Son of Blood

PROLOGUE

No fighting man can go into the battle thinking of death, for to do so is to risk bringing on that very fate. The possibility must be accepted and set where it belongs, at the back of the mind, while the warrior concentrates on exercising what skills he possesses, though there are moments when such an outcome will come to the fore and all attempts to force it back to where it belongs do not suffice. This is what happened to Bonito of Alberobello who had, along with his fellow Lombard rebels, emerged from the fortified town of Noci to fight their enemies on the gentle, open and hard-earthed slope before the town gates.

The Normans, even although they were heavily outnumbered, behaved as though they were at little risk of losing, which came as no surprise; those heathens believed no Lombard could hold their ground against their superior fighting skills, just as no Lombard could be considered an equal. Yet the race they despised had withstood the repeated assaults of their ferocious cavalry, with Bonito aware that many of his compatriots had been fatally skewered on their lances. Having failed to break the line holding the approach, they had now dismounted to do battle on foot and Bonito was not alone in feeling his spirits soar at the prospect of the victory that would surely come and of the Norman blood that would stain the ground beneath his feet. Dismounted, they could not be half the warriors they were on a destrier!

As men had fallen the defenders closed ranks, so that Bonito moved nearer to the centre of the line, coming face to face with the most puissant of his enemies when battle rejoined, and that cheered him; perhaps he would kill an important leader and be in receipt of a just reward of gold or silver for such a feat. He was a doughty fighter, admired for that ability by those who had rebelled against the Duke of Apulia, a man they all hated with virulent passion, though they had never ever laid eyes on him. Robert de Hauteville, they were sure, was in concert with Satan; indeed, it was whispered he might well be the Devil himself.

To the Lombards of South Italy, even more to the Greeks over whom they had once held sway, the Normans were uncouth barbarians, little removed from Vikings, who hailed from the cold, misty lands of the north. Their only aim was to plunder and sack, being rogues who fought not for love of land, family or hearth but as greedy mercenaries. That was how they had come to Apulia, a fertile and rich terrain of vines, olive groves, burgeoning fields of wheat and fat livestock: invited by a fool who saw their fighting prowess as a way to throw off the yoke of their Byzantine overlords and restore Lombard independence to South Italy; in the end that aim had been thwarted. Byzantium was gone, but there had been no Lombard ruler to take their place, for the Normans had stolen that ambition; one tyranny had been replaced by another.

Bonito’s faith only began to waver when he realised that amongst the mail-clad knights advancing towards him at a steady pace, the fellow he would come up against was a monster who towered above him by a good three cubits; added to that, he was so broad in the shoulder as to be near double Bonito’s girth. Normans were by nature taller and better built than Lombards and stood as positive giants compared to the Greeks who made up the bulk of the population. Yet even by that standard the man with whom Bonito would do battle made those confreres in his own advancing line look puny.

The Goliath’s arm had a superior reach, rendering the broadsword in his mailed hand longer by two hands. The temptation to edge right or left was strong but impossible to implement — the line was too compact — and if Bonito did move he could not do so without exposing the flank of one of his compatriots, which would thus put him in peril. So with a whispered prayer to his one true god he resolved to do as well as he could, thinking perhaps such height and build concealed a weakling, for not all big men are strong.

The first swing of that broadsword, parried with difficulty, put paid to the latter notion as Bonito felt the effect of the blow run up his arm and jar his shoulder, this while he observed the unblinking bright-blue eyes that bored down into his own from either side of the nose guard, orbs that sat in unlined skin. Seeking to use the giant’s height against him Bonito made to go into a crouch, hoping to get under his defence and hit him in the vital part of his groin. To achieve that he needed the split second of non-engagement that would free his own broadsword and that was not gifted to him, for his opponent’s weapon was employed without pause. All he could do was hastily shift his blade to parry and his round buckler to deflect, aware that each time his shield was struck he was rocked back on his feet in seeking to contain the force of the blow.

Within moments that thought of impending death was no longer buried deep, it was uppermost in his mind; he could not do battle against this monster and he could expect no aid from his companions, for they were as deeply engaged as he. If that was the case, then there could only be one outcome, which brought to the fore the sole notion that nature allows as a substitute. It was not cowardice that made Bonito of Alberobello take one pace back but an overwhelming desire for self-preservation; in his action he fractured that cohesion which had held off the previous mounted assaults.

Those in the line to right and left sensed him giving ground. They, like he, knew that any open gap presaged doom for those who sought to hold their place, for they would be exposed on their flank as well as to their front, destined to do battle with two enemies, not one, so they too began to give way. The dent in the defence thus rippled along the entire Lombard line, with those who were too slow to react exposing their sides to deadly thrusts that, striking home, created even bigger gaps into which the Normans eagerly pushed, slashing right and left as they did so to widen it into a complete rupture.

The defence broke as each individual Lombard came to the same conclusion as Bonito: it was time to save themselves from a cause that was irretrievably lost. That they died in greater numbers for such a choice was the unintended consequence and fate did not spare the man who had first wavered, for there was no way Bonito could get out of the reach of the giant swinging his sword to cleave him. A last desperate parry saw his own weapon break in two, while his shield was now so mashed as to provide little protection.

The killer blow took him at the point where his neck met his shoulder and it cut through his mailed trunk as if his armour was made of links of wool, not metal. The collarbone was smashed, but the effect did not end there as his enemy drove his sword down and through his top ribs to the sound of screaming prayers for mercy from the victim, shrieks which died as the blade cut through the pipe that supplied wind to his gullet. The fount of blood that emerged as it progressed shot high into the air until eventually even the giant’s great strength could sustain the effect no longer, compacted flesh and bone bringing the blade to a halt. Bonito of Alberobello died looking up into the still, unblinking eyes of the warrior who killed him, but not before he heard the man fighting next to him exultantly shout something in his heathen, incomprehensible tongue.

‘You have your father’s arm, Bohemund.’

There was no time for the speaker to say more and no time for the youth receiving the accolade to react. He had to extract his weapon from the limp rag of a body now collapsing to the ground, for there was much more killing to do as the defeated rebels broke completely and sought to get back through the city gate from which they had emerged to do battle. Amongst them now and swinging freely with his broadsword was Bohemund, a mere sixteen summers old, the bastard son of the devil-like Duke of Apulia, and he wreaked deadly havoc — so much devastation that he left behind him a trail of dead and dying enemies as well as most of his confreres.

It was Bohemund that got to the still-open gate first, and that same sword which pressed into the narrowing gap to prevent the double iron-studded doors from slamming shut, as those inside, sacrificing the fighters who had failed to make it in time, sought to secure themselves against what must surely come if they failed: outright massacre. Alone for only a few grains of hourglass sand, the young warrior had to fend off attempts to kill him with only his long dagger and a mailed fist, but soon he had Normans by his side, their backs to the gate to force the surrender of those who were trapped outside their city walls.

As the Lombards dropped to their knees and begged in vain to be spared, Bohemund was joined by a mass of men pushing to open that narrow gap, enough to allow their compatriots to jab and hack at those seeking to keep them at bay. It would have needed a stout heart, strong confidence and great faith to get those gates closed, but that, so prevalent only a short while before, had now gone out of the rebels. Like those who had fought on the ground before the city they were concerned to save themselves as well as their families, a foolish notion given their leaders had refused the terms of surrender offered by the Normans, and thus by the laws of war had laid them open to rapine and sack without quarter given.

Pressure saw the fissure in the gate widen; fear of the consequence made those who knew they could not hold break and run. Soon the small force of Normans, with Bohemund to the fore, were doing execution in the cart-wide streets of the city, the blood from the slain flowing downhill on the cobbles of the roadway to that now wide-open gate — killing that would go on as the sun dipped and the light faded to darkness, so that torches were required, which lent a satanic hue to the continued butchery. If women and children were spared, and often they were not, it was only so they could be sold into slavery.

With seemingly no one left to fight, Bohemund could at last remove his helmet and ease his mailed hauberk off his sweat-soaked head and allow it to rest on his broad shoulders. To those with whom he had fought and killed, the sight, had they still eyes to see, would not have eased their souls into the afterlife, for they had not fallen to the sword of a scarred and experienced warrior. The fellow who stood in the central square of Noci was a youth of unblemished face, his blond hair cut short and his jaw showing little sign of the ability to yet grow even a trace of a beard.

It was there the man who had led the successful Norman attack found him; indeed it was his brother-in-law Ademar who had shouted that accolade in the midst of battle, for he had taken care that his relative by marriage should have by his side a warrior of long experience to ensure he survived his first real battle — too many young fools met their end early from an excess of zeal. It was only when Bohemund looked at Ademar’s blood-drenched surcoat that he realised his own blue and white de Hauteville colours must now be hidden by the deep-red gore of those he had slain. Removing a glove, he lifted it and examined the cloth in the torchlight, sorry to see it was true, for he valued the right to wear these colours above all other things.

‘Your father himself could not have done greater execution this day and I will tell him so.’

The reply was made doubly gloomy by exhaustion. ‘Will my father care about any deed of mine?’

The hearty slap on the back would have moved a normal man; the recipient this time did not even notice. ‘You will soon find out, Bohemund. Word has come that Trani fell four days ago and the rest of the towns in revolt have surrendered, all except Corato. Tomorrow we ride to join him there. Take that fortress and this rebellion against his title will be spent.’