‘No thief lacks justification for his crimes, honourable one.’
‘You see I have just cause, do you not, to subdue them by force?’ Ephraim merely nodded: it was, in truth, not a dispute in which he wanted to become involved, having as he did his own interests in the port of Amalfi. ‘And besides, we must keep Rainulf Drengot occupied, for if he is not he is inclined to mischief.’
So, the territory of Amalfi will be invaded, Ephraim thought, and the concomitant of that was what he would need to do about his own investments.
‘Might I also suggest, honourable one, that you lay upon them, at some time in the future, the accusation of alerting the catapan to what is about to fall on Melfi?’
The deviousness of that suggestion pleased Guaimar enormously, for he was grinning widely as he spoke. ‘How I wish I could have you as one of my council, but, of course, it would never do.’
Arduin stopped William and his knights far enough off to tempt out, through the gates of Melfi, the leading citizens of the town, those who had left their homes to whatever they feared these Normans might do. He was alone as he addressed them, a man they already knew, who had feasted and flattered them on taking up his appointment, yet it was with obvious suspicion that they listened to the blandishments of this topoterites, as he sought to persuade them that they had nothing to fear.
‘These are the men I have engaged at the express request of the catapan. If you deny them entry to the castle they are supposed to garrison in your defence you will defy him and the emperor, not just me.’
‘They are Normans,’ one elderly worthy growled.
It was a telling interjection, which brought forth a swelling murmur of agreement from the assembled crowd; the people in these parts had encountered Normans before in the last two decades, and suffered much from their unbridled banditry. The castle they left alone — it was too strong for the roving bands — but the mailed knights took what they wanted in food and comfort from the surrounding countryside, burning and destroying what they could not carry if faced with resistance.
‘This is different. Who do you think holds the fortress of Troia?’
He waited for a response but none came; he found himself looking at bowed heads, doubting if indeed they knew the answer. These were people who lived in ignorance of what occurred in the neighbouring valley, never mind a fortress ten leagues distant.
‘They are Normans, the very same kind of men you are damning now, and they protect the people thereabouts.’
‘The Normans are brigands.’
‘Not those I command,’ Arduin replied softly. ‘They are soldiers in the pay of the catapan, as am I, as are the Normans of Troia.’
Quite a few of the faces were diverted then: Italians did not like Lombards any more than Normans. Arduin did not miss it, he merely ignored the reaction: he was not without the arrogance typical of his race and he had lived among these people too long to be bothered. Besides, they rarely had much affection for each other, never mind those they saw as interlopers.
‘Observe what they do now,’ he said.
Arduin pointed to William’s band, dismounted by the gurgling stream that ran off the high peak of Monte Vulture and through the huddle of buildings that made up the town. They had unsaddled their mounts and were busy grooming them with combs and brushes, this while the horses munched at piles of hay.
‘Do they torch your homes, do they break your watermill? No. They have not even touched your wine.’ That led to some shuffling of feet, which made Arduin feel he was getting somewhere.
‘For I must tell you, if you do not admit them they will not leave, and I will have to send to the catapan to tell him of your intransigence, which is nothing short of a revolt against his authority.’
Such an accusation set up a howl of protest: if these people were wary of Normans, they knew enough to fear an angry Byzantium even more.
‘And can I tell you what he will do? He will come and he will fire your houses and smash that watermill. He will also burn every man amongst you to a cinder, those he does not hang from the castle walls, once you have been disembowelled and seen your own entrails slither from your belly.’
That made them pale, but Arduin was not finished.
‘Then he will let those Normans, and his Greeks, loose on your women and you will hear their screams as you die. Your children will be sent east to slavery, perhaps to the brothels of Constantinople, which cater for every vice. And then he will send word around the country to say that valuable land, well irrigated and fertile, is empty and there for the taking, so other hands will work this soil and prosper, using your women as slaves and your crushed bones to help nourish their crops.’
‘We hold the castle.’
‘Can you hold it against an army? Are you fighting men?’ He waved to the Normans once more. ‘Look, they are fighting men. Can you face them even with walls to protect you?’
If they were wavering they were yet to be convinced, so Arduin changed tack.
‘Let me send to the catapan and say that the good folk of Melfi are loyal, that they are people who deserve relief from too heavy a taxation, if not monies provided to help develop what they already have. What one of you could not use some Byzantine largesse to increase your yields, to stock your pigsties and sheep pens, to increase your oxen? Would it not be wondrous to say in years to come that this was made a golden part of Apulia where men work for reward, a place where women sow and reap in plenty, that children grow up strong and to a good age so that those who bore them have ease in their later years?’
Arduin had a silver tongue, one which had served him well with his reluctant soldiers in Sicily and it was having the same effect here, for what he was holding out was a tempting prospect to people who toiled as long as it was light to get from the soil that which was needed to both maintain themselves and satisfy the demands of their overlords, nothing less than the sum of their dreams — a life free from the threat of famine.
These were not the fertile plains of two harvests a year, which lay to either side of their lands, but the mountains where the soil was shallow and supported by hard rock, the weather more fickle. There was never truly enough, for if times were good the population grew to consume whatever the land produced. But there were also those bad years, of blighted crops and endless foul weather, times when cattle and flocks were ravaged by maladies for which they had no cure, so that people came close to, and sometimes even succumbed, to starvation.
‘And, my friends, with this garrison in place, I can ask — no, demand — the castle be well supplied, food that would be there for you, should nature fail you.’
‘We must talk, topoterites.’
Arduin nodded: the use of that title indicated he would get what he wanted.
William waited until the castle had been vacated, watching as the locals made their way back to their homes, few willing to exchange a glance with these mailed giants who would now live amongst them. They were stocky folk in the main, of truncated height to a Norman, but it was easy to see they had a strength brought about by endless toil; that is, those who were not too bent by the same condition of life to stand upright.
Despite sharp commands from angry parents the children could not contain their curiosity, and were much taken by the horses, for in this part of the world, where oxen did the burdensome work, the possession of such a beast was only for lords and masters. Nor could the younger females stop themselves from throwing what they thought were discreet glances at such tall and striking men. For that they got parental blows, not hard words.
Watching them, and the contrast with their nervous elders, William thought back to his father’s demesne in the Contentin, to the serfs and tenanted villeins who supported the de Hauteville family, people whom his father saw as his responsibility. The indigenes who had occupied the land before the Norsemen came were not dissimilar, hardy folk inured to endless toil and the need to eke a living from the soil. Yet his forbears had intermingled with them, married their womenfolk and bred children by them, and they had also protected them in an uncertain world. Could he, and the men he led, not do the same here?