Conquest

by Jack Ludlow

  ‘Perhaps, when Sichelgaita arrives, she will be able to talk some sense into him,’ said one captain.

  Robert had his wife and child on the way, though not obliging them to keep to the furious pace he had set in the hope of trapping Roger.

  ‘Are you mad?’ another captain replied. ‘She’s more of a warrior than he is!’

  Throughout the day, riders were sent out in all directions, watched from the battlements by Judith. Likewise she saw the preparations for an assault on the walls where she stood: ladders being cut and assembled, the sound of the stone wheel sharpening swords, axes and lance points. Roger would come as soon as he heard his brother was outside Mileto: he was not a man to see others die to save his pride and that was doubly the case when it came to her. That she wished he would desist, that it was not expected by the men he had left behind, who would face what was to come with their accustomed equanimity, counted for nothing.

  She turned to face those lances, who were awaiting her orders, as well as the men stood around the great metal cauldron with a pile of faggots at its base.

  ‘Light the fires. Let’s get that oil bubbling enough to strip skin.’

  The problem for Roger was simple: he was too obvious, given his height, build and colouring, to move around unnoticed, that compounded if he rode at the head of over three hundred lances, displaying as his banner the family blue and white chequer. The second difficulty was that Robert had twice that number of men, and if he was going to induce a stand-off in which matters could be discussed, if not settled, his preferred aim, he needed more warriors – not necessarily cavalry, but in sufficient numbers to induce Robert to talk rather than fight.

  Encamped in the mountains above and to the east of Mileto, with ample wood, water and fodder, Roger was sure, if he could bring that about, he had the means to talk Robert out of his foolishness, unaware that his brother was working on the same principle but seeking the opposite outcome. For all Roger was popular, many had not rallied to his banner as quickly as he wished, leaving him only one choice: a personal plea for their aid.

  ‘There are thirty lances guarding the coast at Gerace.’

  ‘Which is ten leagues from here,’ complained Ralph de Boeuf.

  Roger put his arm round Jordan’s shoulder. ‘Ten leagues would not trouble you, my boy, would it?’

  ‘Never, Papa.’

  ‘Then you will accompany me.’

  ‘And the rest of us?’

  ‘Stay here, Ralph, there are none of Robert’s conroys this side of Mileto.’

  ‘Take an escort, Roger.’

  ‘And wear men out to no purpose? What need do I have of an escort when I have Jordan at my side?’

  Ralph de Boeuf’s expression showed he knew that to be rubbish, but Jordan was beaming, his face so flushed with pride his juvenile spots looked like fire coals. Told to prepare, he rushed off to get their mounts ready, his bright blond hair flying, followed by the admiring eyes of his father.

  ‘I swear he has grown half a hand since we left Mileto.’

  ‘Which makes him just as easy to mark as you. Be careful, Roger, remember your brother is no dimwit.’

  Roger was right, there were none of Robert’s conroys east of the central mountains. What there were, however, were numerous individual riders seeking news of his whereabouts, and even if he avoided towns, he was every inch the Norman knight, while Jordan had an innocence and a pride that meant if he was asked, out of Roger’s earshot, with whom he rode, he was only too happy to tell the enquirer not only his father’s name and title, but where they were headed and why. Pushing their mounts, it was only a day’s ride to the walled town of Gerace, full of Greeks and one which had suffered much in the famine, happy to welcome the man they saw as their liege lord and saviour.

  Normans cared for their horses when they must: Roger and Jordan walked their mounts a third of every league. The fellow informed of their presence and destination had no such consideration. He rode his horse till it nearly dropped, then commandeered another that got him swiftly back to Robert’s encampment. Few grains of sand made it through the neck of the glass before the Duke of Apulia was mounted and on his way with a hundred lances, driving his mounts with the same lack of regard. It was only by the greatest good fortune and a whisker of a wooded hillside that he missed Roger and Jordan, who had spent a whole day and night in Gerace, and were now riding back to their mountain retreat with half the men of the garrison, the rest pledged to follow.

  Robert’s lances were spotted thundering towards the walls and even if they had not known his identity they would have slammed shut their gates. Nothing they subsequently learnt was inclined to alter such thinking: to these Greeks the Guiscard was remembered as a ravaging brigand, for Gerace had met him before. He had not been a duke then, nothing more than a thief, one feared by the citizens of this part of Calabria for the destruction he had wrought.

  ‘You know me and you know what I will do if you do not open your gates.’

  ‘We do know you too well, weasel,’ a voice cried. ‘May the Devil take you!’

  ‘I am your duke.’

  ‘We are loyal to Roger of Mileto.’

  ‘Which I will burn and when I have I shall come to Gerace and do the same.’

  ‘The children of the men you slaughtered before await you, pig.’

  It was a futile exchange: he had no idea if Roger was in Gerace – with just a boy alongside him he would be mad to show himself – and no way of forcing entry with the forces he had to find out, as obvious to those hurling insults as it was to him. Previously he had taken Gerace in a lightning raid which had left the inhabitants, undefended by Byzantium, no time to bar his entry. Blood had been spilt, but that was to be as expected as was the violation of the women – it was a Greek town owing allegiance to Constantinople and he was a Norman seeking plunder. There had been much of that, too, but what he also recalled was the name of one citizen who welcomed him. It was time for a touch of the famous Guiscard cunning.

  Having set up camp far enough away so his fires could not be seen, Robert posted sentinels around the town with instructions to ensure his brother did not sneak away. Having divested himself of his surcoat and mail, with a cowled cloak over his body and head, crouched to minimise his height, he made his way back to the town, sure that folk would be slipping in and out, going about their various errands. He was right: the carts that had come in from the country before he was sighted were sneaking out to return to their outlying farms and it took little effort to creep along the unlit wall and dash through the gap, hidden from those guarding the gate on the other side of a cart.

  Memory helped him find the home of the man he thought most likely to help him, a Bulgar named Brogo, and a man who so hated the Byzantine killers of his people that he had secretly helped Robert to identify those citizens of the town likely to have hidden wealth – a betrayal for which he had been well rewarded, his secondary pleasure being in watching them tortured to reveal their hiding places. Fifteen years is a long time and Brogo had aged much, yet he could not fail to recognise a man of the height and build of the Guiscard, nor did he hesitate to drag him from under the lantern outside his doorway and into his hovel.

  ‘Lord Robert, how I longed to see you come again.’ The man was slobbering over his hand in the most embarrassing fashion, yet Robert knew he must indulge him. ‘I hate the Greeks and I hoped once more you would come to strip them of their gold.’

  Robert wanted to say, recalling what he had plundered here, there had been precious little gold. But he held his tongue on that: there was only one question to which he required an answer.

  ‘Is my brother still in Gerace?’

  ‘No, My Lord, he left this morning before the sun was high.’

  The string of curses that induced, in Norman French, might have been incomprehensible to Brogo but he knew what they portended in a man much given to anger. ‘I have wasted my time, friend, I must away and pursue him.’

  ‘Wait, My Lord, do
you not intend to take Gerace again?’

  In a room with enough candles to see reasonably well, Robert looked at unsavoury Brogo, a thick-necked, round-faced creature who perspired constantly, with misshapen features, broken teeth and breath that would have halted a camel. He had made money from Robert before and it took no great imagination to see that he saw in this visit a chance to repeat his good fortune.

  ‘You cannot depart now, it is not safe.’

  ‘The gates are in use, Brogo,’ Robert growled, ‘how do you think I got here?’

  ‘They will not be so now, all who needed to leave will have done so. But at first light, when the country folk want to come back, as long as your men are not close—’

  ‘They will not be.’

  ‘Then wait till then, Lord Roger, and perhaps you will allow me to offer you food, humble fare to a man of your wealth, but you cannot have already eaten.’

  In truth, Robert was sharp set, having ridden hard and consumed little and, even accustomed to hard service, he was weary. The prospect of a seat at a table and food, risky as it was to be sat here in an enemy town, was too tempting to resist. He threw back his cowl and nodded.

  ‘Very well, Brogo.’

  ‘If you would pay, I could buy food more to your liking.’

  The odour of the place was enough to tell the Guiscard this was no house of plenty, more likely an abode where rotten vegetables were the staple fare. In his absence this man had not prospered, no doubt because, if he hated the Greeks of Gerace, they were not fond of him. Some coin from Robert’s purse produced a shout that brought into view a much younger woman, Brogo’s wife, a dark-skinned creature introduced as Melita. Another shout brought forth an ageing servant so thin and rickety he looked as though he was half starved, he given the coins and sent out to buy meat and wine.

  Robert paid no attention to the way the servant’s lacklustre eyes were fixed on him: the fellow being in a dreamlike state, his only reaction the notion of such a household having a servant at all. Having lost interest in the fellow before he slipped out of the door, Robert was left to listen to a litany of oleaginous flattery mingled with an equally heartfelt damnation of the Greeks who had, in times past, slaughtered his race as they would a flock of diseased chickens. Robert was only half paying attention, so it was he who first heard the rumble outside the door that led to the street.

  Brogo, who had been talking too much to pick up the sound, was stopped by the look of dread in Melita’s black eyes. By the time his jaw dropped it was no longer a rumble but the noise of a yelling mob, their voices echoing off the stone walls of the narrow alleyway, which had Brogo running to slip the wooden bar across his front entrance.

  ‘Where is your servant?’ Robert demanded; the look that received gave full answer. ‘Is he Greek?’

  The pounding at the door had Brogo grab Robert’s arm and propelled him, big as he was, towards the back of the hovel, the man’s wife following, gabbling about their being betrayed. The exit they used was like a trapdoor and Robert had to struggle to squeeze through, with Brogo insisting he should make for the gate and seek to force his way clear, leaving a clear impression: this Bulgar did not want to be anywhere near the Guiscard now, he wanted him out of his sight.

  ‘My wife and I must go to the church and seek sanctuary. Go, Lord Robert, and may God look after you.’

  Half dragging Melita, Brogo scurried away. Robert, given little choice, followed, his head high and his step firm, eventually losing sight of the pair and left to follow as best he could by the noise of their echoing footsteps, while in the background he could hear the increasing sound of yelling and screaming: clearly the size of the mob had increased. Emerging at the end of an alley to look out on the main town square, with the church as always the dominating structure, he saw Brogo and his wife; he also saw that some of the wiser heads in the mob, sensing their quarry would flee, had made for the square to seek them out, filling the space with torchlight.

  Melita tripped on the rough cobblestones of the square, losing her grip on Brogo’s hand. He looked at her briefly, then at the mob now debouching onto the square, many armed, and decided to try and save his own skin. Running for the church doors, stumbling up the steps, he nearly made it, getting only one blow on the closed doors to seek sanctuary before the first club struck him down, the precursor of many. Brogo disappeared under a hail of staves and fists; if he was screaming it was drowned out by the imprecations of those intent on his murder.

  Another crowd cornered Melita, dragging her by the hair and ripping at her clothes until eventually she was naked, her wild black eyes, in the torchlight, full of fear. As many women made up the mob that surrounded her as men, and as they screamed and spat invective, Robert heard the words that damned her as a witch and a whore. By now those battering Brogo had done their worst and moved away from his broken, blood-soaked cadaver, that somehow bringing to the crowd a degree of hush. Then they parted and that skeletal servant was in plain view, slobbering the words that nailed him as the cause of their gathering. His damnation was rambling, but this was a fellow who had witnessed the previous plundering of the town. He had recognised Robert and raised the alarm, firing up their passions by telling the town of the nature of this Bulgar traitor and his whore of a wife.

  ‘Let her die for that which she lived, the slut,’ a woman yelled, a cry taken up by many. From somewhere appeared a pointed stake, standing upright before Melita, like a high fence post, and hands took her and raised her over their head and its point. She screamed in terror at what she knew was coming and squealed in pain as those holding her let her down onto the point, before exerting every ounce of their strength to impale her, satisfied that the point which had entered her vagina erupted out of her ribcage, spewing out bone and gore.

  Robert, sensing escape was now impossible, stepped out of his alleyway to let himself be seen, making those who had been holding the stake on which the now writhing and dying Melita was impaled turn to face him. In the growling and shouting this produced he could make out the words of damnation, along with a litany of his past crimes, so, stepping further forward he held up his hand and in a loud voice commanded silence: it was a tribute to the presence he possessed that it worked.

  ‘People of Gerace, you have me in your power.’

  That brought forth howls of agreement and required him to raise his voice.

  ‘And no doubt you are set on revenge for what you say are my crimes?’ It took an even louder shout to add, ‘But hold a moment and consider.’ He opened his cloak to reveal he had no sword and also used the moment of curiosity created to remove and throw down his knife. ‘Having me at your mercy will tempt you to an error, for if you kill me, what then do you think will happen?’

  He could see in the movement of the crowd that men of better dress and stature were pushing to the fore, elders, holding up their hands to induce calm in their fellow citizens, while behind them there were soldiers by their garb and Normans.

  ‘There would be pleasure in your revenge, but with that comes a price. I have a hundred lances outside your walls, five times that number at Mileto and thousands more in Apulia. Do not, for your own well-being, let your passions rule your heads. Nor would I beg you to forget that I am your liege lord – that Gerace, as did every town in Calabria, swore to obey me.’

  He raised one hand to the heavens. ‘God is watching us now, you and I, and he will observe the breaking of your solemn oath. The men I command will have his blessing to deal with those who sever it, and would it not shame you to slaughter as a mob a single soul who means you no harm, but seeks only his brother? Kill me, if you cannot contain your bile, but know it is a sin that God, and my confrères, will avenge.’

  Robert did not have to say they would all die: they knew it, and such a threat was enough to make them sullen and silent, until a commanding voice spoke, the same one which had damned him from above the gate.

  ‘Take the duke to my house, and not a hair on his head to be hurt.’

>   CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  The gathering of the leading citizens soon turned into a babble of competing notions of what to do next: if fortune had favoured them in the gift of the body of Robert de Hauteville the Devil had cursed them equally. Some wished to just set him free in the hope that in his gratitude there would be no price to pay, others were firm of the opinion that the Guiscard could not be trusted: he would burn Gerace out of pure malice. The sky grew light and the arguments continued, this while outside the walls, at the Norman camp, it had become obvious that their leader was missing and, since he had not left unobserved, even if Robert had not told anyone where he was going, it took no great gift of imagination to discern his destination.

  One of the Norman lances still in Gerace, Odo de Viviers, who had been making preparations to join Roger, witness to the disagreements of the town and mightily fed up with them, slipped out to tell his confrères what had happened. He, at least, had a clear sight of one fact: Gerace, where he had made his home and had a wife and children, could not keep so puissant a lord as the Guiscard; even to hold him too long was to invite total destruction. Robert, or his men, would kill every living thing down to the last cat regardless of how he was finally treated.

  That continuing, unresolved discussion was brought to an abrupt end when the elders were informed that there were Normans outside their gates seeking parley. If they wondered at how quickly these warriors had found out about their prisoner it made little difference: they could not give him up for fear of immediate reprisals and they could not keep him for the same reason. Assurances that no such thing would happen were dismissed. As one elder put it succinctly to Robert’s most senior subordinate, ‘Such decisions are not yours to make, fellow.’

  Dire warnings about what would occur should Robert be harmed changed nothing: those voices that wanted him hung from the walls were fatalists who suspected that they had done enough to be sure of bloody retribution so they might as well rid the world of a human devil before they, too, went to meet their Maker. Men who thought themselves more sage in counsel argued the opposite. Odo de Viviers, still outside the walls, was succinct in his advice to Robert’s captains.