‘You know what this means, Robert?’
‘Oh yes, brother, we are here to stay now. There is not a force on the island sufficient to push us out of Messina when I have done with fortifying it.’
Roger waited for the words, ‘Thanks to you.’ He waited in vain.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Ibn-al-Hawas, on hearing of the fall of the city, fled to the west, taking his army and the Muslims of Messina with him, so the immediate threat was gone. Much as Robert wanted to meet and defeat him the pursuit must wait — the first task was to make his new port city impregnable: for all it was strong it had been taken more than once in the past, and the Guiscard knew that if he was ever to conquer Sicily then this was a foothold he could not afford to lose. Whatever happened out in the field, if he had Messina to retire to and a strong enough garrison to hold it, he was secure.
The men he led were horse-trained warriors but they were also builders and soon they were toiling in the heat on the walls and towers, or supervising the locals in the digging of a great ditch to surround the walls, one that could be breached to let in the sea and create a deep moat, rendering ten times more difficult any future assault. The harbour was easier to secure, being in a deep bay with a narrow access, which in time of trouble could be sealed off by an underwater boom of chain-linked logs. To leave a sufficient garrison to back up these measures was to diminish his strength, yet that was a price he knew he must pay.
Roger oversaw as much of this work as his brother, still wondering at the way he was behaving: nothing was allowed to hint at a split in their relationship, yet he could sense an underlying lack of trust, as if, in acting as he had, even in being successful in taking the city, he had somehow created doubts regarding his judgement; or was it his ambition? At other times he would berate himself for being oversensitive: Robert was mercurial in his moods, always had been, growling or bellowing angrily at one moment, booming with laughter in a twinkling.
Ibn-al-Tinnah soon appeared, singing Norman praises, offering that which he had previously promised, not in the least bit abashed at the way he had so quickly detached himself from Roger after the debacle at Cape Faro. In fact, while polite, al-Tinnah paid him little heed: the Saracen emir had come to see the new power in the land, the only man who could protect him from his enemies — Robert Guiscard.
Watching his brother in conversation with a man he knew he mistrusted was instructive: nothing of that was allowed to surface for, like Messina, Robert needed al-Tinnah. He held the eastern seaboard of Sicily and protected the city from the south and was also a source of essential supplies: weapons, very necessary replacement horses and even, if he could be persuaded, foot soldiers. Was Robert treating his own brother in the same manner, keeping him close but hiding a lack of faith in him?
‘Ibn-al-Hawas you must destroy,’ the Emir averred, in a theatrical and passionate manner, unnecessary histrionics with a calculator like Robert. ‘You will have no peace while he lives.’
‘And you also, Ibn-al-Tinnah.’
‘I acknowledge your wisdom, Duke Robert, but kill him and there is no other power with the means to oppose us. We can take Palermo, which will give you rule of the whole island.’
Much time had already been spent with al-Tinnah, he explaining the complexities of Sicilian politics, a lot of it known but both brothers more than willing to admit to ignorance. The capital of the island and the greatest city was Palermo, a distant object in the west, with many an obstacle in between, and while al-Tinnah painted a picture of great and easy conquests, both de Hautevilles, without communicating, were independently assessing their situation in a more realistic fashion and homing in on one very pertinent fact: the Saracens were numerous and they were not.
Such knowledge did not daunt them: Normans rarely fought a battle in which they were not outnumbered, but the sheer ratio, as well as the difficulties that must be overcome, like the terrain itself, was sobering. There was one point of agreement: despite the distance and what lay in between, Ibn-al-Hawas, now in his fortress of Enna, had to be their first objective: to allow him to come to them was too risky. Al-Tinnah would join them at Rometta, then concentrate on harrying those areas he and Roger had raided months before. His task was to keep the Normans supplied and protect their northern flank.
Down to a thousand lances, with some local support and levies from Calabria just fetched across the straits, they set off from Messina, heading into the first of the endless mountain ranges that defined the island. Rometta, standing on a volcanic plug, which had risen sheer from the surrounding foothills, was a formidable objective that had troubled many an invader in the past. Roger and al-Tinnah had secured it previously, having been welcomed as liberators, but with al-Hawas back in his own lands, Robert anticipated a siege. It came as a pleasant surprise to find the Muslim castellan al-Tinnah had left in command had remained faithful to his overlord, so they were able to enter the citadel without a fight.
Robert immediately ordered a Mass to be said in the Greek church — the population was overwhelmingly of that race — though with his own Latin priests officiating, for it seemed once more that God had blessed his cause. He was now safe in the fortress that protected the passes that led to Messina, rendering his base even more secure. Later he and Roger walked the ramparts over which their brothers William and Drogo had fought twenty years before, seeking to take Rometta as mercenaries of Byzantium. It had been a bloody fight then, they knew, and few had seen the place finally fall without the scars of ferocious combat.
‘Enna will not be easy like this, Robert,’ Roger said. ‘I am told it stands even higher.’
‘Then it would be best we get there quickly, before it becomes an even harder nut to crack.’
‘The Saracen governor?’
That raised a tricky problem. Robert wanted to leave behind a Norman contingent on the grounds he had to protect his line of retreat, when in reality they were a garrison of what he now considered to be a fortress he, not al-Tinnah, held.
‘It will be a test of the emir’s truthfulness, Roger. If he objects we will know he plans to play us false once we have dealt with al-Hawas.’
‘I would not send him north, brother, I would keep him close.’
‘But, Roger, it is not your decision.’
That sharp reminder broke the mood and Roger walked away, muttering that he would get his men ready to depart, while wondering if he should beard his brother and demand of him what doubts he harboured. Part of the problem, he knew, stemmed from his own nature: he was not a natural subordinate but a leader in his own right, while Robert was not one to allow his domination to be challenged in any way. That he did not understand Roger had no desire to issue such a challenge mattered less than what he believed and would not discuss. It would have to be resolved but this was not the time: they had a campaign to finish and one that was going to spill much blood.
Al-Tinnah parted company, leading his forces north. Robert marched west, driving his cavalry hard, pushing on ahead of his foot soldiers, moving out of the fertile Greek-populated valleys and on to the high central Sicilian plateau, aiming for Centuripe, the next fortified place on his route to Enna, the whole journey dominated by the towering presence of Mount Etna, the snow-capped volcano spewing smoke by day and glowing red at night, as if to warn anyone close by that they were but mere mortals in the presence of a greater power.
Up till now the local populations, mainly Greek and Christian, had seen him as a liberator from Saracen hegemony. Once in the high hills, the people were either Muslim or the kind of indigenes who had been here since the time of the Phoenicians, hostile to Saracen and Norman alike. Thus care had to be taken with his lines of communication, further weakening a strength already depleted by what he had left behind at Rometta.