Conquest

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

To Roger the time spent arguing with Robert was time wasted and nothing proved such a truth more than the news that the Ibn-al-Tinnah had been ambushed, his forces soundly beaten and he himself assassinated. Worse, the Norman garrison of Troina, which, like Rometta barred the route to Messina, had abandoned the castle for fear of what would come next. The Saracens loyal to al-Tinnah had fled the town in their entirety.

Within days Roger was on his way with three hundred knights, this time taking not only Jordan but also Judith — Geoffrey, now weaned, being left with a nurse. Judith was happy to go whatever the reason, much preferring to be with her husband than to be stuck in Mileto; Roger wanted her not just for her company, which he missed when they were parted, but to show the Sicilians he was committed enough to the conquest of the island to settle there.

There was no delay at Messina: Roger and his lances rode straight to the stout fortress right in the shadow of Mount Etna, the most forward stronghold of the late al-Tinnah, surprised and delighted to find that no attempt had been made to take what was a castle devoid of a proper defence, proof that Ibn-al-Hawas had not yet recovered from the drubbing Robert had inflicted upon his army below Enna. Slowly he rode into the lower part of Troina, which rose through narrow streets to the upper town and the castle, expecting to be greeted as a saviour, nonplussed by the lack of zeal shown by the locals: indeed they seemed sullen.

That was not something to which he could give much thought: this was to be his base for future operations into Saracen territory and an inspection of the fortification showed repairs were necessary. Once they had been completed and a suitable set of rooms made good for Judith, he detached thirty knights to guard the place and rode off with Jordan to seek out his enemies.

Had he stopped to enquire, Roger would have seen more than a surly population. All Greeks now, they had begun to think the Normans worse than the Saracen overlords who preceded them, more abrupt in their manner and too free with both the wine and the local women. Then there was the way they enforced their Roman rites in the church ceremonies, that causing more resentment than their unseemly behaviour. No sooner had Roger disappeared than the plotting started and he had not been gone a week by the time the first uprising broke out, signalled by the sudden disappearance from the castle of every one of the Greek servants, including the women who had attended Judith.

That first disturbance, a riot in the streets, was quickly brought under control, but was not, as his men thought, trouble snuffed out. Like one of those smouldering forest fires that plagued the surrounding hills in high summer, problems broke out sporadically and it began, with the help of Orthodox priests, to form into a proper rebellion, until the garrison of Troina had a full-scale revolt on their hands. The target of the insurgents was simple and would have been telling had they succeeded: the Greeks would capture Judith and use her to bargain with the Count of Sicily. Let him take his garrison, let him leave them in peace and his wife would be spared.

Sudden as it was, they had underestimated those with whom they must deal: the knights left behind were Roger’s own conroys, some of whom had come with him from Normandy, and his wife was of the same race — for her to show fear, for her to even think of discussing terms, was anathema. Neither were the knights guarding her content to be constrained: they sallied out to meet the rebellion head-on, fighting in the constricted streets and even narrower alleys, constantly needing to defend their rear as much as their front, determined not to be driven inexorably back towards the castle. More tellingly they got away a mounted messenger to tell their leader what was happening.

The numbers seemed too great to contest and were growing: it was as if every Greek in Troina were now fighting, men in the hundreds and getting more numerous by the day, making it increasingly difficult for the garrison to hold the upper town to keep the citadel safe. Operating as conroys, constantly attacking instead of waiting for the Greek assaults, they kept their enemies guessing as to where they would appear next and in what number, driving them downhill time and again.

Roger, besieging the nearby town of Nicosia, left as soon as he heard the news and flogged his horses half to death to get back to Troina, storming into the town and driving a wedge through the Greeks until he could join up with the men he had left behind, now sorely depleted and with every one of them carrying wounds, his first call to reassure his wife that, despite the loss of a third of the garrison, all was now well.

‘You are safe, Judith.’

‘I was not afraid, husband, do not ever think that I was.’

That got her a bear hug that lifted her bodily and he spun her round. ‘No, you would not be, but I need to leave you again. I must go out and assess the difficulties we face.’

His attempt to depart was stopped by a strong pull. ‘Go, but do not stay away too long. I have missed you.’

‘Not as much, my love, as I have missed you.’

‘I look forward to testing that,’ she breathed.

‘Damn you, woman, let me be till I am done with my work.’

‘Father?’

Jordan was in the doorway, looking anxious; if he had overheard that uxorious exchange he showed no sign of being abashed. It was something he had witnessed before and a fact much remarked on in the world in which they lived, Roger de Hauteville loved his wife and she demonstrably returned his feelings in equal measure.

‘I have been out in the lower part of the town.’

‘What!’

‘I went in disguise.’

Looking at his blond hair, Roger was angry. ‘You would need soot to hide your race.’

‘We do not just face Greeks. There are Saracens flooding into the lower sections. I think they have come to make common cause.’

Roger was out of the chamber immediately, Jordan at his heels, for this was, if true, very serious. His plan had been to wait until the morrow, then issue an ultimatum to the inhabitants, to come back to their allegiance or face his wrath, a telling threat given his numbers. But if his opponents were more numerous than he thought, such a warning might be wasted. As he exited the castle gate half a dozen men fell in behind him, following as he strode through the rapidly darkening streets, feeling as he did so the chill in the evening air.

It was as well he had that escort for, at every turn, he found his way blocked by mobs of armed men, as many Saracens as Greeks, an oddity since there was little love lost between them, which led to an unpleasant conclusion based on that sullenness he had experienced on first arrival: much as they despised each other they hated the Normans more.

Such a combination had another troubling facet: with both Greeks and Saracens against him, it indicated the whole country around Troina was hostile, which meant he was cut off from Messina and assistance. The option did exist to fight his way out and he knew, even if he sustained losses, he would succeed, but that meant the abandonment of Troina and that he could not countenance.

‘We are going to stay and we are going to wear them down,’ he said to his men assembled. ‘Everybody out and barricade the streets leading to the citadel, we must hold them away from the walls.’

‘Surely they are strong enough?’ Jordan asked.

That got the youngster a look from the more experienced knights: you did not question such commands in the situation in which they found themselves, even from someone as understanding as Roger — you obeyed them.

‘A lesson, Jordan,’ Roger replied gently. ‘In this kind of situation never let locals near your walls and always worry that one will betray you to your enemies if besieged. We have built on what was here before us and the Saracens built on what was here before them. If there is a secret way into this castle, or some flaw in the defence, who would know it best?’

‘Those who live by its side?’

‘And have done for generations. I have known boys climb cliffs to supposedly impregnable fortresses that would defeat the most puissant warrior. Why? Because they know the way, knowledge handed down from father to son and brother to brother. So, we will keep them behind barricades, which has the added advantage of forcing them to fight us in small numbers. On the concourse before the gates, we could be overwhelmed. Only if those barricades fail must we rely on the castle walls.’

They worked hard into the dark and through the night, fighting often to repel those who wished to contest their placements, incurring wounds but inflicting more. Carts were overturned, houses stripped of their timbers, even their doors pressed into service, anything used that would serve to block an approach, creating a barrier that could be defended. Roger, meanwhile, was in the storerooms, to assess the state of their provender. That done, and he satisfied they could hold out for a long time, he finally retired to bed. Judith, despite the hour, was waiting for him.

‘We are trapped, Judith.’

This was said as she lay in the crook of his arm, both of them in a blissful state of post-coital well-being.

‘Surely men will come from Messina to help?’

‘In time, and always with the caveat they are not occupied elsewhere. But they will not risk Messina to save Troina.’

Kissing his chest she murmured. ‘There are worse things, husband, than being besieged with you.’

‘Don’t let my men hear you say that.’

The first snow came within a week, having long blanketed the higher slopes of Mount Etna, the volcano smoking and rumbling angrily in the near distance as if peace were impossible. No more did studded boots ring on cobbles; now they moved silently about on a bed of soft white powder. Men sat round blazing fires fed by the ample wood store of the castle above the smoking chimneys of the lower town. If the snow masked the noise of boots it also hid the preparations for any attack, which were launched often, with the Greeks, aided by an increasing number of Saracens, probing for weakness, so that every day involved a raft of small conflicts, with Roger’s men rushing from one hot spot to another to keep them at bay, action that took a steady toll on his numbers.

Roger had his sources of information: not all the Greeks were happy with rebellion: many had prospered from a Norman presence, wine shop owners and the like. So he knew the numbers he faced and their composition, though that brought him scant comfort. News having spread, every Saracen for leagues around had come to aid the Greek cause, contingents arriving also from the surrounding towns, which explained how his enemies were able to keep up their pressure, launching sorties at varying points to keep him and his defenders off balance.

It was when that stopped, after the first four weeks, that Roger really began to fret, for it indicated that those keeping them confined had decided to settle for a different outcome, starving him out. He launched attacks, moving aside barricades to raid the lower town and slaughter those he found there, as well as stealing their stores. It was hard and dangerous fighting in which men died and were wounded, and too often Roger found he needed to restrain his overenthusiastic son, who seemed intent on getting himself killed or maimed. Jordan was filling out by the day, turning into a fully grown man before his eyes, still seeking to impress his father, unwilling, despite constant repetition, to accept it was unnecessary.

They started to eat their horses before Christmastide, two months into the siege, and in his daily examination of the storerooms Roger was bleakly aware of what was needed to feed his remaining fighting men, over two hundred in number, plus the wounded, anything they managed to plunder a drop in an ocean of consumption. No sign had come of any kind of relief, and while he could speculate endlessly on the reasons for that, it was pointless: if it came it came, if it did not and this cordon around his castle was maintained, he was going to be in serious difficulty, which made him curse the fact that he had brought Judith to this place.

That was not a regret shared by his lances; they saw her as a talisman. Judith tended the sick and spoke with them all and what she did not know about their families and how they came to be in Sicily she soon learnt. If food was scarce, she insisted by rotation that, conroy by conroy, her husband’s knights should eat at high table in the great hall to underline their shared difficulty. If Roger was in love with her, by the time it came to celebrate the birth date of Jesus Christ, so were half the garrison.

The high hills in which Troina stood were now in the grip of deep winter, the whole landscape blindingly white, the air crisp in the day if the sun shone, freezing when cloudy and at night. It was some comfort to Roger to know that, sentinels keeping watch on the barricades aside, he and his lances were in reasonable comfort. His tactic of launching surprise raids, which he kept up night after night, burdened his besiegers more than it weighed on him: he had professional fighting men, those they attacked were not good in a sharp combat, meaning they had to keep greater numbers in position to ward off his raids than he employed to undertake them.

Yet there was the gnawing worry of where it was all going to lead, a feeling that grew as week followed week. The Greeks and Saracens had access to the countryside and supplies, which, even in the midst of winter, gave them meat to eat and wood to burn, this while he was running short on both. By the third month the horses were gone and the garrison was eating their oats, the stores of hay long gone onto the fires that kept them warm. Every building inside his barricades had been stripped of timber and they were now knocking out roofs to get at the beams and still there was no sign that his plight had registered in Messina.

One tactic he initiated seemed to be paying dividends, his instruction that if those of his enemies opposite his barricades lit a fire it should be a signal for an immediate assault. If they were going to confine him and his men let them do so cold: it took time for the Greeks and Saracens to realise this, but come to the sense of it they did and, each night, they huddled in their defences, often while snow fell around them, which was at least warmer than a clear and frosty night.

‘They are drinking wine to ward off the chill,’ Jordan said.

This information was imparted through chattering teeth. He had been out, in the snow, now melting off his discarded cloak, on one of his daredevil escapades, which he continued in spite of a direct instruction to desist, and he was now trying, at what were feeble flames, to get the blood flowing through his frozen frame. Roger, angry with the continued insubordination, could not help but notice the drawn nature of his son’s face, which was not brought on by fatigue but by lack of food. It was the same with all of his lances, the sick now added to the wounded and that included the man he relied on most, a fever-stricken Ralph de Boeuf; he had cut the rations but it took no genius to work out that they were running out of the means to stay alive. If something did not break soon, he would be obliged to surrender.

‘The Greeks, yes,’ he agreed, pulling his fur cloak tighter round his frame, ‘but Islam forbids its sons to drink wine.’

‘Why do you never believe what I say, Father?’ Jordan asked brusquely.

It was an unaccustomed tone from his son and Roger was about to react as he thought he should, only to realise that it was induced as much by hunger as anger at him.

‘Do I not?’

‘No. And you diminish me in front of others every time I speak.’

‘You cannot fault me, surely, for trying to teach you what you need to know.’

‘I can fault you for doing so in public.’

‘If I do so, it is for your own good,’ Roger barked, his patience with being corrected evaporating.

‘Then,’ Jordan responded, equally sharp, ‘for your own good, go out and see if what I have just told you is the truth.’

Roger’s hand was raised but he did not strike, partly because Jordan showed no sign of seeking to avoid the coming blow. Instead he stood. ‘Get your cloak back on and show me.’

Out on the concourse before the castle it was like daylight, with the full moon high in the sky reflecting off the deep snow. Roger stopped to talk to a party of his men coming back from their short duty as sentinels — no one could stay out too long — and established that all was quiet from where they had come.

‘Apart from the singing,’ one said.

‘Singing?’ Roger demanded.

‘More chanting,’ another replied, ‘I think to keep up their spirits.’

‘It’s good to know they are so low.’ Roger regretted that as soon as he said it, for in the eyes of the man he was speaking to lay clear evidence that they all knew of their situation: they too were low in spirits. ‘Go inside, get warm.’

‘Sire, I have forgotten what warm is like.’

‘How long do we have, Father?’ Jordan asked in a soft voice as they parted company with the sentinels.

‘It will be time when you can play a tune on your ribs,’ Roger replied in a determined tone. ‘And we are not there yet.’

But the thought nagged at him, as he walked ahead of his son: surrender was not more than a week away.

The soft chanting he heard as soon as he joined the men who had just relieved those to whom he had spoken, heavily cloaked, flapping their arms to stay warm, who had learnt weeks before this moment that to touch your sword blade with an ungloved hand was to lose your skin.

‘How long has this been going on?’ Roger asked.

‘A few days.’

‘Jordan says they are drinking wine, even the Saracens.’

‘Lucky them,’ the fellow responded.

The Normans had run out of that first and been forced to part with anything they had managed to plunder to pay those willing to smuggle a few skins into them; rough as it was it assuaged their anxieties. It was from that source, in a broken-down house with a connecting cellar to the other side of the barricades, he discovered the truth of what Jordan was telling him. Of all the garrison, he had the most with which to trade and he used the contact to seek news, always negative, of any form of relief coming his way. When he tried to bargain for some wine, he found the price had gone up and the quality, never high, had plummeted.

‘Saracens are drinking it by the tun barrel now,’ his contact whispered. ‘Their imams have given them absolution for the sin. Can’t get enough now they’ve found out what a pleasure there is in the grape.’

‘By the tun barrel?’

‘And the rest. Taking more and more each day and hauling skins out with ’em on guard.’

Later, wandering through the now cavern-like storerooms, which months before had been full to bursting, Roger mulled over how to use this information. Time was not running out, it was gone. Something had to be done, yet he was in a worse position now than he had been originally. When first besieged, breaking out would have been bloody, but a goodly number of Normans could have got out of Troina town and, mounted, they would have got away. Now, with men weakened by hunger and no horses, he would have to fight his way out on foot, leaving those like Ralph who could not do battle, against odds he could not calculate, and to what? Countryside in the grip of winter and one in which, unfriendly and dangerous, they could all die.

Over the next few days he could see, in every eye that met his, men resigned to their fate. The only person not so affected was Judith, locked in her self-imposed concerns for the sick and infirm, she being the only one with whom he could openly share his concerns. Her response was to gently drag him to his knees and tell him to pray, tell him that God had got him to his title and only God would save them all. If he prayed with her, and he did, it was with less conviction than she exhibited.

Hunger woke him in the night, a griping in his stomach that made sleep impossible, got him up and out into the cold air, under a black sky, with no moon and some cloud. He had avoided middle-of-the-night visits to his outposts, which might imply he did not trust his captains to keep alert their men, but he went round them this time and what struck him by the time he had reached the third barricade was the utter silence. There was no soft singing or chanting from the other side of the kind he had heard before.

Unbuckling his sword, Roger took out his knife and, ordering those on duty to be ready to catch him, he climbed to the top of the barricade and stood in what should have been plain view. Nothing happened, so gingerly he crept down the opposite side, not easy on a roughly constructed barrier, all the while conscious he was making noises that, in his ears, sounded like thunderclaps. Still there was no response and it was with one foot on the ground that he heard the first of the gentle snoring.

Just then the clouds parted enough to show a mass of stars, giving him light to see the huddled sleepers resting against the barricade. The snoring was very evident now; the whole lot of them were asleep and each had either in his hand or at his side an empty wineskin. He could not shout, that risked waking them, so, just as cautiously, he climbed back to the top and called softly to his men to take off their swords and join him, sending one fellow back to the castle to rouse out every man now sleeping.

Back down again, with both feet on the ground, Roger helped his men negotiate their descent, urging silence until they were lined up, knives at the ready, each one marking a slumbering enemy. Their throats were cut, quickly and, if you set aside the gurgling of slashed jugulars, silently, the smell of their blood mixing with the odour of their bodies, neither as strong as that of stale, vinegary wine.

It was a long night as, one by one, Roger’s men took each barricade, only very rarely leaving a sentinel alive and, if they woke and fled, which they did, found themselves running into parties of Normans at their back, men who had circled round soundlessly through deserted, snow-covered streets, to take them in the rear. Before dawn, Roger had got down to the lower town with his whole strength, to take in their beds and slay the men who had trapped him for so long. Troina was his again when the sun rose.

The revenge was awful, but it needed to be: Greeks suffered much, but the Saracens who had come to kill him and his men and who had survived the night, died to a man, the snow in the gutters washed away by their warm blood. He crucified the Orthodox priests and burnt at the stake the elders of the town, for these men had sworn fealty to the cause of Ibn-al-Tinnah and had betrayed their oath.

‘Let it be known throughout this island,’ he said, to those he spared. ‘I am the Count of Sicily and your liege lord. Break your bond to me and this you have witnessed will be the result.’

The triumph of retaking the town was followed, naturally, by a great feast, and the still sullen, if chastened Greeks of Troina — there was not a Saracen left — were obliged to witness their restored lords and masters roast and eat oxen and consume as much wine as had led to their victory. Yet the Normans were becalmed without their greatest asset, horses and mobility. Roger’s first task was to speed back to Calabria to find replacements, leaving Judith in charge of Troina.

She played her part, touring the outposts each night to ensure that all was well, as the snows began to melt and spring came in the shadow of belching Etna. Roger was back within two months with a full complement of mounts, leading Serlo, foot soldiers and more lances, though not of sufficient numbers to replace his losses. The conquest of Sicily could continue, albeit with a much-depleted force: the retaking of Troina had cost Roger dear.