Jack Ludlow - Conquest

‘Sire, I have forgotten what warm is like.’

‘How long do we have, Father?’ Jordan asked in a soft voice as they parted company with the sentinels.

‘It will be time when you can play a tune on your ribs,’ Roger replied in a determined tone. ‘And we are not there yet.’

But the thought nagged at him, as he walked ahead of his son: surrender was not more than a week away.

The soft chanting he heard as soon as he joined the men who had just relieved those to whom he had spoken, heavily cloaked, flapping their arms to stay warm, who had learnt weeks before this moment that to touch your sword blade with an ungloved hand was to lose your skin.

‘How long has this been going on?’ Roger asked.

‘A few days.’

‘Jordan says they are drinking wine, even the Saracens.’

‘Lucky them,’ the fellow responded.

The Normans had run out of that first and been forced to part with anything they had managed to plunder to pay those willing to smuggle a few skins into them; rough as it was it assuaged their anxieties. It was from that source, in a broken-down house with a connecting cellar to the other side of the barricades, he discovered the truth of what Jordan was telling him. Of all the garrison, he had the most with which to trade and he used the contact to seek news, always negative, of any form of relief coming his way. When he tried to bargain for some wine, he found the price had gone up and the quality, never high, had plummeted.

‘Saracens are drinking it by the tun barrel now,’ his contact whispered. ‘Their imams have given them absolution for the sin. Can’t get enough now they’ve found out what a pleasure there is in the grape.’

‘By the tun barrel?’

‘And the rest. Taking more and more each day and hauling skins out with ’em on guard.’

Later, wandering through the now cavern-like storerooms, which months before had been full to bursting, Roger mulled over how to use this information. Time was not running out, it was gone. Something had to be done, yet he was in a worse position now than he had been originally. When first besieged, breaking out would have been bloody, but a goodly number of Normans could have got out of Troina town and, mounted, they would have got away. Now, with men weakened by hunger and no horses, he would have to fight his way out on foot, leaving those like Ralph who could not do battle, against odds he could not calculate, and to what? Countryside in the grip of winter and one in which, unfriendly and dangerous, they could all die.

Over the next few days he could see, in every eye that met his, men resigned to their fate. The only person not so affected was Judith, locked in her self-imposed concerns for the sick and infirm, she being the only one with whom he could openly share his concerns. Her response was to gently drag him to his knees and tell him to pray, tell him that God had got him to his title and only God would save them all. If he prayed with her, and he did, it was with less conviction than she exhibited.

Hunger woke him in the night, a griping in his stomach that made sleep impossible, got him up and out into the cold air, under a black sky, with no moon and some cloud. He had avoided middle-of-the-night visits to his outposts, which might imply he did not trust his captains to keep alert their men, but he went round them this time and what struck him by the time he had reached the third barricade was the utter silence. There was no soft singing or chanting from the other side of the kind he had heard before.

Unbuckling his sword, Roger took out his knife and, ordering those on duty to be ready to catch him, he climbed to the top of the barricade and stood in what should have been plain view. Nothing happened, so gingerly he crept down the opposite side, not easy on a roughly constructed barrier, all the while conscious he was making noises that, in his ears, sounded like thunderclaps. Still there was no response and it was with one foot on the ground that he heard the first of the gentle snoring.

Just then the clouds parted enough to show a mass of stars, giving him light to see the huddled sleepers resting against the barricade. The snoring was very evident now; the whole lot of them were asleep and each had either in his hand or at his side an empty wineskin. He could not shout, that risked waking them, so, just as cautiously, he climbed back to the top and called softly to his men to take off their swords and join him, sending one fellow back to the castle to rouse out every man now sleeping.

Back down again, with both feet on the ground, Roger helped his men negotiate their descent, urging silence until they were lined up, knives at the ready, each one marking a slumbering enemy. Their throats were cut, quickly and, if you set aside the gurgling of slashed jugulars, silently, the smell of their blood mixing with the odour of their bodies, neither as strong as that of stale, vinegary wine.

It was a long night as, one by one, Roger’s men took each barricade, only very rarely leaving a sentinel alive and, if they woke and fled, which they did, found themselves running into parties of Normans at their back, men who had circled round soundlessly through deserted, snow-covered streets, to take them in the rear. Before dawn, Roger had got down to the lower town with his whole strength, to take in their beds and slay the men who had trapped him for so long. Troina was his again when the sun rose.

The revenge was awful, but it needed to be: Greeks suffered much, but the Saracens who had come to kill him and his men and who had survived the night, died to a man, the snow in the gutters washed away by their warm blood. He crucified the Orthodox priests and burnt at the stake the elders of the town, for these men had sworn fealty to the cause of Ibn-al-Tinnah and had betrayed their oath.

‘Let it be known throughout this island,’ he said, to those he spared. ‘I am the Count of Sicily and your liege lord. Break your bond to me and this you have witnessed will be the result.’

The triumph of retaking the town was followed, naturally, by a great feast, and the still sullen, if chastened Greeks of Troina — there was not a Saracen left — were obliged to witness their restored lords and masters roast and eat oxen and consume as much wine as had led to their victory. Yet the Normans were becalmed without their greatest asset, horses and mobility. Roger’s first task was to speed back to Calabria to find replacements, leaving Judith in charge of Troina.

She played her part, touring the outposts each night to ensure that all was well, as the snows began to melt and spring came in the shadow of belching Etna. Roger was back within two months with a full complement of mounts, leading Serlo, foot soldiers and more lances, though not of sufficient numbers to replace his losses. The conquest of Sicily could continue, albeit with a much-depleted force: the retaking of Troina had cost Roger dear.

‘Take and hold, take and hold,’ was the mantra oft repeated by Roger de Hauteville, yet it remained just that: words, not an achievement. He never had the numbers he needed to keep the ground on which he won contest after contest, endless skirmishes with bodies of Saracens of a varying size, but never an army — they seemed intent on avoiding battle. Two years had passed since his first incursion and still he could not claim to hold even the land between Troina and Messina. He raided out from the former taking much booty but also learning of developments, which boded ill for the future.

The death of Ibn-al-Tinnah had removed the major obstacle to Saracen cohesion and they now began to cooperate in order to fight him. While he had been besieged in Troina reinforcements even came in from North Africa, led by the two oldest sons of the reigning sultan, each with an army of several thousand men. Appeals to Robert for aid fell on deaf ears: he had his own problems in Apulia, more now with rebellious Norman barons and Greeks than Lombards. The only reinforcements Roger could muster were a few hundred Calabrians and a small body of crossbowmen.