Conquest

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

To always play second string would occasion frustration in the most benevolent breast and it was a feeling to which Roger de Hauteville was not immune. The Guiscard having returned to Apulia, once more leaving Roger in Calabria, did nothing to assuage the desire to achieve something on his own. The province was not at peace: there were sporadic outbreaks of violence which had to be contained, but they were things that could be safely left to the individual captains manning the castles so recently taken from Byzantium; in short, there was nothing by which Roger could distinguish himself, as he had in the famine.

Residing at Mileto, enjoying the company of his wife and two recently born daughters, he was at the same time taking a hand in the education of Jordan, now old enough to ride a pony. That he existed at all, Judith accepted with equanimity and treated him in every way as if he were her own. The boy, every inch a de Hauteville, with his red-gold hair, blue eyes and unusual size, was taught in the same manner as his grandsire had educated his father, to both ride and care for his mount, and he did so alongside the warriors his father led. Thus, daily, he was surrounded by their example as they practised endlessly for war.

Jordan was an engaging child, loved by Judith for his cheerful nature, tender with his two infant siblings, yet also enough of a scamp to be something of a mascot to his father’s lances, not a group of men renowned for tenderness. Many had sons of their own, born to their concubines, for few underwent any kind of ceremony, so Jordan had children of his own age and race to play at the games that such boys do: mock imitation of the battles in which their sires had fought, activities he was often dragged away from to partake of the one thing he did not enjoy, the need to learn to read, write and reckon figures from monks appointed by his stepmother.

Roger insisted upon this, as had Tancred with his own sons, he being aware of the shortcomings a lack of lettering brought to the most puissant warrior, given he was one of the ignorant. Jordan heard from his father the same words Roger recalled being drummed into him: that he would be at the mercy of lesser beings if he depended on them to read and write his letters as well as calculate the value of his holdings and monies owed, the latter being that which had exercised Tancred most.

‘How many times,’ he would growl, ‘have I been cheated out of my due by some snivelling, tonsured clerk?’

The old warrior saw monks and priests as shirkers who worked little and ate well, slippery men unsafe to leave unattended in the company of women. The exception had been his nephew, Geoffrey of Montbray.

‘One day you may meet my cousin, who is an important bishop now, but he began as no more than the family priest. He was a proper Norman, mind, not like these timid Italian priests, just as capable with the sword as the epistle. It was he who taught your oldest uncles, William and Drogo, and I doubt they would have enjoyed as much success as they did if they had not had those skills. Even Robert, troublesome as he was, owes much of the success to those teachings.’

‘He did not teach you?’

‘He was too elevated by the time I was born, but your grandfather always engaged a priest for his church who undertook the task, so when you pull that face, on being told to attend to your lessons, be aware it is one I know well, it being one I used to employ myself. It never managed to release me from the obligation to learn and it will not do so for you!’

Roger valued highly the time he spent alone with Jordan, teaching him to ride and fight with a lightweight wooden sword, to strike a hanging target as he rode past at a fast canter with his tiny lance, but it was not always mounted education or mock combat with a parent who occasionally allowed himself to be bested: the stable and paddock were just as important and Jordan had drummed into him the many other things he needed to know.

‘The time may come when, like me, affairs take you away from dealing with your own animals, but until then this pony and the horses that will surely follow are yours to see to. Feed them, groom them, care for them when they are ill, for you cannot get to a field of battle without them, nor can you fight without a destrier to carry you to your enemies and stay steady in the face of the noise of fighting men and the clash of weapons.’

It was drummed into Jordan that a horse could not ride all day: to do so would render it useless. Equines needed a lot of water but they must not be allowed to drink before fast work, likewise they should be kept from munching pasture, which they would do naturally wherever they found any. They required oats and hay, were fond of root vegetables, but these should be used as rewards. Their bedding had to be changed daily if they were in stalls, the paddocks to be regularly cleaned of dung if they were out in the fields, though the peasants seeking fertiliser usually saw to that.

In hot weather and on campaign their coats needed to be kept short to reduce sweating, and once stopped for the night hooves had to picked and oiled, nostrils and anus cleaned as well, ears checked, the coat brushed till it gleamed, with a careful eye kept out for any sores, abrasions or skin parasites — things which must be treated quickly. If they showed signs of wishing to fight they must be allowed to do so, for horses had their own hierarchy. Training for war must be continuous, a constant search for equine perfection, work which extended to the harness and brasses of the reins and bridle, to saddlecloths and saddles which would crack if not attended to.

And he also was taught he was a warrior in the making, that the horses he rode would sometimes sicken and die or be so wounded in battle that their throats must be cut, a task that could not be left to another, and when there was no food to eat and he was starving, a hazard on campaign, then the meal of last resort was the animals he rode and led.

‘Care for them before you look to yourself, form a bond so they obey and look to you, but do not love them too much, for one day it may be your task to take their life.’

He was not being raised to toil in the fields, that was a task for others, the less fortunate of God’s children, but the other lesson passed down from Tancred was that no man could have the equipment to fight without the toil of those in mean occupations and that to despise them was foolhardy.

‘And remember, Jordan, God sees everything, every petty act and every noble one, and even if the priest absolves you it is your Maker you will one day face and he will ask you to account for that which you did. It has been my purpose to act so that I can do that with calm, and I expect and hope you will do likewise.’

‘My Lord, you have a visitor.’ The look of distaste on the servant’s face, come to deliver this message, was explained by his next words. ‘He is a Saracen.’

Stinking of the stable and the manege, Roger went to wash before proceeding to meet the man he now knew to be Ibn-al-Tinnah, one of the three warring emirs of Sicily: the followers of the Prophet were noted for their personal cleanliness, part of their firm religious code, so he was disinclined to meet the fellow in any other condition than one which matched it. On the way to his privy chamber, he passed many an eye seeking some indication of what this surprise visitation portended, looks that exactly matched his own curiosity.

Al-Tinnah spoke Greek, the language of his Christian subjects, so, there being no need for anyone to translate, the two conversed alone. The emir was a small man, so Roger’s first act was to invite him to sit, a courtesy he saw as wise for another reason: constantly in conflict with his neighbours, he would not have travelled all the way to Mileto unless he was seeking help of some kind, and, although the information from the island was imprecise, Roger knew he had recently suffered some serious reverses against Ibn-al-Hawas, one of his fellow emirs; it was thus a moment of some promise.

‘Al-Hawas is, of course, a coward who makes war on women.’

That piece of deceit had to be treated with diplomacy: if anyone made war on women it was al-Tinnah — the cause of the present quarrel was over al-Hawas’s sister, whom, to cement a peace treaty, al-Tinnah had first married and then tried to kill by ordering a slave to open her veins. This made her flee back to her brother’s formidable mountain-top fortress of Enna. Enraged at the refusal to hand her back, al-Tinnah had marched to Enna intending to besiege it, only to be soundly trounced when his enemy emerged to do battle. Now he was struggling to hold on to his own lands along the eastern coast. Thus a marriage designed to create peace between rival emirs had achieved the exact opposite.

‘I will not disguise from you, Lord Roger, that the beast threatens me, or that I have come here to seek your aid in throwing him back.’

‘I am not at liberty to act at will, Ibn-al Tinnah, you must know that.’

The Saracen responded to that ploy with the same level of tact as Roger had shown to his previous untruths: Robert de Hauteville might be Roger’s titular overlord but they both knew he could do what he wanted, for if he could not, al-Tinnah would have ridden on to Melfi. Roger was itching to go to Sicily anyway; he was merely prevaricating to see what this emir was prepared to offer for military aid.

‘There cannot be peace on my island with the three most powerful emirs in constant disagreement, nor is there any hope that one will see the wisdom of another being superior in power and prestige. I have the mind to command loyalty but not the means to impose my will.’

An opinion not shared by those who are your equals, Roger thought, but he said nothing, silence in negotiation being a vital tool: a man speaking will give away more than one who is mute, yet the knowing smile that Ibn-al-Tinnah produced was slightly disconcerting, implying the ploy was not working.

‘Lord Roger, I think I know how your mind will work, so let me save us both much tilting at shadows when I say that, having conquered Calabria, the next thing you Normans will seek is to take Sicily.’

‘Have you come to warn me against it?’

‘No, I have come to encourage you to act.’

Roger did not react, while aware of how hard he had to struggle to avoid doing so. To invade the island without support, as he had already found out, was hazardous and probably doomed, but with the aid of an emir…

‘I could ask you to ally yourself to my cause, Lord Roger, but I am not a fool. You will not fight just to keep me in my palace.’

‘I might if paid enough.’

‘You would say that, swear on Allah perhaps, but it is not a vow you would keep, whatever the agreed price.’

‘You seem very sure how we Normans will behave and me in particular.’

That reply was less sensitive, yet his visitor was speaking the truth. Roger needed a toehold in Sicily: enough defendable land to establish a presence, a secure base that could be protected by a Norman castle, somewhere to land in numbers and in safety at a time of his own choosing, an enclave that could be reinforced quickly if threatened. The trick was to get onto the island for long enough to make that happen, and he suspected it could only be achieved with the aforesaid Saracen ally. Would that be something welcome to such a person or his cause in the long term?

The chronicles of previous invasions, including those of antiquity, proved that Sicily was a hard island to conquer, which would have been attested to, if they could speak, by Attic Greeks, Phoenicians, the Carthaginians who had contested with Rome and lastly the Byzantines who had retaken Sicily five hundred years before. It had subsequently been lost to Islam. His eldest brothers had partaken of the last attempt at Byzantine recovery, which had faltered on the arrogance of the general in command. But the one fact that had come down through Roger’s own blood relatives was this: Sicily could only be invaded with an indigenous ally like the man now sitting before him.

The emirs were continually at loggerheads and petty rulers existed by the dozen, many in small fiefs, but in truth only a trio of them counted, the great landholders who garnered huge wealth from an extremely fertile island. Ibn-al-Tinnah was Lord of Catania and the province that took its name from the port city. Sicily was like Southern Italy in its disquiet and it shared one other trait: the rulers of the greater provinces were as untrustworthy as their contemporaries across the Straits of Messina.

‘So, Lord Roger,’ al-Tinnah continued, ‘let me propose something more tempting, nothing less than the island of Sicily as a Norman possession. Your brother has been given a ducal title that has no meaning. I am saying it could be made real.’

That such an offer was astounding was an understatement: it was nothing less than fabulous, so much so that it was unlikely to be true.

‘You are now thinking I am lying, that I wish your aid only to repudiate it as soon as my enemy has been driven off.’

‘That makes sense.’

‘So, Lord Roger, would be your agreeing to aid me for no reward, when in truth you would like to cut out a piece of the island for your own purpose.’

Roger, tired of maintaining a rigid expression and given any subterfuge was wasted, burst out laughing. ‘I think you had best tell me what it is you want and what you are prepared to sacrifice. What comes after can be left to the future.’

‘I need Norman lances to defeat al-Hawas and for that I undertake to aid you in securing a foothold on the island. Then, when you are ready for a full campaign, I will join you and help you to take all of Sicily, as long as Duke Robert allows me to remain on my land and keep my possessions as his vassal.’

‘You offer a great deal, perhaps too much.’

‘When a man risks losing not only his land but his head, it would be foolish to offer too little.’

It was not al-Tinnah’s to give — Sicily would have to be taken by force — but that mattered not and Roger listened as the emir outlined his thinking, immediately disabusing the Saracen of the notion that Norman lances could land in Catania and seek battle with al-Hawas: Roger lacked the strength to do other than contain him there. But with the Emir of Enna absent there was nothing to stop anyone from raiding his possessions on the northern coast and that was, Roger insisted, where they should go. If successful enough, it would achieve what was necessary by forcing al-Hawas to abandon his Catanian campaign.

‘It may not be all we can do to help you,’ Roger added, ‘but it answers your immediate concerns and, for the future, we can carve out an enclave from which my brother can attack your rivals.’

Al-Tinnah was less than pleased, however he had no choice but to accept: his position was obviously too weak to do otherwise, for if it were not, he would not have come to Mileto. Roger suggested that Cape Faro, which was right opposite the fortress and port of Scilla, would be a good place to land adding his concomitant thought: that further along the coast lay the peninsula of Milazzo, a narrow neck of land, easy to protect where it joined with the mainland and also a prime spot to build a castle to act as a base for future Norman operations. The question however remained: given what he could muster in lances, should he go?

‘Lord Roger, I have offered you all that I can. I need a speedy response.’

Sensing the desperation in that request, Roger stood suddenly. ‘Please wait here.’

Striding out of the chamber, his mind was in a whirl: it had been obvious that his brother would turn to Sicily at some time, had he not been given the ducal title, which he would want to make good, and no doubt he would engage Roger to aid him as he had here in Calabria. Yet any campaign on the island would be to enforce Robert’s claims, so once more Roger would be at the mercy of his generosity, and he had already proved that when it came to his younger brother, that quality for which the Guiscard was famous could be in short supply.

Here was a chance to strike out early and to be in a position to demand a due reward for what he achieved: that toehold would be his and the price of its use was one he could dictate. He could not take Sicily on his own: that would require everything in the way of force Robert could bring to bear, but with the aid of Ibn-al-Tinnah he could establish a claim too great to refute, nothing less than a Sicilian fief as the springboard for a full invasion. Frustrated enough when unwed, he now had a wife and children to consider, an estate that demanded he assert himself: he required bread from Robert, not crumbs, and here was an opportunity that might never come again.

‘Serlo, to me.’

That command, bellowed from the door to the great hall, echoing round the walls, had his nephew, only months arrived from Normandy, running to hear what was afoot. A promising youth, he had soon become Roger’s close aide.

‘Uncle?’

‘Messengers are to be sent to Ralph de Boeuf. He is to gather up every knight he can muster, as well as foot soldiers, and make for Scilla — another to Reggio to tell Geoffrey Ridel I need transports sent there for some four hundred men, half mounted. Your next task, once that is done, is to prepare our lances and milities for immediate departure.’

The youngster, dark-haired like his sire, grinned at his uncle. ‘Where are we going?’

‘Sicily, Serlo, where else?’

Geoffrey de Ridel was not only an able commander: being from the port of Honfleur he was at home on water and thus a good choice to act as master mariner. Ships had to be commandeered from Reggio, their lower decks fitted with temporary stalls for the mounts, three for each lance: it might be a short crossing but it could also be a choppy one. As usual, getting horses onto ships was fraught with problems. If there was an animal more suspicious than the equine, Roger had never met one. They hated anything unfamiliar, and a long wooden ramp leading to a moving deck in a less than perfectly protected harbour, really no more than a hook of a jetty, was just that.

Few went willingly, many had to be hooded, others given something in their feed to sedate them, with the very worst hoisted aboard on slings. Ridel had waited until he knew the wind and seas to be right before loading took place: he did not want to be stuck at the quayside overseeing a floating stable, not that such a precaution stopped the animals from kicking out at the wooden stalls and pissing and shitting all over the lower decks as soon as they were installed, with the ship’s owners wailing that they would never again be fit for cargo.

Roger left early, in full daylight, boarding a small sailing vessel that would transport him across the straits at their narrowest point, large enough to carry his closest companions, Serlo plus twenty knights and enough wood, kindling and oil for what they needed, their weapons well hidden and their mail covered by common clothing: boats from both shores were out in the good fishing ground and any sight of armed men might be reported ashore. Their destination was a long sandy shore leading to a flat and barren plain, with mountains to the south dominated by the snow-covered and smoking peak of Etna.

The remainder of the lances, after a Mass said on the quayside, weighed in darkness, with a messenger sent to light a beacon built on the promontory of Scilla. The night chosen was clear, without a moon, but showing enough starlight to satisfy de Ridel, the water was choppy, as it often was in this narrow channel, and flowing quite fast, but a southerly wind kept them from being carried too far down and away from Cape Faro, this while each man struggled below decks to keep his animals calm.

Three stacks of wood had been built at intervals on the open beach and Roger looked towards Scilla, seeking the sign to tell him his men had sailed. When he saw that lit beacon, he ordered his own fires ignited to act as a guide to the ships, which stood off till first light before anchoring close to the shore. Lines were then used from the beach to haul them in till their keels touched sand, their ramps once lowered ending in shallow water, the ship rising to re-float freely as the equine cargo was discharged.

The beach was soon a mass of men and mounts and, given surprise was the key to their endeavour, the column of lances quickly headed inland, making for Milazzo, the first major town on the northern coast, traversing a landscape as fertile as any the Normans had ever seen. The next weeks were, with no force of any note to stop them, the very best they could be, culminating in the taking and sacking of Milazzo, that followed by a raid inland to so ravage the lands around Rometta that the formidable fortress town, denuded of a garrison by the Emir al-Hawas, opened its gates to avoid destruction.

The booty from both towns was massive but it was matched by what they took from the countryside: there were cattle and sheep to steal, amphora of oil and wine to load aboard purloined donkeys, manor houses to raze to the ground and precious objects to appropriate from the Orthodox churches they encountered; so much, indeed, that it was necessary to return to Cape Faro, where the ships were still anchored, so that this abundant plunder could be shipped back to Reggio.

That such a course of action disappointed al-Tinnah was obvious: he knew only continuous pressure would distract an enemy who would soon hear that this Norman incursion had ceased. Roger had his own concerns but they had to be put aside for the sake of keeping happy his men: the Milazzo peninsula, and any notion of beginning to fortify it for the future invasion, would have to wait.