‘It is not unknown for a land-based general to adapt to the ocean with success. I look to Ancient Rome and its consuls for such inspiration.’
‘And,’ Maximian responded, with a level of courtesy that was unctuously exaggerated, ‘who would be more likely to be that person than your renowned self?’
‘Maximian Palladias, I respect the fact that you have come in person to see me, which tells me you have a proposal to make.’
‘I do, Duke Robert. It may be that elements in my fleet will not agree to do battle on behalf of Alexius Comnenus, which would seriously weaken my fighting strength.’
‘You’re inviting me to attack you as soon as you are back on your own deck and that truce flag is no longer valid.’
‘Be assured, Duke Robert, that if you do so the outcome will not be in doubt, for there is not a ship’s master or soldier aboard my vessels who will not defend their honour, and not just seek to preserve that, but to put to the sword and the bottom of the sea anyone seeking to besmirch it.’
‘So?’
‘It may be that a battle will not take place, that I will be unable to obey the Doge’s instructions. In that case there will be no contest between us. What I am proposing is that we maintain our present positions, no anchors to be raised while the period of grace is in place.’
‘And if you withdraw I will be free to land my army?’
‘That is so. I suggest that I be granted a day and a night to seek to resolve my dilemma, and if it goes as I wish, I will send to tell you that we will prepare for battle, at which point I would, for the sake of saving lives and souls, advise you to withdraw, which you will be able to do unmolested.’
It was the Guiscard’s turn to use his eyebrows to make a point, that being he might choose to stay and fight, this acknowledged by Maximian with a wry smile as Robert enquired, ‘And if it goes the other way?’
‘Then, as I have already intimated, I will have no choice but to weigh anchor and take the fleet back to Venice.’
Robert dropped his chin to his chest, to give the impression of deep consideration, a silence that lasted for enough time to make Maximian shift in his chair. That was followed by a stare from the Guiscard that was deliberately designed to be hard to hold, though the Venetian was not to be compelled to drop his eyes or blink.
‘A day and a night, Maximian Palladias, but not a grain of sand more than that. Should your dilemma be unresolved when the time is up, be assured that we will attack you and, perhaps for the sake of your own souls, you should avoid the contest. I will have Durazzo and more besides.’
‘I have your word?’
‘You do.’
Maximian stood and bowed, then without another word he made his way onto that swaying plank and back to his own galley. Robert watched him go and did not speak till he was out of any chance of overhearing his words.
‘The fool has played into our hands, Bohemund.’
‘How so?’
Robert hooted. ‘He has given us time to prepare, to get those grappling irons out of our supply ships and to send a party ashore to cut timber for ladders and ready them for use. With the vessels he has he should have borne down on us as soon as he saw our masts.’
‘They will be watching us, and even at such a distance they may see what we are about.’
‘Let them, Bohemund, for they would expect no less.’ Then he turned to Geoffrey Ridel. ‘Call everyone back on board, they need to know what is proposed and what we need to do.’
In the subsequent discussion of tactics it was plain that those using grappling irons could not at the same time be fighters wearing mail; to haul up your own body weight was hard enough without both weapons and armour. Besides, hooked irons were normally used to haul down walls damaged by ballista by being attached by ropes to teams of oxen; it was rare that they were used to get a man onto a high defended wall for the very sound reason that a single slice with a sword would send him crashing back to earth. Ridel was of the opinion that the same problem applied on board ship and that such a means of approach should be used sparingly and more to lock the enemy alongside than to get men onto an opposing deck. Duke Robert was inclined to let what men saw before their eyes decide what use they should be put to, battle ever being confused.
Ashore, well-defended parties were cutting and lashing together timbers for short ladders, the blacksmiths using their forges to fashion metal hooks, the length of both the perceived difference in height between a normal galley deck and that of the higher Venetian vessels. Robert also had his woodcutters making double-thick screens to absorb arrows fired at long range, which the enemy was bound to employ, for they wanted to get onto the Apulian deck as much as their opponents. To Robert and his son, the answer to victory lay in putting Norman knights against men who had never faced the best close-combat fighters in Christendom.
All the next day, in bright sunshine, the best eyes aboard the Apulian fleet were fixed on the distant Venetians, not that such observations provided much in the way of what was happening; there was activity certainly, but what it portended was a mystery, for the distance was too great to discern any detail. All the Apulians could do was prepare for their own needs and wonder if indeed they would be called upon to fight at all, for that exchange between the Venetian and Robert was now common knowledge.
When men talked, those who had seen Maximian come aboard had much to discuss, for they had not missed the wealth he wore about his person and that led to speculation about what might be available to plunder inside those enemy ships. As the major maritime trading nation in the Adriatic and beyond, the Venetians, from their Doge down, were known to be affluent — how could they not be when they traded in valuable silks and spices of the kind that cost a ducal ransom?
Carried ashore, that kind of talk had spread in Norman French, Latin, Greek and Saracen, so throughout Duke Robert’s fleet any lingering doubts about the wisdom of taking on the northern seafarers was diminished by the prospect of the abundant plunder to be had, an amount that grew with each exchange until every man was thirsting for a fight that they were sure would make them rich. With the truce in place, they went to sleep with that as the driver of their dreams.
The ringing of bells brought them from their slumbers and onto the deck, there to find those who had been set as sentinels pointing to the lights of those heavy Venetian dromons, now no longer distant pinpricks but flaring lanterns bearing down on them, their glow lighting the great lanteen sails. The Apulian ships’ masters had to be quick to react, for there was no time to haul their galleys over their anchors and pluck them from the seabed. The cables had to be cut by sharp axes while the rowers were sent scurrying to their oars, this while the men on the transport ships ran to their ratlines and ropes to set some canvas and likewise get themselves under way; in what was coming upon them no one was safe.
Robert de Hauteville, in company with Bohemund and every other Norman in the fleet, was struggling to get into his mail so as to be fit to do battle, that carried out with an eye on those great sails, which seemed, on a northerly breeze, to be approaching at a speed which would scarce grant them enough time, only to see them disappear as they were furled, ready for the coming battle. In any other fighting force there would have been panic; indeed there was amongst some of his Lombard and Greek levies. Not with the Normans, for all the speed with which they were preparing it was done with the requisite amount of care, each man seeing to his confrere’s equipment, like his leather mail straps to ensure they were as tight and secure as they needed to be for the coming fight.
There was no time to think about how their duke had been deceived, no time to wonder at the chicanery necessary to break a formal truce, which for all his reputation for cunning the Guiscard had never done. The Normans, Saracens and, once they had been forced into position, his Apulian milities, lined their decks as the galley timbers beneath their feet began to groan with movement, the voice of the oar master loud and the thud of his hammer on the speed block slowly increasing.