‘Which would have been foolish given we were offered safe conduct back to the River Ufita and that included what plunder we had on our packhorses.’
‘To so box you in must have taken hundreds of lances.’
‘Agreed, which means that Richard of Capua knows full well of your father’s intention to invade and has moved his forces up early to meet him. Given the numbers we encountered, he was planning to cross the Ufita first.’
‘You are sure it was not just me that brought them out in such numbers?’
‘The river,’ Reynard replied.
He said this pointing ahead and that hid the look on his face, a mixture of curiosity and a degree of concern; the one matter not discussed since they had come together had been what had been offered to Bohemund while he was a guest of the Capuans and what, if anything, he had agreed to. The familia knight had not asked and this stripling son of the Duke had shown no desire to enlighten him, while it was obvious that, should the rumour of the Guiscard’s demise prove true, they were riding into a situation in which Reynard himself would be required to make a decision about where his own allegiance lay.
The older man could not know the reason for Bohemund’s silence, which was, quite simply, the need to seek some kind of reason for what had occurred at Montesarchio, and that included the Capuan leniency with his men, who at the very least should have been deprived of both their plunder and the means to ride — proper retribution might have seen them hanging from the trees. In that short talk with Jordan much had been implied that was left unsaid and that too had to be picked at for meaning; that no conclusion was possible nagged at him all the way to his destination.
Two days hard riding, in which no equine care at all was lavished on their mounts, brought them into distant sight of Melfi. As soon as the castle was visible Bohemund called a halt so that when they did arrive their horses would not be utterly blown — not a wise thing to do when he had no idea what he might face. They were unharnessed and allowed to graze while his men, tired as he was himself, were adjured to rest. Not that he himself could do so; there were still too many teeming thoughts in his head, and he walked a little away to examine a town and stronghold he had not seen for several years and to reflect on the fact that it was where he had spent his early childhood, before he and his sister had been packed off elsewhere.
Before him was one of the great seats of Norman power in the southern half of the Italian Peninsula, a de Hauteville possession ever since the days of William Iron Arm. His scrutiny was carried out, as at Montesarchio, with a professional eye as well as a sentimental one, for there was much to admire about both the location and the structure. Melfi had withstood every attempt to take it by main force ever since it had been built by the Byzantines, one of two unassailable bastions designed to hold the western border of Langobardia against incursions by Lombards, their Norman mercenaries and, should he venture so far south, the Western Emperor.
Melfi itself had expanded since William’s day from a tiny and poor settlement to a vibrant and substantial town; how could it not with so much power close by? But it was the dominating fortress that mattered, standing on a high elevation and controlling the central route through the mountains from the east of Italy to the once powerful coastal cities of the west: Salerno, Naples and Amalfi. In a country dominated by defensive towers and fortified, walled towns, only one other location, also built by the Byzantines, could match Melfi for its ability to accommodate a force of mounted knights numbered in the hundreds and strong enough to be described as a host.
Added to that it was a place impossible to take by a coup de main, overlooked as it was by the even higher peak of Monte Vulture, the mountain topped by a watchtower. That too formed part of its defence; no substantial force could hope to approach from any direction without being seen a whole day’s march distant, which gave the defenders the chance to both prepare their resistance as well as to send out a mobile raiding force that, using the surrounding mountains as a refuge, would render any siege a nightmare by the cutting off of communications with the coast, the interdiction of supplies and reinforcements, plus the fact that they could raid the siege lines in force at will.
Few men were needed to secure the walls and it was no easy task to even get close to them. A wide, winding causeway led up to the great gates, itself with a defensible wall. Imposing from a distance, with its great square keep and hexagonal corner towers, Bohemund knew from childhood memory how much more redoubtable it became at close quarters. A stone bridge spanned the moat to the twin curtain walls that contained a deathtrap between them, one that an attacker must cross to even attempt to take the main outer wall, this overlooked by a pair of tall, castellated barbicans manned by archers. Having done that they must somehow get open a double gate, only to be faced by yet another ditch with a raised drawbridge. Caught between the two they would be at the mercy of the defending bowmen and they would suffer greatly as they tried to subdue the defence.
Those walls and towers were made from the stone of the mountains in which the castle sat, rock so hard the walls could not be undermined, and they were well buttressed to withstand assault by ballista, while being tall enough to make firing anything over the parapet near impossible. On three sides lay steep escarpments that reduced the options for any attacker to a frontal assault up the causeway. The interior was spacious, with well-constructed accommodation that could house large numbers of knights, sufficient stabling for their mounts, with vaults below and lofts above that could store a quantity of supplies to sustain them for an eternity, added to which it had a water supply that could not be stopped: several deep cisterns in what was well-watered and fertile country.
Unbeknown to Bohemund the same examination was being carried out by his father, though he was riding, not stationary, and at the head of a long train of knights and all the paraphernalia that accompanied a great magnate on his travels, including, right behind him and also mounted, his wife and two sons. Also different was the emotion, for underlying Robert’s examination was a sense of melancholy; he had inherited Melfi from his elder brother Humphrey and had no love of the location, unlike for example Bari, a place that had once thought itself impregnable until he proved the inhabitants wrong.
Melfi was not a place he had himself captured and neither had the two eldest de Hautevilles who had bequeathed it previously. A Lombard, Arduin of Fassano, given the captaincy by a foolish Byzantine catapan, had taken the castle in an act of betrayal thirty years before, bringing into its walls a force of Normans led by William. It had withstood any attempt at recapture, becoming a base for their expansion, originally in the cause of Lombard independence, ultimately on their own behalf, and it had served the family well as a place from which they could not be ejected.
Yet now there was the question of its continued suitability: was it still an appropriate location to oversee an extended fiefdom that included the whole of Apulia and Calabria as well as, since the capture of Palermo, a good third of the island of Sicily, which would increase with time and his brother’s efforts? In reality, Robert thought the centre of his administration, to be truly effective, needed to be on the west coast of Italy, not the east or even in the mountainous middle.
As against that Melfi was perfect as a place from which to launch any proposed campaign against Capua, for in this location he could gather his entire force and sustain them without, he hoped, it being obvious what he was planning. It was simple to cut any links to the west and keep his preparations hidden, as well as to disguise his route of attack. As these thoughts surfaced he wondered about Bohemund and how his raiding had progressed; he also wondered what he had heard, if anything, about his illness and supposed demise. He knew from his own experience, when plundering, that staying out of contact with the kind of people who might pass on such information was essential; they tended be those trying to stop you.