Son of Blood

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Ever since he had received that despatch regarding the overthrow of the Emperor Michael Dukas, as well as the transfer of his daughter to a convent, the Guiscard had kept Byzantium in his sights as a crumbling edifice ripe for future exploitation. In the time since, other matters had kept him fully occupied: first his preparation against Capua, the siege of Benevento and then his need to put down the revolt Jordan had helped to engineer. He had, of course, made protestations about the fate of his daughter, but they were not heartfelt — as far as Robert was concerned her continued presence in Constantinople gave him every excuse to push a problem into a rupture at any time of his choosing.

Now, with peace restored throughout his domains, he could at last concentrate on what to him was a prize of immeasurable potential — nothing less than the overthrow of the Eastern Empire, which with him at the head would become the greatest centre of Norman power in Christendom. He had fought and triumphed over Greeks, a race he despised, all his fighting life, so there was little doubt in his mind he could achieve such a great object. That it was what he hankered after had never been in any doubt, and while many might wonder at such vaulting ambition no one even thought to ask the Duke of Apulia whether such intentions were either wise or necessary.

The wellsprings of that were many and varied; no Norman warrior worth his salt saw what they held as sufficient, which explained the trouble Robert constantly had with his vassals, and he was no exception. As a race they were by nature’s design committed to expansion and that was down to their Viking blood. Byzantium was a prize to tempt a saint, never mind a sinner, rich in a way that made even the Guiscard’s present possessions look feeble, and they used part of that endless stream of gold as a means to carry on a proxy war against him. Right now those like Abelard, who had rebelled and fled, both Lombard and Norman, were safe on the imperial soil of Illyria, just across the Adriatic, able to cock their noses at his demand that they be sent back.

Other reasons abounded, a less than noble one his desire to send a letter to William of Normandy as King of England, with the signature and seal at the base telling the upstart that he was being addressed by an imperial de Hauteville, which would pay back in bezants the insult the father of the Bastard of Falaise had heaped on his own family. Yet in truth the time was ripe; the Eastern Empire was weak both internally and externally, troubled on its borders by the pressure of Kiev Rus, the Magyars of Hungary and the Turks of Asia Minor.

Control from the centre was weak, with the man who had usurped Michael Dukas faced by constant intrigues seeking to depose him, this allowing the various satraps who ran the provinces to behave with a degree of independence, sometimes so barefaced as to have them acting like separate sovereign powers as they manoeuvred for an attainable imperial throne. If it was open to them, it was also exposed to the ambitions of the powers that pressed on its borders; someone might bring it crashing down — better that was himself, Robert surmised, than that he face a more potent power in its place.

The Duke of Apulia also had an unemployed army, a dangerous tool to leave idle in his own domains, as well as a fleet that he had built up to help subdue the numerous ports he had been required to blockade; that could so easily be transformed into an offensive weapon. Yet deep in his soul there was another pressing motivation and that had to do with his eldest brother, William. For all he had conquered and all he now held, Robert had still not matched in his own estimation the achievements of Iron Arm.

It was William who had founded their family prosperity, he who had created the base upon which successive de Hautevilles had constructed the holdings over which Robert now held sway, William who had defeated the Byzantines when they were a force to be reckoned with on the ancient battlefield of Cannae, so that he stood comparison with Hannibal, the previous victor on that field who had destroyed the legions of Rome. For all the songs made up in praise of his deeds, none, to Robert’s mind, matched those dedicated to the warrior actions of William and that was a situation he strongly desired to change.

As ever, anything he desired to do was beset with problems that had nothing to do with combat, the first of which surfaced when he proposed to send an advance party across the Adriatic to secure for him a base for his fleet.

‘Your rightful son should have the command,’ Sichelgaita demanded. ‘Not your long-legged bastard!’

For Robert this was tricky; how could he say to his faithful helpmeet and wife that he did not trust Borsa to lead the expedition? Even less could he intimate to a doting mother that the men who would go under Bohemund in his advance guard might not readily follow his heir with the same confidence? Borsa was not, as far as his sire could see, a leader of men; he lacked the ability to either inspire them or to instil such fear that they would obey his every command. In administration he showed ability — the appointment of officials, not least satisfying Rome with his clerical placements, added to an assiduous collection and accounting of revenues. These were his forte, so that his father had a bulging treasury — but then money had always been an attraction to the boy.

‘It is not without risk,’ he replied in a voice that lacked its usual force.

‘What fight is not, husband?’

He could not help but think, even when being castigated, that an angry Sichelgaita was a magnificent sight to behold; near eyeball to eyeball with him, her hair was still burnished blonde, her shoulders square and her protruding breasts magnificent in their size and outline and even after the bearing of eight children she was a fine-looking woman. How he wished he still had the powers in his loins to engage in the kind of ferocious carnal coupling with her that they had at one time enjoyed, but that had not survived his near-death illness at the level he had once known. He had reached a point in his life where his vital spark required to be coaxed.

If, at sixty-five years of age, he felt his sword arm was still strong, the other parts of his body were subject to the terrors of old age. There was a stiffness in the joints when he rose from his bed of a morning and he was aware that in the manege he was no longer a figure of fear to the younger knights as he had at one time been; it was respect that permitted him to overcome them, not a superiority of arms. From now on he knew that, while he could still fight, his task was more to command than engage and not to lead by sheer example, which required that someone in whom he reposed faith should undertake that role.

In his son made a bastard he recognised those abilities he had for much of his life possessed: raw courage, a terrifying strength with any weapon he chose to employ, the cold blood and concentration needed to kill without mercy. But most important of all Bohemund had the ability to arouse in the Normans he led a passion that made them outdo even their known and famed skills. Added to that, he engaged in a way with Lombards and Greek milities which, his father had to admit, was superior to his own. Robert found it hard to disguise his antipathy to races he considered feeble, a disadvantage in a host in which increasingly they outnumbered his Normans.

‘You would expose our son to the risk of death for the sake of an excess of pride? What if he was lost?’

‘Then Guy would become your heir and he in turn will lead your army.’

That was a jest, but not one Robert dared laugh at; if Sichelgaita had a mote in her eye about Borsa, it was nothing to the regard in which she held his younger brother. Robert too was fond of him, for he was hard to dislike; Guy was a joy to be with, clever, witty, a bit of a rake, who had a legion of scrapes on his bedpost and a natural courtier manner, being well versed in the arts of diplomacy. But he was no soldier.

‘No! Bohemund will lead.’

‘And how will that be seen?’

‘Sichelgaita,’ Robert said, unusually for him almost pleading, ‘Borsa will have my titles, all of them, as well as what lands I possess, and if my planned expedition prospers that might be the imperial purple. But if he is the person destined to rule when I am gone, he is not the one to lead an army all the way across Romania and to capture Constantinople.’

‘And Bohemund is?’

‘Yes! As much as I am myself.’

Robert de Hauteville stood under the twin marble pillars that marked all that remained of a temple once dedicated to Neptune, as the galleys of a good proportion of his fleet manoeuvred to make their way out of the narrow neck that closed off the natural harbour of Brindisi. The temple had stood at the very end of the Appian Way since the time of Ancient Rome, a sacred place where the pagan gods had been beseeched to grant safe passage to both war galleys and trading vessels as they set out for the East from the Empire’s premier southern port.

From here great Roman generals had sailed, much the same as Bohemund was doing now, to war and possible conquest: the likes of Pompey, Caesar and Mark Antony. Was it not from Brindisi that Octavian, soon to be Caesar Augustus, had set out for the decisive Battle of Actium and was not that an omen of some kind? Given this expedition had been blessed by the Bishop of Brindisi and all of his assembled clergy it was very hard not to feel so, to wonder if he too would rise to imperial magnificence?

‘Right now, I think I need a slave to whisper in my ear that all glory is fleeting.’

‘Only now, Father? I would have said you needed that in your crib.’

From feeling proud and regal, Robert’s mood was reduced to a feeling of ongoing irritation. Bohemund’s sister, Emma, come to see her brother off on his first independent command, had always possessed the ability to get under his skin. He turned to chastise her, only to find himself staring into the still, blue eyes of her six-year-old son, Tancred, which killed in his throat the shout he had been about to utter. What was it about grandchildren that so softened a man? He had never feared to bark at his own offspring, nor employ the back of his hand if they went too far, but somehow the gap in years made such a thing impossible.

‘Give me the boy,’ he growled.

Emma’s reply was biting. ‘Only if you assure me you are not hungry.’

Robert reached out for Tancred, who was given up without resistance and then raised to perch on his grandfather’s shoulders, first kneeling, then standing.

‘There, my boy, from such a height you can see the East and the future. Out on that galley is your Uncle Bohemund, the man to help me make it for us.’

Bohemund, as ever dressed in his family colours and standing on the poop of the galley, had a feeling that to look backwards was unlucky — Lot’s wife came to mind — but he could not help but do so, for he wanted to feel that he had his father’s confidence and somehow hoped it would be able to travel the distance between them like some raw animal spirit. He saw clearly Robert lift a boy on his shoulders, knew it had to be his nephew and that induced a pang of regret; he could not recall that ever being gifted to him, for if it had, he had been too young to recall it. Abruptly he cast his eyes to the harbour mouth, aware that such a sight actually pained him and made him jealous of a child of whom he was very fond.

There was much bellowing and oar work needed to get out safely, and when they finally emerged there was a moment of slight anxiety as the vessel hit the swell of the sea, for like all landsmen Bohemund feared to be sick; his shipboard experience to date had been the short trip across the Straits of Messina, another from Amalfi to Salerno Bay, both on very calm water. Here it was not truly rough — they would not have weighed if it had been — but there was a noticeable north-westerly breeze, which whipped up choppy waves that made the ship shudder when they struck. It made no difference that sailors often suffered from such an affliction; it was, especially to a warrior, too diminishing to be borne, too much of a blow to pride. With half his mind on his stomach, he addressed the sailing master, Lamissio of Viesti, the man who would control the whole fleet, as much to distract himself as to seek information.

‘It would be of interest to me to be told the meaning of your commands. I am eager to learn the ways of the sea.’

The immediate if silent reaction to that request was one of scorn, quickly replaced by faux eagerness, for the thought, to the sailing master, of seeking to distil a lifetime of experience into few enough words to instruct one bound to be utterly ignorant bordered on the risible. Against that, this Norman was a Goliath, while he was a Lombard and, like most of his nautical breed, obliged to sail in cramped vessels, of necessity short and stocky even by the standards of his race. This fellow could pick him up with one hand and chuck him over the side. Quick as his change of expression had been, Bohemund had spotted it; the master was aware of the fact and he sought to head off the blast he knew was coming. Normans were bad-tempered by nature, yet Lamissio was surprised by the calm voice.

‘It will not suit either of us if I am totally in ignorance, will it?’

‘No, Eminence.’

The gentle chuckle was even more unusual from a Norman. ‘I am not yet eminent, fellow, so Bohemund will do.’

‘I was about to send up the pennant that would have the fleet set sail, sir. With the wind on our quarter it favours us.’

‘You do not require my words to make it so?’

‘No,’ Lamissio replied.

At Bohemund’s nod he raised a wide-mouthed trumpet to his lips and bellowed his command, which could be heard on the nearest vessels, those more distant relying on the chequered flag that was run up to the masthead. Bohemund left the poop for the deck so that he could closely observe the men hauling on the lines that raised the great square, blood-red sail, and was even more keen to see how they lashed it off to the side of the ship at an angle so it billowed out as it took full advantage of the breeze. The heel as it did so nearly caught him out, the canting deck forcing him to hang on to the bulwark, the only sound to add to the wind whistling through the taut ropes the noise of a fair number of his knights voiding their guts.

The tang of the sea was strong in Bohemund’s nostrils, his knees bending alternately as he rode easily the pitch and roll of the deck. The sky was blue and the surrounding sea, save from his own vessels, was empty, with the black ravens in their coops cawing now, aware by some divine gift that the sight of land was diminishing. He was thinking this was how his Viking ancestors had terrorised the world, pagan warriors sailing or rowing to destinations sometimes a year away — the cities of the eastern Mediterranean had not been spared — over endless seas out of sight of land, even up rivers to great inland cities like Paris and Tours, to steal, burn and destroy, and if that failed, to extract tribute for the mere act of withdrawal. As of this moment he felt at one with them.

If it was a mystery how the sailing master knew the direction in which to go in daylight; that was multiplied when darkness fell and the only sight of the fleet was the myriad flickering stern lanterns. The sky was filled with a million stars, numerous and strong enough to make up for the paucity of a moon, and by now Lamissio had realised that this commander was a different kind of Norman, with an even temper and a genuine desire to be instructed, amazed that to sail at night was easy for a man who had been at his trade from the age of five. Lamissio knew his constellations and the stars within them, and where they would be at any given time of year.

‘Why, sir, it is as easy as walking an old Roman road.’

‘When will we raise Valona?’ Bohemund asked, in order to avoid agreement; he was far from sure he could ever learn to do that which Lamissio did quite naturally.

There was a pause while a concentrated examination was made of the heavens, Bohemund in the darkness having no difficulty in hiding a smile, for he guessed this was play-acting. ‘We will be off the town before first light.’

‘Could we sail directly in?’

The sucking of teeth was just as overdone. ‘Depends, Your Honour. If the great lanterns are lit on the end of the moles, maybe, and even then we would have to risk them sealing off the harbour.’

‘Chains and logs?’

The nod was imperceptible. ‘Which would rip the bottom off any galley that tried to enter.’

‘If the chain could be broken?’

‘Don’t see how, sir.’

Bohemund laughed, for a plan was forming in his mind. ‘That is because you are a seafarer.’

There was no overnight rest. It took five turns of the glass to relay Bohemund’s instructions, which saw the fleet of galleys drop their sails and close with great care till there was little space between the oars of those sailing abreast and even less between the bow and stern of the vessels following, a point from which orders to the fighting men could be relayed by shouts. Then they had to douse their lights, the only one visible that of Lamissio’s ship, out ahead of the rest, where a bit of thick canvas had been rigged to cut off the light from the approaching shore, while beside it rested the sailing master’s hourglass, the sand slowly dribbling through. Still too far off to be visible, it was the hankering caw of the ravens that told Lamissio they were as close to land as Bohemund needed to be.

An order was relayed to the ship of Reynard of Eu, who would take over command if what Bohemund was about to attempt failed and, satisfied that all was understood, the command was given to Lamissio’s oarsmen to bend their backs and head for shore, their course made easier by the twin pinpricks of light that marked the harbour entrance to Valona, one of which they trended left and away from. Looking back, Bohemund could see the phosphorescent spill of the trailing galleys as they came on at a lesser and he hoped controlled speed.

Having been a sailor man and boy, there was scarcely a port on the inland sea that Lamissio had not visited at some time or other; he knew them from the outer mole to the most deeply embedded tavern-cum-whorehouse and everything in between. He had been to Valona more times than he could count and he knew to the width of his own hand where the barrier that blocked off the harbour at night was fixed. Would they have armed men on that mole? There was no way of being sure but the possibility had to be accepted. The Duke of Apulia’s intentions, a great fleet refitted for aggression and a huge army waiting to embark across a narrow stretch of sea, could not be hidden and the coastal towns of Illyria must be on alert.

Valona had been selected because it had an anchorage large enough to provide the Guiscard with a base for his fleet and it would not require too wise a head for the Byzantine governor to be aware of this, just as he would know that if his town walls were sound and would require a fully enforced siege to break, his Achilles heel was the harbour mole. Lamissio outlined the way they acted to protect that: apart from bowmen and pots of catapulted fire, sharp iron-tipped stakes were set into the stonework which protruded out far enough to snare any vessel at a distance from which they could not do harm.

It was the thought of his Viking heritage that had brought a solution to Bohemund and because of that, lying on a long plank protruding from the bows, he was the sharpest pair of eyes in the ship. The galley, propelled by a half-reefed dark-red sail, was approaching at a snail’s pace, the oars used more to slow progress than propel, what the man in the bows could see passed back in whispers.

‘My Lord, your surcoat will catch the starlight.’

Looking down, Bohemund realised that Lamissio was right; half of his family colour was a stark white and having already unstrapped his sword belt — the weapon for the coming task was an axe — it was flapping too, thus more likely to catch the eye. He whipped the garment off and rolled it so only the blue was showing, then tied it round his waist, eager to wear it into the coming contest. Just then a low call came back that they were approaching the first of the wooden barbs, its sharp point visible only because the metal tip reflected a small amount of the light. The call to his knights, who had been crouching in the bulwarks, was just as soft, though there was, he thought, an excess of carrying noise from knocked weapons as they stood to prepare.

Bohemund reasoned, and knew he would pay a high price if he was mistaken, that any guard detachment would not be stationed overnight out on the mole and neither would they be wide awake; they would have a shelter somewhere close to the quay and sleep in their mail and with their weapons beside them. That would mean a lookout, possibly only one on each side of the harbour entrance, and they would have been staring out at a silvery seascape for a long time, tiring to the eyes and inclined to induce slumber. He had used the lanterns to stay well away from the mouth, and the sailing master had also kept them out of the stronger streak of light provided by a sliver of moon now high in the sky. Could they get ashore unseen?

‘Back the oars,’ Lamissio called, bringing on a splash, thankfully covered by the sea slapping against the base of the mole. There was a thud as contact was made and so sharp were those metal ends that the galley shuddered to a halt as it embedded itself in the timbers. Bohemund had to admire the man in charge of sailing the vessel, for without being told Lamissio had got ready a grappling iron which was cast the short distance to another barb where one of the prongs got enough purchase to pull in the stern, and Bohemund gave quiet orders to proceed when contact was made with the side of the ship.

To say that those he led had doubts was an understatement; not all of them so readily harked back to a Viking inheritance and one of his lances had made a very valid point when he suggested the barbs might be greased. The sailing master solved that by bringing up from below sacks of ballast, which contained grainy sand and, before the first Norman foot hit the protruding wooden poles, a pair of ship’s boys went first, barefooted, nimble and who could both swim, spilling sand ahead of them on which they got their own purchase.

Now sure they could keep their feet, Bohemund led his knights in file along the same wide tree trunks — gingerly, for they were less sure of foot than the youngsters. If it was not an example of the old Viking game of walking the oars, it was close enough for the man in command and he was tall enough, when he got to the end, to hoist himself onto the wall that lined the mole, as well as strong enough once he was on it to reach down and help up his confreres. Within what seemed like a blink Bohemund had twenty fully armed knights ready to do battle.

That was not the aim; the target was the log and chain barrier and that was close by the nearest harbour-mouth lantern. Two men were there as guards and lookouts, though they failed in both respects, for they had seen nothing and were so surprised at the sudden appearance of an enemy that they could not even get their swords out in time. Both were clubbed to the ground while Bohemund used his axe to cut, with six powerful and noisy blows, the thick cable that secured the barrier.

There was no need for silence now. Bohemund shouted for the covered stern lantern of his galley to be shown, that being the signal to those following that the harbour mouth was open and they were safe to point their prows at those twin lights and sail between them. A clever brain would have doused one — what was coming must have been obvious — but that too was lacking. All that could be heard were panicked shouts, but that was fading as the Normans made their way towards the point where the mole joined the quay.

Fighting men, roused from their slumbers, faced them, but they were Greeks who had never come up against Normans and very likely not of the highest calibre anyway. As soon as the front rank of three were despatched, a pair being cut at so hard they ended up in the water, the rest fled, this while behind them Bohemund’s galleys were entering the harbour, making a hellish racket as instructed to strike terror into what defence could be quickly mustered. Chasing the mole defenders, the party of land-bound knights found themselves on the quay without an enemy, this as the first hint of light began to tinge the sky above the harbourside buildings.

Half the shouting now was from the inhabitants hurriedly fleeing their houses, shouting that the Saracens had come, a cry that did more to aid Bohemund than any sword or axe. The infidels who worshipped Mohammed had come many times over the centuries and they did not just come to plunder; they came to rape both women and men, to roast their captives over open fires and to destroy every Christian church they came across — the Saracens, in this part of the world, were the dread in the dreams of adults and children alike.

What soldiers the governor of Valona possessed made for the citadel, surrounded by fleeing locals. Meeting up with Reynard on the now dimly lit quay, Bohemund cautioned his men not to engage but to merely chase them into that defence. The citadel he did not need — that could wait, especially if those who might contest with him were locked up inside. It was the waters of the anchorage he wanted, as well as the long, low shoreline and the town. A fast-rowing galley was sent back to Brindisi to tell the Guiscard that he had a base for both his fleet and his army.