by Jack Ludlow
‘“No Norman traveller is safe in that part of Italy, so much did the locals hate them, and passing through was no protection from reprisals. He had been threatened personally, had nearly lost his possessions, only saved by his clerical office, but had since met many who had indeed been robbed even of the clothes in which they stood, this after their horses had been stolen. Some had even been whipped by angry locals as retribution for the losses they had suffered in destroyed crops and torn-out vines…”
‘Need I go on, Count Drogo?’ There was not much to do but answer with a shake of the head. ‘But I shall, and I will enumerate the complaints I have had from Benevento, which might I remind you is my own fief. Homes and fields of corn burnt to a cinder, women raped and tiny children hoisted on the points of Norman lances…’
‘Your Holiness, you know that people exaggerate.’
‘Exaggerate!’ Leo shouted, in a voice more suitable to a soldier than a cleric. ‘I have seen these things for myself. It must cease and I will hold you, and you alone, responsible for seeing that it does.’
Drogo, who had been submissive, felt his gorge rise. Who did this ginger-haired sod think he was? He might be Pope but he was talking to a de Hauteville, one who was not, and never had allowed himself to be, browbeaten by anyone, especially in the company of not only Guaimar but also the whole papal entourage. He was about to shout back, he even had a notion of clouting the Pope round the ear, when a vision of his elder brother swam before him. William would have known how to deal with this, would have had the words to turn away the papal wrath while giving nothing in return. The Pope was asking for the impossible: the men he was talking about were warriors. What did he want them to do, take up the plough?
It took great effort to control his voice, but he did manage it. ‘I will do as you ask, Your Holiness.’
‘You swear on the Blood of Christ?’
‘I do,’ Drogo replied, crossing himself, as much from fear as from piety: that was not an oath to be taken lightly.
‘So be it, Count Drogo, but be assured I will hold you to that. Now, Prince Guaimar…’
Drogo listened and determined to learn. Guaimar deflected every complaint directed at him with consummate ease and silken replies, showing such ability that Drogo was jealous, something he related to Kasa Ephraim when he called upon him later that day.
‘Our prince has now had much practice at dissimulation, Count Drogo.’
‘I think he might have learnt from you.’
The Jew smiled, and even if he had aged, it was a pleasing thing. ‘You flatter me, Count Drogo, but you have come here to transact business, I think.’
It was Drogo’s turn to smile. ‘I think your ventures are safer than my coffers.’
Ephraim now transacted commercial undertakings for the de Hautevilles, trading in commodities on their behalf and increasing a wealth that was fed by land income and the tribute from the Lombard and Italian nobles of Apulia who looked to Melfi for protection: odd that some of that security had to be provided against men to whom he was titular overlord.
‘All business has its risks, Count Drogo.’
Thinking of his soul, Drogo replied, ‘None, my Jewish friend, compared to the risks of being in my position.’
Argyrus had worked hard to ensure that, when he struck, it had the desired effect. Money was his weapon, the means to pay for betrayal, but that was not the only tool in his armoury. Unaware that the newly elected Pope had left Rome for Campania, he had sent an embassy to the Holy City, to the Duke of Spoleto, whose lands lay to the north of Benevento, as well as selected people in that province, his aim to build a coalition against their common enemy. But first he had to decapitate the monster.
Drogo, not long returned from Salerno, was to be taken when he was at his most vulnerable, on a Sunday when he attended church on a saint’s feast day, the means of his assassination a disgruntled monk, found by Argyrus’s agents, who knew how to handle a sword. He assured those who recruited him that not only could he get close to Drogo de Hauteville, there were many men locally who would aid him, but the spider at the centre of the web made an impatient man wait until all else was in place.
Having served with the Norman-Lombard army outside the walls of Trani he knew the names of the most important leaders, not just the de Hautevilles. Humphrey, Geoffrey and Mauger had their own castles ands fiefs, and attended their own churches to hear Mass, but there were others capable of taking over from them, so men had to be put in place, reliable men who were not only willing to strike but able to recruit fellow assassins, for Argyrus was insistent that no one killer, acting alone, would succeed: look what had happened with William.
‘The one called Robert I know least well.’
‘He is stuck in deepest Calabria, my Lord, and though he is hated we have not yet managed to get anyone to accept the task of killing him.’
‘Yet all the others are ready?’
‘They are. They await only a day on which to strike.’
Argyrus had before him a list of Roman saints’ days and he calculated how long it would take to send messages to those recruited and awaiting the sign to act. He could not risk a lost opportunity: conspiracies were fragile things, and they became even more so the longer they went without execution. Looking a month in advance he put a finger on the Feast Day of St Laurence and deciding said, firmly, ‘That is the day I have chosen. See to it.’
Drogo, accompanied by his wife and a newly born son, saw Listo, dressed in his black Benedictine habit, and scowled, as it was not a sight that pleased him. In truth he felt slightly guilty at having sent him and his sister away, given it was not an action of which William would have approved, but then his elder brother had been a bit soft in that way. Drogo would not harm a peasant for no reason, but he had no love for the breed, seeing them as impenetrable and stupid in the main, and when occasion demanded that they suffer he had never been one to hold back. Their crops and vines he would destroy and the Good Lord help any of them who tried to resist.
To him St Laurence was a martyr especially to be venerated, not least because his saint’s day was always the occasion of a great banquet, and Drogo loved feasting and drinking, which always led to carousing. Also, since the same saint was the patron of prostitutes, there was no disgrace in having a few along to entertain him and his companions afterward, once he had sent his wife off to her nursing and her bed.
Gaitelgrima had gone ahead into the church, and he was waiting until all his companions were present, some ten in number, those Normans he counted as close friends, slightly put out that two of his brothers, Geoffrey and Mauger, whom he had summoned, had yet to arrive. Humphrey had got the backwash of the papal strictures on the way back from Salerno; the other two were going to get a lecture too, and be told to keep their men in check. When he had dealt with them he intended to call in all the Norman captains for the same purpose.
Unbeknown to Drogo, at that very moment seven of the captains he was going to berate were dead, all of them caught overnight, in their beds, by assassins, all Lombards or Italians who had infiltrated their castles and donjons in the disguise of servants. Where there were women or wives present they died too, and any children young enough to be slumbering in close proximity to parents. Those given the task of killing Geoffrey and Mauger failed – they had been unable to penetrate their too well-established households – and had decided to follow them as they set off in the predawn to attend upon the summons from Drogo.
The Norman captains who died, including Hugo de Boeuf, were unarmed, or their weapons were too far away from them to be of any use. The de Hauteville brothers had theirs and were mounted, so when a dozen assailants tried to ambush them on the road they found out to their cost just how much these sons of Tancred had learnt from their warrior father. Not one of the assassins survived as the two brothers swung their swords and manoeuvred their mounts, the horses taking most of the knife wounds, necessary to fix the men wielding them so they could be cleaved in half by a singl
e mighty blow.
Drogo was unarmed and no one saw Listo draw a weapon from under his habit, the sign for the men he had recruited to aid him, all dressed as Benedictines, to do likewise. Ready to enter the church, Drogo and his companions had laid aside their swords, and crowded into the narrow church doorway they had little room for movement as the two dozen men struck with knives, clubs and swords from both within and without the building. Drogo was a hard man to kill: even with several wounds he fought on with fist and boot trying to break through to where his weapon lay.
It was Listo who struck the fatal blow, taking a sword and slicing through Drogo’s shoulder, covered with a blue and white surcoat but with no protective mail, the blow cutting down and smashing bone as well. Drogo fell to his knees but yet struggled to arise again as several men dressed as monks went for him with knives, stabbing him repeatedly, shredding his now blood-covered garment; the last sight he had as he spun from them was of his companions lying dead in a heap, crowded in the doorway of the church.
Listo’s mission was to kill the boy-child as well, and his mother, if she resisted, but the pile of bodies, some still twitching, blocked the entrance and he knew that if he stayed too long retribution would be swift. As soon as he had struck the first blow women had screamed and men had rushed for help, and this in a place full of warriors who would tear him limb from limb for what he had done.
‘The horses,’ he shouted, throwing off his habit, no more a monk now but instead, as he saw it, a soldier in the service of the enemies of the Normans. The mounts belonged to the men the party of assassins had killed, not enough, for they were too numerous. But they were not hulking Normans, they were, even doubled up, a load the animals could bear and they rode out and south, heading for distant Bari and safety.
Geoffrey and Mauger, bearing wounds of their own, and with only one horse between them, arrived to find Drogo laid out on a slab of church marble, the wounds on his body now dark gashes edged with black congealing blood, with his young wife kneeling by, keening in sorrow while a nurse sought to calm her baby.
‘Take them home,’ said Geoffrey, ‘and call upon the monks to come and prepare the body.’
‘My Lord,’ said one fellow, ‘it was monks who did this.’
‘No,’ Mauger replied, ‘no man of God committed an act like this.’
Over the next days they found the extent of this plot, as news came in of deaths all over the lands the Normans held. Humphrey had survived by a stroke of luck, having decided to spend a night away from his own castle, but when he heard of what had happened he dismissed every servant he had, not knowing which ones might be traitors. His next act was to call to Melfi all those who had acclaimed Drogo and he successfully called upon them to elevate him: he had no trouble at all in seeing the need for the succession to the title to devolve upon a grown man.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
After a whole year, Robert de Hauteville was sick to death of Calabria and he put the blame fairly and squarely on his brother Drogo, who had sent him to this godforsaken part of the world where more men died of disease than combat, to his younger sibling’s mind, just to get rid of him: he had hoped with William gone that Drogo would give him a chance to distinguish himself. What he had given him instead was a thankless task.
Nominally part of the Byzantine Empire, it was a province for which they cared little. If Campania and Apulia were fantastically fertile, capable of producing two harvests a year, this was the opposite, with mostly poor soil, and hilly and rocky where it was not covered in tangled woodland. There were fertile pockets, but the inhabitants suffered from exploitation, as well as constant incursions, from an enemy the people of this part of the world had lived with all their lives, and their grandfathers before them: ship-borne Saracen raiders.
Sailing from North Africa and Sicily, they could land anywhere on a hundred leagues of coast to rob and despoil at will, usually long gone with whatever treasure and slaves they had acquired by the time any distant Byzantine forces even heard of their incursion, and such forces were rare: mostly the Calabrians were left to defend themselves. Likewise they were left alone to rebuild their shattered communities, but as soon as they were perceived to be of worth the raiders would descend once more to wipe out any progress in both population and prosperity.
Having done their worst they would retire to their safe harbours. As a result of these raids, every place of value, mostly scattered along the coast, was well fortified and stocked for a siege, so Robert, with his limited numbers, found it difficult to gain entry to any of the towns that might benefit from the presence of a Norman overlord, which the Italian inhabitants were determined to repulse anyway.
Yet they needed protection, for they lacked the one thing that would guarantee that any Saracen raid could be repulsed, for their walls were not sufficient to repel such a determined enemy if they pressed the seige. They needed the help of proper fighting men, not only as a garrison but also as a mobile force that, alerted in time, could descend on the raiders and annihilate them. The only way to make safe the whole region was to inflict such reverses on the Saracens that they sought their gains elsewhere.
Constantly rebuffed, the Normans found themselves raiding isolated farmhouses and villages just to survive, and that provided a diet insufficient for the needs of big-boned men who were accustomed to eating well and often, as well as the numerous horses they needed to maintain their fitness to do battle. Such raiding created resentment and made matters worse, till the locals would have been hard put to distinguish between a Norman and a Saracen.
The only people in Calabria who seemed to have full bellies were the Basilian monks, who, like their Church of Rome brethren, had expropriated the best land for the cultivation of both vines and crops, all worked by put-upon peasants. One monastery in particular attracted the attention of Robert de Hauteville: Fagnano was walled enough to repel all but the most determined assault and covered a large area on a high and easily defended hill. This overlooked a fertile, well-watered valley and constituted a perfect site for a castle that could dominate not only the immediate neighbourhood but the entire country for leagues in all directions.
From such a bastion, impregnable if properly constructed, and with small garrisons dotted around the coastal towns, he could create the security the region required, and with that would come control. Fagnano had been raided more than once by Saracens, and reduced to a ruin many times for lack of external support. Robert had offered the monks protection, only to be rudely informed, as they barred their gates in his face, that they looked to God for that, not ruffians from a land of barbarians. Little did they know with whom they were dealing!
‘They are monks, Robert, it would be a sacrilege to force entry.’
Robert looked down at the speaker – he looked down on most people – and scowled. For all his natural good humour, he had been sorely challenged by the task in these parts. Also, he did not like to be argued with any more than he enjoyed being rebuffed by well-fed monks when he was hungry: stripped, he could see too clearly his own ribs.
The man who had said those words, Gartmod, his second in command, was a pious warrior indeed. He came from the Norman town of Eu: at one time, in the first days of Norse occupation, the capital of the whole Normandy province. He had been brought up in the cloisters of the monastery there as an orphan, which had deeply affected him. Robert knew him to be a man who prayed to God more times a day than any Saracen, but he also esteemed him when it came to combat: he was a doughty fellow with both lance and sword, and a dependable subordinate.
‘Do you see anyone around these parts whose spines are not visible on their bellies? Do you see a dwelling that does not let in rain when it pours?’
There was truth in that: the abodes that dotted the landscape, homes to those who worked the land which surrounded the monastery, were modest indeed: there was not a single stone dwelling of any size.
‘If God has chosen to grant prosperity to those who do his work, who are we to se
e fault?’
‘I love our God as much as you do, Gartmod, but he did not grant them the land they live off, they took it by telling the peasants hereabouts that they would show them the way to eternal salvation. What they have done is condemn them to starvation instead. Every one of them looked well fed, but did you see how fat was that abbot, the one who refused me entry? He had a belly like a pregnant sow and that face tells me he takes wine so copiously you could get drunk on his piss.’
‘I still say—’
‘Shall we put it to the vote?’ Robert demanded.
‘I know which way that would go.’
‘Because your confrères have more sense than you.’
‘They are less godly.’
‘Tell me, Gartmod, anyone who isn’t.’
‘The peasants you talk about will not thank you for destroying their monastery.’
‘Who said anything about destroying it?’
‘If not that, then what?’
Robert put aside his slightly belligerent tone, to adopt one more companionable, though even then his voice was gruff. ‘We’ve been here in Calabria a year, my friend, and what have we accomplished? Nothing is the answer. Am I to go back to Melfi and say that we had to abandon all hope of adding this to the territories we Normans control? Every town has denied us entry and we have wandered around looking for a place to settle.’
‘And you want that to be here?’
‘Look at it, Gartmod, it’s perfect. The monastery itself is already formidable, but imagine a castle at the top of that hill with storerooms full of food. We can build quarters to support the kind of force that will make the Calabrians see sense. Look around you at the hills in the distance and imagine beacons atop them. We are no more than ten leagues from the sea in four directions, so we would know of a Saracen raid before they beached their ships.’
‘Then let me speak with them.’
‘You think to succeed where I have failed?’