That allowed the one-time Lord of Trani, whose face had been concerned, a hint of a relaxation. ‘You think they would obey me?’
‘Have they not sworn an oath to do just that?’
‘They have.’
‘Then, of course,’ said Robert in a jocular tone. ‘You did the same to me and yet you broke it. Perhaps you feel your knights will treat you in the same manner.’
‘They will not just yield to my entreaty, unless, My Lord, you offer them something in return.’
‘Your body in freedom?’
‘Would suffice if I would agree, but I do not.’ Peter paused, as if what he was about to say had just occurred, which it had not; the thought had come to his mind almost on the first words spoken. ‘Restored to my possessions once more, I might be able to persuade them.’
‘Oh, Peter, I think you do not do yourself justice. Reynard, Bohemund, lash this wretch to the front of the frame, right in the centre where I have made it strong enough to bear the weight of a man.’
The laughter broke out as this command was obeyed, to reach a gale of amusement by the time Peter was tied hand and foot, spreadeagled over the front of the now raised frame like the blessed St Andrew on his singular cross. He was bleating before they even moved, but that turned to screams for mercy as the whole frame was lifted to progress towards the gates. The defenders, confused at first by the apparition, fired off arrows at long range, which landed in the ground before the lashed victim, to whom it was very obvious that they would soon be hitting the screen, and naturally his unprotected body.
His pleas for mercy from Robert turned to loud entreaties, and he ordered in increasing panic that those on the walls should desist and open the gates to the Duke of Apulia. The men carrying the frame walked right up to those gates and, crouching down, laid Peter at an angle from which he could look skywards and address his followers. They had only two choices, to kill him in seeking to force his enemies to retreat, or to open the gates and throw themselves and him on the Duke’s mercy.
‘You see, Bohemund,’ Robert said, as the creaking sound announced that the gates were being opened, ‘there is always more than one way to skin a cat, so that when we dine, it will be in Peter’s great hall and in company.’
‘But we will speak in private?’
‘Later, yes,’ his father replied. ‘But for now I command you to go back and bring forward enough men to secure Corato.’
CHAPTER TWO
The need to examine the state of the defences in the company of Ademar of Monteroni was an excuse; Peter had spent his revenues wisely, the walls were in decent repair and Corato was not a really strategic and important location, more a secure castle with a small garrison to keep the local Greeks and Lombards in check and ensure no trouble when it came time to collect the taxes that filled the ducal coffers. It was also a fortress in which to store the things an army on the march might require to speed their progress on campaign. Robert wanted, before his private meeting, to ask Ademar about his son, to fill out in person those things regarding his upbringing he had received by written communication from the man in whose home Bohemund had spent his formative years.
‘I have often wondered if he hates the very mention of my name,’ he said eventually.
With the sun slowly setting, they walked the battlements. Ademar, smaller than Robert by two hands, had to lengthen his stride to keep pace with him, and with the night being warm and humid, felt his skin leak. Yet he replied with confidence.
‘Not so, My Lord; if you were to question him about your exploits you would find he knows of your actions in detail and also that he recounts them to others with pride.’
‘Your wife has not turned him against me, then?’
That induced a temptation to smile, which Ademar took care to hide, for it was a question he was disinclined to respond to; if anyone fulminated against the way she had been rendered illegitimate by annulment it was the Lady Emma of Monteroni. She was a woman who wore every opinion on her sleeve added to a disinclination to hold them to herself. Every time she encountered her father Emma would remind him, without anything in the way of grace, of the way he had abandoned her and her younger brother. Hence she was not called into his presence very often and invitations to visit his capital of Melfi were even more rare.
Robert pushed hard with both hands, feet splayed, at a stone block to check the strength of the mortar, satisfied that it did not yield. ‘Yet I hope she allows that I found her a good husband.’
Ademar was known throughout Apulia as the ‘Good Marquis’; a sturdy warrior, a captain careful with those he led, uxorious in regard to his wife and just as faithful to his liege lord in a world where the Guiscard’s vassals were endemic in complaint about anything they saw as a slight to their prerogatives, not least the need to pay him the assessments rightly levied on their lands. Too many were like Peter of Trani, now locked up in his own Corato dungeon, prepared to engage in outright insurrection rather than cough up their dues in either goods or gold. Ademar was the opposite: a steady fellow, content with that which he held and always quick to answer the call to aid his father-in-law and to put his possessions at his disposal.
The notion that Robert had found his daughter a good husband was risible; they had found each other in a genuine love match, the only curious actuality that her father had acceded to his illegitimate daughter marrying a man whose station at the time — no more than an ordinary lance — was scarce grand enough for the union. That had been rectified by the granting of his title and made more so by an extension of his present holdings around the old and at one time important Roman town of Licea, Lecce to its inhabitants, which having fallen into disrepair, Ademar was now reinvigorating as a regional centre.
‘So tell me about Bohemund and not what you have sent by letter.’
In dealing with the Guiscard, Ademar had realised many years before that he was not a man for idle gossip; if he posed a question, as he had now, there would be motives behind the enquiry that he would keep hidden. What was he asking and what was he after? Ademar’s first response was to be circumspect.
‘The word I would use to describe him best is “diligent”.’
‘A quality, certainly, but is it enough of one in the times in which we live?’
That rejoinder gave Ademar a clue; Duke Robert had many who would oppose him if they could, and not just fractious barons. There were enemies aplenty bordering his domains and even more troubling ones further off in Rome, Bamberg and Constantinople, as well as Saracens in Sicily and North Africa. He was probably seeking to find out what use his bastard son could be to him in such a situation; in short, was he as good a fighter as had been said, was he a leader and most importantly could he be trusted to be loyal to his sire?
‘He is much admired, even if he does not engage in debaucheries like his fellows. Out in the field he has, like you, an almost mystical ability to discern what cannot be seen beyond a hill, and when he hunts his eye for locating game is superb.’
Ademar had lost his wager the day they went hunting, but talk of forfeited skins of wine was not appropriate; he stuck to answering the question.
‘Men, often those in advanced years to his own, come to him for his views and he is the arbiter of right and wrong with those of his own age and younger. In the training manege your son is paramount, an opponent even his seniors seek to avoid having to contest with, for he is not gentle in mock combat. At the same time he is the first to raise up and praise those he has bested and it seems there is little resentment for the heavy blows and bruises he hands out.’