Son of Blood c-1

by Jack Ludlow

  He found the best way to achieve this was to disburse Richard’s possessions, in truth those of his vassals, back to the local population, who ever struggled under the burdens imposed on them by rapacious overlords and the tenanted villeins. Thus he set around his immediate area of operations a cordon of watchful peasants, who, on receipt of his largesse, having immediately hidden his gifts from those who would seek to reclaim them and hang them for possession, hailed him, with an insincerity he took for granted, as a saviour. The promise of more to follow turned them into his eyes and ears.

  Even gifted that, he could not apply incessant pressure. Horses cannot be ridden endlessly, especially in hot weather; they require to be fed and watered more than once daily as well as walked for long periods when active, but they also need pasture and a day or two of rest, for to deny them such is to have them break down and become useless. The men who ride them are no different; for all their endless training it did no gifted leader any good to push his fighting men to the point of exhaustion, quite apart from the need for a force, unsupported by the attributes that came with a proper army, to see to their equipment.

  If harness and saddles suffered, so did bodies, even young ones, from constant activity. Then there were minor wounds, for few of the places they had attacked and been offered battle had surrendered without a fight and it was a measure of those they came up against — never Normans, but Lombards — that they had come this far without a single fatality. Making camp and resting was a necessity and the best place to set up was by a river, in this case a small stream, for that provided shade on the wooded banks, water for the mounts, the means to wash them down and cool them when the sun was high, as well as a source of the same commodity to those who rode them. It also served as a latrine that did not send the smell of a band of men wafting across the countryside.

  It was axiomatic that at such times they were at their most vulnerable and Bohemund was well aware of the risk, ensuring that comfort was mixed with ability to move quickly — men were required to remain in their chain mail — so when news came from his peasant watchers that a strong party of Capuan knights were seeking him out and too close by for comfort, he prepared to make a hurried departure. The mounts were quickly roped, bridled and saddled, the packhorses loaded and cooking fires covered with earth to kill them, with the lances ready to depart when Reynard of Eu spotted the single rider with the sun at his back, who had crested a not too distant rise then stopped, a pennant flapping on his lance, stiff on a southerly breeze.

  ‘Red and black surcoat,’ the familia knight said, a hand shading his eyes. ‘Richard’s colours, but not on his lance pennant — that is white.’

  Bohemund waited for Reynard to say something else but the older man did not oblige.

  ‘I would guess he desires to parley,’ Bohemund responded, which got nothing more than a nod.

  ‘If we linger here and talk, that may expose us to those seeking us out.’ That too was received in silence, leaving Bohemund to continue and articulate the obvious conclusion. ‘A white pennant would imply a truce, that while we parley no action will be contemplated?’

  ‘True,’ Reynard replied, but in such a way that still left the decision to Bohemund, with the obvious qualification that nothing could be guaranteed; offers of parley were not always reliable. The temptation to seek advice was strong and the young man knew if he asked it would be freely given and with no hint of a sneer. Reynard was a good man and a steady one who had, since they crossed in Capuan territory, never so much as by a look seriously questioned any orders he had been given and had often, quietly and out of earshot, brought the more boisterous of the small band, men like Ligart, to a better way of discipline and respect for their confreres. Bohemund also knew that the close party hunting them was to the south and that there were heavily forested uplands to the north into which his band could disappear.

  ‘If he has come to talk it is to me,’ he said finally, biting his lower lip as he contemplated what to do. ‘That I must do, Reynard, but I am not minded to risk anyone else. I would suggest you take the men north. I will take one of the squires to act as messenger, once I know what this fellow, and his master, are after.’

  For the first time since leaving Calore Bohemund saw a definite flicker of doubt in Reynard’s eyes; if Richard of Capua wanted to talk it was a fair guess that it would be an attempt to detach him from service to his father. If it had never been discussed, it had been anticipated as a possibility and Reynard was thinking that if anyone should be alongside the youngster now it was he, for that would kill off any temptation to accede to Capuan blandishments.

  ‘You know what he will offer you, Bohemund?’

  ‘Yes, Reynard, he will offer me the Dukedom of Apulia, with his aid.’

  ‘And if you were to accept?’

  ‘I would be betraying my father and my family.’

  ‘It is tempting nevertheless.’

  ‘Is it?’ Bohemund responded, his voice showing a rare degree of irritation, for he was by nature calm in his speech. ‘To have what is mine by right given to me by another hand and one who would expect me to be his vassal for the prize. That is not a temptation to which I am inclined to succumb, especially when, weak and in his debt, he would want to take it away from me in turn.’

  Reassured, Reynard nodded. ‘Be careful, Bohemund.’

  ‘I will be that,’ the youngster replied as he mounted his riding mare. ‘But know this: if it appears I am tempted, I do so on instruction from my father, who told me this might occur and also advised me how to proceed.’

  ‘And that is?’

  ‘Slowly, Reynard, very slowly.’

  That made Reynard grin, for he should have thought of that; when it came to being devious, few could play the game better than the Guiscard.

  CHAPTER SIX

  At the very moment when Bohemund was riding towards the parley, his father was lying in his bed, wracked by the effects of a horrific fever, his body shaking and sweat pouring off his naked frame, with Sichelgaita bent over him seeking to ease his discomfort with cloths which had been dipped in iced water, wondering whether instead of that as a remedy her husband should be shipped to the underground icehouse where there were still enough blocks left over from the winter supply to make it seriously cold. The Greek physician attending advised against that, convinced the malaise was escaping from the ailing body through a combination of perspiration and loose defecation; a cold atmosphere would not be beneficial.

  The smell in the room was of overpowering corruption, for the mighty Guiscard had soiled his bed more than once like a mewling child, and the discharge by its colour and deathly odour indicated that the malady was horrendous enough to be fatal. Retching produced nothing but a trickle of bile, for without food there was little for his stomach to emit. He was dipping in and out of consciousness and gabbling, ranting in a way that sounded as though his mind was as troubled as his body.

  Curses were heaped upon foes real and imagined, Robert speaking for and against them in a frenzied dialogue, some of the names human and known to those attending, others imagined creatures sounding like demons from the depth of hell as he screamed imprecations that made no sense to those listening, this while a relay of priests prayed continually for his troubled soul. For a warrior who had faced many battles in his time and had shaken off sicknesses as a dog shakes off water, it was clear this was one of the greatest challenges he could face.

  His wife was in discomfort too, for, regardless of the heat of the day, she had ordered braziers to be lit and herbs to be burnt on them to relieve the malodorous stink, which she was sure was making her husband’s condition worse. When torches, oil lamps and candles were added after the sun went down it turned the sickroom into an oven, for the drop in temperature was not great; a scorching day was followed, as clouds gathered to trap the heat rising from the baked earth, by a humid night. Her garments were soaked and her long blonde hair, normally braided, hung limp along her cheeks as she mouthed quiet prayers
to all the saints she knew to intercede and make her man well again.

  ‘Lady,’ the physician whispered, ‘a messenger has come from the Master of the Host to say that the sickness that affects the Duke is within the town and spreading. He has moved out the mounted knights to surrounding farms but he seeks permission to order outside of the walls every citizen of Trani their master has listed for conscription. He insists he needs to preserve the strength of the army.’

  ‘Take back the message that he must act as he sees fit,’ Sichelgaita replied, her cracked voice betraying her own near exhaustion; she had been at Robert’s bedside for over eighteen turns of the glass and had not eaten or drunk anything in that time, ignoring the advice to rest lest she too succumb. Then, as the import of what had been said to her sank in, she grabbed the man by the sleeve. ‘The sickness is spreading?’

  ‘It is most rampant in the port, though I am told some cases have begun to surface in the upper town. The priests and mendicant monks are doing what they can, but for some it is giving nothing more than last rites.’

  ‘Many have died?’

  ‘Several dozen I am told.’

  Sichelgaita had been bent over the troubled body, sometimes required to physically restrain her husband lest his writhing throw him to the floor, and as such she had addressed the physician eyeball to eyeball. Now she stood up and towered over him, her blue eyes boring into his, her sweat-soaked face flushed so her cheeks seemed on fire, and such was the effect of the flickering light and her own appearance that the man, no stranger to shocking sights and fearsome wounds, or even angry patients, took two paces back, alarm on his face.

  ‘Never mind the conscripts; if death is around us we must get my husband and my son to somewhere that is safe.’

  The Greek responded with a gesture of open hands, a signal that such thoughts were futile. ‘Who knows where that is, Lady?’

  ‘Is there any word of the sickness from any other place?’

  ‘I do not think it has been reported elsewhere.’

  The voice boomed out, with no particular person in mind, as Sichelgaita ordered the servants present to first find out, then to organise a litter and enough men to carry it in relays, plus a message to her eldest son, already outside the walls with his father’s familia knights, to make his way to the road leading south, bringing them with him as escort.

  ‘To move him could be hazardous, Lady.’

  ‘To keep him here could be worse.’ Then she yelled at those she had ordered to make arrangements, few of whom seemed to have reacted as she wanted them to. ‘In the name of Christ risen, move!’

  ‘Prince Richard asks that you accompany me to his castle of Montesarchio, where you will be received with all honour.’

  It was notable to Bohemund that his uncle by marriage had sent one of his own race with the message, not a Greek or someone spouting Latin; was there some kind of statement in hearing the communication in Norman French? The fellow, however, did not look like a fighting man; the face was unmarked and smooth, more like that of a priest perhaps, even though he was armed with both lance and broadsword. Unheard of in Italy, he could indeed be a cleric, for the Norman divine saw no disgrace in being fighting men as well as members of the clergy. For such a breed it was in order to smite their foes and then see their souls into the afterlife.

  ‘And my conroys?’ Bohemund demanded.

  ‘Will be accommodated as guests too.’

  ‘How do I know Prince Richard won’t just slit my throat, and theirs, once I am inside the walls?’

  The smile was meant to point up the absurdity of such a notion. ‘Nothing would bring down the wrath of your father quicker than that his son should be in any way harmed, quite apart from the custom of our race that no guest can suffer indignity, regardless of how much he is seen as an enemy, when he is inside the walls of a castle by invitation.’

  ‘And what does Prince Richard want to say to me?’

  ‘I am too humble to even pretend to guess.’

  ‘You don’t look humble.’

  That got a half bow, to acknowledge that his manner was, if anything, haughty.

  ‘Perhaps if I was to outline the alternative, which is that you will be pursued until captured by a level of force you cannot overcome and taken into my master’s presence in chains, while your conroys might suffer the fate of those who burn and plunder, the ignominy of dying at the end of a rope.’

  ‘I would not be taken alive.’

  The messenger, by the expression that appeared on his face, took that for what it was, an idle boast; few men chose death when life was possible. Bohemund wanted to tell him to return with a flat refusal, added to that a message to underline the difference between a threat and its implementation; they had not caught him and his band yet and it would not be any easier for them in the future as long as he kept moving and the peasants remained happy with free grain, oil and wine. But to do so would fly in the face of his father’s instructions. That accepted, it seemed to him foolish to take his lances with him; even if the laws of hospitality were applied, as soon as they rode out to resume marauding Richard’s possessions, their location would be impossible to keep from those pursuing them, for the Prince would have them closely followed, to ensure they left his patrimony and went back from whence they came.

  ‘I will accept, my men will not.’

  That got a shrug, as if his lances were of no account; was it meant to flatter him by making him feel important, or genuine indifference? Bohemund surmised he would never know, so he spun his mount to return to the messenger he had brought, a squire who held the reins of his packhorse and destrier.

  ‘Go back to Reynard and tell him I am going to meet and talk with the Prince of Capua. I will rendezvous with him in four days by the River Calore, where we last camped seven nights past, and him alone — he is not to risk the conroys. If I do not, I leave it to him to either continue raiding or return to my father to tell him I am not at liberty to act as I wish.’

  ‘And these?’ the man asked, indicating the horses.

  ‘Keep them. I am to be a guest of a prince, so they can provide for my needs and I doubt I will require a destrier on which to fight.’

  It did not take long on the road to Bari for Sichelgaita to realise that, even on a well-maintained old Roman surface and with much care and frequent changes of bearers, her husband was suffering from the rocking of the litter. Hurriedly a messenger was sent back to Trani to requisition a galley to meet them at the fishing settlement close to Bisceglie. With great care and using two boats to form a wide stretcher, the Duke of Apulia was taken out and, after the making of a cat’s cradle of ropes, a crane was employed to get him aboard and laid flat amidships. On pain that he would suffer as much as the patient, the master then had another rig made that left the board suspended and that took out the effect of the rise and fall of the sea, while an awning was added to keep the blazing sun off the Duke.

  Sichelgaita had sent more than one message; she had despatched dozens by her husband’s familia knights, calling on all of Robert de Hauteville’s senior vassals to gather in Bari, and if she did not say why, once word spread of the Duke’s condition it would not take a genius to work out what his duchess wanted. Riders had also been sent ahead to the destination with instructions to prepare to receive their lord and for every available physician to be in attendance, so by the time the galley passed through the water gate and drew up alongside the great stone quay a huge crowd had gathered to gaze at the still fevered body of their overlord.

  ‘How many have come here hoping he is dead?’

  That enquiry came from the Guiscard’s son and, as far as his mother was concerned, Robert’s undoubted heir. Sadly it underlined a truth: that in such a Greek city as Bari his father was far from universally loved. It was not too many years past since many of those gathered had been reduced to near starvation by his four-year-long siege. Prior to that they had jeered at him from their massive — and they thought impregnable — walls and ca
lled him shoddy and a fool as well as many more and less flattering things besides. The siege had lasted so long because Robert, without a fleet, could not cut off access to the sea, meaning that Byzantium could resupply the jewel in its Apulian territory with all it needed to resist.

  Most men would have given up after a year of no progress, but not the Guiscard. He found a way to cut off the city by ringing it with a wall of small trading vessels, all attached to each other by wooden gangways to form a solid and defensible bulwark. It had not held entirely when attacked but it had so diminished the relief efforts as to bring on hunger, disease and discontent, and that induced enough of the minds of those inside to see the only way to end it was to bow the knee to the Normans. To aid this Robert had his spies, as well as a small number of supporters within the walls, men who thought to prosper by surrender.

  With a population close to revolt, those adherents took one of the main towers and that allowed the final Norman assault to prevail to the point where capitulation was the only option; the Byzantines in the garrison were obliged to flee. Robert entered the opened gates to a grovelling plea to be spared what their intransigence deserved: rapine and sack till not one body remained breathing. They had misjudged their conqueror — he was no angel of death, but a shrewd ruler disinclined to make enemies where it was unnecessary.

  Not only did he spare them a massacre, but since the city fell their new master had been benign, allowing the leading citizens who had opposed him to keep their trades and positions, ensuring many of the privileges Bari enjoyed were maintained so that the port retained its wealthy trade and important revenues. In another setting the community would have been content but, as ever, it was religion that made true concord impossible; the Greeks resented the new cathedral Robert ordered built, for inside that would be performed the Latin Mass, conducted by celibate priests, while the monks and divines that came with the Normans worked hard to proselytise their version of the Christian faith.