Warriors (4 page)

Humphrey, with Rainulf’s blessing, had been elevated to command for the day, and so had brother Geoffrey, which left Mauger fuming as the only de Hauteville not leading one of the four assault lines. He was obliged to act as William’s aide, which, hero worship notwithstanding, was not enough to mollify him, and as he sat alongside his elder brother his frustration was not something that could be hidden by either helmet or nose guard.

The strength of Norman cavalry lay in their use of weight as opposed to tempo. Horsemen of other armies charged, hoping by sheer brio to break an enemy line, which inevitably led to some moving at more speed
than the rest so they arrived at the point of battle as a disorganised melee. The Norman line was solid, the destriers they rode chosen not for fleetness but for their sturdy nature. Both horse and rider were trained to hold their line and hit an enemy position as a formidable mass.

This required well-practised horsemanship and constant attention; no steed next to another could entirely be weaned off the desire to race: a horse did not require to be told
how
to run, but when. To hold them in exact relation to their neighbouring mounts took endless training as well as strong hands and thighs, the latter becoming immeasurably more important as the point of actual combat approached: the rider would be looking to use his hands for his lance and his shield, albeit he would still hold a rein. Once battle was joined, the main pressure a warrior would have to control his mount was those thighs.

No mock tourney could ever be like the real thing, but for the likes of Guaimar, who was no soldier, the sight of a hundred lances attacking in his direction made him tense, even if he knew they were blunted and it represented no threat, so much so that he put a protective arm around Gisulf, his young son. Looking past his wife at his sister, he was surprised to see how excited she was, her body tensed and leaning slightly forward, her mouth open and the one eye he could see
alight with anticipation, nothing like the frisson of fear in his own.

The Normans were now standing in their stirrups, the hooves of their horses kicking up a huge cloud of dust, their lances couched under their arms and their teardrop-shaped shields, coloured in the red and black of Rainulf Drengot, set forward to protect both themselves and the flank of their horse; two hundred eyes and those padded lance points, in Guaimar’s overvivid imagination, fixed on the point of his chest.

Berengara’s body jerked as the points hit the wood, a hundred thuds like a tattoo of many drums melding so close as to be as one, mixed with the battle-cry shouts of the attackers. It was what happened next that was most impressive. At the sound of a battle horn all hundred riders spun their horses to run parallel with the wall and, jabbing their tipless lances at imaginary foes over the top of the shields, they moved as one at a steady canter, and there, behind them as soon as they were clear, were another hundred lances a few grains of sand away from contact.

That century turned right to get clear, and the sight of another attack was repeated twice more, in a series of sounds and cries, each one of which seemed to pass like a lightning strike through Berengara’s tensed frame. But her excitement did not end there, for Drogo’s century was approaching again, this time with lances held high, to be thrown on command
at the straw bales which lay in front of her. Those dispatched, swords were unsheathed and the wood hacked at with great force, sending splinters flying from the edge as they again made their steady way to the left to be replaced by another century executing the same manoeuvre.

‘Few would stand against this, Prince Guaimar,’ shouted Rainulf, also in a state of high excitement. ‘Most would have broken by now.’

Locking eyes with the Norman leader, the young Lombard wondered if there was an implied threat in the observation. Was Rainulf telling him that no army of conscript Italians and Lombards could sustain him if he chose to challenge such a host?

‘The Varangians would stand,’ called Arduin.

That reference to the axemen of Kiev Rus brought to Rainulf’s face a deep frown. He had fought them in the Lombard revolt led by Melus, and he had lost his elder brother in the final battle. A force of Norse lineage provided to Constantinople by the Prince of Kiev, the Varangians were indeed formidable and their chosen weapon, axes swung and thrown, were deadly against both horse and rider.

‘I saw them in Sicily, Count Rainulf, and I came to admire them greatly.’

Rainulf just jerked his head to look to the front; he did not want to talk of Varangians or of campaigns led by William de Hauteville. His eyes were now
on the two lines of Normans who had taken station facing each other, and at a command they closed, first seeking to unhorse the men they fought, then, once the lance had been used or abandoned, fighting each other on horseback with hardwood swords. No mercy was shown to anyone who left an opening: several jabbing and slashing men were dismounted to fall at the feet of, and scrabble away from, the heaving mass of hooves, more dangerous by far than that which they had faced in the saddle.

At the sound of the horn they disengaged and were replaced by the other two centuries, the whole confrontation repeated with the same level of effort. To the rear, men could be seen limping away both from the previous battle and this, while the odd mercenary lay comatose where they had fallen, as their confrères tried to continue to jab, slash and parry without simultaneously trampling them.

‘Look,’ cried Berengara, as the two lines disengaged and withdrew.

She was pointing to a line of marching Normans, making their way through the clouds of dust left by their previous mounted engagement. Only on foot could you truly appreciate that these warriors were likely to tower over any enemy they faced. Every one was well above whatever height could be named as average, and in the middle of the line it was impossible to miss William de Hauteville, taller still,
with his brother, Mauger, a hand smaller, at his side.

He led his men to the shield wall where they began hacking away, reducing what was left of the wood of the defence to shards, which set young Gisulf to crying, a sound which had no effect on the swordsmen but one which had his mother take him away from the noise. Destruction complete, the Normans retired, exchanging their weapons for wooden replacements, as two centuries faced each other in foot combat, coming together with a series of loud cracks and screaming imprecations as they fought each other in mock battle.

William had by this time remounted, and it came to the point which interested him greatly. There was a tactic he knew his men could use mounted – the false retreat. Could they do it on foot? He had deliberately left till last a fight between men who had served him in Sicily, under Drogo’s direct command, and those of Turmod’s troop, who had stayed behind in Aversa to protect both Rainulf and Prince Guaimar, knowing there was a deep degree of rivalry between them.

Only Drogo knew he was going to give the horn signal for a false retreat; would his men realise that it applied to them unmounted? Drogo was key, as was any commander in a conflict, but in this the Normans had their other great asset: close battlefield control. They knew the commands just as they knew they
must be obeyed; it was not their job to think but to obey. The horn blew its triple notes and William saw his brother’s sword in the air, waving as he fell back, pleased to see that his shouts and gestures were bearing fruit – his men had disengaged.

Turmod’s men should have known better: they were Normans too, but they could not resist moving forward to pursue, a fatal tactic, because they did not all do so at the same pace, creating dog-leg gaps. William signalled for the horn to blow again, and watched with pride as Drogo turned his men round in a tight line and rushed them forward, completely overwhelming their opponents and driving them back, inflicting more bruises on that century than had been suffered by any other in the day.

If he had been looking at the pavilion, he would have seen an irate Rainulf ranting about the deviousness of his senior captain, for he was soldier enough to know it had been he who had initiated the manoeuvre. William would not have cared: as a leader he had just added another string to his tactical ability; everyone in Rainulf’s band had seen it, now all four hundred lances would know what to do in the future.

The sun was sinking, the light going, the wounded were being helped away, and in the gathering gloom the fires of those roasting oxen glowed, while torches by the hundred were being lit around twin rows of great tables. It was time to eat and drink. 

‘I can give you another captain, just as skilful and as brave as William de Hauteville,’ insisted Rainulf.

‘You forget,’ Arduin responded, clearly unconvinced, ‘that I have seen the Iron Arm fight, and I have seen him lead men – your men.’

‘Iron Arm!’ spat Rainulf, his high-coloured face picking up the light from the numerous torches. ‘Such posturing means nothing, it is but a name. Old as I am I would not fear to take up arms against him.’

Prince Guaimar and Arduin nodded insincerely in response to the glare with which he fixed them, taking the statement for what it was, an idle boast from a man who could not admit to being the ageing fellow he saw in his piece of polished silver each morning. Berengara, who should not have been part
of the discussion at all, was not one to let such an opportunity pass.

‘I think you should challenge him, Rainulf, and I will persuade my brother to provide a healthy purse for the victor.’

The look that got her was one full of detestation, an emotion she returned in good measure. If she hated Normans, then Berengara hated Rainulf Drengot most of all! The day she and her brother had been dragged out of the Castello de Arechi in Salerno was seared in her mind. Rainulf had been there, sneering at his one-time father-in-law for his protestations of betrayal. The events of the day had broken him: the old duke had retired to a monastery, and with his heart and hopes destroyed, it had soon brought about his demise.

‘The loser,’ she added maliciously, ‘should have nought but a pauper’s grave, a place for dogs to piss and defecate.’

‘I am curious, Rainulf,’ said Guaimar, heading off his angry response, ‘why not William?’

If it was possible for a man with so purple a countenance to flush, Rainulf did so then, aware, as he was, that the prince was pricking him just like his sister; not in the same outright manner, but discomfiting nonetheless. Guaimar knew very well Rainulf’s objections were brought about by fear of a man who might have too much support amongst the men he led, a man too powerful to
openly challenge. Yet he had his justification well prepared.

‘He has had opportunity already, in Sicily. It is time to give such a gift to another.’

‘No!’ snapped Arduin.

‘Turmod has been in my service longer than any of the de Hautevilles, and that is another factor. If William goes he will take his brothers.’

‘I would expect nothing else,’ Guaimar replied.

Arduin spoke again, his look deadly serious. ‘This is not skirmishing in Campania, which is all this Turmod of yours has ever done. We are talking about fighting the might of the Eastern Empire—’

Rainulf’s interruption was bellicose. ‘I know that!’

‘Just as you know from fighting them yourself they are difficult to overcome.’

The pair glared at each other. The subject raised was the defeat at Cannae, the very same field upon which Hannibal had massacred the Romans in 216BC. The Lombards and Normans, led by Melus, had not suffered so final a fate in the rout, but the battle had been bloody, the mercenary cavalry left with barely enough horses to flee the field, leaving behind the Apulian
milities
as they did so to die under a Byzantine sword or a Varangian axe. After every battle lost, there were recriminations: the Normans maintained it was the Lombards who had broken; they, the too confident Normans who had failed.

‘If we are not to repeat what happened previously,’ Arduin insisted, driving home his point with a jabbing finger, ‘then I want a cavalry leader who has experience of real battle, not something barely a step up from that which we witnessed today.’

‘He has the gift of previous success,’ Guaimar added, driving home Arduin’s point; not even Rainulf could match William de Hauteville in that regard. There was also the delicious pleasure of reminding the Count of Aversa that in a proper battle, as opposed to skirmish, he had known only loss. ‘I fear, as your suzerain, Rainulf, I would be bound to insist you grant Arduin that which he wishes.’

There was a moment then, pregnant with threat. Rainulf was an imperial count mainly through Guaimar’s good offices: it was the disenfranchised young heir to Salerno who had first suggested to Conrad Augustus that, instead of seeking revenge against the man who had betrayed his father, only such an elevation would detach him from support for the rapacious Pandulf. Rainulf had turned to Guaimar, who had stood by as he accepted his gonfalon from the imperial hand, to then acknowledge the new young prince as his immediate overlord.

Yet there had not been, since that time, a point on which they could disagree on any vital matter and there was no certainty this Norman, who had made so much trouble in the past, would acknowledge
Guaimar’s right to make such a decision. The test had to come at some time: who was the lord and who was the vassal? Odd that it should be over William de Hauteville, the very person who ensured the Count of Aversa felt insecure, and also the very person who had brokered the actual pact with the Holy Roman Emperor to get rid of Pandulf.

‘Perhaps I should lead my men myself.’

‘I need you to stay close with a number of your lances to protect my fiefs and impose my will.’

The pause was long, the looks unblinking, until Rainulf, who had drunk sparingly throughout the feast, picked up a full goblet of wine and drained it in one, pushing it out towards a flagon-bearing child to demand a refill. He did not speak, but then he did not have to.

William was eating at the same high table, close enough to Rainulf and his main guests to observe the depth of their conversation, but he was not near enough to actually hear what was being said, that made doubly impossible by the hubbub of talking and shouting which surrounded him – there was dancing too around a great bonfire – though he had no doubt it involved the proposed invasion of Apulia. It was galling that these matters were being discussed without him; he was in no doubt that he was the one who would have to carry out the task.

So in his mind he ranged over the problems he would face, firstly those of a military nature. Arduin clearly desired to have overall military control, and that was as it should be; if the assault on Apulia was to be based on the notion of Lombard independence, then it required one of that race to be in command. If Michael Doukeianos had trouble holding the many fortified towns, any Norman-led force would have just as much trouble subduing them, and besides, that was not the object: they needed to be won over to the cause, not besieged and forced into surrender.

He would have at his disposal a formidable body of Norman cavalry, but that would not be sufficient: he would need more to face the power of Constantinople, an empire with millions of subjects and, William knew from Sicily, a bottomless treasury. So word must go out from him to other Norman bands in South Italy, enticing them with the possibility of rich rewards. Then there was the man he would face!

Byzantium had different types of commanders, and they ranged from the very good to the utterly useless, the quality and the person depending entirely on intrigue at court. The armies they fielded away from their constantly threatened eastern possessions tended to be bought-and-paid-for fighters, or unwilling
milities
raised locally. The latter could be a weakness, sometimes more trouble than they were worth, but no army could fight without foot soldiers of some
kind, and Arduin would have to raise those. It was necessary they should come to the banner willingly, for the catapan would be obliged to conscript his.

Would Arduin have a force of crossbowmen? If not, they must be recruited, for they were an essential tool against any army in a strong defensive position, and William reckoned, if Byzantium was presently weak in the Catapanate, then a wise general would force the people he saw as rebels to attack him rather than seek open battle with an enemy strong in cavalry. Finally, nothing could be complete without the reduction of the Adriatic ports, that is, if they failed to support the revolt or were held by the catapan; that might mean siege equipment and artisans to construct them on site, weapons of which the Normans knew nothing. He was still ruminating on such problems when he looked up to see Arduin standing behind his shoulder.

‘Rainulf has agreed that you should lead his men into Apulia.’

‘Was it ever in any doubt?’ William enquired, looking towards Rainulf, who avoided his eye. Turning back to Arduin, he could see, as much as the Lombard tried to hide it, that had indeed been the case.

‘I hope you are willing to serve under me?’

‘I am,’ William replied, seeking to control the anger in his voice, lest Arduin think it directed at him. ‘As are my brothers.’

‘All of them?’ When William nodded, Arduin laid
a hand on his shoulder and said, ‘Good! I have asked Prince Guaimar to meet with us tomorrow, to discuss the campaign.’

‘I look forward to it.’

That was when the fighting started, round that bonfire; the combination of food, drink and women had worked its usual magic on the many present rivalries to produce a brawl. Normans who had been to Sicily would take a swing at those who had not, added to Italian peasants who resented the mercenaries long before they sought to interfere with their womenfolk. Drogo would be in there somewhere; he always was when there was trouble. There was a time when William would have gone in to seek to cool things down and to ensure Drogo, and for that matter his other siblings, did not suffer from trying to take on too many opponents.

He was not inclined to on this night, which made him wonder if perhaps he was getting old. Turning away from that to glare at Rainulf he saw Berengara leaning forward, watching the fracas with deep concentration. She looked stunning, but it was her evident pleasure, and the flush of blood in her cheeks, picked up by the torches, that was most evident. Was it caused merely by the fighting, or the thought that some Normans might be getting what, in her mind, they deserved?

There was a certain amount of amusement to be gained from observing the way Prince Guaimar sought to exercise control over the direction of what was proposed while at the same time he made it perfectly plain that Salerno and Capua were detached in terms of interest in the outcome, clearly trying to have the best of both worlds. Watching the other faces was also instructive: Arduin disappointed but resigned that he would not have Guaimar’s complete support – Salerno would provide no foot soldiers, in fact nothing but sustenance on the route, and that would be paid for; Rainulf, obviously suffering from a night of excessive imbibing, looked morose, when not openly furious.

The conference was taking place in Rainulf’s stone donjon, a square defensive edifice that had stood in this place for centuries, possibly since Roman times. The tower lay at the heart of his impressive operations – no less than what amounted to a standing army – and was surrounded by the huts which accommodated his men, as well as their concubines and bastards, a huge barn in which feasts could be held, a manège for training in the use of all kinds of arms, and a square league of paddocks which contained the horses without which his lances were useless. Added to that was a stud which bred even more mounts of the various types Norman cavalry required for movement and combat.

Faintly, through the doorway that led to a long
sloping ramp – one that would be pulled up and in when danger threatened – came the sounds of the morning’s exercise. The men might have been drinking heavily the night before, not to mention fighting each other with their fists, but that did not obviate the need for daily practice. It was this constant training, as much as the quality of the men he commanded, which had made Rainulf Drengot so formidable a presence in Campania.

The day William and Drogo arrived – and the same had happened to their brothers – they had been obliged to enter that training manège and prove their ability with sword, lance and fighting mount. Rainulf had a very simple attitude: they were in a foreign land and paid to fight and he wanted no one in his band who was not accomplished at that.

When there was no actual combat they trained hard for their task, so that when they did ride out for whatever purpose they were warriors at their peak, men whom no one locally could hope to stand against. Thus their reputation, which included their inclination to cruelty, went before them, often defeating opposition without the need for them to draw their swords.

Arduin had the floor; he had been given enough gold by Michael Doukeianos to pay for fifty knights to garrison Melfi for a twelvemonth, and that was enough to purchase supplies for three hundred lances to get to the fortress and take it over. If he had hoped that
Guaimar would dip into his princely revenues to fund anything, that too was a disappointment, but he was no doubt sustained by the rewards he would acquire for success. What those would be were a matter of some interest to William, but that was what they would have to remain: there was no way he could ask, and even if he got an answer, no way of knowing if he was being told the truth.

‘Initially,’ Arduin insisted, ‘we can live off the land, for it is fertile. For the future, the revenues that Byzantium now enjoys will come to us, and that can be used to reward success.’