Robert Lyndon: Imperial Fire

Almost shyly, Beorn drew a letter from under his cloak and passed it across the flames.

Vallon read it and smiled. ‘Poor Aiken. He’s learning how to dance, with my eldest daughter as partner.’

‘It’s all right, isn’t it — a warrior learning how to turn a fancy step?’

‘Of course it is. Life isn’t only about shearing the heads off your enemy. In any case, dancing isn’t all that he’s mastering. He writes a good Greek hand and says that his tutors are pleased with his progress in mathematics and logic.’

Beorn jabbed a finger. ‘But soldiering is his birth destiny. He turned sixteen last month. When you ride out on your next campaign, you’ll take Aiken with you.’

Vallon hesitated. ‘Not all youths of sixteen have hardened to the same degree.’

Beorn leaned forward. ‘And some don’t harden until they’re tempered by the heat of battle. Promise me you’ll take Aiken on your next campaign. I know you won’t expose him to serious hazard until he’s ready to face it.’

‘I’d like to talk to him first, hear what ambitions he harbours.’

Beorn waved aside this consideration. ‘There’s only one course for my son — the way of the oath-sworn warrior. Give me your pledge, Vallon. In two days we march into battle. I might be killed. I’ll face that fate serenely if I know that Aiken will follow my calling.’

Vallon grimaced. ‘In two days it might be me who lies dead and then it will be my lady calling on you for protection.’

Beorn’s features set in complicated lines. He stared into the flames. ‘I’ve been waiting a long time for this encounter. I still feel shame that I didn’t die with my king at Hastings. This time we crush Duke Robert or perish in the attempt.’

Vallon reached out and touched Beorn’s shoulder. ‘That isn’t the attitude that wins battles.’

Beorn looked up, his eyes red in the firelight. He laughed. ‘You’ve always been the foxy one who lives to fight another day.’ He shot out a hand. ‘If I die, swear that you’ll make a warrior of Aiken.’

Vallon extended his own hand. ‘I swear it.’

Beorn sprang up and thumped him on the back. ‘I’ve kept you too long from sleep. You aren’t anxious about the battle, are you?’

‘Not particularly.’

Beorn gave a booming laugh. ‘Good. Fate always spares the undoomed warrior.’

Vallon managed a weak grin. ‘My old friend Raul the German used to say the same.’

Beorn looked down, his brutish face gentled. ‘And he spoke the truth.’

At break of day, Vallon led his squadron down to the Byzantine camp. Banners and standards glimmered through the dust kicked up by thousands of horses. Centurion Conrad met him at the outer rampart and guided him through the controlled chaos to the headquarters of the Grand Domestic, the emperor’s field marshal. A Greek general received Vallon with ill-concealed suspicion.

‘You cut it fine. You should have received your marching orders at the beginning of September.’

‘They reached me only two weeks ago, and the Pechenegs were so sorry to see us leave that they chased us halfway to Nicopolis.’

The general narrowed his eyes in the face of Vallon’s subtle insubordination. ‘I trust that your squadron is in fit shape to fight.’

Vallon knew there was no point explaining that his men and horses were exhausted. ‘I’ll carry out my orders diligently.’

The general’s slow, wagging nod conveyed a lack of conviction.

Vallon cleared his throat. ‘I request permission to scout the enemy’s positions. My squadron will be more effective if we know the lie of the land.’

The general kept Vallon under dark review. Like most native Byzantine commanders, he resented the fact that the empire’s defenders were largely made up of foreign mercenaries. ‘Very well. Make sure you’re back well before dark. After sunset the camp will be sealed. No one leaves, no one enters.’

‘Hear that?’ said Conrad as they left. ‘It must mean the emperor intends to give battle tomorrow.’

Vallon took his three centurions and a squad of horse archers on the reconnaissance, riding to a low ridge about a mile from the city. From here he could see the breaches pounded in the citadel’s walls by the Norman trebuchets. He could also make out the marshy channel through which the emperor intended sending part of his army.

‘If Alexius has thought of that ploy, you can be sure Guiscard has done the same. Gentlemen, I think we could be in for some hot action.’

He lingered a long time, committing the particulars of the terrain to mind. The season had been dry and the Byzantines had torched the fields to deny the invaders food, leaving a bare undulating plain ideal for cavalry.

He returned to the camp in a honeyed light and was still dismounting when Beorn ran up and seized his arm. ‘Come. The emperor’s holding his final council of war.’

They headed towards the double-headed eagle standard flying above the imperial headquarters, a large silk pavilion surrounded by guards three lines deep. Another wall of guards sealed off a crowd of officers pressing around the inner cordon.

One of the guards held up his hand to stop Vallon.

‘The count’s with me,’ said Beorn, the wall of soldiers giving way before his bulk.

Vallon followed him through the scrum of officers, ignoring their black looks, until he had a clear view of the emperor. Alexius I Comnenus stood on a platform engaged in discussion with his senior commanders. Not at first sight a particularly imposing figure — pale face almost eclipsed by a bristling black beard, a chest like a pouter pigeon. Strip him of his crown and parade uniform — a corselet of gilt lamellar armour over a purple and gold tunic — and no one would guess his exalted rank and title.

Vallon recognised a few of the generals. The blond man wearing a tunic of madder red and a cloak fastened by a jewelled fibula at one shoulder was Nabites, the ‘Corpse Biter’, the Swedish commander of the Varangians. The portly man to his right was the Grand Domestic. One of the generals, lean, haggard and serious, seemed to be arguing with the emperor.

Vallon nudged Beorn. ‘That’s Palaeologus, commander of the citadel.’

‘Yes. He sneaked out of Dyrrachium when the emperor arrived and will make his way back tonight so that he can coordinate his attack on the Normans.’ Beorn rubbed his hands. ‘Everything’s running in our favour.’

Vallon saw Palaeologus step back and shake his head in vexation. ‘He doesn’t share your optimism.’

Alexius turned and looked out over the crowd, his piercing blue gaze transforming Vallon’s impression of the man. He raised a hand to command a hush, timing his delivery to perfection.

‘The talking is over, our tactics agreed. Rest well tonight, for tomorrow we drive the invaders into the sea.’ He smiled a disarming smile. ‘Unless any of you have something to add that might sway my decision.’

Gusty sighs of relief or anxiety gave way to a heavy silence.

Vallon didn’t know he was going to speak until the words left his mouth. ‘I see no compelling reason to risk battle.’

Beorn gripped his arm. Faces spun with expressions of disbelief. A general pushed out of the crowd, his face puce with anger. ‘Who the hell are you to question His Imperial Majesty?’

‘It wasn’t a question,’ said Vallon.

‘The emperor’s not interested in the opinion of some lily-livered mercenary.’

Alexius raised his jewelled baton. ‘Let him speak,’ he said in refined Attic Greek. He leaned forward, black brows arched in polite enquiry. ‘And you are?’

‘Count Vallon, commander of the Outlander squadron.’ He spoke in clumsy demotic and heard men utter the word ethnikos , ‘foreigner’, seasoned with a selection of insulting epithets.