Son of Blood

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Roger de Hauteville was witness, over the following years, to the proof of his suppositions; if Bohemund’s uprisings were not endemic, they were frequent enough to give his half-brother sleepless nights. Any slight, however small, would do and any excuse: a demand for his revenues to be promptly paid, a desire that he submit an account of improvements to anything he possessed from castle to wheat field; Borsa had heard of William of England’s Domesday Book and wished to emulate it. Part of the reason for so much warfare on Bohemund’s part was to keep his knights employed — if they did not rebel with him, they would rise up against his title; that was the Norman way.

Slowly, inexorably, the Prince of Taranto expanded his possessions till he controlled all the land and sea ports from Melfi to the heel of Italy, Bari included. It would only have been remarkable if he had been singular, but he was not; there was hardly a vassal in the regions of Apulia and Calabria in the years following that swearing of fealty who did not at some time feel he had the right to question the rule of the Duke of Apulia. Count Roger had met and negotiated more than once with his nephews and more often than that he had come from Sicily, now wholly his, to put in place — often obliged to spill blood — some rebellious vassal of his brother’s heir when it was plain he could not do so himself.

Borsa was not alone. When Jordan of Capua died, the Lombards over whom he ruled, always smarting and ever capricious, overthrew his young son Richard and expelled him from his own domains, which had Bohemund eyeing that great fief as a tempting addition to his own, while his half-brother, who had accommodated young Richard, was in terror that he might try to take it over. Then Amalfi rose up; in the years since the death of Duke Sergius, the infant son whom his people were scared to elevate for fear of Gisulf of Salerno had grown to manhood. Taxed by the Normans, who were assiduous in collection, when he raised his standard, the citizens, thinking to ease their burdens, took his part.

In a patrimony beset by widespread rebellion, it was far from a shock that John of Amalfi should demand the return of what he saw as his rightful inheritance. Unable to enforce his own will and with a deposed brother even less able to do so, Borsa had sent a desperate plea to his uncle, fearing that with Amalfi so close to his capital — it was only five leagues distant — it posed a threat that had to be met. The surprise was that, when calling on all his vassals to come to aid, Bohemund too answered the call, bringing with him Tancred of Lecce, now in his twenty-first year and already a warrior with a formidable reputation.

There were few more strange sights than to see Bohemund and his half-brother together, the former full of natural, strutting confidence, towering as he ever did over all around him, while Borsa, ever beset by worry and his own inadequacy as a ruler, was made doubly nervous by such a commanding presence. The only person who could match him in that was his Uncle Roger who, despite his sixty-plus years was still handsome, still virile and a match for most of those with whom he still trained daily in the manege.

If the Duke of Apulia was the titular commander of the siege, it was in the tent of the Great Count that control was exercised — indeed, it had to be, for Borsa, now without the late Sichelgaita to stiffen his spine, spent much of his time in church praying for a victory rather than actively planning and fighting to gain one. Thus, once the rituals of greeting had been completed, and with a degree of suppressed contempt, the Prince of Taranto and the Lord of Lecce bent the knee to their suzerain, then went to Roger’s tent to discover where and how they could be of use.

The man they met was greater now than he had ever been hitherto: not only was he the complete master of Sicily, but he had sailed south as well and taken Malta from the Saracens. His daughter Constance had married Conrad, son of Henry IV, and, even if the two were now in conflict, it was very possible that one day a de Hauteville female would wear an imperial diadem. It was well known he was much cosseted by the reigning pope, Urban II, who, unable to enter Rome and be consecrated, had spent six years wandering South Italy, where he had come to realise that for all their varying titles, only one man stood head and shoulders above the Norman herd.

‘It has ever been my wish, Uncle, to fight alongside you,’ Bohemund said, after they had embraced.

‘A desire I share, Count Roger,’ Tancred added.

Returning to his seat and looking up at Bohemund, Roger adopted a sarcastic tone. ‘I had conflict in Sicily for both of you if you desired such a thing.’

‘You will forgive us for not rushing to aid you.’

‘We were not prepared to turn our back on Borsa.’

‘I cannot think what you had to fear, Tancred. Perhaps a priest’s missal thrown at your head?’

‘How does the siege progress?’

‘It will take time, Bohemund. The walls are sound, the defenders determined and this was not undertaken in haste. The citizens and the lord they want to take back spent much time in preparation.’

‘So they are well supplied?’

‘With everything,’ Roger replied, rising out of his chair. ‘Come, I will show you what we face.’

Set between two mountains and in a deep bay, with only one real land route in and out, Amalfi had ever been known as a hard objective to subdue and impossible if the besieger lacked a fleet. A lack of such a weapon plainly angered Roger as he outlined the difficulties, for, less intent on expansion than his father, Borsa had let the fighting ability of that atrophy, this while most of Roger’s own fleet had the never-ending task of keeping at bay Saracen incursions into Sicily, and was thus protecting that island.

He had managed a blockade, but the Amalfians, sea traders themselves for centuries, had set their own merchant ships across the bay to form an arc of defence and Roger lacked the kind of galleys and the men who manned them to break it. The land defence, a high curtain wall, lay between those two peaks, which formed a steep-sided coombe, while at the top of the two mountains, dotted with steep crags and near unclimbable, the Amalfians had built strong bastions hard to assault.

After a long walk they were shown a donkey track that ran along the coast from the west, but that had been sealed off by another wall, which was joined to the arc of ships the Amalfians had set to protect the bay. In the water were sharp wooden spikes, which had been driven deep into the shallows to prevent the besiegers wading in to an attack, and if they gathered to seek to dislodge them, that brought to this part of the defence the archers of Amalfi to dissuade them.

The return up that narrow valley to Roger’s tent was to see how crowded it was with fighting men, and that extended well inland — a sea of tents, fires and fluttering standards, for all the vassals of the Borsa were here, and for the same reason. It had nothing to do with loyalty and much to do with gold: Amalfi was one of the richest ports on the Tyrrhenian Sea, its traders were masters of profit and it was very obvious that once taken, there would be abundant plunder with which to justify the time spent in breaking down the walls.

‘They will succumb, Bohemund, but I fear we will be here for an age.’

‘Perhaps we might see Borsa achieving glory at last.’

‘Sainthood is the more likely,’ Roger replied. ‘But enough of this gloom and the difficulties; let us all eat together and you can tell me what mischief you have been about since we last met.’

Bohemund laughed. ‘For mischief, Uncle, you must look to Tancred — he is the one wedded to it.’

Much had happened in the world in which they lived. Pope Victor had years before gone to meet his maker — no doubt Desiderius was happy with that, for he had never liked his office — while the man who replaced him, Urban II, had inherited just as much trouble with Rome and emperors, though he had suffered less from the Normans. They had aided his election and joined a coalition to fight the Emperor Henry, once more excommunicated, which had led him to a civil war with his heir.

Between Roger and Pope Urban there was apparent harmony, though they had disputes enough about ecclesiastical matters in Sicily, mostly about clerical appointments, but it had never extended into an open breach, both men being too well versed in diplomacy. Over food and wine, Roger related how Urban had tried to entice him into an attack on the North African coast to fight the Moors, a crusade which would aid the monarchs of Catholic Spain, an offer that had been declined.

‘Then I take it you are not tempted by the great crusade Urban has called for to the Holy Land?’

‘I have enough on my hands here and in Sicily to keep me from temptation.’

Tancred, hitherto mostly an observer, not a participant in a conversation he found dull, as all young men do when their elders talk of past events, suddenly perked up and cut in.

‘Given its purpose, “temptation” seems an odd word.’

‘Is it? I do not see it as so. You cannot march on the Holy Land without the aid of the Emperor Alexius.’ Bohemund’s face closed up at the mention of that name; it was a reminder not only of his defeat at Larissa but the ignominy that followed, but he had to put that aside; Roger was still talking. ‘And there is also the small matter of pushing back the Turks, which will not be easy.’

‘Agreed.’ Bohemund turned to Tancred. ‘I have fought them and they are hard opponents.’

‘But worth it if you seek wealth.’

‘I never saw them as having much to plunder. If they were staunch, they were also poor.’

Roger looked confused. ‘Do you not see, Bohemund, that if the Turks are dispossessed how much land will become free for Alexius to distribute, and the only people he can safely give it to are those who have by their fighting taken it from his enemies?’

There was some satisfaction in the reaction from both of his relatives; now he had their undivided attention as he outlined what was possible.

‘Put aside all the talk of Urban’s call to crusade. There are those truly pious who might take up the cause of the cross for their soul, yet there are ten times as many who would see it as a chance to enrich themselves. Those provinces Byzantium lost to the Turks are among the richest they ever possessed and that pales when you include Palestine and the wealth fetched in by Christian pilgrims.’

‘Much-abused pilgrims,’ said Tancred.

‘Take a pinch of salt with those tales,’ Roger scoffed. ‘I know Urban well and his stories of pilgrim rapine are as likely to be exaggerations as truths.’

‘A pope telling lies?’ Bohemund responded, his face alight with a joke he and Roger shared: they had never known one not to.

This was no terrain for siege towers; it was too uneven and rocky, so any assaults on the walls of Amalfi had to be carried out by a combination of ballista and ladders. First the great stones were hurled to seek to create a breach or to take off the higher parts of the walls. The rubble caused provided, albeit with a steep climb, a means to make for the gap and naturally that was where the Amalfians concentrated their defence, so either as a distraction or as a proper attempt at scaling — they would never know which inside — another assault would be launched with long ladders, backed up by archers, with the ballista now employed to send fireballs of oil-soaked hay to clear a space on the parapet onto which the knights must climb.

Gathered in darkness at a point where the curtain wall ran uphill to where the steepness of the mountain provided protection, Bohemund hushed his men to be silent. His next command was to pick up the battened-together planks that formed a heavy screen that would protect them until they got close to the walls. By weight it took strong men to carry it, for hooked on the back were their climbing ladders. As soon as they made the base of the wall, the archers and ballista would come into play, seeking to drive back the defenders from the parapet. If this was an attack that had been tried before, it now had a better chance of success; the defenders must be going hungry despite their once full storehouses, for after eight months without a single ship being able to enter the port, they should be running out of food and with it the will to keep resisting.

A three-pronged attack — Borsa was to command the centre before the high breach made by heavy fired rocks, though, as was his way, he would send his knights into combat rather than lead them. At his right hand stood his Uncle Roger to proffer advice — in truth to issue the commands. Never doubting that his half-brother was far from admired, Bohemund had come to realise that there was in fact an even less flattering feeling now amongst those gathered, and it was one which extended to his Lombard and Greek levies. Time had caused that lack of love to turn him into being gently despised, both for his weakness and his vacillation. Such men would rail against a strong hand, yet they preferred it to a weak one, and that applied doubly to his Norman lances.

Tancred and the knights of Lecce and Monteroni were on that donkey track, having taken the whole of a moonless night to get into position. They too had ladders, but the aim was to only begin their assault if the defenders denuded this part of the walls to support those under pressure from Bohemund and Borsa. Crawling forward with a local who understood the Amalfi dialect, using the reflected light of stars on the water, Tancred had got close to the walls and was sitting listening for the sound of orders being relayed, hopefully followed by departing feet.

Looking at Amalfi from the sea, there were three mountains, one set back and around which the road split to take a traveller east to west along the rocky coast. Atop that stood a picket with a lit beacon, screened off so it did not show to those in the city. As soon as the man in charge saw the first hint of grey light on the eastern horizon, he slid the screen to one side to show the beacon, hurriedly putting it back once more, which told the commanders in the valley it was time to begin the assault.

Tancred heard the horns blow and stood to better listen, hauling his local up too, this as Bohemund and those under the ducal command began their advance towards that mound of rubble. The defenders were not fools; they knew that first light was the best time for a besieger to attack and they had their own means of countering that as soon as they heard sounds they thought suspicious, and no host could move without making a noise.

Using catapults, they sent out their own bales of blazing hay into the still-dark night, which when in the air showed the men coming to assault their walls, as well as allowing their archers to mark their range. Moving forward behind that shield of planks, Bohemund could hear the thud of arrows hitting home as well as smell the stench of burning as the lit points set the wood to smouldering, while over his head flew the burning wads of his own ballista.

Only darkness gave Tancred a chance; once daylight came his men would be in plain view and at the mercy of archers who would be rushed to stop them moving forward, so as soon as he heard the movement of the defenders he poked his local to tell him what words he could hear from the opposite side of the wall. Men were moving off to face the main assault and reinforce walls, obviously suspecting they would be under greater pressure. It was getting light, though it was only the first tinge, so there was no time to delay: Tancred either attacked or withdrew and he was too much of a Norman for the latter.

Crawling back, he brought his men towards the wall, carrying ladders, he on one himself, which he set down against the base, his confrere silently running it up hand over hand. That fellow was pushed aside; if anyone was going to be in the forefront of the assault, it was the man who led them, and Tancred scaled the rough-hewn rungs at speed to find that the men who had remained were alert and waiting for him. It takes great courage and skill to fight perched on a ladder, as well as uncommon strength to do battle with someone above your head, but that was what was happening all along the wall as the Normans, who wielded these weapons day after day, used the muscles that produced to engage their less able foes.

Bohemund was likewise fighting, though he had got a few men with him over the wall and on to the parapet through a combination of fire, archery and sheer bloody ability. They were now fighting back to back to hold that place, but the same imperative was upon him as his nephew. He and Tancred could only maintain themselves if some of the defenders they faced were drawn off to hold that breach in the walls and that was where the attack ran into the sand. Borsa’s men of Salerno had scaled the rubble and were heavily engaged, but the gap was high and narrow, which meant only so many could contest the space and that worked more to the advantage of the Amalfians than the attackers.

Not that the fighting ended quickly; it went on until the sun was full up in the sky, until Roger de Hauteville was certain that today was not the day of final success. He whispered to Borsa, who seemed to take an age to pass on his advice to the horns, but eventually they blew the several blasts that in their spacing told all the three attacking parties to withdraw. With the men in the breach that was hard enough; they had to back down loose rubble until they could disengage.

Bohemund needed the crossbowmen to create on either side of him a barrier of deadly bolts that could pierce chain mail, so he could get onto his ladders and back to terra firma. Tancred and his men, who had never made the parapet, had the less than simple task of creating the time to abandon their weapons and, using the sides of the ladder, to slide to safety, recover lances, swords and axes and to run far enough to get out of arrow range before the Amalfian archers arrived, with the only thing protecting their exposed backs their teardrop shields.

Trudging back to their tents there was no despair in the Norman camp; this was a day in which they had not triumphed, but in siege warfare there were many more of them to set against the one day of victory. They had suffered losses and wounds, but so had the defenders, both in numbers and in morale, for while the besiegers sat around their campfires would talk of the success to come, the Amalfians would be considering how close they had come this day to defeat.

Borsa held his place as those who had fought for his standard plodded back to their encampments, as if he was a great warrior accepting the accolades of those over whom he held command. There were many who did salute him with swords to their nose guards, but all knew there was no respect in it; it was a gesture, nothing more. Once everyone was back and the wounded and dead had been recovered by truce, he took himself off to pray, leaving his three relatives, who were themselves God-fearing men, to seek to glean from what had happened an avenue to end the siege.