Roger, at the head of his personal knights, plus those who had already responded to his call to arms, rode out of Mileto the next morning, with Jordan at his side. Behind him other lances lined the parapets as the gate swung shut, the portcullis came down and the drawbridge over the moat was lifted. This being a fortress designed and built by the man now departing, it would not be easy to take.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Robert was outside Mileto within ten days, proving that Roger had been right — he had departed Melfi at the same time as his message, looking a proud figure as he rode up to the gates to demand both entry and submission, genuinely surprised when Judith of Evreux was the person who answered him, his first reaction a declaration that he did not parley with women. That rebounded on him as Judith nodded and disappeared, leaving him fuming with impatience until he had his herald call her back.
‘Where is my rebellious brother?’
‘Raising lances to fight his duplicitous one, among folk who love him and despise you.’
‘I demand he appears before me and recants.’
‘Demand away, Robert,’ Judith replied, ‘but you are not talking to your lackeys now.’
‘He owes me fealty.’
‘You owe him gratitude and more besides.’
‘Let down the portcullis, drop the drawbridge and open the gates, Judith, to my castle of Mileto.’
‘The gates to MY husband’s castle will remain closed to you until you repent.’
The yell that engendered was loud enough to make stone tremble. ‘Repent! I am the Duke of Apulia.’
‘And you are a mean-spirited scoundrel.’
‘If you were a man, Judith-’
‘How I wish to God I was, Robert, to knock you off that magnificent horse you are riding. You’re so puffed up with pride I would need no more than a feather.’
‘You know the price of a refusal?’
‘I do. Your men will die trying to overcome these walls.’
‘Judith,’ Robert said, sounding emollient, ‘I know you to be brave as you are beautiful, but I sense that if you are speaking to me Roger is not within the walls. I think I know my brother well enough to be sure he would not hide behind your shift. Very well, he has gone elsewhere and, rest assured, I will find him. So what you are about is an empty gesture. Open the gates and allow me entry. No harm will come to you or yours, I give you my word.’
‘Is that the same word that promised my husband the revenues of Calabria for ten years, promised him titles, or is it the word of a man so consumed with jealousy for a wiser head and stronger arm, a man who does not have to bribe his lances to be loved?’
‘You’re trying my patience, Judith.’
‘How can that be, Robert, you have none.’
‘Open the damn gates,’ he bellowed.
The barrel that appeared over the walls must have been thrown by two very sturdy fellows, for it cleared the moat to land in front of Robert’s mount, which reared in fright. It burst open, spewing a foul-smelling eruption of brown liquid, which managed to spatter both the Duke of Apulia and the chequered caparison on his horse.
‘That, Robert, is the night soil of Mileto, the piss and shit of the town. Rank as it is, it smells sweeter than your blandishments.’
Furious, Robert pulled on his reins and swung round his horse, departing with no dignity at all, a furious pace he maintained until he got to his tent, jumping off to enter, demanding to be brought hot water and fresh garments, not that such needs stopped him from shouting commands.
‘Send men out to find my brother, scour the land. By God I’ll dip his head in a bucket of shit for what his wife just did.’
‘The siege, sire?’
‘Siege!’ he yelled, as he tore off his surcoat and his fine cambric shirt, showing a body of rippling muscles and numerous deep scars. ‘You want me to make war on my brother’s wife?’
Two servants brought in a large tub of water, warm enough to produce wisps of steam. Robert’s head went straight in and stayed there, while those he trusted to lead his men stood and watched. Eventually the great leonine head came out again, dripping water, his hair turned a flaming red by being soaked.
‘Set up the siege lines and make it look as if we plan an assault. If Roger intends to fight me that will draw him to us.’ Looking into the blank faces before him, he was moved to shout once more. ‘What are you waiting for?’
One captain was braver than the rest, Grenel, the Greek from Brindisi, who had taken wholeheartedly to service, trusted to lead a bataille of Robert’s pikemen.
‘My Lord,’ he said, ‘it would help us to know your purpose.’
The look that got was enough to freeze Etna, yet it took no genius to see the same question was in every mind, for none of the others would look at him. He had come here to make his brother grovel, not to draw de Hauteville blood. That others might die to achieve that was, to Robert, a price worth paying, yet to be open about that would not elevate him in the eyes of these men and he needed their respect. Besides, the Guiscard was never too open about his thinking.
‘It is enough that you do as I bid you to do.’
‘Of course, My Lord.’
‘Then do so, all of you.’
Unbeknown to Robert, the sortie had already been discussed by his Norman captains, who knew they were on was an errand driven by conceit rather than good sense. These men knew his brother as well as they knew their duke and had fought alongside him, not that such a thing alone would have stopped them from killing him if so ordered: their loyalty and any hope of advancement, to a castle or even a fief, lay with the man who led them. Yet they knew Robert would never harm Roger, so if they were to risk death or injury, and to be asked to inflict the same on their conroys, it had to be in a cause in which they believed and this one was not.
‘Best find him,’ Grenel said forcibly. He might be Greek but he shared the same thoughts as his Norman contemporaries. ‘And make a dumb show of preparing to attack. The sooner the two of them are face to face and Roger bows the knee the sooner we can go home.’
‘Perhaps, when Sichelgaita arrives, she will be able to talk some sense into him,’ said one captain.
Robert had his wife and child on the way, though not obliging them to keep to the furious pace he had set in the hope of trapping Roger.
‘Are you mad?’ another captain replied. ‘She’s more of a warrior than he is!’
Throughout the day, riders were sent out in all directions, watched from the battlements by Judith. Likewise she saw the preparations for an assault on the walls where she stood: ladders being cut and assembled, the sound of the stone wheel sharpening swords, axes and lance points. Roger would come as soon as he heard his brother was outside Mileto: he was not a man to see others die to save his pride and that was doubly the case when it came to her. That she wished he would desist, that it was not expected by the men he had left behind, who would face what was to come with their accustomed equanimity, counted for nothing.
She turned to face those lances, who were awaiting her orders, as well as the men stood around the great metal cauldron with a pile of faggots at its base.
‘Light the fires. Let’s get that oil bubbling enough to strip skin.’
The problem for Roger was simple: he was too obvious, given his height, build and colouring, to move around unnoticed, that compounded if he rode at the head of over three hundred lances, displaying as his banner the family blue and white chequer. The second difficulty was that Robert had twice that number of men, and if he was going to induce a stand-off in which matters could be discussed, if not settled, his preferred aim, he needed more warriors — not necessarily cavalry, but in sufficient numbers to induce Robert to talk rather than fight.
Encamped in the mountains above and to the east of Mileto, with ample wood, water and fodder, Roger was sure, if he could bring that about, he had the means to talk Robert out of his foolishness, unaware that his brother was working on the same principle but seeking the opposite outcome. For all Roger was popular, many had not rallied to his banner as quickly as he wished, leaving him only one choice: a personal plea for their aid.