Warriors (20 page)

‘If you were a man you would be dead by now,’ Rainulf responded, his eyes now so narrowed that they disappeared into the purple folds of his face.

Berengara tilted her head and sneered. ‘If I were a man you would have been dead years ago, Rainulf, and the rest of your Norman pigs as well. I’d rather trust a Saracen than you—’

‘Stop,’ Guaimar shouted, though whether at his still-wailing daughter or his sister no one could initially tell. ‘Sister, you go too far.’

‘Brother,’ she replied, as Sichelgaita took to whimpering: the shout had alarmed her. ‘You have never gone far enough.’

‘A ruler cannot always do that which he wishes, however tempted he might be.’ There would have been silence, if it had not been for the sound of Rainulf Drengot storming out of the chamber. ‘There goes the only hope I had, Berengara, of enforcing my will on
those gathered here, and not for the first time your tongue has run ahead of your brain.’

‘I will not be chastised for speaking the truth.’

‘I think the problem is, sister, you have never been chastised for anything, but I tell you, this day you have forfeited something, and I think you may come to regret it. Now, leave me, all of you, and someone go to William de Hauteville and ask him if he would attend upon me.’

‘William,’ Guaimar said, in a friendly tone, ‘are you unwell? You look pale.’

‘A fever, no more. It will pass.’

‘It has come to the point where you and I must talk.’

Not willing to let him forget, William responded. ‘Have we not talked in the past?’

The prince nodded, even if he looked less than pleased to be reminded of the divide-and-conquer game he had played between William and Rainulf. But he was still the most powerful lord in Campania, so he was not about to let pass such an obvious admonishment. His voice was sleek with insincerity as he responded, saying to this Norman very much the same as he had earlier said to his sister.

‘The needs of state come before private inclinations.’

‘And that is more true now than when I sought your help.’

Guaimar had to look away then: this damned Norman had found a sharp way to tell him the boot was now on the other foot. ‘You did not speak at the great gathering, as others did.’

‘I had nothing to say.’

‘You must have…’ Guaimar waved his arms, as if the word would not come.

‘You have changed since first we met.’

Both would have little trouble in recalling that encounter, with William forcing the young man, an innocent in negotiation, to be open about that which he wished to conceal. How different Guaimar was now: as devious and conniving as every other Lombard magnate in the south of Italy.

‘I was a disinherited youth then. I am not that now.’

‘No, you are a man and a prince, but if you can recall that first meeting you will also remember that I am not one to waste my breath, nor am I inclined to weave spells before making my case. I prefer to talk plain and to the point.’

‘Are you daring to rebuke me for the way I go about my affairs?’

‘I am daring to say to you that you have in mind words to use. Offer me what you have so that I may judge its worth. I am too weary for your sport.’

‘You are so sure I have something to offer?’

‘I am sure you have no choice but to make me one.’

‘You get above yourself,’ Guaimar replied, with a hiss, for the first time letting his frustration show.

‘Is it really necessary for me to spell out that which you already know, that you have no power in Apulia unless I agree to it? I asked you to remind Rainulf of his obligation to me in the matter of the succession to Aversa, but you chose to play the prince and deny my claim. Now I can claim what I want.’

‘No, William, you can make a claim but it will have no legitimacy unless I agree. Swords and lances count for much, but they do not count for everything. You may choose to give yourself a title, you may accept the acclamation of those you lead, but it will be a bastard one unless you have a suzerain.’

‘I will settle for a title that matches that of Rainulf.’ Guaimar was nodding, but that stopped as William added, ‘So will my brothers.’

‘What!’

‘Land and titles.’ He nearly said ‘except Robert’, but decided not to bother. ‘And then, whatever elevation you visit upon yourself, we will kneel before you and swear fealty.’

‘What about the port cities?’

‘Give them free status. You might as well since they will not agree to anything else, and, Prince Guaimar, there is enough land and wealth in Apulia. You do not need them too.’

The next words from the prince were bitter. ‘Anything 
else about which you would wish to advise me?’

‘Just one, sire,’ for the first time granting the prince the kind of respect to which he was accustomed. ‘It would cement the arrangements if you were to grant me your sister’s hand in marriage. I might add, I will agree to nothing else if you do not assent to that.’

If William had slapped Guaimar, Prince of Salerno, he would not have produced a more shocked reaction.

Guaimar, left alone after that talk, had much on which to ruminate: he had tried to marry Berengara off more than once, to various Lombard dukes of places like Teano and Gaeta, and even a nephew of Naples, but such attempts had foundered on her insistence on marrying a man of her own choosing. Really, he should have put his foot down long ago: he was a ruler, she no more than a woman, to be used as a diplomatic pawn to keep safe their patrimony. That was how alliances had been gained and cemented since time immemorial.

Yet he knew why he had acquiesced: it was her bravery and that shared past of daring escape and difficulties. He recalled now how, aged no more than fourteen years, she had offered him her jewels, this to facilitate his escape from Salerno and the clutches of the cruel and rapacious Pandulf of Capua. He had already tried to rape her and would no doubt make a second and more successful attempt. Guaimar would get away; she was willing to stay and face what she must.

Likewise in Bamberg she had played cat and mouse with the Emperor Conrad, a man like any other, who had seen before him a beautiful young lady not averse to his advances. Berengara would have surrendered her virtue if it had been called for; she had made that clear to him. That it had not been required did not lessen the proposed sacrifice.

Yet there was no doubt that since then he had overindulged her, a fact made obvious by the way she had insulted Rainulf to his face. Her tongue had ceased to be a weapon and become for him a liability, and that had been plain to see in the distressed faces of those courtiers who had been present earlier, it being a look he had observed before. Salerno needed her to act as a princess should, not, as she thought, a woman acting as his equal.

Odd, thought Guaimar as he prepared to confront her, in all my decisions as a prince, this might prove the hardest.

‘Never. I would rather take the veil.’

‘I must tell you, sister, that is your choice, for I will not be gainsaid in this. Policy requires it and you must succumb.’

Guaimar could see she was hurt, her eyes left him in no doubt, and he knew why: he had never spoken to her like this before – he had always been a brother not a ruler. ‘We are no longer children, to play games as we wish.’

‘So I must play what game you choose?’

‘If I could have it otherwise, I would, but everything I have set out to achieve here in Apulia will come to nought unless you agree.’

She shouted then. ‘You are asking me to marry a Norman, to be brought to the bed of a man from a tribe I despise, to have me lie beneath him as he uses me as his chattel and to bear his children, who I will despise also!’

‘You must do as I say.’

‘No, brother, if it is that or a nunnery, I will take the veil. I will not be whore to a Norman.’

‘Very well,’ Guaimar replied, which should have made Berengara suspicious: he had long since ceased to be the kind of person who gave up easily, and he was a prince who knew that men such as he had had trouble always with unwilling female relatives. He would get his way, with the help of an apothecary if he could not have consent.

Berengara went through the ceremony of marriage to William de Hauteville in a daze, induced by the infusion she had unknowingly consumed, before the whole assembly gathered at Melfi, a signal to them all that these Norman de Hautevilles were no longer mere mercenaries: they had become lords in their own right and elevated enough to be attached by matrimony to a princely house. Drogo orchestrated the acclamation of Guaimar as Duke of Apulia and Calabria, and he in turn
granted William the appellation of count, with the land and title of Ascoli, then acknowledged him as what his confrères now hailed him, the Norman leader in Apulia.

Drogo got Venosa, lesser demesnes being granted to the rest of the de Hauteville clan, except Robert, who was, as his nature dictated, furious. Rainulf was given a small barren county near the coast as a sop, not enough to satisfy his pride, while Melfi was to be held in common, the place where the one-time rebels could combine to hold on to that which they had gained. Yet no sharp eye was required to note that the garrison now was entirely Norman and that the captain of the castle was none other than William de Hauteville.

The nocturnal part of the nuptials, after much feasting, passed for Berengara in the same haze as had her wedding and the effects of the drug only wore off as she slept. When she awoke, the first thing she registered was the fire in her lower belly, which told her, along with the bloodstained bedding, that she had been violated. Next she realised that the chamber she was in and the bed she occupied was not her own, a mystery soon solved by the great banner hanging on one wall, the blue and white standard of the de Hautevilles, spilt across at an angle with a chequer in the same two colours.

Of the man to whom she had been given there was no sign: he was in another chamber, with the arms of the shepherd girl Tirena wrapped around his naked, sweat-soaked, but slumbering body.

News of the triumphs in Apulia had been slow to reach Normandy, but when it arrived and was digested, it stirred ambition in many a thwarted breast, not least in the still-unruly Contentin, though the knights in that county were not alone in seeing that opportunity, much frustrated in their homeland, was truly on offer in the fiefs of South Italy. What had been a trickle of lances heading there did not turn into a torrent, but instead of men travelling in twos and threes, bands of warriors now formed, sometimes as many as fifty in number, especially of those who had no love for, or saw no future in, serving the present duke.

William of Falaise made no effort to stop such men departing: he saw much advantage in the removal from his domains of those who might unite to oppose his
rule. It was like cutting off an affected limb. Tancred, still under a cloud, was unsure what to do about the rest of his sons. Roger was, of course, too young, but there was no doubting his desire, once he had reached his majority, to join his mercenary brothers. Serlo was safe from ducal justice in England, serving in the far north, protecting the coasts of Mercia against the Danes, but that left four sons still to decide on their future. The only solution was to seek advice from his nephew.

If the uncle had suffered banishment from court, Geoffrey of Montbray had endured just as much, even if he was still, in the physical sense, close. Prior to the murder of Hugo de Lesseves he had been climbing to prominence in the councils of the dukedom. Given his role in extricating the culprits, he had then been frozen out as untrustworthy, though there had been no attempt to remove him from his ecclesiastical office.

Yet Duke William was not so rich in clear-sighted minds that he could forgo one so sound, one so attached to his cause, and nor had the victim of Serlo’s knife been a man he had much favoured, so slowly but surely Montbray found the atmosphere thawing in his favour. Thus his advice to his uncle was that it would be best to wait: perhaps if he could be absolved of blame so could Serlo’s brothers; perhaps there was a chance of ducal service after all.

One knight fired with the desire to go to Italy was
Richard Drengot, a nephew of Rainulf, and such was his attraction as both a person and a leader, and so well found was he in monies commuted back from Aversa, that when he rode off from the family lands around Alençon, he did so at the head of forty knights, all well mounted and equipped. In his progress south he suffered none of the travails of those who had gone ahead individually. Richard Drengot travelled in the style that suited his attachment to his uncle’s wealth, the only experience he shared with the likes of Robert de Hauteville that of passing through a Rome of stillwarring popes.

He and his band were not far south of there when an even more potent force arrived from the north, a whirlwind that would shake the Eternal City to its foundations: the new arrival was no other than the Emperor of the West, Henry III, heir to Conrad Augustus and a man committed to putting an end to the stench of papal politics. Trained since childhood to exercise power – he had been King of Germany since the age of eleven – Henry, a conscientious and overtly pious ruler, knew he would never have integrity in his domains without an end to the machinations of the Roman aristocracy and their endless warring over who held the office of pope.

Although a cause of endless dispute, every Emperor of the West held that the papacy was an office in their gift: no man could rise to be pontiff who did not have
their approval. Opposed to that were not just those Roman aristocrats but also a majority of cardinals, bishops and abbots of the great Christian monasteries. Even in his own German domains siren voices were raised against what was seen as imperial presumption, but it had been a right exercised by Charlemagne and no successor of his was inclined to surrender it.

Riding in Henry’s entourage was one of the holiest men in Western Christendom, Suidger, Bishop of Bamberg, and the aim of this imperial mission was made plain at once: a synod was convened in St Peter’s at which all of the three competing popes whose rivalry had so rocked Rome were dethroned, and Suidger was proclaimed as Pope Clement II, his task, to bring back to order the Church of Christ, to put an end to simony and the selling of indulgences, and to perform the ceremony of marriage for Henry and his imperial bride.

So honest was this Suidger that, even with imperial approval, he insisted his elevation be confirmed by a convocation of the leading churchmen, so, for the first time in decades, one upright and properly holy man held the office of pontiff without dispute, yet it was an office with temporal as well as spiritual responsibilities: the Papal States were extensive in both land and wealth and they bordered on Campania and Apulia, so naturally lay matters were also raised at the imperial synod, not least the turmoil in the south.

The removal of Byzantium from Italy was to be welcomed: it had been a desire for centuries, though one every emperor had struggled to achieve. The Eastern Empire was formidable, and even if it was rocked by constant succession strife, even if in the last four hundred years it had lost all of Arabia, most of Persia and the entire North African coast to Islam, it always seemed able to regenerate itself closer to its spiritual homelands. Now it seemed, at last, it was on the rack of near expulsion.

Yet no imperial ruler could be content with vassals appointing themselves to lands and titles, so the great cavalcade, with the Pope in attendance, made preparations to proceed to Capua where another synod would be convened to deal with these temporal problems. Guaimar would be summoned, along with Rainulf Drengot, the de Hautevilles and the Prince of Benevento, now in a state of open conflict with Salerno, to attend upon their ultimate liege lord, Henry III, Emperor of the West.

‘Argyrus got more than gold, William,’ reported a dustcovered Drogo, freshly returned from an expedition to the south and now drinking successive goblets of wine to get that grime out of his throat. ‘The Emperor Constantine has appointed him Catapan of Apulia and he has taken possession of Bari.’

William sighed. ‘A city that assured us of their
support not two months past. Lombards are bad enough, brother, but a combination of them and Greeks is worse. I pity the Italians, though I have no reason to think them more scrupulous.’

‘You would be wise to think so. Look what they did at Montecassino.’

‘The men they slew got their just deserts at Montecassino, brother. You will get no less if you steal the sustenance out of people’s mouths. But let us concentrate on the enemies before us.’

‘Argyrus is safe as long as he stays within the walls of Bari.’

‘Which he will not,’ William replied, with a weary expression. ‘He must come out and seek to retake the Catapanate.’

‘He cannot do that, Gill, unless Constantinople gives him a powerful army and no other city has declared for him. Nothing has altered.’

‘Sadly, no.’

‘You did not think it to be over so soon?’ Drogo asked.

‘No, but I confess to being fatigued with war.’

Drogo grinned. ‘I admit you look peaked. Is that not too much activity in the bedchamber, Gill, keeping two women content?’

‘Such exertions never harmed you.’

‘I think you have told me often, brother, we are very different.’

Said with humour, Drogo could not fail to notice that William was indeed looking drained, and if it was not by endless warfare and intrigue, it could just as easily be brought on by his assumption of too much responsibility. The fever he had suffered from previously had abated, but the marks of it were upon him. Nor did he allow himself respite: he took everything on his shoulders and he had a set of brothers and subordinates happy to let him carry the burden. The jest about the bedchamber could not hide the fact that he had other concerns.

Like his brothers, the title of count, by which William was known, had been granted to him by the acclamation, to be reluctantly confirmed by Guaimar in his capacity as the self-styled duke of the province, in itself a suspect creation. It was one that was open to challenge as to its legitimacy, for only the power of his sword and the ability of the men he led made it real. Not wishing to be beholden to any other power, the only way to make it more than that was by the continuous application of force of arms, so in time it came to be accepted by all.

Added to that, William needed to produce an heir, a child who would cement his position in the same way little Hermann had done for Rainulf, in fact he could go one better, for a child of his present union might have a future claim on Salerno and Capua. He never mentioned it, but he had, like any man who had risen
as high as he, dynastic ambitions for his bloodline.

Never spoken of, William de Hauteville still felt the slur of being refused recognition as a blood relative of the House of Normandy. He longed one day that an heir of his would treat with a Norman duke as an equal. The way to wipe out that old affront was not only to gain his own title but to pass that and more on to a legitimate heir who would, in turn, have sons of his own.

Despite his efforts, and they were resolute because they needed to be, Berengara showed no sign of becoming with child. It was no secret that nothing had happened to abate her hatred for Normans, and if that had at one time been concentrated on Rainulf, it had moved from him to William. Her strength of feeling was as strong as ever, and that applied to her determination. Every conjugal act was a battle bordering on force and she had to be kept away from any public gathering so that her insults would not be aired in a way that diminished her husband.

The brothers would have discussed it with him if William had been open to such, but he was not. Drogo, for one, would never have married her, but had he made that error he would now be looking for a way to put her aside and find another, not, in his case and given his reputation, necessarily in that order. William would not do either: to his brother he was too upright for his own good.

‘So, Drogo, how do we deal with Argyrus?’ Normally, William would not have posed such a question. While he was happy to listen to advice, it was he who decided what course of action to follow.

‘We could invest Bari.’

‘Not yet.’

‘It is the right thing to do.’ That got him a shake of the head, and that smile which implied secret knowledge. ‘I have often wished, Gill, that you would be more open with me. It is as though you lack trust.’

William’s response was quick, but good-humoured. ‘Only with women, Drogo.’

‘Then why not invest Bari?’ William made to respond but Drogo cut him off. ‘Before you say it is too formidable to capture easily, I know that. It could take a year or more, but at least if we were outside his walls Argyrus would be kept from mischief.’

‘You must see that if we institute a siege it must be carried through to success. We could not afford to fail, regardless of how long it took.’

Drogo nodded. ‘We have the means to win.’

‘One day, Drogo, Bari, and all the other port cities, will either acknowledge we Normans as their overlords or they will burn, but if we were to do that now, to whom would the ultimate gain accrue? Bari defeated would trouble the others, which might bring that which neither they nor we want.’

‘Guaimar as king.’

‘Do not think he has given up his dream. He got his Apulian title by chicanery, if he wants to take the diadem let him get it himself. I will not fight and spill Norman blood to have a crown put on his head.’

‘And your own.’

That made William laugh. ‘Not mine either, Drogo, but perhaps my son or grandson will aspire to it one day.’

‘Then, Gill,’ Drogo hooted, though he did register that William had been more open with him than hitherto, ‘much as it pains me to say so, you must get into your bedchamber this very minute and get busy.’

The summons to attend upon the Emperor Henry at Capua came at an awkward time: Argyrus was doing that which William predicted, raiding out from Bari, but always with a line back to his base should he be threatened, which had Norman cavalry engaging in fruitless and dispiriting pursuit, for he never let himself be faced by a combination which included soldiers on foot. He was also showing a skill William never thought he possessed, which made him wonder if there was a secret direction behind his actions, a proper soldier.

Whatever the Lombard traitor did, it had to be ignored, for Henry could not be: to do so would risk such an affront that it would turn the emperor against the whole de Hauteville family, and the
consequences of that could be enormous. Yet it was also an opportunity: provided the price of vassalage was not too high he might be able to acquire imperial confirmation of his title, and his brothers likewise. The dukedom of Apulia might be recognised as well, which would not be to his liking and could create future difficulties with Guaimar, but the solution to that would have to be left to time. Also paramount was the need that his wife should accompany him, not a notion that was well taken: Berengara refused point-blank.