Mercenaries

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Approaching the imperial encampment on the River Sacco brought back to William the experience they had had in the Vexin — that stench on the breeze of too many humans and horses in too small a space — only this host was greater than that assembled by Duke Robert. The hillsides were studded with pavilions, each with its own huge armorial banner — the imperial levies, both foot and mounted, encamped over miles of landscape, but again there was no doubt as to where the power lay. The massive imperial tent lay at the centre of what a Roman would have recognised as a triumphal way, surrounded by huge flags that bore the Salian device of a standing black griffin on a yellow background.

William and Drogo led the old Abbot towards the centre of the camp, soldiers standing to observe them as they passed. Odd, not one of them would know this elderly divine, bent with age, but somehow they saw in his person and his simple black Benedictine habit a man of holiness, and many crossed themselves, some even dropping on one knee. Others looked at the de Hauteville brothers, and judged them by a different standard.

William had talked with Theodore on the way, and had been impressed by the old man’s concern, which was not for his own person — though he was glad to be at liberty — but for his monastery and the monks that had once inhabited the buildings and worked the farms, now scattered to the four winds and driven to living in penury by the depredations of Pandulf. William and Drogo had met a lot of monks and friars in their time, not all of them good men; this abbot was the exception.

Outside the great pavilion, the brothers helped the old man off his palfrey. By the time he was on the ground and steadied, a whole host of mailed men had emerged to observe this, including in the centre a striking-looking fellow of stocky build and greying hair, wearing a bright-yellow surcoat with a griffin device to match the fluttering ensigns. It was him William addressed.

‘Sire, we bring you the Abbot of Montecassino.’

‘Abbot Theodore,’ said Conrad, coming forward to embrace the old man, ‘I am glad to see you well.’

‘Your Highness.’

The reply was weak, as was the speaker. Even although the imperial host, hogging the River Sacco as a source of water and supply, had moved closer to Capua, it had been a long journey; riding for hours was tiring for a fit man and it had exhausted him.

‘Come inside and rest. You must eat, you must drink, and you must tell me what Pandulf has been up to and what I must do to put it right.’

Theodore waved a feeble hand towards the de Hauteville brothers. ‘Then, sire, you need to talk with the men who brought me here, for what is needed is the stuff of conflict, and I am a man of peace.’

Conrad looked beyond the abbot to the brothers, standing, hands on their sword hilts, eyeing them up. Neither wore a helmet, so that their colouring could be seen, and that branded them as Normans, while their red and black surcoats identified them as mercenaries serving Rainulf Drengot.

‘They come with good in their hearts.’

‘That will be an unusual thing for a Norman,’ Conrad said.

Drogo bridled, as he always did when he perceived an insult, but it was William who replied.

‘To a Norman that sounds odd on Frankish lips, sire, given we have had scant reason to extend our trust to them.’

The way the men around Conrad stiffened, each no doubt a great lord in their own domain, implied danger, which had Drogo taking a firmer grip of the hilt of his sword. The emperor was indeed of that descent, from his sires as Dukes of Franconia, but it was an inheritance few referred to.

‘However,’ William continued, ‘we did not come here to trade low opinions.’

‘Why did you come?’

‘To inform you of what progress Guaimar of Salerno made with the Lord of Aversa.’

‘And where is Guaimar?’

‘With his sister, staying as a guest of Rainulf.’

‘Hostages?’

‘I said guests, Highness,’ William responded, in a sharp and disrespectful tone. ‘If they were hostages I would have termed them so.’

‘It does not do to show arrogance to my title.’

‘Hear them,’ the Abbot wheezed, ‘I beg you. No more blood should be spilt.’

‘Very well, Theodore, for you I will talk with them.’ He made a peremptory gesture that had their horses taken from them. ‘Leave your weapons outside.’

William nodded, Conrad being unarmed, and removed his sword and knife, Drogo doing likewise. The emperor spun on his heel, taking the abbot’s bony arm to help him along and, removing a small sack off their horse, the brothers followed them into the tent, the courtiers at their heels regarding them with deep suspicion. On a great square table lay maps of the country surrounding Capua, and on another table stood a model of Pandulf’s castle, the river and the bridge, made of wood.

‘They are frantically repairing the walls,’ William said, pointing at the model. ‘This is more complete than the real article.’

‘You came from Capua?’

‘We stopped there to collect the Abbot Theodore.’

‘Nothing else?’

William opened the sack and took out the gold crucifix, placing it on the map. ‘Prince Pandulf bade us make you an offer to secure peace…’

‘You will waste your breath in doing so,’ Conrad interrupted, ignoring the object and looking once more at the old divine. ‘His crimes are too great.’

‘…of three hundred pounds of gold.’

It was telling how much that amounted to; every one of these noble magnates attending the emperor was bound to be rich, but to a man they gasped at the mention of such a sum. Even Conrad, who had more self-control, was clearly impressed. He picked up the crucifix and examined it.

‘He has that much to offer me, a sum I would struggle to match?’

‘It is what he says he has, and knowing him I would believe it.’

‘What wrongs he must have afflicted on his fief to be so rich.’

‘We also persuaded Pandulf to release the Archbishop of Capua,’ Drogo said.

Conrad was looking at the old abbot, now seated and nodding, when he asked why.

‘So he could not use him for the purposes of bargaining.’

‘As if his gold is not enough,’ Conrad replied, then seeing the questioning look on Drogo’s face he added, ‘and it is not.’

William spoke again. ‘That is not the purpose of our coming here and we do not come as representatives of Pandulf or his money. If you take Capua you will take his gold. We come to offer you the support of the Lord of Aversa, on the terms agreed with Guaimar of Salerno.’

‘Leave us,’ Conrad said, abruptly, looking at his advisors. There was a certain amount of shuffling and confusion, not to mention affront, until they obeyed. Looking down at the abbot, he saw the old man had his head on his chest; he had fallen asleep. ‘Guaimar proposed what we agreed?’

‘He did.’

‘So Rainulf will stand aside?’

‘No, he will join with you.’

‘I do not need him to do that. If his force is not in the field I can easily besiege Pandulf.’

‘I know that, Conrad Augustus, but Rainulf will join you.’

‘Why?’

‘To have a say in any peace. Pandulf’s men are Normans and they are our brothers. We would not see them suffer for their service.’

‘They have taken Pandulf’s gold, perhaps they should experience his fate.’

‘What will that be?’

‘To be skinned alive in a public place perhaps, or to have his heart torn from his living body. Maybe he will be placed in a sack with a cat and a snake, then thrown into the nearest deep water. Whatever his fate the world will be rid of him for good.’

‘And your conscience will be clear.’

That brought forth a smile. ‘I am the anointed Holy Roman Emperor. My conscience is always clear.’

Conrad moved over to the table and looked at the maps, pointing the top of the crucifix he was still holding at the city. ‘It is always your way, you Normans. Whatever defeats others suffer you ride away. Perhaps it is time some of your kind learnt the harsh lesson of losing.’

‘What purpose would that serve?’ demanded Drogo.

‘As a warning.’

‘If you insist on such a lesson, Rainulf must oppose you. He will not stand by and see his confreres put to the sword.’

Drogo had to avoid looking at William; this was another gambit which had not been discussed with him, indeed he wondered if William had just made it up. But he could see where it led; the effect would be obvious. Conrad would be anticipating a siege of Capua, no easy prospect, while Pandulf was clearly, judging by the supplies he was garnering, preparing to hold out for a year.

He still thought he had the support of Rainulf, a force it would be wise to keep out in the field, one that could seriously disrupt the imperial host in both siege maintenance and, more importantly, in foraging. Every party sent out would have to be strong enough to face ambush from a Norman force that, challenged by superior numbers, would melt into the mountains and draw off men from Capua. That would extend the time it would take to subdue the place; could the emperor stay long enough to enforce his will?

Many a siege had been abandoned because it just went on too long. Those inside a fortress might be reduced to near starvation, but the men outside faced just as many difficulties, not least the threat of disease which always seemed to affect a host which stayed too long in one place. In any case, holding an army together was no easy task: tempers frayed, supporters became fractious and rationing became more and more troublesome.

But let Pandulf see Rainulf ride as a friend into Conrad’s camp and he would know his cause was lost. Without an external enemy the imperial army could forage far and wide, send away detachments to ease the supply and disease problems without fear that they would be attacked and decimated. And it was obvious that the emperor, thinking on the same subject, and studying that model of the formidable fortress he needed to take, would of necessity come to the same conclusions.

Conrad actually did that. He moved to stand by that wooden model, his finger tracing the various difficulties Capua represented. Pandulf had to be chastised, but how many men would expire to achieve such a need, and what of the possibility, one any sensible commander had to consider, of failure? If he could not show his power to chastise in Campania, the whole of the imperial domains in Italy could be affected; many a noble lord between Rome and the Brenner Pass would think he too could defy the emperor.

‘And what happens to these men?’

‘Many originally served with Rainulf. Let them do so again.’

‘That is a bargain fraught with danger. Did you discuss this with Guaimar?’

‘No.’

‘Then let me speak for him, for I can tell you what he would say. He will be Duke of Salerno and Prince of Capua, but he would not be happy to have in his midst a host of Norman lances powerful enough to depose him any time they wish, which would be after I am no longer there to protect him.’ He looked down at the still-slumbering abbot, and added. ‘I doubt Theodore, saintly as he is, would welcome that either.’

The implications of that were obvious. Montecassino, given the wealth its lands produced, was a tempting objective for hundreds of idle men who had already tasted its riches.

‘Rainulf expressly did not take part in the destruction of the monastery and he will not do so in future. You no doubt find the idea of a Norman and piety incompatible, but it is there nevertheless. Make Guaimar liege lord to Rainulf, confirm Rainulf as Count of Aversa, and I will guarantee he will serve him faithfully.’

‘You?’

‘Rainulf listens to William.’

The look Conrad gave Drogo showed how unconvincing he felt that to be.

‘Rainulf,’ William insisted, ‘does not need me to tell him of his duty to a suzerain.’

‘Is that the same duty he had exercised with Pandulf, to whom he has been loyal these past years? To this I cannot agree.’

‘What if, after you were gone, there were no Normans in Aversa?’ asked William.

Drogo actually growled then; he was getting fed up with his brother doing things on the wing, strategies of which he knew nothing, so that he felt like a fool. What Conrad said next did, however, make him wonder if his brother had the mind of the Devil.

‘If you’re going to ask me for Pandulf’s three hundred pounds of gold so that you can go home…’

‘Not that,’ William interrupted, an act plainly not welcome by the target, as well as a response which deeply disappointed his own brother. ‘Rainulf has been sent an invitation by Constantinople to join the invasion of Sicily.’

‘It surprises me he did not go, given that is your Norman profession, fighting for pay.’

When William did not respond, Conrad looked at him and, after a moment’s thought, smiled, having deduced what fear had kept Rainulf in Aversa. Gone, Pandulf would have taken over his domains.

‘Spare the garrison of Capua, let them join with Rainulf, and we will all go south to Calabria.’

‘That will not last for ever.’

‘It could last for years, long enough for Guaimar to consolidate his position, and who knows what might be had in a rich land like Sicily? Many of us may never return.’

William suspected Conrad was just prevaricating; he would know very well that the primary objective was Capua. Everything that followed from the capture of that and the Wolf would have to be dealt with as and when it needed to be. An added problem he must consider was the very fact that the defenders of the fortress would be Normans, and by reputation they were a race that did not give in lightly; much easier to let them march out and away.

‘Rainulf undertakes to do what you say?’

‘He does.’

Conrad had already decided what he was going to say, but his dignity demanded he appear to think on it for a while. ‘Then return to him and say this. I will be under the walls of Capua in four days. It would be advantageous to our imperial purpose if he was to join me then.’

The journey back was one long whine from Drogo, who chose to harp on about Pandulf’s gold, as though it had actually been offered, enough, he insisted, for their father to build a castle to rival the Duke of Normandy, never mind a stone tower. In reality he was just piqued at being kept in the dark; William had nurtured the plan he had espoused in the company of Rainulf, and Drogo had difficulty in accepting the need he had had to keep it to himself.

Their route took them to the lower reaches of the Volturno, where it ran through a huge flat plain before debouching into the sea. There it was possible to ford the river as long as it was not in spate.

From the outside, the fortress of Capua presented a formidable obstacle. Three sides of the castle bordered the Volturno, which acted like a superior moat, for here the river course narrowed, and fed as it was by the glaciers of the high Apennines, it flowed strong and fast for most of the year and was never low enough to make it easy to navigate. Crossing it by boat was not just hazardous, it was nearly impossible: with the river running in most places along the actual walls there was no ground on which to gather to mount an assault, which allowed the defenders to gather in strength at those few spots where any form of siege tactics could be employed long before the attackers could land there.

Sapping to undermine the walls was pointless: the river would soon flood any work of digging and, besides, it would be too close to the fortifications for safety; tunnellers liked to begin their sapping far away from danger, and be underground when close. Conrad had with him artisans and builders who were adept at constructing ballistae, mangonels and the like, but there was only one wall on which they could be usefully employed: the wide space that had once been, in Roman times, a sort of Campus Martius, and that was quite naturally the point at which the defence was strongest, the walls at their thickest, although they included a double gate. But that was sunk behind twin barbicans full of narrow embrasures, through which crossbowmen could rain bolts down on any attackers.

Pandulf had been in panic, but that had eased as he saw the work on the walls produce results, and as he listened to his Norman captains explain to him — for he was not gifted with a military mind — how formidable a place he occupied. The whole city and surrounding countryside had been stripped bare of anything that could be used to feed the garrison; the storerooms were full to bursting and the supply of water, that most vital element, could never be cut off.

If Capua had one fault, it was that forays by the defenders were as constrained by the natural defences as were those of the attacking force, therefore there was little use in keeping inside the walls all the horses the Normans usually required for battle, which in turn aided the defence, for the amount of forage required to feed them was much reduced, allowing for the storage of a greater amount of food.

The men he trusted assured him they could hold out, assured him that Rainulf Drengot, whom they knew well and under whom most had served, was a master of the kind of hit, run or ambush tactics that would make the task of feeding the imperial army near impossible. Half Conrad’s men would never be available for the assault: they would have to guard against raids, escort supply wagons and man a perimeter outside Capua to ensure Rainulf did not make an assault on the town itself.

The gates were shut to Conrad Augustus and the citizenry of Capua well before the first imperial horsemen appeared on the concourse before the great gates. Conrad himself was not far behind, only holding back his entry till his advance guard had made sure no traps had been set and that the inhabitants of the ancient city would welcome him with gratitude. That they did, cheering him through the narrow streets to the echo, priests blessing him while those Pandulf had milked of their wealth prayed alongside that the Wolf would be cast into perdition.

There was the ritual to go through: a message must be sent to Pandulf, ordering him to surrender his castle to his suzerain, one which got a mocking reply.

‘I demand to parley with the emperor,’ Pandulf shouted from through one of the crenels atop the walls, joined, on either side, by most of the garrison, to show the enemy the numbers they faced. ‘Under safe conduct.’

‘And the emperor demands that you surrender your person to his mercy.’

‘That I will not do.’

‘Then by the laws of combat you must suffer pillage and death. May God be with you.’

As this was taking place, the imperial host was marching into position, thousands of lances and milites led by those mighty nobles, who fanned out to surround the fortress in a seeming flood of martial strength. Next, on the concourse, a mass was said, with a cardinal to take the Host for Conrad, and priests spread throughout the army to do the same for the soldiers. Pandulf and his Normans watched this in silence, each man having already confessed and been blessed by another set of priests within the walls.

Conrad could be seen, very obvious in his bright-yellow surcoat, and by his side stood Guaimar, while Berengara was also visible sitting on a dais outside a hastily erected pavilion; that Pandulf expected. What shocked him, when the imperial trumpets blew a fanfare, was to see Rainulf Drengot, with William de Hauteville by his side, riding slowly out from a narrow roadway that led to the esplanade, then to dismount and kneel before Conrad. If it affected him, and it did, the corollary for his Normans was even worse, setting up a cry of dismay.

The ceremony that followed Pandulf did not witness: he was too busy overseeing the loading of a boat in the water gate that led on to the river, with his wife, his children, his coffers and some hastily gathered clothing, urging his personal servants to hurry, alternately weeping and cursing at the perfidy of Rainulf Drengot and his own foolishness in not beheading Guaimar when he was still a boy.

That young man was kneeling before Conrad Augustus, swearing fealty for the imperial possessions of Salerno and Capua, his heart nearly bursting with emotion, for he was now styled Prince Guaimar. Rainulf Drengot, in turn, swore fealty both to Salerno and the Holy Roman Emperor, as Conrad invested him with the proud gonfalon, hung from its crosspiece above his head as he took his oath, which was now his to display as the Imperial Count of Aversa.

When Rainulf rose, he made a point of embracing William, bringing him forward to kiss his gonfalon, which was, to those who knew the way of the world, an acknowledgement of his trust and his senior captain’s future. He then led William to Guaimar, and bade him kneel to his immediate suzerain, and finally the heir of Tancred was presented to the Emperor Conrad Augustus in the same manner, which was as good as saying the words, ‘This man will be my heir.’

William, full of pride and thoughts of a brilliant future, then mounted and rode to a point between the twin barbicans, to tell the Norman garrison that they were free to march out with their arms, their equipment and any dependants they might have, on condition that they took service with the newly enfeoffed Count of Aversa, and agreed either to leave Italy by returning to Normandy, or to join Rainulf and Byzantium in their attack on the Saracens of Sicily. Again a ritual had to be observed, as it had to appear as a proposal to be discussed instead of merely accepted.

But when you offer a man the choice of life as against certain death, it is no choice at all. Within the hour, the gates opened and Pandulf’s Norman mercenaries, no longer wearing the blue and yellow surcoats of his colours, emerged, to march between two silent lines of imperial troops. There was noise: the jeering of the celebrating citizens of Capua.

At their heels came William de Hauteville, to cry out to Conrad, ‘Your Imperial Highness, the fortress of Capua is yours.’

On the river, with his servants rowing furiously, Pandulf, the Wolf of the Abruzzi, was wondering where he could go to escape the wrath of those now occupying his castle.