In the breech, all Robert could taste was dust; he knew he had lost men to the thrusts of pikes and lances, but the line had closed as quickly as a gap appeared, while those in support dragged away the wounded so they, too, could come up to take their place. The Guiscard’s sword was lopping off more weapon heads than human ones and, identified by his blue and white surcoat, he knew he had become the prime target of the defence: kill him and the assault would falter. Such a thing was to be expected, so he did not mind any more than the bruises he knew he would discover when he stripped off his mail, as well as the odd bleeding wound he could now feel.
But by trying to kill him his enemies were making a fatal mistake: the men he led might not have his outstanding skill but they were superb warriors who knew how to press on their opponents without his personal leadership. They began to drive back the defenders on either side of those determined to kill the Guiscard, creating the one thing that doomed them, a small salient of the over-committed who, so busy with what lay to their front, could not at the same time keep safe their flanks, now being pressed upon by the Normans. The men before Robert de Hauteville began to die, and in doing so created a fissure in the whole defending line, and that, just like the wall itself had done so recently, began to crumble.
Roger and his knights had possession of their section of the wall and ladders were being fetched up to provide a means to get the lightly armed milities down to the narrow roadway that ran to the rear of the walls, this while the crossbowmen sought to suppress the fire of enemy bolts from the windows of the high buildings that lay close to the parapet. The task of the knights was to push back the defenders beyond the stairways by which they had come up to man the defence, so they, too, could pour down and begin to fight their way into the city.
The point at which those seeking to beat off an assault realise they are losing is not something an attacker can easily calculate: an easing of effort, the look in an opponent’s eye that says he is not secure to either side and indicates he wants to disengage. Roger de Hauteville was sure it was something you could smell, a definite odour of spreading fear and he was sniffing that now, unaware that his brother had led his men through the breech in the walls and was now fighting his way down the narrow street that led to the gates, while behind him the thousands of men he led were pouring through and spreading out in all directions.
Robert knew the defenders were mixed: certainly there were proper soldiers, the men of the Byzantine garrison, but in the main they would be citizens drummed into service, many with a passion to defend their homes, others more fearful of losing their lives. The time of decision would come when those whose profession was arms, and especially the man who commanded them, knew the battle was lost, that his enemies were as likely to be behind as in front of him, at which point the commander would call upon his men to fall back and seek out a place they could defend.
The collapse was sudden, as the conscripted citizens found they no longer had amongst them the men of the garrison: they ran for their homes, casting aside their weapons to leave a line of Norman knights, led by both Robert and Roger, chests heaving, surcoats and swords stained with blood and caked in dust, too weary to cheer and far too worn out to pursue; that was left to the levies the Guiscard had raised in both Apulia and Calabria, many of whom had not even had to fight.
Yet there were enough Normans with breath left to do what Robert required: to find the leading citizens and get them to surrender the city before the whole place was set alight and his army became so uncontrollable that they would begin the kind of blind, drunken massacre that would leave few of the people of Reggio alive.
Clean and splendidly mounted, just ahead of Roger and the rest of his captains, Robert de Hauteville rode down the magnificent avenue lined with colonnaded villas that had stood since Roman times, interspersed with one-time pagan temples now dedicated as places of Christian worship. With them came the Latin priests from the north, to take over those churches and dedicate them to the Roman rite, displacing the Greeks who had held them for centuries; from this day, Calabria would be a part of the Church of Rome.
The Byzantine garrison, those professionals who had survived the battle for Reggio, had retreated to the fortress of Scilla on a high and rocky headland. They did not stay there long, they took ship and sailed away, no doubt heading east to tell the emperor that he had lost the last portion of what had been a province of Byzantium since the time of Justinian.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
To always play second string would occasion frustration in the most benevolent breast and it was a feeling to which Roger de Hauteville was not immune. The Guiscard having returned to Apulia, once more leaving Roger in Calabria, did nothing to assuage the desire to achieve something on his own. The province was not at peace: there were sporadic outbreaks of violence which had to be contained, but they were things that could be safely left to the individual captains manning the castles so recently taken from Byzantium; in short, there was nothing by which Roger could distinguish himself, as he had in the famine.
Residing at Mileto, enjoying the company of his wife and two recently born daughters, he was at the same time taking a hand in the education of Jordan, now old enough to ride a pony. That he existed at all, Judith accepted with equanimity and treated him in every way as if he were her own. The boy, every inch a de Hauteville, with his red-gold hair, blue eyes and unusual size, was taught in the same manner as his grandsire had educated his father, to both ride and care for his mount, and he did so alongside the warriors his father led. Thus, daily, he was surrounded by their example as they practised endlessly for war.
Jordan was an engaging child, loved by Judith for his cheerful nature, tender with his two infant siblings, yet also enough of a scamp to be something of a mascot to his father’s lances, not a group of men renowned for tenderness. Many had sons of their own, born to their concubines, for few underwent any kind of ceremony, so Jordan had children of his own age and race to play at the games that such boys do: mock imitation of the battles in which their sires had fought, activities he was often dragged away from to partake of the one thing he did not enjoy, the need to learn to read, write and reckon figures from monks appointed by his stepmother.
Roger insisted upon this, as had Tancred with his own sons, he being aware of the shortcomings a lack of lettering brought to the most puissant warrior, given he was one of the ignorant. Jordan heard from his father the same words Roger recalled being drummed into him: that he would be at the mercy of lesser beings if he depended on them to read and write his letters as well as calculate the value of his holdings and monies owed, the latter being that which had exercised Tancred most.
‘How many times,’ he would growl, ‘have I been cheated out of my due by some snivelling, tonsured clerk?’
The old warrior saw monks and priests as shirkers who worked little and ate well, slippery men unsafe to leave unattended in the company of women. The exception had been his nephew, Geoffrey of Montbray.
‘One day you may meet my cousin, who is an important bishop now, but he began as no more than the family priest. He was a proper Norman, mind, not like these timid Italian priests, just as capable with the sword as the epistle. It was he who taught your oldest uncles, William and Drogo, and I doubt they would have enjoyed as much success as they did if they had not had those skills. Even Robert, troublesome as he was, owes much of the success to those teachings.’