Warriors

CHAPTER FOUR

Neither was it a surprise to see Kasa Ephraim in the Castello di Arechi; as the Collector of the Port, the Jew was a powerful official in the government of Salerno, holding an office of high and consistent profit to both Prince Guaimar and himself. A look over the Castello battlements would show why: the bay was full of vessels arriving and departing, the harbour berths packed with trading ships from both the Levant and the territories to the north, eager to take back to their home ports the produce of fertile Campania, every one obliged to pay customs dues for the goods fetched in and transported out.

Ephraim was the man who had helped the young heir and his sister to escape the clutches of Pandulf, murderous enough to have them both killed, by smuggling them away to sea, then ultimately to Rome and the Imperial Court at Bamberg. He had also used his contacts in Rome to provide funds with which to appear at the court of the Holy Roman Empire in some style. The Jew had claimed that valuable office as his reward for the service, and any fears Guaimar might have had about the way he would conduct himself had long been laid to rest.

An examination of the tally books proved that in the time of his tenure in the collector’s office Ephraim had increased the revenues of the port substantially, monies which allowed his young master to be a liberal benefactor to his lesser nobles, the church and the poor; for the rest of the population, he satisfied their needs with pomp and display at the numerous religious festivals, both in the Latin rite as well as the Orthodox, which punctuated the Salerno year.

‘I give you good day, honourable one.’

This Ephraim said as he entered Guaimar’s private apartments. Under his arm he had his tally books so that the prince could see the extent of the month’s revenues which, in gold and silver coin, were at that very moment being handed over by Ephraim’s servants to the prince’s official treasurer, whose domain lay deep in the vaults of the Castello. These would be placed in the brass-bound state coffers, which lay behind two very heavily barred and constantly guarded doors.

Guaimar having dismissed his servants, no one saw, apart from the two principals, the single bulging leather purse the Jew gave to his master for his private use, the monies he extracted as bribes from those who smuggled goods in and out of that same port. Kasa Ephraim had explained, long before the young man came into his inheritance, that smuggling could not be stopped in a port like Salerno, with its long, deep bay and shallow sandy beaches; therefore it must be controlled.

So the collector oversaw it, kept it from growing into a burgeoning problem, provided an occasional malefactor to be stoned by the mob, usually someone who had gone too far or tried to avoid paying a bribe, to prove to all he was carrying out his official duties, thus raising monies from the contraband trade that would otherwise have gone missing.

It was a duty the Jew had carried out for the young man’s father, providing him, too, with sums of money that were never seen by the treasurer who recorded the income of the duchy, or the chamberlain who helped his lord and master to spend it. It was a fact that even the richest magnate required funds which he could disburse in secret to increase or merely just to maintain his power. The one question never posed was how much the Jew took as commission for his services: nothing was ever committed to paper.

‘I received word, this very morning, that our Normans are close by Melfi.’

Kasa Ephraim nodded. He was a tall, good-looking man with, apart from a somewhat sallow Levantine complexion, none of the features so associated with his race. As well as his duties in the port he had become an unofficial advisor to the young prince: not part of his court, yet close to it, a man in whom Guaimar could confide without a record being kept of what was discussed, and one whose wisdom and discretion he respected.

‘But they do not yet have possession of the castle?’

Guaimar dropped his eyes then, so that Ephraim could not see the train of his thoughts: the Jew had sources of information every bit as good as those of his prince, perhaps, in some regard, even better. Had he made that assertion regarding the Normans from knowledge or deduction?

‘I await news. I hope also that the Prince of Benevento will accede to a request from Arduin, and give permission to Argyrus, the son of Melus, to raise his standard as leader of the revolt.’

The Jew was clever, Guaimar knew that, and, lifting his head again, he gave him a look from under half-hooded eyes, accompanied by an enigmatic smile, which implied much but conveyed little.

‘And if this is the case, what will it portend?’

‘Should it tell me more than the fact that the revolt in Apulia can proceed?’

‘I sense, honourable one, that it will give you cause to examine your policy.’

‘How so?’

Kasa Ephraim had become accustomed to this game, one the prince played with increasing frequency. It was natural as a head of state that he thought of nothing but the good of his patrimony, which in essence meant he indulged in a high degree of selfinterest, since the fate of Salerno and the fate of its ruler were inextricably intertwined. It was also the case that the public face he presented was often at odds with his private thoughts: there were things a wise ruler needed to keep even from his everyday advisors.

‘The forces that shape our destiny are many and varied, Prince Guaimar.’

‘And must be treated on their merits.’

‘Or faults, honourable one.’

‘Even if they take possession of Melfi, it will be some time before Arduin can launch any kind of deep incursion into Byzantine territory.’

‘And you are curious, I sense, as to how the catapan will react?’

‘It is my duty to be.’

‘I sense you would not now wish that which is about to fall upon him to come as a surprise?’

Guaimar smiled, an expression both full and satisfied. ‘You have, as usual, my clever friend, nailed the predicament. If I wish, and I do wish, the catapan to believe that Salerno has had no hand in this revolt, how can I reassure him?’

‘Only by forewarning him.’

‘Is that a wise thing to do?’

The strands of what the prince was saying were very obvious to a man who would have openly and proudly admitted to being in possession of a very devious mind. He also had much experience in the byways of other men’s thinking — the processes by which they justified to themselves acts of questionable virtue — a very necessary ability for one of his race in a Christian world that was not always overly fond of the Sons of Abraham.

Guaimar wanted to protect Salerno from any chance of Byzantine reprisals, which would surely follow if Arduin and his Normans failed in Apulia. It would be pointless to protest to a lack of knowledge after matters were settled in favour of Constantinople: he would not be believed. Were the Normans not from his fiefs, were they not men who had been in his service? The leaders, Arduin and this Argyrus, were Lombards, as was he, for Michael Doukeianos would soon discern that the latter was no more than a figurehead, and this might expose the tentacles that led back to Campania.

Yet Guaimar had a need to be careful: what if Rainulf Drengot found out that his liege lord had sent information to Bari, which he would certainly do if this matter was discussed openly in the prince’s council? Never mind his reservations about William de Hauteville, Drengot’s men were about to take over Melfi, and surprise was an advantage that would stand them in good stead when it came to the first encounters with the enemy, something that definite information given to the catapan would possibly destroy. An angry Rainulf might bring them back to fall on the man he felt had betrayed them.

‘If he is a wise catapan, honourable one, he might already know.’

‘You are saying he has spies in Salerno?’

There was no irritation in the question; both men knew the strands of Byzantine influence were long and deep, given they had once ruled in this part of Italy, just as they knew their own city. Constantinople had eyes and ears in every court that might pose a threat: Rome and Bamberg, home to the Western Emperor, especially. Salerno, Naples, Amalfi and Gaeta, all trading rivals on the Western Italian coast, each contained within them Greek traders, while substantial parts of their Italian populations still worshipped in the Orthodox rite and looked to the Greek not the Roman church for guidance. Loyalty was a movable feast even if you excluded payments for information.

‘We are a busy trading port, honourable one. Ships go in and out of Salerno by the fistful every day, and many go east to the Levant and the Bosphorus. It would be foolish to think some hint of Arduin’s intent has not left with them. The port, indeed any port, must be a hotbed of rumour and gossip.’

‘So no warning from me would serve?’

‘On the contrary,’ Ephraim insisted. ‘If what I suspect is true, and the catapan will be forewarned anyway, it would be sound policy that something of the same should come from you.’

There was a moment when both men ruminated on what the Jew had said: there was a great difference between gossip and hard, irrefutable fact. Michael Doukeianos would wonder if there was truth in the former; word from a Prince of Salerno would be taken as truth.

‘And Benevento?’ Guaimar asked.

Kasa Ephraim was at pains not to smile, for what Prince Guaimar had been saying so far was in the nature of being obvious. Now he had come to the salient point: here was the true nub of that at which he was driving. To inform the catapan of the involvement of Benevento could have unseen benefits, first by definitely diverting suspicion from Salerno, and secondly — and again this was based on the possibility of the failure of the Apulian revolt — with that information given early, any reprisals would be directed against his fellow Lombard prince and that could present opportunities in the aftermath, which might see the expansion of Guaimar’s territory at the expense of his neighbour. It never did any man harm to be on the side of the victor.

He did not smile, because he was too wise to let even his lord know of his thoughts, instead he looked grave. ‘We know from the past that the Eastern Empire does not forgive those who see it as its enemies.’

‘Are there ships at present in the harbour who might have reason to call at Bari?’

‘It can be arranged, honourable one.’

If Guaimar detected any irony in the way Kasa Ephraim addressed him, it did not show.

‘A secret letter then, with my seal?’

Ephraim shook his head. ‘No seal, my Lord, not even your name on the message. It would not be wise to gift Constantinople something with which they could later undermine you.’

‘That is wise. I must go now to my council, where we are to discuss the matter of Amalfi.’

‘A troublesome thorn, honourable one.’

In saying that, Kasa Ephraim was identifying a truth to both him and his prince. Not only was Amalfi Salerno’s closest trade rival, but, positioned as they were, on the direct route west to the Tyrennian Sea, they could board and seize goods at will, interfering with shipping going to and from this port from half the Mediterranean. These interceptions were based on the flimsiest of excuses, but they diminished the revenues of the much larger principality. It had long been Guaimar’s intention to put Amalfi in its place.

‘They think by denying piracy, by claiming imperial edict, that I will believe them.’

‘No thief lacks justification for his crimes, honourable one.’

‘You see I have just cause, do you not, to subdue them by force?’ Ephraim merely nodded: it was, in truth, not a dispute in which he wanted to become involved, having as he did his own interests in the port of Amalfi. ‘And besides, we must keep Rainulf Drengot occupied, for if he is not he is inclined to mischief.’

So, the territory of Amalfi will be invaded, Ephraim thought, and the concomitant of that was what he would need to do about his own investments.

‘Might I also suggest, honourable one, that you lay upon them, at some time in the future, the accusation of alerting the catapan to what is about to fall on Melfi?’

The deviousness of that suggestion pleased Guaimar enormously, for he was grinning widely as he spoke. ‘How I wish I could have you as one of my council, but, of course, it would never do.’

Arduin stopped William and his knights far enough off to tempt out, through the gates of Melfi, the leading citizens of the town, those who had left their homes to whatever they feared these Normans might do. He was alone as he addressed them, a man they already knew, who had feasted and flattered them on taking up his appointment, yet it was with obvious suspicion that they listened to the blandishments of this topoterites, as he sought to persuade them that they had nothing to fear.

‘These are the men I have engaged at the express request of the catapan. If you deny them entry to the castle they are supposed to garrison in your defence you will defy him and the emperor, not just me.’

‘They are Normans,’ one elderly worthy growled.

It was a telling interjection, which brought forth a swelling murmur of agreement from the assembled crowd; the people in these parts had encountered Normans before in the last two decades, and suffered much from their unbridled banditry. The castle they left alone — it was too strong for the roving bands — but the mailed knights took what they wanted in food and comfort from the surrounding countryside, burning and destroying what they could not carry if faced with resistance.

‘This is different. Who do you think holds the fortress of Troia?’

He waited for a response but none came; he found himself looking at bowed heads, doubting if indeed they knew the answer. These were people who lived in ignorance of what occurred in the neighbouring valley, never mind a fortress ten leagues distant.

‘They are Normans, the very same kind of men you are damning now, and they protect the people thereabouts.’

‘The Normans are brigands.’

‘Not those I command,’ Arduin replied softly. ‘They are soldiers in the pay of the catapan, as am I, as are the Normans of Troia.’

Quite a few of the faces were diverted then: Italians did not like Lombards any more than Normans. Arduin did not miss it, he merely ignored the reaction: he was not without the arrogance typical of his race and he had lived among these people too long to be bothered. Besides, they rarely had much affection for each other, never mind those they saw as interlopers.

‘Observe what they do now,’ he said.

Arduin pointed to William’s band, dismounted by the gurgling stream that ran off the high peak of Monte Vulture and through the huddle of buildings that made up the town. They had unsaddled their mounts and were busy grooming them with combs and brushes, this while the horses munched at piles of hay.

‘Do they torch your homes, do they break your watermill? No. They have not even touched your wine.’ That led to some shuffling of feet, which made Arduin feel he was getting somewhere.

‘For I must tell you, if you do not admit them they will not leave, and I will have to send to the catapan to tell him of your intransigence, which is nothing short of a revolt against his authority.’

Such an accusation set up a howl of protest: if these people were wary of Normans, they knew enough to fear an angry Byzantium even more.

‘And can I tell you what he will do? He will come and he will fire your houses and smash that watermill. He will also burn every man amongst you to a cinder, those he does not hang from the castle walls, once you have been disembowelled and seen your own entrails slither from your belly.’

That made them pale, but Arduin was not finished.

‘Then he will let those Normans, and his Greeks, loose on your women and you will hear their screams as you die. Your children will be sent east to slavery, perhaps to the brothels of Constantinople, which cater for every vice. And then he will send word around the country to say that valuable land, well irrigated and fertile, is empty and there for the taking, so other hands will work this soil and prosper, using your women as slaves and your crushed bones to help nourish their crops.’

‘We hold the castle.’

‘Can you hold it against an army? Are you fighting men?’ He waved to the Normans once more. ‘Look, they are fighting men. Can you face them even with walls to protect you?’

If they were wavering they were yet to be convinced, so Arduin changed tack.

‘Let me send to the catapan and say that the good folk of Melfi are loyal, that they are people who deserve relief from too heavy a taxation, if not monies provided to help develop what they already have. What one of you could not use some Byzantine largesse to increase your yields, to stock your pigsties and sheep pens, to increase your oxen? Would it not be wondrous to say in years to come that this was made a golden part of Apulia where men work for reward, a place where women sow and reap in plenty, that children grow up strong and to a good age so that those who bore them have ease in their later years?’

Arduin had a silver tongue, one which had served him well with his reluctant soldiers in Sicily and it was having the same effect here, for what he was holding out was a tempting prospect to people who toiled as long as it was light to get from the soil that which was needed to both maintain themselves and satisfy the demands of their overlords, nothing less than the sum of their dreams — a life free from the threat of famine.

These were not the fertile plains of two harvests a year, which lay to either side of their lands, but the mountains where the soil was shallow and supported by hard rock, the weather more fickle. There was never truly enough, for if times were good the population grew to consume whatever the land produced. But there were also those bad years, of blighted crops and endless foul weather, times when cattle and flocks were ravaged by maladies for which they had no cure, so that people came close to, and sometimes even succumbed, to starvation.

‘And, my friends, with this garrison in place, I can ask — no, demand — the castle be well supplied, food that would be there for you, should nature fail you.’

‘We must talk, topoterites.’

Arduin nodded: the use of that title indicated he would get what he wanted.

William waited until the castle had been vacated, watching as the locals made their way back to their homes, few willing to exchange a glance with these mailed giants who would now live amongst them. They were stocky folk in the main, of truncated height to a Norman, but it was easy to see they had a strength brought about by endless toil; that is, those who were not too bent by the same condition of life to stand upright.

Despite sharp commands from angry parents the children could not contain their curiosity, and were much taken by the horses, for in this part of the world, where oxen did the burdensome work, the possession of such a beast was only for lords and masters. Nor could the younger females stop themselves from throwing what they thought were discreet glances at such tall and striking men. For that they got parental blows, not hard words.

Watching them, and the contrast with their nervous elders, William thought back to his father’s demesne in the Contentin, to the serfs and tenanted villeins who supported the de Hauteville family, people whom his father saw as his responsibility. The indigenes who had occupied the land before the Norsemen came were not dissimilar, hardy folk inured to endless toil and the need to eke a living from the soil. Yet his forbears had intermingled with them, married their womenfolk and bred children by them, and they had also protected them in an uncertain world. Could he, and the men he led, not do the same here?

‘Mount up,’ he called when the last of the townsfolk had passed.

Riding up the wide, winding causeway that led up to the great gates of the Castle of Melfi, itself with a defensible wall, William found himself increasingly impressed by an edifice he had only previously observed from afar. Imposing from a distance, with its great square keep and hexagonal corner towers, it became more formidable still at close quarters, where he could see how soundly it was constructed, from the stone bridge that spanned the moat to the twin curtain walls that contained a killing zone between them.

An attacker must cross that narrow, high-arched causeway to even attempt to take the outer wall, then get through a gate to be faced by yet another ditch with a raised drawbridge. Caught between the two they would be at the mercy of anyone on the inner wall and they would need a great effusion of blood to overcome the defence. Those walls and towers were made from the hard stone of the mountains in which the castle was sat — rock so hard the walls could not be undermined — and they were well buttressed to withstand assault by ballista, while being tall enough to make firing anything over the top near impossible, the whole edifice high on a hill that dominated the town below, as well as the valleys that led to the east and west.

Overlooked by the even higher peak of Monte Vulture, that too was part of its defence: no substantial force could hope to approach from any direction without being seen a whole day’s march distant. Inside, the fortress was spacious, with well-constructed buildings that could house hundreds of knights, sufficient stabling for their mounts, and vaults below and lofts above that could store enough supplies to sustain them for an eternity, while the keep was large enough in which to train to fight so that no warrior could become rusty by confinement.

Built by the Byzantines on the site of an old Roman watchtower, it had a water supply that could not be stopped, several deep wells that sat inside the very rock on which the castle stood, and on three sides lay steep escarpments which reduced the options for any attacker to a frontal assault up the causeway to the crossing, at the end of which stood huge oak gates, studded with metal. On either side of the outer castle entrance stood a pair of towers, barbicans that made the area before the drawbridge a deadly place for any man at the mercy of besieged crossbowmen.

Arduin was already inside, back in the place he had come to occupy when first appointed, and he was on the steps that led to the great hall when his first Normans entered through the castle gate. In his mind he could see what was to come, himself at the head of a formidable army, taking from Byzantium towns, cities and especially the great ports which sustained them with their fabulous revenues.

There was another vision: he might need a figurehead to give him the legitimacy needed to persuade others to revolt, but he would be no more than that. Men had risen before from seemingly humble origins to a noble estate, why not he? His arrangement with Prince Guaimar was for an equal division of the spoils, but that might be something he could circumvent with success. In part, the happy face with which he grasped the arm of William de Hauteville and the first contingent of knights was fed by such thoughts.

‘A messenger, William, to bring in the rest.’

‘Already sent, Arduin,’ the Norman leader replied. ‘I would also ask a message be sent north to the Normans of Troia, suggesting they desert Byzantium and join us.’

‘Do you think they will be tempted?’

‘No, they have prospered too much from serving the Eastern Empire, but not to ask might make them more of an enemy than we now need and I would want them neutral. It never does to wound Norman pride.’

Arduin flashed a look at William de Hauteville then, wondering at the level of his pride, indeed the pride of the whole clan; all twelve of them.