Seeing the disappointment in de Boeuf’s face, Roger added, ‘It has to be someone of enough standing so he will believe what he is being told is true.’
‘Which does not provide much comfort.’
Roger’s lances exited the trees as one continuous line, spread across the wheat fields through which they rode, trampling the corn that ran to the shoreline. At their rear, Roger had his men bring forward their other mounts to the forest edge so that they would be visible, hoping that, from a distance, it would appear as an even greater number waiting to attack. There was no rush to his advance: it was carried out at a walk and he himself made no effort to move forward separately as if seeking to parley. If there were any fighting men in Messina, he wanted them to flee for the safety of their Saracen army before the gates were slammed shut. Thus would the place be more vulnerable later.
‘They must know,’ he explained to his nephew, ‘Robert’s whole army is about to descend on Sicily and they will be acquainted with his reputation. Like al-Hawas they will be surprised to see us here, approaching from the south. News travels, and much as it pains me to admit it, I am using my brother’s reputation as a weapon. I want them to think he is close by, to think he will be around their walls before the people they depend on to keep us out can get back to their aid, so they risk being locked in to face a soldier who has taken more walled towns than anyone in Christendom.’
Roger called upon his horns to blast a command, and his long line of lances broke into a trot.
By the time Ralph de Boeuf got back to the landing bay the light was fading, Robert had arrived and was ashore, bellowing loud orders. Though he was pleased by the news of no substantial forces lying between him and Messina, he was less so by Roger’s unexpected absence, and utterly disinclined to warm to his brother’s notion of an immediate siege with an enemy army still in the field. Basic good sense said the right tactic was to first defeat al-Hawas.
‘If Roger sees any sign of al-Hawas,’ de Boeuf insisted, ‘he will send word to tell us. Messina looks totally undefended.’
‘I seem to recall it was totally undefended the last time you saw it and look what happened then. Now, help me get my lances ashore so we can get them marching to where they need to be, facing the enemy’s main force.’
‘You will have to bypass Messina anyway.’
‘Where,’ Robert growled, ‘I had better be joined by a brother who was supposed to await my arrival before undertaking anything.’
Disembarkation took most of the day and they could not march at night, so it was dawn on the third morning before they set off, Robert hoping that if al-Hawas had made his dispositions as Roger outlined he could not move any quicker. He led his army through fields of growing wheat mixed with vineyards, and lemon and orange groves. No one working in the cool of the morning lingered at the sight of these strangely clad horsemen who rode by in what seemed like an endless stream.
As Robert rode through the same line of trees that had hidden his brother previously, the shore on which Messina stood came into sight, but there was no sign of Roger, no tethered horses and a view of the plain showed only where the crops had been crushed by his advance hooves; in the shimmering heat of the middle of the day it looked as if he too had been swallowed up.
‘Damn Roger, where is he?’
‘He must have bypassed the town to seek out al-Hawas,’ Ralph de Boeuf said.
The reply was an angry shout. ‘He should have waited!’
Those who surrounded the Guiscard, his senior captains, de Boeuf included, watched him in silence as he surveyed the deserted landscape before him, leading up to those pinkish walls and, even from here, the dark blob of the now firmly closed gates. For all his barking about Roger, Robert knew him to be a good soldier and he would not just dismiss any of his suggestions: to do so out of pique was foolish.
His companions guessed Robert would be working out where to place his siege lines, wondering about supplies of wood, water and forage, also how to thwart his enemies who must surely be on their way south to meet him, added to the problem of how to do battle with al-Hawas while instituting a siege, in no way forgetting the alternative, which was to seek out the Saracens and defeat them first. Such ruminations were a commonplace for a leader like the Guiscard, who knew as well as anyone that even carefully laid plans rarely survived the first point of combat.
‘Keep the army in the shade until the sun has softened a touch,’ Robert commanded, finally, his next words nailing his decision. ‘While I go forward and offer Messina terms.’
Reposing scant confidence in what he was about to do and not yet having made up his mind about his next course of action, Robert de Hauteville called for his standard-bearer, his herald and his personal knights. He then rode forward with panache, magnificently mounted, clad in his blue and white surcoat, under a banner bearing the devices of his titles, his head crowned with a helmet that had long since ceased to be plain metal, but now was gold-decorated so that he could be seen to be what he was, a rich and powerful duke, come to claim that with which the Pope had enfeoffed him.
The walls seemed deserted, it was as if no one had stayed behind in the place, ridiculous given this was one of the most populous settlements on the island. Nodding to his herald, the man rode forward and began to shout up at the point above the gate.
‘The most noble Robert, by the grace of God, Duke of Apulia, Calabria and Sicily, does hereby call upon the citizens of Messina to open their gates to their rightful suzerain, on pain of dire penalties should this claim be denied. The laws of war are plain: surrender and open your gates and all will be spared in peace and prosperity. Fail to do so and you will face the wrath of your liege lord and none, down to the meanest creature, will be spared a bloody death.’
No reply came, no one spoke, which had the herald looking back at his master, wondering what to do. A long silence was finally broken by a creaking sound, as slowly one of the great oak gates, studded with metal, swung open and Roger walked out.
‘Do forgive me, brother,’ he said, ‘but I was at my place of easement.’
The laughter broke out slowly but rose quickly to roars of amusement as Roger’s lances stood up from where they had been hiding behind the parapet, to look down on a far-from-smiling Guiscard.
‘You made me go through that farrago because you were having a shit!’ he cried.
‘I was going to invite you into my city of Messina, Robert,’ Roger gloated, ‘but if you are going to adopt that tone maybe I will force you to take it after all.’ When his brother looked set to explode, Roger added softly, ‘Let me have my joke, Robert; after all, you have Messina without a drop of blood being spilt. I have assembled the elders before the cathedral. They are waiting to meet, greet and do homage to their new suzerain.’
‘They did not even try to resist. Al-Hawas stripped the city of every able-bodied man and I suspect they thought him already defeated, so, with a Norman army at their gates, their position was hopeless. I rode up, demanded entry, and the Greeks opened the gates to prostrate themselves before me, while the Muslims fled. I let my men loot what they abandoned.’
Following on from his triumphant entry, and the ceremonial acceptance of his title, both brothers repaired to a palace that had accommodated governors from as far back as Ancient Rome. Looking over one of the best harbours in the Mediterranean, port to a city that could not be taken without the aid of a powerful blockading fleet, Robert was full to bursting with exhilaration: he had come to beat an enemy army, to clear the coast so that he might be able to build a defensible castle and this changed everything. The only problem he had was his determination not to show either pleasure or gratitude.