‘Let it be known throughout this island,’ he said, to those he spared. ‘I am the Count of Sicily and your liege lord. Break your bond to me and this you have witnessed will be the result.’
The triumph of retaking the town was followed, naturally, by a great feast, and the still sullen, if chastened Greeks of Troina — there was not a Saracen left — were obliged to witness their restored lords and masters roast and eat oxen and consume as much wine as had led to their victory. Yet the Normans were becalmed without their greatest asset, horses and mobility. Roger’s first task was to speed back to Calabria to find replacements, leaving Judith in charge of Troina.
She played her part, touring the outposts each night to ensure that all was well, as the snows began to melt and spring came in the shadow of belching Etna. Roger was back within two months with a full complement of mounts, leading Serlo, foot soldiers and more lances, though not of sufficient numbers to replace his losses. The conquest of Sicily could continue, albeit with a much-depleted force: the retaking of Troina had cost Roger dear.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
‘Take and hold, take and hold,’ was the mantra oft repeated by Roger de Hauteville, yet it remained just that: words, not an achievement. He never had the numbers he needed to keep the ground on which he won contest after contest, endless skirmishes with bodies of Saracens of a varying size, but never an army — they seemed intent on avoiding battle. Two years had passed since his first incursion and still he could not claim to hold even the land between Troina and Messina. He raided out from the former taking much booty but also learning of developments, which boded ill for the future.
The death of Ibn-al-Tinnah had removed the major obstacle to Saracen cohesion and they now began to cooperate in order to fight him. While he had been besieged in Troina reinforcements even came in from North Africa, led by the two oldest sons of the reigning sultan, each with an army of several thousand men. Appeals to Robert for aid fell on deaf ears: he had his own problems in Apulia, more now with rebellious Norman barons and Greeks than Lombards. The only reinforcements Roger could muster were a few hundred Calabrians and a small body of crossbowmen.
Successes he had: he won every fight in which he became engaged. Troina’s storerooms were again full to bursting and in order to draw his enemies on he moved his base some three leagues further north-west to a small walled town called Cerami, standing on a river of the same name, it having several advantages over Troina. Surrounded by high hills, it gave him a good view of the valley approaches by which he thought his enemies would come and in this he was proved correct. The Saracen host were finally approaching to give him the battle he so wanted and he knew it long before they threatened his position. He also knew the size, which, given the ground they covered, was close to being incalculable. The Normans were accustomed to being outnumbered, but this seemed to be of a different order of magnitude: if the reports he had were true, he was facing, with an army of some six hundred, including milities, some fifteen thousand men!
Only a third of his force were lances, yet the thought of retreat never entered Roger’s head: whatever the odds he would fight them here, on ground he had chosen, with Cerami at his back and the river before him, sure that those who had done battle with the Normans before would have learnt nothing, while the men from North Africa, probably the bulk of his opponents, had never met warriors like those he led. Besides, numbers did not confer skill and in some cases they could be a liability. Notions had been voiced that he should retire to Troina and allow them to break themselves on its walls, but Roger had no desire to be besieged again. He did want to hold Cerami, so when news came that a large force had been detached to work round his flank and occupy the town he sent Serlo and Jordan to prevent it.
His nephew had been promising, now he was more than that and he was also Jordan’s hero. Like any de Hauteville, Serlo led from the front and fought with a panache that few could match, adding to that a clear tactical brain and the ability to hold in close control those he commanded, this proved in the confines of Cerami. Faced with several thousand Saracens and in command of only fifty knights, he drove them out street by street, then routed them in the open, before disengaging to rush back to aid his uncle. What he saw then, cresting the hills on the opposite bank of the narrow river was enough to daunt the most stalwart knight.
The whole landscape was covered in men, horses, donkeys and camels, the dust they were kicking up on their march like a sandstorm. Facing them, on an upslope across the river, stood Roger’s tiny host, his lances on foot, their horses well to the rear and his contingents of milities holding the flanks which, luckily, were protected by ground so broken as to be near impassable even to infantry. It looked to Serlo as if their confreres would be swept aside.
‘How many are there?’ Jordan gasped.
Serlo laughed, to spread relief. ‘Not enough, cousin, not enough.’
Instead of coming on, and a sign that for all their numbers they lacked confidence, the enemy army stopped and began to make camp, an action which took hours, so numerous were they. Jordan had been sent to ask his father what he wanted Serlo to do. The answer he brought back was stay where they stood and when dawn arrived to be mounted. Night fell over so many campfires that the clouds, orange in colour, gave off enough light to see a face clearly, sound travelling easily to carry the cries of the imams calling their faithful to prayer.
Roger had his men sleep and waited till grey dawn to call upon his priest to bless them. The sound of their murmured prayers did not match the calling of the imams, nor did they make any noise as, confessed, they took the host. In each mind, Roger’s included, there would be an image of a loving wife, or perhaps a concubine for whom they had regard, a mother, a child or maybe just the green fields and high hedgerows of Normandy. Few had any certainty that they would survive this day, but by the time the sun was on their backs, every man was sure he had God’s blessing and was ready, if he was required to, to meet his Maker with a sin-free soul.
Their enemies had likewise stirred with the sun, a bustling mass of bodies, the Sicilians clad in garments of all colours to denote their various emirs, the North Africans easy to detect, they being dressed in all-covering black. Roger was more interested in seeking out the princes who led them, Ali and Ayub, sons of the Zirid sultan who ruled the old Roman provinces on the southern Mediterranean shore. Like Ibn-al-Hawas they were identified by the imperious way they rode to and fro on their splendid mounts, along the front of their levies, who cheered them as they passed, and that cemented another thought: Robert had beaten Al-Hawas at Enna; the two sons of a sultan might have richer blood than those they led, but that did not make them good leaders in war.
They, peering back, would have seen what looked like a silver thread running across the landscape, a thin line of mailed knights, with their teardrop shields and polished conical helmets. Perhaps they would have laughed to see so feeble a presence, pointed to the rabble on either flank, before them rows of embedded pikes, there to impale any horseman foolish enough to charge their lines, backed by a few crossbowmen. Whatever, it would seem to them that to sweep aside a single ribbon of Normans would be simple; their pike-and bowmen could be slaughtered later. Trumpets blew, the cheering rose, and the leading elements of the Saracen army began to wade the river, forming into one massive, deep column, aimed straight at the blue and white shield of the Count of Sicily.