Jack Ludlow: Conquest

‘How?’

‘Try your spies.’

In the end, it was the people of Bari who gave the answer. The populace, even the most loyal, were getting desperate: everyone knew this was the last throw of the dice. If Paternos came back with an army, Bari would hold out, if not, it might not submit immediately but fall it would. The idea was that the fleet of ships would seek to make their landfall on a moonless cloudy night, so the Normans would be blind. That the relieving force would also be blind was to be solved by the Bariots lining their sea walls with torches.

The intention was that those torches would number just enough to do what was required, but the citizens, in their enthusiasm, crowded the ramparts in their hundreds, setting up a blaze of light and that alerted Roger. He manned his ships and went to single anchors, until he received a signal of his own from a piquet boat he had left out in deep water. The enemy had been sighted and he was at sea within half a glass of sand, sailing out at the head of thirty warrior-laden ships to where he suspected his enemy must be. Soon he saw what they had to have aloft to avoid colliding with each other, lanterns at their mastheads.

‘Light the ship,’ Roger ordered, ‘let them see what they face.’

Men ran to carry out that command, one that was repeated on every vessel Roger led, each turning from a ghostly shadow to a lit deck, which showed their strength.

‘Double lights on one mast,’ Ridel said, pointing ahead, ‘I’ll wager it’s the lead vessel and that will be carrying Paternos.’

‘Close with it,’ Roger shouted, before picking up a speaking trumpet and passing the same command over the water to the other captains. Capture the enemy command ship and the rest should succumb.

The tragedy that followed could not have been foreseen. It was brought on by an excess of zeal, though some felt, in retrospect, it was more to do with a lack of caution from warriors unaccustomed to fighting at sea. On one deck every man rushed to the side to catch a view of the vessel Roger had indicated. With horror he watched its own lights dip towards the water as the weight produced a list. Yet it did not stop and correct itself, it carried on until it hit the sea, lanterns fizzing out as the vessel capsized, throwing in excess of a hundred fighting men, all in heavy mail, into the water. Even if they could swim, and few would be able to, their mail must weigh them down; they would all drown.

Roger had to turn away and he also had to put out of his mind any thought of rescue, not that it would have been easy. There was a battle to fight and winning that was paramount, notwithstanding he had to shout to stop those on his own deck from rushing to view the loss and bringing about another disaster. Thankfully the gap was closing fast, so his men could see where their duty lay.

‘Grappling irons,’ he yelled, as their movement restored the trim of the ship.

He ran to the prow so that he could control the time of contact, using a set of hand signals he had worked out with Geoffrey Ridel that would bring his vessel alongside the enemy to best advantage. All along the bulwarks men were waiting for his signal to throw the triple-hooked grappling irons, and when he gave the command they snaked out to clatter aboard the opposite deck, to then be hauled hard so they would grip. Not all held, some were cut, but three dug into timber and were pulled taut.

Hauling hard, the Normans pulled themselves towards their enemies and they, seeking to defend their ship, erred in rushing to one side, causing it to list, not as badly as the vessel which had capsized but enough to ensure when the two vessels came together the Normans, standing on their bulwarks, had height on their opponents and were thus able to jump on top of them to engage, the weight of the fall the first thing to gain them an advantage and room to fight. The sound of crashing timber was soon replaced by that of clashing metal, as swords and axes were employed by both sides in a melee that compacted men into the constricted fighting space of the ship’s deck.

As ever, Norman skill told here: they knew to form a wall of shields without instructions, knew what steps to take to protect their neighbouring warrior to the left, knew to use their shields to block any blows from that quarter. With Roger in the centre they kept that line, inching forward against opponents giving ground, a strake at a time, small amounts but significant, for to be retreating was to be losing.

By the great tiller Roger could see a man he knew well, Joscelin of Molfetta, and the sight of that ingrate, who had been granted so much by his brother, urged on his arm and that alone added force to the battering the men defending the ship were receiving. The Normans were obliged to step over the bodies of the slain, careful to avoid slipping on their blood. A fellow Roger did not know, but one dressed in fine armour, stepped into the fray, jostling forward and seeking him out.

That he was a soldier and a good one was obvious: he was a man who fought with his eyes, knowing his arms and feet would obey the commands sent to them by his brain, and he was strong. No orders were given but it was soon obvious that this contest was to be decided between these two and their swords. They swung them against each other time and again in a tattoo of clashing metal, came together then fell apart with a collision of shields, the only thing still their heads as, eyes locked, they sought that one blink or wrong signal that would present an opening.

Stephen Paternos had never fought a Norman in single combat: that he might have coped with, but he had never engaged with a de Hauteville. Roger was in his element: he could have been back at Hauteville le Guichard with old Tancred’s shouted instructions in his ears and it had been the same as every fight since, a reliance on the strong arm and quick brain that were his family birthright.

Paternos moved his round buckler just enough for Roger to get his teardrop shield inside it and fix its position for no more than a blink. But it was enough: Stephen Paternos needed to correct it, his chest was exposed, needed to use extra pressure to free his own shield from the way Roger was holding it. In pushing to his right, his sword arm opened up enough for the hilt of Roger’s weapon to get through his guard and take him on the upper chest — not in itself a telling blow, but one that created both the time and the opening for that blade to be raised and fall on the Byzantine’s helmet with stunning force.

As he reeled back it was the following blow that killed him, a round-armed sweep that took his neck just below where his helmet ended, with a blade so sharp that it could slice through a single horse hair. The light went out in those eyes, with Roger aware that he had been a worthy opponent who never once wavered in his concentration, even when he knew he was probably doomed. Apart from the sound of his own heavy breathing, Roger now heard only the sound of dropping weapons, then, shortly and all around, coming from other ships, cries of loud cheering.

They landed with the enemy ships, bar one, under tow; that last one had broken through to Bari. On the journey back Roger had made Joscelin dress as a high-ranking Greek, in the non-fighting clothes of the man he had slain, whose name he now knew. It was a great pleasure to present Joscelin as a gift to his brother and to hear the wretch plead for his life, but there was little time to gloat.

Word came almost at once that a party of Greeks, having seen that relief was not at hand, in despair and encouraged by Robert’s agent Argirizzo, had seized one of the twin towers on the land wall, calling for Normans to reinforce them. Yet another siege tower, built but yet to be employed, was quickly pushed forward to finally rest against the ramparts. Robert’s best warriors, led by Bohemund, with Jordan and Serlo on his heels, flooded up over the now undefended ramparts and once in possession of that corner tower the city was doomed: at dawn, word came asking for terms.