The result was swift and bloody: his men went down, taking many with them, but under such an assault they were soon surrounded. He could no longer see them, and hardened warrior as he was, Roger felt the prick of tears for men who had survived so much only to fall now, wondering, as he rubbed his eyes, if some of that emotion was brought on by self-pity.
Ridel’s response was immediate: trumpet in hand, nearly drowned out by the cheering coming from the vessel taken, he called on every ship to close up to him so they were practically able to touch each other over the divide. Taking their lives in their hands, Normans from the inner vessels leapt onto the outer decks, there to form a line formidable enough, they hoped, to get them safely home. It was nip and tuck, fighting fires, attempts to board, avoiding lances thrown and the remains of the crossbow bolts, thrown swords and even rocks from the ballast, Roger and his men had to fight all the way to the harbour entrance of Reggio. Only then did the galleys of Messina give up and only then could it be considered that in only losing one vessel they had got off very lightly.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The Guiscard was outside the walls of Bari when he heard of Roger’s Sicilian debacle, completing a ferocious but successful year-long campaign to recover Apulia, fighting against a Byzantine army that had not only retaken several important coastal cities but had also besieged Melfi, mostly due to the fact that if Argyrus had held the titular command, he had been wise enough to defer to the professional general sent from Constantinople to aid him.
Having relieved his own castle he had taken back the cities one by one, his army swelling as he gained success after success, yet he was only back where he had started, holding most of Apulia but unable to finally eradicate the forces of the Eastern Empire as he had in Calabria; he might have to do the same thing all over again, if not this year, then at some time in the not-too-distant future. Argyrus was still busy plotting, and such was his skill that no one could ever guess from where the next threat would come.
Yet there had been a subtle shift during this campaign: what had helped save the Guiscard’s position, especially in the relief of Melfi, was the way many of the Lombards had rallied in numbers to his cause, though he was unsure why. Was it because they thought him less of an evil than Byzantium, or was it that he had not only married a Lombard princess, but that she had borne him a son and heir?
Probably more important was that Sichelgaita was at his side as often as her condition would allow, as commanding a presence as he with her golden hair and telling stature. Just as significant was their relationship, obviously a contented one. Robert had found in Sichelgaita a soulmate who was as capable of being as coarse as he — nothing amused her more than a bedcover-lifting fart — while she had a laugh to shake the stone walls of a castle; Jericho would have fallen to her with one good jest: refreshing after the delicacy of Alberada.
Even with Lombards to aid him, Bari, into which the enemy army had retired, still held out and the region would never be at peace while the city remained in Greek hands. Yet Robert could see no way to take it, standing, as it did, on a long, narrow promontory sticking out into the Adriatic, with massive sea walls difficult to attack, which left only one place open to a land assault: the easily defended wall and great gate that cut off the peninsula from the mainland. To attack that was to seek success at its strongest point, not only in the height and formidable nature of the walls, but also in the sheer number of men that would be committed to holding it.
‘Starvation is out of the question, brother,’ Robert said, ‘even if you block up the water gates the city walls extend to the seaward side and they can be supplied from there, so that’s a problem best put aside.’
These ruminations were being imparted to a still-chastened Roger, who had endured much ribbing for his Sicilian fiasco. With Apulia subdued, in possession of an intact and successful army, and with many months remaining of the campaigning season, Robert had left enough of his foot soldiers behind to mask Bari and keep Argyrus quiet, then marched his lances straight to Reggio, insisting that, given the aid of Ibn-al-Tinnah, conditions were still favourable for an assault on the island, this time a proper invasion.
‘Do you trust him?’ Robert suddenly demanded, moving from his gloom regarding Bari, back to Sicily — hardly surprising given the two brothers were standing on a hill overlooking the Straits of Messina and the long shoreline opposite, backed by mountains, the snow-capped peak of a smoking Mount Etna clear as a backdrop.
‘I think he will betray us as soon as he feels he hasnothing to fear from Ibn-al-Hawas. He showed no indication to stay with our cause after Cape Faro, did he? He scurried back to Catania.’
‘He is safe there now; it is we who have to worry about al-Hawas.’
That emir had abandoned his Catania campaign as soon as he heard of the arrival of Robert’s army, being no fool. Such a powerful Norman host posed a grave threat to the likes of Messina, and if a port and city of that size fell to them, then even his city of Enna, far distant in the interior mountain fastness, would not be safe, while in the lands Roger had already ravaged he would struggle to hold on at all. Al-Hawas had gathered up ships to patrol the shoreline around Cape Faro all the way to the Milazzo peninsula, where he expected them to land. Roger, for one, was full of caution.
‘For now al-Tinnah is on our side,’ Robert insisted, overriding his brother’s concerns. ‘That might not continue, and all history tells us that to invade Sicily without an ally is doomed, so we must make use of him and damn the difficulties.’
‘Nothing would please me more than to go back,’ Roger growled, still smarting from the rebuff of Messina, ‘but not to Cape Faro. An opposed landing there could be as bloody as our forced retreat, and we can hardly sail an entire army of two thousand lances over the Straits without being observed.’
‘So you have an alternative?’
‘Let us go in waves, say of a tenth of number, from one of the small ports, and choose a more constrained landing place where we will not be expected. There is a tiny bay I came across just a couple of leagues south of Messina-’
‘Came across?’
‘I have sailed the Sicily coast these last weeks in order to get to know it properly. After what happened…’ Roger did not finish that sentence: he did not have to. ‘It’s big enough to land a couple of hundred knights at a time. The crossing is some four leagues by my reckoning.’
‘Defendable?’
‘Backed by high hills with only one narrow ravine leading inland. Twenty knights could hold it and it has an underground stream running down one side to provide fresh water. It’s perfect.’
‘Do we want to be that close to Messina, brother? That is where al-Hawas is strongest. Further south is al-Tinnah’s land where we can come ashore without interference.’
‘And go where, Robert? Clamber up Etna to warm our feet at the crater? If we are to invade and stay we need to find and defeat our enemies quickly, as well as a place that can support a fortress we can reinforce at will.’
‘Like Milazzo?’
Roger flushed to be reminded he had abandoned a perfectly good location for that very thing for what appeared to be nothing but avarice. To return to Milazzo by land, with al-Hawas and every man he could muster standing between them and it, would be difficult and risky, even more so by sea.
‘Catania is a port,’ Robert insisted.
‘And one we can use as long as al-Tinnah is our ally. But it obliges us to make a long march north to fight. Next you will be telling me that’s something you wish to avoid. You should trust me on this, brother.’
‘You think yourself cleverer than me, Roger?’