Mercenaries (14 page)

As a court it was far from magnificent, and away from the blazing fires that filled every chamber it was freezing. Outside the trees sagged under the weight of snow, and every morning, if the sun shone, great sheets would fall from the steep roofs of the buildings. Every one of Conrad’s courtiers dressed in
heavy fur-trimmed garments indoors – including his chamberlain, from whom Guaimar had requested an audience – and thick furs if they ventured out of doors, which they had to do often, given their master was a slave to the hunt.

Guaimar found himself mounted and chasing stags, wild boar and wolves as Conrad and his fellow madmen raced their mounts across a snow-draped landscape or through dense forests, hoping that by doing so he would circumvent the strict protocol of the court and win a face-to-face meeting with Conrad. He hoped in vain: the emperor was always way out in front, and rode his mount with a total disregard for his own well-being. Many a fellow hunter found the going too hearty, and some who tried to keep up paid for it with badly broken bones. It was the weather that saved Guaimar from this: a week slightly warmer which produced a thick mist, one that simply would not clear. Finally, Conrad found time to welcome him officially.

Whatever else the imperial court lacked it was not servants and the chamberlain was as efficient an official as the job demanded. Guaimar had been greeted by his ducal title as well as all the family claims, however arcane, and because of the rank both he and Berengara held, much to the chagrin of Ascletin, had been awarded the kind of apartments that went with superior status. Now, emerging from those, both were
dressed in their very best clothes, and Guaimar could look at his sister, nearly a full year older than she had been at the time of their father’s funeral, and see that his suppositions had been correct. Her figure had filled out and her face had lost what trace of youthful puppiness it had retained. She looked wonderful.

He was nervous; so much depended on what was about to take place, and try as he might he could not disguise it. This time it was Berengara who tightly held his hand, as they made their way through the chilly corridors of Conrad’s castle to the imperial audience chamber. Two pikemen in steel helmets and metal breastplates stood guard at either side of the closed door – no one in freezing Bamberg left a door open – and as they composed themselves to enter, as though by some osmosis the doors opened and a voice rang out.

‘His Grace the Duke of Salerno, and the Lady Berengara.’

The room was crowded and warm, a wave of welcome heat that enveloped them as they entered to face a sea of enquiring eyes. Here were the nobles of the empire, several red-capped cardinals, princes, dukes, counts and margraves, all of whom seemed to have about them an air of certainty of their status. Guaimar knew that whatever plea he made to Conrad would be examined by many of those present; these were the men who advised the Emperor in council.

The crowd parted, to reveal at the end of a passage of magnates a heavily built man, who stood with his legs set in a way that, allied to the hands firmly resting on his hips, seemed to demonstrate his power. Here was Conrad the Salian, Duke of Babelsberg and the Lord only knew of how many more fiefs, King in Germany, and the Holy Roman heir of Charlemagne the Great. He had the ruddy face and substantial build of an outdoor man, topped by a mane of pepper and salt hair. The look aimed at the two young nobles was not friendly: it seemed to ask what dared them to enter his presence.

Guaimar’s mouth was dry, his heart was pounding, but he did notice as they made their way forward that these great men to either side executed a bow, not to him – they saw themselves at least as his equal – but to his sister, each one receiving a smile and a nod of gratitude. In front of Conrad, Guaimar bowed low, Berengara executing a deep curtsy, which brought Conrad forward, to hold out his hand and raise her up.

‘You have brought me the flower of Salerno, I see.’

His voice was deep, composed of gravel, and seemed to come from his belly rather than his throat. As Guaimar replied, the emperor was still looking at Berengara.

‘I bring you the loyalty of Salerno as well, sire.’

The benign look evaporated as his gaze turned to
Guaimar. ‘I am glad to hear it, though I had no reason to fear it was in doubt.’

There was a sting in that: previous lords of Salerno had flirted with Byzantium, which had required Conrad’s Uncle Henry to enforce his rights with an army.

‘I am sure Prince Pandulf has sent you many such messages protesting that you are his true liege lord as well.’

‘He has.’

‘Just as you, Conrad Augustus, are wise enough to know how false they are.’ Receiving no reply, just a less-than-engaging stare from a pair of steely grey eyes, Guaimar knew he had to say more. ‘It is no duty of a loyal servant of the empire to steal from another, no part of a loyal servant of the empire to people his dungeon with his subjects.’

‘Unless they are disloyal, boy! If they are that, then let them suffer the fate they deserve.’

Guaimar made a point of stiffening his body, and holding the imperial eye. Even though Conrad was twice his girth, his voice did not lack equal force.

‘I think, your grace, that my true title is not boy, but Duke Guaimar.’

The two held a look for several seconds – it seemed to Guaimar like a lifetime, for he had issued a direct challenge to his suzerain, which could prove totally fatal to his hopes. He was inwardly cursing his own
inability to bend to another’s will, and then Conrad laughed.

‘Well, Duke Guaimar, you must tell what is happening in Campania that warrants you travelling all this way to confront me in my own court and, I may say, show scant regard for my imperial majesty.’

‘I cannot but believe, sire, that you know that as well as I do. No man could hold your title and be a fool as well.’

Conrad was still smiling when he replied. ‘You are not lacking in impertinence.’

‘I believe my station and my duty oblige me to speak truthfully to my sovereign lord.’

‘Very well, Guaimar, we will talk a little. My chamberlain will arrange it.’ Conrad’s attention, as he said that, had moved back to Berengara. ‘Now you, young lady, must tell me how you find my little court.’

It was smoothly done, the way the emperor detached her, and left Guaimar standing virtually alone in a crowded room.

CHAPTER TWELVE

 

It was a thoughtful Norman captain who oversaw the burials of the men who had died under that hail of rocks, though Odo de Jumiège sought to display indifference. The priest, dragged from his church, performed the service with a tremble, as though he expected to end up in the grave with one of the bodies. William, though he prayed for the souls of these men who were strangers to him, studied the faces of the other mercenaries to see how they reacted to the loss of two of their number, not least because of the manner of those deaths.

Following on from the burials, it was too late in the day to do more than take over the best house and stabling in the town with a clear view of the fortress, throwing out the inhabitants, raiding others for the means to feed both horses and men and to see what
valuables the locals had been foolish enough not to bury.

There was little of that, this being a part of the world often in turmoil, with a population who took up their possessions and made for safe places, deep pits or hard-to-find caves, as soon as disorder threatened. They would have known of their lord’s defiance, would have known too that it would be likely to bring retribution, so anything worth stealing was long gone. The mercenaries were unperturbed, and William discerned from their talk that they were well versed in the art of torturing those who looked prosperous, to force them to reveal their hideouts.

William waited to hear what Odo had in mind regarding Prince Pandulf’s renegade but he waited in vain. Their captain was too concerned with his belly and making sure that he had a woman, willing or otherwise, to warm the bed he had commandeered in the stone house closest to the causeway. His sole act was to arrange the guard who would keep watch on the actions of the Lord of Montesárchio in case he attempted to essay from his fortress.

As one of the first set of guards, William looked up at the stout walls and the torches that illuminated the area below them – Odo was not the only one wary of a surprise – trying to guess what the fortress contained. How many men? Did they have horses? If they had oil to soak flaming torches did they have enough and
the necessary cauldrons to pour over the heads of attackers? That would make what happened with the hail of rocks look like child’s play.

He was convinced they would have to assault the place, and he suspected Odo thought the same, but how? The slopes of the pointed hill on which it stood were steep, maybe too much so to get even a decent foothold carrying ladders – they might very well need those just to ascend, and once below the walls there would be no protection from above. To attack that way was just to provide easy targets.

That left that concourse before the gate, at the top of the causeway, the only flat piece of ground from which an attack could seriously be mounted. The man set to repulse them would know that too, so there he would have his best defences: his crossbowmen, more heavy stones, perhaps boiling oil and, if there were horses inside, the ability to suddenly emerge and mount an attack on men who would, of necessity, be fighting on foot.

They could put together a rough-hewn barricade, one that protected not only their front but their heads, one that they could manoeuvre onto the concourse, perhaps using it to set fire to the wooden gate. But that, stout oak studded with bolts, probably many hundreds of years old and thoroughly seasoned, would take an age to burn and the defenders would pour over water, as well as keeping wet the interior face.

Stay too long and the roles would be reversed: fire would rain down on them and force a withdrawal. It looked as though the only hope, as some of the men had accepted, was a lengthy siege, which was galling given the very idea was what the man they had come to capture would have calculated. He would have made sure he could hold out for months in the hope that either boredom, events elsewhere, or sickness, drove his besiegers away.

Such speculations helped the time pass, and after the glass had run twice he was relieved, grateful to get out of his hauberk and helmet and rest his weary limbs, for it had been a very long day. Sleep came swiftly, even if the room, too full of humanity, was hot, and he was surrounded by the stentorian snores and endless rasping farts of his fellows; sleep in which he dreamt of things cool, of the river back home in which he had swum, engaged in water fights against his brothers. They had also fished with rod and cold tickling hands.

The yell brought him awake immediately, though for a moment he had no recollection of where he was – in Hauteville or Italy – but that kind of alarm was one he had grown up with; in uneasy times Tancred too had mounted guards, day and night, in his wooden tower, to warn of any approaching threat. All around him men were on their feet, reaching for their weapons, shouting to rouse themselves for a fight; there was
no time for mail, only his sword, shield, helmet and ability.

The sky was grey, the colour of the earliest dawn, just light enough to make clear the situation. Odo might have little in the way of brains but he was a fighter, already engaged by the time the group of which William was a part joined him. He was yelling the orders to form a line and hold it, at the same time as defending himself against those trying to kill him. This was where the endless training on which Rainulf insisted paid off: there was no panic, none of Odo’s men were looking for a way to get clear or avoid their duty, only for a way to join without compromising a man already fighting.

William was with them, shield held firm, sword swinging, concentrating on his front and right, leaving the left side to the man who had taken up station next to him, all around the shouts of attackers and Normans, the ring of metal on metal and the thud as a weapon smashed at the hardened wood and leather of a shield. Even as he fought, parrying jabs from a pike before taking a mighty swing to decapitate the head, William was thinking this should have been foreseen.

The pikeman was now jabbing with the remaining wood, and with just enough light to see the fellow’s eyes, he knew he was desperate, not looking to keep contesting the ground with this giant but looking for
a way to get clear and leave his opponent to another. William pulled back his sword and the fellow turned to withdraw, he had had enough. That was fatal: the sword came forward with all of William’s weight behind it and took him between the shoulder blades with such force that the sound of breaking ribs was unmistakable.

There was no time to care, there were others to take on, not least the man battling his right-hand neighbour. He ceased his activity when William’s sword cut through his mailed arm so deeply as to nearly sever it. Odo was yelling orders again, a slow rhythm that saw his Normans take one step forward, hold that gained ground, engage swords with their enemy to beat them into yielding once more, then take a second step as soon as the defending line showed the first hint of weakness. The aim, to impose themselves so thoroughly that sooner or later the resistance was bound to break.

It takes very few men seeking to save themselves to render useless the efforts of their fellows. Two or three who valued their lives more than their duty pulled back further than was prudent, creating dogleg gaps into which the mercenaries could impose themselves, taking in the side men now defenceless as they fought those before them, cutting down at their necks, jabbing swords under their raised arms, or slicing at the tendons of their legs to bring them to the
ground, before a heavy sweep to smash skin and bone and finish them off.

It was hard fighting. William’s rasping breath came and went from a bone-dry mouth in which his tongue seemed to have turned to leather. But he could feel that beneath his feet they were off the flat ground and on that sloping causeway. It was a long way up to the castle gate but that must be open. If they could break through and get behind the defenders now inching back, they could bar their inevitable flight, and if they were lucky, do more and get inside the walls.

The men before the Normans knew they were losing; they too could feel the sloping ground under their heels, which would tell them how far they had so far retreated. At some point their line would have to rupture. Would the men fighting alongside William have the breath left after their exertions to get in amongst them, indeed to get ahead of them?

The need to order this fell to Odo, but there was no way fighting in a single line he could control the action, so William found himself, with great difficulty, not only fighting but trying to shout to his nearest companions what was attainable, just in case they had not seen the possibility for themselves. He had no way of knowing if they even heard, never mind saw the sense, he was too busy stabbing, parrying with his sword and thrusting with his shield. If he looked either way he would leave himself exposed to a lunge
from the more than competent opponent he was now engaged in trying to beat.

The fellow had a sword arm nearly as strong as William’s own, and he had real ability with the weapon. He had got through William’s guard once and sliced through the jerkin and skin of his upper arm, but fortunately not enough to cut tendons. There was no pain, that would come later, but William knew that it was bleeding, though not how badly. With his next thrust he nearly skewered him through the belly and only a sudden and powerful drop of William’s weapon saved him. That put both hilts in contact so it became a test of strength as the two combatants swayed back and forth.

Had he been up against a man of lesser build his assailant might have prevailed, and in his eyes, now that the morning light had strengthened, William saw at first that was what he expected. But that look faded as his opponent realised he was up against a fellow who had more than enough strength to match his own, that the only hope he had was to put distance between them once more so his sword work could keep him in the fight.

If those eyes told William of his concern they also, in flickering at the wrong moment, told him the man intended to disengage, so that when he stepped back suddenly, hoping that William’s own forward pressure would make him stumble and render him defenceless,
he found that the sword he had in the air ready to slice down and deliver at least a disabling wound was in the wrong place for the thrust of the one that came up under his neck, taking him at the point where his mail joined his flesh. The blade went through with such force that the helmet protecting his head lifted with the top of his skull, and what light had been in those eyes went out.

The rush to get away was as sudden as the initial attack. No order was given; it was just a realisation by those backing up the slope that if they did not go now they would die on the loose gravel. They did not quite act as one, which was costly, but it was close, a collective loss of will that had the Normans looking mostly at retreating backs. William was not looking, he was following as fast as his legs would carry him, waving his sword and yelling, hoping some of his fellow mercenaries would see the sense of what he was about.

Unbeknown to him, Odo was badly wounded. He had kept fighting to the last, ignoring a gash in his side, using all his energy as well as the power of his voice to keep both himself and his band of men going forward; when the enemy fled, he did not have the strength to go on. He fell to his knees, only his sword jammed in the ground keeping him from toppling over completely. Thus half his men hesitated, unsure without commands what to do, one or two close to him
trying to give him succour, while the other half, hard by where William had been fighting, were scrabbling after the escaping defenders who were rushing for that open gate and safety.

William’s shouts must have penetrated Odo’s brain, for he raised his head, needing to rest it on the hilt of his weapon, saw what William was about, and with one last surge of strength ordered, in a bellow, those close to him to go in support. Thus the Normans were in two groups and that was not good. Someone on the castle walls, possibly the Lord of Montesárchio himself, was yelling instruction to stand and fight. Few obeyed, but the lack of cohesion was enough to check William, then those in his wake, and the mercenaries were engaged in such disorder the threat of being taken individually in flank now rested with them.

William had his sword over his head, swinging it left and right with such force and speed that no one could live within its arc. The space he needed to create only need last seconds, enough for his confrères to form some kind of line, as well as a few more to allow to join the men Odo had ordered to support him. By the time they arrived William’s shield was a shredded mess, indeed one of his newly arrived companions saved his upper leg, if not his life, by jamming his own shield in front of William’s lower body as a defender struck at it with a lance. Off balance by his thrust, a blow to the exposed rear of his neck felled the holder.

The gate was no more than ten paces distant, yet it seemed like ten leagues, so desperately did the defenders, who should not have turned to fight in the first place – whoever had issued that command had erred – sought to create for themselves, a second time, a gap in which they could escape. Those who had made the gate were not prepared to wait and over the heads of the men he was fighting William could see that those inside were trying to close it.