by Smith, Skye
The main advantage that your galley has over the longship is the height of this oar deck. The best use of that height is to kill or injure the other ship's oarsmen with missiles such as stones, spears, and arrows. The arrows are best because they have the longest range.
Why waste the lives of your own men by boarding someone else's ship and facing defensive swords and axes. Instead, use arrows to rob them of their oarsmen so they cannot flee, and then stay out of range of their grapples, and keep killing them until they surrender.
If you think that this practice was an embarrassment, then you have missed the lesson. The Norman fight by boarding ships, just as you expected to. The lesson is that if you want to beat the Normans then do not fight by their rules. Every man on your ship must have a bow or a sling, and you must use them to weaken the Normans before there is any boarding."
Many of the captains called out to Selvo and once he understood what they were calling he held up his hand to silence them and said to Raynar, "They complain that archery is a skill that needs years to perfect."
Raynar smiled and replied. "We are not talking about archery contests and splitting wands. We are talking about close range butchery. Oarsmen already have the strength of back, shoulders, and arms to draw a powerful bow. Those that are not strong enough for bows can use crossbows. In either case, a week of practice will be enough for close range butchery."
This simple truth silenced the protests, so he told them more. "This practice has also pointed out a critical point of strategy. Again I mention our roof of shields. If the longship has no spare warriors on board to shield the oarsmen, then the oarsmen must stop rowing to hide or shield themselves. This means that if you can come within arrow range of such a ship, then she is yours."
The captains were now all busy talking to each other and each one of them wanted the attention of the Doxe, so Raynar took a walk to the bow. There were a half dozen oarsmen laid out on the deck with broken bones and bloody bruises from the beating they took when Raynar had crashed into their oars. The only one he could help was a lad with a dislocated elbow, which he pulled back into its socket. The rest would have to bear their pain until they reached the dock.
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The Hoodsman - Popes and Emperors by Skye Smith
Chapter 12 - Maria's brother returns to Venice in May 1081
There were shrieks of delight from women's voices and they were coming from downstairs. Maria and Raynar rushed down the stairs to see what was happening, but that turned into a mock race that included much tickling and holding and more than a few kisses. Maria was the first to reach the ground floor landing.
"What are you doing back so soon?" she asked.
Over her head Raynar saw her two brothers being hugged by their wives. The two brothers who had left on a trading mission to Egypt to buy endless supplies of cotton for Maria's linen-cotton venture.
One of the brothers ignored the question for now, because his wife was making him very welcome. The other said, "The Norman ships are all over the Straits of Otranto. What was the use of fighting our way through, if it meant that we would have to fight our way back while loaded down with cargo? We decided instead to come home and report it to the Doxe."
Maria turned and was blocked by Raynar. "Move! Upstairs! We must dress and go to the Piazza. This news will be all over Venice by now.” She pushed around him, because he was more interested in what more the brothers had to say. Well let him. It would take her longer to dress than him, in any case.
"How many ships?" asked Raynar.
"Hundreds."
"Be more specific. How many. What type. Were they carrying soldiers, or horses, or cargo, or were they just patrols."
"We cannot say. We were over on the Illyrian side, staying far away from Norman ports. That is why we did not go on. There were so many Norman ships on the Illyrian side. Not patrols. All carried men. Perhaps two dozen longships. The rest were smaller. Some very small and in tow."
That was enough news for now. Maria was right. They must get to the Piazza. Only there would the news from different ships and crews come together. One thing was sure. Ships packed with men towing smaller ships meant that the Normans were landing somewhere. Some harbour or beach that was easily defendable. The start of an invasion. Venice's nightmare was coming true.
He yelled through the house for Flint, Ned, and Buck, telling them to dress for the Piazza and bring their crook-bows along. It wouldn't hurt to take a bit of muscle and some staffs into the crowd just in case they needed to keep Maria from being jostled about. Maria, in the meantime, had arranged for a boat.
* * * * *
Never had he seen so many people in one place except around a battle site. The Piazza was jammed. He was so glad he had brought the lads. They formed a phalanx for Maria to walk inside, with Maria yelling out to the crowd ahead of them to make way, make way. They got within twenty paces of the Doge's palace before the crowd got so thick that there was no way they could push further.
The din was astonishing. He had to yell to Maria, right beside him, for her to hear his words. He was just about to give up on the center of this crowd and make his way to the palace docks so at least he could hear any gossip that was being traded, when the Doxe came out onto his balcony. The noise dropped, and everyone looked around to see why, and it dropped again, and again, until it was just a murmur and every eye in the Piazza was on the Doxe.
"Citizens," he yelled out. "You must remain calm. The Normans have not blockaded the strait, they are just using it at the moment to invade Illyria. At this moment my envoy is boarding a ship bound for Apulia to discuss this with Robert Guiscard. We will be asking for assurance of safe passage for Venetian ships, and I am sure he will give it. For now, relax and enjoy life, and postpone trading ventures that would take you beyond Dyrrhachium in Illyria."
The Doxe stepped backwards into the shadows and was lost from view. Maria grabbed Raynar's elbow before the noise could rise again, and told him, "Quick, take me to the Arsenal before this crowd disperses and clogs the ways.” The fastest way to the Arsenal, what with all the construction around the Piazza, was to back track to the palace dock, and hope that their boatmen were still waiting for them.
They heard some more gossip at the palace dock, but nothing worth tarrying for. Their boatmen had seen Maria and pushed their narrow boat through the hundreds of other small boats that were waiting, and picked them up. They reached the Arsenal ahead of anyone else who may have had the same idea. Yes indeed there was a ship preparing to sail, one of the largest galleys, and it was crewed for battle, not trade. To his great satisfaction Raynar noticed that every man walking across the gangplank was carrying a bow of some type. Perfect.
That was not what interested Maria, however. She tugged at him and they ran together much further out on the jetty that formed the protected harbour. There was a galley approaching and it was not flying a Venetian pennant. "It's Byzantine," Maria told him. "And I will give you odds that it is from Dyrrhachium. Come quick. Back to the envoy's ship."
"What?" Raynar took in the strange Byzantine vessel while he caught his breath. "Make up your mind woman."
"You must go aboard the envoy's ship and find out what is happening?"
"That ship is about to leave," Raynar replied. "They won't let me aboard."
"You are a citizen now, remember. And the captains all know you. The captain of that ship will think that the Doxe has sent you. Besides, that ship won't leave until after the Doxe had spoken to whoever is on the Byzantine ship."
Against his better judgement, Raynar allowed himself to be dragged along by Maria, and when he told the lads what she expected of him, they began to laugh and say things like, "don't do it Ray. Once they get you on board, they will force you to pull an oar.” Which was too close to his own fears to deny. The last thing he wanted was to be attached to the envoy's mission to dicker with the Normans.
Maria was proven correct. No one questioned his right to st
ep off the gangplank and onto the ship. The captain even waved to him to join him on the steering deck. He was standing with a short round merchant, richly dressed, who could only have been the envoy. As soon as Raynar made the steering deck he stated the obvious, just so that he would seem wise, "Don't be in a hurry to set sail Captain. That ship coming in is from Dyrrhachium, and the envoy should know the message it brings before he departs."
The captain was fluent in Greek for most Venetian trade involved the Byzantine, and he nodded his understanding and thanked him. He yelled down to his men in Venetian, and Raynar now knew just enough of the language to understand that he had just delayed the departure of the ship.
Since there was now no hurry for him to leave this ship, he sauntered along the oar deck, the outrigger deck, looking at the men, and more particularly looking at the wide selection of different bows they had brought aboard. And then he saw it. He saw the very type of Byzantine bow that he had once won in battle, the very day back in '66 when he had first made friends with Hereward.
With his poor Venetian he complemented and admired the bow and convinced the young oarsman to allow him to try it. The men around were bored by the delay in the sailing and one of them lodged his small shield against the gunnels near the gunnels serve as a target. Raynar strung it, and while he was doing so, the owner saw the calluses on his string fingers and called to his friends that this was not just a silly nob about to shoot his bow, but an experienced archer.
More of the oarsmen crowded around, while Raynar selected some arrows. They were light arrows, hunting arrows, not armour piercing arrows. Raynar backed towards the stern until he was as far from the shield target as possible, and then in one fast and graceful movement, knocked, drew and loosed. His first arrow was close to the center of the small shield, and the onlookers cheered.
He called the owner of the bow to come to him, while he himself searched in his purse for something. When he found what he was looking for he showed them to the lad. Short ribbons of lead. He showed the lad how to crimp one around the shaft behind the point and tried to explain that this would increase the short range power, but the lad was not understanding his explanation in very limited Venetian.
He gave up trying to explain and instead knocked the now heavier arrow, and took another shot at the shield. This time instead of sticking into the wood of the shield, it split the wood of the shield and pinned the shield to the gunnels. The owner of the shield ran to fetch it, with outrage and complaints at the ruining of his shield, but the other oarsmen mobbed around his shield to see the effect of the arrow. Since the shield was now ruined anyway, they convinced the now shieldless oarsman to leave it as the target.
A group of oarsman crowded around Raynar to see what he had done to arrow to make such a difference in power. Raynar had only a half dozen ribbons of lead left in his purse, but he doled them out to other archers, who then raced to get their own bows and try them out. While they were doing that, Raynar excused himself and left the ship. With Maria in tow he hurried to one of the shipwork's smithy sheds, the closest one he could see with smoke rising from it.
It took them moments to explain what they needed for the galley, the galley that was about to sail into Norman waters. The last one of his lead ribbons, which Raynar now showed to the young smith, spoke volumes. The junior smith grabbed some waste lead from a bin, and quickly pounded it thin with his hammers and then cut it into ribbons with his widest chisel. Less than an hour later, Raynar handed a heavy sack of lead ribbons to the owner of the Byzantine bow, to distribute to his friends.
In the space of that hour, a party of well dressed Greeks from the Byzantine galley had come aboard, and with them the Doxe and a few of his councilors. Without drawing attention to himself, Raynar moved slowly and calmly until he was within earshot, and standing beside the captain of this galley.
The captain gave him a nod. He was obviously bored and impatient to be away before they lost the wind and the tide. He whispered, "What were you showing my archers?"
Raynar fished for one of the lead ribbons and gave the captain one to look at. "I just gave your men a goodly weight of these and showed them how to use them. By adding them to an arrow, they turn a long range target arrow into a short range killer. The extra weight of the lead reduces the range but adds punch enough to defeat mail. Ship to ship fighting is short range work."
The captain tossed the ribbon of lead once and then put it into his own purse. "I thank you for this. We need to know more of these simple tricks. I have noticed in my life that most professions keep a few simple tricks about their work a secret, so that you cannot do their work so easily for yourself."
"And what are the nobles discussing?" Raynar whispered. "And why here and not at the palace."
"The Doxe was a silk trader before he became a politician. He is bargaining. The Byzantine envoy is no other than George Palaeologus, the Emperor's cousin, and Governor of Illyria. He just came from his capital in the city of Dyrrhachium. He fears that the Normans will soon be marching towards his city from their beach head in Avalona. By making George realize that this galley's mission is to strike a treaty of passage with the Normans, the Doxe hopes to be offered great things by the Empire in return for making trouble for the Normans instead."
George was now speaking, and Raynar blessed the long winter nights that he had passed learning Greek from the old Bishop of Durham. "Guiscard cannot go around Dyrrhachium, he must take it. Otherwise it will always be a threat to his supply lines. Dyrrhachium is at one end of a good Roman built highway that stretches all the way to Constantinople. If he does not take the city soon, then all the power of the Emperor will be coming at him down that highway and he will have no choice but to retreat to his ships."
"My answer is the same," replied the Doxe. "We do not understand why the Byzantine Navy cannot dispense with the Norman fleet. How many large ships did you say they had. One hundred and fifty, of which a third are animal barges. The Byzantine Navy can rally that many ships in a week, and destroy them with your Greek fire."
"Venice is closer than Constantinople, and besides, the Normans are blockading both of Illyria's main harbours. What port would our navy use for a base? We cannot, ....." George had turned away and the next words were not clear.
The captain put his head close to Raynar’s and said. "The Byzantines don't want to risk their navy against the Normans for they cannot risk a possible loss. They would much rather that we and the Normans sink each other's fleets, and leave their navy supreme in the straits."
The Doxe was speaking again. "This is between your Emperor and the Normans. It is nothing to us. It is in the interests of both of your fleets to keep us friendly by allowing the free passage of our ships. Unless. Wait." The wiley Doxe pretended to be lost in thought. "Perhaps free passage is the answer. If you were to sign a treaty that allowed Venetian ships free passage in all Byzantine ports, and by that I mean tax free, then we would be allies in trade, and then it would be in our own best interest to destroy the Norman fleet."
"What you ask is above my position to grant you," purred George. "I can only promise you free trade with Illyria. Only the Emperor can grant this for every port. Be reasonable. It will take a month to get such an agreement from Constantinople."
Raynar whispered to the Captain, "Why doesn't the Doxe bargain for treasure? Why not ask for a chest of Byzantine gold, along with any Norman ship or treasure that the Venetian fleet captures?"
"Pah," replied the Captain. "You think small Englishman. You think short term. With free trade with the Empire, Venice would become the richest port on the Mediterranean. None of the other ports, not even Genoa, could compete with our tax-less prices."
The discussions went on longer, but then abruptly stopped. The Doxe invited the Byzantines to be guests at his palace, so that his envoy to Guiscard could depart.
"Fair winds and flat seas," said Raynar to the ship's captain and followed the Doge across the gangplank. He was grabbed by Maria as soon as his fee
t touched solid land.
"What did they say? What is to happen?" she asked him over and over with much more insistence than was necessary. He reminded himself of the abbot's warning on his first day in Venice. 'Why is an agent of Flanders, staying with a family that is an agent of the Germanies?' Was she pumping him for information so that she can pass it on to Emperor Henry of the Germanies?
"Shhh," he said. "This is not the time or place for the telling. I will tell you in bed when we are alone." A slow smirk crossed his face at the thought of how else she may pump him tonight.
"At least tell me who the Byzantine lord was."
"Later love. For now, let's get away from all these crowds. He waved to his men to create a phalanx with their staffs so that they could all follow in the wake of the Doxe's guests.
* * * * *
That night, once she made sure that his third leg would limp for a week, Maria again asked him questions about what happened onboard the galley. He told her everything. Maria kept her silence until he had finished.
"But all they have done is taken a first bargaining position," Maria complained. "Nothing was decided. The message that our envoy will take to the Normans will not have changed."
"Not true, love. Because of what we did at the smithy's, that crew is better prepared to fight off a boarding."
"You know what I mean. Now everyone will have to wait until Emperor Alexius decides to bargain with the Doxe. Meanwhile, our trade with Egypt is blocked."
"Trade, is that all you care for, woman? If the Doxe gains this free trade treaty, then every able man in Venice will be dragged aboard galleys to go and fight the Normans. I've been there. I've done that. You could very well lose every one of them. The Normans are fiends in battle. The only way that I have ever beaten them is by ambush and cunning, and that was on a tiny scale compared to what the Doxe will be facing."