‘Never.’
There was a temptation, then, to tell Mauger that which Roger knew and he would not accept. It was only the power of the Count of Apulia and Richard of Aversa that kept him safe: without those two magnates pressing on the lands of Gisulf, even a useless article like that prince could muster enough force to crush the Normans of Scalea. True, Robert might have granted Gisulf permission to curtail their activities, but would he have seen one of his family harmed? Roger doubted that: if he and Mauger had been taken the previous spring they would have been handed over to Robert and no doubt faced the humiliation of having to show gratitude.
‘I think Robert would gift you more than Scalea if you fight at his side, Mauger. There are a dozen Byzantine strongholds still in Calabria waiting to be conquered.’
That childlike scowl Roger had come to know so well reappeared. ‘So you are about to desert me?’
‘I am about to find out what it is one of my brothers has to say and first, before I listen to a word, he will have to pass over what he owes me. Then, I suspect he will have a proposal that involves Calabria. If he needs help I am prepared to give it, but the price for that aid will be a high one.’
‘I will never bend the knee to Robert and you know why. He stole my title.’
‘Then let him give you another, more worthy of your name.’
‘No!’
‘Can I go with your blessing, without bad feeling between us?’
‘I cannot stop you leaving, nor would I try, but when you depart you must do so for good.’
‘You would force me to choose?’
‘I must.’
There was pain in the farewells: Roger had his bastard Jordan on his saddle bow but the mother of the child had to be left behind, though with funds to buy both land and a dowry to attract a husband. Friendships had been formed that required to be broken but that was the way of the warrior, by their very nature tending to be rootless.
‘Still smarting is he?’ demanded Robert, in his customary booming voice. ‘He calls me a weasel when he should look to himself.’
In late summer, at Morano, high in the Calabrian mountains, it was cool. Down on the plains it was not: it was baking in a season known for heat at any time, but one that had seen no rain for months. The crops had withered in the drought, so, lacking food and encouraged by the Basilan monks and Greek priests who ran the local churches, who persuaded the peasants they were experiencing divine retribution for casting off their loyalty to Constantinople, the people had revolted.
In truth the peasants were being led by vassals who, seeing no income from their fiefs and being raided for what they did have by bands of men loyal to Byzantium, were disinclined to pay the dues owed to Robert Guiscard: it was those nobles who had egged on the priests to stir up the peasants, but the result was the same. The revenues of Calabria had dried up, as much as the irrigation ditches and the rivers that fed them, and that could not be allowed to continue.
‘I can give you as many lances as you need, Roger.’
‘And what else?’
The response was angry and loud. ‘I have already gifted you a dozen talents of gold, what more do you want?’
The anger was a stunt: Robert was well aware he would have to give more, but he wanted to drive a hard bargain and one that suited him, something he could not be allowed to do.
‘They were not a gift, they were my due and I am now waiting to see what you will offer for my lance and my sword to get you out of a sorry mess of your own creation.’
‘I have become divine and I control the burning sun,’ Robert scoffed. ‘Perhaps if I dance the rains will come.’
‘You have borne heavily on this province, Robert, too heavily perhaps. Now you need me to pacify it and I will only do that for a just reward.’
‘Make a demand, then.’
‘No! You have in your mind a price to pay, so offer it and stop wasting my time.’ Roger indicated the sweltering plains, easily visible below, the rippling heat haze obvious even from this elevation. ‘Matters are not going to improve down there and you are not going to get as much as a bronze follis from those who are hoarding their coin until it is pacified.’
Looking at his older brother, big, blond, red-faced and wearing a look of fury, Roger wondered how long it would be before the dam of that anger burst. Tancred might have made Robert swear never to use a weapon against a brother but that did not extend to fisticuffs. Robert was capable of a mighty buffet round the ears and he had seen him administer a few, so he kept his distance: fighting Robert with lance and sword was just possible — wrestling or boxing with him was not.
The sudden roaring laugh that emerged, the throwing back of the head and the holding out of the arms was typical Robert — it was in his nature to go from fury to humour in an instant, leaving the recipient unsure if either emotion was sincere. The men he had brought with him as escort, who had been frowning at Roger, were now grinning at him, partly, he suspected, from relief: with a mercurial master it was not often they knew what was coming next.
‘My God, Sprat, you have grown,’ he roared. ‘It can’t be from residing with Mauger, that ditherer. There are castles out there, and towns, needing to be reminded to whom they owe their fealty. Take them back for me and you can have as title any one of them you like, letters patent and your gonfalons from my own hand.’
‘The revenues?’
‘Yours to keep for ten years.’
It was a generous offer: Roger was being given permission to depose the existing lords of the fiefs in revolt and become the overlord himself — better than what he had gained in the past, really only one fief and one self-built fortress. The previous campaign, still incomplete, had been about money and who was suzerain: to whom did these lords owe their taxes, Byzantium or the Count of Apulia? This would be about taking lands and titles from the intransigent for personal gain, a much more alluring prospect.
‘What do you say, brother, do I have your support?’
Roger hesitated, suspecting that such generosity was prompted by a revolt that was more serious than he knew, one which would be that much harder not only to contain but to put down in a way that would last. The cause was starvation: desperate people would fight in a reckless way, which might mean a campaign of more than one year. He could have fires breaking out sporadically behind him as he passed onto another rebellious vassal. Would he have to kill so many who tilled the fields as to render the region a continuing desert?
‘Let me think on it.’
The humour evaporated as quickly as it appeared. ‘You mean you might say no?’
Roger grinned. ‘I might, but not on an empty stomach.’
It was while eating and drinking — there was no shortage of food in the well-watered mountains — that Roger saw a possible solution. The question which had troubled him was how to separate the peasants from the lords they had toiled for all their lives, to whom they had a loyalty that often transcended good sense: there were good landowners but more were not, most exploited them to the hilt. Certainly he could massacre the peasants in their thousands: untrained levies wielding pikes could not stand against proper warriors, exposing those overlords, many of whom had probably eaten well while their serfs starved. But within that lay the seeds of future revolt: the sons of the dead would harbour a deeper hatred than their sires, a dangerous legacy in a land as yet not wholly conquered.
‘Robert, I accept.’
His brother, gnawing on half a sheep’s leg, replied in a voice muffled by mutton, ‘I never thought you would refuse.’
‘I want five hundred of your best lances here within the month. Ralph de Boeuf will see to their mustering.’
‘And you?’
‘I must go to the coast and take a boat.’
‘To where?’
Roger just grinned and tapped the side of his nose.