The journey to Salerno was made by sea for one very simple reason: it was too risky for a de Hauteville to travel alone by land, especially carrying gold. On arrival he ordered the captain of his boat to anchor out in the bay, staying aboard and sending a message ashore, waiting with some impatience until Kasa Ephraim came out to answer his request for a secret meeting. It was odd, given his office of collector of the port, how uncomfortable the Jew looked in a boat: he had all the appearance of a man only secure on land and that did not relent when he made it from rowing boat to the deck of the ship. Leading him into the little cabin, an arm ready to catch him should he stumble, Roger was not surprised when the man refused a drink.
‘I fear if it went to my stomach,’ he replied, sitting down with alacrity, ‘it would not stay there.’
‘I like the sea,’ Roger replied. ‘The journey here was most pleasant.’
Ephraim looked at him as if he were mad, but his voice did not betray that when he spoke. ‘There are few who could tempt me to take to the water, but your message did intrigue me.’
‘No one knows you are here?’
‘No, the men who brought me out to you are smugglers who know they would face being stoned by the mob if they betrayed me. So, how can I, a trader, put down a revolt in Calabria?’
‘A revolt triggered by famine.’
‘Yes.’
‘Help me feed them.’
For all his discomfort, Ephraim, after a brief moment, smiled. Roger had suspected the man to be shrewd; that expression proved it, for he required no explanation of what was far from obvious. Roger had deduced the only way to assuage famine and bring peace, instead of soaking the parched earth with blood, was to feed the hungry. The lord who saved their hearths and children would have their gratitude for ever, instead of generations of enmity.
‘When I saw you as clever, I was not mistaken.’
‘Grain, shiploads of it, to buy, as well as seed for the spring planting.’
‘The cost will be immense.’
‘I have gold but nowhere near enough.’
‘So you require me to provide more?’
‘At a proper rate of interest. My brother Robert has promised me land and titles, and the revenues of Calabria will be mine for a whole decade, so I know I can reimburse you whatever the cost.’
‘For a Norman you are acting in an unusual manner.’
Roger’s response betrayed his impatience. ‘Can it be done?’
Hands on his lap, the Jew sat silently, thinking, his eyes lowered and Roger waiting anxiously: this he could not do without help, money and lots of it, the only other source of that being Robert. But the price his brother would extract for such aid would be too high; he certainly would not give it for nothing, regardless of how sensible the notion, and Roger could not fault him for that. You did not get to be and stay a great magnate without certain abilities and habits of character, and extracting the best from any negotiation was as central to that as the ability to fight and win.
Ephraim lifted his head and spoke in an even tone, surprising given what he had to say.
‘I have often found that in commerce a man must speculate, and sometimes profit must be put aside for a long-term aim. I said before I saw William in you, but it may be that you will surpass him in wisdom.’
‘A tall order,’ Roger replied.
‘I will support you and for mere repayment of that which I advance plus any interest I have to pay on borrowings.’
‘No interest on the principal, which has to be your own?’
‘My interest is long term. I think by aiding you I will prosper mightily in the future. Now, if you will be so kind, let us find a place on land where we can transact the finer points of that which you seek. I have a villa at Paestum, which is on the shoreline to the south. I will proceed there this very evening, and so shall you to meet on the morrow. Tell whoever sails your boat to question the fishermen as to where to land.’
Not even an extremely wealthy Jew could transact that which Roger needed, but he had what the supplicant did not, good credit with other rich individuals: Kasa Ephraim could buy on the promise of future payment and on terms few people could command. It was not just flour and seed that was required: bread might be a staple but it needed to be supported by other commodities. Vegetables, fruit, cuttings for olives and vines and the stocks necessary to restart herds of livestock — goats in the main, for they were hardy — as well as the more delicate sheep and cattle.
Roger had to locate a place to land all that had been purchased, then to find a means to distribute it to the best advantage. He chose a small landing stage at Cetaro, not far from the Guiscard’s fief at Fagnano, that one-time hilltop monastery now a formidable castle large enough to house the men Robert provided. That the news spread quickly of food to be had was unsurprising, but Roger did not want the starving to come to him, he wanted to go to them.
That their lords shut their gates to a Norman host, even in the midst of famine, did not surprise him, but he had with him Lombards capable of building small ballista, not required to batter walls, but to fire the loaves of bread he had baked, always from a point at which the wind would carry the smell over the ramparts. To a garrison, already hungry, and to one pressed into resistance, it was a more telling military tactic than any battering ram applied to the gates.
Just enough bread would be catapulted in to remind the defenders of what they were lacking, and when such men looked at those who commanded them to resist, most with full bellies, the will to support their overlords evaporated. The sensible, who realised their people would not fight for their title, opened their gates and sought forgiveness, readily granted provided payment was made for what had previously been withheld. Some did not, and such was the fear their people had of their revenge, the walls had to be stormed and those inside put to the sword, innocent and guilty alike, the news allowed to spread that this was the choice: surrender and you will live, eat and prosper, in time, with re-sown fields and fresh livestock, or resist and die, for no quarter would ever be given.
The speed of re-conquest surprised even Roger: many lords came in to swear allegiance and hand over the contents of their coffers, or more often their plate, this so that the lands they owned could be returned to what they had been, while the man to whom they swore eternal peace and friendship was able to ship to the coast enough wealth to reimburse Kasa Ephraim for the credit he had provided.
At every place taken Roger had a Mass said to thank God for blessing his purpose. Insisting on the Latin rite might have unsettled the laity — it infuriated the Greek clergy, but their protests were ignored, and, as if to show that what they preached was inferior, no sooner had the provinces been returned to fealty than the heavens formed heavy black clouds and the rains came to turn a land of brown grass and hillside forest fires back to fertility.
Content, free of his obligations to the Jew, Roger sent back the lances Robert had provided, laden with plunder taken from those towns that had resisted. At the head of his own men, equally burdened, Roger collected Jordan and rode to his own fief of Montenero to find that even in the midst of famine they had continued to build, his subjects praising him to the skies for the food he had sent from the coast, one of his first acts on landing. The first two towers of his fortress, built from the stones of that ancient acropolis, were up and occupied, the blocks for the curtain walls and the other two towers being quarried nearby.
With full bellies and great praise for their lord and master, the Mass that was said in a church now occupied by a priest from Normandy, obviously in Latin, was the sweetest of all.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
There was still much to be done, several Byzantine strongholds to subdue, the most important being the main city of Reggio, but now Robert Guiscard was content to see Roger as his trusted lieutenant, who could be left in command while he saw to matters in his other fiefs, where rebellion, instigated and financed from Bari, was endemic. That the Apulian Greeks were unhappy to be ruled by Normans was only to be expected: they had enjoyed privileges under Byzantium denied to the other races in the Catapanate. The Italian indigenes consisted of tribes that could trace their origins back to the old Roman Empire and they were like any people: they hated whoever taxed them from wherever they originated. They had to be stirred to insurrection, a task readily undertaken by the priests of the Orthodox persuasion to which most of them belonged.