Ademar frowned. ‘Plundering your way through Borsa’s domains will not endear you to his subjects.’
The response was brusque and demonstrated to Ademar a side of his brother-in-law he had not yet seen. ‘I will make it up to them when they are my subjects, and if they still choose to whine I will take from them all they have down to the hay.’
‘I have one request to make, Bohemund — a kindness if you like.’
‘You of all have the right to ask for it.’
‘My son is headstrong and he will want very quickly, possibly at this very moment, to seek to be more than just your squire.’
‘He will want to get into the fighting?’
‘He will put himself at risk and I want you to forbid it.’
‘You are his father, you can forbid it.’
Ademar laughed out loud. ‘What son listens to his father in these times, Bohemund?’
The leave-taking at Montesarchio, to where the conroys had moved prior to the incursion into Apulia, was attended by much ceremony: the castle itself bedecked with wind-whipped banners, the presence of Jordan and his court dressed in all their finery, the Archbishop of Capua along to say the required Mass and give the expedition his blessing, each lance, near three hundred in number, first confessing before lining up to receive the wafer that represented the body of Christ, and finally an array of trumpeters to attend the actual departure, this after their prince had made a rousing speech.
It was as if Bohemund was the rightful Duke of Apulia going off on campaign, yet not holding that title required a gesture to acknowledge his benefactor. Prince Jordan would have, no doubt, liked Bohemund to kneel before him and seek his blessing too, as a vassal does to his suzerain and as he had done to the high cleric. It was evident, his disappointment, when all he received from the mounted leader was an across the chest salute, that followed by a wave of the arm as he led his knights out of the small town, heading east.
The squires had taken the packhorses, destriers and spare mounts out beforehand and were waiting for their warriors. Bohemund had been strict on other things: there were to be no women and none of the usual artisans. His column was designed to move at speed and Reynard had mapped out the route to be taken, not only for where they could plunder meat for their bellies and oats for their mounts, but also the places where they would find both water and pasture and, hopefully, no serious enemies.
The route initially took them to Grottaminarda, where a pre-warned lord of the castle entertained and fed them, consuming copious amounts of wine while talking eagerly of how it would be pleasant to follow in their wake with his own band of knights to plunder the borderlands through which they would pass. Such sentiments were heartily endorsed by an ever-abstemious Bohemund, ready to agree that it was possible that his line of march must tempt him to look into Melfi, to see if that great fortress might declare for his banner without a fight.
‘Will it, My Lord?’ asked an eager Tancred, when he raised a subject he had overheard at a table to which he had been admitted by his family name and rank, not his present position. Most squires ate outside the kitchens.
‘Outside Salerno, Tancred, it is Borsa’s most important possession. It will therefore be manned by someone he trusts absolutely.’
‘William Iron Arm took it by a trick, did he not?’
‘He took it because a Lombard betrayed his Byzantine master. I do not have either of those.’
‘It would be a fine feat all the same.’
‘It would be a distraction, boy — now go to your bed and allow that I can go to mine.’
The Lord of Grottaminarda was as wedded to ritual as his prince, so it took another Mass and another blessing before they could ride on, trailed by everyone in the town who was so idle they had nothing to keep them inside the walls — the sons of knights and their squires mainly. Bohemund had to wait until they tired and turned for home, indeed well beyond that so he was out of their sight before he could, at a necessary halt to rest the horses, consult a man even more frustrated than he. Reynard produced his jottings, made on the first of another map from the days of the Roman Empire, and laid out the route they must follow as well as the demesne they must first raid.
‘It is still on Capuan soil,’ he said, ‘and so owes fealty to Jordan.’
‘Then,’ Bohemund replied, with a grin, ‘he will be happy to surrender the supplies we need just to please his prince.’
Waiting till his lances had mounted and knowing they would follow his lead, Bohemund rode due south. Behind him men were looking at the sun, wondering why they were heading right into its high and glaring orb rather than having it warm their right shoulder. No one asked until finally Tancred could contain himself no longer.
‘Where are we going, My Lord?’
‘To my castle of Taranto, Tancred.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
There was no possibility of Bohemund cutting a swathe through Borsa’s domain without that being drawn to the attention of Count Radulf, the man who had been sent to the borderlands to either prevent him crossing or so inflict on him a defeat that the only option for the rebellious claimant was to retire. Given the nature of that border it could only be looked after by small pockets of knights dotted at intervals who would observe in their own locality, and once they had hard information regarding the route of the incursion, report back to the hill town of Candela around which Count Radulf had his main encampment.
When the information came to him that the invaders were heading due south he had no choice, having sent word back to Salerno and Melfi, but to set off in pursuit, seeking to cut an angle and so intercept Bohemund, which he would succeed in doing if his quarry was moving slowly. Radulf soon discovered his foe was not dawdling, found that he was well behind and that he would struggle to close the gap even if he pushed his men and mounts beyond what was judicious.
Farmhouses and small outlying castles that had already been plundered once found Radulf and another large force of knights on their land demanding that they and their mounts be fed — a hard request to fulfil, for where the owners and lords of the manor had been unwilling, Bohemund had ordered everything they possessed to be either taken or destroyed; those who opened their granaries and wine cellars were spared once, but not twice, for if they had been seen to indulge one party, they were at the mercy of the other.
‘He should have torched everything,’ Radulf growled, as he watched burn the barns and outbuildings of a villein who had clearly been welcoming to those he was in pursuit of; the main house was already a cinder, its floors dug up in the search for hidden possessions and the family that had provided sustenance hanging from the trees that had been used to shade it from the sun. ‘As an invader Bohemund de Hauteville is too soft.’
‘If he had, My Lord,’ asked one of his knights, ‘what would we eat?’
Radulf grinned but it was a look to chill, not cheer. ‘We could roast their children, could we not, instead of stringing them up?’
His man crossed himself.
Ten leagues a day was considered the maximum at which armed knights could move and that often had to be tempered by the terrain; to exceed such a distance was to risk the horses breaking down. Bohemund was glad he had insisted on no tail of camp followers to slow him down, especially as he was much of the time moving through the high, rolling country that rose from the eastern coastal plain to create valleys and hills that took time to traverse, and which only eased when they reached the River Gravina and were able to follow it for a long way as it flowed towards the Ionian Sea.
Yet that left men without women, which was dangerous, and he had already hanged from the rafters of a barn two of his Apulians for the rape of the daughters of a farmer who had declined to aid him; burning his field crops, cutting down his vines and olive trees, as well as smashing what could not be carried was acceptable; the carnal abuse was not. That such an act led to their confreres being disgruntled — it was a blessing they were not Capuans he had strung up — was something he just had to accept, working on the hope that the prospect of months of plunder would outweigh any loyalty or feelings they had to their dead companions.