The main problem was the Lombards, who had never shown much in the way of cohesion in the past, their leaders continually manoeuvring for personal advantage. There had been exceptions, paragons who had got them to act in concert, Melus, the father of Argyrus, being one. If he was a sainted figure to the notion of Lombard independence, he had one flaw for which they would never forgive him: it was Melus who had brought the Normans into Apulia as mercenaries to aid the revolt he led.
Driven from power, they seemed more willing to combine and act in concert with the three other elements in Robert’s fiefs: the aforementioned Greeks and Italians, plus any Norman baron dissatisfied with the dispensations of his titular overlord. With the latter, the mere appearance of the Guiscard was enough to bring them to heel — they were rebellious only in his absence and easily mollified by small concessions. It was a question oft posed but one that lacked a clear answer: how was he to so engage the others in his rule as to stop these endemic uprisings, which kept dragging him away from Calabria. To take Bari was one answer, but one he was wise to shy away from, given it was near impregnable.
‘You should have married a Lombard,’ Roger said, ‘and produced sons.’
‘Alberada has given me a daughter and Bohemund. He is big enough to be a whole family. I think, one day, I may have to strain my neck to meet his eye.’
‘Which means he will always be seen as a Norman. With a Lombard mother you could have claimed to represent them and demanded they be loyal to your heir.’
They were gazing at the walls of Cariati, a Byzantine stronghold outside of which he and Robert had been positioned for months. There was no point in discussing the tactics required to take the place: that as a subject was exhausted.
‘I should have wed a woman of greater girth in the hips, brother, who would have given me the same number of sons as my father.’
Roger felt a slight reddening of the cheeks then — had he not thought on, as well as been amused by, the image of the two of them in congress? Apparently bearing Bohemund had nearly killed tiny Alberada, the boy a credit to his sire’s dimensions, not his mother’s. It was rumoured to have caused such damage as to render any chance of her bearing more children impossible, but that was a secondary consideration: it was again revolt which was troubling Robert. Trani, outside Bari the most Greek port city in his domains, had become the seat of Lombard-inspired rebellion. Robert was promising to cast down the walls and silt up the harbour.
‘Winter is coming, brother. If you were to ask my advice-’
Robert growled. ‘That is always welcome, you know that.’
That got him a jaundiced look: he did listen to Roger, but only after a long and tedious argument, though it had to be said dissension on tactics was rare — the Guiscard was a superb soldier whose only fault, apart from his being close-mouthed, was a degree of impatience, that, Roger suspected, brought on by the frustration of never having security at his back.
‘I think we should suspend our efforts to take this place and concentrate on just keeping the garrison bottled up. You know yourself it is unwise to keep men in siege lines too long. Let me rotate them in and out while you go back to Apulia, hang a few Lombards and perhaps give some comfort to your ailing wife.’
‘I doubt she’d welcome my comfort,’ Robert growled.
Unbeknown to Roger, that casual remark of his, a joke about Robert needing a Lombard wife, was to have long-term consequences. Unbeknown to either brother, matters were moving elsewhere that would have a profound effect on the future.
Cardinal Ascletin, always the self-centred fool, was doubly stupid not to realise that anything he got up to in Bamberg would quickly be known in Rome: a longtime opponent of imperial interference in papal elections, Ascletin did a complete volte-face when he actually met the child-emperor Henry. On the journey north he had reviewed his prospects of becoming pope. His family had invested huge amounts of Pierleoni money in getting him to his present eminence; had he not had a bishopric before he was aged twenty and his cardinal’s red hat soon after?
The whole scheme had been designed to raise the family profile so that they stood in equal importance to the other great Roman aristocrats, cliques who schemed to get elected to the fabulously lucrative office of pontiff, by fair means, or more often foul, numerous members of their clan. This allowed them to distribute to their relatives the many wealthy benefices in the papal gift. Why could not the Pierleoni, or more pointedly he, do the same? Yet Ascletin reasoned, in a rare bout of self-criticism, that he might never see himself elected due to his own personal unpopularity, a situation naturally ascribed to things other than his own mendacious character.
‘As you know, sire, there are many voices raised in the Curia to question your rights in these matters.’
‘Hildebrand?’
The ten-year-old spat that name, before looking to ensure he had the right of it, happy when he saw his counsellors nodding. Not yet of an age to command such men, older and wiser than he, Henry prided himself that once told of what to say, he had the ability to deliver it with proper imperial gravitas.
‘Hildebrand is indeed the loudest voice in condemnation of the imperial prerogative and the office he holds gives him great sway.’
‘Backed by the likes of the Abbot Desiderius.’
‘Unfortunately true, sire.’
Even the most partisan supporter of imperial rights would have had to acknowledge it was unfortunate to name the abbot: when it came to personal probity and lack of ambition Desiderius was a paragon; the papacy, come an election, was his for the asking, no one would oppose him, but he had made it plain it was an office he neither wanted nor was it one he would accept.
‘And you, Cardinal Ascletin,’ Henry demanded, in his high and piping child’s voice, ‘where do you stand on my rights?’
That was tricky: given his often very vocal objections to imperial interference, he was not seen in Bamberg as a friend, something in his introspections regarding his own future he had concluded must be reversed. His first reaction was to temporise.
‘It is, sire, as you know, a vexed question.’
‘Not to the heir of Charlemagne.’
‘Quite, but more of a problem stems from the way the leading families of Rome interfere in such matters.’
That was a fine piece of sophistry: the Pierleoni, while not of the front rank, were a leading Roman family and had started a few riots in their time, bribing the scum of Rome to cause mayhem for family advantage. That they had not done so with the frequency or violence of their competitors, given to deposing elected popes and installing their own candidates, was not much of an excuse. Too many times this young fellow’s predecessors had been obliged to descend on Rome to restore order, often to depose a usurping pope and needing to rescue the true incumbent, besieged by some paid-for mob.
‘Do you have an answer to that?’
Henry suddenly looked his age: having spoken without thinking he looked nervously again to those advisors to see if he had done right, not helped by the fact that they were split in their opinion, evident by their contrasting expressions. Some saw it as right to nail a difficulty, others were less convinced the bald illustration of a truth was the way to deal with such matters. Yet the reply was smooth: if Ascletin was a selfish man who allowed that trait to cloud his sense, he was also a polished politician.