Warriors

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The meeting Guaimar called at the castle of Melfi had nothing in common with that which he had held before at Montecchio in the previous year: that had been a muted affair. Now he was in Apulia in all his pomp, bringing along with him not only his court, but his wife and children, as well as his sister, an imposing caravanserai, and the summons for all the powerful people of the province to attend on him was just that: not couched as a request, but as an instruction they would disobey at their peril.

Rainulf, still troubled by the rebellion around Montecassino, had been summoned too, but the one person not asked to attend was the Prince of Benevento, who was brusquely informed that should he or his brother show themselves they risked both life and limb from their fellow Lombards, still incensed by the way the captured catapan, Basil Boioannes, had been sold back to Byzantium. Cunningly, Guaimar went out of his way to plant in men’s minds that he was responsible, too, for the defection of Arduin and Argyrus.

So they came again, the leading citizens of the towns and cities of Apulia, some travelling through lands still suffering the devastation visited upon it by George Maniakes, which stood as a reminder that caution was a policy best kept in reserve, and if they travelled knowing that Guaimar was intent on asserting some kind of authority, they also did so with the certainty of the need for their own independence.

The Normans of Troia had agreed to actively participate in the revolt, greeted, as they joined, by a less-than-fit William — his journey from Trani had been made in a litter. He had spent much time welcoming like-minded bands from all over South Italy, lances who had become aware that prosperity, if it were to be had, was to be found in Apulia. Given there had, over the course of the campaign, been a steady increase in the numbers of men William commanded, the Normans had grown to constitute a far more formidable and numerous force than that which had originally arrived in Melfi. More importantly, these warriors owed no allegiance to Rainulf Drengot and now outnumbered the men he had brought from Aversa.

After much feasting and talking over several days, which William pushed himself through on willpower, with the various delegates seeking allies or common positions, everyone who mattered was gathered in the great hall of the castle, the babble of noise deafening as it echoed off the bare stone walls. Guaimar had overseen the making of a high dais on which he could disport himself, dressed in silken garments with more than a hint of purple, a signal to all that he now saw himself as the overlord of all who had obeyed his ordinance. He wanted to look majestic, and he did, but when he finally imposed silence and sought to issue various edicts, he found he lacked the power to command: not one of the constituent bodies in the hall were prepared to just stand and allow themselves to be dictated to.

One by one they stated their objection to that which Guaimar was obviously seeking to impose: his own regal ambitions. Again the first to baulk were the port cities, with their mixed populations, who had no intention, individually or collectively, of dipping the knee to the Prince of Salerno, however he chose to style himself, nor did they wish to pay for Norman support.

They would look to their own walled defences to maintain themselves, and hire their own mercenaries, if need be, to protect their newly gained freedoms. Had one of their number not just seen off George Maniakes? It seemed pointless to seek to get them to agree that it had been the man’s ambition, not their efforts, which had sent him east.

Next came hostility from the Lombards of the inland towns and cities, where if they were not in a majority they formed the leading citizenry. Though the word ‘king’ was never mentioned, it was made plain by allusion that they had no desire to accept as sovereign a man who had stood aside from the fighting and all the losses of wealth and people that had entailed — an impostor, who had now come to claim the rewards.

William de Hauteville, the single most powerful person present, said nothing, and merely kept his own counsel, partly through a feeling of lassitude, but also from policy. Eventually, after much rancorous debate, Guaimar called for the meeting to be adjourned until the following day, and, plainly unhappy, stormed off to the part of the castle set aside for his use.

‘They must have an overlord,’ Guaimar shouted, vehemently yet safely, given he was in the company of his sister and the man he trusted most to advise him.

‘I suggest,’ said Kasa Ephraim, in his habitually calm manner, ‘they will not have anyone who styles themselves king.’

‘Is that not what we fought for?’ the prince replied, which led the Jew to wonder if he knew the meaning of the word ‘hypocrisy’. Not that he was troubled by the notion — it was the habit of princes — but if Guaimar thought in those terms, and worse still, spoke like that, he would only alienate those he was trying to persuade. ‘Do they not realise what we all have to gain by being united?’

‘Men see things from their own standpoint, honourable one.’

‘The Normans are behind this,’ Berengara claimed. ‘None of these cockroaches would dare gainsay you if they knew the Normans would back your claim, but did we hear any of them speak?’

‘Do you see a Norman hand in this, Ephraim?’ demanded Guaimar.

‘No. I doubt they care what title you adopt. They care more about what rewards are bestowed on them.’

‘Reward is all they care about,’ Berengara spat.

‘It is they who have fought, Lady Berengara, and it is their skill at arms which has brought such victories…’

‘Don’t forget the Lombards who fought as well.’

Kasa Ephraim merely nodded at her, and addressed his next words to her brother. ‘Only one question matters, honourable one: can Lombards, by themselves, hold Apulia if Byzantium sends a new catapan with an army at his heels to retake it? There is no certainty the Italians will fight to preserve a Lombard state. Who then will ensure security?’

The question that hung in the air was just as potent. Could the Prince of Salerno stand against such a force without the aid of Norman mercenaries? Only they could prevent a reverse, and it had not escaped notice that even the Lombard levies now accepted William de Hauteville as their leader. Guaimar could style himself by whatever appellation he desired; without men to sustain it, a title was worthless.

‘I would also suggest, my Prince, that given the numbers to which they have now risen, to have them back in Campania would be troublesome. Best they are kept away from your domains.’

The Jew did not add what he knew and had discerned in his conversation with William de Hauteville the previous year: the Normans were not going anywhere, they were in Apulia to stay.

‘I must speak with Rainulf. He must bring his men to heel.’

At that moment, it was William who was speaking with Rainulf, and the words he was using were not being well received by the elderly Count of Aversa, who had sought to berate him for his refusal to answer his previous appeals.

‘You stood by while your fellow Normans were massacred by peasants.’

A weary William replied, ‘I was otherwise occupied.’

‘You should be occupied as I direct.’

‘No, Rainulf, you no longer command me or the men I brought to Melfi — I do, for they have been with me too long, both here and in Sicily. As for those who have come of their own free choice…’

‘Many of those men you brought to Melfi are mine and I need them with me north of Capua.’

‘Perhaps some will agree, Rainulf, not many, and I grant you permission to seek them out.’

The explosion was immediate. ‘You grant me-’

‘Yes,’ William replied, in a soft tone. ‘Perhaps the notion of slaughtering poor peasants will appeal to them more than plundering Byzantine treasure.’

That calm interjection was like throwing turpentine on flames: Rainulf was so incensed he could barely breathe and his words were far from easily comprehensible. ‘You swine…you nobody… I raised you up and I can cast you down… I-’

William’s shout stopped him dead. ‘Enough!’

‘You owe me allegiance.’

‘I owe you nothing,’ William replied, with equal force, an act which required much effort. ‘I have seen you in private to do to you that which you would not have afforded me. If you want to be humiliated I will have the horns sounded and every Norman in Melfi gathered for you to address, and they can do so in full sight of everyone else present, Guaimar included. Then you can tell them they are yours to command, Rainulf, which if you are lucky will only gain you a sight of their bared arses. If not, you might pay with blood.’

Rainulf’s hand went deliberately to the hilt of his sword, which got him an icy response.

‘Draw it if you must, Rainulf, and though it will give me no pleasure to kill you, kill you I will.’ There was a moment then when pride fought with good sense, until William, too powerful even in the grip of a fever for the older man to challenge, gave him a reason to concentrate on the latter. ‘If you care nothing for your own life, think of your woman and her child.’

‘You owe me everything.’

‘I did owe you, Rainulf, for you trusted me once, you raised me and named me as your heir. But you took something away from me and I have now taken it back. You have your county of Aversa, you have many lances, if not as many as I, rest content with that, and whatever crumb Prince Guaimar is prepared to throw you in Apulia. I’m sure he will give you something.’

‘You will fly too close to the sun, William de Hauteville.’

‘Better that, Rainulf, than to grovel in the mud for what you would grant me. I will put out word that anyone who wishes to return with you to Aversa is free to depart. I will do no more than that.’

Once Rainulf had departed, William had to sit down: he was weak and he could feel himself shaking, cold even as he could feel the sweat on his brow and in the crook of his back. It was Tirena who led him to his cot, laid him to rest and fetched cold water to mop him down, listening as, in a fever, he went forwards and backwards in his life, cursing sometimes, at others weeping for the sins he had committed. It was near dawn before he fell into a troubled slumber.

Still weak in the late morning, William nevertheless dragged himself to where he needed to be, fully dressed and armed, so that those he led could see their general parade along the battlements of Melfi. Every time a group spotted him he was cheered. If they saw behind him the boy Listo, they knew him now to be a squire. If they also observed Tirena, who was much concerned for her lord and master, that had them nudging each other in the ribs, for it was no secret what she had become.

Beneath and below, Guaimar was struggling with a dilemma. In trying to make the best of bad circumstances, Rainulf could not avoid letting slip how much he had lost control of the mercenary force he had once led, one now massively more powerful, and, in doing so, he forced upon Guaimar a complete change of approach.

The prince had hoped Rainulf, for all the problems he had left behind, still had some authority: he now knew without doubt that he had to deal with William de Hauteville, and that whatever he was to achieve here in Apulia could only be attained by his good grace. Allied to William, he could overawe the others; without his aid, all he had was bluster.

‘I cannot think you could delude yourself into expecting more. The Normans have never done anything else but betray our house.’

‘Berengara, please,’ Guaimar pleaded.

He pointed to the others in the room, not just his courtiers, his wife and children, but Rainulf Drengot as well. She was, as usual, saying things in public best aired in private, yet his sister was seen by those who advised him as more than her station implied. They had been through much together: he had said many times, and in public, that without her by his side in his youth he would not hold his title. She had suffered with him and travelled with him, and used her wiles to charm the emperor who had restored him to Salerno. In short, she was seen to stand so high in his esteem that to command her silence in such a gathering was difficult.

‘Why should I hold my tongue, brother?’

Guaimar nodded towards Rainulf. ‘For propriety if for no other reason.’

‘We are talking of Normans. Surely I do not need to remind you of what they are capable.’

‘Am I to be publicly insulted for my loyalty-?’

There was a sudden wail to break Rainulf’s response, as Sichelgaita, Guaimar’s baby daughter, let everyone know she was unhappy. Looking at her, and not for the first time, her father was given to wonder at her: from where had the girl sprung? Younger than her brother, she already outdid Gisulf in height; her hair was, unlike his own dark locks, the flaxen colour of her mother, her eyes a startling blue, and she was growing at a rate. Her throat was not left behind in this, and her cries, as she struggled with his wife, filled the room.

‘I think my niece wails for our impotence, brother,’ said Berengara maliciously, looking at Rainulf. ‘When a treacherous slug can prate about loyalty…’

‘If you were a man you would be dead by now,’ Rainulf responded, his eyes now so narrowed that they disappeared into the purple folds of his face.

Berengara tilted her head and sneered. ‘If I were a man you would have been dead years ago, Rainulf, and the rest of your Norman pigs as well. I’d rather trust a Saracen than you-’

‘Stop,’ Guaimar shouted, though whether at his still-wailing daughter or his sister no one could initially tell. ‘Sister, you go too far.’

‘Brother,’ she replied, as Sichelgaita took to whimpering: the shout had alarmed her. ‘You have never gone far enough.’

‘A ruler cannot always do that which he wishes, however tempted he might be.’ There would have been silence, if it had not been for the sound of Rainulf Drengot storming out of the chamber. ‘There goes the only hope I had, Berengara, of enforcing my will on those gathered here, and not for the first time your tongue has run ahead of your brain.’

‘I will not be chastised for speaking the truth.’

‘I think the problem is, sister, you have never been chastised for anything, but I tell you, this day you have forfeited something, and I think you may come to regret it. Now, leave me, all of you, and someone go to William de Hauteville and ask him if he would attend upon me.’

‘William,’ Guaimar said, in a friendly tone, ‘are you unwell? You look pale.’

‘A fever, no more. It will pass.’

‘It has come to the point where you and I must talk.’

Not willing to let him forget, William responded. ‘Have we not talked in the past?’

The prince nodded, even if he looked less than pleased to be reminded of the divide-and-conquer game he had played between William and Rainulf. But he was still the most powerful lord in Campania, so he was not about to let pass such an obvious admonishment. His voice was sleek with insincerity as he responded, saying to this Norman very much the same as he had earlier said to his sister.

‘The needs of state come before private inclinations.’

‘And that is more true now than when I sought your help.’

Guaimar had to look away then: this damned Norman had found a sharp way to tell him the boot was now on the other foot. ‘You did not speak at the great gathering, as others did.’

‘I had nothing to say.’

‘You must have…’ Guaimar waved his arms, as if the word would not come.

‘You have changed since first we met.’

Both would have little trouble in recalling that encounter, with William forcing the young man, an innocent in negotiation, to be open about that which he wished to conceal. How different Guaimar was now: as devious and conniving as every other Lombard magnate in the south of Italy.

‘I was a disinherited youth then. I am not that now.’

‘No, you are a man and a prince, but if you can recall that first meeting you will also remember that I am not one to waste my breath, nor am I inclined to weave spells before making my case. I prefer to talk plain and to the point.’

‘Are you daring to rebuke me for the way I go about my affairs?’

‘I am daring to say to you that you have in mind words to use. Offer me what you have so that I may judge its worth. I am too weary for your sport.’

‘You are so sure I have something to offer?’

‘I am sure you have no choice but to make me one.’

‘You get above yourself,’ Guaimar replied, with a hiss, for the first time letting his frustration show.

‘Is it really necessary for me to spell out that which you already know, that you have no power in Apulia unless I agree to it? I asked you to remind Rainulf of his obligation to me in the matter of the succession to Aversa, but you chose to play the prince and deny my claim. Now I can claim what I want.’

‘No, William, you can make a claim but it will have no legitimacy unless I agree. Swords and lances count for much, but they do not count for everything. You may choose to give yourself a title, you may accept the acclamation of those you lead, but it will be a bastard one unless you have a suzerain.’

‘I will settle for a title that matches that of Rainulf.’ Guaimar was nodding, but that stopped as William added, ‘So will my brothers.’

‘What!’

‘Land and titles.’ He nearly said ‘except Robert’, but decided not to bother. ‘And then, whatever elevation you visit upon yourself, we will kneel before you and swear fealty.’

‘What about the port cities?’

‘Give them free status. You might as well since they will not agree to anything else, and, Prince Guaimar, there is enough land and wealth in Apulia. You do not need them too.’

The next words from the prince were bitter. ‘Anything else about which you would wish to advise me?’

‘Just one, sire,’ for the first time granting the prince the kind of respect to which he was accustomed. ‘It would cement the arrangements if you were to grant me your sister’s hand in marriage. I might add, I will agree to nothing else if you do not assent to that.’

If William had slapped Guaimar, Prince of Salerno, he would not have produced a more shocked reaction.

Guaimar, left alone after that talk, had much on which to ruminate: he had tried to marry Berengara off more than once, to various Lombard dukes of places like Teano and Gaeta, and even a nephew of Naples, but such attempts had foundered on her insistence on marrying a man of her own choosing. Really, he should have put his foot down long ago: he was a ruler, she no more than a woman, to be used as a diplomatic pawn to keep safe their patrimony. That was how alliances had been gained and cemented since time immemorial.

Yet he knew why he had acquiesced: it was her bravery and that shared past of daring escape and difficulties. He recalled now how, aged no more than fourteen years, she had offered him her jewels, this to facilitate his escape from Salerno and the clutches of the cruel and rapacious Pandulf of Capua. He had already tried to rape her and would no doubt make a second and more successful attempt. Guaimar would get away; she was willing to stay and face what she must.

Likewise in Bamberg she had played cat and mouse with the Emperor Conrad, a man like any other, who had seen before him a beautiful young lady not averse to his advances. Berengara would have surrendered her virtue if it had been called for; she had made that clear to him. That it had not been required did not lessen the proposed sacrifice.

Yet there was no doubt that since then he had overindulged her, a fact made obvious by the way she had insulted Rainulf to his face. Her tongue had ceased to be a weapon and become for him a liability, and that had been plain to see in the distressed faces of those courtiers who had been present earlier, it being a look he had observed before. Salerno needed her to act as a princess should, not, as she thought, a woman acting as his equal.

Odd, thought Guaimar as he prepared to confront her, in all my decisions as a prince, this might prove the hardest.

‘Never. I would rather take the veil.’

‘I must tell you, sister, that is your choice, for I will not be gainsaid in this. Policy requires it and you must succumb.’

Guaimar could see she was hurt, her eyes left him in no doubt, and he knew why: he had never spoken to her like this before — he had always been a brother not a ruler. ‘We are no longer children, to play games as we wish.’

‘So I must play what game you choose?’

‘If I could have it otherwise, I would, but everything I have set out to achieve here in Apulia will come to nought unless you agree.’

She shouted then. ‘You are asking me to marry a Norman, to be brought to the bed of a man from a tribe I despise, to have me lie beneath him as he uses me as his chattel and to bear his children, who I will despise also!’

‘You must do as I say.’

‘No, brother, if it is that or a nunnery, I will take the veil. I will not be whore to a Norman.’

‘Very well,’ Guaimar replied, which should have made Berengara suspicious: he had long since ceased to be the kind of person who gave up easily, and he was a prince who knew that men such as he had had trouble always with unwilling female relatives. He would get his way, with the help of an apothecary if he could not have consent.

Berengara went through the ceremony of marriage to William de Hauteville in a daze, induced by the infusion she had unknowingly consumed, before the whole assembly gathered at Melfi, a signal to them all that these Norman de Hautevilles were no longer mere mercenaries: they had become lords in their own right and elevated enough to be attached by matrimony to a princely house. Drogo orchestrated the acclamation of Guaimar as Duke of Apulia and Calabria, and he in turn granted William the appellation of count, with the land and title of Ascoli, then acknowledged him as what his confreres now hailed him, the Norman leader in Apulia.

Drogo got Venosa, lesser demesnes being granted to the rest of the de Hauteville clan, except Robert, who was, as his nature dictated, furious. Rainulf was given a small barren county near the coast as a sop, not enough to satisfy his pride, while Melfi was to be held in common, the place where the one-time rebels could combine to hold on to that which they had gained. Yet no sharp eye was required to note that the garrison now was entirely Norman and that the captain of the castle was none other than William de Hauteville.

The nocturnal part of the nuptials, after much feasting, passed for Berengara in the same haze as had her wedding and the effects of the drug only wore off as she slept. When she awoke, the first thing she registered was the fire in her lower belly, which told her, along with the bloodstained bedding, that she had been violated. Next she realised that the chamber she was in and the bed she occupied was not her own, a mystery soon solved by the great banner hanging on one wall, the blue and white standard of the de Hautevilles, spilt across at an angle with a chequer in the same two colours.

Of the man to whom she had been given there was no sign: he was in another chamber, with the arms of the shepherd girl Tirena wrapped around his naked, sweat-soaked, but slumbering body.