Son of Blood

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

That the Venetians let them disengage without difficulty was the first surprise; the fighting and bloody withdrawal that the Guiscard had anticipated turned into an undisturbed retreat that took his ships back to the southern end of the bay, to where his transports had fled, while the enemy, having abandoned attempts to save the one dromon that had fallen to Bohemund’s axe, made for the waters outside Durazzo harbour to anchor and no doubt celebrate. That one Norman victory now sat on the sandy bottom and as the sun faded, day turning to night, only the top of its mast still was visible, with the archers’ boat hanging off of it; if that served as a consolation, it was a small one which soon disappeared into darkness.

The losses had been significant in both men and galleys and that took no account of the wounds, quite a number of them serious burns that rendered the victims so incapacitated that they were unlikely to survive. As they clung to life, the sounds they emitted, from mournful cries to outright other-worldly screams, acted as a melancholy backdrop to the deliberations taking place by the light of lanterns on one of the large transport vessels that had been designated as an infirmary. Robert had come aboard to visit the wounded and once that sad duty was done he went back aboard his own ship, having called together the men who led his warriors into such an unfamiliar battle, as well as those masters who by their laudable efforts had managed to avoid destruction, all of them exhausted by the day’s combat.

‘We fought well.’

These, the first words he uttered, were received as he expected, with cast-down eyes that told him agreement was mixed. Also the collective ‘we’ resonated with the man who employed it; Robert had taken no part in the fighting and if that could be understood on one plane, it sat ill with men who were accustomed to be led into combat by their duke, not observed and encouraged from afar. Geoffrey Ridel sensed the mood and felt the need to defend their leader from criticism.

‘Know this, that our liege lord desired to get into the fight and it was I who stopped him, I who refused to sail his galley towards the enemy, and with good reason. If he had gone down, we would not be assembled now to talk of what to do next; we might well be raising our anchors and heading for Brindisi.’

‘Not all of us,’ Bohemund growled.

‘What are we to do now?’ asked Reynard of Eu, after a long and significant silence, not one of the commanders present wanting to be the one to first speak.

Robert aimed a grim smile at his familia knight, well aware and grateful that his man had only spoken to relieve a tension that threatened to break into uncontrolled discord. He knew the difference between success and failure in battle, for, if he had enjoyed many more victories than defeats in his thirty years of warfare, he had tasted both. Winning brought harmony to a host; to lose, even on an element to which they were unaccustomed, could create dissension in any army and Normans were no exception. If anything they were worse; good fighting men and natural leaders were not sheep — they expected their opinions to be listened to and respected.

‘The choices are simple,’ Robert suggested, ‘we can renew the fight-’

Geoffrey Ridel’s interruption was delivered with acid certainty. ‘A contest we cannot win.’

Bohemund spoke up again. ‘We sank one of their dromons today.’

Now the Master of the Fleet was scathing. ‘We need to sink all twenty, not one.’

‘Or,’ Robert emphatically said, ‘we can disembark and lay siege to Durazzo.’

‘Lacking a blockade, My Lord?’

‘You say, Geoffrey, that we cannot fight their large ships with any hope of success. They — the one weapon we cannot overcome at sea — can do us little harm when we are on land.’

‘Or,’ Bohemund interjected, ‘we could find another route to Constantinople.’

Reynard shook his head slowly. ‘The landscape is not favourable, Bohemund.’

That caused a murmur of agreement, which matched the doubt in Reynard’s voice; Illyria was not blessed with many routes through the interior. It was mountainous, full of deep gorges and unbridged rivers, while at those points at which progress was possible Byzantium had built strong defensive castles, which could not be bypassed by any army in need of a sound line of communication. In addition, this was ancient Macedonia, the heartlands of Alexander the Great’s old kingdom, full of untamed and warlike tribes who not even the local Byzantine satraps sought to control; they were content to contain such folk in their mountain fastness with, when they raided too deeply into the civilised settlements, occasional bloody incursions to chastise them.

Bohemund was adamant. ‘We cannot withdraw.’

‘Nor will we,’ Robert sighed. He was well aware that such an avenue reflected the general mood. ‘But we are, to a man, weary. You all know me, and each of you is aware of what I have achieved. I expect you will believe me when I say that in the dark, when the day has gone badly, every difficulty becomes a steep hill to climb. Yet when the sun rises again it is often only a small and easy-to-overcome mound; so go back to your ships and reassure those you lead that we will prevail, as I hope I can reassure of such a thing come morning.’

Bohemund remained to ask the obvious question, one that was on the mind of everyone who had just departed. ‘Do you have a plan, Father?’

‘No, I do not, but I too must sleep and hope that God grants me in my dreams a way to overcome those Venetians, who, as of this moment, have me by the throat. If, tomorrow, they renew their attack, we must sail away from Durazzo as fast as our oars and sails can carry us.’

Sleep did not come easily to Robert de Hauteville; it never does when a problem is too thoroughly gnawed upon. Jaw tight, he tossed about for an age until he finally slipped into dreams just as troubled, so that a man who normally woke with the dawn was still in a deep slumber when the sun rose. Geoffrey Ridel woke him with a shake on his shoulder, holding a cup of warm and fresh goat’s milk to ease his morning throat.

‘My Lord Robert, the Venetians raised anchor at first light and are beginning to row north.’

‘The whole fleet?’

‘No, just the dromons, they have left their smaller galleys to mask the harbour and keep us out.’

Rudely awakened, Robert was slow to ask the obvious question, sinking his milk first. ‘Why, Geoffrey? Is it some kind of Trojan trick?’

‘I do not know.’

The Guiscard was off his cot and heading for the deck when he next spoke, Ridel on his heels. ‘I expect you to tell me. You are Master of the Fleet, not I.’

Both men made their way to the poop, where the truth of what Ridel had imparted was clear. The dromons were stern-on and their gently stroking oars were taking them further away, while a line of smaller galleys had taken station across the harbour mouth, a scene that held them for several moments before Ridel responded, trying to ease things with a joke.

‘I was not aware that anyone told you anything.’

The reply was a bark. ‘Don’t jest with me, Ridel, give me reasons as to why, when they have us in their palm, the Venetians should withdraw a weapon we cannot overcome. And why did they let us off so lightly yesterday, come to that?’

‘They think us utterly beaten?’

‘That is not enough.’ Seeing Ridel was seeking a proper answer, Robert had the good grace not to interrupt his thoughts; for a man who was a slave to impatience that was a struggle.

‘It may be they cannot enter the harbour,’ Ridel said eventually, with a slow and deliberate tone.

‘Why not?’

‘They draw too much water under the keel perhaps, but I think it is that they fear to be blocked in there.’

‘Who can do that, for God knows we can’t?’

‘Size, My Lord!’ the sailor responded, not hiding his ire at being pressed when he wanted to weigh his words. ‘Even if there is depth enough, the access is narrow, so once inside they can only emerge singly …’

‘Which means we could lock them up there?’

‘Let us say it would seriously disadvantage them to the point where they might lose a vessel in driving us off, as they did yesterday in the fighting, which I would hazard shocked them. It was not in their mind to see one of their dromons sunk. By the same token, there is no security in anchoring in the outer roads for an extended time.’ About to speak, Robert was stopped by a glare. ‘Understand, My Lord Robert, that just as your lances are vital to you and your ambitions-’

‘Those large fighting ships are vital to Venice!’

‘They cannot afford to risk them on an open shore, for if a tempest arose of the kind we suffered on the way from Corfu, they could be driven onto land and wrecked. Such an event risks the major and most effective part of their fleet.’

‘And lacking them Venice is, as a power, nothing?’

Ridel nodded and the silence that followed was a long one, one in which the dromons shrank in size as the distance between them and the two men on the Apulian galley increased to a point where they were mere pinpricks on the horizon.

‘The question is, Geoffrey, will they return?’

‘Why would they? I have told you already, they think us crushed.’

‘Call everyone aboard at once.’

The subsequent battle was a very different affair and the loss of it for the galleys defending Durazzo was caused by the same failure to understand the Normans, and especially Robert de Hauteville, as had afflicted every power on the Italian mainland; they did not readily accept defeat and were only given to licking their wounds for a period long enough to either recover or allow fate, as it had now and had done many times in the past, to take a hand. They waited until those dromons were well over the horizon before launching an attack, one in which they were evenly matched in terms of the size, weight and number of vessels; what mattered was when they closed and engaged, where Norman fighting prowess did the rest.

As the sun began to set on the second day it was the Venetians who were obliged to cast an eye over their losses, many of them forced to do so from the shoreline onto which they had been driven by relentless Apulian pressure, there to watch their galleys break up in the surf. Out on the water they saw abundant wreckage where other vessels had been destroyed, or ships which had that morning been theirs, now in the hands of their enemies, with bodies floating around them of those who had been slain. For those that remained intact, all they could do was withdraw into the harbour and await what was bound to come, an assault coordinated with the advance on land, in which the possession of the harbour would be lost and the city they had sought to defend would be thus fully under siege.

The dromons did return, a fast six-oar and single-sail sandalion being sent after them, but which took time to find the fleet, but it was to see the Apulian army camped around the city and the mouth of the harbour blocked in a way that made it dangerous to attack, while staying offshore ran the risks of destruction by tempest outlined by Geoffrey Ridel. Venice had to have an intact fleet, not only to be a power, but also to maintain and increase that to which they were committed: their trade and wealth. Nothing Byzantium could offer would compensate for the loss of that.

Laying siege to a city was one thing, taking it another, and any lack of progress had as much to do with the man in command of the resistance as it had with the state of the walls and the cunning construction of the defences. Alexius had put his own brother-in-law in charge of holding Durazzo, but not because of a family connection; with George Palaeologus the reason was sheer ability. He was a brilliant soldier, an inspiring leader as well as a man not content to hide behind those stones, so the Apulian camp was on constant alert for the endless sorties in which he engaged. For all his own abilities, Robert de Hauteville was not slow to accord him the accolade of a worthy opponent. But there was another reason Durazzo held out and that had to do with the Guiscard’s tactics.

‘Yet you do not press home the assaults,’ said Sichelgaita, an observation that got a silent and furtive smile of agreement from her husband.

It was Bohemund, now openly acknowledged as his father’s second in command, who replied. ‘To do so would entail great loss.’

The sneer on the face of the Duchess of Apulia was undisguised; Bohemund’s elevation was the reason she had crossed from Brindisi. ‘I can accept you might fear to expose yourself, but not my husband.’

‘Peace, woman,’ Robert growled, the smile now gone to be replaced with a look of resignation. ‘I have none braver than Bohemund.’

‘And none so stuffed with ambition, husband,’ she snapped, her face going red with anger, ‘which you seem blind to.’

That made Bohemund smile. He was always happy when Sichelgaita was upset and she was not a woman to let her emotion remain hidden — it was not just the skin colour, added to that was her expression and right now she looked as if she had swallowed a hornet. If he was privy to this exchange, Bohemund had not been to the berating his father had received when she arrived. Borsa, who to Sichelgaita’s mind should occupy the position Bohemund now held, had been left behind in Salerno, given no good would be done to his pride to be in the presence of his half-brother while forced to defer to him on anything of a military nature. Robert’s reaction had been to admit that his possessions were in good hands, but he refused to dismiss his bastard in favour of his heir for the very simple reason he was going to have a battle and it was one he wanted to win.

‘As of this moment, Alexius is marching towards us with a relief army and his brother-in-law has one task, which is to hold Durazzo until he can get here.’

‘He would still come if you held the city.’

That riled Robert. ‘Allow that when it comes to fighting I know what I am about. I need to bring Comnenus to battle and I need to defeat him, and for that I cannot risk losing men to take a city that will fall to me anyway. What if I can repeat Manzikert, destroy his army and take him captive? The road to Constantinople will be mine, so when you think of our son, which you seem to do above all other things, think of him clad in imperial purple.’

That got Bohemund another glare; he was sure, in her mind’s eye, she could see him dressed in such garb, towering over an empire of millions of subjects and her family, and it was not a vision to bring much comfort. She turned back to her husband, her voice now silky with irony.

‘I thought the intention was to restore your Michael Dukas to his throne?’

‘That booby,’ Robert spat, for he had long ago lost faith in his impostor monk; his appeal to the defenders of Durazzo had brought nothing but derision, none more than from his own renegades, Peter and Abelard, who had baited him from the safety of the city walls. ‘I would fain put him on a privy as a throne.’

‘Alexius is two days’ march away, My Lord, and he has in his army a strong Norman contingent.’

That got Count Radulf, who was in the command tent with many of the other battaile commanders, a glare; these were the men he had been sent to Constantinople to recruit.

‘The imperial bodyguard?’ Robert asked.

‘They are with their master, as always, made up of the men of Rus as well as an even larger number of Saxons who fled from England and are eager to avenge themselves on you, since they cannot do so on King William.’

‘Remind me,’ Robert intoned, in a voice larded with irony, ‘to send my cousin my thanks for letting me fight his battles.’

The messenger, sent from the cavalry screen he had put out to keep him informed, had seen the eyes of the Guiscard narrow at the mention of the men of Rus. Just as he had his familia knights, Alexius would have his faithful bodyguard, called Varangians even if they had ever been made up of many elements. The name referred to a body of warriors originally sent to the sitting Emperor decades previously as tribute by the ruler of Kiev Rus. Of Viking stock like the Normans, the men of Rus were a formidable enemy to fight: tall and sturdy axemen who never left a field of battle unless victorious.

When faced with defeat they would die to a man rather than withdraw and in the process they always took with them enough men to outweigh their loss. It was a force that had been led, in William Iron Arm’s day, by the late King of Norway, Harald Hardrada, killed at Stamford Bridge in the same year that William of Normandy had conquered England, and it would not be lessened in either bravery or ability by the addition of the bitter Saxons who had fought at Senlac Field for Harold Godwinson.

‘It is more important, Father, that we find out what the Emperor intends. The composition of his army we cannot alter.’

Sichelgaita, who was also present, nodded vigorously at that, which obliged Bohemund to acknowledge that she was no military ignoramus, quite the reverse. She knew, as well as he did, where the greater danger lay — in the notion that Alexius might refuse battle and besiege the besiegers. To supply everything the Apulians needed from Italy, with winter approaching and the Adriatic, never predictable, even less so with seasonal storms, was to ask a great deal. Hitherto the Guiscard’s army had foraged the Illyrian interior at will to support the siege lines with food and timber on which to cook it. If Alexius cut them off from that source of sustenance, he might make life very difficult indeed.

‘If you can see into his mind, Bohemund,’ Robert said sharply, ‘then do so, for I cannot!’

That pleased the Duchess, for if it was a mild rebuke, a way of telling Bohemund who was in command, it was enough of one for a woman who so rarely ever saw her husband check his bastard.

‘We will set out the bait of battle, while leaving open a way through to Durazzo as temptation. Let us hope he accepts it.’

‘If he gets in there, husband, you will never get him out.’

Robert emitted one of his great laughing whoops, as usual going from gloom to gaiety in a blink. ‘Sichelgaita, if he gets to Durazzo, it will be over my dead body.’

The intake of breath was sharp, to indicate the tease had been taken at face value; she feared the loss of Robert for love of him, but also because, when he was gone, Sichelgaita would have to deal with Bohemund.

It was not bait that obliged Alexius Comnenus to do battle, more that he had an army made of so many elements: Normans, Saxons, Pechenegs, a body under the command of the King of Serbia and even renegade Turks. He harboured severe doubts that such a disparate force could be held together through a winter siege and up against such a puissant enemy. If he had never fought Normans, he was a vastly experienced general and not ignorant of their tactics, for he had in his ranks men who had fought many times with the Guiscard. Disinclined in any case to accept Robert’s bait of an easy entry into Durazzo, the leader of his Normans advised that to present his flank on line of march to the Apulians was to invite disaster.

Robert had drawn his arm back from and to the north of Durazzo and had lined it up facing the city with his right flank on the seashore, leaving a second tempting possibility that Alexius could expect support from the garrison if he could pin and hold the Apulian army, thus increasing his offensive power at a critical juncture. Split into three parts, with the Duke of Apulia holding the centre with half of his knights and the Sicilian Saracens, Bohemund on his left, inland, with the rest of the Norman lances and the Greek conscripts.

Sichelgaita had demanded she be in command of the right wing, and if it was thought strange that a woman should hold high authority, no one in the Apulian army questioned it. That served too as a way of telling Bohemund that he faced more than her son should he prove to be too ambitious. Robert’s wife, fully armed and wearing chain mail, as well as a helmet from which protruded her flowing blonde locks, was as much a soldier as any, and besides, the men of whom she had been given charge were of her race; she was a Lombard princess and they would follow her with spirit, where they might not a Norman.