Those who had got to their feet had no option but to try to flee and thus they provided easy kills for the line of men they could now see standing between them and safety. But the real problem lay with those not prone to panic, for as Bohemund closed the distance between himself and that line of fire, he knew that in the undergrowth were hidden men with sharp knives and little hope. Again his voice boomed out, telling his men to employ their blades like scythes to root out those in hiding, who had only one hope: that they could wound then move so swiftly when discovered as to get past those seeking to cut them down.
With senses heightened to the level needed to stay alive in battle, Bohemund picked up the flash of a knife blade as it swept towards his lower leg, the aim to so maim him that he would be unable to easily control his weapons and certainly with his ankle tendons sliced be unable to run in pursuit. Swiftly moving his leg out of the way he swung at what was no more than an outline on the ground, aware as soon as his sword struck flesh that he had done so, not just for the cry that came up to his ears but for the way the contact between steel and bone jarred his forearm.
All around him his men were doing the same, either flushing out their quarry and cutting them down as they sought to flee or skewering them as they lay still on the ground. There was no mercy given and none received, for two of his men took knives in the vital parts of their guts from men desperate to escape. As the flames died down the men on the Lake Ohrid side of the fires pushed their way through to add to the depth of slaughter until it seemed there was no one left to kill. Yet Bohemund doubted that to be the case; it was dark, one or two of the tribesmen would manage to escape. So be it, they would pass back that raiding the lines of the Norman host was a game too deadly to play.
‘Tomorrow at first light we will gather up the bodies, to be hung from trees at every league on our line of march. Let the tribes up ahead have a warning of what they face should they seek to steal from us.’
‘And I say John Comnenus too,’ Tancred later insisted, for he was strongly of the opinion that the topoterites or even his uncle the Emperor had encouraged such raids.
‘Perhaps,’ Bohemund acknowledged. ‘But content yourself that you will never know the true answer to that.’
‘Perhaps we will find out when we get to Constantinople.’
Bohemund shrugged. ‘By then this will be history and of no account.’
‘It will tell us how we are viewed.’
‘That we know already.’
CHAPTER FOUR
The Apulians knew they were being trailed by part of the garrison of Durazzo and if their presence was an irritant it could be no more than that. Previously invisible, the pursuit had only come into view because of the time it took to make a difficult crossing of the River Vardar, so swollen that even at the point at which it could be forded it was flowing fast. For mounted men that presented little difficulty, for those on foot the rigging of manropes strung between driven-in stakes acted as an aid. But getting the carts and livestock across would take time, so Bohemund led his main body away so as not to churn up and make impassable the eastern riverbank, though he left a small rearguard on the western side lest the men sent by John Comnenus be tempted by the sight of so much easy plunder.
If the aim was to hurry them on their way, in that they failed utterly, as much from the acts of their own commander as any other factor. Thanks to John Comnenus and the time given to act upon his instructions, supplies had ceased to be plentiful and that meant no haste was possible; the army was required to forage and buy, which slowed progress, none of which much troubled the man in command. He moved at his own pace and went out of his way to be pleasant and courteous to those Byzantine officials and traders with whom he was obliged to do business, which aided him in building up a picture of the present state of the imperial domains.
The empire was stronger than the times in which he had campaigned previously; if Alexius had been a brand-new emperor in the days when the Apulians had first encountered him in battle he had not only survived invasion but had also taken a firmer grip on the imperial possessions than his recent predecessors, most notably in terms of tax collection, reputed to be ferocious. This revenue, for centuries, had served as the bedrock of imperial power, the Eastern Roman Empire being fabulously wealthy if properly administered.
It lay at the hub of the trade route between East and West and with the customs duties that brought in, Byzantium could gather so much gold and treasure to its coffers and had accumulated so much over the eight hundred years of its existence, that even after a great defeat like Manzikert, a degree of safety could be bought by the hiring of mercenaries, usually from the very enemies the empire had been fighting.
That was the kind of force Alexius now mustered. Led by Greek generals his army consisted of few natives, more of mercenary Pechenegs and Bulgars, even a contingent of Turkish archers, while at the peak stood the Varangians, the personal guardians of the Emperor. At one time made up exclusively of formidable axemen from Kiev Rus, it was now more likely to contain fighters from the old Viking heartlands of Norway and Denmark, as well as embittered Anglo-Saxon warriors who had departed a Norman England where they had little chance to prosper.
‘Not an army I would choose to lead.’
This opinion was advanced by Robert of Salerno, another relative of the de Hauteville family through too many connections to easily enumerate and one of Bohemund’s senior conroy leaders. In the mix of marriages between Normans and the leading Lombard princely families over sixty years, there existed a web of cousinage in various degrees that it would need a learned monk to untangle. This Robert was black-haired and saturnine of complexion, though he did have dancing eyes.
‘It was one that put up a good fight at Durazzo,’ Bohemund replied. ‘And remember, under Alexius I was bested by that same combination more than once.’
‘Only in defence, Uncle,’ Tancred insisted, ‘they never attacked and drove you from the field.’
Bohemund acknowledged that with a nod, for, if memory made him uncomfortable, the conversation had started with that very proposition while waiting for the baggage train to cross the Vardar, the prospects of offensive aid from the Byzantine armies should they and the Crusaders ever get to grips with the Turks, the shared opinion being that, the Varangian Guard apart, little reliance should be placed on them.
‘And that has its own dangers, for there is no love lost between we Normans and the Anglo-Saxons as was proved at Durazzo, where we first encountered them.’
Robert and Tancred had heard the tale of the battle outside the walls many times before, yet Bohemund was obliged to tell the story again, of how the Guiscard had met and defeated Alexius Comnenus for the first time and shortly after he had assumed the purple. The men of the then Varangian Guard, many of whom served the usurper Harold of England at Senlac Field, had come into Byzantine service after the Norman Conquest.
Tall, blond and wielding huge axes, they had advanced and thrown the Apulian battle lines into disarray. It was the Guiscard’s second wife, Robert of Salerno’s Aunt Sichelgaita, who had rallied the broken force and saved the day. If Bohemund had hated her with a passion — she being mother to Borsa and had ensured his elevation to the duchy — he was obliged to acknowledge her ability. The Varangians died to a man rather than withdraw.
‘Which, I hope,’ Bohemund concluded, ‘neither of you will ever be foolish enough to do.’
‘They were brave,’ Robert replied, those eyes alight.