by Jack Ludlow
These watchtowers radiated out from a quartet of bigger bastions which they were careful to observe from afar, though none with a garrison above perhaps thirty to forty, while half of what they were tasked to protect lay outside the security of the walls: fenced-off pasture for horses and cattle, barns for storing grain and wines, these the very articles Bohemund and his party were intent on destroying. With great care, over three days, marks were annotated on his animal-skin map, working out a plan to both raid and fight; satisfied, the trio rode back into his father’s territory.
CHAPTER FIVE
The following dawn the whole party crossed into the lands of Capua and made for a large farm within long sight of the chosen target, one of the outlying watchtowers. Having turned out the occupants — the tenant and his extended family, who held their land direct from the local magnate and no doubt bore down hard on their peasantry — they rounded up those working in the fields and invited them to loot what goods were stored in the barns. Then they were required to create a pile of hay higher than two men around the buildings, which was soaked with oil and, when laced with tar, set alight, sending, once everything was ablaze, a long pall of black smoke into the air.
Leaving twenty of his men to keep it going, Bohemund, proudly wearing his family surcoat and under his father’s banner, led one conroy to a point at which he could cause the maximum fright to anyone coming from the watchtower to investigate, this a long and wide clearing, noted on his Roman-era maps, in which they would sight his men with enough time to turn and flee. It was close to a farce the way it played out; two slovenly horsemen in stained leather breastplates, armed only with short swords, rode out of the distant trees to see ahead of them a full conroy of ten Norman lances, who immediately dropped their points and began to trot forward, the sound of their battle horn piercing the air. For all the men from the watchtower were on low-grade mounts, they were animals more speedy than those of the men they faced, destriers bred for sturdiness in battle rather than being fleet of foot, rarely set above a fast canter.
Sure they had a good head start, Bohemund called a halt to let his other lances join him, they alerted by the very horns which had induced panic in the men who had fled, and together they rode, without haste, through the dense woods that surrounded the hill on which stood the target watchtower. The bulk of the force remained hidden while Bohemund took his single conroy on to the open ground before that less than formidable structure, there to dismount, remove their helmets and wait.
A quartet of swarthy, unshaven faces greeted their arrival, peering over the parapet, and sure that relief was on the way — if Bohemund had it right a mounted messenger would have gone to gather reinforcements — they were rudely defiant, with a couple balancing on the rim of the wall to show their bared arses. More importantly, one of the others, on sighting their approach, had immediately set light to a pre-prepared and smoky beacon, set in an iron brazier, that rose high above the parapet, the means by which they would alert their neighbouring towers that an enemy was at the door.
At a slow trot and bareheaded, Bohemund rode round the tower outside the range of a cast lance, as if looking for a point at which to attack, a foolhardy notion given the numbers on show. Since his lack of years was obvious at such close quarters he was subjected to many an insult regarding the need to be milk-fed and to have his arse wiped, jibes that were extended to his equally young band of warriors by men who knew they had little to fear. Not that he had any intention to initiate an assault on something an army would bypass; properly manned, even such gimcrack structures could take time to subdue, cost serious wounds and even lives in the taking, which could only be done with ladders or by undermining the walls.
The entrance to the main chamber was well above head height and the ramp that led to it had been withdrawn inside. From there a staircase rose to the fighting platform on top of the tower while an internal walkway led down to the stables and storerooms, probably with enough supplies to hold out for more than enough time to be reinforced. As if nonplussed about how to proceed, and to even louder mockery from the parapet, Bohemund withdrew his men into the woods until they too were out of sight, calling to his entire party to gather round him. Up till now he had not outlined his intentions even to Reynard — wise, given he had no idea if what he had calculated up till now would work. But the reaction so far had been what he had wished for; it was time to describe what he hoped would follow.
‘Why light that beacon?’ Bohemund asked, only to answer his own question. ‘There has to be a local plan of defence that is triggered by any attack on any tower and it is my intention to turn that against our foes.’
As their leader explained his proposal to his young compatriots, he did so with the odd look at Reynard of Eu to see how his words were being received in that quarter. The familia knight did not speak, did not rush to say what the titular leader should do. In that he was following his master’s instruction to give the boy his head unless he proposed something absolutely imprudent and likely to lead to disaster. Many would have accepted such an order and then disobeyed it, but the Guiscard had chosen his man well.
‘The other towers have been alerted by that lit beacon and will be at this moment arming themselves to come to the aid of these fellows yelling insults at us, perhaps with half their number, but they will not just charge to the rescue. When the messenger reaches the castle at Grottaminarda, which must be his destination, the fellow who holds that for Capua will detach a small force that will pick up numbers on the way, sure by the time they reach this point they will be strong enough to drive us off.’
‘Not if we give them battle,’ one of the youngsters cried, a fellow called Ligart with flaming red hair who had proved on the way from Calore to have a touchstone temper, which looked about to flare up as Bohemund shook his head.
‘Not here, Ligart — we will take them on the way, which is why so much time was spent scouting for the best site. This watchtower was not chosen at random; to get to it from the west any relief should pass through a deep-sided and heavily wooded valley and that is where they will meet us.’
‘Thinking we number but one conroy?’ Reynard asked, though in such a way that it was obvious he knew the answer; that was why Bohemund had only let that one group of ten lances be seen.
Bohemund just smiled, not wishing to say that if he was going to impress his father, then it was just as important to demonstrate tactical cunning as the ability to fight and win. ‘That is what they will see facing them, one conroy, but in the trees on both sides, hidden from view …’
The rest was left unsaid, for the reason that to speak it was unnecessary, but Reynard thought he spotted a flaw and it was he who raised it. ‘There must be a signal that tells the supporting towers the one we face is no longer threatened.’
‘I agree,’ Bohemund replied, ‘which is why our squires will stay close and let themselves be seen from time to time wearing mail and surcoats. At a distance they will not look younger than the knights those buffoons on the parapet observed earlier. When the sun goes down they keep lit enough fires just inside the trees to indicate we are still present.’
‘They may sneak out to investigate?’ one voice proposed.
‘No, their safety lies in doing nothing and waiting.’
Speaking softly he outlined the results of his reconnaissance, which included a calculation of how long it would take a hard-riding messenger to cover the nine leagues to Grottaminarda, using frequent changes of mounts from the watchtowers he passed, added to the time it would take to get the lances from the castle to where he intended to meet them, assuming that those that would join en route would be waiting at a prearranged rendezvous.
‘It is close to a day’s march and they may well not rush to get here. However, we must be in position before nightfall this very day, for if they come on with haste, at some time on the morrow they will pass through that valley.’
‘Numbers, Bohemund.’
The young man looked at Reynard. ‘Ho
w many men would you send to see off a band of ten?’
There was time to light fires and cook some food, to be both eaten and taken as rations; roasting and baking would not be possible again until the coming fight was over. While that was taking place every man not overseeing the cooking was set to gathering enough dead wood and brushwood, as well as splitting enough logs, to keep those blazing for a day or more. It helped that from the watchtower they would hear the sound of axes thudding into trees, indicating that perhaps timber was being cut for assault ladders. Once the wood stacks were high enough to satisfy Bohemund he led the fighting men and their mounts away from the tower on foot to minimise any noise.
If it was a warm night, it was one in the new encampment, found by the light of moon and stars, that went without a single flame and that continued after sunrise, for even if they could keep the actual fires hidden, the smoke would rise above the trees and excite curiosity as to their source. Much as he tried to keep it from view Bohemund was palpably nervous, which manifested itself in much unnecessary activity, pacing up and down, constantly checking the equipment of those who were well versed in the ability to maintain it, repeatedly asking about the alertness of the sentinels he had set at the head of the valley, until finally Reynard took him by the arm, hauling him well away from the rest of the men, and insisted he settle, given it could be a long time before any fighting took place.
‘You have done all you can to prepare.’
‘Failure is still possible. What if the relief force chooses another route?’
‘Why would they?’
‘A clever leader may smell a trap.’
‘And if he does?’
‘Then it is I who look the fool.’
‘Fighting always carries that risk, Bohemund. If one plan fails you must conjure up another, and your father would tell you that. God knows he has been forced to often enough.’
Meant to reassure, it just underlined for the younger man the possibility that all his plans would come to nought, which was not aided by a day that dragged by with no sign of an enemy, which meant another night in which all his men could consume was the leftovers of what they had saved from their last cooking. Having called in his lookouts — the relief force would not come on in darkness — he sent them out again in the first grey light, with the feeling that if this day brought no sight of his enemy he must look for an alternative way to proceed. Luckily the sun was barely up before news came of the approaching relief force, added to the opinion they would enter the head of the valley within half a glass of sand at most.
‘Numbers?’
‘Fifty men, all mounted on cavalry horses but with only packhorses as led animals.’
No destriers — moving at speed, then, Bohemund thought, and relying on numbers to chase him away or take him, unless … ‘Normans or Lombards?’
‘Impossible to tell; they are all clad in the colours of Capua.’
‘They cannot be Normans, Bohemund,’ Reynard insisted, as he observed a degree of hesitation. ‘Richard would not so use them.’
‘If they are, I could have a short existence as a leader of men.’
That response was accompanied by a grin, to let everyone who could hear and see know that whatever the composition of those they were going to face, their leader was determined to fight them. Orders were unnecessary, given every lance knew where to go and what to do, those tasked to cross the valley floor departing as soon as their prayers were completed, again walking so as to leave no trace of their passing in the thick grass. Reynard, who would attack with his conroy from the left flank, took a hard grasp of Bohemund’s gauntleted hand and wished him success.
‘That depends on our enemies as much as me.’
‘I have ridden into a fight with the Guiscard many times. This we are about to do has the stamp of his cunning upon it.’
Bohemund led his men, first through the trees and then, at the far end of the valley, out to take a line across the grassed floor. He was not about to assume whoever opposed him was a fool, and the location for his ambuscade had been chosen not only for the narrowness of the valley but also because of its length, which allowed him to ride forward as though he and his men were progressing to the westwards in search of places to plunder, mounted on their cavalry horses and leading their roped-together destriers and pack animals; it was his task to tempt his foe and break up any cohesion by offering them a tasty morsel they could not fail to consume.
How soon would they come into view? — an important consideration given timing was a guess. He needed to be at least halfway up the valley when sighted and with so few men he could spare no one to act as a sentinel and control his own pace to match theirs. It was therefore not surprising for those of his conroy who looked in his direction to observe his lips moving in silent prayer. In his favour was the strong morning sun at his back, so that he saw his enemy starkly before they could quite make out his party, though that was only worth a sliver of time.
He shouted to halt in a way that carried and, he hoped, conveyed surprise and shock, then immediately waved his hand to order a withdrawal as their superior numbers became plain, hauling his own mount round and kicking hard to make it gallop, his men doing likewise, dragging on their lead ropes to bring along his other two mounts, an act which naturally and dramatically slowed the turn. The next bit of his plan required that his enemy indulge in a swift pursuit and Bohemund’s over-the-shoulder gaze was an anxious one.
Whoever commanded was not a man to allow a shapeless charge; down the valley floor the Apulians could hear echoing horns, accompanied by shouted orders as the enemy horsemen fanned out into two lines so that their flanks filled the entire space between the treeline on either side, their aim to ride down and envelop this inferior band. Before long those echoing sounds turned to thundering hooves coming on at a pace which would rapidly close the gap, one which Bohemund, still tugging on his lead rope, watched with concentration. For all the pursuit was swift, it was being carried out in an ordered fashion: if the front line of horsemen was not perfect, it was yet a row of lances acting in unison, getting dangerously close, and that had to be broken up.
The shouted command from Bohemund had his men let loose their destriers and packhorses, not that these animals ceased to dash along with the cavalry mounts, for no horse can see another run without they do likewise, that being instinctive in a prey animal. But roped together they could neither maintain the same speed, nor move in a straight line, so within moments a gap had opened and they were veering right and left, while in one case a pair went over with legs kicking and loud, panicked neighing.
The pursuit now hit that barrier of horseflesh, the riders obliged to swerve to avoid collisions, while they were now chasing men who, having abandoned their encumbrances, were riding as fast as they. With much shouting, the occasional jab of a lance point and even more pile-ups between various forms of horseflesh, the Capuans forced their way through what was now a confused and milling mass. In doing so they broke the continuity of their line and, having forced their horse barrier aside, became bunched in the centre. With all proper formation gone and control impossible by whoever commanded them, the pursuit turned into a ragged mass, in essence a wild charge, with a few lances well out in front of a seething body of horsemen.
The conroys that emerged from the trees let the front runners go by and hit the main concentration of bodies from each flank. Unlike their enemies they were in a perfect formation, moving at exactly the right speed on destriers, the right mounts to impose the maximum impact, while given the way their enemies had clustered into a horde they quite naturally had their lance points facing forwards. The Apulian weapons bore into the mass and drove it inwards, the whole made even more confused as every Capuan fighter sought to get his horse and lance into a position where he might defend himself, often impeding his fellows from saving themselves.
Bohemund’s conroy had spun round and now came into the action as another cohesive force, not with lances but with swinging broad
swords and axes, he amongst all of them doing massive execution, for the anxieties of the last days had disappeared and all his passion was in his right arm. Men went down to be followed by horses that fell or were tripped by their confreres and into that mass of flesh went weapon after weapon, jabbing, slicing and hacking, ignoring the futile attempts to either mount a defence or seek clemency; their victims died because a party that could not take prisoners could give none.
It took Bohemund himself to rescue the one fellow he wanted, a Lombard who shook like a leaf, sure he was going to be slaughtered. He was to be spared; once the fighting was over and the last wounded enemy slain, it would be him that would carry back to Grottaminarda the news that a party of banditti had massacred the men sent to relieve the watchtower. In very little time this would be reported to his uncle by marriage, Prince Richard of Capua, not least that the leader of the men who had carried out this stirring deed was a young fellow of unusual height who went by the name of Bohemund.
Though he could not know it, the fellow he had released to carry the news of the massacre had, to forestall any accusation of cowardice on his part, massively exaggerated Bohemund’s numbers, so for a period they were able to plunder at will through the caution of their opponents. Because of that day, the garrison of Grottaminarda shut themselves up in the castle and looked to hold it rather than launch an immediate reprisal, which left the outer bastions, and especially the isolated watchtowers, at Bohemund’s mercy. If he could not take the bigger outposts, he could destroy that which they could not accommodate within their walls, and when they did come out to contest with him, near match them in numbers and put against their efforts puissant fighters. But such freedom could not last and they were soon made aware of more than one party of well-armed and numerous Norman lances criss-crossing the area in pursuit; those he had to stay clear of.