‘My claim is just,’ Abelard cried, looking around for a pair of eyes that would meet his own; none were forthcoming and it was a sorry retreat that saw him seek to lose himself, after only a moment’s consideration, back in the crowd.
‘If my husband knew that to hold his fiefs required that the Lombards from whom he took power were appeased, who amongst you would dare to think yourself even his equal, and be willing to ignore that? Are there not men in this chamber that share my race whom he had promoted to that purpose? And is not the principle of any succession to maintain that which we now hold and do so in a way seen to be legitimate?’
She was never going to mention Bohemund’s name, but that was as good a way as any of saying that he, as a pure-blood Norman, for all his supposed attributes — and they were as yet hardly proven — neither had the right, nor would be able to control such an inheritance.
‘I therefore demand that you accede to your suzerain’s wishes, which he would shout to the rafters if he were present, and swear, that should God see fit to take away that dazzling light, the only person who can hold tight what he leaves behind is his own beloved son, Roger, known to you all as Borsa.’
With that she looked very pointedly at the man after whom Borsa was named, but she was addressing them all. ‘I therefore demand here in this chamber and on this day, in the presence of His Grace the Archbishop of Bari, that on your honour and at risk of the damnation of your soul, you swear allegiance to my son and his title, as the heir to the triple Dukedoms of Apulia, Calabria and Sicily.’
The silence that followed seemed to last a lifetime, with not so much as a whisper, not even from Abelard, from an assembly that could not number less than two hundred men who held, in their own fiefs, a degree of power. The Archbishop of Bari had stepped forward and made the sign of the cross and that allowed the knights to do likewise and murmur a small incantation, some of which would have been the mere pious request for guidance. That was when Roger, Count of Sicily, chose to move and the crowd parted to allow him to approach the dais, for he had remained at the back of the hall where he had entered.
Stony-faced, Sichelgaita observed his progress; her son was less in control, for he showed a measure of apprehension as he tried to read from his uncle’s expression what he was about to say. Count Roger knew all he had to do, once he came close, was to mount that dais and declare his own right to the title; the Normans in the hall would erupt in approval and there were too few Lombards to contest with them. Close to the archbishop he fell to his knees and crossed himself, and spoke in a strong and echoing voice.
‘I, Roger de Hauteville, Count of Sicily by grace of my brother’s trust, do hereby swear to be a true and loyal servant to his son, named after me at birth, and to attend upon his person as my liege lord when the time comes for him to rightfully assume his father’s titles, may God strike me down if I transgress this vow.’
The archbishop, with some relief of his own, sprinkled holy water on Roger’s head and said a prayer that bound the kneeling man to his words. Behind the Count of Sicily the others lined up, Ademar of Monteroni to the fore, to make the same vow and then kiss the out-held hand of the youth they were anointing as their coming suzerain. Standing to one side and watching, Count Roger finally met Sichelgaita’s eye, to see there a feeling of hurt, for she knew what he had done; her son had been told, and so had she, that he held his titles only at the will of his powerful uncle.
But another message had gone out to those assembled and that was just as plain, for they knew to a man that Bohemund would not quietly accept such a dispensation; he would fight for what he considered his rights. Roger of Sicily had left a message for his absent bastard nephew to say that he would not stand by and let him overthrow his half-brother Borsa; he would, if need be, intervene to keep him in power.
‘I wonder, Roger,’ Sichelgaita enquired of him once the chamber was emptied. ‘Would you have sworn that oath if you possessed a son of your own?’
‘Since I do not, your question is not one I can answer.’
Sichelgaita could not hide the fact that she was reassured. Much as she would fight like a she-wolf for her firstborn son, and young Guy if Borsa expired before her, she also knew, like Robert himself, that the laws of nature indicated she would die before either of them. However, Sichelgaita also knew that Roger’s wife Judith, who had been fecund in producing daughters, was now past child-bearing age.
‘You will remain with us?’ she asked.
‘Until my brother recovers,’ Roger replied, smiling, ‘and then I am his to command.’
The assembly had done that for which it had been called and most of those called to attend preferred to return to their own domains with their liege lord still not recovered. It was never possible to discover where the rumour began that Robert de Hauteville was dead, but it had begun to spread, perhaps either through malice, delusion or even wishful thinking. Suffice to say that it travelled in the wildfire way that such things do despite strong denials to the contrary from those who knew the truth, first through the city then out into the hinterland and beyond, snaking at walking pace up the trade routes, much more rapidly along the coast, carried by fast-sailing merchant ships to every port on the Adriatic and thence into the interior.
It was an irony that, as that news began to be promulgated across the northern Apennines, the object began to show the first signs of recovery — an occasional bout of consciousness, and a day or two later wakeful enough to take on the first solid food he had consumed for an age and with strength enough to ask that those miserable clerical supplicants disturbing his peace with their prayers be removed. He was weak and Sichelgaita kept anyone from his bedside that might trouble the recovery, even Count Roger, though Borsa and his younger brother were admitted to be blessed by a feeble parent. Sichelgaita took to nursing him herself.
‘The rumour in the marketplace this last week,’ she said, in between feeding him, ‘is that you have gone to meet your maker.’ Then she smiled. ‘Or the Devil who spawned you.’
‘I think I spoke with Satan recently,’ Robert croaked.
‘It certainly sounded as if you were at war with him in your fevers. But it would be well to show yourself, even in your diminished state, and lay to rest such rumours, which is the only evidence some folk will believe, for they can cause nothing but trouble and messengers must be sent out to suppress it in the countryside.’
‘There is no risk here in Bari, surely?’
‘No, all who matter know you are recovering and those who might want to profit by it have dispersed, while Count Roger has taken command of the garrison. He is anxious to speak with you, of course.’
The expression that crossed his face could not be the same as before; his eyes were too opaque to sparkle and the cheeks too drawn. ‘A week, you say.’
‘At least.’
The laugh began heartily enough, but soon turned into a hacking cough, from which Robert took time to recover his breath, but there was no mistaking the gleam of a coming prank.
‘Then a few days will make no difference, for I am not yet recovered enough to be seen. Let the rumour run and let us see who seeks to make mischief with it.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
The Leonine City was in mourning: Pope Alexander, who had throughout his pontificate brought to the city a decade of something approaching harmony, was dead and once more all the demons that cursed the election of a successor were back in play. The Roman aristocrats looked at their extended families to select a possible papal candidate and counted the money in their coffers to calculate how much they could disburse in bribes to the mobs that often took control of the city, should they be able to conjure up some clerical support. The Imperial Prefect sent messages off to Bamberg to alert his master, the Emperor-elect and King in Germany, Henry IV, to a potential crisis, while other riders had spread out to the great monasteries and important bishoprics to call to Rome those whom Archdeacon Hildebrand knew would be required to both attend the obsequies as well as name and elect a successor.