacted immediately. He could see before him exactly what William wanted him to see: a cavalry force weakened by its deployment, a chance to annihilate these Normans, not by seeking to envelop them, but by closing up his front to present and overcome them with overwhelming superiority. His horns were sounding, messengers were riding to the individual captains telling them what their general wanted, and soon the outer contingents began to trend inwards.
William, in the centre of his line, was watching that manoeuvre carefully, looking for the least sign of confusion. All it took was one eager captain to urge on his men with too much zeal and it would happen, but where in his line would it take place? There was a chance, of course, it would not, in which case the horn would sound and his banner would wave to order his men to retreat.
The Byzantine levies were holding their discipline better than he expected, though with much beating of men with swords to keep them from rushing ahead. William suspected what men he had who had fought in a battle before had been put out front to aid their captains in setting the pace, a shrewd move, and it looked as if the Normans were about to be faced, in extended and vulnerable order, with a wall of pikes, behind them eager men with knives ready to come through the front line to slash at horse and rider.
But they could not hold their discipline, even on a field of battle unbroken by gullies or rocks. Gaps began to appear, the greatest opening up before the men led by Drogo, and William knew that he would see it. He dropped his banner and held his breath until Drogo raised his. That was the signal, and breaking into an immediate canter the Norman line began to close, concentrating around Drogo’s battaile. Their opponent was no fool: Doukeianos could see what was happening and William suspected it was he who rode forward hard to try to close that gap by halting his troops.
With trained men he might have achieved it, but the actual result was greater confusion, with some men stopping completely while others came on. It was they, partially isolated, who now faced a solid line of Norman lances, and one that would lap round their sides when they met. Compounding what had already gone awry, the captain who led them saw his salvation in an aggressive charge, completely ignoring the horns his general had furiously blown ordering him to halt and retire.
Drogo’s banner was now central and the Byzantines were faced with a solid line of Norman lances. There was no escape, though many tried, making matters worse as the Normans got between them stabbing and, when a lance was lost, slashing with their broadswords. Inevitably these untrained milities broke and sought to run, in doing so getting in among those to their rear who still held some kind of cohesion, setting off a general panic as each body of men saw themselves in danger from these ferocious horsemen.
Soon the field was full of running men, being pursued by a wall of horseflesh and riders that took a weapon to any flesh that came within their reach. Michael Doukeianos was fleeing too: there was no point in standing still to die a glorious death. Those captains who had not perished had surrounded him and were acting as a shield, and in doing so they had left the men they led to their own fate.
It was foolish to try to surrender, though many made the attempt. A small host facing a massively larger one cannot take prisoners, and in any case these were worthless creatures, not rich men who would command a ransom. Wise heads lay down and pretended to be dead, the imprudent pleaded for mercy and died with their plea on their lips, many of them ridden down and trampled by hooves as well as cut with swords.
Soon the field was clear of fighters, the whole Byzantine host broken and in flight, even those contingents that had not faced battle. William de Hauteville, his arms soaked with victim blood, called a halt to the pursuit when the point of any further havoc had passed. Now he was in among braying donkeys and mules, animals abandoned by the sutlers who had brought them here, they running alongside what women had trailed the host from Barletta.
It was Mauger who found the pack animals that mattered: the beasts which had on their flanks the heavy brass-bound coffers of the catapan, full of the gold with which he had offered to bribe them.
‘Find out where we are, someone,’ William cried. ‘This victory must have a name.’
There were a couple of settlements called Moschella close enough by to provide that.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Arduin was cock-a-hoop when he heard of William’s triumph, though that was tempered by his not having been present to lead the fight in person. Ensconced once more in the great hall of the castle at Melfi, his crows of triumph echoed off the walls.
‘Never fear,’ said William, seeking to bring him back to reality – he was behaving as if the end result of his insurrection was a foregone conclusion: that his enemies would be driven out of Apulia by what had just occurred. ‘You will get your opportunity. Byzantium won’t give up after one reverse, and I will wager it will be harder to beat them next time. The catapan has learnt about the risks of fighting we Normans.’
Those dark Lombard eyes were alight as he replied. ‘They will face a proper army, William, not just you.’
There was some truth in that, for Arduin had been busy: Melfi was already surrounded by encampments full of Lombard volunteers, and more were arriving each day, from Benevento and even parts of Campania, where Prince Guaimar had placed no restrictions on his subjects travelling individually to enlist – not that he would have been attended to if he had. If William had ever doubted the strength of that Lombard dream he had good evidence of it now: they had not seen Byzantium soundly beaten in Southern Italy in decades.
Norman lances came in too, some from Normandy in ones and twos; others were mercenaries who had been in Italy for years, come to swell the ranks of his cavalry, not yet in a flood, but enough to encourage William to believe that more would follow. Non-fighting supporters had come too: farriers to shoe horses and blacksmiths to forge weapons and shape helmets, while men with the right eye for a pikestaff combed the surrounding forests for suitable timber.
There were leather workers and cloth weavers, saddlers and harness makers, cobblers to produce footwear, vivandiers and bakers, along with their women, who would cook and sustain their fighting menfolk on the march. A steady stream of supplies was being brought in by mule and on human backs and, most vital of all, Arduin had found a troop of crossbowmen, not as many as would be needed, but enough to train up more when weapons became available.
A message of congratulations had also come from Salerno, but – and this William held to be strange – it was a verbal one delivered by a messenger employed by Kasa Ephraim. It was also noticeable that whatever Lombard volunteers had come in from Campania few of them, so far, were from that city and its immediate surroundings, where Prince Guaimar’s inclination to stand aside would be better known and, besides that, they would have been recently engaged in the taking of Amalfi…
The Jew proved as shrewd as ever: as soon as news of Masseria reached Salerno, he reasoned there might be business to transact with the victorious Normans, who needed someone to keep safe their funds, and also to facilitate any transfer of their plunder home to their relatives in Normandy. The message that was returned to him was that it would profit him to journey personally to Melfi where there was already Byzantine gold, and likely to be more to follow.
Sending money home was an arrangement he had provided for years to the likes of Rainulf Drengot. William and Drogo had used his services before. How he did it over such distances, at the constant threat of banditry, was a mystery, and one he was determined to keep to himself, but the funds to bring south their brothers, as well as the coin needed to finance the construction of their father’s stone donjon, still waiting to be built, had been safely commuted back home by Ephraim, who made substantial fees from the transactions.
Those brothers were not present now. Apart from a garrison to man the walls of Melfi the Normans were out doing that at which they were best: raiding Byzantine territory south of Barletta, taking towns and tribute if they would submit, ravaging the countryside around those places that held out – few of those, since the catapan was too busy training his newly raised levies to interfere. With word spread throughout the province, not only of the recent victory, but the fact that the Normans were raiding at will, Lombards were trickling in from the port cities as well, which provided William and Arduin with good intelligence.
It was from that source they heard of the methods of Byzantine conscription – many had fled from the threat of that – an imposition made more harsh by necessity. No one able-bodied was spared: the whole of Apulia down to Otranto, as well as Eastern Calabria, was being scoured for men. Even if they were unwilling to serve they were being dragged in to make up a host big enough to prevail, and the training was as callous as the recruitment. Even forced to serve, they would be better drilled the nex
t time Michael Doukeianos faced the Normans and, to stiffen them, he also had trained reinforcements, a body of Varangians recently arrived from Constantinople.
That news was enough to give William pause: he had fought alongside the Varangians in Sicily and he knew how formidable they were. They were of the same stock as the Normans, men from the Viking heartlands who had gone east into the great wilderness rather than south to the land of the Franks and beyond, using the rivers and lakes instead of the sea to penetrate deep, finally setting up a rich and fruitful kingdom on a great river that flowed all the way to the Euxine Sea and, across that great body of water, to Constantinople.
The men sent to Apulia would be uniformly huge, of a size to match any de Hauteville, and flaxen of hair and moustache. The other quality they had was steadiness in battle: they stood their ground regardless of odds and would rather die than retreat. It was they who had killed off the flame of the last Lombard revolt, and the last thing William de Hauteville wanted to do was to face such men with inexperienced levies, however fired up they were by their visions. Time to dampen his general’s enthusiasm.
‘The men you have recruited will be a proper army when they are skilled at war, Arduin. I think our encounter with the catapan proves that men who are not tend to be a liability, and they cannot stand against Varangian axes. In truth, right now, only we Normans have any hope of countering them.’
The frown that produced came and went in a flash: now that he had a steady stream of volunteers, now that he felt like a proper general in command of a proper army, Arduin did not like to be reminded of how much he depended on Norman support. William saw it come and go and knew the reason; he suspected if he thought he could beat Byzantium without them Arduin would seek to send them back to Aversa, but he could not, so it did not signify.
‘We also move your levies away from Melfi. The countryside around here cannot support them.’