Conquest

CHAPTER TEN

‘Gisulf must have had help from Robert. The prick of Salerno would never have dared move otherwise.’

Mauger had been making the same point for the whole of the summer, every time he had a bit too much to drink, so Roger’s response was a weary nod. They had not stopped raiding: Gisulf could not keep a force in the field, but it had been more constrained and a lot less profitable, indeed just enough to keep the men they led content. If Mauger was bitter he was not unhappy, but it was not enough for his younger brother: in truth Roger was bored as much as frustrated, something which he took out on his opponents when they trained in the sand-covered manege Mauger had set up for the purpose.

These were, if anything, the key to the Normans’ success, a notion imported from their homeland. For the mass of their opponents fighting was a case of being levied to do so, only their leaders trained with any application for war. Every Norman lance did so: if they were not engaged in battle they were practising their skills daily, either on foot, with mock wooden swords, or on horseback with padded sword and tipped lance, individually or in their conroy. This basic unit of ten would then train with their confreres in larger formations so that everyone responded to the same commands in the same way right up to and including a ducal host.

To watch them in those enclosures was to understand why other armies feared them, especially on horseback. Normans never indulged in a frenzied charge, instead, mounted on their short, heavily muscled destriers, they went into battle at a fast canter and in an unbroken line. Other cavalry could not be constrained — a horse will run flat out if given a chance, especially in the presence of others. The trick was not to get a horse to run but to teach it when to run, at what pace and to keep in line with its fellows; in this the Normans were exemplary. Single combat they also practised: their horse-borne advance was designed to break an enemy line so that their enemies could be cut down or forced to flee.

Mock battle was not pain free: when they fought each other there were bruises to tend and many a cut to be stitched. Men occasionally lost their lives, more from finding themselves under horse hooves than any action of their fellows, yet this was where Roger was getting out of hand. Certainly the most potent fighter, the tallest, broadest, strongest and most skilful, it would have behoved him to hold back; dissatisfaction with his present way of living honed his aggression.

When a message came from the Guiscard asking him to meet with him in Calabria, with a promise he would be repaid every gold solidus he was owed, he was more than ready to break the monotony, while those he trained with, the men who suffered from his anger — rarely his own lances — were happy at the prospect he might depart. It was Mauger who was most disgruntled.

‘He will cheat you again.’

‘He needs our aid, there is a rebellion in Calabria and he dare not turn his back on Apulia with Argyrus up to his tricks. Nor will he trust just anyone to take it back. Robert is strong for blood; he will not give command to any of his captains to do what must be done so he must call on his family. Come with me, make your peace and we can both prosper.’

‘Never.’

There was a temptation, then, to tell Mauger that which Roger knew and he would not accept. It was only the power of the Count of Apulia and Richard of Aversa that kept him safe: without those two magnates pressing on the lands of Gisulf, even a useless article like that prince could muster enough force to crush the Normans of Scalea. True, Robert might have granted Gisulf permission to curtail their activities, but would he have seen one of his family harmed? Roger doubted that: if he and Mauger had been taken the previous spring they would have been handed over to Robert and no doubt faced the humiliation of having to show gratitude.

‘I think Robert would gift you more than Scalea if you fight at his side, Mauger. There are a dozen Byzantine strongholds still in Calabria waiting to be conquered.’

That childlike scowl Roger had come to know so well reappeared. ‘So you are about to desert me?’

‘I am about to find out what it is one of my brothers has to say and first, before I listen to a word, he will have to pass over what he owes me. Then, I suspect he will have a proposal that involves Calabria. If he needs help I am prepared to give it, but the price for that aid will be a high one.’

‘I will never bend the knee to Robert and you know why. He stole my title.’

‘Then let him give you another, more worthy of your name.’

‘No!’

‘Can I go with your blessing, without bad feeling between us?’

‘I cannot stop you leaving, nor would I try, but when you depart you must do so for good.’

‘You would force me to choose?’

‘I must.’

There was pain in the farewells: Roger had his bastard Jordan on his saddle bow but the mother of the child had to be left behind, though with funds to buy both land and a dowry to attract a husband. Friendships had been formed that required to be broken but that was the way of the warrior, by their very nature tending to be rootless.

‘Still smarting is he?’ demanded Robert, in his customary booming voice. ‘He calls me a weasel when he should look to himself.’

In late summer, at Morano, high in the Calabrian mountains, it was cool. Down on the plains it was not: it was baking in a season known for heat at any time, but one that had seen no rain for months. The crops had withered in the drought, so, lacking food and encouraged by the Basilan monks and Greek priests who ran the local churches, who persuaded the peasants they were experiencing divine retribution for casting off their loyalty to Constantinople, the people had revolted.

In truth the peasants were being led by vassals who, seeing no income from their fiefs and being raided for what they did have by bands of men loyal to Byzantium, were disinclined to pay the dues owed to Robert Guiscard: it was those nobles who had egged on the priests to stir up the peasants, but the result was the same. The revenues of Calabria had dried up, as much as the irrigation ditches and the rivers that fed them, and that could not be allowed to continue.

‘I can give you as many lances as you need, Roger.’

‘And what else?’

The response was angry and loud. ‘I have already gifted you a dozen talents of gold, what more do you want?’

The anger was a stunt: Robert was well aware he would have to give more, but he wanted to drive a hard bargain and one that suited him, something he could not be allowed to do.

‘They were not a gift, they were my due and I am now waiting to see what you will offer for my lance and my sword to get you out of a sorry mess of your own creation.’

‘I have become divine and I control the burning sun,’ Robert scoffed. ‘Perhaps if I dance the rains will come.’

‘You have borne heavily on this province, Robert, too heavily perhaps. Now you need me to pacify it and I will only do that for a just reward.’

‘Make a demand, then.’

‘No! You have in your mind a price to pay, so offer it and stop wasting my time.’ Roger indicated the sweltering plains, easily visible below, the rippling heat haze obvious even from this elevation. ‘Matters are not going to improve down there and you are not going to get as much as a bronze follis from those who are hoarding their coin until it is pacified.’

Looking at his older brother, big, blond, red-faced and wearing a look of fury, Roger wondered how long it would be before the dam of that anger burst. Tancred might have made Robert swear never to use a weapon against a brother but that did not extend to fisticuffs. Robert was capable of a mighty buffet round the ears and he had seen him administer a few, so he kept his distance: fighting Robert with lance and sword was just possible — wrestling or boxing with him was not.

The sudden roaring laugh that emerged, the throwing back of the head and the holding out of the arms was typical Robert — it was in his nature to go from fury to humour in an instant, leaving the recipient unsure if either emotion was sincere. The men he had brought with him as escort, who had been frowning at Roger, were now grinning at him, partly, he suspected, from relief: with a mercurial master it was not often they knew what was coming next.

‘My God, Sprat, you have grown,’ he roared. ‘It can’t be from residing with Mauger, that ditherer. There are castles out there, and towns, needing to be reminded to whom they owe their fealty. Take them back for me and you can have as title any one of them you like, letters patent and your gonfalons from my own hand.’

‘The revenues?’

‘Yours to keep for ten years.’

It was a generous offer: Roger was being given permission to depose the existing lords of the fiefs in revolt and become the overlord himself — better than what he had gained in the past, really only one fief and one self-built fortress. The previous campaign, still incomplete, had been about money and who was suzerain: to whom did these lords owe their taxes, Byzantium or the Count of Apulia? This would be about taking lands and titles from the intransigent for personal gain, a much more alluring prospect.

‘What do you say, brother, do I have your support?’

Roger hesitated, suspecting that such generosity was prompted by a revolt that was more serious than he knew, one which would be that much harder not only to contain but to put down in a way that would last. The cause was starvation: desperate people would fight in a reckless way, which might mean a campaign of more than one year. He could have fires breaking out sporadically behind him as he passed onto another rebellious vassal. Would he have to kill so many who tilled the fields as to render the region a continuing desert?

‘Let me think on it.’

The humour evaporated as quickly as it appeared. ‘You mean you might say no?’

Roger grinned. ‘I might, but not on an empty stomach.’

It was while eating and drinking — there was no shortage of food in the well-watered mountains — that Roger saw a possible solution. The question which had troubled him was how to separate the peasants from the lords they had toiled for all their lives, to whom they had a loyalty that often transcended good sense: there were good landowners but more were not, most exploited them to the hilt. Certainly he could massacre the peasants in their thousands: untrained levies wielding pikes could not stand against proper warriors, exposing those overlords, many of whom had probably eaten well while their serfs starved. But within that lay the seeds of future revolt: the sons of the dead would harbour a deeper hatred than their sires, a dangerous legacy in a land as yet not wholly conquered.

‘Robert, I accept.’

His brother, gnawing on half a sheep’s leg, replied in a voice muffled by mutton, ‘I never thought you would refuse.’

‘I want five hundred of your best lances here within the month. Ralph de Boeuf will see to their mustering.’

‘And you?’

‘I must go to the coast and take a boat.’

‘To where?’

Roger just grinned and tapped the side of his nose.

The journey to Salerno was made by sea for one very simple reason: it was too risky for a de Hauteville to travel alone by land, especially carrying gold. On arrival he ordered the captain of his boat to anchor out in the bay, staying aboard and sending a message ashore, waiting with some impatience until Kasa Ephraim came out to answer his request for a secret meeting. It was odd, given his office of collector of the port, how uncomfortable the Jew looked in a boat: he had all the appearance of a man only secure on land and that did not relent when he made it from rowing boat to the deck of the ship. Leading him into the little cabin, an arm ready to catch him should he stumble, Roger was not surprised when the man refused a drink.

‘I fear if it went to my stomach,’ he replied, sitting down with alacrity, ‘it would not stay there.’

‘I like the sea,’ Roger replied. ‘The journey here was most pleasant.’

Ephraim looked at him as if he were mad, but his voice did not betray that when he spoke. ‘There are few who could tempt me to take to the water, but your message did intrigue me.’

‘No one knows you are here?’

‘No, the men who brought me out to you are smugglers who know they would face being stoned by the mob if they betrayed me. So, how can I, a trader, put down a revolt in Calabria?’

‘A revolt triggered by famine.’

‘Yes.’

‘Help me feed them.’

For all his discomfort, Ephraim, after a brief moment, smiled. Roger had suspected the man to be shrewd; that expression proved it, for he required no explanation of what was far from obvious. Roger had deduced the only way to assuage famine and bring peace, instead of soaking the parched earth with blood, was to feed the hungry. The lord who saved their hearths and children would have their gratitude for ever, instead of generations of enmity.

‘When I saw you as clever, I was not mistaken.’

‘Grain, shiploads of it, to buy, as well as seed for the spring planting.’

‘The cost will be immense.’

‘I have gold but nowhere near enough.’

‘So you require me to provide more?’

‘At a proper rate of interest. My brother Robert has promised me land and titles, and the revenues of Calabria will be mine for a whole decade, so I know I can reimburse you whatever the cost.’

‘For a Norman you are acting in an unusual manner.’

Roger’s response betrayed his impatience. ‘Can it be done?’

Hands on his lap, the Jew sat silently, thinking, his eyes lowered and Roger waiting anxiously: this he could not do without help, money and lots of it, the only other source of that being Robert. But the price his brother would extract for such aid would be too high; he certainly would not give it for nothing, regardless of how sensible the notion, and Roger could not fault him for that. You did not get to be and stay a great magnate without certain abilities and habits of character, and extracting the best from any negotiation was as central to that as the ability to fight and win.

Ephraim lifted his head and spoke in an even tone, surprising given what he had to say.

‘I have often found that in commerce a man must speculate, and sometimes profit must be put aside for a long-term aim. I said before I saw William in you, but it may be that you will surpass him in wisdom.’

‘A tall order,’ Roger replied.

‘I will support you and for mere repayment of that which I advance plus any interest I have to pay on borrowings.’

‘No interest on the principal, which has to be your own?’

‘My interest is long term. I think by aiding you I will prosper mightily in the future. Now, if you will be so kind, let us find a place on land where we can transact the finer points of that which you seek. I have a villa at Paestum, which is on the shoreline to the south. I will proceed there this very evening, and so shall you to meet on the morrow. Tell whoever sails your boat to question the fishermen as to where to land.’

Not even an extremely wealthy Jew could transact that which Roger needed, but he had what the supplicant did not, good credit with other rich individuals: Kasa Ephraim could buy on the promise of future payment and on terms few people could command. It was not just flour and seed that was required: bread might be a staple but it needed to be supported by other commodities. Vegetables, fruit, cuttings for olives and vines and the stocks necessary to restart herds of livestock — goats in the main, for they were hardy — as well as the more delicate sheep and cattle.

Roger had to locate a place to land all that had been purchased, then to find a means to distribute it to the best advantage. He chose a small landing stage at Cetaro, not far from the Guiscard’s fief at Fagnano, that one-time hilltop monastery now a formidable castle large enough to house the men Robert provided. That the news spread quickly of food to be had was unsurprising, but Roger did not want the starving to come to him, he wanted to go to them.

That their lords shut their gates to a Norman host, even in the midst of famine, did not surprise him, but he had with him Lombards capable of building small ballista, not required to batter walls, but to fire the loaves of bread he had baked, always from a point at which the wind would carry the smell over the ramparts. To a garrison, already hungry, and to one pressed into resistance, it was a more telling military tactic than any battering ram applied to the gates.

Just enough bread would be catapulted in to remind the defenders of what they were lacking, and when such men looked at those who commanded them to resist, most with full bellies, the will to support their overlords evaporated. The sensible, who realised their people would not fight for their title, opened their gates and sought forgiveness, readily granted provided payment was made for what had previously been withheld. Some did not, and such was the fear their people had of their revenge, the walls had to be stormed and those inside put to the sword, innocent and guilty alike, the news allowed to spread that this was the choice: surrender and you will live, eat and prosper, in time, with re-sown fields and fresh livestock, or resist and die, for no quarter would ever be given.

The speed of re-conquest surprised even Roger: many lords came in to swear allegiance and hand over the contents of their coffers, or more often their plate, this so that the lands they owned could be returned to what they had been, while the man to whom they swore eternal peace and friendship was able to ship to the coast enough wealth to reimburse Kasa Ephraim for the credit he had provided.

At every place taken Roger had a Mass said to thank God for blessing his purpose. Insisting on the Latin rite might have unsettled the laity — it infuriated the Greek clergy, but their protests were ignored, and, as if to show that what they preached was inferior, no sooner had the provinces been returned to fealty than the heavens formed heavy black clouds and the rains came to turn a land of brown grass and hillside forest fires back to fertility.

Content, free of his obligations to the Jew, Roger sent back the lances Robert had provided, laden with plunder taken from those towns that had resisted. At the head of his own men, equally burdened, Roger collected Jordan and rode to his own fief of Montenero to find that even in the midst of famine they had continued to build, his subjects praising him to the skies for the food he had sent from the coast, one of his first acts on landing. The first two towers of his fortress, built from the stones of that ancient acropolis, were up and occupied, the blocks for the curtain walls and the other two towers being quarried nearby.

With full bellies and great praise for their lord and master, the Mass that was said in a church now occupied by a priest from Normandy, obviously in Latin, was the sweetest of all.