Jack Ludlow: Conquest

The harbour of Brindisi was full of boats that had not set to sea since the imposition of the siege. Yet, in bringing the Normans ashore, the Venetians had opened up an avenue of escape. Turning quickly, he faced those wealthy citizens who had made so much from this port, some leading Greek families that had been here for five centuries. If he had a duty not to fall into the hands of the enemy, and not just for the sake of his skin, surely he had, too, a responsibility to deny to the Guiscard as much of the spoils of the city as he could.

‘Citizens, the city is lost. The way is clear to get to sea and I must take it and make for Bari.’

‘The Normans have not yet won.’

‘Then I invite you to stay here and watch them do so. Perhaps the spilling of so much blood will please you as a spectacle.’ Argyrus could see how many his words had already affected, the wiser souls: they were moving swiftly away to gather up their treasure and buy or steal a boat. ‘If our levies break, those on the gates will close them to keep out the Normans and leave our fellows to die against their own walls. If they stand, they will have a more noble ending to their lives, but an ending it will be.’

‘Then, Catapan, send word to them to surrender.’

Argyrus smiled, but it contained no mirth. ‘They have one more duty to perform and that is to allow those of us who must flee to do so.’

Robert Guiscard called a halt to his advance once he had driven the enemy away from what had been his siege lines and encampment: they were now arrayed with their back to their home city, which had already closed its gates against them for fear of what was coming. Looking at the men before him, desperately trying to form some kind of defence, he realised this presented him with another set of problems, though he could congratulate himself on the fact that his plan had worked to perfection. Right now his entire stud of horses was at pasture in and around Monopoli, with enough men left behind to care for them — not least to ensure none were stolen.

The boats in which he and his force had come south overnight, every trading vessel and fishing craft on what was a busy maritime coast, had been sent back and out of sight as soon as they had transferred to the Venetian galleys, lest Argyrus guess that he had returned. The enemy was in less disarray now but they could not stand against his men and they knew it, while what cavalry Argyrus had deployed were either wounded, dead, without horses or riding completely blown mounts.

‘Why call a halt?’ demanded Geoffrey, breathing heavily and sweating copiously, having run to join him in full chain mail, his standard-bearer at his heels. ‘Surely you have them at your mercy?’

‘I do,’ Robert replied.

If his brother had not posed the question it was in the mind of every man behind him, though few would have dared to voice it. His dilemma hinged on what he was outside Brindisi for, plunder or conquest? For the former it was easy: smash these creatures who stood in his way because they knew they had no choice, then drive to the gates of a city lacking defenders. Those inside would very likely open up, hoping to mitigate what they knew to be coming.

Conquest required a different approach, for, if the Guiscard never voiced it, he was intent on being more than that which he was now. The whole Norman intervention in Southern Italy, first as mercenaries, had been generated by a Lombard desire to regain the rule they had once exercised by kicking out Byzantium: the dream had been an independent kingdom. That as a vision was dead, broken on their endemic inability as a race to agree on a leader whom they would all be prepared to see crowned, made worse by a string of treacheries stretching over many decades: they fought and betrayed each other with more resolution than they ever brought to warfare against their common foe.

Could it be a Norman dream? The first Count of Normandy was a Viking raider bought off with the title and land by a Frankish king struggling to contain Norse raids that had bitten so deep into his territories they had frequently threatened Paris. Rollo established a line that might one day aspire to the purple — rumour had it that William the Bastard had designs on the Saxon crown of England: the present holder, his cousin Edward, was childless and, given his piety, likely to remain so. Other Norsemen ruled in Denmark and Norway. Here in the Mediterranean there existed an even greater prize, a possible Norman-ruled realm and, beyond that, tottering, an empire that had, in the last three hundred years, lost two-thirds of its territories to Islam.

To conquer Constantinople would require every resource available; to massacre the defenders of Brindisi would bring on a satisfying effusion of blood and would lay to rest all the frustrations of the long months of siege. To sack the city would keep happy his own men — they were, no doubt, already imagining what was to come: gold and silver to fill their purse, as much wine as they could consume, women to violate at will, their menfolk slaughtered — and perhaps the children would suffer both. They would amuse themselves roasting babies before their mothers, castrating men and stuffing their genitals into the mouths of their just-raped daughters, in the process creating among those who survived — for there were always somehow survivors — a lasting hatred.

He could tear down the city walls and break apart the harbour moles, sow with salt the fields for leagues around on which the place depended for food and cut down the vines and olive trees, leaving behind him nothing but an empty barren littoral and a bay devoid of life or purpose. It had been done in the past by conquerors of more renown than he, but that would not serve his long-term goal.

‘Geoffrey, go forward and ask whoever commands to come and parley.’

His brother had enough of the de Hauteville brains to discern very quickly what Robert was about. ‘You will have a riot in your own ranks.’

‘Look at the soldiers before you, Geoffrey. Do you see Argyrus?’

‘No.’

‘So tell me what it is they are going to die for.’

‘Their city.’

‘A notion they might have advanced behind those stout walls. Out here in the open, where their fate is certain, it is perhaps one they might reconsider.’

‘Our men-’

Geoffrey did not get a chance to finish that, as Robert barked, ‘Leave the men to me. Are you going to do as I ask or must I seek another envoy?’

‘One day, brother, you might ask too much.’

‘If it is this day, so be it.’

Such was the Guiscard’s height that even Geoffrey had to lift his head to look into his blazing blue eyes. They, on either side of his helmet nose guard, were unblinking, which told him that for all they were blood, this was not a man to challenge. Geoffrey spun away, called to his standard-bearer, and marched forward.

‘Now that,’ Robert said to himself, feeling pleased at the notion, ‘is going to surprise them.’

‘My Lord, news has come of many boats exiting the harbour.’

‘Don’t tell me,’ Robert barked as the messenger physically cowered before him. ‘Tell those damn Venetians.’ The man was already running away from what came next. ‘And tell them if any escape it will come from what I pay them to be here.’

The feeling he had entertained, of doing the unexpected, which he always enjoyed, was spoilt by the knowledge that he had failed to instruct the galleys to immediately put back to sea — not that they should have required such a directive, the fools. He was tempted to go to the shore and look out for those trying to escape, suspecting, since Argyrus knew what fate awaited him, that the Catapan would be taking the lead.

But time for that did not exist: Geoffrey was on his way back with a clutch of men around him, an indication that his enemy lacked central direction, and it was pleasing that as soon as they came before him they fell to one knee, bowing their heads — they knew their lives were in his hands, just as he knew that his reputation was such that they would fear immediate decapitation.