Warriors

CHAPTER TEN

The forward piquet saw them first, just as the sun was setting, and alerted William so he could ride forward and observe, in the gathering gloom, a distant army marching in several columns over a broad front, men to the fore, a sizeable herd of donkeys, mules and probably camp followers to the rear, the only mounted men seeming to be those in positions of command, which cheered him: he would face no cavalry force. It was impossible to tell from this distance the state of their morale, but they could not be less than weary given the ground they had been obliged to cover in the last few days and the fact that they had just had to ford a river, which however narrow a watercourse it was, would make them wet; they were in for an uncomfortable night.

In reality, they should not still be coming on at this time of day: most armies would have camped on the far riverbank and crossed in the morning. Looking up William saw that the sky was clear and the moon, rising slowly, was three-quarters full, which, given the mass of stars to aid it, would bathe the landscape in sufficient light to see. Surely the catapan was not going to march on in the hours of darkness? If he had that in mind, it was time to disabuse him.

‘Back to the main body,’ he said to a man at his side. ‘Tell them to get those fires lit and blazing, all of them, right along the skyline. Let them see their way is blocked and in force.’

Signalling to the rest of the forward party, he had them ride up until they were lined along the crest, in time for their silhouette to catch the last dying light of the now invisible sun, but distance and gloom meant William had no idea if they had been observed. To their rear the first of the fires began to glow, bright orange flames and sparks rising into the increasingly dark sky from a hill higher than that on which they sat.

There they stayed until all that was left was the moon and stars, when slowly, William turned his horse’s head and led his men back to the main body. There, dividing them into three, he set one battaile on foot, out ahead of those fires to protect the camp, with the flanking sentinels told to keep their eyes peeled to ensure the Byzantines made no attempt to slip round their flanks. The rest were obliged to sleep in hauberks, with arms and helmets close by, given he had no intention of being surprised. The horses, now rested, were saddled; everything that could be done had been done, so an exhausted Norman commander could himself lie down and close his eyes.

‘Rider approaching.’

The dawn had come up with no sign of movement, yet William knew that the catapan had halted on the other side of the opposite hill and made camp, where smoke from the mass of cooking fires drifted lazily into the morning sky, and that could only be because he knew he had failed in his initial aim. The question remained, however, as to what he would do next, and the sight of the lone horseman approaching was, in part, likely to provide some kind of answer.

‘No armour,’ said Drogo, ‘but handsome silks.’

That was plain to all the de Hautevilles, lined up alongside William, helmets on, swords out and stuck in the ground before them, shields on their arm, the purpose to look as warlike as possible. It was certainly in contrast to this gaudily clad messenger, a slim fellow of medium height in splendid blue garments of varying hues, with long black hair, and eyes over a slightly hooked nose, a feature which he looked down with disdain as he reined in his mount and spoke.

‘I seek the leader of your band,’ he said in Greek.

‘Do you speak Latin?’ asked William. When the envoy nodded, it was requested he speak in that language: the two older de Hautevilles had some Greek, but the recent arrivals had none. The request was repeated.

‘He should dismount,’ growled Humphrey, his face plainly angry even if little of it was visible. ‘It shows a lack of respect to address us from the back of his horse.’

‘I think the quantity of lances you see before you elevates us above a band.’

‘It does not exalt you enough to explain your presence in a Byzantine province.’

‘Which would matter if we felt the need to explain.’

‘Get off that horse, damn you,’ Humphrey barked, an outburst which clearly amused the rider, who smiled disdainfully.

‘To do so would be to imply that as the representative of the catapan, Michael Doukeianos, I am willing to treat with you as equals.’ That was followed by a snort and a snapped addition. ‘Which I am not.’

‘And neither, I suppose, is the catapan?’

‘Most certainly not.’

‘Probably too frightened to come himself,’ scoffed Drogo.

‘You have a message,’ William said, ‘deliver it.’

‘To you?’

‘To me, William de Hauteville, the leader of the Normans in Apulia.’

‘The catapan has been informed that you have illegally occupied his great castle at Melfi.’

‘He has good ears,’ said Drogo. ‘Or many spies.’

‘You are also at large in the domains for which he is responsible, which he takes as an act of war-’

‘Then he is blessed with wisdom,’ William interrupted. ‘For that is what it is.’

The messenger carried on as if William had not spoken. ‘You are required to depart these lands forthwith on pain of the most severe punishments.’

‘And if we refuse to go?’

The head went back slightly, as though the horseman had something untoward beneath his nose, and it was almost with a sneer he continued. ‘The catapan has good reason to believe you have been promised much in the way of reward for your illicit incursion, and he is conscious of the fact that you are mercenary warriors. In the spirit of Byzantium, which is known to be generous, he is prepared to pay to you, in gold, a sum sufficient to make up for what you feel you might lose, as long as you depart.’

‘But that would mean Michael Doukeianos knows what it is we want.’

‘What else but money?’ the envoy sniggered, his dark eyes narrowing. ‘What else do you Normans ever want?’

‘Respect!’ Humphrey yelled, stepping forward till he was right in front of the horse’s nose. ‘Enough to get off your damned horse and speak to us as equals.’

‘That would fly in the face of God’s purpose.’

William was about to point out, in a calm way, that insulting the men before him was not the job of an envoy and would hardly aid his task. He never got the chance. Humphrey’s mailed fist took the horse right between the eyes in a mighty blow that so stunned the animal it immediately dropped to the ground, poleaxed, taking the sniggering messenger with it. It was only by great good fortune that the fellow avoided one of his legs being trapped beneath it and crushed.

Throwing himself clear he hit the ground with a thud, and as he scrambled away from his unconscious horse, Humphrey grabbed him by the front of his silks and hauled him to his feet, pushing his nose guard right up against the fellow’s face.

‘Now you are where you belong. Learn, pig, never talk down to a Norman.’

When Humphrey let the fellow go, he nearly collapsed, so shaken was he by what had just occurred. The arrogant look had gone from his face to be replaced with one of complete shock. His mount was out cold, two stiff legs in the air, while it was clear the rider’s own pins were visibly trembling.

‘Hold him up, someone,’ said William. Mauger and Geoffrey stepped forward to stop him tumbling in a heap. ‘Now, you will go back to your master on a horse we will provide and tell him this. The way to Melfi is barred, and will stay barred by us. If he wishes to go there he must go through we Normans, which is not something that can be done without much bloodshed, and most of that will fall upon the men he has led here. Tell him to keep his bribe, for we do not want gold we can take at will in the future. He is free to withdraw to the coast and stay there, for this part of Apulia is no longer a fiefdom to Constantinople, it is Lombard. Is the message clear?’

The still-shaken envoy nodded.

‘Humphrey, fetch the poor fellow another horse.’

‘I’d make him walk, brother.’

William grinned. ‘Let us show Byzantium a courtesy they scarcely showed us.’

When the horse was brought forward, the fellow had to be helped to mount. Turning its head, Humphrey slapped it on the rump to get it going; the man on its back was still too much in a state of shock to get it moving himself.

‘Why did you punch the horse?’ Drogo rasped, clearly unhappy.

‘Because I’m not sentimental about them, like you.’

That was an argument the brothers de Hauteville had not heard for an age, but one they had heard too often, for it was a subject on which these two had clashed many times at home. Humphrey had no time for horses; he needed them, yes, and he trained them to do as they were bidden, but affection for them was beyond him. Drogo was the opposite: he had an affinity with equines of all kinds down to the most stubborn donkey. The only thing he loved more than horseflesh was women, the difference being the former never got him into trouble, the latter always did.

‘I hope the bugger comes round and kicks you in the head.’

Humphrey spat on the recumbent animal, which had at least opened its eyes. ‘If it does I’ll fetch you the same clout I gave him.’

Drogo moved forward, shoulder hunched and threatening. ‘You and who else…?’

‘Enough!’ William barked, his hand pointing to the smoke still rising into the sky. ‘We have enough fighting on our hands over there.’

‘Are we going to fight?’ asked Mauger.

‘Let us say, brother, we are not going to withdraw. So whether we fight or not is up to the catapan.’

If the message returned by his envoy was not delivered with clarity, there was no doubting the sentiment, and it presented Michael Doukeianos with a real dilemma. What he had with him was not a force any general would choose to take into battle: few, if any of those he led, had served before and they were not suffused with enthusiasm. The rest were new levies, but to withdraw was impossible.

Even if he had known his enemies had possession of Venosa and Lavello, it would not have changed his dispositions: that was an action he would have undertaken had he been in the place of the Normans. Such thinking had been built into his plan to outflank them, to get between them and the fortress. It was Melfi he was after, yet without surprise or a properly trained army, taking it would be near impossible.

As he paced his tent, watched by the captains he had fetched with him — none of them with much experience — he was aware he had to act, yet he suspected outright victory to be beyond his grasp. Up against mounted men, if he prevailed, and he thought he could do that — he outnumbered them by ten men to one — he could not inflict on them the kind of defeat that would force them out of his territory.

It was more likely they would see he was too strong and retire slowly before his advance, taunting him for his inability to pursue at sufficient pace to crush them, drawing him towards Melfi while inflicting the kind of losses on his army that would make it too weak to invest the place. That would leave him at the mercy of a combined Lombard-Norman force, far from safety and short on supplies.

The proper military course of action, now that surprise was gone, was to withdraw to the coast, send out his conscripting parties, set up training for those recruited and those to come in, build an army too formidable for his enemies to withstand, then begin a proper campaign to take back territory piecemeal. Never mind that the Lombards would join the Normans: Byzantium had beaten them too many times in the past to fear them. The Normans would stay in Melfi only as long as they were paid; the trick was to isolate them so that such rewards would be cut off.

Just as he knew that was prudent, he also knew it was impossible: those very Normans were in front of him now and they needed to be overcome, given the reputation for near invincibility which preceded them. The morale of his own host was a major consideration but there were others. To retire before some kind of success had been achieved would lead to a loss of face too great to stomach and it would not go down well at an Imperial Court where he would already be in bad odour.

The solution came to him in time, a tactic that would preserve his reputation, keep up the spirits of his men, without risking any serious loss in their numbers.

‘Prepare your levies. We attack immediately.’

‘Dawn would be better, Catapan, with the sun behind us to blind the enemy.’

‘And let them get away?’

Doukeianos said those words with a jeer, just before he proceeded to outline a plan of attack that would bring about that very thing. Once he had chased the Normans from their positions he could safely say he had achieved all that was possible on this field of battle, that being mounted they were too fleet to pursue. What followed on from that would depend on many factors, but he could rightfully claim to lack the resources to carry on and besiege Melfi.

Watching from the high ground overlooking the Byzantine encampment, with his men mounted, lined up and ready, the shoe of what course to follow was now on the other foot. Prior to assembling they had knelt to pray, with William again deliberating, in between his devotions, on his lack of a priest from home. In Normandy, where clerics bore arms and fought alongside their flock, there would have been someone to bless the men and confess them, then go into battle by their side, ready to deliver the last rites to any who fell: no good son of the Holy Church wanted to go into battle and face death with sins unforgiven.

It looked uncomfortably as if that was about to happen. Even if his men were the best fighters in Christendom, to engage with the odds in numbers so massively against them hinted at folly, and it flew in the face of William’s original hopes: he had expected the catapan to do the sensible thing and withdraw, but there was no mistaking what he was observing, a host moving forward to engage in battle.

He could also see what Michael Doukeianos was going to attempt to do: by spreading his forces out to cover a broad front he was planning to envelop the numerically inferior Normans. If they stood to fight in a central position on their high ground they would be bypassed on both flanks, anathema to cavalry; if they sought to engage one flank, the other would wheel to take them in the rear. It was a very simple manoeuvre, which suited the forces the catapan had at his disposal. Sense dictated, in the face of such a tactic, the Normans retire.

Yet William could also see that, even with an uncomplicated design, the men in command were having trouble in arranging their levies in anything approaching reasonable order. As they advanced their line must be solid: if one body of men got out of step with another they would create a gap and that would be dangerous for those who had stepped out too forcibly. Could he bring about such a thing?

It was an axiom drummed into William from his earliest days to do that which your opponent least expected, whether in single combat, a small group action, or now on a proper field of battle. He also had one priceless asset: the men he was facing, from Michael Doukeianos down, even if they had faced cavalry, had never fought men like him before. The very least the catapan could hope for was that the Normans would wait till he came upon them to decide their course of action: engage or retire.

What he would least expect would be a Norman assault which would expose the fact that Michael Doukeianos had committed another blunder: he was bringing forward slow and inexperienced foot soldiers to fight men who had an inherent discipline, the ability to manoeuvre, as well as the speed to do so quickly without losing cohesion. Could William force him to compound such an error?

That speed was quickly evident: no sooner had William appraised his brothers of what he wanted to do than they were moving their conroys to execute the first part of his scheme. Fanning out to confront as much of the enemy host as they could they would appear to be spread too thin. Instead of a tight line there was a large gap between each rider, a perfect opportunity for foot soldiers, once the lines clashed, to surround each individual horseman and bring him down.

As soon as William was satisfied they had deployed as he wished he gave the order to sound the horn, dipped the blue and white de Hauteville banner, which was the standard of command, and set off the advance. It was done at a walk first, coming off their high ground and onto the flat valley below, then, at the sound of another blast, the Normans broke into a trot. William de Hauteville’s banner was the only one held aloft; those of his brothers were dipped.

Faced with this unexpected action, and sensing an opportunity, Michael Doukeianos reacted immediately. He could see before him exactly what William wanted him to see: a cavalry force weakened by its deployment, a chance to annihilate these Normans, not by seeking to envelop them, but by closing up his front to present and overcome them with overwhelming superiority. His horns were sounding, messengers were riding to the individual captains telling them what their general wanted, and soon the outer contingents began to trend inwards.

William, in the centre of his line, was watching that manoeuvre carefully, looking for the least sign of confusion. All it took was one eager captain to urge on his men with too much zeal and it would happen, but where in his line would it take place? There was a chance, of course, it would not, in which case the horn would sound and his banner would wave to order his men to retreat.

The Byzantine levies were holding their discipline better than he expected, though with much beating of men with swords to keep them from rushing ahead. William suspected what men he had who had fought in a battle before had been put out front to aid their captains in setting the pace, a shrewd move, and it looked as if the Normans were about to be faced, in extended and vulnerable order, with a wall of pikes, behind them eager men with knives ready to come through the front line to slash at horse and rider.

But they could not hold their discipline, even on a field of battle unbroken by gullies or rocks. Gaps began to appear, the greatest opening up before the men led by Drogo, and William knew that he would see it. He dropped his banner and held his breath until Drogo raised his. That was the signal, and breaking into an immediate canter the Norman line began to close, concentrating around Drogo’s battaile. Their opponent was no fool: Doukeianos could see what was happening and William suspected it was he who rode forward hard to try to close that gap by halting his troops.

With trained men he might have achieved it, but the actual result was greater confusion, with some men stopping completely while others came on. It was they, partially isolated, who now faced a solid line of Norman lances, and one that would lap round their sides when they met. Compounding what had already gone awry, the captain who led them saw his salvation in an aggressive charge, completely ignoring the horns his general had furiously blown ordering him to halt and retire.

Drogo’s banner was now central and the Byzantines were faced with a solid line of Norman lances. There was no escape, though many tried, making matters worse as the Normans got between them stabbing and, when a lance was lost, slashing with their broadswords. Inevitably these untrained milities broke and sought to run, in doing so getting in among those to their rear who still held some kind of cohesion, setting off a general panic as each body of men saw themselves in danger from these ferocious horsemen.

Soon the field was full of running men, being pursued by a wall of horseflesh and riders that took a weapon to any flesh that came within their reach. Michael Doukeianos was fleeing too: there was no point in standing still to die a glorious death. Those captains who had not perished had surrounded him and were acting as a shield, and in doing so they had left the men they led to their own fate.

It was foolish to try to surrender, though many made the attempt. A small host facing a massively larger one cannot take prisoners, and in any case these were worthless creatures, not rich men who would command a ransom. Wise heads lay down and pretended to be dead, the imprudent pleaded for mercy and died with their plea on their lips, many of them ridden down and trampled by hooves as well as cut with swords.

Soon the field was clear of fighters, the whole Byzantine host broken and in flight, even those contingents that had not faced battle. William de Hauteville, his arms soaked with victim blood, called a halt to the pursuit when the point of any further havoc had passed. Now he was in among braying donkeys and mules, animals abandoned by the sutlers who had brought them here, they running alongside what women had trailed the host from Barletta.

It was Mauger who found the pack animals that mattered: the beasts which had on their flanks the heavy brass-bound coffers of the catapan, full of the gold with which he had offered to bribe them.

‘Find out where we are, someone,’ William cried. ‘This victory must have a name.’

There were a couple of settlements called Moschella close enough by to provide that.